Karin Fossum: I Can See in the Dark

Sometimes at night, a lorry drives into my bedroom; it comes roaring through the door and parks next to my bed. Its diesel engine goes throbbing on until dawn. I’m worn out by the time I finally put my feet on the floor. On the other side of the bed. Silence frightens me even more, because I’ve lived my whole life in this din, with these voices and this noise.

But then there’s my angel, Sister Anna. She’s lovely, but she’s also sharp, like a cake with sweet icing and a bitter little berry in the middle. She’s the one I’m most cautious with. The rest of the staff on the ward aren’t clever enough to see through me, they haven’t the sensitivity for unravelling human riddles. And I am one such human riddle.

If only I had a woman! A woman like Sister Anna, with her beauty and her wisdom, her indomitable desire to be good. She’s blonde and bosomy and beautiful, with a high, arched brow and plump cheeks, like a small, well-nourished child. Lips red as cherries, a neck like a swan’s, eyes that seem to gaze down from on high, with the barest twinkle in them. She’s about the same age as me, in her early forties. And although she’s constantly looking in my direction, it’s not with any desire or yearning. I have none of the qualities women dream of. But I like being near her, catching the scent and the warmth of her; she warms like a stove. She shines like a sun. She sails like a ship. Truly, she’s a woman after my own depraved heart.

Everyone has virtues, everyone has a talent, everyone has a right to respect. That’s how we human beings like to think. But rotten individuals do exist and, I have to admit it, I’m one of them; a rotten individual who in certain situations can turn spiteful, to the extent that I become almost unhinged. But I find no difficulty in aping other people, aping politeness and friendliness and kindness. It’s restraining the bad impulses that’s tough. I often think of the things that might happen if I really lost control, and that does happen from time to time.

But then there’s Sister Anna, pretty little Anna, she is the angel in the human story. Sometimes, when she comes along the corridor, I go weak and wobbly at the knees. But the joy of kissing Anna’s cherry-red lips will never be mine. I know too much about the commerce of love.

I live at Jordahl on the outskirts of town, I have a small red house half an hour’s walk from the park by Lake Mester. It was built in 1952, with that typical end-of-war restraint, spartan, simple and practical. Living room and kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, and that’s all. Two old, wrought-iron stoves that purr throughout the winter, a large, covered veranda where I sit and watch the people who pass by. It’s easy to maintain, with heavy furniture that has no decorative refinement. There’s a forest at the back of the house, of spruce and birch. The house used to have a lovely lawn in front, but now it’s completely overgrown. Occasionally, during the summer I cut it with a scythe, and I enjoy playing the Grim Reaper. I feel at home in the part.

It takes me forty minutes to walk to the nursing home at Løkka. And I walk whatever the weather, even though the bus stops at the entrance. There’s something about walking, it orders the thoughts, puts them into perspective. My house is on a rise, facing west; and in the evenings the sun shines through my living-room window like a great, glowing sphere. It hangs there a moment casting a golden glow, until the rooms shimmer with heat, then it sinks behind a stand of trees. Slowly, everything turns blue.

All the shrubs and trees, and the wooded hillsides in the distance.

It’s then that my head begins to seethe. Billions of tiny creatures swarm through my brain, digging tunnels and severing the essential communications I need to be able to think, reason and plan. Good deeds and bad, it varies, I’ve so many irons in the fire. Normally I go to the window, and stand there looking out, waiting for everything to calm down. And sometimes there really is a hush. As when someone switches off a flow of words. Then I find the silence troubling and immediately switch on the radio or television just to hear voices. Sometimes, when I’m with people, I find I’m on the verge of panic for no reason whatever. I assume a friendly expression so that no one will see what’s happening to me, that I’m existing in chaos.

I’ve never mentioned any of this to a doctor. Even though we have a doctor on the ward and I could have confided in him. We are colleagues, after all. You see, I might have said to Dr Fischer, my head begins to seethe when the sun goes down. It’s like thousands of ants, like a swarm of crawling insects. There are whispers in the corners of my bedroom, and an articulated lorry parks next to my bed. Its engine idles the whole night long, and I can hardly breathe for all the diesel fumes. But you don’t go telling people things like that. Although he’s a doctor, it would make him think, and I don’t want to cause myself embarrassment.

I can see bushes and trees, buildings, posts and fences, I can see them all vividly glowing and quivering, long after dark. I see the heat they emit, a sort of orange-coloured energy, as if they’re on fire. I once mentioned this to the school nurse when I was about ten. That I could see in the dark. She simply patted me on the cheek and then smiled sadly, the way you smile at an inquisitive child with a lively imagination. But once bitten twice shy: I never mentioned it again. Sometimes at night, when it’s impossible to sleep, when the lorry has been standing at my bedside for hours and filled the entire room with exhaust fumes, I get dressed and go out and stand on the drive. I watch the moving creatures in the landscape, everything that hides from the noise and light of day. A fox darting over the fields, a deer bounding across the road, everything pulsing with this amber light.

The living-room windows give on to the drive and the road, while the kitchen window looks out on the forest of tall trees. This gives me a sense of living in seclusion, but I have got neighbours. Just below me is Kristian Juel’s house; he minds his own business and doesn’t bother me much, for which I’m grateful. Next door, up the hill, is a family with young children. They do a lot of screaming and shouting and bouncing on a large trampoline, as well as chasing a small dog that barks the whole time. Sometimes, on light summer nights, I hear the laughter and barking, and think they sound like church bells carried on the air. At other times, they get on my nerves, and I feel like screaming.

But then there’s our ward sister Anna.

Elegant, warm and radiant.

There isn’t her equal anywhere.

Once, when I was a child, a classmate announced in a malicious, jeering way that I looked like a pike. It was probably because my jaw protrudes slightly and I have sharp, crooked teeth like a predatory fish. As the boy in question was somewhat overweight, I pointed out that he ought to shut up because he resembled a beached whale. That left him completely stranded, and I could tell he regretted his little sally. That’s all I remember about my childhood. Almost everything else has been erased and consigned to oblivion. But I always remember the pike episode. I remember the feeling of humiliation, how my cheeks burned and how I was almost blind with rage. I’m not much to look at, I’ve known that for a long time. My eyes are too close together and deep-set, with irises the colour of cod liver oil. Sometimes I skulk in the bushes bordering the path that leads into the park. I just stand there and peer out at the passing pedestrians. Old people with sticks, elderly, lonely men, little girls in short, flaring skirts, tittering and gossiping, dangerous as death caps.