Yours Until Death (6 page)

‘He could still be a private investigator,’ I said.

He looked icily at me. ‘I know your type, Veum. Seen too many of them. You’re so afraid of life you build a wall of
wisecracks
around you. You’ve got a smart answer for all the human tragedies and you’d sell your mother for a good joke.’

‘My mother’s dead and I don’t know any good jokes.’

‘Right. Ha ha ha. You’re the living example of what I’m talking about. I think you’d better go, Veum. I don’t think I really like you.’

I stayed put. ‘Where can I find Johan’s mother?’

He jumped off the desk. Came over to me. Stood with his legs wide apart. ‘I really don’t think you should get involved
in that, Veum. I think you can ruin more than you realise. You’re the right type. I try to do a decent job here, give the kids something. Help them. You could call me a sort of gardener and I’d just as soon you didn’t start stomping around in my flower beds …’

‘Not even to weed them?’

‘Piss off, Veum. If there’s one thing I do not like, it’s talking about myself. I won’t say I’m an idealist or anything like that, but I do try to do something with my life. I was once an
electrical
engineer, as a matter of fact. Had a well-paid job in industry. The private sector. High salary. I could have had a house, a wife, the whole ball of wax – if I hadn’t looked around one day and asked myself: what the hell are you doing with your life, Gunnar? Look around you. You work for one of the worst polluters on the Bergen peninsula. You wander around in these air-conditioned offices and you plan new projects, new pollution. You work out how to cram free waterfalls into new tunnels. You plan new housing developments in open
parklands
. And in the city where you live people need help. Real live people. Kids.

‘It wasn’t a political conversion. At least not directly. I didn’t become a revolutionary in the sense that I thought every
revolution
has to begin at the beginning – with each generation. Our generation, yours and mine, has already had it. We’re a bunch of anxiety-ridden clowns who never had our parents’ revolution or our grandparents’ Jesus to believe in. We’re a
generation
of cynical atheists, Veum. And you, you shit, are the prototype. Just as I was a few years back.’

He held his breath before he continued. For someone who didn’t like talking about himself he did a pretty good monologue.

‘So I got out of the rat race,’ he said. ‘I did what you did – went to Social Work School and began to do something. Well. Look at us. At least I go on doing what I was trained for, but you …?’ His mouth was contemptuous.

‘I do it, too. In my own way. In another way,’ I said.

He studied me. ‘Do tell! Outside the establishment, right? Typical post-war individualist. A lone wolf. Outside all
establishment
, all the rules. You’re playing hippy too late, Veum. Ten years too late.’

I stood up. ‘Sorry, Våge. Got to go, but it’s been great sitting here listening to you. My wife would love you. My ex-wife, I mean.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Self-pity strikes again. The telling symptom. That and alcoholism. Or maybe you’re so with it you do hash instead.’

‘Aquavit,’ I said. ‘Just for the record.’

‘And so you sit by yourself these dark winter evenings and whine because you’re lonely, right?’ He came even closer. I could smell coffee on his breath. ‘But some of us have chosen loneliness, Veum. Some of us have chosen to live alone. Because maybe it’s just as valuable. Because maybe it gives you a better chance to give yourself to what you believe in. Don’t think I couldn’t have got married. Many times, in fact.’

‘Many times?’ I said and tried to sound as if I envied him. Wasn’t so hard to do.

‘But no. I said no. When it got right down to that point in my life – that turning point – I told myself: if you’ve come this far alone, you can go the rest of the way by yourself.’ He looked around his office. ‘This is home.’ He nodded towards the emptiness behind me. ‘And the ones out there – they’re my kids. What more can I ask for if I can help them?’

‘A spoonful of love morning, noon and night?’ I said.

‘Love isn’t something a person takes or is given. Like cod liver oil. Love’s something you give – if you’ve got somebody to give it to.’

‘Right,’ I said. And that was that. I was out of jokes, out of all the things a post-war individualist ought to say. There was only one thing I could tell myself and that was to leave.

I didn’t say goodbye. I think he knew I had a lump in my throat and couldn’t trust my voice.

I was blind with tears but I found my way out. Slowly. Past a stream of red arrows.

I stood in the road for a while. Now what should I do? Was there anything more I could do about any of this? I looked down at my watch. Looked up at the high-rise where Wenche Andresen lived, at the ninth-floor balcony, at Roar’s window, at the kitchen window and at her front door. A light was on in the kitchen.

I walked up to Wenche’s building, went in, and over to the lift.

While I waited, a woman came and stood by me. I said hello cautiously – and she looked at me as if I’d made an obscene gesture. Perhaps people out here didn’t say hello while they waited for lifts. Perhaps they never said hello. It was a different world out here and I’d better not forget it. Then she got hold of her fear and smiled: a quick broad smile.

She looked good. She had been beautiful. Ten years ago. But she was over fifty and those first five decades had left plough furrows on her face. Somebody had sowed and somebody had reaped, but God only knew who’d made a profit out of the crop.

Her hair had been black but now it was striped with grey. Decorative. If you like zebras. Brown eyes but bloodshot, and her mouth was bitter – as if she’d just drunk one too many Camparis.

She wasn’t very tall. I couldn’t tell whether she was thin or plump. She was wearing a billowy dark brown fur coat. It too
had seen better days but it could still warm a frozen soul in a frozen body. Lovely legs. She must have replaced them
somewhere
along the way. They belonged to a thirty-year-old.

When the lift arrived, I held the door for her. She didn’t smile. She’d already used up her quota.

The lift was long and narrow. Like a coffin. It looked as if it had been designed to haul pianos and beds and sofas up twelve storeys. She walked all the way in and I stood by the door.

‘Which floor do you want?’ I said.

‘Seven.’ Hers was a whisky voice. Too many drinks and not enough sleep. There were bags under her eyes.

The lift stopped between the fourth and fifth floors. The light in the ceiling blinked twice and then settled down. Just like the lift.

The woman took a deep breath. ‘Oh dear God. Not again!’ She looked at me as if it were my fault. ‘It’s stuck.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ I said.

I could see ten or fifteen centimetres of the fifth-floor door. The rest was concrete wall.

Being stuck in a lift is a totally special experience reserved for people who live in so-called civilised countries. In countries where they build houses higher than five storeys. The world stops when you’re stuck in a lift. It doesn’t matter much if you’re fifty or fifteen. You feel old. Very old.

There could be a war going on out there. The Russians or the Americans or the Chinese could have landed. There could be a power failure or an earthquake or a hurricane. People could be running around naked in the streets, carving hunks out of each other. Or a thousand tons of unicorns could be chasing virgins. None of it has anything to do with you. You are stuck.

Claustrophobia isn’t one of my phobias but just the same I
could feel my forehead and back getting a little sweaty. Nobody likes being stuck in a lift. You get stuck? You want to get out. As simple as that.

And we were stuck.

The woman I was stuck with didn’t look as if she were
enjoying
it either. Her face had sort of expanded: eyes, nostrils, mouth. And she was breathing heavily. Her knees seemed to wobble. She braced herself against the wall with a limp white hand and held the other to her forehead.

‘Maybe we should introduce ourselves. My name’s Veum,’ I said.

She looked as if she didn’t believe it. ‘I … We’re stuck. Stuck!’ Her voice sounded hysterical.

‘I’ve heard that when claustrophobes get into situations like this they sometimes strip. Don’t. I’m too young. I couldn’t take it,’ I said.

She took a step back. ‘What in the world are you babbling about? Get us out of here. Out. I’ve got to get out.’

She’d turned around so her back was against the wall. She began hammering the other one with her useless little fists. ‘Help,’ she yelled. ‘Help.’

I pushed the button marked Alarm and heard a bell ring somewhere. I hoped it wasn’t one of those so-called ‘comfort bells’, the kind they install to reassure people who get stuck but which can’t be heard more than a few metres away. I hoped that this bell was ringing somewhere else – in the caretaker’s heaven, wherever he usually hung out – and that he was at home.

The woman in the old fur coat had sagged to the floor. She was sobbing. I squatted beside her. ‘I’ve rung the caretaker. It can’t be very much longer.’

‘How long can we last? How long will the oxygen hold out?’

‘Oxygen?’ I looked around. ‘Long enough. I once heard about a Swedish cleaning woman. She got stuck for forty days in a goods lift in a factory. For the entire general holiday. But she survived. Of course, all she had was soapy drinking water.’

‘Forty days! But my God, man … Dear God! I didn’t think we’d …’

‘No, no, no. I only meant there’s no problem with the air supply.’

I looked cautiously around. It was already a little close in here. Warm. But one thing was certain: the air wasn’t a problem. I sweated a little more.

I looked up. There was no trapdoor in the ceiling like there used to be in the old days. The kind you could climb through and feel as if you were sitting in the bottom of a volcanic crater. They were always such a comfort.

To my surprise I realised I was sweating even more now. You should never take a lift, I told myself. Lifts are for the old and for babies. Not for big strong …

An old rat started crawling around in my belly. I looked from wall to wall to wall of the lift. It seemed smaller now: narrower. More cramped.

Suddenly I knew my fists wanted to beat on the walls, break them down, that my voice wanted to yell: Help! Help! I even felt faint.

I coughed loudly to reassure myself. ‘It won’t be long before we’re out. Not long now, Fru.’

She’d collapsed. Sat staring at the floor. Knees drawn up. She’d lost her suburban modesty. She wore black panties under the brown tights and I saw she was plumper higher up than her legs had hinted at.

Then I looked away. I’m a decent fellow. Never take
advantage
of helpless women. Or maybe I’m afraid of sex? I could certainly stand there and think about it for a while, analyse myself. I’d been pretty good at it once. That was just before I’d requested treatment.

I listened to the sounds of the building around us.
Concrete
transmits sounds in the strangest ways. I heard rushing in the pipes and something which reminded me of coded signals being tapped from one jail cell to another. Maybe the whole building was full of lifts with people stuck in them two by two. And nobody could get out and nobody would come and help us. Maybe this was hell.

I looked at her again. Spend eternity – with her? I was really sweating now. I couldn’t think of one relaxing thing. I tried. I thought of summer. A white sun-dappled beach, an open blue-green sea, high blue sky. Lots of air. Air. But all the other people on the beach spoke Danish.

I thought about beer, golden beer in full glasses topped with white fresh foam. About red-and-white checked tablecloths, an open veranda, a woman. It was Beate. So that wasn’t
relaxing
either. Then I thought about Wenche Andresen.

‘Hello!’

‘Hello. Hello.’ My voice worked the third time. ‘Hello!’

Someone was beating on the door to the fifth floor.

‘Somebody there? Are you stuck?’ It was a rough, caretaker’s voice.

‘We’re here and we’re stuck,’ I said. ‘Can you get us out?’

Something was happening. I stopped sweating and the woman raised her head and began listening.

‘Of course I can. It’s those damned kids again. One of the fuses has blown. Just wait. It’ll be five or ten minutes.’

‘Thanks,’ I whispered to the heavy footsteps as they moved away.

Then fifteen minutes went by. The woman and I had nothing to discuss. Just one common interest: getting out. I looked at my watch. Could she be at home?

The woman had already stood up, tidied her hair, and was fanning her face with a little ecru handkerchief. Her eyes were red-rimmed but it didn’t make much difference. She looked almost the same as she had when she got in the lift – maybe a couple of years older. I bet I did, too. That’s one of the things about getting stuck in a lift. You age so quickly. And
sometimes
you collapse.

Before she left me, she suddenly shook my hand. ‘Solfrid Brede,’ she said in that same husky voice.

‘Nice meeting you,’ I said.

Then she was gone and I rode up two more floors. Hello and goodbye, Solfrid Brede. Maybe we’ll meet again in another lift, somewhere else in hell. You never know, Solfrid Brede, you never know …

I opened the door and stepped out. Wenche Andresen was standing there waiting. She wasn’t alone. A man was with her.

He was tall. Strong. Athletic. Probably in his late forties or early fifties. His face was lean and tough. Dark, deep-set eyes, a little hidden by bushy grey-black eyebrows. What I could see of his hair had the same grizzled tone and that, together with his slightly wary stance, reminded me of a wolf. He was wearing the uniform of a naval commander and he looked as if he expected me to snap to attention the minute I saw him.

Wenche Andresen looked a little embarrassed. ‘Va … Veum?’ she said, glancing back and forth between the wolf and me.

‘I wanted to find out how Roar is,’ I said.

‘He’s fine,’ she said. ‘But I’m just on my way to work. This is my boss, Commander …’ She mumbled something.

He repeated it, pronouncing each letter as if he were talking to a moronic sailor. ‘Richard Ljosne,’ he said, and shook my hand with his strong muscular fingers.

‘Veum,’ I said.

Then there was silence. Wenche Andresen was still looking embarrassed. There were dark circles under her eyes and she was very pale.

‘I wasn’t feeling good so I called and said I’d be in a little later today and so Richard – so Ljosne – said he could come and pick me up because …’

‘We have some very important papers to get out today,’ he said. ‘And Wenche’s the only one who knows the format. Otherwise we’d have to get a substitute and it would take hours to explain it to her.’

His voice was deep and musical. A voice I could have fallen for if I’d been ten years younger and a woman. But I wasn’t. Wenche Andresen was still embarrassed.

I looked at her mouth. Thought about the previous evening, about how it had felt getting acquainted with her mouth, learning about the contours of her lips against mine.

I looked at Richard Ljosne’s mouth. A large, wide mouth with narrow red lips and sharp yellow-white teeth. The stubble on his face was blue-grey. The hair curled high on his throat and around his neck. His eyebrows met.

‘Well, don’t let me keep you,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to find out how things were – as I said.’ Then I added, ‘Listen. Where does Joker live?’

Wenche Andresen looked toward the high-rise further down the hill. ‘Over there. With his mother.’

‘Well. Thanks.’ I held the lift door for them. As I was about to close it she said, ‘But aren’t you coming, Veum?’

‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll walk.’

Then I let go of the door and it dosed slowly behind them.

I kept thinking about her mouth and I wasn’t sure that was a good idea. Not today. Not now.

I walked along the balcony in the opposite direction from her flat to the south end of the building. From there I could see Wenche Andresen and Richard Ljosne strolling towards a big black car which could have been a Mercedes. That’s the way it looked from the ninth floor anyway.

That’s how they go out of my life, I thought. They just get into a car and drive away.

But I had an uneasy feeling it wasn’t going to be like that, that I’d see both of them again and that it wouldn’t be
especially
pleasant. For any of us.

I walked slowly down the stairs and wondered what to do next.