‘I’m happy to hear that,’ I said.
‘Are you and Linda OK?’
‘Yes, we are.’
‘Are you kind to her?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s good. You must never leave her. Never. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘You must take care of her. You must be kind to her, Karl Ove.’ Then he burst into tears.
‘We get on well,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘I’m just an old man,’ he said. ‘But I’ve experienced a lot, you see. I’ve experienced more than most. My life isn’t anything to shout about now. But I’ve counted how many days I have left. Did you know?’
‘Yes, you showed us how you had worked it out when we were at your place.’
‘Ah, yes, yes. But you haven’t met Berit, have you.’
‘No.’
‘She’s so kind to me.’
‘So I gather,’ I said.
He was suddenly on his guard.
‘Eh? How?’
‘Well, Linda has told me a bit about her. And Ingrid. You know…’
‘I see. I won’t bother you any more, Karl Ove. I’m sure you have important things to do.’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘You’re not bothering me at all.’
‘Tell Linda I called. Take care.’
He rang off before I had a chance to wish him the same. On the display I saw that the whole conversation had not taken more than eight minutes. Linda snorted when I told her.
‘You don’t have to listen to that stuff,’ she said. ‘Don’t answer the phone next time he rings.’
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ I said.
‘But it does bother me,’ she said.
Linda’s documentary contained nothing of this. She had edited out everything except his voice. However, therein lay everything. He talked about his life, and his voice was filled with sorrow when he spoke of his mother’s death, happiness when he spoke of his first years of adulthood, resignation when he spoke about his move to Stockholm. He spoke about the problems he’d had with the telephone, what a curse the invention had been for him, how for long periods he had kept it in a cupboard. He spoke of his daily routines, but also about his dreams, of which the greatest was to run a stud farm. Here he came into his own, and there was something hypnotic about his account, you were sucked into his world from the very first sentence. But most of all of course it was about Linda. Hearing what she did or reading what she wrote, I came so close to the person she was. It was as though those special qualities that stirred within her only then became visible. In our daily lives they were lost in whatever we were doing, which was the same as everyone else did, I saw nothing of the person I had fallen in love with. If I hadn’t actually forgotten, I certainly didn’t give it a thought.
How was that possible?
I looked at her. She tried to hide the anticipation in her eyes. Dropped her gaze too easily to the DAT player on the table and the mass of wires beneath.
‘You don’t need to change anything,’ I said. ‘It’s completely finished.’
‘Is it good, do you think?’
‘Oh yes. Brilliant.’
I placed the headset on the player, stretched and blinked a few times.
‘I was moved,’ I said.
‘By what?’
‘His life is a tragedy, in a way. But when he talks about it, he fills it with life, we know this is a life. With a value all of its own, irrespective of what happened to him. Obvious perhaps, but it’s one thing to know this and another to feel it. And I did when I was listening to him just now.’
‘I’m so pleased,’ she said. ‘So perhaps I don’t need to do any more than adjust the sound levels. I can do that on Monday. But are you sure?’
‘As sure as I can be,’ I said, getting up. ‘Now I’m going for a smoke.’
Downstairs, in the backyard, the wind was cold. The only two children in the block, a boy of nine or ten and his sister of eleven or twelve, were kicking a ball to each other by the gate at the other end. Intense loud music was coming from the Glenn Miller Café beyond the wall in the street behind them. Their mother, who lived alone with them on the top floor and looked seriously tired, had the window open. From the characteristic clinks and clunks I could hear she was washing up. The boy was plump, and probably to compensate had his hair cropped to make him seem tough. He always had blue bags under his eyes. When his sister had friends at home he performed ball tricks or ostentatious climbing feats on the monkey bars. On evenings like this, when they were alone and she had nothing better to do than play with her brother, he was happier, more energetic and keener to play well. Now and then they shouted and screamed up there, sometimes all three of them, but usually it was just him and his mother. I had seen the father come a couple of times to collect them — a small thin sickly guy with a moustache who obviously drank too much.
The sister went to the fence and sat down. She took a mobile phone from her pocket and it was so dark where she was sitting that the blue light of the display lit up the whole of her face. Her brother began to kick the ball against the wall, again and again. Bang. Bang. Bang.
His mother poked her head out of the window.
‘Will you stop that!’ she yelled. The boy bent forward quietly, picked up the ball and sat beside his sister, who turned away without changing the focus of her attention for a second.
I looked up at the two illuminated towers. A stab of tenderness and pain went through me.
Oh Linda, oh Linda.
At that moment the neighbour who lived next door to us came through the entrance. I watched her as she lightly closed the gate behind her. She was in her fifties and the way that women of this age are nowadays, that is with a certain artificially maintained youthfulness. She had a mass of dyed blonde hair, was wearing a fur jacket and pulling a small inquisitive dog on a taut leash. Once she had told me she was an artist, although I was none the wiser about what it was she did. She wasn’t exactly the Munch type. Sometimes she could be very chatty, telling me she was going to Provence in the summer or had a weekend trip to New York or London planned. Sometimes she said nothing and could walk past me without saying a word. She had a teenage daughter who had given birth at the same time as Linda and whom she bossed around.
‘Weren’t you going to give up smoking?’ she asked, not slowing her pace.
‘The clock hasn’t chimed twelve yet,’ I said.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘It’s going to snow tonight. You mark my words.’
She let herself in. I waited, then threw my cigarette end in the flower pot someone had put by the wall for this purpose and followed. My knuckles were red from the cold. I bounded up the stairs three at a time, opened the door, took off my coat and went into Linda, who was watching TV on the sofa. I leaned forward and kissed her.