Yours Until Death (9 page)

Bryggestuen is one of the few places left in Bergen which still have a simple, real connection with the past. Per Schwab’s large murals with their marine motifs, the houses that don’t exist any more and the ships that have been scrapped long ago, take you to a timeless world.

The people who come here to Bryggestuen are neither loud graduate students nor the half-drunk young you find in most of the other restaurants where they’ll let you drink a beer without your being a taxpayer. Ordinary solid working people come here: people who work in the market, seamen, office people. Mostly men. It’s not one of the places you go to to pick up a girl. It’s a place you go to for a quiet drink or to eat good,
reasonably
priced food.

I settled myself in one of the back booths. Ordered a beer and a whale steak. Contentedly ate and drank.

The booths were arranged in three parallel rows. I sat in the one next to the wall. In the booth across from me, a large man in a grey coat, with a belly that hid his belt buckle, fished for his past in his glass of ale. I don’t know if he caught anything. In the booth against the far wall a young couple sat with
intertwined
fingers, and they looked as if they’d never part again. But they probably would after a couple of years of marriage. Or something.

The noise of Bryggen’s traffic was muffled by the lead-glass windows. The whale steak tasted as it should. It was a good half-hour. The best in a long time.

I was halfway through my second beer when Jonas Andresen came in and looked around. I lifted a finger. He nodded and came over. He should have been a waiter.

He had a light coat over his arm and a black briefcase in his hand. He laid both beside him on the seat. When the waiter came, he ordered a pint of export. When the waiter served him, he immediately ordered another. ‘Just to get myself together after a day’s work,’ he said.

We drank in silence, I with my light beer and he with his strong export. We drank the way old friends do who meet every day after work and who don’t need to talk to one another in order to be together.

But a beer and an export later we had to talk. He’d already begun slurring his ‘s’s. ‘Don’t know how much Wenche’s told you,’ he said. ‘Or what she’s told you.’

He suddenly looked bashful. Then he said, ‘We are on a first name basis, aren’t we?’

‘We certainly can be,’ I said and shook the hand he held out. ‘Jonas,’ he said.

‘Varg,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘That’s right, Varg,’ I said. ‘Outlaw.’

‘Oh. I get it,’ he said and laughed cautiously as if I’d told a joke. Then he picked up where he’d left off. ‘I take it that she … I mean, she probably hasn’t painted an especially pretty picture of me? She can be quite … strong with her descriptions of people. Their characteristics.’ It was a tricky word but he made it. He wasn’t in advertising for nothing. ‘You married?’ He shot a sideways glance at my right hand.

‘No. I was.’

‘Congratulations. Then we’re in the same boat.’

‘That we are.’

‘Did you ever play around when you were married? Was that why …?’

‘No. But I had a job.’

‘I understand,’ he said.

He’d got me started. ‘I mean – there are a lot of different kinds of playing around. With some men it’s other women, with some it’s the bottle. With some it’s their jobs. Don’t ask me which is the worst, but in my work I get the impression that most women think the worst is when their husbands go for other women.’

‘Right. And they never ask why. Or they rarely do, anyway. And the circumstances don’t matter either. An unfaithful man or woman, for that matter – is always the sinner. Always the guilty one. If the marriage fails apart it’s always the fault of the one who’s had an affair. Or a lot of affairs. Because nobody ever asks why it happened.’

‘Right. And that’s why I never take those cases.’

He looked confused. ‘Which cases?’

‘Those cases. I never shadow married people to find out where they are when they’re not where they’re supposed to be – and who they’re with. Because there’s no way in hell of knowing the reason why they’re there.’

‘Right. But listen, Veum. Don’t think I’m sitting here – saying this to lay the blame on Wenche. Because I’m not doing that.’

No. He wasn’t doing that. What he was doing was ordering another pint of export. I’d already stopped trying to keep up with him. Sipped my third beer.

There was foam on his moustache and it fluttered gently as he went on. ‘That’s what she’s doing. Blaming it all on me. She can’t see any of her mistakes. Okay with me. Let her, if it makes
her feel any better. But the truth is – the truth is it wasn’t a marriage. Never should have been a marriage. But we’re always too young to see it. Right, er … Varg?’

‘The question is, are we ever old enough to see it?’

‘No way. I mean right. But we were … we were too different from the beginning. I don’t know if she’s told you anything about herself. She doesn’t come from Bergen even though she sounds like it. She comes from darkest Hardanger. One of those little ribbons of land which sneak in somewhere under the mountain wall. One of those places where chance has slung together a farm with two cows. Her background’s strict, pious. When she started school, she moved in with an older sister in Øystese. That was a step forward. They’re okay – both the sister and her husband. But you can’t get away from it. The
childhood
environment. Jesus on the wall and only one book in the bookcase. Right? And a year’s subscription to piety’s official magazine
For Rich and For Poor.

‘I’m a city boy. I was fourteen the first time I got drunk, and I had my first girl when I was fifteen. Stole cars and went
joyriding
on Fanafjeu and Hjellestad. But I landed butter-side up. Finally I went to the Business Institute. That was pretty wild. Beer parties around the clock, and chubby little students from eastern Norway who got loaded and danced half-naked on the tables. Later it was advertising with all that action.
Conferences
and seminars and lunches in the city with clients.

‘She liked to sit at home with her embroidery. Read maybe. Play records and watch TV. She liked to cook and do the laundry. Wasn’t interested in life out there. She only drank to be polite, and I had to teach her to smoke. While I was used to going out for a beer with the boys, flirting a little, coming home a little late. And not exactly steady on my feet. But what
the hell difference do these differences make anyway? If people really love each other?’

He looked at me. Depressed. ‘Well. Maybe we didn’t really. Or maybe
I
…’

‘How did you meet?’ I said.

‘How do people meet each other? She knew somebody who knew somebody … The old story. There’s always a girlfriend of the girlfriend of the guy you’re sharing a flat with, right? And some of these girlfriends – or one of them – some time or other has got to come from Hardanger, right?’

‘And?’

‘Well. That’s how it was. She really turned me on. She was so different from all the others. She was reserved. Shy. Didn’t say much. When I’d ask her something, she’d look down and twist her fingers around in her lap. She really got to me. Really turned me on. I had to have her. Had to …’ He shrugged and emptied his glass. ‘She liked me, too. Didn’t take her long.’

He ordered another glass. ‘Suddenly it was a new life. After years of running around like a chicken with its head cut off from one end of the country to the other, after years of hopping in and out of different beds – suddenly it was
beautiful
. Peaceful. Strolls on Mount Fløien on soft velvet nights. Sunday morning walks on the quays. Trips to the cinema as if we were kids. Sitting and holding hands somewhere far in the back. Wenche, Wenche, Wenche …’

He’d almost forgotten me now and the fifth glass pulled his head even closer to the red-and-white checked tablecloth.

The man at the next table had left. All he left behind him was a wet circle on the cloth. The young couple beyond him had got as far as each other’s elbows, but they still had a way to go before they completely ate each other up.

Jonas Andresen said, ‘And then I had her. And it was as sweet as a rose just opening. Or like when a trout jumps out of the stream, hangs in the air – and lands in your arms. And then she got pregnant. And then we got married. And then we had Roar.

‘Suddenly there were three of us, right? And so we sat there in a fiat on Nygårdshøyden. The start of a nuclear family and nowhere to go. After six months I was already in love with somebody else. It began to break up. Pretty quickly. I mean, if I could fall in love with somebody else after only six months of marriage it tells you the lie of the land.’

‘What land?’ After three beers my brain was beginning to tire. I ordered another to help it think.

‘Never-Never Land. And I was Peter Pan and Wendy had already disappeared. She got so old, Varg. I don’t mean her looks. Jesus! She still looks sixteen. At least she did a couple of months ago. But she got so – settled. The only things she cared about were me and Roar. And that damn endless sewing. We had walls full of little embroideries. Sofas full of cushions. Tables and chests covered with darling little runners. Doilies. She even made a hand-embroidered cover for the toilet chain. And …’

I tried to remember Wenche Andresen’s flat. ‘Aren’t you overdoing it?’

‘Well. That’s how it felt. As if I were in danger of drowning in all those little embroidered thingies.’

A woman came in and sat down at the empty table. She was in her late fifties. A little smile lurked around her wrinkled mouth. It was like the wolf waiting in the woods for Little Red Riding Hood. But Little Red Riding Hood had joined Women’s Lib and flew around and burned books in bonfires in
the city. So she was busy. And if she had shown up it wouldn’t have been good for the wolf because Riding Hood had taken a course in judo and knew how to handle men with hairy arms and legs.

The woman ordered a beer and a hamburger and began eating up her own obvious loneliness bit by bit until it was gone.

Jonas Andresen talked on without noticing anything as the foam in his moustache dried to nothing. ‘Those first dirty little affairs were like the little lies people whisper behind your back except in this case they weren’t lies. A willing colleague. A
waitress
you once picked up in a restaurant on a trip to Oslo. A friend’s wife. A recently divorced opera singer. Short
cannibalistic
affairs which seldom lasted longer than a few nights.

‘I was in love twice. Really in love, but I slept with only one of them. As if that means anything. As if sex wraps the whole thing up. As if screwing confirms or denies anything except maybe your own pride – or lack of it. But then …’

He stopped focusing and started looking dreamy. I quickly ordered him another export. The waiter was doubtful, but he served us anyway.

‘Something to eat, Jonas?’ I said.

He looked at me. ‘Eat?’ It was a word he’d never heard before.

I tried to steer him back on to the track. ‘But then … but then you …’ I said.

‘Yes, then. Then I met Solveig.’

A new pause. His face softened and his gaze was warm. He tried to sit up straight. Not so easy after five and a half exports. ‘And that was it. That. Was. It.’

I didn’t say anything. I knew it’d take time. That maybe we’d
go through five or six more pints before we reached the end of the road. But his expression told me that I’d hear it all. I’d hear the whole ‘Ballad of Jonas and Solveig’. If I were patient.

‘Solveig,’ he repeated. The image was no longer that of a slithering snake. It was an image of the morning sun itself that rose over the landscape. The sun that broke through the faded brown murals and sent its slanting rays across the red-brown booth, the torn tablecloth and the half-empty beer glasses.

Just as it would send them across a wet green morning landscape. It was a sunrise somewhere between the sea and the mountains, with the sea like a moving mirror in the
foreground
and the mountains like high bluish promises for the future in the background.

It was the sun that rises over the rich and the poor. Over advertising types and private investigators. It was the sun that fills us and consumes us and spits us out. Turns us into ashes after life’s volcanic eruption – after love’s sudden destroying fire.

‘She began at the agency three or four years ago. At first she was just around. She’d come straight from the Arts and Crafts Institute. Started in layout: lettering, setting up ads. That kind of thing. A nice girl. Friendly. Open. The kind you like being with and having as a colleague. Until suddenly you pinch yourself and realise you’re head over heels in love with her. Until you realise the next day you love her – more than you’ve ever loved anyone. And you can’t tell her because you’re married. And she’s married. And you have one child and she’s got two. And you realise the train’s left too early and you got off at the wrong station and it’s too late now. Much too late. Right?’

Yes. Right. I’d felt that way myself once in a while. Except
my train had left a long time ago and I’d never got off at a station. I’d been thrown off somewhere. Head first as the train rounded a curve.

His hand searched the air as if he were looking for her. Or maybe he was trying to draw her, sketch her so I could see her. ‘You would … She’s the type you feel everybody’s got to be in love with. The first – the first thing you notice is her hair. It’s not brown. I mean it is, but it’s red. Except that it isn’t – if you know what I mean.’

I knew what he meant. I’d seen her.

‘It shines, as if the colour’s coming …’

‘From the inside? Right?’

‘Right! From the inside. And all her warmth too – it comes from the inside. Because the next thing you realise is that she’s so damned nice. All the time. She’s always in a good mood. Easygoing. Friendly. Even though you disagree about things. Argue about them. And we were so lucky – I was so lucky – that we worked together a lot.’

‘What is your job exactly?’

‘Consultant. That’s what we call it now. Once it would have been called head of marketing. When each man was his own boss and had his own office. I’m involved with contracts and agreements, organising campaigns and the financial end of it. Things like that. She was in the graphic side of the business. The side that puts the ideas on paper. And she was – is – good. She’s got a simple approach but a real feel for the right expression. She can express an idea either visually or verbally so it makes sense. Gives depth to the whole thing. If you see what I mean.’