After we parted company and I was trudging up the hills to my bedsit in Mariaberget I realised two things.
The first was that I wanted to see her again as soon as possible.
The second was that was where I had to go, to what I had seen that evening. Nothing else was good enough, nothing else did it. That was where I had to go, to the essence, to the inner core of human existence. If it took forty years, so be it, it took forty years. But I should never lose sight of it, never forget it, that was where I was going.
There, there, there.
Two days later Linda rang and invited me to a Walpurgis night party she was going to throw with two girlfriends. It was fine if I brought along my friend Geir. Which I did. One Friday in May 2002 we walked across Söder to the flat where the party was to take place, and soon found ourselves ensconced on a sofa, each with a glass of punch in our hands, surrounded by young Stockholmers who all had some connection with cultural life: jazz musicians, theatre people, literary critics, authors, actors. Linda, Mikaela and Öllegård, who were the party organisers, had met when they were working at Stockholm City Theatre. At the time the Royal Dramatic Theatre was performing Romeo and Juliet together with Circus Cirkör, so apart from actors the room was full of jugglers, fire-eaters and trapeze artists. I couldn’t get through the evening without speaking, even if I wanted to, so I heaved my body round from one group to another, exchanging civilities and, after I’d had a few gin and tonics, the odd sentence beyond what was strictly necessary. I particularly wanted to talk to the theatre people. I would never have expected to feel that, and it made my enthusiasm for theatre soar on this evening. I stood with two actors and said how fantastic Bergman was. They just snorted and said, That old sod! He’s so bloody traditional it makes you want to puke.
How stupid could you be! Of course they loathed Bergman. Firstly, he had been the master all their lives and the whole of their parents’ lives as well. Secondly, they were for the new, the great, Shakespeare as circus, the play everyone should see, which, with its torches and trapezes, stilts and clowns, was so refreshing. They had gone as far from Bergman as it was possible to go. Then a podgy clearly depressed Norwegian stands there hailing Bergman as the new man.
Meanwhile I confirmed that Linda and Geir were still chatting on the sofa, both with excited smiles, the stab in the heart that gave me, was she going to fall for another of my friends? I mingled, bumped into some jazz fans, who asked me if I knew anything about Norwegian jazz, to which I responded with a half-nod, which of course meant they wanted some names. Norwegian jazz musicians? Was there anyone apart from Jan Garbarek? Fortunately I realised that wasn’t exactly what they meant and remembered Bugge Wesseltoft, whom Espen had talked about once, and had also invited to play at a Vagant party where I had given a reading. They nodded, he was good, I breathed out with relief and went off to sit on my own. Then a dark-haired woman with a broad face, large mouth, intense brown eyes, wearing a flowery dress, came over to me and asked if I was the writer from Norway. Yes, I was. What did I think about Jan Kjærstad, John Erik Riley and Ole Robert Sunde?
I gave my opinions.
‘Do you mean that?’ she queried.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Stay where you are,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get my husband. He writes about literature. Very interested in Riley. Wait a moment. I’ll be back.’
I watched her push past people towards the kitchen. What did she say her name was? Hilda? No. Wilda? Shit. No, Gilda. Shouldn’t be impossible to remember.
Then she reappeared through the throng, this time with a man in tow. Oh, as soon as I saw him I knew the type. He had university written all over his face from a long distance.
‘Now you can say what you told me!’ Gilda said.
I did. But her passion was wasted on both him and me, so when the conversation tailed off, and it didn’t take long, I made my apologies and went to the kitchen to get some food, now that the queues were shorter. Geir stood chatting with someone by the window and Linda was with a small group by the bookshelves. I sat down on the sofa and began to gnaw at a chicken thigh when I met the eyes of a dark-haired woman, who took this as an invitation, because the very next moment she was standing in front of me.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
I swallowed and put the chicken down on the paper plate as I looked up at her. Tried to sit up straight on the deep soft sofa, unsuccessfully, I felt as though I was falling to one side. And my cheeks, they must have glistened with chicken fat.
‘Karl Ove,’ I said. ‘I’m from Norway. I’ve just moved here. A few weeks ago. And you?’
‘Melinda.’
‘And what do you do?’
‘I’m an actor.’
‘Oh yes!’ I said with what was left of the Bergman euphoria in my voice. ‘Are you in Romeo and Juliet then?’
She nodded.
‘Who do you play?’
‘Juliet.’
‘Ah!’
‘That’s Romeo over there,’ she said.
A good-looking muscular man came over to join her. He kissed her on the cheeks and looked at me.
Damn the bloody sofa. I felt like a dwarf from where I was sitting.
I nodded and smiled. He nodded back.
‘Have you had some food?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said, and then they were gone. I lifted the chicken back to my mouth. There was nothing for it but to drink.
The last thing I did before I left that evening was to look at a photo album belonging to an equine homeopath with a plunging neckline. The alcohol had not made me soar, as it was wont to do, into a mood where everything was great and there were no obstacles; it made me sink into a spiritual well, from which nothing I had inside could raise me. All that happened was that everything became foggier and more unclear. The day after, I was profoundly grateful I’d had the presence of mind to go home, and not sit there until everyone had gone in the hope that something interesting might happen of its own accord. I assumed Linda was a lost cause — we had hardly exchanged a word all evening, which for the most part I had spent slumped in the chair I had begun to consider as ‘mine’ — and the little I said, which could have been written on a postcard, no woman in the world would have found interesting. Nonetheless, I rang her the following evening, politeness demanded I thank her. And then, while I was standing with my mobile to my ear surveying Stockholm spread out beneath me, illuminated by the broad red light from the setting sun, a pregnant moment arose. I had said hi, thanked her, said it had been a nice party, she had thanked me, said she thought it had been nice too, and she added she hoped I’d had a trevlig time. I had, I said. And then there was a silence. She didn’t say anything; I didn’t say anything. Should I wrap up the conversation? That was my natural instinct. I had taught myself in such situations to say as little as possible. In that way I wouldn’t say anything foolish. Or should I go on? The seconds ticked. If I had said, yes, well, I just wanted to thank you and had rung off, that would have probably been that. Such a mess I’d made of everything the night before. But what the hell, what did I have to lose?