10

The inclusion of this scene by the glass display case in Linnea’s film, however, bothers her producer, Robert. Has she, little Linnea, experienced it, in real life? Has she stood like that, by a glass display case containing two mummies, with an older man, and was there a magnetic sexual attraction? And now, thinking of Linnea in the shirt that looked like it belonged to a man, it bothers him even more. But what bothers Robert even more than that, to an excruciating degree, in fact, is the fact that this film is never going to happen. They haven’t raised the last millions needed, even though he’s told her they have. They haven’t. He has kept her in the dark for a month now, since they were turned down. And it bothers him terribly as he sits in his hotel room in front of his Mac, looking at the severed horse head that someone found in a dump in Fitjar, which he came upon accidentally as he clicked around nervously because he had to do something while he waited. He is fully, and impeccably, dressed: he’s wearing new Italian shoes, and he’s had breakfast and will soon meet Linnea down in the reception area to take a taxi to the Glyptotek, and now he’s sitting here reading about a severed horse head on Bergens Tidende’s website. Today is the day he must tell her that the film will never be made. It’s a bit late to tell her now, as he’s given Linnea the impression that the finances are in place, that he’s managed to raise the missing millions in addition to the money he’s already put on the table for her, from his own pocket. But he can’t bear the thought of upsetting her. And why is that? Why can’t a rich film producer bear the thought of upsetting a young, female film director, and how can a film producer bear to keep up a ridiculous farce in which he’s fooled the staff in his production company into believing that he’s working on a unique project that will also be very lucrative in the future, and that he wants exclusive rights to the work because the director is so special and fragile, how can he bear to carry on with it, as all it entails is endless false and reassuring smiles to his left and right as he makes his way to his office, where he can close the door and his eyes at the same time and feel how stiff his neck is? How can a film producer push this deception so far that he actually goes to Copenhagen with the film director he’s kept in the dark to find locations for filming a pretend film, because it’s a pretend film that’s never going to be made and will just end up hanging, dangling stupidly in the air with all its arms and legs like a paper jumping jack when you pull the string? Let’s be brief: because he’s in love. Because Robert the film producer, for the first time in his fifty-one years of life, which have been filled exclusively with work, work, work and ambition, long days in suits, a deep passion for film, and better and better views from his office over the years, is so in love that he doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore. Linnea is the most exquisite thing he’s ever seen. Or perhaps it’s simply that he’s never met anyone so exquisite before, because that’s what she is: exquisite. He didn’t know that the word “exquisite” existed before he saw her. But when he saw her, the word welled up from deep inside. E x q u i s i t e. Linnea is exquisite, with her light, delicate feyness and big, shining, yes, shining eyes, and it’s so easy to understand why precisely the word “exquisite” emerged from deep within, without warning, the first time Robert saw her. She gave him the need both to crush her against him and to lift her gently up from the ground like a feather. And when he read the scene with the mummies, he felt a heat in his belly: might the fact that she, this exquisite young woman, could write such a scene, where there is a magnetic attraction between a younger woman and an older man, indicate that she was attracted to older men? And he was, with his fifty-one years, an older man. Maybe she could be attracted to him; this was one of the underlying thoughts that made Robert especially interested in the screenplay, which was basically about an unresolved relationship between a young woman and an older man. But now, even as he dreams about things like crushing her to him, the plot has started to bother him. Is it something she’s experienced? Robert has never been any good at recognizing symbolism, or, for that matter, interpreting anything at all, really—he still feels a slight discomfort whenever he hears the name Ibsen—but somehow with Linnea’s manuscript it’s slowly dawned on him: the mummies, the symbolism of the mummies: is it some kind of vile joke? He would rather not believe that. But, well. Because he dreams of such banal—but, for those who long for them, unachievable—things, such as a crushing embrace, lifting Linnea up gently from the ground as though she were a feather, holding her close at night, whispering in her ear, through her hair … because of all of this, and because he dreams of the moment when she’ll say, with shining eyes, that she loves him, and that she’s loved him since day one, and that it doesn’t matter that her film will never be made. But, well. Because of all of this, he hasn’t said anything. But today it will happen. Only he hasn’t decided in which order it should happen. Confronting her about the film first or about his love. What would be best? Oh, best, he, Robert (fifty-one), has to hide his face in his hands, what would be least heart-explodingly nerve-wracking and awful is the question! He looks at the horse head minus its body. Light pink flesh hangs around its muzzle, which is peeled back in a loathsome grin.

*   *   *

Are you sure this is what you want, Robert? He feels nervousness gnawing an aching hole in his stomach. He takes his hands away from his face and tries to nod to his reflection in the window, but only sees the air outside. An unbelievable view, with long gray airplane bodies gliding through the atmosphere, but no face, no confirming nod, to himself.