Everything Like Before, page 19
Then, on impulse, he looked up the number for Hans Osmundsen in the telephone directory. He simply wanted to find out his professional title. There were four people named Hans Osmundsen. Two of them had other professional titles. One of the remaining two lived in Kirkeveien, while the other had an address only four blocks away.
Something suddenly occurred to him. Suppose the one living nearby was the same Osmundsen. And suppose he was familiar with Carl’s appearance from beforehand and had been the one who had seen him going in or out of the Irma supermarket, then perhaps Carl sprang immediately to mind when he heard the girl’s description.
His mind was racing, his thoughts going in one direction, then the next, and he became very worked up.
He had put down the telephone directory, but now he opened it again and looked up the name and number. He decided to call and find out if he was right. But he changed his mind, had no wish to get in touch with the policeman, and was not sure what he would say if he did. Instead he rang the number in Kirkeveien. If that address could be eliminated, which he was almost certain it could, then that would settle it. A policeman had to have a home telephone.
But his certainty did not prevent him placing a handkerchief over the mouthpiece, giving him the feeling of doing something illegal.
A woman answered on the other end. He asked if he had come to the residence of Inspector Osmundsen. He had not. He apologized and put the phone down.
He put on the gray overcoat, for the first time since getting it back, and went out. He was excited. He walked four blocks west and found the address, a newly renovated, four-storey apartment building. As he suspected: the shortest route from Osmundsen’s home to the police station ran past the Irma supermarket.
But how had Osmundsen tracked him down? Had he simply followed him to the entrance of his building, before giving his description to other tenants and finding out which flat he lived in?
Carl Lange did not halt outside Osmundsen’s apartment building, nor did he go in. He walked on for a few hundred meters, turned a corner and took another route home. He did not want to be seen. Once again he had the distinct impression of doing something illegal.
On the stairs up to his apartment he ran into Osmundsen on the way down, alone. Carl Lange was in his own thoughts and caught off guard.
“There you are,” Osmundsen said.
He did not reply.
“Can I come up?”
“What is it you want now?”
“To talk to you.”
Carl Lange did not say anything else but continued up the stairs and Osmundsen followed. He unlocked the door, went into the living room without removing his coat, and sat down. Osmundsen took a seat as well.
Carl Lange felt a sudden calm descend, as though everything he had been ruminating upon over the last few days had now sprouted, making him invulnerable. He said:
“How long have you known me? Or perhaps I should say: known about me?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t expect you to answer. Well, what was it you wanted?”
“I’m here regarding the matter of that identity parade we spoke about.”
“I’m no longer interested.”
“I think you misunderstand. We are interested.”
He made no reply. He felt quite composed. He waited but so did Osmundsen; as though they were duelling, with silence as the weapon of choice.
Carl Lange was first to give in, but he remained calm, feeling almost as if he had the upper hand:
“How many suspects have you come up with?”
“You asked me that the last time too.”
“And you didn’t answer. Perhaps you’re not particularly adept at lying?”
“No. Are you?”
“Yes, when it’s appropriate. Who was it that saw me at Irma?”
“And when is it appropriate?”
Carl Lange stood up, removed his coat and draped it over the back of a chair before sitting back down, only this time with his face and body turned slightly away.
Osmundsen said:
“You were married, weren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“But you divorced around eight years back.”
“So you know about that.”
“Yes. From what I understand you were the one who filed for divorce.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Was that not the case? You left home abruptly, saying you were depressed and needed to be by yourself for awhile. A few days later you phoned saying you wanted to end the marriage.”
Osmundsen paused. Carl Lange said nothing but his earlier calmness had been swept away.
“You have to admit,” Osmundsen continued, “it was an unusual way to end a marriage, even in this day and age. But perhaps you had your motives and didn’t want your wife to know about them?”
Carl Lange remained sitting, his face turned away from Osmundsen. Trying to adopt an indifferent tone, he said:
“And what motives might they have been?”
“Well, to keep another relationship secret, for instance.”
“Why?”
“Why indeed.”
Carl Lange couldn’t take any more. Here was a man who, by virtue of his professional position, could take the liberty of poking around in his affairs, of sticking his nose into his private and emotional life, it was humiliating. Gripped by a feeling of intense defiance, he rose to his feet, he did not know what to do, but he could not take any more, and almost without being aware of it he just walked away, out of the living room, out of the apartment, down the stairs, unhurriedly at first, then at a gallop, while thinking: now he definitely thinks I’m guilty. But that did not bother him, on the contrary, leading Osmundsen on a wild goose chase was retaliation of a sort.
On reaching the corner of the street, he looked back. No sign of Osmundsen. He kept up a brisk pace until he felt safe, then went into a small café where there were hardly any customers. He took a seat by the window and ordered a waffle and a coffee.
He tried to calm down but was unable. He pictured Osmundsen, the level-headed and at the same time underhand, crafty Osmundsen, who sat cold and detached, prodding him with all his malicious insinuations. How he loathed him, how he abhorred him!
* * *
—
Two hours later he let himself into his apartment. He was still agitated so he took a sleeping pill to calm himself. It was half past three. He paced back and forth waiting for the pill to work. Noticing no effect after half an hour, he took one more. Just then the telephone rang. He did not take it. He paced the room, but never went close enough to the window to be seen from outside. Then, remembering Osmundsen had mentioned the identity parade, he picked up the coat from over the chair, went into the bedroom to fetch a pair of scissors, then sat down on the sofa and began cutting the coat to shreds. He placed the strips in a plastic bag. He had grown calm. I could of course have hidden it someplace, he thought. He lay down on the sofa and pulled a blanket over himself. I’ll soon have lost almost a week’s wages, he thought, this can’t go on, I need to get back to work.
The doorbell rang. He froze, listened, but heard only the pumping of his own blood. There was another ring, longer, more impatient, he thought. I’m quite within my rights not to open, he thought, after all, I’m not even sure who it is. But I must get a more secure lock.
He remained lying on the sofa, waited for a few minutes, before getting up and creeping like a thief into the hallway and to the door. He put his ear against it, heard nothing but did not dare open to make sure, not yet. He returned to the living room, took out a writing block with blank pages and wrote: “Gone to cabin in Hallingdal to do some work in peace and quiet. Back in about two weeks.” Then he folded the sheet and wrote Robert on the back. He opened the odds-and-ends drawer, found a thumbtack, went back to the front door, listened, then opened it and pinned the message below the doorbell. Smart, Carl, he said to himself, feeling buoyed. But after a while it occurred to him that of course Robert knew he had no cabin in Hallingdal, and he wrote a new note: “Gone to a cabin I’ve borrowed in Hallingdal to get some work done in peace and quiet. I’ll be in touch.” And on the outside of the folded sheet he wrote Sylvia, safe in the knowledge that no Sylvia would ever come calling. Now I’m no longer here, he thought.
But then it occurred to him that he needed to stock up on food so he hurried down to the corner shop.
Once safely back home again, he drew the curtains across one of the two windows facing the street and switched on the lamp beside the sofa. The dim light would no doubt be visible from outside but it was quite common nowadays to safeguard against burglary by not leaving an empty apartment to lie in complete darkness over a prolonged period. Now I’m no longer here, he thought once more, and settled down on the sofa. Feeling tired, he lay down, pulled the blanket over him, and as sleep washed over him like long, calm swells, he thought: I must remember to pin the note in such away so as to see if Osmundsen has read it.
* * *
—
He woke disoriented. He was cold. It was night and dark, the time was ten past five, and he had slept for over twelve hours. He undressed and went to lie down in the bedroom. He fell back asleep and dreamt that he wrote a postcard to himself saying he was in France, and he put a Norwegian and a French stamp on the card. He was awoken by the dream. It was still dark. This time he did not fall back asleep. He lay thinking about the measures he had taken the previous day; they suddenly seemed quite baffling; he must have had some motive he was unable to grasp. But one thing gradually became alarmingly obvious to him: from the moment Osmundsen had informed him he was under suspicion, it had, no matter how unfounded, influenced, if not directly steered, his entire way of being. Prior to that he had viewed himself as a relatively free, relatively autonomous individual, even though he was of course aware that he was not immune from common social influences. However he now lay there feeling that someone else’s will, that of Osmundsen, was constantly pushing him into new situations where his reactions were constrained and consequently irrational.
* * *
—
Carl Lange sequestered himself for two days. The telephone rang five times. That was a good deal more often than usual. It could of course have been his mother. Or one of the children. Or someone else. Carl Lange believed it was Osmundsen.
He slept a lot, took pills and grew sleepy. When he was awake, especially just prior to falling asleep, he played out conversations with Osmundsen. Initially he himself did most of the talking; accusing Osmundsen of stripping him of his identity. But gradually Osmundsen got more lines and he could say things that made Carl Lange livid with rage. At one point he said: “You’re filth, a louse, devoid of social conscience. Crushing you will be a pleasure.”
On the third day, a Sunday, he called Osmundsen on his home number, figuring he would be off work. He was, and answered the phone himself.
“Yes?”
“It’s Carl Lange.”
A brief pause, then:
“Yes?”
“I’ve been away for a couple of days.”
“Oh?”
“I wondered if there was anything new, if you had perhaps tried to get in touch with me?”
“Get in touch with you?”
“Just answer me!”
“Take it easy, Lange. So you think I’m the one who’s been calling while you were away?”
“What do you mean?”
“Now you’re making both you and me out to be more stupid than we are. You were in Hallingdal, you said?”
“I didn’t say…”
“It’s all right, Lange. Telling lies is permissible every place but in court, and even there the accused is allowed do it. But can’t you call me tomorrow instead, I’m just on my way out.”
Carl Lange slammed down the phone without responding, he had no response. He was humiliated, had been made a fool of, ridiculed. Bastard, he cursed inwardly, that fucking bastard.
He took two pills. What am I doing, he thought afterwards. What is he doing to me?
He paced the floor furiously for a half hour until the pills began to take effect. Then sat down, calmer, but at a loss. He knew I was at home the entire time, he knows where I am the entire time. He genuinely thinks I did it, despite all our conversations.
He got to his feet and began pacing again, remembered the note outside on the door, and went to take it down. He could not see any sign that it had been touched. “You were in Hallingdal, you said?”
He took another pill, wanted to sleep, wanted to get away, even though it was still only the afternoon. He lay down and tried to work out what he was going to say to Osmundsen the next day but his thoughts were swimming in a kind of haze and he could not hold on to them. Fatigue rolled over him like long, heavy waves, and within them Osmundsen’s face, coming and going, a calm, grave face.
* * *
—
Carl Lange struggled to wake up. He knew in his sleep that it was a dream: he was standing on an enormous glacier, by a narrow fissure, the bottom of which he could not see. He was going to throw himself down it, he had strove for a long time to find precisely this rift in the ice, which would hide him forever. But he was now paralyzed by a terrible doubt: he could not remember where he had left the message that said should anything happen to him then it was his neighbor, the one who had often threatened to kill him, who was the guilty party. No one would think his neighbor was capable of doing it but, he had written, he had been. But now he did not know anymore whether the message would be found, in which case the whole thing was meaningless, the crack in front of him was meaningless, him never being found was meaningless. But the nightmare itself, what he was fighting to awaken from, was the endless rumination over what he had done with the message.
* * *
—
It was late afternoon. The dream had lingered as though it were more than a dream.
I’m not calling, he thought. He’s waiting for me to call so I’m not going to.
But shortly afterwards he thought: but maybe he figures that’s exactly the way my mind works.
Shortly after that again he put on the worn-out reefer jacket and peaked cap and set out for the police station. He had nothing prepared, not one complete sentence, not one coherent thought. All the same, he walked quickly.
He said who he was and whom he wanted to see. He had to wait. Of course, he thought, that’s his tactic, I’ll no doubt be waiting even longer today. But he was not; he was actually rather disappointed when he was shown through after only a few minutes. He dupes me the whole time, he said to himself, and for a moment considered turning around to leave.
Osmundsen was sitting at his desk. In a lofty manner, Carl Lange thought.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Osmundsen said.
“I’m sure you have. You always expect what’s going to happen, don’t you?”
“No, unfortunately.”
“Of course you do. And that’s the reason you don’t think I’m guilty either. You never have.”
“And what of it? I don’t necessarily believe a suspect to be guilty. Being under suspicion means to be within a certain scope. It can be wide or narrow.”
“And I’m within that scope because you want me to be.”
“You yourself have contributed to that to a large degree.”
“On account of certain characteristics, as you put it.”
“No. Actually the first time I paid you a visit was in order to eliminate you from our inquiries. But you seemed guilty in some way, and moreover, strikingly insensitive to the very crime. Why you’ve done your utmost since to cast suspicion on yourself, only you know.”
“I did as the situation forced me.”
“What situation? Either you were innocent or you were guilty?”
“I mean to say: as you forced me.”
“You must be extremely insecure.”
“Can’t you ever follow the thread of a conversation,” Carl Lange exploded, “must you always suddenly change the subject!”
“Oh, the thread of the conversation couldn’t be clearer, but I’d be more than happy to spell it out for you. You claim that you’ve been pressured into acting strangely, like this latest episode about pretending you had taken a trip to Hallingdal. My response to you would be that if you, even if you say you’re innocent, allow yourself to be pressured into that kind of thing, it must be down to insecurity. I could, for that matter, put it in even stronger terms. I have the impression that you are unable to decide who you are.”
“What nonsense, what a load of…I mean, really, so now in addition to everything else you want to make out that I’m insecure and don’t know who I am! No doubt I’ll be of unsound mind next!”
Carl Lange had got to his feet; he felt a surge of uncontrollable anger and before he knew it he had leaned over the desk and spat on Osmundsen. Granted, it didn’t hit him right in the face but on the chest. Upon realizing what he had done, he took two quick steps back in shock. He opened his mouth but found nothing to say that could express the burning shame he felt.
Osmundsen had been sitting quite motionless, as though frozen fast. He took out a handkerchief and first wiped the spray from his face and then the globule of spittle itself from his V-neck. He looked up at Carl Lange with an odd, almost absent-minded, expression.
“I…” Carl Lange began, but got no further.
Osmundsen didn’t say anything but dropped the handkerchief on the floor beside him.
“I lost control,” Carl Lange said. “I apologize.”
Osmundsen nodded almost imperceptibly; Carl Lange did not know what it meant.
“You are aware that what you just did is a criminal offence.”
