Try Oslo hospital, she had said, and talk to them there, I can call and let them know you’re coming, maybe they can help. Many thanks, I said, in the old manner. We stood up. Vigdis, I said, let’s move on then. I took the hand of the woman in white, squeezed it, a little too hard, probably, and let go and started walking towards the exit. Good luck, she said. I turned around. I hope you’ll manage, she said. I could have kissed her. Not because she had no ring on her finger, but for the way she smiled at me.
We came down to Alexander Kiellands plass, but no taxi would stop there either, regardless of the roof light, whether it was on or off, whether the seats in the back were empty or not, and I took it personally, why didn’t a single taxi stop, what was it about me they objected to so much, did I look desperate, too desperate, yes, I was desperate, and only a taxi would do, everything else was too slow, I wanted it over with so I didn’t have to think about what lay ahead of me at the end of this day, if there was anything there other than disintegration. I felt so tired. But finally I said, all right, then, we’ll take the bus. We were standing not far from the bus stop by Tranen restaurant, I’d been there before, back when things were as they had been, those giddy, muddled evenings. They lay behind me now. Vigdis stood gazing towards Waldemar Thranes gate and the bridge over Akerselva river and the Solomon shoe factory, which didn’t exist any more, but the building did. I remembered Christmas parties there, in the black-and-white photographs I wore a striking sailor suit with a whistle on a shiny white cord, but not like the one Alexander wore in Ingmar Bergman’s film. The suit in the film was just plain sailor, light blue, short trousers, all hands on deck, whereas mine was bordering on elegant, black, long pressed trousers, more like first mate, more captain-like. No one uses a sailor suit today, I thought, it’s a shame, it looks much better than our national costume, at least for boys it does, and should be mandatory for all boys at all Christmas parties, summer parties, why not birthday parties, jubilees, to suspend class distinctions even for a short while. Which was sheer nonsense, it would never happen, and why should it. Besides, sailor suits were expensive. We had bought ours second-hand, and mine had been passed down to me from my brother. And who wanted to go up there anyway, to the big house in Bergman’s film, when there was a Christmas party at Salomon’s shoe factory.
The red bus arrived, and not long after we were down by the almost brand new shopping centre called Oslo City, where we had to wait for the tram to come and carry us clanking slowly on towards the Old Town and Oslo hospital.
We got off at the junction between Oslo gate and Schweigaards gate, I thought it was a suitable distance to the hospital, so we could walk along the pavement like normal pedestrians and not as if there was something urgent going on. The sense of urgency was rapidly becoming unbearable.
We stepped down on to the pavement and began to walk. But Vigdis moved stiffly, arthritically, I wished she would walk like other people, for someone might pass us and stop and watch us and draw their own conclusions about why we were headed that way, towards the hospital, when everyone around here knew perfectly well what kind of a hospital it was. But I didn’t know if thinking like this was for Vigdis’s sake or for myself. I suspected the latter, and in any case Vigdis wasn’t able to walk in any other way.
And then it struck me, right out of the blue. I was being tested. That’s what this day was all about, suddenly it was obvious, maybe this was the time for the final exams, would I fail, would I pass, would I meet not only Vigdis’s expectations but also Turid’s, even the women at the children’s psychiatric clinic, even their expectations I had to meet. I had been there with the girls only a few weeks ago, and it had frightened me, I was unable to say anything sensible, and the glances they sent me were withering. Turid was present too, but there was not much to be gained from that quarter, she was unusually silent and let me do the talking, but I barely understood why I was there. Who had asked us to come, and why. I was guilty, clearly, everyone in the room thought so, I could feel it, and they were probably right, for my guilt hung like a veil over the room, but precisely what I was guilty of I couldn’t make out, my head was too hot, it was burning, I couldn’t hear what I was thinking in the rush of blood, I just wanted to get out of that place.
But then it passed, right there. Something changed. It felt so delightful. Jondal, can you hear me, it just feels so delightful. And I said, Vigdis, what do you think, should we call it a day. I was relieved, but also exhausted, I said, we can do this another day, after the weekend, maybe, I don’t mind at all. I was facing the door to the hospital. I waited, I didn’t turn around. If I had to, I had to. Then I would ring the bell. Okay Daddy, Vigdis said suddenly, and I nearly jumped, it was the first thing she had said since Hanaborg station. I turned around, she was smiling faintly, and I smiled back, I said, fine, then we’ll do it that way. I stepped down from the low stoop, and together we walked across the flagstones, and by the pavement on the other side of the road someone got out of a taxi, I waved and the driver saw me and left the roof light off and the engine running, and I said, Vigdis, what the hell, we’ll take a taxi to Skjetten. I’m a writer after all, I’ve got plenty of money. But Daddy, she said, you don’t. Maybe not, I admitted, but I can afford a taxi. That’s fine Daddy, she said. Let’s do it.
We crossed the road, hand in hand, that’s what we did that day, up on the pavement towards the taxi, and the driver rolled down the window and put his elbow on the door frame, lifted his hand to greet us, he smiled and said, whither, in a funny archaic way, and I thought, I passed, just now, I could feel it, as we climbed into the taxi. Skjetten, I said. And take all the time you need. We’re in no hurry.