Thomas Enger: Burned

He doesn’t know.

There is a lot he doesn’t know.

*

He lets himself into the flat after climbing three long flights of stairs where the dust floats above the ingrained dirt in the woodwork. An appropriate transition to his home. He lives in a dump. He prefers it that way. He doesn’t think he deserves a large hallway, closets the size of shopping centres, a kitchen whose cupboards and drawers look like a freshly watered ice rink, self-cleaning white goods, delicate floors inviting you to slow dance, walls covered with classics and reference books, nor does he deserve a designer clock, a Lilia block candleholder from Georg Jensen or a bedspread made from the foreskin of humming birds. All he needs is a single mattress, a fridge and somewhere to sit down when the darkness creeps in. Because it inevitably does.

Every time he closes the front door behind him, he gets the feeling that something is amiss. His breathing quickens, he feels hot all over, his palms grow sweaty. There is a stepladder to the right, just inside the hall. He takes the stepladder, climbs it and locates the Clas Ohlson bag on the old green hat rack. He takes out a box of batteries, reaches for the smoke alarm, eases out the battery and replaces it with a fresh one.

He tests it to make sure it works.

When his breathing has returned to normal, he climbs down. He has learned to like smoke alarms. He likes them so much that he has eight.

He turns over with a disappointed grunt, when his alarm clock goes off. He was halfway through a dream which evaporates as his eyes glide open and the dawn seeps in. There was a woman in the dream. He doesn’t remember what she looked like, but he knows she was the Woman of his Dreams.

Henning swears, then he sits up and looks around. His eyes stop at the pill jars and the matchbox which greet him every morning. He sighs, swings his legs out of bed and thinks that today, today is the day he’ll do it.

He exhales, rubs his face and starts with the simplest task. The pills are chalky and fiendish. As usual, he swallows them dry because it’s harder that way. He forces them down his throat, gulps, and waits for them to disappear down his digestive tract and do the job which Dr Helge enthusiastically claims is for Henning’s own good.

He slams the jar unnecessarily hard against the bedside table, as if to wake himself up. He snatches the matchbox. Slowly, he slides it open and looks at its contents. Twenty wooden soldiers from hell. He takes out one, studies the sulphur, a red cap of concentrated evil. Safety Matches it says on the front.

A contradiction in terms.

He presses the thin matchstick against the side of the box and is about to strike it when his hands seize up. He concentrates, mobilising all his strength in his hands, in his fingers, but the aggravating splinter of wood simply refuses to shift, it fails to obey and remains unimpressed. He starts to sweat, his chest tightens, he tries to breathe, but it’s no good. He makes a second attempt, takes out another tiny sword of evil and attacks the matchbox with it, but soon realises that he doesn’t have the same fighting spirit this time, nowhere near the same willpower now, and he gives up trying to turn thought into action. He remembers that he needs to breathe and suppresses the urge to scream.

It’s very early in the morning. That explains it. Arne, who lives upstairs, might still be asleep despite his habit of reciting Halldis Moren Vesaas’s poetry day and night.

Henning sighs and carefully returns the matchbox to the exact same spot on the bedside table. Gently, he runs his hands over his face. He touches the patches where the skin is different, softer, but not as smooth. The scars on the outside are nothing compared to the ones on the inside, he thinks, and then he gets up.

*

The sleeping city. That’s where he wants to be. And he is here now. In the Grunerlokka district of Oslo, early in the morning, before the city explodes into action, before the pavement cafes fill up, before mum and dad have to go to work, the children are off to nursery, and cyclists run as many red lights as they can as they hurtle down Toftesgate. Only a few people are up and about, as are the ever-scavenging pigeons.

He passes the fountain on Olaf Ryes Square and listens to the sound of the water. He is good at listening. And he is good at identifying sounds. He imagines there is no sound but the trickling water and pretends it’s the day the world ends. If he concentrates, he can hear cautious strings, then a dark cello slowly intermingling before fading away and gradually giving way to kettledrums warning of the misery that is to come.

Today, however, he doesn’t have time to let the music of the morning overwhelm him. He is on his way to work. The very thought turns his legs to jelly. He doesn’t know if Henning Juul still exists, the Juul who used to get four job offers a year, who made the mute sing, who made the days start earlier — just for him — because he was stalking his prey and needed the light.

He knows who he was.

Does Halldis have a poem for someone like me, he wonders? Probably.

Halldis has a poem for everyone.

*

He stops when he sees the yellow brick colossus at the top of Urtegata. People think the huge Securitas logo on the wall means the security firm occupies the entire office block, but several private businesses and public bodies are located here. As is www.123nyheter.no where Henning works, an Internet-only newspaper which advertises itself with the slogan ‘1-2-3 News — as easy as 1-2-3!’

He doesn’t think it’s a particularly good slogan — not that he cares. They have been good to him, given him time to recover, time to get his head straight.

A three-metre-tall fence with black metal spears surrounds the building. The gate is an integral part of the fence and slowly slides open to let out a Loomis van. He passes a small, deserted guard booth and tries to open the entrance door. It refuses. He peers through the glass door. No one around. He presses a brushed steel button with a plate saying RECEPTION above it. A brusque female voice calls out ‘yes’.

‘Hello,’ he says, clearing his throat. ‘Would you let me in, please?’

‘Who are you meeting?’

‘I work here.’

A period of silence follows.

‘Did you forget your swipecard?’

He frowns. What swipecard?

‘No, I haven’t got one.’

‘Everyone has a swipecard.’

‘Not me.’

Another silence. He waits for a continuation which never comes.

‘Would you let me in, please?’

A shrill buzzing sound makes him jump. The door whirrs. Clumsily, he pulls it open, enters and checks the ceiling. His eyes quickly identify a smoke alarm. He waits until it flashes green.

The grey slate floor is new. Looking around, he realises that many things have changed. There are big plants in even bigger pots on the floor, the walls have been painted white and decorated with artwork he doesn’t understand. They have a canteen now, he sees, to the left behind a glass door. The reception is opposite it, also behind a glass door. He opens it and enters. There is a smoke alarm in the ceiling. Good.

Behind the counter, the woman with red hair in a ponytail looks fraught. She is frantically hammering away at the keyboard. The light from the monitor reflects in her grumpy face. Behind her are pigeonholes overflowing with papers, leaflets, parcels and packages. A TV screen, hooked up to a PC, is mounted on the wall. The newspaper’s front page clamours for his attention

and he reads the headline: WOMAN FOUND DEAD

Then he reads the strap-line: Woman found dead in tent on Ekeberg Common. Police suspect murder.

He knows the news desk has yet to cover the story, because the title and the strap-line contain the same information. No reporters have been at the scene, either. The story is accompanied by an archive photo of police tape cordoning off a totally different location.