The Listener (3 page)

S
HE PULLED THE TELEPHONE
into the closet and spoke as quietly as she could. “Are you crazy calling in the middle of the night? There are people here.”

“Now listen to what I’m going to say,” he said. His voice sounded odd because he was trying to be calm and failing. “I can’t give you any names. Don’t ask. But someone called to say I have to go and get hold of a key, you know, and check on someone. It’s a person they’re worried about, but they can’t go themselves because they’re away.”

“What do you mean?” she said. “Whose key?”

“I just said you couldn’t ask. I want you to come with me. This is a really important business.”

“Now you’re making things up again,” Leila said.

But the boy shouted, “No! No! It’s important! Come with me, please.”

“Well, all right, if you really want me,” the girl said.

They walked up an unfamiliar staircase and opened a door with the borrowed key. The hall was full of half-opened boxes; there was a large mirror with a gold frame leaning against the wall. The room beyond was large and unfurnished, with neon lights on the ceiling. He lay on the floor with an embroidered cushion under his head, breathing stertorously. He was a very big man, red in the face, with a lot of brown hair over his eyes. He was old, at least thirty-five.

“Who is he?” she whispered. “Has he been murdered?”

“I told you I don’t know,” the boy answered. “They called. I told you. I told you on the phone.”

“Is he dying?” she said. “You could have woken up other people in the house. And what are we supposed to do now?”

“Call a doctor. Where do you call? Do you know where to call at night?”

“No.” She was so cold she was shaking, from the inside.

He went out into the hall, turned around in the doorway and said, “Now, you just stay completely calm. I’ll take care of this.” A bit later he shouted, “It’s 008. I found it in the phone book. They’ve got it on the cover.”

The girl didn’t answer; she stared fixedly at the sleeping man. His mouth was open. He looked awful. She moved as far away from him as possible. There weren’t any chairs, but of course it would be wrong to sit down.

Ralf was speaking into the phone out in the hall; he was taking care of everything. He’d found a doctor. She let herself sink into resignation, a gentle and pleasant
sense of dependence. When he came back she walked over to him and took his hands.

“What’s the matter with you?” the boy said, irritated. “It’s all fixed. They’re coming. I’m to open the street door in ten minutes.”

“Then I’m coming with you. I don’t want to stay here alone.”

“Don’t be dumb. Two of us. It would look stupid. Childish.”

“You always worry about how it’s going to look,” she said. “But what about when it’s a matter of life and death!?”

He raised his eyebrows and opened his lips, his teeth clenched – a grimace of disgust and contempt. Leila went red in the face. “You said yourself it was important. Why did you drag me along? Why is that fat old man any business of mine?”

He raised his hands and shook them in front of her face. “Don’t you understand?” he shouted. “So that, for once, we could do something important together!”

“Don’t shout,” she said. “You’ll wake him.”

He started to laugh, leaned against the wall and laughed. The girl watched him coolly and asked, “Did you check the time when you called?” He stopped laughing and left; the front door clicked. Now she was alone with the laboured breathing. It was very near. Sometimes it came closer and sometimes it moved away.

What if he dies when I’m here alone? Why are they always so ugly when they’re old? Why can’t they deal with their own problems? She kept her eyes on him as she
backed out of the room. Softly, she opened the front door and waited. Now they were coming. The lift stopped. The doctor went in without a word to her. He was short and looked annoyed, as if he’d been bothered quite unnecessarily. The front hall smelled of floor wax. She focused her attention on a pattern in the linoleum and stood very still as she waited for the whole thing to be over. If this is the way it’s going to be, then I want no part of it. Ugly and hard to understand and sordid. If that’s the way the world is, everywhere, all the time, then I don’t want any part of it. It’s what happens to other people, outsiders, at night …

Inside, they were talking. And suddenly there was a new voice, indistinct and threatening – the man on the floor. A voice that came from far away, from out of a vast indifference. Then he shouted, with a terrible rage. The girl, Leila, began to tremble. I’ll go home, she thought. I’ll just open the door and go.

She waited. They came back, and the doctor walked past her again without glancing up, looking just as annoyed.

“Is he getting an ambulance?” she asked.

The boy sat down on the floor and said, “We have to stay here. He’s not going to the hospital, but he’s going to throw up in the morning.”

“What do you mean we’re staying here?” the girl shouted. “I won’t do it.”

He drew up his knees and put his arms around them. “So go, then,” he said sullenly. “I’m going to do what they told me to do. You do what you like.”

They sat silently and listened to the man breathing in the next room.

“And if he does throw up,” the girl said, “we have to find a bowl. Or a bucket.”

The boy shrugged his shoulders. He’d put his head down on his knees.

“Will you come in the kitchen and help me look?” she asked, submissively.

“No,” Ralf said.

She went into the kitchen and turned on the light. There was a packing case in front of the kitchen counter, and across the address label it said ‘Household’. She went back and said, “There’s stuff in a packing case, but I can’t get it open.”

“Really?” said Ralf. “And where the hell do you think I’m going to get my hands on tools in the middle of the night?”

She looked at him, critically and patiently, and said, “If they wrote ‘Household’ on a box, then they’ve surely written ‘Tools’ on another. And they can’t have nailed it shut.”

They found a hammer and a crowbar. They put a dishpan beside the sleeping man. They found a towel for him, and blankets.

“Do you think we should turn off the light?” Leila wondered. “Is it better if it’s light or dark when he wakes up?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know him. This fluorescent light is horrible; maybe it’s better if it’s dark.”

“I’m not so sure,” she said. “If it’s dark, then maybe he’ll think he’s dead, or get scared, and anyway he needs to see where he’s supposed to be sick.”

“Listen,” Ralf said. “It’s four o’clock. Why don’t we get some sleep?” He spread out a blanket on the hall floor.

“I’ll sleep over here in the corner,” Leila said.

“And why can’t you sleep here next to me?”

“It wouldn’t be right.”

“And why not? Now, suddenly?”

“Him!” she whispered vehemently. “Him in there. What if he dies?”

The boy rolled himself up in the blanket with his face to the wall. “You’re as conventional as your mother,” he said. And then, a little later, “Leila, come over here and you’ll feel better.”

She went to him at once and he spread the blanket over the two of them. It was dark in the hall, but the light from the next room surrounded them, bluish fluorescent light like a hospital ward.

“Ralf?” said Leila.

“Yes.”

“What did you mean when you said that we never do anything important together?”

“Nothing much. What I said. We never do anything important, we just get together. Nothing that matters.”

“And why does this matter? I think it’s nasty.”

“I don’t know,” Ralf said. “I thought it was a good thing, and I wanted you along. Now I’m not so sure. Let’s try to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep.” She put her arm around him and whispered, “Maybe you mean that it was a comfort for you to have me along.”

“Nonsense,” Ralf said. “What do you mean, ‘comfort’?”

She pulled her arm back and sat up and said, “Anyway, I was the one who thought of getting him a bowl!”

The man in the next room called out in his sleep, a long cry, as if from a person sinking, lost and distant. They jumped to their feet and grabbed hold of each other.

“Now he’s dying!” Leila screamed. “Do something!”

The boy pushed her away and walked stiffly into the room and looked at the man. He had turned and rolled in towards the wall. One hand was pounding the floor, over and over, and now he cried out again, a long, wailing cry. Leila had come into the room and stood by the door listening.

“Go back and lie down,” Ralf said. “He’s just dreaming.”

Her face was worried. She came further into the room and said, “He’s scared. He’s awfully unhappy.” She sat down on her heels beside the sleeping man and tried to look into his face. “It’s going to be all right,” she said to him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

The man turned in his sleep and his hand touched hers. Suddenly he took hold of it and held it tight.

“Leila!” the boy burst out.

“Quiet. Be completely quiet,” she whispered. “He’ll go back to sleep.”

The man on the floor held her hand. He stopped moaning and turned his face away.

“See?” she said. “I’m holding his hand.”

Gradually his grip relaxed and his hand opened. She stood up and looked at Ralf, made a tiny gesture, a command. He lifted the sleeping man’s head and laid
it carefully on the cushion, shifted the bowl closer, and spread the blanket to cover him.

“And some water,” Leila said.

Ralf went after a glass of water and put it on the floor. It was almost 4.30. They lay down next to each other on the front hall floor and listened to the silence in the unfamiliar building.

“He’s scared,” Leila explained. “He’s terribly scared.”

The boy put his arms around her.

“Wake me early,” she said. “We’ve got to find the coffee.”

H
IS WIFE’S NAME WAS
S
TELLA
, and she was an interior designer – Stella, his beautiful star. Sometimes he tried to sketch her face, which was always at rest, open and accessible, but he never succeeded. Her hands were white and strong and she wore no rings. She worked quickly and without hesitation.

They lived in a house that Stella had designed, an enormous openwork of glass and unpainted wood. The heavy planking had been chosen for its unusually attractive grain and fastened with large brass screws. There were no unnecessary objects to hide the structural materials. When dusk entered their rooms, it was met with low, veiled lighting, while the glass walls reflected the night but held it at a distance. They stepped out onto the terrace, and hidden spotlights came on in the bushes. The darkness crept away, and they stood side by side, throwing no shadows, and he thought, This is perfect. Nothing can change.

She never flirted. She looked straight at the person she was speaking to, and when she undressed at night she did it almost absentmindedly. The house was like her, its eyes were wide open, and sometimes he worried that someone might look in on them from the darkness. But the garden was surrounded by a wall, and the gates were locked.

They often entertained. In the summer, they hung lanterns in the trees and Stella’s house resembled an illuminated seashell in the night. Happy people in strong colours moved within this picture in groups or in twos and threes, some of them inside the glass walls and some outside. It was a lovely pageant.

He was an illustrator. He worked mostly for magazines; now and then he did a book jacket.

The only thing that bothered him was a mild but persistent pain in his back, which may have resulted from the excessively low furniture. There was a large black bearskin in front of the fireplace, and sometimes he wanted to lie on it with outstretched arms and legs, bury his face in the fur and roll around like a dog to rest his back. But he never did. The walls were glass, and there were no doors between the rooms.

The large table by the fireplace was also of glass. He was in the habit of laying out his drawings on it in order to show them to Stella before sending them on to the client. These moments meant a great deal to him.

Stella came and looked at his work. “It’s good,” she said. “Your use of line is perfect. All I’m missing is a dominant element.”

“You mean it’s too grey?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “It needs more white, more light.”

They stood at the low table and he saw his drawings from a distance. They really were very grey.

“I think what it needs is black,” he said. “But you need to look at them up close.”

Afterwards he thought for a long time about black as a focus. He was uneasy, and his back was worse.

The commission came in November. He went in to his wife and said, “Stella, I’ve been given a job that really intrigues me.” He was happy, almost excited. Stella put down her pen and looked at him. She was always able to interrupt her work without annoyance.

“It’s a terror anthology,” he said. “Fifteen stories, with black-and-white illustrations and vignettes. I know I can do it. It suits me. It’s my kind of thing, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely,” said his wife. “Are they in a rush?”

“Rush!” he burst out, and laughed. “This isn’t some two-bit assignment, this is a serious piece of work. Full pages. They’re giving me a couple of months.” He rested his hands on her work table and leaned forwards. “Stella,” he said gravely, “I’m going to use black as a dominant element. I’m going to do darkness. Grey, well, I’ll only use grey when it’s like holding your breath, like when you’re waiting to be afraid.”

She smiled. “It’s so nice you’ve got something you find interesting.”

The text arrived, and he lay down on his bed and read the first three stories, no more. He wanted to begin work believing that the best material would come further on and so retain his expectations as long as possible. The
third story gave him an idea, and he sat down at the table and cut himself a piece of thick, chalk-white, rag paper with an embossed maker’s mark in the corner.

The house was quiet and they weren’t expecting guests.

It had been very hard for him to get used to this paper, because he couldn’t forget how much it cost. Drawings on less expensive paper tended to be freer and better. But this time it was different. He loved the feel of the pen as it ran across the elegant surface in clean lines and at the same time he relished the barely discernible resistance that brought the lines to life.

It was midday. He closed the curtains, turned on the lamp, and began to work.

They ate dinner together, and he was very quiet. Stella asked no questions. Finally he said, “It’s no good. There’s too much light.”

“But can’t you close the curtains?”

“I did,” he said. “But somehow it’s still too light. It only gets grey, it doesn’t get black!” He waited until the cook had finished serving and gone away. “There aren’t any doors in this house,” he burst out. “I can’t close myself in!”

Stella stopped eating and looked at him. “You mean it’s just not working,” she said.

“No. All I get is grey.”

“Then I think you should find another studio,” said his wife. They went on eating, the tension gone. Over coffee she said, “My aunt’s old house is standing empty.
But I think there’s still furniture in the little attic apartment. You could give it a try.”

She called Jansson and asked him to put a heater in the attic room. Mrs Jansson promised to leave food on the steps every day and to make sure the room was clean. Otherwise he’d have to keep house for himself and take a hotplate with him. It took only a few minutes to make all the arrangements.

When the bus appeared around the bend in the road, he turned earnestly to his wife. “Stella,” he said. “It will only be for a couple of weeks, then I can finish up at home. I’m going to concentrate while I’m there. I won’t be writing any letters, just working.”

“Of course,” said his wife. “Now, take care of yourself. And call me from the general store if there’s anything you need.” They kissed, and he climbed onto the bus. It was afternoon, and sleeting. Stella didn’t wave, but she stood and watched until the bus was hidden by the trees. Then she closed the gate and walked back up to her house.

He recognised the bus stop and the evergreen hedge, but it had grown higher and greyer. He was also surprised that the hill was so steep. The road went straight up, bordered by a confused mass of withered undergrowth and cut by deep furrows where the rain had washed sand and gravel
down the slope. The house clung tightly to the hill at an impossible angle just below the crown, and the house, the fence, the outbuildings, the fir trees, all seemed to be holding themselves upright with a terrible effort.

He stopped at the steps and looked up at the façade. The house was very tall and narrow, and the windows looked like arrowslits. The snow was melting, and in the silence he could hear nothing but water dripping in among the firs. He walked around to the back. At the rear of the house was a one-storey kitchen that merged with the hill in a messy, ill-defined rampart of rubbish. Here in the shadow of the firs lay everything the old house had spat out in the course of its life, everything worn out and unnecessary, everything not to be seen. In the darkening winter evening, this landscape was utterly abandoned, a territory that had no meaning for anyone but him. He found it beautiful. Unhurried, he went into the house and up to the attic. He closed the door behind him. Jansson had been there with the heater, a glowing red rectangle over by the bed. He walked to the window and looked down the hill. It seemed to him that the house leaned outwards, tired of clinging to the slope. With great love and admiration, he thought of his wife, who had made it so easy for him to leave. He felt his darkness drawing closer.

After a long night without dreams, he set to work. He dipped his pen in the India ink and drew calmly – small,
tight, skilful lines. But now he knew that grey is only the patient dusk that makes preparation for the night. He could wait. He was no longer working to make a picture but only in order to draw.

In the dusk he walked to the window and saw that the house was leaning outwards. He wrote a letter.

He walked down to the general store and posted the letter after dark. The wind had come up a bit and the fir trees sighed as he walked home. The weather was still warm, snow was melting and running down the hill in furrows of sand and gravel. He had meant to write a longer, different letter.

The days passed quietly, and he worked steadily. The margins had grown fluid, and his pictures began in a vague and shadowy grey that felt its way inwards, seeking darkness.