Dag Solstad - Shyness And Dignity

She tried to show him that she appreciated him. Often in a touching way. For example, by spoiling him in the matter of taking care of his clothes. Though she was absolutely not the domestic type, she insisted on ironing his shirts, pressing his trousers, and brushing his jackets. While he sat at his writing table correcting papers, she would stand at the ironing board in the living room, ironing and pressing, very fecklessly, quite helplessly, in fact, humming and singing like a genuine housewife (in reality, she was a part-time secretary and, on the side, still a student). When she was finished, she displayed the pressed trousers with a delighted smile. Or the freshly ironed shirts before she folded them. She brushed his suits — every time he was going to put on a suit, she brushed it beforehand. Indeed, she took care of his clothes as if it were a matter of priceless treasures; he had never asked her to, and she had not needed to do it, but she had taken it on, from the very first day, as a problem that she solved and was very pleased to solve. Could it be that she really would have preferred to be in an entirely different place, but that there she could not possibly be, and since she could not be where she most of all would have liked to be, she preferred to be where she was now, with him, and was that the reason for her silence? Oh, if that was the case, oh, Eva Linde, then, please, stay here. And Elias Rukla got up from his writing table and his pile of papers, walked over to her as she stood by the ironing board and gave her a big hug. Thanks for pressing my trousers. Thanks for ironing my shirts. Thanks for everything you have given me. As time went by, Elias Rukla used extreme caution in regard to expressing his love, for it had turned out that, when he did, she was not able to answer back with the same words, and then Elias knew he ought to refrain from doing so, and although it was very hard for him to hold back, he felt it was the right thing to do. And so, that was how they communicated: she by smiling at him, his newly pressed trousers in her hands, he by getting up from his writing table, going over to her and giving her a big hug.

That was how they lived. Elias Rukla took great care in dealing with her, in order not to put her in an awkward position. Now and then, when she thought she was unobserved or forgot that he was present, she would gaze absently into vacancy, and in those moments she had a mournful expression on her face, looking unhappy, indeed. But as soon as she became aware that she had fallen into a reverie, and that he was in the room, she changed her expression to the direct opposite, smiling at him and trying to erase the expression she had inadvertently made the mistake of showing him, with the result that Elias was in despair, for he could not understand why she had to hide from him that she had felt unhappy for a moment; even if, deep down, she felt unhappy all the time, she did not have to hide it from him, because he could accept it as the way things were, together with his own powerlessness to help her with it. But in the morning she was not capable of dissembling. Eva Linde never wished to see another day; she did not want to wake up, holding so stubbornly on to her sleep that it appeared odd. It is her nature, Elias Rukla thought, she must have been that way all along, she has always preferred sleep to being awake, that’s why she appears so fragile to her surroundings.

Actually she was a bit pampered. She had a spoiled air about her, which was inseparably linked to her indescribable beauty and regarded by herself with contempt, and yet she was unable to liberate herself from it, because being spoiled was agreeable to her, insofar as it elicited the desire to wait on her on the part of the person who was nearby when this trait flared up, blazing within her. She was pampered, and it showed continually. But only in brief glimpses. They were not well off. Elias Rukla was a senior master with student and housing loans to pay off, and a senior master’s salary has never been high, and in Norway at that time, towards the end of the 1970s, it was relatively lower than ever. He had to pinch pennies, that was the bitter truth. Eva had to continue to work as a secretary at the Oslo Cinemas, part-time, and the studies she had given up a long time ago were never picked up again, in spite of the fact that this was what she really wanted to do. But she continued to work as a secretary without a murmur, doing so gladly, in fact, since it was her necessary contribution to their joint economy. However, suddenly she would snarl at him. Once it happened when Eva had set her heart on getting a new kitchen and had come home with a number of brochures. Then Elias had said it was out of the question. They simply could not afford it (they had bought a car half a year earlier). Then she snarled, Damn skinflint! at him, sending him a look filled with contempt. Yes, contempt. Undisguised contempt. For two or three seconds Elias Rukla looked into the eyes of an indescribably beautiful woman who harboured a boundless contempt for him, until she abruptly turned, completely around, and said in a gentle voice, I’m sorry, I know we can’t afford it, it was silly of me. And the rest of the evening she was friendliness incarnate, and when they were going to bed she gave him clear signals that, if he wanted to come to her, there was nothing that would please her more, and if he came he could be certain of being well received.

This troubled Elias Rukla. Not that she looked hatefully at him, but her complaisance afterwards. Why did she not acknowledge her contempt for him, a man who was not equal to providing her with a new kitchen, now that the old one was so worn and old-fashioned? She was entitled to demand it of him, and although he had to tell her they could not afford it, he perfectly understood, even so, that she was entitled to despise him for it. If you marry a woman like Eva Linde, it brings certain obligations, which he had failed to fulfil by having to say no to her extremely commonplace dreams. He could say, of course, that she should have known what she was doing when she married an ordinary senior master with a limited income, and so he was safe when he said that a new kitchen at this point was out of the question, but at the same time he ought to have warned her, telling her that a woman like her could never have her wishes and dreams fulfilled by a rather threadbare secondary school teacher, something that, if he had told her, would have made her burst into unrestrained silvery laughter. She knew what she was doing. But had she for that reason written off her own worth as the woman whom Elias Rukla valued so highly? Precisely by showing her contempt when he had to admit that he could not afford to satisfy an extremely ordinary wish of hers, she showed, indeed accentuated, her value, placing her at the level where Elias Rukla himself thought she should be. So Elias Rukla had no problem accepting her contempt. What he had a problem accepting was her attempt to conceal it by glossing over it afterwards. Her deliberate complaisance afterwards. What brought it on? Why did she not dare maintain her contempt? Because she had signed away all right to it? That was quite obvious, but what did it mean? That she had signed away the right to make demands on him altogether, in her heart? And what, in turn, did that mean? Elias did not know, but he felt profound despair at her false complaisance after such outbursts and, as a matter of fact, found it difficult to respond to her invitation and come to her at night, which was, after all, as she had unequivocally signalled to him, what would please her most of all, and which he, for that very reason, could not refuse but, on the contrary, had to force himself to prepare for, as the great and, on the whole, quite undeserved honour which in that way fell to his lot, and which made it possible to describe Elias Rukla in these years as, if not a contented or happy man, at all events a lucky one.