Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘I’m sorry,’ said Odd Rimmen. ‘I never got the chance to apologise.’

‘ Never ? Was there someone or something preventing you?’

‘No, not really. I apologise.’

‘Perhaps you should have saved it for all those people who turned up to hear you.’

‘Absolutely. You’re right.’

He thought she looked good. Better than he remembered her from the theatre. He thought that perhaps then she had been concentrating too much on the job. Too ingratiating for her to have aroused the seducer in him, the way prey will play dead until the predator loses interest. But standing here now, with a summer tan, slightly angry, with the wind in her hair and a man on her arm, she was quite simply attractive. So attractive that it seemed strange to Rimmen that she had automatically drawn the man she was with closer to her as soon as she saw him. It should really have been the other way round, with the male discreetly marking his territory when confronted by another male of about his own age, and one of a presumably higher social status now, following that article in the New Yorker.

‘Could I buy you both a glass of wine to show that I mean it?’ asked Odd Rimmen. He looked enquiringly at the man, who seemed to be looking for a polite way to decline the offer when Esther Abbot said she thought that sounded nice.

Her companion smiled like a man with a drawing pin in his shoe.

‘Some other time, perhaps,’ he said. ‘You’re on your way in, and the Louvre is so big.’

Odd Rimmen studied the ill-matched couple; her bright and light with the sun in her eyes, him as dark and heavy as a trough of low pressure. How could such an attractive woman fall for something as charmless as that? Had she no idea of her own market value? Indeed she did. He could see that, and it struck him that Esther had pulled her boyfriend/husband/lover closer to show him that this Rimmen wasn’t something he had to consider a threat. And why did her man need this kind of reassurance? Did she have a history of promiscuity, of being unfaithful? Or had they talked about him, this unpredictable author? Had Esther somehow indicated to the man at her side that he had reason to fear competition from Odd Rimmen? Was that what lay behind the expression of mingled hatred and fear he saw in the other man’s gaze?

‘I often go to the Louvre, I’ve seen most of what’s worth seeing,’ said Odd, responding to the gaze with a friendly calm. ‘Come on, I know a place where they serve a good burgundy.’

‘Perfect,’ said Esther.

They found the restaurant and even before the first glass had arrived Esther had started to ask questions that Odd suspected were left over from the interview that had never been. Where did Odd get his inspiration from? How far were the main characters based on himself? Were the sex scenes based on personal experience or were they fantasies? At this last question Odd saw the man’s face twitch. (His name turned out to be Ryan and he worked at the Embassy in Paris). Odd replied but made no attempt to improvise or be amusing as he usually did (often successfully) when ‘performing’. When he did perform. But in due course he turned the conversation around to Esther and Ryan.

Ryan seemed to make a point of not revealing what his job at the Embassy actually involved and in doing so clearly hinted that it was something secret and important. Instead he spoke of how the techniques of international diplomacy had been influenced by research done by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman on ‘priming’ — the idea that by using simple means you can place a thought or an idea in a competitor’s head without their being aware of it. That if you show people a poster with the letters E A T and then S O _ P and asked them to fill in the blank, far more of them will write SOUP rather than SOAP by comparison with those in a research group who have not been previously shown E A T.

Odd could see that Ryan was making a real effort to be interesting, but since the pop psychology he was dishing up was already stale news Odd presently turned his attention to Esther. She said she lived in London, where she worked as a freelance culture journalist but that she and Ryan commuted to see each other ‘as often as they could’. Odd noticed that she seemed to be directing this more to Ryan than to him, perhaps with a subtext along the lines of: Do you hear that, Ryan? I’m describing things as though we still have a passionate relationship, that all we wish was that we could spend more time together. Happy now, you fucking boring whitewasher ?

Odd guessed all of this must be just one of Odd Dreamin’s excursions. But maybe it wasn’t so far off the mark either?

‘Why have you just stopped?’ Esther asked as the waiter poured out a third glass.

‘I haven’t. I’m writing more than ever. And better, I hope.’

‘You know what I mean.’

He shrugged. ‘Everything I have to say is on the pages of the books. The rest is just distraction and bluff. I’m a sad and pathetic clown. Exposing myself as a person doesn’t do my work any favours.’

‘No, on the contrary, it seems,’ said Esther and raised her glass. ‘It seems like the less people see of you, the more you get talked about.’

‘My books, I hope you mean.’

‘No, you.’ Her eyes lingered a little too long on his. ‘And, as a result of this, your books, naturally. You’re in the process of turning from a cult-cult writer into a mainstream-cult writer.’

Odd Rimmen savoured the wine. And the characterisation. Licked his lips. Hm. Could already feel himself wanting more. More of everything.

When Ryan left to go to the toilet he leaned forward and put his hand over Esther’s.

‘I’m a little bit in love with you,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she said. And he thought she couldn’t possibly know, because until that very moment he hadn’t been. Or had he — unlike her — simply not realised it until now?

‘What if it’s just the wine?’ he said. ‘Or that with Ryan sitting there you’re unattainable?’

‘Does it make any difference?’ she asked. ‘If it’s because you’re lonely or because I happen to have been born with a symmetrical face? Our reasons for falling in love are banal. It doesn’t make falling any the less delightful, does it?’

‘Perhaps not. Are you in love with me?’

‘Why should I be?’

‘I’m a famous writer. Isn’t that banal enough?’

‘You’re a nearly -famous writer, Odd Rimmen. You aren’t rich. You left me just when I needed you most. And I’ve a feeling you could do it again if you got the chance.’

‘So you are in love with me?’

‘I was in love with you before I met you.’

Both raised their glasses and drank without taking their eyes off each other.

‘It’s just incredible,’ Sophie almost shouted into the phone. ‘Stephen Colbert!’

‘Is that big?’ Odd Rimmen leaned back and the rickety wooden chair gave a warning groan. He looked out at the old apple trees that his mother claimed she could remember bearing fruit. The air smelled of wild, neglected garden and of the sea, borne on the pleasantly cooling Atlantic breeze from the Bay of Biscay.

‘Big?’ gasped Odd Rimmen’s editor. ‘He’s overtaken Jimmy Fallon! You’ve been invited onto the biggest talk show there is, Odd!’

‘Because...?’

‘Because of the filming of The Hill.’

‘I don’t understand. I said no to the film.’

‘That’s exactly it! Everyone’s talking about it on social media, Odd. Everyone’s raving about your integrity. The man who sits in a run-down old house in France and writes a book about nothing, that won’t sell any copies, says no to worldly fame and stinking riches in the name of the art of writing. Right at this moment you are the coolest writer in the world, do you realise that?’