Calling Out For You Page 2

  Svarstad chewed on a straw. He had a furrow in his weather-beaten brow and sadness in his deep-set eyes, which gave way slowly to a radiant dream. No other salesman would have tried selling one more piece of machinery to a man who could barely afford a harvester, but Gunder had gambled and as usual he had won.

  "Consider it an investment in the future," he said. "You're still a young man. Why settle for second best? You're working yourself to death. Let the Quadrant make big bales, they stack easily and take up less room. No-one else in the area has dared to try big bales. Soon they'll every one of them come running to have a look."

  That did it. Svarstad was delighted at the prospect, a small group of neighbours poking their noses into his yard. But he needed to make a call. Gunder showed him into the empty office. Meanwhile he went away to draw up the contract, the sale was practically in the bag. It could not have worked out better. A substantial sale before the long journey. He would be able to make his journey with a clear conscience.

  Svarstad reappeared. "Green light from the bank," he said. He was lobster red, but his eyes shone beneath the bushy brows.

  "Excellent," Gunder said.

  After work he went into town and found a jewellery shop. He stared at the glass counter containing rings, only rings. He asked to be shown the national costume silver and the assistant asked him what kind.

  Gunder shrugged. "Well, anything. A brooch, I think. It's a present. But she doesn't have a Norwegian national costume."

  "You only wear filigree brooches with a national costume," pronounced the woman in a school-mistressy tone.

  "But it has to be something from Norway," Gunder said. "Something essentially Norwegian."

  "For a foreign lady?" the assistant wanted to know.

  "Yes. I was thinking she would wear it with her own national costume."

  "And what sort of costume is that?" she asked, her curiosity increasing.

  "An Indian sari," said Gunder proudly.

  Silence behind the counter. The assistant was evidently torn as to what she should do. She was not unaffected by Gunder's charming stubbornness and she could hardly refuse to sell him what he wanted to buy. On the other hand the Norwegian Craft Council did have rules as to what was permissible. However, if a woman wanted to wander about in India wearing a filigree brooch on a bright orange sari, then the Craft Council would be none the wiser. So she got out the tray with the national costume silver and selected a medium-sized filigree brooch, wondering if the strangely self-possessed customer was aware of how much it was going to cost.

  "How much is that one?" Gunder said.

  "Fourteen hundred kroner. To give you an idea, I can show you this one from Hardanger. We have bigger brooches than this one and smaller ones, too. However, there is often quite a lot of gold in those saris, so I suppose it ought to be plain – if it's to have the desired effect."

  Here her voice took on an ironic twist, but she suppressed it when she saw Gunder. He took the spiralling brooch from the velvet and held it in his rough hands. Held it up to the light. His face took on a dreamy expression. She softened. There was something about this man, this heavy, slow, shy man, that she warmed to in spite of everything. He was courting.

  Gunder did not want to look at any other brooches. He would only begin to have doubts. So he bought the first one, which was anyway the best, and had it wrapped. He planned to unwrap it when he got home and admire it again. In the car on his way back he drummed on the wheel as he imagined her brown fingers opening the package. The paper was black with tiny specks of gold. The ribbon around the box was blood red. It lay on the seat next to him. Perhaps he needed to get some pills for the trip. For his stomach. All that foreign food, he thought. Rice and curry. Spicy and hot as hell. And Indian currency. Was his passport valid? He was going to be busy. He had better call Marie.

  The village where Gunder lived was called Elvestad. It had 2,347 inhabitants. A wooden church from the Middle Ages, restored in 1970. A petrol station, a school, a post office and a roadside café. The café was an ugly cross between a hut and a raised storehouse; it stood on pillars and steep steps led up to the entrance. On entering you immediately faced a jukebox, a Wurlitzer which was still in use. On the roof was a red and white sign with the words EINAR'S CAFÉ. At night Einar switched on the light in the sign.

  Einar Sunde had run the café for seventeen years. He had a wife and children and was in debt up to his eyeballs because of his grandiose chalet-style villa just outside the village. A licence to sell beer had meant that he was at last able to meet his mortgage payments. For this simple reason there were always people in the café. He knew the villagers and ran the place with an iron hand. He pretty soon found out which year most of the young people were born in and would put his hand over the beer tap if they tried it on when they were still underage. There was also a village hall, where weddings and confirmations were celebrated. Most of the villagers were farmers. Added to that were quite a few newcomers, people who had fled the city having entertained a romantic notion of a quieter life in the country. This they had got. The sea was only half an hour away, but the salty air did not reach the village; it smelled of onions and leeks, or the rank smell of manure in the spring and the sweet smell of apples in the autumn. Einar was from the capital, but he had no longing to go back. He was the sole proprietor of the café. As long as he had the café there wasn't a living soul who would dare try setting up within miles. He would run this café until they carried him out in a box. Because he managed to prevent excessive drinking and fights, everyone felt comfortable going in there. Women for coffee and pastries, kids for frankfurters and Coke, young people for a beer. He aired the place properly, emptied the ashtrays and replaced the nightlights whenever they burned down, kept it impeccably clean. His wife washed the red and white chequered tablecloths in the machine at home. True, the place lacked style, but he had drawn the line at actual kitsch. There were no plastic flowers. He had recently invested in a bigger dishwasher to save him having to wash the glasses by hand. The health inspector was welcome to visit his kitchen, it was fit for use as far as the equipment and cleanliness went.

  It was here, in Einar's Café, that people kept abreast of what was going on in the village. Who was seeing whom, who was in the process of getting a divorce and which farmer might any second now have to sell up. A single minicab was at the villagers' disposal. Kalle Moe drove a white Mercedes and could be contacted by landline or mobile, always sober and always available. If he wasn't, he would get you a minicab from town. As long as Kalle Moe operated his minicab service in the village, there was no room for any other licence. He was past sixty and there were many waiting in the wings.

  Einar Sunde was at his café six days a week till ten o'clock in the evening on weekdays. On Saturdays he stayed open until midnight, on Sundays the café was closed. He was a hard worker, moved quickly, a beanpole of a man with reddish hair and long thin arms. A tea towel was tucked into his waistband; it was replaced the moment it was stained. His wife, Lillian, who hardly ever saw him except at night, lived her own life and they had nothing in common any more. They couldn't even be bothered to argue. Einar didn't have time to dream of something better, he was too busy working. The chalet-style villa was worth 1.6 million kroner and had a sauna and a gym, which he never had the time to use.

  All or part of the village's hard core hung out at the café. It consisted mostly of young men aged between eighteen and thirty, with or without girlfriends. Because Einar had a licence to sell beer, they never went into town to meet girls from further away. You could walk home from the café, the village was no bigger than that. They would rather have a few more beers than pay for an expensive minicab from town. So they married local girls and stayed here. However, before it got to that, the girls were passed around. It created a peculiar solidarity, with many unwritten rules.

  Following a great deal of debate in the local council, Elvestad had acquired a shopping centre, as a result of which the local shop, Gunwald'
s one-stop shop, was languishing next to the Shell petrol station. Within the shopping centre some brave soul had set up shop with two sun beds, another had opened a florist's and a third a small perfumery. On the floors above were surgeries for the doctor and the dentist, and Anne's hair dressing salon. None of the young people from the village went there. Their hair had to be cut in town. Studs and rings in belly buttons and noses were also taken care of in town. Anne knew their parents and had been known to refuse. The older people, however, loyally shopped at Gunwald's. They came with their granny trolleys and ancient grey rucksacks and bought hashed lung and blood pudding and soft, sharp cheese. It was a good business for Ole Gunwald. He had paid off his mortgage ages ago.

  Gunder never went to the café, but Einar knew very well who he was. On rare occasions he would stop and buy a Krone strawberry ice cream, which if the weather was good he ate outside sitting by a plastic table. Einar knew Gunder's house, knew that it was about four kilometres from the centre of the village toward Randskog. Besides, all the farmers in the village bought their machinery from Gunder. He was just coming through the door now, his hand already in his inside pocket.

  "Just wanted to know," he said self-consciously, and rather hurriedly considering this was Gunder, "how long would it take to get from here to the airport by car?"

  "Gardermoen airport?" said Einar. "I'd say an hour and a half. If you're going abroad you need to be there one hour before departure. And if I were you I'd throw in another half-hour to be on the safe side."

  He kept on rubbing a triangular ashtray.

  "Morning flight?" he asked, curious.

  Gunder picked out an ice cream from the freezer.

  "10.15."

  "You'll have to get up early then."

  Einar turned his back and carried on working. He was neither friendly nor smiling, he looked like a much-misunderstood man and did not meet Gunder's gaze. "If I were you I'd leave by 7.00."

  Gunder nodded and paid. Asking Einar was preferable to revealing his ignorance to the woman from SAS. Einar knew who Gunder was and would not want to embarrass him. On the other hand, everyone in the village would know about his journey this very same evening.

  "You going far?" Einar asked, casually, wiping another ashtray.

  "Very, very far," said Gunder lightly. He tore the wrapper off the ice cream and left. Ate it as he drove the last few kilometres home. That would have given Einar something to think about. That was quite all right with Gunder.

  Marie was really excited. She wanted to jump into her car right away and come over. Her husband, Karsten, was away on business, and she was bored and wanted to hear everything. Gunder was reluctant because Marie was sharp and he did not like the thought of being found out. But she was unstoppable. An hour later she was on his doorstep. Gunder was busy tidying up. If he were to bring someone back with him the house had to be spotless.

  Marie made coffee for them and heated waffles in the oven. She had bought crème fraîche and jam in a Tupperware box. Gunder was touched. They were close, but they never let on. He did not know if she was happy with Karsten, she never mentioned him: it was as though he did not exist. They had never had children. All the same, she was attractive. Dark and neat, as their mother had been. Small and round, but gentle and bright. Gunder believed she could have had anyone at all, but she had settled for Karsten. She found the book People of All Nations on the table and put it on her lap. It opened automatically on the picture of the Indian beauty. She looked up at her brother and laughed.

  "Well . . . now I know why you want to go to India, Gunder. But this is an old book. I imagine she'll be around fifty now, probably wrinkled and ugly. Did you know that Indian women look fifteen till they're thirty? Then suddenly they grow old. It's the sun. Perhaps you ought to find yourself one who has been through the process already. Then you know what you're letting yourself in for."

  She laughed so merrily that Gunder had to join in. He was not scared of wrinkles, even if Marie was. She had not a single one although she was forty-eight. He put crème fraîche on a waffle.

  "I am mostly interested in the food and the culture," he said. "Culture. Music. That sort of thing."

  "Yes, I believe it," Marie laughed. "When I next come to dinner I shall expect a casserole to make my eyes water. And there will be dragons all over the walls."

  "I can't promise you that there won't be," he smiled. Then they were silent for a long time eating their waffles and drinking their coffee.

  "Don't go round when you get there with your wallet sticking out of your back pocket," she said after a long pause. "Buy one of those little money belts. No, don't buy one, you can borrow one from me. It's quite plain, not in the least feminine."

  "I can't walk around with a bag," Gunder said.

  "Yes, you'll have to. A big city like that is teeming with pickpockets. Imagine a peasant like you alone in a city with twelve million people."

  "I am not a peasant," said Gunder, hurt.

  "Of course you're a peasant," Marie said. "You're a peasant if ever anyone was. And what's more, it shows. When you're out walking you can't just stroll around."

  "Not stroll around?" He was baffled.

  "You have to stride, as though you were going to an important meeting, and look preoccupied. You're a businessman on an important trip and, most importantly, you know Bombay like the back of your hand."

  "Mumbai," he corrected her. "Mumbai like the back of my hand."

  "You look people straight in the eye when they come towards you on the pavement. You walk straight, taking determined steps, and button your jacket so the money belt doesn't show."

  "Can't wear a jacket there," he said. "It's 40°C at this time of year."

  "You have to," Marie said. "You have to keep out of the sun." She licked a blob of crème fraîche from the corner of her mouth. "Otherwise you'll have to get yourself a tunic."

  "A tunic?" Gunder chuckled.

  "Where are you staying?" his sister went on.

  "At a hotel, of course."

  "Yes, but what type?"

  "A nice one."

  "But what's it called?"

  "No idea," Gunder said. "I'll work it out when I get there."

  Her eyes widened. "You haven't booked your hotel?"

  "I know what to say," he said, a little offended now. He looked quickly at her, at her white forehead and the narrow brows, which she darkened with a brush.

  "Tell me," she said, lapping up her coffee. "Tell me exactly what you're going to say. You come out of this vast, complex, sweltering, chaotic airport teeming with people and you look around for a taxi stand. Then some stranger comes up to you, grabs your shirt and babbles something incomprehensible while taking hold of your suitcase and heads off in the direction of a dodgy vehicle. And you are so worn out and sweaty and confused that you can hardly remember your own name, plus your watch is several hours behind the time. You are desperate for a cool shower. Tell me what you're going to say, Gunder. To this small, dark stranger."

  He put his waffle down, speechless. Was she joking? Then he pulled himself together and, looking straight at his sister, said: "Would you please take me to a decent hotel?"

  Marie nodded. "Very well! But before that. What do you do before that?"

  "I've no idea," Gunder said.

  "You find out how much it costs! Don't get into a taxi without negotiating the price beforehand. Ask inside the airport. Perhaps Lufthansa has an information desk there, they'll be on your side."

  He shook his head and reasoned that in all likelihood she was just jealous. She had never been to India. Only Lanzarote and Crete, places like that. That was where all Norwegians and Swedes went and the waiters called out "Hey, Swedish girl" after her and she didn't like it. No, India was something else.

  "What about a malaria vaccine?" she said. "Do you need one of those?"

  "Don't know," he said.

  "You have to call the doctor. You're not coming back here with malaria or TB or hepatitis or anything
like that, I can tell you. And don't drink the tap water. Don't drink juice or eat fruit. Make sure the meat is thoroughly cooked. Stay away from ice cream, too, you who are so fond of ice cream, and that's fine, but just don't eat the ice cream in India."

  "Am I allowed alcohol?" he said snappily.

  "I suppose you are. But for God's sake don't get too drunk. Then you'd be in real trouble."

  "I never get drunk," Gunder said. "I haven't been drunk for fifteen years."

  "I know. And you will call home, won't you? I need to know that you've arrived safely. I can collect your post. And water your flowers. I suppose the lawn will need mowing once or twice during those two weeks. You can drive the safe over to our place, can't you? Then it won't be here to tempt people. Are you parking at the airport? I expect it costs an arm and a leg."

  "Not sure," he said.

  "You're not sure? You have to book long-term parking in advance," she told him. "You'll have to phone tomorrow. You can't drive to Gardermoen and park just anywhere."

  "No, I don't suppose I can," he said. It was a good thing that she had come over. He was quite dizzy under all this withering criticism and went resolutely to fetch a bottle of cognac. Yes, by God, he deserved a drink.

  Marie was wiping her mouth and smiling. "This is so exciting, Gunder. Imagine everything you will have to tell us when you come back. Have you got film for your camera? Have you got cancellation insurance? Have you made a list of everything you need to remember?"

  "No," he said, sipping his cognac. "Would you do it for me, please, Marie?"

  Then she relented and hurried off in search of pen and paper. While Gunder savoured the cognac in his mouth, Marie wrote a "To Do" list. He watched her secretly. She sucked on the pen, tapped it lightly against her teeth to focus her thoughts. Her shoulders were so round and neat. He was lucky to have Marie. There was nothing unresolved between them.