Karin Fossum: Broken

'You are! All of us out there are worried about it and for good reason. Several members of your family have died from cancer. You smoke forty cigarettes a day, you drink too much red wine in the evenings, you're addicted to millions of pills, you eat too little, you work too hard, so you're clearly not going to live to be an old lady.'

I ponder this. 'Very well, you may be right. I can only do what I do and death is never convenient. However, I'm only fifty-one and you are second in the queue.'

'Name me,' he pleads again.

I pull up my knees. My shoulders are freezing cold, and my temples are starting to throb.

'Come closer to the light.'

He gets up and lifts the chair; he moves closer to the bedside table. He sits down again and folds his hands.

'You have a sensitive face,' I say inspecting him. 'You're gentle, poetic with a tendency towards melancholy. You come from a small, unassuming family of hard-working people. They all have this humility, this awareness of nuances, with the exception of your mother, perhaps, I'm not quite sure about her. I can picture them, they are fair-skinned and you can see their veins like fine, green threads.'

He pulls up the sleeve of his jacket and studies his wrist.

'You have large grey eyes,' I go on. 'However, your gaze is often defensive; if anyone talks to you, you'll look away. Your hair is thinning; it bothers you because in your own way you're vain despite your self-proclaimed modesty. You have dreams, they will never come true. Yet you're patient. You've always been patient. Right up until now.'

'And my name?'

'Give me a little time. Names are very important. If I rush, it will be wrong and I doubt that you'll be content with just anything.'

'I'm sorry I interrupted you,' he says, 'please continue, I'm listening.'

'Your hands,' I state, 'are really quite small. Your shoe size is thirty-nine, which is small for a grown man. You're clean, you watch what you eat and you're good at saving money. You're never ill, and you drink moderately. You have a green thumb, you're very fond of music. You notice how the light changes outside your window, you watch people and they fascinate you in a way you don't understand, yet you don't feel connected to them. You never approach anyone, you live your life without involving anyone else. You never complain, you don't shout, you never object to anything, you never get stressed; you make yourself go on like a carthorse. What do you think of Torstein?'

He gives me an uncertain look. 'It's not terribly poetic'

I think again. Names fly through my mind and with each one I observe him closely. I hold the name up to his face, trying to make it fit.

'I would have to agree with you. Besides, Torstein is a strong man's name, resourceful and decisive. And I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you're a bit spineless.'

He bows his head and blushes scarlet in the light from the lamp on the bedside table.

'You must forgive me,' I say, 'but it was your idea to enter my house and I'm in charge here.'

'I know, I know. I will take what I'm given, I mean that from the bottom of my heart.'

'Then let's continue.'

I think again, I close my eyes.

'You sleep well at night, you sleep like a baby. You get up early and are always equally content with each new day. However, this serenity of yours, this meticulousness is actually very fragile. No one is allowed to disturb it, enter into it or distract you. You need to be in control and have a clear overview of absolutely everything that will happen.'

New names fly by. Names full of gravity and poetry.

'How about Alvar?' I suggest.

'Is that a name?' He looks at me quizzically.

'Of course it's a name. Though better known in Sweden than here in Norway. Attractive, too, in my opinion. Think it over.'

'I am. What about my surname? I suppose I'll be given one of those too?'

'Of course. Personally I favour monosyllabic names. Like Krohn. Or Torp. But I want to give you more than that.' I close my eyes again. Search through a myriad names.

'Your surname is Eide,' I say with absolute conviction.

'Alvar Eide,' he says quietly. 'That's good, I'm very grateful.'

He straightens his back and smiles.

'So you'll be starting tomorrow?'

I rest my head against the headboard, I shrug with resignation. Never, in all my life, have 1 experienced anything like this.

'Because now that I am visible to you, you won't be able to wait. I'll have a word with the woman holding the dead child, I'm sure we can come to an understanding.'

'Well, if you've been reassured now, would you kindly leave and find your place in the queue? I need some sleep, it's very late now.'

'Yes!' He nods adamantly. His grey eyes have lit up. 'There's just one small thing.' He raises his hand, he is begging. 'Am I a good person?'

I smile and shake my head at this. The way he is looking at me makes me laugh, and I concede that he has won.

'Of course you're a good person, Alvar Eide, you're as good as gold. Now leave me alone, I'm tired.'

Finally he gets up; he carefully puts the chair back in its place. Turns off the light, bows politely and exits. I hear his footsteps on the staircase, I hear the door being closed. I put my head on my pillow, I feel dizzy.

'Goodness gracious me,' I say out into the darkness. 'What do you make of this, puss?'

The cat is asleep, his paws twitching, he is hunting.

'Gandalf,' I whisper, 'listen to this. There is mutiny in the queue outside the house!'

The cat sleeps on determinedly. I turn on to my side and pull up my knees. What does it mean that I no longer have an orderly system? This has never happened before. What will happen in future, if they start arguing about the sequence? Is there a moment far into the future where this flow of people ends? Where will I turn then? Will I have to settle for people who have created their own lives, real people? Lives I have no control over, lives I cannot shape the way I always have? I can find no peace. I don't like this night, this turn that my life has taken, I'm used to a certain amount of control, a certain order. But now Alvar Eide has wedged himself into my life. I turn to the wall and I want to go to sleep, but I'm troubled by words flying through my head. I want to enter the room where Alvar lives, but the door is shut and locked. I don't find the key until the early-morning hours.

I'm a good person.

So thought Alvar Eide, just as he was putting on his coat. He stood in his hall studying his face in the mirror. This thought, that he was a good person, seemed to comfort him, as if he had suddenly realised that he had not amounted to much else in this world. He had never distinguished himself, never caused a stir. Not that he had wanted to either, but the years were mounting up, he had started to think about the end. At the age of forty-two he was thinking about the end. Perhaps because his father, Emmanuel Eide, had only lived to fifty-three. Then without warning his heart had stopped beating never to start again. Alvar found it hard to believe that he himself would live past this age; he imagined his death was programmed into his genes like a time bomb and that it would go off in eleven years. But there was now one thing to comfort him, one cool morning in November just as he was about to walk the two kilometres to his place of work: I have never achieved anything major, I have never distinguished myself, but deep down I know I'm a good person.

He stuck his arms through the sleeves and reached for a camel-coloured woollen scarf he liked to wear wrapped around his neck. The scarf lay beautifully and neatly folded on the chest of drawers beneath the mirror. His gloves lay in a drawer; he pulled them on, they were slightly too big. He knew they kept his hands warmer that way. On his head he wore nothing. Even so, he glanced at the mirror to check that his hair was in place, gently combed over from his right temple and all the way across to his left. There was no breeze outside.