Knut was not the right one for me. Neither was Ketil, nor any of the others. But one of them might have been, I could have been lucky, I know people sometimes are. They say so themselves, in magazine interviews, to friends, at parties. Love at first sight, they say, bull’s-eye, could not live without him, that kind of thing. Before I got to know Ketil I thought he had what it took. That I could be myself together with him. Afterwards I started to believe maybe that would not be possible with anyone at all.
Because is that not how it is, when you become close enough to a person, you forget you ever wanted to get so near, forget how you imagined loving a man, that the mere sight of his hands would turn you on and make you happy? That he was like your brother, your best friend, yes, you yourself almost.
But why?
How close is too close?
Every time I attempt to answer I am wrong. But what then is right? Provided something is wrong, does that necessarily mean that something else exists which is right? I am not so sure.
The thoughts are banal. But the mystery is deep.
Beate was sitting on the sofa. Her white blouse was buttoned wrong, her hair gathered in a loose bun, moist strands of hair sticking out on the nape of her neck, she was not wearing any make-up, had come from the swimming pool, was beside herself over something to do with Erik. She cried and said she did not know the reason, did not know why nothing was right with her. Things were not like before, just a few weeks ago she could succeed in everything, could have whomever she wanted, felt strong. Is Erik bad for me, she asked, is he like poison, is he? Are you meant to feel this way?
You’re just in love, I said. When you are not on your own any more. Then you have moments like this.
I heard what I said, but did I believe it? Even though I recognised it. Because was that really how it was supposed to be? Every time I met a man I felt I lost myself. And I was not even really in love. It was just my imagination. When I returned to my senses, I saw that the man concerned lacked judgement, backbone or something else. It just could not work out.
But Beate was different. She did not make wrong choices. That would not be possible, I told myself, Beate is healthy.
You just need a rest, I said. A hot bath, something to eat, some sleep. A night spent watching TV or chatting to a friend.
Female advice. Some mothering. Was that all that was needed?
I was not even her mother. Perhaps that was the point. Love had to have certain boundaries, everything could not merge together, she could not go to Anita with this.
Beate wanted to be loved the way she was loved as a child.
Me too.
The impossibility of it grew stronger for every day I lived.
Imagine being ninety years old. And all you want is warmth, affection. Talk about the wrong way around, because who is going to give you that then?
One summer morning right after my divorce from Knut, Anita and Beate came to visit. We borrowed the house while Dad was on holiday. Beate was about three years old.
Anita and I sat in the dining room drinking tea while we looked at the children playing in the garden. It was chilly inside the house, the dark house with the big stone cellar. We both had cold feet and goose bumps on our arms, we laughed, because it was the warmest day of the summer so far. Anita was wearing a red singlet and her skin was already tanned. Fair hair and radiant eyes, she was beautiful, of course. Now and again we listened out to what the children were up to outside. Tuva was a few years older than Beate and Georg, she wanted to play mummy, especially to Beate, place her on the swing and lift her down, take her in and out of the sandpit, until it all got too much for Beate and she cried for her mother. Anita went out and lifted her up, brought her in and sat with her on her lap, sang to her and kept her amused. I have never seen Anita so happy.
Isn’t summer the best? she said. Shall we go for a swim?
Beate came with me to pack the swimming gear. I had a big basket I used to take along to the beach, when Beate saw it she wanted to crawl inside, and I let her. Once inside, only her head was visible and she looked at me and laughed. I carried her down the stairs in the basket. There is nothing special about this memory. Apart from it being a happy one.
A happy memory: the joy of being with the children, all the flowers in the garden. The air shimmering hot above the tarmac, the hot bus ride. Cooling off in the water afterwards and the afternoon turning to evening. The lights of the boats out at sea, the feeling of the water becoming soft, smooth as the blankets we were sitting on, but moist, moving like an animal.
Beate slept on the blanket while the others took one last dip. I lay beside her and nodded off too.
On the way home on the bus, Tuva was bad-tempered and difficult, would not help carry the things, would not sit next to us, hit my hand away. I spoke sharply to her and she began to cry: did I love her? Did I love her more than Georg? Just as much, I replied, I love both of you more than anything in the world. But that was not the problem. What she was really wondering about was Beate: did I love Beate more than all the people in the world? I knew that was what she feared. She was wrong, of course. Not all love is alike. But the love I have for my own children is unlike anything else.
What Anita thought, I do not know. She sat with Beate asleep on her lap looking at us without smiling, then turned her face to the window.
When I think of this memory, the core of it is to be found outside the frame, as it were. It was the moment I opened the door. Right after Anita and Beate had rung the bell. I opened the door and there they stood, Anita at the foot of the steps, Beate one step from the top. Some rays of sunshine were stealing through the fir trees, shining on her chubby knees, her hair and eyes, while the rest of her body lay in shadow. What was it I saw in Beate’s eyes? My own love. It flowed so freely in her. The child is the scene of the crime, that is what it meant.
Happiness is not boring. But it is manifest for the most part when it is lost. As hope, an ideal, a flag in the distance. Knut ceased to interest me. Or did he begin to annoy me, was it more that? How peevish he was. He always had to have the last word. That kind of thing. There was suddenly no forbearance any longer. His body did not appeal to me. On the rare occasions we made love, I closed my eyes and pictured someone else. I always chose a specific man, yet never someone I actually knew. But most nights I slept alone, huddled up imagining I was nestled against a safe body, my best friend. I considered these fantasies a terrible secret, almost infidelity. I knew Knut would regard them as such, I could not say anything to him about them. But after the divorce everything dissolved, the secrets became nothing, my fantasies seemed insignificant.
Perhaps it is true what people say, that feelings are fleeting, changeable, but I do not believe that, no, I do not, because ABSOLUTE love does exist, it is UNYIELDING, that means we must yield to it, it is the LAW.
Yes, I sound like a commandment hewn in stone, and it is probably no coincidence, that culture speaks in me, even when it is natural law I am trying to put into words. It is true I cannot see it from outside, but I know that if it disintegrates I can also fall to pieces, I have a mental image of it, how ‘tree’ is torn from ‘river’ is torn from ‘sky’ and is levelled off and blown up, and it is the meaning that disappears, a death of sorts, like Alzheimer’s, or an actual death, to die from grief. What I am trying to get to is that transitoriness has limits. My God, have you forsaken me? I understand now what it means, My God, have you forsaken me? it means: my love, why are you not here, why can I not feel what I need to feel in order to be human enough?
There are so many ways to depict reality. But I have never liked to create an illusion. Why should I act as if I do not exist, me, the narrator, why should I hide? It is completely obvious that I am not to be found anywhere but here. I am the illusion. I turn on the wrought-iron lamp above my head and shed tears into the ceramic mug of red wine.
After my failed attempt in the winter to give up being a writer, I decided to move out of the house. The prospect paralysed me. I bought fifty flat-packed moving boxes at Clas Ohlson, but could not face assembling them. It had snowed and the light from outside flooded harshly through the windows high up on the wall. I was standing in my Pantheon, even though there was no aperture in the ceiling, no cupola, only flat ceiling, with a circular stucco, devoid of decoration. My mobile lay on the windowsill and played its ‘Hey Jude’ ringtone. Tuva had chosen it for me. You do date from the sixties, don’t you? she said and laughed, I’ve heard that it’s good for old people to see and hear things that remind them of when they were young, she said, laughing even more, you need to have an age-appropriate sound, Mum.
It was Anita who rang. Just called, as though nothing had happened, after such a long time. She was wondering if she could borrow the Persian rug I had on the first floor, she said.
Borrow, I asked, can you borrow a rug someone else is using?
Yes, because Anita was planning to buy one herself, in the same colours, if she could find it. But they were so expensive, she had to be sure she liked it, that a Persian rug would fit into her home office and, not least, she had to convince Ståle.
You’ll probably just end up hanging on to it, I said, that is what will happen. I won’t be able to bring myself to ask for it back.
No, Anita said, of course you’ll get it back, it’s only a month we’re talking about.
They came round the following day, stood in the kitchen all busy and energetic, not bothering to take off their coats. Anita did not even have the time to remove her shoes, and I understood why: she had new boots, red Ilse Jacobsen wellington boots, her black trousers were skin-tight, her jacket only waist-length and everyone could see she had a flat stomach. Anita was, quite simply, sexy, as attractive as her young daughter, yes, I assumed men who saw them together would think that, and it was how Anita wanted me to see her. She wanted to outdo me, but Jesus, I was an empty vessel and did not try to hide it, I hardly made any noise never mind the most noise, I could not conceive what she thought I had. And Anita was not the only one. What was it they thought I had within me, all those who circled around: the man in the baseball cap, Beate, Anita, what was it they wanted so badly, I had nothing, only darkness, and what did they want with that?
We have to be going, Anita said, we have a lot of things to do. We’re heading to Smart Club cash-and-carry to buy in food for the weekend, and Beate really wants to go to Ikea, which is fine, I can pick up some new plants and flowerpots at the same time. They’re pretty much okay, plants from Ikea, don’t you think?
She wanted me to come along, eat in the café, like we used to, when the children were small and we went there to eat Swedish meatballs. That was so nice, wasn’t it, Bea Britt? she said. As though nothing at all. But it was not nothing. It was jealousy, I was sure. Talk about back to front. Anita wanted for nothing, on the contrary, she had everything I myself dreamt of, and still she was jealous.
Give me a hand, Ståle, Anita said. They lifted the table off the rug, and Ståle rolled it up. The parquet floor was visible. The varnish was worn in several places, the wood greying.
Thanks, Bea Britt, this is really kind of you. Anita hugged me. Do you want to come along …?
She stood there in her black, expensive clothes and for a moment she looked like she did when the children were small and we were still best friends.
Of course I went along. Even though something was amiss, I did not know what, but I wanted to go, like in the old days, to eat meatballs at Ikea together with Anita, Beate and Ståle. I was going to pull myself together, find my way back to my old self, become who I once was.
So there I sat, in the back seat, with the Persian rug I had inherited from Granny. There was not enough room in the boot, so Ståle had to place the rolled-up carpet sideways in the car over the seats both front and back. I looked at the back of Ståle’s neck. I would have liked to put my hand around it, it was slender, with a pronounced cleft between the sinews, strong. Why could Anita not just be content?
She was the one driving. I looked down at my hands and thought they looked chunky, clumsy like the hands of a child, but old all the same, the skin had become coarse and wrinkled in the last few years, the veins prominent. Now they lay idle in my lap, limp. I had the same feeling in my body as when I was a child. When I was tired or wet and it had been a long time since anybody had touched or spoken to me. And I could not say it, because I did not know. I just waited. Anita was a two-faced cunt.
We picked up Beate outside the SATS gym in Solli plass.
Ikea in Furuset or Slependen? Ståle turned as she got into the back seat, trying to see her over the top of the carpet.
What’s it matter? Ikea is Ikea.
It most certainly is not, Anita said. It has to be Slependen, where we used to go, don’t you remember, Beate? You and me and Bea Britt. Tuva and Georg. How the three of you used to run riot in the ball playground. There is a difference between Slependen and Furuset and it has to do with the feeling, they are two different places.
Why did Anita have to be so beautiful? Being with her was far too pleasant, I lost all power to resist, went along with everything. Beate smiled and looked out the window beside her, did not say anything to me. Was it because the carpet was lying in the way? Or did she not want to speak to me, was something wrong? Perhaps it was visible. That I had become a child. That I was old and obsolete. Passive and indistinct in the corner of the back seat, with Anita and Ståle sitting in front, as if they were my parents. Jesus, I remembered when I was the one who drove them here and there, helping them move, collecting them at the airport. It was a hassle, Tuva and Georg were small and had to come along. They wailed in the back seat, I was sweating, and neither Anita nor Ståle had a clue. They had no idea how to pack properly, how to strap things onto the roof rack, fill up with petrol or mollify difficult toddlers. I hardly knew myself, but I did it.
I moved at a slow tempo at Ikea. I stood for ages looking around for the water. The tray in my hands. The plate of meatballs on the tray. When I eventually caught sight of the tap, it took time to find somewhere to put down the tray while I got the water. There was a long queue and a lot of people, I was jostled around, the water sloshed about in the glass which sailed back and forth on the tray. I made it to the table where Beate, Anita and Ståle were already eating, put down my tray, but discovered I had forgotten cutlery. I fetched a serviette, a knife and fork and filled a glass of juice from the dispenser that I had not paid for. As if it were Ikea’s fault I was on the verge of tears.
It was Ikea’s fault. Or their profit, all depending on how you looked at it, yes, because they made good money from our emotional fluctuations as we manoeuvred our way between the sets of shelves, it was unbearable, this urge to amass, our demand to consume, that was what they exploited, the all-round pressure which forced us to the very limits of our endurance. We searched for things but could not find them, tried to choose, but could not manage, and yet we had to, we had to take something home with us. When we were close to collapsing we went to the café, and that was when it could happen, when we sat across from one another at the table and met our most fundamental needs for food, drink and rest. That was when we could feel. That emotions welled up, that they gave rise to tears, was due to the pressure within, the fact that we could finally express ourselves, suddenly came to the fore for one another, almost complete, or at least surprisingly multi-dimensional.
I was unable to take part in the conversation, had enough to do with cutting up my food and chewing. As though I had just learnt how. Beate looked at me. I thought that I was perilously close now to sinking in her estimation. Puncturing her admiration. Was she disappointed in me? Horrified at seeing things were not as she believed? But it was as she believed, really. I was the strongest of them all. I had the answers she needed, except that they had taken on the wrong colour along the way, no, not colour, they had darkened, become black.
Anita related some gossip from work and everyone laughed. I sat there with my false laughter, without my children beside me. Tuva, Georg. I let them down by appearing so pathetic. Bereft of my Persian rug, my own car, without a man, without an authorship, without an exterior. And Anita did not talk to me, only at me.
Oh, how I longed for this to be over, I wanted to get back to the house, into the living room, onto the sofa, open a bottle of wine and turn on the TV.
There was nobody there who could see me, nobody who knew.
I had to hold out.
It was best not to say anything.
No matter what I said Anita would absorb it, make it into something else, something impossible to contradict.
That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard, she would say, I just don’t get it. Words came easily to Anita and she was used to talking, she talked rings around people with unflagging energy, set things straight, categorised and stated her opinion, you could not fault how she phrased things. So good to get this out into the open, she would say, to clear up this misunderstanding, because I, and here she would place her hands on her chest, had the feeling that you were rejecting me. What did I think, that she was trying to, like, push me away or something? No, that was ridiculous, she honestly had no clue what I meant, it was artfully done. Push me away from what exactly, and why in the world would she, no, where was I getting all this?
So I could not say anything.
I could outdo her of course.
I could carry on the same as her. Laugh loudly and at length, speak in a lively way, but only to Beate and Ståle. I could avoid making eye contact with her. Pretend I did not hear what she said. Forget to get her coffee when I fetched a cup for everyone else. I could adopt all her techniques, I could call her next week and say I wanted my rug back, I could invite Beate along on a holiday, oh, there was so much I could do to make me and Anita more alike, to bring us onto the same level, two rivals, evenly matched. I realised that was the price to be paid in order to win back my friendship with Anita. But was it even a friendship any longer? Ugh, I was not interested one way or the other, I had no desire, absolutely none, I was devoid of desire.
The black dog was here. So there was not much I could do. On the contrary, I had to do as little as possible, keep my movements to a minimum so as not to aggravate the pain. I could not face more pain. The sight of the dog was my only hope. It was so beautiful. So smooth, so warm. Mine. I had to give in to it, I thought. Not move. Stay put within the house, drink wine. I thought of my plants, almost bursting their pots, the stalks resembling branches down at their roots, the dust settling upon them, how I usually spray the green leaves with water, when my hand was very small, Mum used to guide it to help me get clumps of potato on my spoon. I could peel tomatoes, bake bread, grind coffee beans and grow herbs. I could make my life resemble the pictures in art books, the paintings of French kitchens; pheasants, chickens and vegetables. The pictures gave off no smell, but I knew what chaos it must have been, the sound of voices and scuttling feet, the aroma of blood and boiling soup, the white light, the colours, shadows, something glimmering, something warm against my ear, small twitches, white and gold, as I lay on my back in the pram.
That is how it could have been, aesthetic, a compensation for everything, an adult life adapted, cut back, not great, but not bad either. Then Emilie came along with her dog.