When the Devil Holds the Candle Read online

  "Fucking hell."

  Andreas rolled his eyes. "Why are you carrying on like this? It's not like she was your sister. That's life, Zipp. 'All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.'"

  Andreas was quoting Roy Batty. But Zipp was still thinking about Anita. He thought about her laugh, her voice and her scent. He remembered the tiny green gemstone in her nose. Everything blasted to smithereens.

  "Well, you know I've been in the sack with Anita. It's weird to think about it," he said in a low voice.

  "Is there a single jam jar in the whole town that you haven't dipped your wick in?"

  "Ha, ha. Not many." He snorted up the snot running from his nose. "The Devil must have got into Robert," he muttered. "I know Robert. Something must have made him go crazy."

  "Okay, so that's what we'll say. He was possessed. But not by the Devil."

  "No?"

  "Good Lord, man. He was dead drunk! He was possessed by alcohol. His brain was pickled. Blotto, unpredictable and insane! There's your Devil."

  "I think I'm going on the wagon," said Zipp gloomily. This made Andreas burst out laughing because the idea was preposterous. Then the moment passed, the mood lifted, and Zipp erased the bloody image from his mind. For a while they drove in silence.

  "Were you with the Woman yesterday?" Out of the corner of his eye Zipp glanced at Andreas' thigh in the light-coloured slacks.

  "Yes, I was," he replied. Zipp heard the smile in his voice, and the warning not to ask anything more. Not that it was a secret. He had plainly told Zipp that they were sleeping together. Or had he? Maybe he was just pulling his leg. Andreas was so secretive, so difficult to work out.

  "I can't understand why you bother," laughed Zipp.

  "A few extra kroner," said Andreas curtly. His voice didn't sound annoyed, but there was a wariness to his tone. "You're always so thirsty."

  And then he added, with great pathos: "I'm doing it for us, Zipp."

  Zipp tried to listen for everything he wasn't saying. Andreas was modelling for an artist. She painted him in the nude. Zipp tried to imagine what pose he took, whether he was lying on a sofa or sitting on a chair, or maybe standing up in some impossible position. He hadn't dared to ask. But Zipp was curious. The thought of taking off his clothes in front of a woman and letting her look at him while he stood there, passive, made him uncomfortable. Of course they had sex afterwards. According to Andreas. But the feeling, thought Zipp, of having to stand there, motionless, while the Woman examined his body in every detail. Not that he was shy of it. He wasn't fat or too small, or anything like that. But to be observed like that, by a woman.

  "Isn't that damned painting ever going to be finished? You've been going there for months."

  Zipp inhaled more smoke. Without understanding why, he sensed that he had approached somewhere dangerous. At the same time he felt compelled to go on. It occurred to him that he had never seen Andreas get angry. He was always calm, soft-spoken and reassuringly the same. For eleven years he had been the same.

  "It takes a year to make a good painting," Andreas said firmly, as if he were instructing a child. He twisted the ends of his scarf. They matched his shirt.

  "A whole fucking year? Well, then you've got a whole lot of shit ahead of you."

  Zipp flicked the ash from his cigarette out of the window. "Just think if she gets famous and they hang the painting up so that God and everybody else can see it. In the bank, for example. Or at the Saga cinema. Shit, that would really do me in."

  Zipp put the car in neutral. Andreas patiently watched the red light.

  "No-one will recognise me," he said, his voice calm.

  "No? Is it one of those Picasso things with both ears on the same side of the head?"

  Andreas uttered a weary laugh at his friend's boundless ignorance.

  "It's going to be a good painting," was all he said.

  "How old is this chick, anyway?"

  Andreas winked. "Old enough to know more tricks than any of the schoolgirls you hang out with."

  This was the kind of remark that Zipp loved. Anything that referred to his performance in bed, of which he had the highest regard. Oh yes!

  "You whoring pig," he sneered. "Is it possible for a choirboy like you to learn any tricks?"

  That was when Andreas turned to face him, just as the light went green. He looked Zipp up and down, from his bristly hair that refused to lie flat, to his turned-up nose and the cleft in his chin, to his plump thighs and the ridiculous tight jeans he always wore. Stretch to fit. But the small head and powerful torso reminded Andreas of what Zipp really was. A stud. He started sweating. Andreas sat there, assessing him, his body, every last detail. And he rejected it! Zipp wouldn't have a chance with the Woman.

  Zipp regretted having started this conversation. This is how it always ended up. He would try, but he never got anywhere. If only he had some damn money for a beer! Surreptitiously he studied his companion. Andreas had style. He wore wide-legged trousers and baggy shirts. Nothing gaudy. Moccasins on his feet, never running shoes. In the summer he rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned his shirt. But always loose clothing, light-coloured and lightweight. His clothes seemed to flutter about him, making him look slimmer and lankier even than he was. Zipp squeezed the exact same number of kilos, 63, into tight jeans and T-shirts that fit him like a second skin. Above them he wore a leather jacket. It was short-waisted and wide in the shoulders, but somehow it didn't give him the athletic look he was after. Instead it gave him a puffed-up look. This surprised him, because he wasn't overweight. He was slightly bowlegged and he had a ponytail, but his appearance was pretty ordinary. He envied Andreas his style and elegance, but he couldn't emulate it. The effect wouldn't be the same. Not that he was unlucky with the ladies. But even in that department Andreas had overtaken him. He ignored them. Except for the Woman. And Zipp still didn't know how old she was. Thirty? Or more? Forty, or fifty even? Zipp had an aunt who was 50. The thought gave him the creeps. A 50-year-old woman. With children and stuff like that. How did women look – down there – after they'd squeezed out a brood of children? They had to look different from girls.

  "Does she have any children?" the question slipped out.

  "Quite a few," Andreas said, nodding. "Four or five."

  "Shit, there must be plenty of room inside a bitch like that, huh?"

  Andreas rolled up the window, and a sour little smile appeared on his face.

  "I've seen things you wouldn't believe."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "They're much, much deeper, Zipp."

  High above the town, with a view of the river, stood an imposing house from the early twentieth century. In need of repair here and there, but the green panelling was still holding up to all kinds of weather. This was where the artist Anna Fehn lived.

  One evening in early summer she was wandering around in the town square, observing people. She had a trained eye. Most people aren't especially attractive, she thought. Most of them are a random selection of genes from the two sets which served as the basis for their existence. Long arms and legs from the father, tiny hands and feet from the mother. Almost no-one comprises a harmonious whole. Almost no-one makes an impression. Yet she knew that it wasn't a matter of heavy or light, rough or fine, but how they carried themselves, how they moved. With a consciousness of who they were, and with pride as the dominant force, or squeezed into a nature, a form, they refused to acknowledge. But then she caught sight of Andreas. At an outdoor cafe with someone. Her first thought was that he looked bored. Life wasn't enough for him. There was something important that he had yet to find. Not original – the same was true of most people. But he wasn't sitting there with the usual gaping expression, forever turning his head to look at girls, or preoccupied with whether anyone might be looking at him. He sat there in utter peace, with his long legs stretched out under the table. Anna took in the leather shoes on the pavement, the cotton shirt against his pale skin. His hair moved very faintly;
his slender fingers were wrapped around his glass. He was practically lying in his chair, which was tilted on to its back legs. To be able to sit like that, perfectly balanced, at risk of toppling over and banging his head on the concrete, and yet he looked so relaxed. So uninterested. So impregnable. It made an impression on her. She looked at his companion. They seemed an unlikely pair. Both of them had downed the best part of a pint, but they weren't yet drunk. Otherwise they looked like most young people their age. Didn't belong to any specific group, not headbangers or punks, but just ordinary boys of around 20 years old. Yet Andreas had a lazy elegance about him and a splendid head of hair reaching to his shoulders. She tried to define the colour. If she mixed carmine, burnt sienna, and a light ochre, and then added some ivory nuances, she might come close.

  Anna moved nearer. If she divided his face up into sections, the way artists do – the forehead, cheeks, eyes, jaw – it struck her that he wasn't strikingly handsome in the classic sense. His eyes were set a little too deep, his nose was long and narrow and crooked and at the tip it bent down towards his mouth, which was a bit too small, but evenly shaped and nice-looking. His chin was narrow and jutted out. Over his left eyebrow he had a birthmark, exactly on his hairline. Yet, taken together, his features made a strong impression. Impossible to ignore. He was thin, long-limbed and well-defined, in spite of his young age. She played with the idea of how he would look naked. There was something about young boys that disappeared as they crossed the boundary to become grown men. That moment when their bodies hesitated, just before that last step towards adult gravity. He was at that point right now. His skin had a sheen to it that reminded her of cream. He was either a university student or a young man in his poorly paid first job. Undoubtedly he needed money. For a moment she turned her back to him and stared at a lit-up window, at a dress that she couldn't afford. No, be honest, it's too short for you! She laughed at herself and then turned back. She didn't want to approach him as long as his friend was there, in case it might embarrass him. So she waited patiently. Sooner or later one of them would need to find the toilet below the square. While she waited, she placed him in the pose she instinctively thought would show him at his best. That lazy, casual expression was also a pose, a form of protection that he used. His friend hadn't seen through him. He looked younger, and maybe a little less shrewd. And then, abruptly, he got up and disappeared. Anna Fehn took quick action. She walked to the table and leaned towards him.

  "I'm a painter, and I'm always looking for models. If you're interested in earning a few kroner, call me at this number. My name is Anna."

  She held out her card. He wasn't startled, just looked back at her with a certain curiosity. And then he took her card, and stuck it in the pocket of his baggy shirt, which was unbuttoned. She caught a glimpse of his boyish chest.

  "Just to be clear," she added, "I'm talking about posing in the nude."

  He nodded. He understood. That very evening he called her from a pay phone. She thought he must live at home and didn't want to involve anyone else. He was at her door the next evening. He undressed without embarrassment, but cast a quick glance at her, said he'd never done this before. Businesslike, she explained to him what to do, but she allowed herself to show a maternal warmth. She would have liked to show something else, but she was old enough to be his mother, for heaven's sake. On that first evening she made only a rough sketch, and assured herself that he could hold the pose for a reasonable length of time, without discomfort. He put his clothes on and left. After that he came back every week at the same time.

  They didn't really get to know each other. Andreas never talked about himself, and he wasn't interested in knowing anything about her. He had no plans or desires for the future. Now and then he talked about his friend Zipp. Or occasionally, about a film that he liked. Or about music. Nothing else.

  The impulse came unexpectedly. She was not prepared, she had never planned it. Dreamed about it, maybe, but who wouldn't? One evening, as she worked, he seemed to fall into a reverie. He was no longer holding the pose, and his gaze was lost in one of the big paintings on the wall. Something of the tension in his body dissolved. She wanted to point this out, but changed her mind. For a long time she was able to study him unobserved. She held her breath and stood still with the brush in her hand. She knew he wasn't thinking about her; she would have sensed it if he was. She walked over to him. He pulled himself together, moved back into his original position. But she had seen him, caught him unawares. He didn't like that. She wanted to tell him that it didn't matter. She gave him a quick smile and patted his cheek. But when she felt his skin under her hand, she couldn't stop. He had high cheekbones that were beautiful and prominent beneath his white skin. He did not turn away. He stood still and allowed her to caress him. The sharp light, which came from a lamp to the left, was meant for her work. She could see every pore of his skin, as well as the thin veins in his temples. And his eyelids, like tissue paper. His skin smelled like skin, his hair like hair. He acquiesced and let her have what she wanted. Her body had been asleep for a long time. She was overwhelmed by everything that awakened, that trickled and flowed. She wanted to surrender, to make love as if it were a matter of life and death, to shriek and scratch, but she controlled herself. She didn't want to frighten him away. Afterwards, when he left the house, she came to her senses. He lacked fire. She had thought that there would be a flood of passion, because he was so young. It must be there somewhere. But she never found it. Yet they continued. Every time she had finished her work, they would go to bed. He never took the initiative, she was always the one who did that. May this painting never be done! she thought. Without feeling any shame. They were both grown-ups. Deep inside she hoped that he bragged about it to others.

  CHAPTER 3

  I sell curtains and bed linens and fabric in a very respectable shop. I'm home each day by 5 p.m. The rest of the evening I spend indoors, pottering around. Almost no-one ever comes here, once in a while my friend, or perhaps my son. Ingemar. I listen politely to whatever he says. He never asks me to visit or anything like that, it's too difficult for us. The visits are more like an obligation, when we check up on each other. Make sure that everything is all right. It's nice to be able to say at work now and then that Ingemar was here for coffee yesterday. So reliable and proper. Socialising, spending time with other people, noticing their smell, or the certainty that they notice my smell, is more than I can bear. I go shopping at regular intervals and buy what I need. Never more than that. Sometimes I go to the library, where I borrow biographies. Or I look through the newspapers. It doesn't cost anything, you know. I go there right before closing time, when it's quiet and there's never a queue at the check-out desk. The librarian is a man. He looks sad. What a burden it must be to have to read everything.

  I don't talk to my neighbours. If they say hello over the fence, I say hello back, but keep walking. I'm not unhappy, but I'm not happy either. I don't know anyone who is. A doctor that I see once a year says that I'm as healthy as a horse. He says this in a stern, admonishing way, and I know what he's getting at, but he can't possibly understand. I don't feel like explaining. He's not being malicious or pretentious, he just sits there and looks at me. Wants to offer me something, but he doesn't really have the strength for it.

  People are so different. It's easier to love things, or tasks, or animals maybe, but they smell and they leave hair everywhere, or something even worse. I spend the evenings tidying up the house. I wash and put things away and wipe and dust. Everything is clean. Finally I splash some bleach in all the drains. It kills bacteria and removes odours. Behind the house I have a beautiful garden and a small gazebo. If I sit outside in the summer I put up a windbreak made of canvas. If anyone were to stand behind the hedge and look in, they wouldn't be able to see me. Not that I'm sitting there wearing nothing but my underwear; that would never occur to me. But I like this enclosed space. I've never bothered anybody. Never made big demands or behaved unreasonably. I don't cheat on my taxes,
I don't shoplift, I pay all my bills a day or two before they're due. On Saturday evenings I sometimes drink a little wine, but never too much. I watch television. Read the newspapers. I know what's happening out in the streets and in Algeria and Rwanda. I sleep well, I rarely dream, and I'm not afraid of dying. In fact, I often wish I would die. Die suddenly, while I'm sitting in the red chair, without being aware of it. Next to the window, with the sun on my face. The last thing I felt would be a faint warmth. How sad it will be when I'm not here any more!