‘How long have they been together?’
‘Six years.’
‘Was she thinking of leaving him?’
‘No, not at all. On the contrary, she wants children with him.’
‘So why the flirting?’ I asked.
Geir looked at me.
‘She wants to have her cake and eat it, obviously.’
‘What did you say to her? I assume she went to you for advice?’
‘I said she should deny it. Deny everything. She hadn’t been flirting, she’d just been friendly. Say no, no, no. And then don’t be so bloody stupid next time, wait for an opportunity to offer itself and go about it calmly and collectedly. I don’t blame her for doing what she did. I blame her for being inconsiderate. She hurt him. That was uncalled for.’
‘She must have known you would say that. Otherwise she wouldn’t have gone to you.’
‘I agree. Had she gone to you, on the other hand, it would have been to get advice about admitting everything, going down on her knees and begging for forgiveness and then sticking to her lawful husband from then on.’
‘Yes, either that or leaving him.’
‘The worst is that you mean it.’
‘Of course I mean it,’ I said. ‘The year after I was unfaithful to Tonje and didn’t say anything was the worst year I’ve ever experienced. It was blackest night. One long, endless bloody night. I thought about it all the time. Jumped out of the chair in alarm whenever the phone rang. And if the word infidelity was mentioned on TV I blushed from head to toe. I was on fire inside. When we hired films I studiously avoided anything connected with it because I knew that sooner or later she would notice me squirming like a grub whenever the topic came up. And the fact that I had been guilty destroyed everything else in my life, I couldn’t say anything with heartfelt sincerity, it was all lies and pretence. It was a nightmare.’
‘Would you own up now?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about the events on Gotland?’
‘That wasn’t infidelity.’
‘But it still torments you?’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘Cecilia wasn’t unfaithful. Why should she tell her partner what she was thinking of doing?’
‘That’s not what this is about. It’s about intent. As long as it’s there you have to take the consequences.’
‘What about your intentions on Gotland?’
‘I was drunk. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d been sober.’
‘But you would have thought it?’
‘Maybe. It’s a huge leap, though.’
‘Tony’s a Catholic, as you know. His priest said once, and I took note, sinning is putting yourself in a position where a sin becomes possible. Getting drunk, when you know what’s on your mind and what pressure there is inside you, is putting yourself in such a position.’
‘Yes, but I thought I was absolutely safe before I started drinking.’
‘Ha ha ha!’
‘It’s true.’
‘Karl Ove. What you did was nothing. A bagatelle. And everyone understands that. Everyone. What did you do actually? Knock on a door?’
‘For half an hour, yes. In the middle of the night.’
‘But she didn’t let you in?’
‘No, no. She opened the door and gave me a bottle of water, and closed it again.’
‘Ha ha ha! And for that you sat shaking, white-faced, when I met you. You looked as though you’d killed someone.’
‘It felt like it.’
‘But actually it was nothing, was it?’
‘Possibly. But I can’t forgive myself. And that’s the way it will be until my dying day. I have a long list of things I’ve done when I didn’t behave well. And that’s what it’s about. For Christ’s sake, you shouldn’t cheat. And one would have thought it was an easy ideal to uphold. For some it is. I know some people, not many, but some who always do the right thing. Who are always good, decent people. I’m not talking about those who don’t do anything wrong because they don’t do anything, because the lives they lead are so trivial that nothing can be destroyed, for they exist as well. I’m talking about those people who are fair to the last fibre of their being, and those who always know the best way to act in every situation. Those who don’t put themselves first, who don’t betray their principles. You’ve met them as well. People good through to the core, right? And they wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Precisely because it’s not something they have given any thought to, they don’t think like that, that they should be good; they just are, and are unaware of it. They take care of their friends, they’re considerate to their partners, they’re good parents, but not in a feminine way, always do a good job, they want whatever is good and do whatever is good. Whole people. Jon Olav, for example, you know, my cousin.’
‘Yes, I’ve met him.’
‘He’s always been an idealist, but not in order to achieve anything for himself. He’s always stood up for everyone who’s needed him. And he’s not in the slightest bit corrupt. The same applies to Hans. His integrity — yes, that’s the word I was after. Integrity. If you have integrity you do the right thing. I have so little integrity, there’s always something… well, not sick exactly, but something base, fawning, creeping, it oozes out of me. If I get into a situation that requires prudence, where everyone knows prudence is required, I can just steam in, right, and why? Because I only think about myself, only see myself, ooze out of myself. I can be good to others, but then I need to have it formulated in advance. It’s not in my blood. It’s not in my nature.’
‘And where do you place me in this system of yours?’
‘You?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, you’re a cynic. You’re proud and ambitious, perhaps the proudest person I know. You would never do anything openly debasing, you’d rather starve and live on the street. You’re loyal to your friends. I trust you blindly. At the same time you look after yourself and can be ruthless to others if for some reason you have something against them, or if they’ve done something to you, or if there is something greater to gain by it. Isn’t that true?’
‘Yes, but I’m always considerate to those I like. Really. Scrupulous might be a more accurate expression. There is in fact an important distinction.’
‘Scrupulous then. But let me mention one example. You lived with the human shield in Iraq, travelled with them all the way from Turkey, shared everything with them in Baghdad. Some of them became your friends. They were there because of their convictions, which you didn’t in fact share, but they didn’t know that.’
‘They had a suspicion,’ Geir said with a smile.
‘So when the US Marines come, you simply say goodbye to your friends and go over to their enemies without a backward glance. You betrayed them. There is no other way to see it. But you didn’t betray yourself. I place you somewhere around there. It’s a free, independent place, but the price of getting there is high. People lie strewn around you like skittles. That wouldn’t be possible for me. Social pressure from all sides starts when I get up from my office chair and by the time I’m in the street I’m bound hand and foot by it. I can hardly move. Ha ha ha! But it’s true. At bottom, and I don’t think you have understood this, it’s not saintliness or high morals but cowardice. Cowardice and nothing else. Don’t you think I’d like to cut all my ties to everyone and do what I want, not what they want?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Do you think I’m going to do that?’
‘No.’
‘You’re free. I’m not. It’s as simple as that.’
‘No, it isn’t, not by a long chalk,’ Geir said. ‘You may be trapped by social pressure, which sounds strange, after all you never meet anyone. Ha ha ha! But I understand what you mean, and you’re right, you try to take account of everyone all at once. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, how you run around when we come to yours for a meal. However, there are many ways to be trapped; there are many ways of not being free. You have to remember that you’ve had everything you wanted. You’ve had your revenge on those you targeted. You have status. People sit waiting for what you do and wave palm leaves as soon as you show your face. You can write an article about something that interests you and it will be in print in the newspaper of your choice a few days later. People ring and want you to go here, there and everywhere. Newspapers ask you for a comment on all sorts of matters. Your books will be published in Germany and England. Do you understand the freedom there is in that? Do you understand what has opened in your life? You talk about a longing to let go and fall. If I let go I would be standing in the same place. I’m standing right at the bottom. No one’s interested in what I write. No one’s interested in what I think. No one invites me anywhere. I have to force my way in, right? Whenever I enter a room full of people I have to make myself interesting. I don’t pre-exist, like you, I don’t have a name, I have to create everything from scratch every time. I’m sitting at the bottom of a hole in the ground and shouting through a megaphone. It doesn’t matter what I say, no one is listening. And you know that whatever I say from the outside contains a criticism of what is inside. And then by definition you’re self-opinionated. The embittered querulous type. Meanwhile the years pass. I’ll soon be forty and I don’t have any of what I wanted to have. You say it’s brilliant and unique, and perhaps it is, but what good is that? You have everything you want, and you can dispense with it, leave it, make no use of it. But I can’t. I have to get in. I’ve spent twenty years trying. The book I’m busy with now is going to take three years at least. I can already feel how the world around me is losing belief and hence any interest. I’m becoming more and more like a madman refusing to drop his mad project. Everything I say is measured against that. When I said something after my doctorate it was measured against that, that was when I was academically and intellectually alive, now I’m dead. And the more time that passes the better the next book has to be. It’s not enough for the next book to be all right, pretty OK, very good, because I’ve spent a lot of time on it and because my age is, relatively speaking, so advanced that it has to be outstanding. From that perspective, I’m not free. And to link up with what we were talking about before, the Victorian ideal, which wasn’t an ideal but a reality, namely a double life. Therein lies a sorrow too because such a life can never be whole. And of course that’s what everyone dreams of, one love affair, or falling in love with someone, when cynicism and calculation are absent, when everything is whole. Yes, you know. Romance. A double life is a passable resolution of a problem, but it is not unproblematic, if that’s what you reckoned I went around thinking. It’s practical, provisional, pragmatic, in other words, part of life. But it’s not whole, and it’s not ideal. The most important difference between us is not that I’m free and you aren’t. For I don’t believe this to be the case. The most important difference is that I’m happy, a glad soul. And you aren’t.’