You

by Zoran Drvenkar

  All this.

  You let go of him and go back to the boy. He hasn’t moved from the spot. With his arms over his head he lies on the tarmac and shakes as if it is freezing cold.

  What a fuckup, you think and take your jacket off. You fold it and lay it on the backseat. Then you roll up the sleeves of your sweater and try to open the driver’s door. Tanner’s still clutching the handle. You tell him to let go. Tanner doesn’t react. So you knock against the glass. Tanner doesn’t look at you. His eyes flicker. You wait a few seconds and try again. Tanner’s grip has loosened, the door swings open. His pupils are dilated and moving, they try to settle on you, his head stays rigid. You lean into his field of vision, he sighs and looks at you. A tear dislodges from his left eye and flows down his cheek. The rattling in his lungs makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.

  “What a mess,” Tanner says and coughs blood.

  “Calm now,” you say, grabbing him under the arms and heaving him carefully out of the car. “Just be calm now, Tanner, I’ve got you.”

  “What can I do?”

  Your son’s there again. At least he has the guts to show up. He’s wiped the blood off his face. You tell him what he needs to do.

  “And clean the seat and the window.”

  You help Tanner to the edge of the road, ten yards away there’s a rock, you sit Tanner carefully down on the ground so that he’s sitting upright, with his back to the stone. Now no one can see him from the road. You sit down beside him and wipe the drool off his chin. The ground is soft and damp. It’s all wrong. You could be back in Berlin right now. You could be at the theater, chatting over dinner, lying in bed.

  “It’s stopped raining,” says Tanner.

  You feel a stinging in your eyes and press his hand.

  It’s stopped raining, that’s right.

  “Typical Norway,” says Tanner quietly. “It would have …”

  “I know, it would have been nice if I’d taken you along to the wedding.”

  “… been better.”

  “What?”

  Tanner’s thoughts are already elsewhere, his eyes look for the road and the car, he knows why he’s sitting here.

  “Leo?”

  “Dead,” you say.

  Tanner sighs again, his eyes close, the rattling grows quieter.

  “Poor Leo,” Tanner says after a long pause. “Poor, poor Leo.”

  You hear the trunk slamming shut. Your son’s footsteps.

  “… to me,” says Tanner.

  “What?”

  “Bring Darian to me.”

  You hesitate, then you get up and call your son. You leave the two of them alone, go back to the car and crouch down beside the boy, who hasn’t budged an inch from the spot. His arms are wrapped around his head, his knees pulled up to his chest. He doesn’t hear you when you say his name. You look at his body, trembling and quaking, one sneaker is missing, his jeans are damp at the crotch, he looks pitiful, and you think: He’s someone’s son. You also think: Every man is someone’s son, you idiot!

  A minute passes, then another.

  You hear Tanner, his voice is a long way off.

  Farewell.

  Your thoughts slip away from you as you study the boy’s shaking back. You’re no longer in the south of Norway, crouching by the roadside, you’re standing in a cemetery in Berlin, Charlottenburg. It’s drizzling and Tanner hasn’t a shredded lung, he’s talking to you and has to repeat his words three times before you really hear his voice.

  “Ragnar, it’s enough!”

  You flinch. A man lies curled up on the ground in front of you, unmoving, except his back is like a bellows, it goes up, it goes down. You spit and turn away. It’s spring 1993, and you’re at Flipper’s funeral, your son is nine months old, Oskar’s been married for a year, and Majgull sticks in your head like a tick that’s slowly but surely sucking out your brain.

  Tanner passes you a cigarette, your hand is trembling. You thank him and ask for a light. The funeral’s over, and you still don’t know why all this is taking its toll on you. Last year went smoothly, even though you never had the feeling of being really present. A wife, a child, and you, somehow never quite part of the equation.

  And now this funeral.

  Tanner was quite relaxed when he heard about Flipper’s death, although he was close friends with him. You knew Flipper had specialized as a courier in precious stones over the past few years. No one was really surprised when the news came in five days ago that Flipper had died of an overdose in a hotel in Geneva. You know it was murder. The consignment of precious stones wasn’t in his luggage, and no one mentioned it. There will always be risks in this job.

  The funeral is well attended for someone everybody thought was a junkie, and who wasn’t really at home anywhere. Anyone in this city who’d had anything to do with Flipper is here today. Grief hasn’t brought them together, they’re all taking advantage of his death and looking out for new contacts. Business is business. This is a meeting that’s all about profits. Businessmen among businessmen. Until five minutes ago one of those businessmen was still standing right beside you, saying that it served Flipper’s looks taking all those drugs over the years.

  “He looks like a bloody mummy, you could probably make money by putting him on display.”

  You asked the businessman to step aside from the others. Once he was lying on the ground, you kicked him until he couldn’t get up again. Apart from Tanner, no one intervened. Now your fist is sore, but you don’t regret losing your composure. It felt good. Tanner is completely clueless and doesn’t understand what happened. At least that’s what you think.

  “What’s up with you?” he asks.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’d only known Flipper for one day, so what’s up with you?”

  The answer lies heavy and thick in your mouth. Spit it out.

  “Was Flipper his real name?”

  Tanner laughs a sad laugh.

  “No, his name’s Felipe. He hated the name, even in kindergarten he called himself Flipper.”

  “In kindergarten? You’d known each other that long?”

  “We were neighbors, sometimes you just know people. But that’s not important. Ragnar, stop avoiding the issue. What’s your problem?”

  You clench your aching fist, you try to sound as matter-of-fact as possible.

  “He was like a father to me.”

  “What?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but he felt like my father never had done. When I was out of it on New Year’s Eve, he wiped the puke off my face. He looked after me. Like a father, in fact. Not like you, you’re a friend; not like just anybody, do you get that?”

  “Shit, Ragnar, you only knew him for a day.”

  “I know, that’s the weird thing. Something strange happened on that day.”

  “He slept over at your place, he used the toilet, what else have I missed?”

  “Flipper showed me a way.”

  Tanner laughs.

  “You found this way by yourself. He gave you drugs to deliver. You delivered them. That’s all that happened.”

  “He knew what he was doing.”

  “Flipper knew a lot of things, that’s why he’s in that hole there.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  Tanner looks at you quizzically.

  “You’re not going to have a breakdown on me, are you?”

  “ ’Course not.”

  “Flipper was a nice guy, that’s all.”

  “But without him we’d never have met. You think that happened by chance?”

  You smile. You know the answer, yet you want to hear it again. Tanner obliges.

  “Chance is the sister of fate. And fate is a guy with syphilis and a hard-on, fucking you in the ass as soon as you look in the wrong direction.”

  “I’ll remember that one.”

  “You say that every time.”

  You look across at the businessman. He’s clutching his stomach, supporte
d by two of his colleagues. He doesn’t glance in your direction.

  “You can be thankful you didn’t break any of his ribs.”

  “Did you hear what he said?”

  “I was standing beside you.”

  Tanner waits; at this point he’s only known you for three years, but he always knows when to wait and when to talk. You look over at the mourners who are on the way to their cars. Business cards are exchanged, conversations ended, hands shaken. Life goes on. Your funeral will be exactly the same. Pure business.

  As you watch the procession, you realize what’s just happened. Your frustration is over a year old. It’s been fermenting away and now it’s looking for an outlet. It didn’t really have anything to do with Flipper or your father. Tanner was right not to believe you. These are all just alibis that are supposed to put your mind at rest. Open your eyes. Your problem lies elsewhere, and Tanner expects you to recognize that.

  “Tanner?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ve got to call her.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  That’s all either of you needs to say.

  You call her two days later. It takes you two days, to understand what you’re actually doing. After you’ve jogged six miles through the forest and had a cold shower, after you’ve worked your body until your head was able to work properly again, you’re ready and you call her number.

  She picks up after the fourth ring. You knew she was there. Anything else would have been unacceptable. Your voice sounds unfamiliar to yourself when you say in English, “It’s me.”

  She breathes out.

  She breathes in.

  Nothing else happens.

  You feel your jaw quivering, you listen out for background noises. Nothing. As if she were in a bell jar and you were her only contact with the outside world. At last she speaks.

  “I know.”

  As if everything inside you were suddenly blossoming. She knew I’d call. As if a previously hidden world were opening up. You know it’s ridiculous, you know it’s a cliché and irrational. But that’s exactly how it is. You’re twenty-eight, and that’s exactly how it is.

  “I need to see you.”

  “Where?”

  “Can you get away?”

  “I can.”

  You name a hotel in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is the first city that comes into your mind. It could just as well have been Istanbul or Skopje. You couldn’t think of a city in Norway. Her reaction is like a surgeon’s first incision. Without hesitation.

  “See you there.”

  She hangs up. You look at your phone. The whole conversation took twenty-two seconds. No more, no less.

  The same day you go to Amsterdam and wait for her. You leave your cell phone number for her at reception and wander aimlessly through the city. In the evening you eat in the hotel bar and read. She arrives on the third day, just before midnight. You look up from your book, and there she is. You don’t know how long she’s been standing there. She has no luggage, just a handbag over her shoulder.

  You pull the bar stool next to you out a little way. She comes over and sits down. You don’t touch each other, you just look at each other, and then she asks in German how many coffees you’ve had already. You love it when she speaks German to you. From the very first moment there’s a special charm in the fact that you can switch languages whenever you feel like it. As if you had a very private connection that extends across continents. You look at the counter. There are four empty coffee cups sitting on it, and you can’t remember drinking even one of them.

  “More than four,” you say.

  She looks at the book.

  “How’s the book?”

  You push it away.

  “Like all books.”

  She smiles. She pretends to read the title. Her voice sounds as if she’s asking the time.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  And she says, “I’m in the sixth month.”

  And you can’t think of a better answer than, “I’m glad.”

  She laughs. Suddenly. As if it had just occurred to her that laughter’s permitted.

  “I’m really here.”

  “Yes, you’re really here.”

  It sounds absurd, but everything between you sounds absurd. The fact that she’s speaking German to you, that you’re sitting side by side at a hotel bar in Amsterdam and that the waiter’s left your empty coffee cups there. Especially the fact that you don’t touch each other. Especially that.

  “Come,” you say.

  You leave the bar and walk past the lobby. You step into the elevator and stand side by side, familiar yet strange to one another. The elevator starts moving, the floor shakes, and nothing else happens. On the fifth floor you open the door to your suite and let her walk ahead. Her scent hovers in the air, sandalwood and oranges, you inhale it deeply before you follow her.

  In the morning she travels back to Norway. She never mentions love. She never mentions the future. Your brother mustn’t know, she says at one point. She doesn’t want you to come and get her from Norway, everything’s to stay the way it is. And you believe her and don’t see through her lie for a second. It is the way it is, you think. In another age you’d have been dismissed as a fool.

  She comes to Holland another four times, and you wait for her in the hotel, open the door to the suite and let her walk ahead. You don’t know what she’s told Oskar about where she is at those times, and you aren’t really interested. You don’t question your actions. When she’s in the ninth month, you meet in a hotel in Bergen that’s just three hours away from Ulvtannen. She’s excited, they’re nearly there and it’s going to be a girl. She tells you her name. Taja. You make love very carefully.

  Six days later Oskar calls you.

  You’re in Munich, you hear your brother’s excited voice through the phone and wonder how you’re ever going to get back out of this mess.

  “A daughter! I’ve got a daughter!”

  You laugh with him. He wants to know when you’re coming to Ulvtannen. You mumble something about a lot of work and then ask if you could congratulate Majgull. Oskar walks through the hotel, no, he runs, you hear his footsteps echoing down the stairwell.

  “See you soon, brother,” he says.

  “See you soon, Dad,” you say.

  The footsteps move away, there’s a hiss on the line.

  “Majgull?”

  “Hello.”

  Silence.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Wonderful.”

  Silence.

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  She breathes in your ear and you don’t dare say anything wrong. You just sit there and have an erection. After another moment of silence you hang up without a word.

  Two years of silence follow. Two long, miserable years of silence in which you don’t call, in which you get harder and harder inside, like a diamond that lies in the depths like a dead man who can’t let go of life. Tanner’s the only one who knows.

  “Stay away from the woman,” he says.

  You have a son you have to look after, and your work demands your full attention. There can be no more lapses.

  You listen to Tanner.

  Two years’ silence and then there’s a short message on your phone. Majgull calls at three o’clock in the morning and says the Plaza Hotel in Oslo. She wants you to understand her lies. She wants you to see her as she really is. You have no idea what she’s talking about. A fool is always a fool, and that fool needs to see Majgull. Without Tanner’s knowledge. You don’t want an argument, and you know there’s definitely going to be an argument if you tell him. So you fly out that same day. I need to see you. You can’t guess that she doesn’t plan to come on her own.

  “Father?”

  Your son’s standing in front of you, and we’re back in the here and now. Your drifting thoughts have been rudely interrupted. Your son’s face is wet with tears. You don’t know how much time has passed. There’s a stale t
aste in your mouth that makes you think of Majgull—sweet and sharp at the same time, the taste of loss. The boy is still lying on the ground in front of you. His back rises and falls. You’re still crouching next to him like a big cat guarding its catch. A few minutes have passed. You look down at your son, you see his tears and think he’s weeping over Tanner. You’re not concentrating. Every time you remember Majgull, you lose your contact with reality. Like now, when you misinterpret your son’s tears. It’s unforgivable. If you were focused right now, you might be able to save your life. But you took your eye off the ball, and for that moment’s inattention you will pay later on.

  “I—”

  “Don’t say anything,” you cut him off and stand up.

  Your son says nothing, you go back to Tanner. His torso has slipped slightly sideways off the rock. You straighten him up, smooth his hair. He’s almost white in the face. The rattling in his lungs sounds damp. It won’t be long now.

  “Hold me.”

  You sit down next to him again, you take a breath and hold Tanner in your arms. The only light comes from the headlights of the car. Only now do you notice that the engine’s been running the whole time. The storm has passed. No stars. No traffic. Wherever God is now, he should stay there. Tanner shivers in your arms. Something damp runs down your hand, you don’t move, you hold him and don’t move. You give him warmth.

  “Ragnar?”

  “Yes?”

  “Ragnar?”

  “I hear you.”

  “Let me …”

  You wait.

  “… let me …”

  You wait.

  “… please.”

  “Of course, my friend, of course.”

  Tanner shuts his eyes, his head presses hard against your shoulder, you kiss his forehead and put your hand gently over his mouth. His nostrils flare, you close them with your thumb and forefinger, Tanner presses himself against your chest as if he wanted to merge with you. One minute. A second. The rattling falls silent. Tanner’s mouth moves one last time as if to kiss your hand. The shaking fades, then Tanner falls still into your arm, just as the night falls still on this damned day. No pain anymore.

  You pull away and stand up. Your body is vibrating as if connected to an electric line. You lean forward and pick Tanner up. He’s smaller and heavier than you. You carry him in your arms to the car. Your son is sitting on the hood. He understands you without a word and opens the trunk. You put Tanner inside with Leo.