“I miss you,” I said. “But I’m glad you aren’t here.”
“You must promise you won’t exclude me from what’s happening to you now,” she said.
“I won’t,” I said.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too,” I said.
As always when I said this, I wondered if it was actually true. Then the feeling passed. Of course I did, of course I loved her.
“Will you call me tomorrow?”
“Of course. Bye now.”
“Bye. And give my love to Yngve.”
I hung up and went into the kitchen where Yngve was standing over the counter.
“That was Tonje,” I said. “She sends you her love.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Same to her.”
I sat down on the edge of the chair.
“Shall we call it a day?”
“Yes. I couldn’t do much more, anyway.”
“I’ve just got to run down to the newsstand. So we can … well, you know. Is there anything you need?”
“Could you get me a pouch of tobacco? And maybe some chips or something?”
I nodded and got up, went downstairs, put on my coat, which was hanging in the wardrobe, checked that my bank card was in the inside pocket, glanced at myself in the mirror, and left. I looked exhausted. And even though it was quite a few hours since I had been crying you could see it in my eyes. They weren’t red; it was more that they were swollen and watery.
I stopped for a moment on the steps. It struck me that there were a lot of things to ask Grandma. We had been too circumspect so far. When, for example, had the ambulance come? How quickly? Had there still been a life to save when they arrived? Had it been an emergency call?
Up the drive it must have come, lights flashing, siren blaring. The driver and doctor jumped out and dashed up the steps with the equipment to the door, which must have been locked. This door was always locked. Had she had the presence of mind to come down and unlock it before they arrived? Or did they stand here ringing the bell? What did she say to them when they came in? He’s over there? And did she lead them to the living room? Was he sitting in the chair? Was he lying on the floor? Did they try to revive him? Heart massage, oxygen, mouth-to-mouth? Or did they immediately confirm that he was dead, beyond help, and lay him on the stretcher and take him away, after exchanging a few words with her? How much had she understood? What did she say? And when did this happen: in the morning, in the middle of the day, or in the evening?
Surely we couldn’t leave Kristiansand without knowing the circumstances of his death, could we?
I set off with a sigh. Above me the entire sky had opened. What a few hours earlier had been plain, dense cloud cover now took on landscapelike formations, a chasm with long flat stretches, steep walls, and sudden pinnacles, in some places white and substantial like snow, in others gray and as hard as rock, while the huge surfaces illuminated by the sunset did not shine or gleam or have a reddish glow, as they could, rather they seemed as if they had been dipped in some liquid. They hung over the town, muted red, dark-pink, surrounded by every conceivable nuance of gray. The setting was wild and beautiful. Actually everyone should be in the streets, I thought, cars should be stopping, doors should be opened and drivers and passengers emerging with heads raised and eyes sparkling with curiosity and a craving for beauty, for what was it that was going on above our heads?
However, a few glances at most were cast upward, perhaps followed by isolated comments about how beautiful the evening was, for sights like this were not exceptional, on the contrary, hardly a day passed without the sky being filled with fantastic cloud formations, each and every one illuminated in unique, never-to-be-repeated ways, and since what you see every day is what you never see, we lived our lives under the constantly changing sky without sparing it a glance or a thought. And why should we? If the various formations had had some meaning, if, for example, there had been concealed signs and messages for us which it was important we decode correctly, unceasing attention to what was happening would have been inescapable and understandable. But this was not the case of course, the various cloud shapes and hues meant nothing, what they looked like at any given juncture was based on chance, so if there was anything the clouds suggested it was meaninglessness in its purest form.
I entered the main road, which was deserted of people and traffic, and followed it to the intersection, where the Sunday atmosphere also prevailed. An elderly couple was walking on the opposite sidewalk, a few cars passed slowly on their way to the bridge, the traffic lights didn’t change to red for anyone. A black Golf was parked by the bus stop beside the newsstand, and the driver, a young man in shorts, clambered out, wallet in hand and darted into the shop, leaving the car idling. I met him in the doorway as he was coming out, this time holding an ice cream. Wasn’t that a bit infantile? Leaving the car running to buy an ice cream?
The sportily dressed shop assistant from the previous day had been replaced by a girl in her early twenties. She was plump with black hair, and from her facial features, about which there was something Persian, I guessed she came from Iran or Iraq. Despite the round cheeks and full figure, she was attractive. She didn’t so much as give me a glance. Her attention was held by a magazine on the counter in front of her. I slid open the fridge door and took out three half-liter bottles of Sprite, scanned the shelves for chips, found them, grabbed two bags and put them on the counter.
“And a pouch of Tiedemanns Gul with papers,” I said.
She turned and reached down for the tobacco from the shelf behind her.
“Rizla?” she inquired, still without meeting my eyes.
“Yes, please,” I answered.
She put the orange cigarette papers under the fold of the yellow tobacco pouch and put it on the counter while entering the prices on the till with her other hand.
“One hundred and fifty-seven kroner fifty,” she said in broad Kristiansand dialect.
I passed her two hundred-notes. She entered the amount and selected the change from the drawer that slid out. Even though I had my hand outstretched she placed it on the counter.
Why? Was there something about me, something she had noticed and didn’t like? Or was she just slow on the uptake? It is quite usual for shop assistants to register eye contact at some point during a transaction, isn’t it? And if you have your hand outstretched, surely it is bordering on an insult to put the money anywhere else? At least demonstratively.
I looked at her.
“Could I have a bag as well?”
“Of course,” she said, crouching down and pulling a white plastic bag from under the counter.
“Here you are.”
“Thank you,” I said, gathering the items and leaving. The desire to sleep with her, which manifested itself more as a kind of physical openness and gentleness than lust’s more usual form, which of course is rougher, more acute, a kind of contraction of the senses, lasted all the way back to the house, but it was not in complete control because grief lay all around it, with its hazy, gray sky, which I suspected could overwhelm me again at any moment.