He glanced warily into the rooms he passed before stepping into the living room.
The sight that met him was a shock, but unfortunately not unexpected.
Eivind was kneeling beside Kaj, holding his head in his hands. Thankfully, he was alive and his eyes were open, but the blood that covered his face and the floor around him was a sign that everything might easily have ended differently.
“What have you done, Marco?” Eivind’s voice was shrill with emotion. “Who were those people? Are you in trouble, you little bugger? How dare you bring this into our home! Tell me who did it! I know you know!”
Marco shook his head. Not because he didn’t want to answer, or because he couldn’t. He shook his head because it was the way his shame came to expression.
“Call an ambulance, Marco. NOW! And then leave. Get out and don’t come back! Do you hear me? Get out!”
He made the call as Eivind, with stifled sobs, tried to console his life’s companion on the floor. And when Marco went to his room to get his things, noting in a moment of relief that the baseboard was still intact, Eivind came charging in after him.
White in the face and convulsed with all the emotions that accompany complete and all-consuming rage, he took a swing at Marco and yelled: “Give me your key and get out of my sight, you fucking Gyppo runt. Right this minute!”
Marco protested and asked for permission to take his belongings with him, but in desperation Eivind tried to hit him again, then thrust his hand into Marco’s pocket and poked around until he retrieved the key to the apartment.
He wanted to make sure the boy wouldn’t be coming back.
The last Marco saw of Eivind was when he threw open the window and unloaded Marco’s earthly possessions onto the pavement below.
Everything but his duvet and what lay concealed behind the baseboard.
Forced to leave behind the most important thing of all.
The couple in the doorway just sniggered.
11
That evening, Carl lingered outside his house waiting until the light was turned off in the kitchen, having no desire to deal with Morten’s monkish compassion or Mika’s gestalt-therapeutic manipulations. All he wanted was to get upstairs into bed and lick his wounds. In fact, he was planning to stay there until he went moldy.
Mona had given him the boot, and he was at a total loss. He hadn’t a clue why, especially just now; nor could he understand why he hadn’t charmed the panties off her before she demolished all his hopes with just a couple of sentences. He didn’t get it at all, and the way he was feeling now he suspected he never had. At least not where women were concerned. What made them act so outlandishly, with such predictable unpredictability? Soft and fluffy on the outside; jagged and prickly underneath.
When would he ever learn?
He crept up the stairs, his spirits in free fall, and threw himself down on the bed with all his clothes on, trying desperately to understand what had happened and what the consequences might be. Usually he would reach for his mobile and consult Mona when such a Gordian-knotted noose tightened around his neck. But what about now? What the fuck was he supposed to do?
–
Café Bohème had not been Carl’s choice, but when he finally looked around this exclusive restaurant and gazed out the windows along the Esplanade, he realized it wasn’t the worst place in which to declare his undying love. He had been waiting for an opportunity like this for a long time, but it wasn’t until a couple of days before, when he’d stumbled upon the shop of a Russian silversmith who created jewelry worthy of the gods, that he realized the time had come.
Carl had the ring with him, expectations sky-high, his fingers already clamped around the silk pouch in his pocket, when she looked him straight in the eye.
“Carl, I want to talk to you today because we’ve been together long enough now to ask ourselves what we really mean to each other.”
Carl smiled to himself. It was perfect. No one could wish for a better prelude to what he was going to do next.
He felt the warm silk against his palm and prepared to place his gift on the table the moment she declared it was time for their relationship to be consolidated. A joint household, a marriage certificate at city hall-whatever she wanted, he was willing. There would be an outcry back home, of course, but it would all work out. As long as Hardy continued to provide the household with a regular income for Morten’s assistance and Mika chipped in, 73 Magnolievangen wouldn’t need to change ownership.
“What do we want with each other, Carl? Have you thought about it?” she asked.
He smiled. “As a matter of fact, I have. I was…”
She looked at him with such benevolence that he felt quite moved and paused for a moment. He had an incredible desire to smooth his hand against her cheek, to feel her downy skin, kiss her soft lips. And he noticed how her breathing had become sharper and more resolute, recognizing it as a reflex that usually signaled major deliberations and final decisions. But she was taking her time, and that was OK. Navigating through occasions as momentous as this couldn’t be hurried.
“Carl, I’m so very fond of you,” she said. “You’re a lovely man, but are we actually going anywhere? I’ve thought about it so many times. Would it make any difference if we were closer together? If we lived together and woke up beside each other in the mornings?” She took his hand in hers and squeezed it harder than he’d anticipated. She seemed to be having difficulty getting it said. Perhaps she preferred he take charge. But Carl merely smiled. He would allow her to answer her question herself, and then he would produce the ring.
The answer came without passion or enthusiasm. “I can’t see it would change much, to be honest. I think we’d soon run short of things to talk about. And the good sex we have once in a while would happen less and less, don’t you agree? Lately you’ve grown distant from us, Carl, and from yourself. Maybe it’s best that this should happen now. You forget when we’re supposed to see each other, and often you’re miles away when you’re with my daughter and grandchild. You don’t see me as you used to see me, and you’re unable to confront your own situation. You’ve stopped your therapy sessions in spite of what we agreed. I’m looking for development here, Carl, and have been doing so for a very long time. Long enough, if truth be told. Which is why I think we should stop now.”
Carl turned cold as ice. He had wanted to say something epochal and decisive, but now he was reeling. Was that really the way she felt about him? He shook his head and felt dazed, unable to collect his thoughts. Words stalled in his throat, but Mona seemed clearheaded and determined. In any other situation he would have loved her for it.
“I don’t know why it’s taken so long for us to have this discussion. It’s my profession, after all,” she went on. “But now it’s high time we did. I mean, neither of us is getting any younger, are we, Carl?”
He gestured for her to stop, and in the minutes that followed he tried anxiously to reassure her that things had been going fine until now, in spite of everything, but that of course he’d been having thoughts of his own as well. He mobilized his self-defense and charm offensive into a kind of symbiosis that safeguarded every word, every intonation. Where any pause too long might signal indifference, any pause too brief could make him appear panicked.