Then there was a crunch of gravel and a familiar figure rounded the corner.
“I had to come and say goodbye,” she said.
Eva nodded.
“We can write to each other, can’t we? I’ve never had anyone to write letters to before. Will you come back in the summer holidays?”
“Don’t know,” Eva mumbled.
She’d never find another friend, she was certain of it. They’d grown up together, they’d shared everything. No one else knew how she felt. The future was a dreary gray landscape, she wanted to cry. There was a quick, shy hug, and then she’d gone. That was almost twenty-five years ago, and since then they’d never set eyes on one another. Not until now.
“Maja?” she queried and waited expectantly. The woman turned and tried to pinpoint the call, and caught sight of Eva. Her eyes opened wide and grew large, then she rushed toward her.
“Well, of all things! I can’t believe my eyes. Eva Marie! My God, how tall you’ve grown!”
“And you’re even smaller than I remember you!”
Then they were silent for a moment, suddenly bashful, as they scrutinized one another to pick out everything, the changes, all the traces left by the intervening years, recognizing their own decay in the other’s wrinkles and lines, and after that they searched for everything they knew so well and which still was there. Maja said: “We’ll go to the café. Come along, we must talk, Eva. So, you’re still living here? You really do still live here?”
She placed an arm around Eva’s waist and shepherded her along, full of amazement, but soon the same person Eva remembered: bright, chatty, determined, and always bubbly, in other words the opposite of Eva. They had complemented one another. Oh God, how they’d needed each other!
“I never got any further,” Eva replied. “This is a bad place to live, I should never have come with that removal lorry.”
“You’re just like you were when we were girls,” Maja giggled. “Downcast. Come on, let’s grab that window table!”
They rushed over to claim it before anyone else, and plonked themselves down on the chairs. Maja got to her feet again.
“Sit here and keep our places, I’ll go and get us something. What would you like?”
“Just coffee.”
“You need a piece of cake,” Maja objected, “you’re thinner than ever.”
“I haven’t got the money.” She’d blurted it out before she’d had time to think.
“Oh? Well I have.”
She went off, and Eva watched the way she helped herself greedily at the cake counter. It was awful having to say that she couldn’t afford a piece of cake, but she wasn’t used to lying to Maja. The truth popped out all of its own accord. She could hardly believe it was true, that she really was over there pouring out their coffee. It was as if those twenty-five years had just rolled away, and as she looked at Maja from a distance she still seemed like a young girl. You get sleeker if you’re a bit chubby, Eva thought enviously, and pulled off her coat. She didn’t bother much about food. She ate only when hunger became a physical discomfort and ruined her concentration. Apart from that she lived on coffee, cigarettes, and wine.
Maja returned. She placed the tray on the table and pushed the plate across to Eva. A Danish pastry and a slice of cake covered in icing.
“I can’t eat all that,” she complained.
“Then you’ll have to make a special effort,” said Maja emphatically. “It’s only a matter of training. The more you eat, the bigger your stomach gets and the more food it needs to fill it. It only takes a couple of days. You’re not twenty anymore, you know, and it pays to put on a bit of weight when you’re pushing forty. Oh God, we’ll soon be forty!”
She stuck the fork into her cake so that the cream filling bulged out at the sides. Eva stared at her, watching how Maja took control, so that she herself could rest and relax and merely do as she was told. Just like when they were girls. At the same time she noticed her fingers with all their gold rings, and the bracelets that jingled around her wrists. She looked well-heeled.
“I’ve lived here for eighteen months,” said Maja. “It’s crazy we haven’t bumped into each other before!”
“I’m hardly ever in town. Haven’t much business here. I live at Engelstad.”
“Married?” asked Maja cautiously.
“Was. I’ve got a small girl, Emma. She’s not actually all that small. She’s at her father’s at the moment.”
“So, a single mother with a child, then.”
Maja was trying to make sense of things. Eva felt herself dwindling. When she said it like that it sounded so pathetic. And the hard times probably showed. She bought her clothes at charity shops, whereas Maja was really quite smart. Leather jacket and boots and Levi’s. Clothes like that cost a small fortune.
“Haven’t you got any children?” Eva asked, holding a hand beneath her Danish pastry as it was shedding so many crumbs.
“No. What would I want one of them for?”
“They’ll look after you when you’re old,” Eva said simply, “and be your comfort and joy when you’re nearing your end.”
“Eva Marie, isn’t that just like you. Deep into old age already. Well, you don’t say, is that why people have kids?”
Eva had to laugh. She felt like a girl again, transported to the time when they were together every single day, every single free moment, for that was how it had been. Apart from the summer holidays, when she was sent to her uncle’s in the country. Those holidays had been unbearable, she thought, unbearable without Maja.
“You’ll regret it one day. Just wait.”
“I never regret things.”
“No, you probably don’t. I regret almost everything in life.”
“You’ve got to stop doing that, Eva Marie. It’s bad for your health.”
“But I don’t regret Emma, though.”
“No, I suppose people don’t regret their kids, do they. Why aren’t you married any more?”
“He found someone else and left.”
Maja shook her head. “And if I know you, you even helped him pack, didn’t you?”
“Yes I did, actually. He’s so impractical. Anyway, it was better than sitting doing nothing and watching all that furniture disappear.”
“I’d have gone over to a girlfriend’s and cracked open a bottle.”
“I haven’t got any girlfriends.”
They ate cake in silence. Now and then they shook their heads gently, as if they still couldn’t believe that fate had really brought them together again. They had so much to talk about they didn’t know where to begin. In her mind, Eva was still sitting on those cold stone steps staring at the green lorry.
“You never answered my letters,” said Maja suddenly. She sounded indignant.
“No. My father went on at me about writing, but I refused. I was bitter and cross about having to leave. I probably wanted to pay him back.”
“I was the one who suffered.”
“Yes, I’m a bit clumsy like that. D’you still smoke?” She rummaged in her bag for cigarettes.
“Like a chimney. But not those factory sweepings of yours.”
Maja took a pouch of tobacco from her jacket pocket and began rolling. “What d’you do for a living?”
The despair showed on her cheeks. It was an innocent question, but she hated it. She was suddenly tempted to tell a white lie, but it was difficult to fool Maja. She’d never managed to before.
“I’ve often asked myself the same question. Nothing very lucrative, is one way of putting it. I paint.”
Maja raised her eyebrows.
“So you’re an artist?”
“Yes, yes I am, even though most people wouldn’t agree with me. What I mean is, I don’t sell a lot, but I regard that as a passing phase. Otherwise I’d probably have given up.”