I Can See in the Dark

Chapter 2

At the entrance to the park, just as you turn in along a narrow, paved path, there is a beautiful sculpture.

Woman Weeping.

I’m not well travelled, but I’ve never seen anything like it, never seen anything so lovely and so riveting as this sculpture. I’ve never seen anyone cry the way she’s doing. She’s on her knees, she’s succumbed to it completely, weighed down with suffering and grief. Her hands hide her face, her long hair has fallen forwards, her shoulders are hunched in hopeless despair. It’s heartening that an artist has got to grips with the anguish we all feel. Our sorrow about life itself, the torment of existence, braving each of its seconds and minutes, tolerating the gaze of others. There are plenty of other wonderful sculptures. Beautiful women with outstretched arms, athletic men, chubby, laughing children.

But give me Woman Weeping.

Give me the truth about human beings and life.

She’s cast from gilded bronze which has a lovely lustre. When the sun streams through the leaf canopy she turns warm and golden like an ember. In winter her body is as cold as ice, with its round shoulders and the narrow back, through which vertebrae protrude like marbles beneath the skin. When no one is looking, I stroke her slender body, her long legs, her slim ankles.

But my thoughts constantly return to Miranda.

She needs help with everything the whole time, I often think about that, help from morning to night, every hour, all round the clock. Help when she’s thirty and when she’s forty. At some point her mother won’t be there any more, and who will look after her then? It’s just this sort of helpless case that ends up at the nursing home where I work, that ends up at Løkka. Then, they’re handed over to me with all my quirks and fancies, my outbursts and attentions. Within me lurks an evil little devil, who occasionally asserts himself, he’s impossible to avoid, because sometimes the temptation is too great. I’d never have believed it of Riktor, people would say in all their ignorant innocence, if they knew the truth about me and the things I’m capable of. I can see right through people, I can see what’s concealed in their innermost, shadowy recesses. And when it comes to evil, I can believe anything of anybody.