Love

by Hanne Ørstavik

  “It’s good of you to think of those in pain,” she says. “If everyone else did the same, the world might be a better place.”

  She reaches out and smoothes her hand over his head.

  “Have you made any friends yet?”

  His hair is fine and soft.

  “Jon,” she says. “Dearest Jon.”

  She repeats the movement while studying her hand. Her nail polish is pale and sandy with just a hint of pink. She likes to be discreet at work. She remembers the new set that must still be in her bag, plum, or was it wine; a dark, sensual lipstick and nail polish the same shade. To go with a dark, brown-eyed man, she thinks with a little smile.

  Jon gets his school bag in the hall. He takes out the book of raffle tickets from the little pocket at the front where he puts his packed lunch. He puts on an extra pair of socks before doing up his grey boots. He puts on his coat and blue scarf. His woolly hat. He looks at himself in the mirror. He tries to stop it but he can’t. He feels in the pockets of her coat. Among the receipts and an old bus ticket he finds some money. He shouts from the hall to say he’s going out.

  He opens the door and stands there on the step for a moment. He can feel in his nose when he breathes in how cold it is.

  JON PASSES ALONG the length of Vibeke’s car. He pauses, wedges the book of raffle tickets tight between his knees, scrapes a handul of snow from the trunk of the car and presses it together in his palms. It’s a poor snowball, dry as powder. He blows it from his mittens, then claps them together, a crisp, loud report. Sounds become so weightless in the cold. Everything does. As if he were a bubble of air himself, ready at any moment to float into the sky and vanish into the firmament.

  He takes the raffle tickets in his hand, crosses the road and walks up the little path the old man has cleared in the drive. The snow crunches under his feet. There’s a lean-to by the front door with firewood stacked up under the pent roof. Snow has blown in between the logs. The outside light is switched off. Jon finds the doorbell. He presses it, but can’t hear a sound. Everything’s so still, he thinks to himself. But then the old man opens the door, so abruptly it makes him jump.

  “Would you like to buy a raffle ticket?” Jon asks, holding out the book. “It’s for the sports club.”

  The old man looks at him, his eyes then darting toward the road. It’s been a while since a car came by and it’s too cold for people to be going about on foot. He gestures for Jon to come inside. He closes the door after him and goes through another door into the house itself. Jon stamps the snow from his feet and follows on.

  They enter a living room with a small kitchen area attached. On top of the kitchen counter is a small television set. There’s a black-and-white film on with the sound turned off. The old man shuffles over to a wood burner and bends down stiffly on one knee. He puts a log into the fire, wraps his hand in his sweater and opens the vent to a crack, then turns around and smiles at Jon.

  “That should keep it going for a bit. Can’t have people freezing when they come to see the old crow.”

  A rocking chair by the window is still faintly in motion. He must have been sitting there when the doorbell rang, Jon thinks to himself. Maybe he saw me coming.

  “The sports club, you say.” The old man wanders over to the counter and pulls out a drawer. He asks how many tickets Jon’s got and what they cost. Jon tells him. He takes out a wallet and says he’ll buy them all. He writes his name in the book and puts a ditto mark in curly brackets on all the stubs. It takes him a while. Jon glances around.

  Three oval photo frames hang on the wall above the rocking chair with old portraits in them, the photos are the kind that are blurred at the edges as if the people in them are fading away. In a corner of the kitchen area is a fishing rod. Jon wonders if it’s a fly rod. Last year Vibeke had a boyfriend who said he would teach Jon to fish with a fly. Just the two of us, he told him, guys together. He took out a map to show him where they would go, showing him where the river ran and describing the various pools. There, he said, you’ll catch a big one there. He looked up at Vibeke with a smile. But then one day he was gone. Jon hadn’t even heard them argue.

  The old man turns toward him, handing him the raffle book and the money.

  “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. We came four months and three days ago.”

  Jon puts the money and the book of stubs in his bag. He feels glad.

  “And already out and about selling tickets, eh? They know how to put you to work in that sports club.”

  Jon says he’s only just joined so he can start skating.

  The man’s hair is white as chalk, long, thin, and untidy. His face looks flushed, Jon thinks to himself, as if he just woke up.

  “Let me show you something,” he says.

  “What is it?” says Jon.

  He tries not to blink.

  “You’ll see. I’d nearly forgotten all about it, forgotten altogether.”

  He opens a door and flicks a switch. A lightbulb goes on, fixed directly to the wall. Jon sees a flight of stairs leading down into the basement.

  Vibeke goes to the bathroom and stares into the mirror. She can tell from the way she looks it’s been a good day. She feels glad and full of bounce. At one with herself. A tiny crystal twinkles from the right wing of her nose. She winks back. My lucky star. She picks up a brush and bends over until the long, dark mane of her hair nearly touches the floor. At first she brushes with care to remove the tangles, proceeding then with gentle, sweeping strokes from the scalp. She tosses her head back when it’s done. She wants her hair to look like a cloud caressing her face. She looks in the mirror. It lacks volume, and wayward strands strive toward her forehead. I could go to the library, she thinks to herself. Normally she keeps the library until Saturday, and today’s only Wednesday, but she’s already run out of books to read. She decides to take a bath first and wash her hair, treat herself.

  Jon follows the old man down the stairs. They’re steep, the man takes one step at a time and there’s a thick rope he holds on to at the side like a banister. At the bottom they go through a little passage, a mat of artificial grass covering the floor. The place smells rank and strange, Jon thinks it smells of soil. The man stops at a door at the end. He turns toward Jon, his hand on the handle.

  She takes off her clothes while she runs her bath. There’s no bubble bath left in the bottle. She takes a cotton bud from a box on the shelf and removes her nail polish with some remover. She waits until it’s nearly full before turning the tap off and climbing cautiously into the tub, water sloshing over the side. She feels the goose pimples as they appear on her skin, her nipples harden and a tickle runs down her spine. She lowers herself gently down. Such bliss to immerse the body in hot water, she thinks to herself. Bliss, in every respect. And then she lies there, motionless, savoring every second.

  “You’ll like this,” the old man tells him.

  There’s a daybed up against the wall, and shelving full of old wooden boxes from floor to ceiling. The room smells of dust and mold. Jon thinks maybe the man’s got a collection of old model trains, the first electric ones in Europe. He feels a need to pee. The man crosses the floor to a shelf, pulls a box out from the middle and dips his hand inside. A leather dog collar and a metal chain hang down from a hook on the wall.

  “Have a look at these,” says the man.

  He turns around, holding up a pair of brown skates.

  “Handsewn. My father gave them to me.”

  He offers the skates to Jon. Jon steps forward and feels the stiffness of the leather between the tips of his fingers; the skates quiver, the old man’s hand a tremble.

  “Luxury in those days,” the man says. “Handsewn leather on iron blades. No one in the village had anything like them. I won the Kalottløpet in these, the young men came from all over, from Rovaniemi, Utsjok, Neiden, and further inland, Russians. On the lake it was, the Storvannet. A thousand meters. Before Stalin and Hitler and that whole hellish
mess. On black ice, when the water freezes before the snow.”

  Vibeke rubs the shampoo into her hair, her fingers moving in little circles like at the hairdressers. She closes her eyes to shut out all external stimuli, wishing to be present inside herself, sensing the world from within. She remembers a dream she had, a man saying: “You look gorgeous.’ They were standing at the foot of a carpeted staircase, in front of some mirrors with gilded frames; there were doors, deep red, leading off to some bathrooms. They were at a party, the party was going on at the top of the stairs; there were people, lights, a babble of voices. The music was loud, but downstairs was quiet. The man had come through a door and noticed her and said: “You look gorgeous.’ She felt so excited and leaned forward to give him a hug, and he kissed her gently on the cheek. Then he turned and left through a revolving door, in his dark suit and white shirt. He didn’t have a coat on, just a thin woollen scarf draped around his neck. She stood there for a moment, looking at herself in the mirror. Smiling. Elated. That was the good part. The rest wasn’t worth thinking about. All of a sudden the party was over. The lights went off, the staircase was no longer there. She saw that she was alone in a public toilet, a stench of urine filled her nostrils, the floor cold against her stockinged feet. She went through the revolving door where the man had gone, and came out onto a wasteground of asphalt and ice, a single street lamp shining just ahead. There was a wall, and in the wall was a gateway; she walked toward it, thinking it would lead out to a road.

  At least the beginning was good, she says to herself. A party would be fun, though. She could have one here in the house, invite the people from work. Break the ice, get herself a network. She imagines the living room done out with candles and cascades of flowers. The gleaming eyes and peals of laughter. In her living room. She could do a lovely written invitation with a quote from a poem.

  She rinses the shampoo from her hair with the shower head. The pipes shudder as she turns off the tap. She sweeps the shower curtain aside and looks at her body in the mirror, its image blurred by steam. What would they drink from? She won’t have enough glasses for that many people. She’ll have to buy some in town on Saturday. She’s seen some with tinted stems and bowls. Then again, perhaps that would be overdoing it. She decides to find some others that are pleasing and simple, and of good design.

  JON GOES BACK OVER the road, back to the house. Stepping inside he makes sure the door shuts behind him, there’s ice on the sill. He pulls off his mittens and drops them in the little white basket in the corner. He goes downstairs to his room with his coat still on, and puts the bag down with the raffle book and the money in it from the old man. On his way out the man cut him a little chunk off a dried ham hanging from a hook in the vestibule. He puts it down on his desk.

  He stands there a moment and looks around him, at his poster of the Milky Way and the planets, the blue and green stripes of the wallpaper. He feels relieved to have sold all his tickets, he’d been dreading having to go around with his book. He wonders what to do now. He tries not to blink but can’t stop himself. He puts the green water pistol in his back pocket and goes back up the stairs. He tries to see how quick on the draw he is in front of the mirror.

  It’s hot with his coat on inside, he’s sweating, but he won’t take it off. He wonders what he looks like when he blinks, but he has no way of knowing. Maybe if someone took a picture of him he’d be able to see. Vibeke emerges from the bathroom. She’s naked, with her hair in a towel. He looks at her, then tries not to see. Oh, there you are, Jon, she says. I thought you were out. She carries on into the living room, he hears her put a CD on, the click of the buttons, the little pause before she presses play. It’s the same song she listens to in the mornings before she goes to work. She calls out to him as if he were far away: Jon, have you seen my body lotion?

  Jon takes aim at himself in the mirror. He holds the pistol steady in both hands, elbows pressed against his trunk as he fires. What does a body look like when it’s full of holes? He thinks of jelly babies and chocolate cake with light-colored filling, not dark like the last birthday he was at. Behind him in the mirror he sees Vibeke come from the kitchen with the body lotion, still naked, holding the bottle up with a smile so he can see she found it. She waltzes back into the living room and turns up the sound. She likes to stand there while she rubs in her lotion after her shower in the mornings. But she doesn’t normally shower in the evening. He wonders if it’s to save time on his birthday tomorrow.

  He feels a draft now that he’s standing still. It’s from the front door. They should have it insulated, with weather stripping and draft excluders like he’s seen in other houses. He sticks his water pistol in his back pocket and puts on a different woolly hat. Vibeke needs to be on her own so she can get things ready. If he’s out while she’s baking the cake it’ll be more of a surprise, he thinks to himself. He goes out. Reaching the road, he wishes he’d put his mittens on, but he won’t go back.

  VIBEKE CALLS FOR JON. She can’t find yesterday’s newspaper, there was an article in it the people at work said was good. In her right hand she holds a cigarette. He doesn’t answer. She saw him only a few minutes ago. She turns the little lamp on above the sofa and checks to see if the papers have fallen down behind. Most likely he’s doing something in his room. She picks up her bag and takes it with her into the bathroom again, stubbing her cigarette out in the sink. She puts on her bra, sits down on the toilet seat and finds the bottle of nail polish in her bag. She unscrews the top and considers the deep red polish on the little applicator brush, sensing an urge to find out what it feels like against her lips. Soft and cold, she imagines. She applies the nail polish to her toenails, stretching her foot out to admire after each is done.

  Jon walks toward the center of the village. The street lamps leave pools of light on the ground, he moves from one to another. He hears music and a distant rumble of machinery, he thinks it must be the funfair that’s open. He quickens his stride. On the empty stretch near the nursing home he stops to break off a stick and writes his name with it in the snow. Jon. He stares at the letters before rubbing them out again, not wishing to leave a trace. He throws the stick as far as he can into the trees, blows into his hands and walks on.

  As he comes around the bend he sees two girls skating in the road further on. Their hair is long and trails behind them in the air when they twirl around. Girls’ skates, he thinks to himself. For twirling. He thinks of his own with their long, shiny blades. The girls carry on skating as he approaches. He sees they’ve been practicing some movements they perform together. They’ve got short skirts on over their quilted pants, trying to look like figure skaters on TV, he thinks to himself. The road is completely white. The snow banks here aren’t brown and grimy the way they are in the town, there aren’t enough cars here for that. He leans back against a post a short distance away and watches. He tries not to blink. He puts his hands in his trouser pockets to keep them warm. His trousers are tight, his hands press flat against his body. He wonders if he looks like a cowboy in a film, standing against the wall outside the saloon. A cigarette dangles from his lips and his eyes narrow to slits as he peers through the mists of smoke he blows from his nose and mouth. One of the girls skates up to him. She stops and stands still on her blades, he can see her balance is good. She asks him if he wants to play Kick the Can. Her cheeks are so cold she has trouble pronouncing it properly. They laugh.

  Vibeke blows on her fingernails and flaps her hands in the air. She wonders what time it could be. It’s Wednesday, wasn’t there something on TV she wanted to watch? She can’t remember what it was. She drapes a dressing gown cautiously around her shoulders and goes into the living room, pressing the remote with the pad of her finger. Of course, that was it. It’s already started. British soap someone at work called it. Even so, the meticulous English is nice for a change, instead of drawling American.

  She lies back on the sofa, resting her head against a cushion. She feels the tie of her dressing gown slip d
own the inside of her thigh. Her left hand finds the cigarette packet on the table without her having to look.

  “It’s too cold,” the other girl says. “Anyway, there’s got to be more than three.”

  She’s got white boot covers on, with a zip down the middle. They look soft and warm, Jon thinks. He’s standing between them. They’re taller than him with their skates on.

  “Have you got skates?” the first girl asks, the one who came up to him.

  “Yes,” says Jon. “I’m on the team at the sports club. I’ve just started, so I’m not that good yet, I haven’t had enough practice.”

  He tells them about the old man’s skates. They’ve never heard of the Kalottløpet. He feels himself blinking again.

  They step to the side of the road to let a car come past. The smell of exhaust lingers on the ground.

  The other girl says her elder brother’s the best skater in the whole region. He’s twelve years old. The first girl laughs and says they’re best at everything in that family. Jon cups his cold hands in front of his mouth and blows.

  “You can borrow my mittens if you want,” she says.

  She points up at the nearest house.

  “I’ve got some others at home.”

  She hands Jon the mittens. They’re red. He puts them on. They feel a bit tight. He can tell they’re new because the furry lining inside hasn’t gone lumpy yet. The other girl says she’s going home. She pulls a knit cap out of her pocket and puts it on with the flats of her hands, the tips of her mittens sticking up above her ears. Jon thinks it makes her look like a rabbit.