At three o’clock we had a short meeting. Dr Fischer sat rubbing his temple as usual. He seemed distant as well, as if his thoughts were somewhere far away from the ward office. He was surprised, he confessed, that some of his many prescriptions weren’t having the desired effect. He could hardly have known that I was flushing the tablets down the toilet, and that occasionally, just for fun, I would swap them around, and give Waldemar Rommen the pills that Mr Larsson should have had, and vice versa. It wasn’t really of any consequence, but this small, mundane hoax gave me a frisson of excitement, because I was making a difference. Here, to explain these destructive tendencies of mine, I could say that my mother used to beat me with a stick. But it wouldn’t be true. In reality she was just taciturn and indifferent, only coming out with endless critical saws about how life ought to be lived. We’ve only ourselves to blame, she would say, you reap what you sow. You’ve made your bed, now you can lie on it. There was no end to them. But she never hit me. We never had much contact. She was always engrossed in the house, all the things that had to be cleaned and polished, watered and looked after. I think she felt more for her house plants than she did for me. There was something about her eyes and her hands when she held a flower between her fingers, a sudden tenderness. I’ve no idea what made her bring me into the world, presumably it was an accident. These are the tedious thoughts I struggle with as I walk up and down the ward’s corridors. With my predilections and my sharp nails.
In and out of the old people’s rooms.
Aged wretches, lying in the antechamber of death.
If only there were a bond between me and Anna. A line to Sali Singh, a thin thread between me and Dr Fischer, something that kept me right in the world. But I have no such link to others, no ropes holding me to the ground, no hawser to stop me drifting. Once I came across a dog on the road. I was just a small boy then, but the memory is so clear. It stopped to sniff, and I grabbed it firmly by the ears and peered into its yellow eyes, stood there holding it fast. The dog looked back at me with the intensity of a predator. And I discovered something far down there, in the depths of the black pupils which evoked a sort of resonance deep within me. That we were distantly related. But it was so fleeting. The dog pulled itself free and vanished, and I was no longer sure of what I’d seen.
Anna is the only one who brings out anything good in me. I follow her about the corridors like a puppy, waiting for her kindly hand, waiting for her scent, her slim feet in their white shoes. But now she seems distant. Something is distracting her, and I’m being excluded.
I often think that only I inhabit this terrain.
At the foot of this volcano, in the harsh, barren landscape where nothing grows.
Chapter 12
One day, while I was sitting alone in the park, surrounded by all the green shoots of spring, Lill Anita came up the path pushing Miranda in her wheelchair. I knew she was called Lill Anita, I’d heard her on her mobile phone, hi, this is Lill Anita, she’d say, as if her being on the other end of the line was some sort of event in itself. Their approach was silent, the rubber wheels made no noise, but I saw the glint of metal as they came round the bend. They halted at Woman Weeping. Lill Anita attempted to explain something using large, clear gestures, and Miranda’s uncontrollable hand dabbed at her own hair. They arrived at the bench, the one they always used. The wheelchair was placed where they could reach each other easily, and the brake duly applied. A light pressure on the pedal, and the wheels were locked.
They glanced quickly over at me sitting by myself, they were used to me being on my own. Perhaps they guessed, quite correctly, that I had no one, not a single person I could call a friend, barely even an acquaintance, apart from my colleagues at Løkka, and I didn’t have anything to do with them when I wasn’t at work. Mine was a simple existence without any great responsibilities, but there was something missing even so. Sometimes I felt that this need was getting the upper hand. And making me desperate for closeness and companionship. But then it would recede again, and I would take pleasure once more in the freedom and advantages of solitude. I’d never exchanged a single word with Lill Anita, we were only on nodding terms. So I gazed at the fountain and the flowing water, the day held no promise for me, I was just killing time until my next shift.
Miranda was wearing a dress and, because there was a nip in the air, a pair of thick socks as well. They were patterned with some sort of yellow-and-grey zigzag, reminiscent of a snake. She had a bow in her wispy hair and chalky white trainers on her feet. Lill Anita was clad in studded jeans. The faded denim had several large tears in the thighs, so you could see the pale skin beneath. With all those studs, and a good deal of piercing too, she resembled a bed of nails. This apart, she was nice enough, with a wan, heart-shaped face and a pouting, pink mouth which I assumed would be quick to purse in sarcasm if she were annoyed. She tapped eagerly away on her mobile phone, busy sending a text message, her fingers, slender as noodles and tipped with black nail varnish, working rapidly. Miranda was left to her own devices. Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she slipped slightly over to one side; there wasn’t much backbone in that frail body. Occasionally she would bend backwards in a spasm. I wondered where they came from, these involuntary movements. Now Lill Anita began a telephone conversation, and I listened keenly, I could hardly do otherwise, as her words wafted in my direction. Her voice cut through the air. It had a particular, sharp edge.
‘Hi, it’s Lill Anita here. Yes, we’re in the park. Oh, God no, it’s not easy finding something to do every bloody day. And I don’t like going to the Dixie, people stare, I’m so sick of it, and Miranda’s just the same as other kids, she always starts making a fuss, then people gawp even more, I can’t bear it. Yes. We’ve just arrived. Well, the weather’s not too bad. Might as well sit here as anywhere. What did you say? You’re at the Dixie? Have you got that film we were talking about, is it on Blu-ray? Is it as good as everyone says? Can I borrow it?’
Here Lill Anita paused. She tended the child with a busy hand, smoothed her hair and straightened her dress, checked if she was cold, I don’t think she was. Then she looked over at me sitting on my bench. It was as if a thought had suddenly struck her, as if she’d seen me for the very first time. Her gaze was long, sober and appraising, it took in the whole of me, my slicked-back hair and my thin, stooping shoulders.
‘Sorry to trouble you,’ she said in a high, carrying voice, because I was some way off, and the water from the fountain made a certain amount of noise. ‘Sorry to trouble you, but I’ve got to nip over to the Dixie quickly to fetch something. You couldn’t keep an eye on Miranda for me while I’m away, could you?’
She leant over the wheelchair, straightened Miranda’s dress again; it was a beautiful dress, I don’t know how people can dress their children up like that when they’re on Social Security. She was doubtless on Social Security too, just like the alcoholic Arnfinn, that’s what the system’s come to now, you can manage for a long time without a job, some people spend a whole lifetime without contributing to society.