Everything Like Before, page 17
“Yes, a lot of water has flowed into the sea since then,” he said, and right then I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy his company. If he’d been shy, then he could have been excused for coming out with that kind of twaddle, but he wasn’t.
“Yes, it flows and flows,” I replied, “and still the water level never gets high enough.”
He looked slightly puzzled, but asked if he could sit down all the same. I hesitated, but what was the point when the final answer would be yes anyway? I never learn.
He wanted to buy me a beer, but there I drew the line, so we ordered one each. He immediately began to reminisce and I realized to my relief that he had already left A the year after I’d started. All the things he remembered! And only good things, pleasant things. He must be happy, I thought, and when the stream of recollections began to thin out I said:
“So many good memories.”
“Yes, you can live a long time on them.”
“Then you’ll probably reach a fine old age, Holt.”
He smiled confidently.
“Who knows. There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip.”
“True, true. You sure have a way with words.”
“Every day is a gift,” he said enthusiastically. I was speechless. It was like listening to my mother, and she certainly wasn’t someone you wanted to emulate.
“It’s just like hearing my mother,” I said, “and she lived to be over ninety.”
He beamed.
“You don’t say,” he said. “Yes, I’d love to live to see the next millennium. Just imagine it, Hornemann.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure the fireworks will be fun.”
“And not just that,” he said, “but think of the sense of history that will pervade the globe. I can almost feel it.”
I held my tongue. Be kind, I said to myself, he hasn’t done anything to you, it’s just how he is; when he’s sober he too is probably lonely and discontented, everyone is, they just don’t know it, or they call it something else.
So I drained my glass and said I had to go, that I had a prior engagement.
“Well, that’s how it is,” he said, “you finally meet someone you know and it turns out he’s busy. Still, I’m glad I recognized you.”
“Goodbye,” I said.
“Goodbye, Hornemann, and thanks for the chat.”
When I arrived home I found a note stuck in the chink of the door. It was from my twin brother. It said, in messy writing: “I presume you’re at home, even though you won’t open the door. I’ve come to wish you a happy birthday, I don’t suppose anyone else will. At least I know where you live now. I’ll be back. John.”
I hurried inside, locked the door and put the chain on. I didn’t venture out again that day, for fear he might be lurking in the entranceway on the lookout for me.
But in the end it actually turned out to be a good day, one of the best. I had a magazine lying around that I was only halfway through. That evening I read the rest of it. One of the articles was about the recent discovery of a new quasar. It was almost 73 billion miles away and the light from it had been emitted 12.4 billion years ago – which was almost 8 billion years before our own solar system came into being, and long before the Milky Way came into existence 10 billion years ago.
Ah, now that was a lesson in perspective. I felt so elated that I opened a window to look up into space. Of course, I couldn’t see anything, it’s been a long time since anyone has seen a starry sky over this city, but that didn’t matter much; I knew that infinity existed and all that is irrational will perish within it.
* * *
—
Around once a week I go to a restaurant not far from where I live. It’s my regular haunt. The waiters have become used to seeing me, I’d almost go so far as to say they accept me. I sit at a small table and drink three or four pints, and that takes up a whole evening. Other regulars, having seen me there so often, sometimes say hello and I find that heartening. And, at times, someone or other will speak to me, but the person concerned is usually either so drunk he doesn’t know what he’s doing, or he’s a pain in the neck who’s been turned away from every other table and views me as a last resort. I never ask them to sit down, and if they do anyway, I make them go away.
It’s a nice place to be and if I could afford to I’d go there every evening. I’ve often dreamt about that, being able to go every evening.
But the other day, the last time I was there, I saw to my horror my twin brother walking in. I bent down as quickly as I could and pretended to pick something up off the floor, but he’d already spotted me. I saw his feet stop right in front of me.
“Can’t you find anything?” he said.
I straightened up but didn’t reply. He sat down. I felt deep despair: he was going to take my local away from me.
“So this is where you hang out?” he said.
“Leave me alone,” I sighed.
“Alone? Is that any way to speak to your own brother? I come here to have a chat and you tell me to leave you alone?”
“I would just rather sit on my own.”
He flared up and grew very loud. How I hate him. And in my bitterness over the fact he was about to take away the last refuge I had outside my own four walls, I said:
“You’re not my brother.”
We’d already attracted the attention of the people sitting at the nearby tables, and what I said only made things worse. John flew into a rage, reached across the table, grabbed me by the lapel of my jacket and cried:
“Say that again!”
I didn’t think that was necessary, besides I could see the waiter was approaching our table.
“I don’t want any trouble here,” he said.
“Would you kindly ask this man to leave,” I said. “He claims he’s my twin brother.”
For a moment John stared at me in astonishment, then he gave me a hard shove, and at the same time released his grip on the front of my jacket. My chair tipped back and as I was on my way backwards towards the floor I thought: I’m too old to fall, I’m going to break into pieces.
But it was the chair that broke apart. I did bang the back of my head against the floor; it didn’t hurt too badly but to my horror I could feel that I’d wet my trousers, and I was so ashamed that I lay for a while with my eyes closed, up until I felt a hand on my cheek. Then I looked up to see several faces. From over by the exit I heard John shouting that he was my twin brother.
“Are you alright?” one of the men standing over me asked.
“Yes, yes, thank you,” I replied, confused. Then I managed a smile, an ugly one no doubt. But they helped me up, they were extremely helpful, friendly even, and I grew sentimental and thanked all around.
So I sat there as before, but with wet trousers. John had been thrown out, but was probably waiting for me outside someplace. I comforted myself with the thought that it was a while until closing time; perhaps he’d give up and postpone his revenge until some later date.
I glanced down at my lap. Oh, it was bad. A large dark stain that, try as I might, I couldn’t relate to rationally. My dignity! I groaned inside myself, but of course it had nothing to do with that, but rather with my vanity.
Then a man came over to me. He was probably one of those who had stood bent over me, and must have seen me glance down despondently at my lap. He placed a jar of small salt and pepper sachets on my table and told me to sprinkle some salt on it, saying it would absorb the moisture. Imagine, such an act of kindness. I felt warm inside and was on the verge of standing up to shake his hand but was afraid he wouldn’t like that, so I merely thanked him instead.
“Anyway, everyone will just think it’s beer,” he said.
Of course I didn’t believe that, in my experience people tend to think the worst. But he meant well so I thanked him warmly for his words of comfort.
I sprinkled two sachets of salt on myself and considered how maybe it was time for me to start carrying such handy salt sachets around with me, just in case. Not to mention the pepper ones I suddenly thought, and hurriedly stuck four of them into my pocket. Ha! I thought cockily, now John can just try it!
After a while I needed to go to the washroom, and I have to say, I went there with renewed courage and my head held high. Which I shouldn’t have done, I should have kept in mind that restaurant washrooms are places for all manner of discharge. I’d hardly come through the door when a drunken youth glanced at me, then did a double take and asked where they’d dug me up. I usually don’t respond to that kind of thing but at that particular moment…well, I wasn’t entirely sober, so I asked if he’d never learned any manners. He went from being rude to being nasty. He threw a number of insults at me, and the whole scene was extra excruciating because there was another man at the urinal who could hear. I said something particularly foul to the young man, I won’t say what, and he came right up into my face with his small eyes. He wanted to hit me, I was sure of it, and in a way I found that reasonable, he must have been aware that, physically, he was far superior. But he contented himself with waving his fist under my nose. Just then the doorman came in. The only way he could have seen us was if the toilets were under surveillance, I never would’ve thought I’d view that as a good thing. At that moment I did, although my opinion was short-lived.
“Seems to be nothing but trouble with you this evening,” he said. I was the one he was addressing.
“With me?” I said, stunned. “I was assaulted by him.”
“Sure. First osne, and now another. That’s more than enough assaults for one evening. I think it would be best if you called it a night.”
I knew I’d lost, I’ve never heard of any bouncers changing their minds; once they’ve decided something, they’re impervious to plain reason.
Nevertheless, because such an important part of my life was at stake I was determined to try, but I’d hardly opened my mouth before he crushed me:
“And you can stop pinching the salt and pepper sachets. You’re hardly that poor.”
I had no answer. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t further damage my credibility.
Oh, how I understand those who fight injustice. If he’d been smaller and I’d been younger, if only I’d had so much as a fraction of a chance of winning, I would have taken him on. Oh yes, I would have beaten him down. I still have that much truth left in me. What am I saying: truth? I mean sense of justice. No, not that either. There are too many fine words in the world. Aggression – that’s the word – it’s a good one.
I don’t know if I actually thought all this while I was standing there, but I felt it. So I raised my fist and walked out, and that was all I did. It was all I could do. I raised my fist high above my head, like young people in protest marches do. And I walked out of the washroom and out of the restaurant, and I was sure I was walking out of there for the last time. It’s not an exaggeration to say I felt great bitterness.
But I soon had other things on my mind than the world having shrunken so drastically and irrevocably. I had left the washroom without relieving myself; now the need for release arose afresh, rendering my musings on freedom quite insignificant. Ah yes, in this way too the spiritual is drowned by the physical.
But once I’d made it home and satisfied my primary needs, my bitterness returned. Or my sorrow, I might as well call it sorrow. Now you’ve hardly anything left to lose, Paul, I said, now you’re almost done.
But when I finally fell asleep – it took a long time – I had a dream. I don’t believe in dreams, or rather, I don’t believe in interpreting them. All the same, a dream can make you wake up feeling refreshed, happy almost. And this dream was such that I woke with a spark of optimism. I dreamt that John was dead. I was at his funeral, and his daughter was there too. She was laughing the entire time, especially when the coffin was being lowered and it turned out to be bigger than the grave, making it impossible to get it down. His daughter was laughing so much that she was bent double and I couldn’t help but laugh as well. Then she came over to me and said let’s go, let’s not waste any more time, I’ve loved you as long as I can remember, let’s go back to your place. And we left, and she laughed the whole way, and touched me – it was shameless but nice. Then she pointed at the setting sun, and it suddenly jumped up in the sky, and then it rose and rose. And she was touching me the whole time, so much so that I actually woke up, and then it was morning. And at breakfast, as I was eating my egg, I said to myself: you shouldn’t give up, Paul, you should go there again, you’re not barred for life, and anyway that bouncer isn’t there so often, he may only be covering for someone else, you shouldn’t let anyone take something from you, not before they actually have. Go there again.
I don’t know. It was a good dream, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the restaurant. Sometimes I think about going there again and acting as if nothing happened. But that won’t be easy. So I don’t know. After all, it was only a dream.
Thomas F’s Final Notes to the Public
Carl Lange
He was standing by the window when a police car pulled in on the far side of the street three storeys below. Two men got out. The man by the window thought he knew where they were going, the police had often called there before.
He remained at the window to see if they took the man with them. Then the doorbell rang. It was them.
“Carl Lange?” the smaller of the two said, they were both quite large.
“Yes?”
“May we come in?”
“By all means.”
He did not ask them to sit down. Nor did he take a seat himself. Their size made him feel slightly uneasy.
“Would you mind if we asked you a few questions?”
“What is it regarding?”
“Were you shopping at the Irma supermarket approximately three hours ago?”
Carl Lange looked at his watch.
“Yes?”
“Can you tell me what you were wearing?”
“The same as I have on now. And a gray three-quarter length coat. Why?”
“I’m getting to that. You’re quite within your rights to refuse to answer any questions…for the time being.”
“For the time being?”
“That’s correct. What do you work as?”
“A translator. Am I accused of something?”
“No. How old are you?”
“Forty-eight.”
“Would you mind telling me what you did yesterday?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’d like to know why you’re asking.”
“I understand. But your answer is more important to us if you don’t know that.”
“I was at home. Working.”
“All day?”
“I went down to the corner shop to buy some things.”
“What time was that?”
“Around ten.”
“And you were at home the rest of the day? How long did you work?”
“The whole time. Until I went to bed.”
“Indeed.”
“What’s all this about?”
“I’m getting to that. What would you say if I told you that you were seen in the vicinity of Tøyen swimming baths last night at around ten-thirty PM?”
“That it’s not true.”
Carl Lange looked from one of the large men to the other. Their gazes were steady, scrutinizing. The larger of the two, the one who had yet to speak, was standing with his hands behind his back. Their silence seemed threatening. Carl Lange got the feeling his own behavior was reinforcing their suspicions, so he said:
“And even if it was? If I really had been there, then so what?”
They looked at him but neither replied.
“I’d be perfectly within my rights to hang around Tøyen swimming pools at ten-thirty at night, wouldn’t I?”
“Of course. Were you there?”
“No!”
“Then surely there’s no reason to get so worked up. If you weren’t there – well, then you weren’t there. Is there anybody that can corroborate your being at home?”
“You said before I wasn’t accused of anything.”
“That’s correct. You haven’t answered the question.”
“I don’t intend to answer any more questions.”
“That would be foolish.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“A young girl was raped in the vicinity of Tøyen swimming pools at around ten-thirty last night.”
Carl Lange said nothing. He wanted to say a lot of things all at once but remained standing silently while panic and anger entangled within him.
The smaller of the two large men said:
“The girl has given a good description, consisting of several distinguishing characteristics.”
Carl Lange did not break his silence.
“The man was approximately forty-five years of age, had a short goatee and thick gray hair that fell down over his ears. He was wearing a light-colored pair of corduroy trousers, a brown turtleneck and a gray three-quarter length coat of a type she hadn’t seen before.”
Carl Lange stood in silence. He felt he looked guilty.
“Where do you keep your coat?”
Carl Lange nodded in the direction of the hallway. The larger of the men took his hands from behind his back and went to find it. Upon returning, he opened his mouth for the first time and said:
“This it?”
“Yes.”
“We’d like to take it with us,” the other one said. “Together with the trousers you have on. Is that alright?”
“No.”
“That only makes things difficult. Then we’ll have to take you along with us.”
“You said I wasn’t accused of anything.”
“You’re merely a suspect, at present. If you have nothing to hide then you should concern yourself with diminishing that suspicion. We’re here to clear up a crime. There’s nothing to stop us taking you in with us. We’re merely offering you a choice.”
