The Son

3

Per Vollan walked through the park by Alexander Kiellands Plass. It had been a soaking wet and unseasonably cold July, but now the sun was back and the park was just as intensely green as on a spring day. Summer had returned, people around him sat with upturned faces and closed eyes soaking up the sunshine as if it was about to run out; there was a rumbling of skateboards and a clunking of six-packs of beers on their way to barbecues in the city’s green spaces and balconies. There were, however, some who were even more delighted that the temperature had risen. People who looked as if the traffic around the park had coated them in fumes: shabby figures huddled up on benches or around the fountain, who called out to him in hoarse, happy voices that sounded like seagulls screeching. He waited for the green light at the junction of Uelandsgate and Waldemar Thranes gate while trucks and buses swept past him. He looked at the facades on the other side of the street as they flashed in front of him through the gaps in the traffic. Plastic sheeting covered the windows of the notorious pub, Tranen, which had quenched the thirst of the city’s most parched residents since its construction in 1921 — the last thirty years accompanied by Arnie ‘Skiffle Joe’ Norse who dressed in a cowboy costume and rode a unicycle while he played guitar and sang accompanied by his band consisting of an old, blind organist and a Thai woman on tambourine and car horn. Per Vollan’s eyes shifted to the front of a building where cast-iron letters spelling out ‘Ila Pensjonat’ had been cemented into the facade. During the war the building had housed unmarried mothers. Now it was a residential facility for the city’s most vulnerable addicts. Those who didn’t want to get clean. Last stop before the end.

Per Vollan crossed the street, stopped outside the entrance to the centre, rang the bell and looked into the eye of the camera. He heard the door buzz open and he entered. For old times’ sake the centre had offered him a room for two weeks. That was a month ago.

‘Hi, Per,’ said the young, brown-eyed woman who came down to open the barred gate to the stairs. Someone had damaged the lock so that the keys no longer worked from the outside. ‘The cafe is shut now, but you’re in time for dinner if you go in right away.’

‘Thanks, Martha, but I’m not hungry.’

‘You look tired.’

‘I walked all the way from Staten.’

‘Oh? I thought there was a bus?’

She had started climbing back up the stairs and he shuffled along after her.

‘I had some thinking to do,’ he said.

‘Someone came by earlier asking for you.’

Per froze. ‘Who?’

‘Didn’t ask. Could have been the police.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘They seemed very keen to get hold of you, so I thought it might be about an inmate you know. Something like that.’

Already, Per thought, they’ve come for me already.

‘Do you believe in anything, Martha?’

She turned on the stairs. Smiled. Per thought that a young man might fall deeply in love with that smile.

‘Like God and Jesus?’ Martha asked, pushing open the door into reception which was a hatch in a wall with an office behind it.

‘Like fate. Like chance versus cosmic gravity.’

‘I believe in Mad Greta,’ Martha muttered as she leafed through some papers.

‘Ghosts aren’t-’

‘Inger said she heard a baby cry yesterday.’

‘Inger is highly strung, Martha.’

She stuck her head out of the hatch. ‘We need to have a talk, Per. .’

He sighed. ‘I know. You’re full and-’

‘The centre in Sporveisgata called today to say the fire means they’ll be closed for another two months at least. More than forty of our own residents are currently in shared rooms. We can’t go on like this. They steal from each other and then they start fighting. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt.’

‘It’s all right; I won’t be here very much longer.’

Martha tilted her head to one side and looked at him quizzically. ‘Why won’t she let you sleep in the house? How many years have you been married? Forty, is it?’

‘Thirty-eight. She owns the house and it’s. . complicated.’ Per smiled wearily.

He left her and walked down the corridor. Music was pounding behind two of the doors. Amphetamine. It was Monday, the benefits office was open after the weekend and trouble was brewing everywhere. He unlocked his door. The tiny, shabby room with a single bed and a wardrobe cost 6,000 kroner per month. You could rent a whole flat outside Oslo for that kind of money.

He sat down on the bed and stared out of the dusty window. The traffic hummed sleepily outside. The sun shone through the flimsy curtains. A fly was fighting for its life on the windowsill. It would die soon. That was life. Not death, but life. Death was nothing. How many years was it since he had come to that conclusion? That everything apart from death, everything he preached about, was nothing but a defence people had created against their fear of death. And yet none of what he used to believe meant anything at all. What we humans think we know is nothing compared to what we need to believe to numb the fear and pain. Then he came full circle. He regained his faith in a forgiving God and life after death. He believed it now, more than ever. He took out a pad from under a newspaper and started writing.

Per Vollan didn’t have much to write. A few sentences on a single sheet of paper, that was all. He crossed out his own name on an envelope which had contained a letter from Alma’s lawyer briefly stating what share of the matrimonial property they thought Per was entitled to. Which wasn’t much.

The chaplain looked in the mirror, adjusted his dog collar, put on his long coat and left.

Martha wasn’t at reception. Inger took the envelope and promised to deliver it.

The sun was lower in the sky now; the day was retreating. He walked through the park while out of the corner of his eye he registered how everything and everyone played their parts without obvious errors. No one rose from a bench a little too quickly as he passed, no cars pulled out discreetly from the kerb when he changed his mind and decided to walk along Sannergata towards the river. But they were there. Behind a window which reflected a peaceful summer evening, in the casual glance of a passer-by, in the chill in the shadows that crept out from the eastside of the houses and banished the sunlight as they gained territory. And Per Vollan thought that his whole life had been like this; a constant, pointless, vacillating struggle between the darkness and the light, which never seemed to result in victory for either side. Or had it? With every day the darkness encroached a little more. They were heading for the long night.

He increased his speed.