I Can See in the Dark (2 page)

It takes me forty minutes to walk to the nursing home at Løkka. And I walk whatever the weather, even though the bus stops at the entrance. There’s something about walking, it orders the thoughts, puts them into perspective. My house is on a rise, facing west; and in the evenings the sun shines through my living-room window like a great, glowing sphere. It hangs there a moment casting a golden glow, until the rooms shimmer with heat, then it sinks behind a stand of trees. Slowly, everything turns blue.

All the shrubs and trees, and the wooded hillsides in the distance.

It’s then that my head begins to seethe. Billions of tiny creatures swarm through my brain, digging tunnels and severing the essential communications I need to be able to think, reason and plan. Good deeds and bad, it varies, I’ve so many irons in the fire. Normally I go to the window, and stand there looking out, waiting for everything to calm down. And sometimes there really is a hush. As when someone switches off a flow of words. Then I find the silence troubling and immediately switch on the radio or television just to hear voices. Sometimes, when I’m with people, I find I’m on the verge of panic for no reason whatever. I assume a friendly expression so that no one will see what’s happening to me, that I’m existing in chaos.

I’ve never mentioned any of this to a doctor. Even though we have a doctor on the ward and I could have confided in him. We are colleagues, after all. You see, I might have said to Dr Fischer, my head begins to seethe when the sun goes down. It’s like thousands of ants, like a swarm of crawling insects. There are whispers in the corners of my bedroom, and an articulated lorry parks next to my bed. Its engine idles the whole night long, and I can hardly breathe for all the diesel fumes. But you don’t go telling people things like that. Although he’s a doctor, it would make him think, and I don’t want to cause myself embarrassment.

I CAN SEE
bushes and trees, buildings, posts and fences, I can see them all vividly glowing and quivering, long after dark. I see the heat they emit, a sort of orange-coloured energy, as if they’re on fire. I once mentioned this to the school nurse when I was about ten. That I could see in the dark. She simply patted me on the cheek and then smiled sadly, the way you smile at an inquisitive child with a lively imagination. But once bitten twice shy: I never mentioned it again. Sometimes at night, when it’s impossible to sleep, when the lorry has been standing at my bedside for hours and filled the entire room with exhaust fumes, I get dressed and go out and stand on the drive. I watch the moving creatures in the landscape, everything that hides from the noise and light of day. A fox darting over the fields, a deer bounding across the road, everything pulsing with this amber light.

The living-room windows give on to the drive and the road, while the kitchen window looks out on the forest of tall trees. This gives me a sense of living in seclusion, but I have got neighbours. Just below me is Kristian Juel’s house; he minds his own business and doesn’t bother me much, for which I’m grateful. Next door, up the hill, is a family with young children. They do a lot of screaming and shouting and bouncing on a large trampoline, as well as chasing a small dog that barks the whole time. Sometimes, on light summer nights, I hear the laughter and barking, and think they sound like church bells carried on the air. At other times, they get on my nerves, and I feel like screaming.

But then there’s our ward sister Anna.

Elegant, warm and radiant.

There isn’t her equal anywhere.

Once, when I was a child, a classmate announced in a malicious, jeering way that I looked like a pike. It was probably because my jaw protrudes slightly and I have sharp, crooked teeth like a predatory fish. As the boy in question was somewhat overweight, I pointed out that he ought to shut up because he resembled a beached whale. That left him completely stranded, and I could tell he regretted his little sally. That’s all I remember about my childhood. Almost everything else has been erased and consigned to oblivion. But I always remember the pike episode. I remember the feeling of humiliation, how my cheeks burned and how I was almost blind with rage. I’m not much to look at, I’ve known that for a long time. My eyes are too close together and deep-set, with irises the colour of cod liver oil. Sometimes I skulk in the bushes bordering the path that leads into the park. I just stand there and peer out at the passing pedestrians. Old people with sticks, elderly, lonely men, little girls in short, flaring skirts, tittering and gossiping, dangerous as death caps.

DR FISCHER, WHO’S
in charge of our ward, was once an idealist, or at least I imagine that he was; with a genuine desire to assauge the pain of others. Alleviating discomfort and despair is important to people right at the end of their lives.

Dignified and self-sacrificing, he wanted to move amongst the beds making a difference. Now he has a resigned and round-shouldered look as he mooches from room to room wearing shabby suede shoes and a downcast expression. He has worked at Løkka Nursing Home for more than twenty years, and the people he cares for only have a short time to live. It’s as if the mere thought of this takes his breath away. He also possesses a very fastidious conscience. It cries out over the least little thing, as if all the misery in the world were his fault. It’s often struck me that one fine day this troublesome conscience will be the death of him, because such things weaken the entire organism. He has a habit of massaging his temple. As if there’s something in there that’s irritating him, a difficult idea, perhaps, or a painful recollection. Each time he sits down to rest, he raises his hand and begins the massage. His job is strenuous. In my mind’s eye I see a thousand hands tugging and tearing at his coat, grabbing at his hair, forcing him up against the wall.

I need help, voices cry, I must have relief, I want more, and right away!

Painkillers, sleeping pills, something that eases fear and anxiety, something that lessens grief and hopelessness. He can’t get away. Perhaps he’s got problems at home to wrestle with too, for all I know. A wife he no longer loves, children who have no respect for him. He’s trapped in his world, trapped in his white coat, his pricking conscience chasing him up and down the corridors. I sense that Dr Fischer doesn’t like me. He’s out to get me, I think. He’ll catch me, if he has the chance, he’s always waiting for an opportunity. I’m very sensitive to such things; it’s something to do with energy, or lack of energy. Nothing flows between us, no warmth, no sympathy.

I keep out of his way, for he’s a kind of harbinger of things to come.

I’ve never seen him in the park near Lake Mester.

Ten minutes’ walk from the park is the Dixie Café, half hidden amongst a clump of birch trees, with its dark green plastic tables and chairs. Two large palm trees in blue pots stand by the door. They’re artificial, of course. Perhaps the owner thinks this is an exotic touch, but there, amongst the birches, they simply look odd. The Dixie has a youthful clientele. They buy burgers and Coke, and loiter by the wall, nudging and jostling each other in a friendly way. I’ve walked there a couple of times and sat at one of the plastic tables with a styrofoam cup of anaemic coffee, watching the youngsters. They don’t inhabit the same world as me. Perhaps it’s more that I’ve been cut adrift from everyone else, as if a cord has been severed. Or the wheels of time have worn it through. I don’t really understand my own situation, I don’t understand this sense of always being an outsider, of not belonging, of not feeling at home in the day’s routines. Forces I can’t control have torn me away from other people. I like being on my own, but I want a woman. If only I had a woman!

At this point I might mention that when I was a small boy, I found my father hanging from a rafter one day. His face was engorged and bluish black, and a great, thick tongue stuck out from between his lips. If nothing else, it would help to explain why I’m the way I am. But it’s not true. My father was a decent man and he never hurt a fly. Distant and detached he certainly was, but he didn’t hang himself from a rafter. He died when I was fourteen, of a massive thrombosis.

I’m sure Dr Fischer is soft on Sister Anna and has his dark and wistful eye on her. Perhaps Sali Singh, who works in the kitchen, has too. I notice such things immediately. There’s a lot of communication between human beings that isn’t expressed in words, and I’m exceedingly observant. Some people don’t understand this, they concentrate on what’s being said, while others, like me, become masters of the hint, the tiny signals that tell. A quick glance at Sali and I know how he’s feeling, even though he may have his back to me. I look at his shoulders, notice if they’re hunched. Is he standing four-square, or tripping about nervously. I take in how the movement of his hands emanates from his squat body, evenly, or in fits and starts, haltingly or fluently. Sali is a big man, most of his weight is round his waist. I wonder what he thinks about Norway and Norwegians, deep down in his dusky, Indian heart. Probably nothing very flattering, we’re so unbearably spoilt. But he makes lovely open sandwiches, standing in his kitchen at Løkka. He’s indifferent to budgets, just loads the bread generously with all manner of good things. How odd that must seem to a man who can hardly be a stranger to poverty. His eyes are almost black. His oily hair takes on a bluish sheen, as he stands there working beneath the fluorescent lighting.

EDDIE AND JANNE
are often at the park.

I used to think of them as Romeo and Juliet, but that was before I knew their names. The other day they were calling to each other in the spring air, like two playful children. Look at this, Janne, no, stop messing about, Eddie, and so on in that vein. They sit close together on the bench, entwined in each other, they neck and pat and stroke, purring like cats. I’ve never seen anything like it. They’d eat each other, skin, hair and all, if only they could. And they’re never self-conscious, even when there are several of us sitting by the fountain. Some people break into soft smiles, I notice, others turn away because they don’t like it. Personally, I don’t know what to think, but surely this is something private, there should be more decorum in public. And nothing about Eddie and Janne is decorous. They always bring something to eat. When they’ve given each other a thorough squeezing, they open a bag of buns, or a bar of chocolate. They eat the way children do, with unabashed greed. Eddie is perhaps sixteen or seventeen, Janne possibly a little younger, both are slim and good-looking, clad in precisely the same costume: distressed jeans and grey hoodies. Both have dark hair, identically styled: close-shaved at the sides and with a comb of hair on the crown, you can hardly tell them apart.

I remember Sali saying that when he first came to Norway, he couldn’t tell the difference between men and women. Everyone wears jeans, he said, and trainers. The women cut off their hair. It is not very nice, why don’t they make themselves look more beautiful? I explained that climate dictates the way we dress. Norwegian women can’t go around in saris and sandals, I said. You know what the autumns and winters are like here.

Eddie and Janne will never get married, never have children, or own a house or a car, experience responsibility and debt and difficult days. The bond between them is only a frail alliance, although they don’t know it themselves. Sometimes a wave of sadness washes over me when I think of the impending break-up, the tears and recriminations, the bewilderment that it didn’t last, the apportioning of blame. When I’m feeling generous they put me in mind of newly opened tulips, as they sit on their bench. It’s April. The thaw is here and everything melts and runs away, there’s too much of everything. An agonising and confusing time that chills my back as I sit on the bench in front of the fountain, while my face is gently warmed by the sun. My jacket comes off and goes on again, coltsfoot squeezes up through the snow, and crisp, wafer-thin ice decks the puddles in the morning. The asphalt is bare, so summer shoes can come out of the cupboard; but it remains deep winter in the forest, with dark and frosty nights.

I often think about the old people in their beds at Løkka. Those cavernous faces, those bony hands always groping for something to hold on to. They, who have seen and understood the most about life and how it should be lived. I know so much more now, they think, I understand things at last, but it’s too late. Now the greenhorns are coming to take over, and they won’t listen to us, lying here twittering like birds.

Arnfinn comes to the park a little later in the day.

He appears on the paved path, ignores
Woman Weeping
, takes short, tentative steps because he’s frightened of falling. With an apologetic look he seats himself on his usual bench and listens to the splashing water. He has hands that tremble violently much of the time. At first I thought he had Parkinson’s. Then, having kept him under observation for some time, I realised that he’s an alcoholic. He has periods when he doesn’t drink. Often this is when his Social Security has run out, he’s certainly on Social Security. But usually he has a hip flask in his pocket. Of vodka or brandy, or whatever it is he pours into himself. Clearly, this flask is a sovereign remedy. After a few pulls he slowly relaxes. His breath comes calmly and easily, his features soften, his eyes glisten. He wears an old windcheater and thick, stained trousers which are too short for him, lace-up shoes he doesn’t bother to tie. This is the costume he always wears whatever the time of year, and I can even picture him sleeping with his clothes on. Imagine him simply collapsing on a sofa, wearing his shoes and everything. He talks to himself a bit, sits there mumbling unintelligibly, but he cringes if I turn my eyes in his direction. I don’t know if he eats anything. His hip flask looks very refined, it speaks of a different time when perhaps he had a job, a family and responsibilities. It could be made of silver, possibly it was a fortieth or fiftieth birthday present; now he’s probably sixty-something. He often has this hip flask with him. He pats his pocket to make sure it’s there. His hands are like great, meat-coloured clubs. Presumably he’s done a lot of manual work, you can see that his body is well used. His hair is grey and his face florid, the arteries in it are blocking up. This process forces the blood to find new passages beneath the skin.