I Can See in the Dark (Karin Fossum) Page 5

  He replied with a few snuffling noises. Keeping on the move was occupying all his efforts, but he was driven on by the thought of relief. As we walked, I tried to come to terms with what I was doing, and what my plan was, why I’d followed this sudden impulse to take him home with me. And treat him to my vodka. It must have had something to do with an intractable loneliness. I tried to recall the last time someone had sat on my sofa, but I couldn’t think of anyone, apart from a vacuum-cleaner salesman long ago, and he was only interested in demonstrating his fantastic machine. Which, by the way, I didn’t buy because it was far too expensive. Apart from him, a few Poles had come to the door with drawings, which they tried to sell, to help pay for their education here in Norway. But I never bought any of the drawings, either. To be honest, I was never very impressed with them, and I thought I could have done better myself, had I taken the trouble to sit down with a pencil and paper. There’d just never been the opportunity, but I suspected I might have a hidden talent in that department. I hauled and steered and supported Arnfinn along the paved path past Woman Weeping and the Dixie Café. We met no one on our shuffling progress, nor did we speak. We walked, ponderous and unsteady, a sorry sight in the gloaming, and it was as if both of us understood our goal: a drink and a bit of pleasant company.

  Several times he almost fell.

  Once, he lurched out into the road, and then almost slipped into the ditch, while I gripped his arm and tried to steer him in the right direction. The journey from the park to Jordahl, which usually takes half an hour, took us forty-five minutes. When at last he realised we’d arrived, he seemed unspeakably relieved, he clumped up the steps, all five of them, leaning heavily on the handrail. He stood clinging to it as I unlocked the door, then staggered into the hall, and on into my small, spartan living room. It felt odd bringing someone home with me. A stranger within my private domain, breathing my air, gazing at my things, my furniture, and experiencing my taste for meticulous order. For no one came to my house, and that was entirely my own fault. Now the habit was about to be broken, I had a guest. An alcoholic from the park by Lake Mester, but he was better than nothing.

  ‘You mentioned something about a drink,’ said Arnfinn.

  He coughed, putting a hand up to his mouth. He had taken a seat on the sofa, pressed himself into the corner, his large hands lying motionless in his lap.

  ‘Yes.’ I said. ‘You’ll get your drink. But I’m not having any. I think it’s a dreadful habit and I don’t drink.’

  He laughed a little uncertainly at this. He tried to curb his violent trembling and peered about him as if searching for the bottle I’d been tempting him with. Perhaps they’re communing, I thought, on some special frequency. Perhaps the bottle is transmitting an almost imperceptible signal from the cupboard, and it’s striking Arnfinn’s aura.

  ‘We could play “You’re getting hot”,’ I suggested, and smiled agreeably.

  All of a sudden he looked shamefaced and stared down at his hands. His nails had dark edges, and there wasn’t much doubt that those hands had done their fair share of hard work.

  ‘Not playing,’ he mumbled reluctantly.

  He sat there with his windcheater on, refusing to take it off.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I was just joking. You’re not a child. You’re unemployed, aren’t you? Are you on Social Security? I’m not trying to be rude, I’m simply interested. Are you on the dole, Arnfinn? You needn’t be afraid of divulging things to me, I’m a member of one of the caring professions. I’m used to all that. I mean, people needing help.’

  He shrugged his shoulders and turned away slightly, trying to get comfortable in the corner of the sofa. His gaze had begun to wander, as if he regretted coming and wanted to go again. Perhaps now he couldn’t quite grasp how he’d ended up in my living room. He felt his pocket again, but remembered that the hip flask was empty.

  ‘Is there something you want?’ he asked.

  I sat looking at him for a long time before I replied.

  ‘Company,’ I said simply. ‘Not many people come to this house. But I’ve always got a bottle in the cupboard,’ I added, ‘just in case. A case like yours. And it’s nice to have something to offer. Of course you’ll get a drink. I’m feeling generous. I don’t often feel that way, but you’ve caught me on a good day.’

  He managed a brave smile. His cheeks flushed with pleasure. Then I rose and went to the cupboard, fetched the bottle and glass. He heard the chink, and immediately it brought him to life; light shone at last in his sombre gaze. I held the bottle out to him and pointed to the label.

  ‘Perhaps this isn’t the sort you’re used to?’

  I set it on the table in front of him.

  He nodded eagerly and assured me that the brand was absolutely excellent, then he leant forward. His hands began creeping in the direction of the bottle, like a brace of starving animals. But he pulled himself together and straightened his back as if, from somewhere deep in his mind, where his reason lay, he realised I was playing a game, and that he would have to play along whether he wanted to or not. If he wanted his reward, the assuaging liquor. He smiled, showing yellow, somewhat worn teeth, clasped his hands in his lap and waited. So, I poured out some vodka for him, and he drank. He held the glass in both hands like a small child. The effect was like pouring oil into a machine that has ground to a halt. Immediately his head came up, and his eyes sparkled with new lustre, his hand became steady, it was a miracle.

  I let him sit in peace for a while and drink. I watched him as he raised the glass and put it to his lips.

  ‘What’s the situation?’ I asked, when I saw that he’d achieved a bit of equilibrium, and the warmth of the spirit had spread through his body. ‘Is there someone waiting for you at home? Have you got a family?’

  He made no reply to this, but drank more vodka. He was only focused on the glass. He’d already forgotten that I was sitting there, or so it seemed; only the intoxication was important now. At all costs he had to arrive at a state of oblivion, and he wasn’t the slightest bit concerned that there would be a witness to his shame.

  ‘I’ve never married,’ I explained. ‘I can’t seem to manage it. Everyone else can, but I only end up knocking about here on my own. I’ve been on my own for years, it’s extraordinary, isn’t it? I mean, how can it be that difficult?’

  He remembered I was there. He sat studying me with glistening eyes. All the while clasping his glass in both hands, like a predator guarding its prey.

  ‘You can’t go to expensive shops if you haven’t got money,’ he declared.

  After dropping this philosophical remark he applied himself to the vodka again. I sat pondering for a while and then came to the conclusion that he’d just insulted me, but I decided to keep calm. For Anna was undoubtedly worth a good deal, and I wasn’t exactly handsome, so he had a point. A swan and a pike can never pair up.

  ‘All I do is look most of the time,’ I admitted. ‘And then I dream a bit. Dreaming is free.’ I inclined my head. ‘And what about you, Arnfinn?’ I said. ‘Do you dream as well? About this or that?’

  He raised his face in surprise. He was still clutching his glass, they were as one now, he and the bottle; he was on a tryst with his best friend, alcohol. And it was clearly an everlasting love affair, or so it seemed to me.

  ‘There must be something you want,’ I said. ‘Everyone wants something. I mean, all our lives are missing one thing or another, and you’re no exception surely?’

  He shook his head emphatically.

  ‘I don’t want anything,’ he said. ‘I just drift along. I’m not bothered about anything, what will be, will be. You can want something, if you like. You’re not a slave to alcohol, so presumably you haven’t lost your head.’

  I agreed. Naturally I hadn’t lost my head. I unscrewed the cap of the bottle and filled his glass to the brim.

  ‘Have you got an excuse?’ I wanted to know. ‘An excuse for drinking, I mean?’

  The question made him look up.


  ‘Excuse? Do I need one?’

  ‘I’m only curious,’ I explained. ‘People often have a kind of explanation for why things have turned out the way they have. Why they’re violent, why they drink, why they steal. That sort of stuff.’

  Arnfinn took another drink. It gurgled in his gullet, suddenly he seemed utterly content, both with himself and his own existence; he was out visiting and he was getting a drink, things couldn’t get any better, this was life at its best.

  ‘Life’s pretty good,’ he said. ‘My cheque comes every month. I drop in to the off-licence, and then squat on a park bench. Go back home and sleep. And that’s about it.’

  ‘You’ve certainly got a routine,’ I said, ‘but it’s a bit of a lazy life. Drinking all day, then crashing out in the evening. While the rest of us work.’

  At this, his features took on a bitter cast.

  ‘What should I worry about the rest of the world for? I didn’t ask to be born.’

  All at once the mere idea of life seemed to do him an injustice, as if I’d reminded him of something unpleasant, something he wanted to forget. That life was a sentence, that he was serving it day by day as he crept towards death, and that his days were without light or warmth. I filled his glass for the third time. He was beginning to relax properly now, he leant back on the sofa, and for the first time, took in his surroundings.

  ‘This place has never known a woman’s touch,’ he pronounced.

  ‘You’re sharp, too,’ I replied. ‘No, women don’t ever come to visit me here. I’m a lone wolf. Just like you.’

  His gaze, shining now, swept over the room and took everything in. All the telling details that bore witness to who I was.

  ‘Why have you got an Advent Star in your window?’ he asked, pointing. ‘It’s almost the middle of May.’

  ‘But I’ve pulled the plug out,’ I said in my own defence. ‘I pull it out on the first of January, and plug it in again on the first of December, and hey presto, it’s Christmas. I like doing things the easy way. Just like you. Help yourself to another drink,’ I coaxed, and nodded towards the bottle. ‘The drink’s all right, isn’t it? And you might as well fill your hip flask while you’re about it, so you’ll have something to keep you going when you wake up tomorrow.’

  Arnfinn nodded, and drank deeply. I thought I was an excellent host, despite my lack of experience. I poured the vodka and let him talk about himself and his life.

  ‘Why don’t you switch the light on?’ he asked, after a long silence. ‘It’s so dark.’

  I didn’t mention my excellent night vision. I switched on a light above the sofa, and the hours went quickly by, having a visitor was a totally novel experience. A stranger, admittedly, but we would gradually get to know each other, if he should decide to return, and I was fairly certain he would. Then he told me about all the black days, about his bad back, it was bad enough for him to claim Disability Allowance, about all the countries he’d been to, all the ports, as he put it, all the women who’d come and gone, and all of them had gone because, as Arnfinn pensively assured me, taking a pull at his glass, nothing good lasts. He drank himself into great glittering halls, of light and laughter and warmth. When, after four hours, he finally left and the vodka bottle was empty, I stood at the front door watching him go. He vacillated on the drive for a moment, shining like a torch, unsure, almost, if he really did want to go, perhaps I had another bottle, and maybe his journey home was a long one. I stood at the top of the steps and was aware of something new.

  Arnfinn, I could say when I went to work. Oh yes, he’s an old friend of mine, he often pops in for a visit. I felt happy, standing there on the steps, I liked this new condition of having a friend. He was an alcoholic, it was true, but that was better than nothing.

  ‘Will you be all right getting home?’ I enquired.

  He coughed contemptuously and began walking.

  ‘You’re talking to an old skipper,’ he said.

  Then he moved off down the road and vanished.

  A lone, burning soul.

  Chapter 15

  IT’S TOO LIGHT and too hot in summer. The days never end, I can’t stand all this germinating and sprouting and growing. It’s like an unbridled force, a cornucopia without meaning: worms that peer out during wet weather, flies and wasps, ladybirds and lice, moths and daddy-long-legs in the curtains, spiders in the corners, mice in the wall, I can hear them scratching. They swarm, creep or crawl, my thoughts get badly disrupted, and I slowly go mad.

  I gradually realised that something was taking shape deep within me. An incomprehensible longing whose contours I was in the process of discerning. I wanted to be something. Become something, mean something, be on everyone’s lips like a bitter pill. It wasn’t enough to wander up and down Løkka’s corridors pinching Nelly Friis, or whispering nasty threats in Waldemar Rommen’s ear. It wasn’t enough. I was a nobody. I was totally insignificant, nothing to look at, nothing to the world at large, eminently forgettable, and this knowledge was insufferable. I wanted people to turn and watch me pass, remember me and speak of me with reverence and respect. This yearning grew big. It filled my heart and head. Cost what it might, I had to make a difference. In some way or other, I had to check nature’s headlong rush.

  Like cutting branches off a tree.

  Like pouring poison down a well.

  It was as if I’d fallen in a river, I was going with the current, as fragments of images flitted past my mind’s eye. Like pennants in a summer breeze. Images of Arnfinn, his glass raised. Images of Oscar falling through the ice, images of Ebba with her crocheting, images of Miranda with her thin ankles. Images of Sister Anna, my angel, my little sugarplum.

  If only I had a woman!

  I went about observing life and its people, I pulled Nelly’s hair and pinched her behind the ears, and all the while I listened for signals, alertness was vital. I liked strolling past the slumbering houses close to where I lived, I liked going to the park by Lake Mester, preferably in the dark when no one could see me. But I could see. Eyes gleaming in the shrubbery behind the benches, foxes, cats and hares, quivering, darting, orange-coloured creatures. I also registered that the big black man from the Reception Centre frequently occupied a bench at night. He probably got out of a window, and then sat there on the bench glowing like a house on fire. I stood motionless in the bushes and stared at all that strength which no one wanted. There was something genuinely pathetic about him. I’m not a compassionate person, but that massive man touched something deep within me. He was so very big and so very unwanted.

  It came to pass just as I’d imagined.

  One day there was an impatient ring at the door.

  The sound of the bell through the house was so rare that I jumped; but I’d been waiting, I’m no fool, some things are so obvious. I’d dangled a worm, and now the fish had bitten. The bell was a harbinger of something new and different, something resembling an occasion in my uneventful life: I was wanted for something. Arnfinn stood at the top of the steps, faltering and shaky as always. With one hand on the wall to steady himself, he looked at me with beseeching eyes. He’d had to swallow his pride, his need was too great, his dignity had been laid aside, he needed first aid.

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a drink, would you?’ he asked expectantly.

  His hopeful enquiry hung in the air between us. I didn’t answer immediately; I liked the situation and I wanted to milk it a bit. So I stood for a while in silence and regarded the pathetic figure, the broken-down man in his windcheater and stout, brown shoes. With his florid face and all his forlorn despair. There was definitely a mutual understanding between us; I felt it clearly as I stood in the open doorway. Deep in his ravaged, drink-sodden brain, Arnfinn had registered that I wanted him for some reason, that he had something I needed. Or, to be more precise, that I had a plan. Even if he didn’t understand my motive, the reward was a few glasses of vodka, and vodka was the only thing that got him from one day to the next. I opened th
e door wide and led the way into the house, and he scuttled in after me with his rolling gait, found his place on the sofa, right up in the corner and sat there, hunched and clasping his hands in his lap, like some inscrutable riddle. He didn’t remove his windcheater or his shoes, but seated himself as he was. Shabby, unkempt and thirsty. His eyes turned to the cupboard and, just like the last time, it contained a bottle: I’d bought another in case he dropped in, and he’d realised this. But I didn’t hasten across the floor to fetch it. I wanted to wait a bit, I wanted to torment him, at least for a short while. I was like a small boy with a stick, and he was wriggling like a worm.

  ‘Yes, you’re thirsty, I expect,’ I remarked mildly.

  Because I can be extremely friendly when I want to be, and I wanted to be then. I dug into my reserves of goodwill, buried deep within me, and which on rare occasions I require.

  He dropped his gaze immediately. And coughed to clear his throat.

  ‘I was in the area,’ he said. ‘It was too good an opportunity not to visit. For a chat, I mean. If that’s not too much to ask. But perhaps your cupboard’s empty anyway? I don’t want to cadge,’ he maintained. ‘Well, it was only a thought, I don’t want to be a nuisance. But you know how it is, you understand people, I knew that the first moment I set eyes on you.’

  He was silent for a long time after expressing this piece of flattery. He was sitting right on the edge of the sofa, twining his fingers. Just as scruffy and dishevelled as always, with his heavy, stooped body, and for an instant I felt contempt, that he couldn’t lift himself out of his state and make something of himself, contribute something to society. But then, deep down, I had a liking for him, with his quiet, modest demeanour. There was something honest and decent about his simple existence that I valued. And, after all, I’d already begun tapping those reserves of goodwill. For a while we sat there in silence. I could see that he was struggling with his thoughts, that he was trying to put them into words, that he actually had something he wanted to say. His eyes wandered over to the Advent Star in the window, and it brought a wan smile to his solemn face.