As the front door is opened, the music is turned down and a glass, or something fragile, falls on the floor but doesn’t break.
“Armann!” Greta shouts.
“Good evening,” Havard says, and I hear Greta tell Armann that he can’t just empty the ashtray on the floor, it’s bad enough that he has dirtied the whole table.
“Yes, that’s possible, I came here at lunchtime,” Havard agrees with the person standing outside. “No, it is alright. They were just some guys, they won’t come back.”
I can’t hear who he is talking to, only the frail voice of an elderly man, but there is no doubt that it is my neighbor Tomas. He must have heard the noise Hinrik and his friends made and has come to see that everything is alright.
“Yes, you spoke to him today, didn’t you?” Havard continues. “Yes. No we are just waiting for him, he nipped out. You live next door, yes? I’ll tell him. Alright.”
Then he shuts the door.
“It’s good to have neighbors who keep an eye on you,” Havard says cheerfully when he comes back into the living room. “At least one isn’t all alone in the world.”
“Who was that?” Saebjorn asks.
“Some fellow in an anorak, one of Emil’s neighbors.”
“Good,” Armann says, and it seems that he is falling asleep, his voice sounds so tired. “That’s good.”
“Yes, don’t you think you would make a good neighbor for Emil?” Havard asks, and I hear a cork being removed from a bottle; it is either cognac or Greta’s red wine.
“Not in the state you are in,” Greta says with a laugh. “Armann, my friend, won’t you lie down? I think you are rather tired.”
Armann mumbles something weakly, Greta’s assumption is obviously correct, then he barks suddenly, and quite clearly, considering the state he is in:
“Let this be our final will at the great noontide.”
“Wait a minute?” Havard exclaims. “What was that? Our final will, what?”
“Our final will at the great noontide,” Armann repeats. Now his voice is more in keeping with his condition.
“But Armann, aren’t you just a little late with it? It’s nearly midnight. The time is ten, nearly eleven at night.”
“Noontide. . midnight.” He drawls as if these big words were full of lead. “Who was that outside? Who is. .” He seems to be completely collapsing.
“Relax, Armann,” Greta says encouragingly.
Jaime suggests that they help him into the bed, but Greta would rather he rested on the sofa. I can tell Saebjorn is disgusted that such an elderly man has drunk himself stupid, and I tell myself that my friend’s rationalism can sometimes be utterly unbearable.
“He didn’t need much,” is the only comment that Havard has to make about Armann.
“Noontide. . noon can’t come round unless there is midnight first.” Armann carries on.
Another antithesis from the mouth of the linguist. Noon, the warmest time of day, the opposite of midnight, the coldest time, when people search for warmth, when they want homes, alcohol, duvets, embraces, to enter one another.
“Evening comes for each one of us,” he carries on with equal difficulty. “Our last will. . we have high hopes at noon. . but all hope has died by midnight.”
“That is really profound, Armann!” Havard is amazed at what seems to be Armann’s grand finale.
“The glasses. .” he asks. Greta answers by saying “there, there,” and tells him to lay his head down, everything is alright, he should just rest.
“Have my glasses been found?” he repeats in a weak voice. Havard reminds him that he came here to fetch them; they are lying on the table.
“Please help yourselves,” Armann groans. He sounds as if he is talking in his sleep. “Help yourselves, my good friends.”
8
I think of what Armann said to me on the plane: that he often felt he was in some kind of limbo. Reflecting on it, I feel it is strange that he should talk about limbo being his favorite word; that word has always made me feel rather uncomfortable. Apart from its cheerful sound, which is reminiscent of words such as bimbo and mambo or something of the sort, its meaning isn’t exactly positive, and the first image that arises in my mind is of little children playing some innocent game. Then I hear heavy music and all at once the children are inside some dark limbo, from which they never escape. Armann is too old to take part in this strange game, but when I picture him on the sofa, I think it is probable that he is in some other kind of limbo, perhaps the one he tried to explain to me on the plane without me understanding what he meant.
When Greta asks if I have a dustpan and brush, Saebjorn answers that she is bound to find something like that in the big cupboard in the kitchen. She goes into the kitchen, opens the cupboard, and walks back into the living room, whistling a tune I recognize.
“Wasn’t that somebody knocking?”
I hadn’t heard anything.
“No doubt this neighbor again,” Havard suggests.
“I’m quite sure someone was knocking,” Greta says again, but she doesn’t seem willing to go to the door. Besides, it should be the job of one of the men. I hear someone stand up and the front door opens, but nothing happens to show that Greta was right.
“Have a look outside,” Saebjorn calls out from the living room, and then I hear someone dial a number on his cell phone.
“I don’t see anyone,” Jaime answers. But it sounds like he is going outside as Saebjorn suggested; the door is still open and I can feel the cold come in, as if it’s crawling along the floor and creeping into every corner of the flat.
Saebjorn has started to talk to someone on the phone. He says he is at my place. He and Jaime had come here to fetch some CDs I had bought for them, but he’ll be there quite soon. I imagine he is talking to his girlfriend, Klara.
I feel sorry for Jaime when he comes back in and closes the front door. He is shivering and tells them through his chattering teeth that he didn’t see anyone outside. Saebjorn switches off his phone and suggests to Jaime that they get going.
“It’s something supernatural,” Havard says. “Isn’t it just Emil’s ghost? Hasn’t he just had an accident and. .”
“Don’t say that!” Greta stops him.
“Well, things happen,” Havard answers indifferently.
“Isn’t it just Emil in person?” Saebjorn suggests, more cheerful than he has been up until now.
“I must have imagined it,” Greta says, and I think I have to agree with her. At least it wasn’t me.
While she is tidying up in the living room — it sounds as though she is moving things and carrying glasses into the kitchen — Saebjorn says that maybe I didn’t feel like having any visitors this evening and had made myself scarce before they arrived. I know he is joking, but I begin to wonder if Havard, who hasn’t yet made any comment on Saebjorn’s idea, is pondering whether there is some truth in it.
“Not to mention the fact that you climbed through the window so Emil hasn’t been able to come home again,” Saebjorn continues, still with the same humor.
Havard doesn’t respond.
“Maybe he is trying to frighten us by knocking on the door,” Jaime suggests. “He wants us to think it is a ghost.”
For a moment I feel as if I’m taking part in an adventure story for teenagers, that I, the missing man whom everyone is searching for, can’t be bothered being in the story any longer and have started reading it instead, without telling the other characters that I have been found and that they can stop searching. But I’m beginning to worry that this conversation will lead to some conclusion. Havard, who doesn’t normally keep his thoughts to himself, hasn’t commented on my friends’ speculations, and I am really afraid that he will stand up any moment now and look for me in the only suitable hiding place in the flat.