“It’s good to hear you’re doing well, Karl Ove,” he had said.
Why did I remember this so well? I usually forgot almost everything people, however close they were, said to me, and there was nothing in the situation that suggested this would be one of the last times we would meet. Perhaps I remembered it because he used my name; it must have been four years since I had heard him last use it, and for this reason his words were so unexpectedly intimate. Perhaps I remembered it because only a few days earlier I had written about him, and with emotions that were in stark contrast to those he had evoked in me by being friendly. Or perhaps I remembered because I hated the hold he had over me, which was clear from how I became so happy about so little. Not for anything in the world would I lift a finger for him, nor be forced into anything for his sake, neither in a positive nor a negative sense.
Now this show of will was worth nothing.
I placed the manuscript down on the bed, stuffed the pencil back in the suitcase pocket, leaned forward and reached for the cardboard box on the floor nearby, tried to squeeze the manuscript back in, but it wouldn’t fit, so I laid it in the suitcase as it was, right at the bottom, carefully covered with clothes. The box, perched on the bed now, which I stared at for a long time, would remind me of the novel whenever I saw it. My first impulse had been to carry it downstairs and dispose of it in the kitchen trash can, but, upon reflection, I decided I didn’t want to do that, I didn’t want it to be become part of the house. So I parted the clothes in the suitcase again, put the box beside the manuscript, covered it with clothes, closed the suitcase lid, zipped it up, and then I left the room.
Grandma was in the living room watching TV. A talk show. It made no difference to her what was on, I supposed. She watched children’s programs on TV2 and TV Norge in the afternoon with as much pleasure as late-night documentaries. I had never understood what appealed to her in this insane youth reality TV, with its endless cravings, of which even news and talk shows were full. She, who was born before the First World War and came from the really old Europe, on the outer perimeter though, it is true, but nevertheless? She, who had her childhood in the 1910s, her adolescence in the 1920s, adulthood in the 1930s, motherhood in the 1940s and 1950s, and was already an elderly woman in 1968? There had to be something, for she sat here watching TV every evening.
Beneath her chair there was a yellow-brown puddle on the floor. A dark patch down the side showed where it had come from.
“Yngve sends his love,” I said. “He got back okay.”
She threw me a brief glance.
“That’s good,” she said.
“Is there anything you need?” I asked.
“Need?”
“Yes, food, and so forth. I can easily make you something if you want.”
“No, thanks,” she said. “But you help yourself.”
The sight of Dad’s dead body had put me off any thought of food. But I could hardly associate a cup of tea with death, could I? I heated a pan of water on the stove, poured it, steaming, over a tea bag in a cup, watched for a while as the color was released and spread in slow spirals through the water until it was a golden tint everywhere, and I took the cup and carried it onto the veranda. A long way out, at the mouth of the fjord, the Danish ferry was approaching. Above it the weather had cleared. There were still traces of blue in the dark sky, which made it seem palpable, as though it were really one enormous cloth and the stars I could see came from the light behind, shining through thousands of tiny holes.
I took a sip and put the cup down on the windowsill. I remembered more from the evening with my father. There had been a thick layer of ice on the sidewalk; an easterly wind had been sweeping through almost deserted streets. We had gone to a hotel restaurant, hung up our coats, and taken a seat at a table. Dad had been breathing heavily, he wiped his brow, picked up the menu, and scanned it. Started again from the top.
“Looks like they don’t serve wine here,” he said and got up, went over and said something to the head waiter. When he shook his head, Dad turned on his heel and came back, almost tore his jacket off the chair and was putting it on as he headed for the exit. I hurried after him.
“What happened?” I asked when we were outside on the sidewalk again.
“No alcohol,” he said. “Jesus, it was a temperance hotel.”
Then he looked at me and smiled.
“We have to have wine with our food, don’t we? But that’s fine. There’s another restaurant down here.”
We ended up in Hotel Caledonien, sat at a window table, and ate our steaks. That is, I ate; when I had finished, Dad’s plate had barely been touched. He lit a cigarette, drank the last dregs of red wine, leaned back in the chair and said he was planning to become a long-distance truck driver. I didn’t know how to react, just nodded without saying a word. Truckers had a great time, he said. He had always liked driving, always liked traveling, and if you could do that and get paid for it at the same time, why hang around? Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal, he said. Yes, it’s a fine profession, I said. But now it’s time for us to go our separate ways, he said. I’ll pay. You just go. I’m sure you have a lot to do. It was good to see you. And I did as he suggested, got up, took my jacket, said goodbye, went out through the hotel reception area, onto the street, wondering briefly whether to get a taxi or not, decided against it and ambled toward the bus station. Through the window I saw him again, he was walking through the restaurant toward the door at the far end that led to the bars, and once again his movements, despite his large, heavy body, were hurried and impatient.
That was the last time I saw him alive.
I had the distinct impression that he had pulled himself together. That in those two hours he had summoned all his strength to stay in one piece, to be sensitive and present, to be what he had been.
The thought of it pained me as I paced back and forth on the veranda staring at the town and then the sea. I considered whether to go for a walk into town, or perhaps to the stadium, but I couldn’t leave Grandma on her own, and I didn’t feel like walking either. Besides, tomorrow everything would look different. The day always came with more than mere light. However frayed your emotions, it was impossible to be wholly unaffected by the day’s new beginnings. So I took the cup to the kitchen, put it in the dishwasher, did the same with all the other cups and glasses, plates, and dishes, poured in powder and started it, wiped the table with a cloth, wrung it, and draped it over the tap, even though there was something obscene about the meeting between damp, crumpled rag and the tap’s shiny chrome, went into the living room and stopped beside the chair where Grandma was sitting.
“I think I’m going to bed,” I said. “It’s been a long day.”
“Is it so late already?” she asked. “Yes, I’ll be off soon as well.”
“Good night,” I said.
“Good night.”
I started to leave.
“Karl Ove?” she called.
I turned back.
“You’re not thinking of sleeping up there tonight too, are you? It would be better for you downstairs. In our old bedroom, you know. Then you’ve got the bathroom next door.”
“That’s true,” I said. “But I think I’ll stay where I am. We’ve got all our things up there.”
“Alright,” she said. “You do as you like. Good night.”
“Good night.”
It was only when I was upstairs in the bedroom undressing that I realized it had not been for my sake that she had suggested I sleep down below, but for hers. I put my T-shirt back on, lifted the sheet, rolled the duvet into a ball, put it under one arm, grabbed the suitcase with the other, and made my way downstairs. I bumped into her on the first-floor landing.