CHAPTER 14

Another icy morning.

A day when the earth was a frozen shell, impenetrable. He snatched the newspaper from his letter box and set off down the hill towards Engene. He was wearing his winter coat, it was warm, but he missed his scarf. The chill gripped his neck tightly like a claw. He marched on and gradually his body began to warm up. Yesterday's discomfort was beginning to lift, but he was still feeling uneasy. There's no point in worrying about what might happen, he reasoned with himself, because it probably never will, I worked that one out long ago. However, this argument did not make him feel much better. I'm on thin ice, he thought, I have to tread carefully, not lose my head. Stay in control, maintain a firm grip. Thirty minutes later he let himself into the gallery. He was still feeling unsettled, as if he was expecting Lindys, or Elsa, or Helle to turn up at any moment. Something inside him was waiting for her. He did not want her to come, she was a disruption in his life, something unpredictable. But here, in the gallery, he could not refuse to open the door; she could open it herself and walk right in. Having allowed her in the first time it would be difficult to refuse her now. How stupid he had been, how naive.

He went into the workshop to find something to occupy himself with, he needed to be distracted. He cut glass and cardboard, he polished and glued and tagged. He tried to enjoy this tinkering, but he wasn't able to. Weidemann's painting with his own thumbprint had dried ages ago and now it hung out in the gallery next to the bridge. He kept peeking furtively outside. First she would appear like a shadow outside the window, then the bell would ring. But he saw no one. The hours passed. Perhaps I was worrying about nothing, he thought. Perhaps she was just in a tight spot, but she'll stay away from now on. She won't be coming here any more. She is far too unstable to form a bond with anyone. This logic comforted him. Other customers came and went, he made polite conversation with them, maintaining his usual defensive stance. You should never underestimate a customer, he thought, the most unassuming individual might turn out to possess an impressive knowledge of Norwegian art. His approach was always cautious, a kind of tentative dance. He did not initiate a conversation with a customer until they had exchanged a few pleasantries.

The customers started to thin out and he seized the opportunity to eat his packed lunch. He spent the afternoon replacing a number of light bulbs, there was a spotlight positioned above every single painting. He felt terribly pleased at the end of the day because she hadn't showed up. The painting of the bridge had begun to take second place in his mind; it seemed as if Lindys was taking up all the space, as if she was standing inside his head shouting in a manner that was impossible to ignore. As he was about to leave he paused a metre from the painting. The pillars and a stump jutting out above the void, a dense, mystical fog. Faint contours of rocks and the mainland, but no horizon, no divide between sky and sea. The painting consumed him once more; it seemed to re-establish his inner balance.

He avoided Bragernes Square on his way home. He thought she might be drifting around there together with the dark-haired man who was not her brother. Have I really let a prostitute into my life? he thought as he walked home. No, I haven't let her in, she won't be coming back, I'm certain of this, those people are so restless. That day he shopped in Rimi. He bought fish fingers, which he would eat with potatoes and tartar sauce. Cheap and good for you, Alvar thought. He put his shopping in a bag and went back out into the street and started walking up the steep hill to his flat. At the letter box he met Green, his neighbour, who nodded to him briefly; Alvar nodded briefly back. Had he seen Lindys the previous day when she came to his door? Seen her slumped there in all her wretchedness? What must he have thought? She looked like a mere child, but the life she was living had so obviously left its mark on her. The Greens were probably gossiping at long length about her over dinner. He shuddered at the thought. He loathed the idea that other people might be discussing him, might be thinking about him, because it was beyond his control. For a moment he felt unwell, he felt disjointed and awkward, it was like falling apart. Then he pulled himself together and let himself in.

As he entered the flat he was suddenly filled with a sense of purpose, it rose within him like mercury in a thermometer. He went straight to the telephone and called his bank to find out the balance of his savings account.

'The available balance is: seventy thousand three hundred and sixty-seven kroner and thirty øre,' the voice announced. Alvar was delighted. Tomorrow morning he would go straight to his bank and transfer the money to Gallery Krantz. He would do it before he went to work. He would call his boss and ask him to drive the painting over to his flat, he would hang it on the wall. He would pull his armchair over to the fireplace, pour himself a sherry and sit down to look at the painting for the whole evening. Drown in it, lose himself in it, possess it. The thought filled him with joy. Then he thought of Lindys again. From now on whenever he saw a blonde head in the street, he knew he would jump. He was certain her name was Lindys. Alvar possessed a little insight into other people. The first name she had given him was her real name. The others were just to wind him up. Banter. She was like that. He decided to think of her as Lindys. When he thought of her. Because he was thinking of her and he did not understand that either. He was unaccustomed to another human being occupying his consciousness, someone just appearing and destroying his protracted and meticulous way of thinking. Again his thoughts were drawn to the painting. An extravagance, it struck him, the greatest in my life. A turning point. What will it be like to have the painting in my home? Perhaps it will drive me crazy? Now while it's hanging in the gallery I pine for it. But once it's on my own wall perhaps it will be different. Once it's here all the time, every time I lift my eyes and look above the fireplace. When I come into the living room in the morning and in the evening. Always this severed bridge. This dark, mysterious bridge, which ends abruptly in nothingness. Will it make me happy? Yes, a voice inside him said, it will make me happy.

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