Per Petterson - I Refuse

At the end, in a corner, there was a café which was open to the gallery, you could just walk straight in from wherever you wanted. It looked perfect, no fancy concept. I walked in and wrapped my coat over the back of a chair, walked up to the counter and ordered a fairly substantial lunch. Or early dinner. The woman behind the counter was friendly, and she asked me how I was. I had never seen her before, why would I tell her anything. I said:

‘Fine, thanks. I’m just fine.’ And I thought, Oh Christ, I’m so hungry, get a move on.

‘That’s good to hear,’ she said. ‘There was someone just sitting at your table, he wasn’t so happy. He often comes here. He hardly ever smiles. And he’s always alone. I try to cheer him up a bit, but it doesn’t seem to help. It’s sad to see.’

‘Yes, I guess it is,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know that man. This is the first time I’ve been here.’

‘That’s right,’ she said, ‘I’ve never seen you before. I would have remembered you, I’m sure of that,’ she said, and then, out of the blue, I said:

‘It’s not true what I said. I’m not fine, I’m not just fine.’ She stood still for a second, and then she said:

‘Oh, I’m sad to hear that.’

‘Yes, it’s sad,’ I said. ‘I wish everything was just fine, but it isn’t.’

‘What is it that’s so sad,’ she said.

‘That’s very difficult to explain.’

‘You can try,’ she said.

I looked around me. There was no one else at the counter. I looked at her. She was attractive, she was younger than me, ten years younger, or more. I could see both her hands, she wasn’t wearing a ring. But I couldn’t tell her about Jim and his blue woolly cap that had moved me so, it was especially the cap, and his worn, old reefer jacket in the dim light this morning on the bridge by Ulvøya, or about my father in the drunk tank, the colour of the walls, his sad trousers without a belt and his foot in the striped sock, like the foot of a child, no, I couldn’t stand here by the counter and tell her about that, no matter how attractive she was, hell no, I couldn’t. Besides, I was so hungry I was shuffling my feet like a little boy in need of the toilet.

‘I guess I’d better think it through first,’ I said. ‘Right now I’m famished.’

‘You go and sit down,’ she said, ‘and I’ll get the food ready.’

I paid what it cost and walked over and sat down at my table. I didn’t have a newspaper, so all I could do was stare into the air, but before I knew it she had appeared from behind the counter with a tray of food. She didn’t have to do that. She probably wasn’t supposed to, either. It was a self-service place. But it smelt good. And she smelt good as she leaned forward and put the tray in front of me on the table and lifted my plate from the tray and lifted the bread and cutlery from the tray and tucked the tray under her arm. I could see the skin on her neck close-up, and her skin moved me in such an odd way, and further down behind her blouse I could see her skin too, and it was as though I knew it from before and had touched it before, and it filled me with homesickness. She smiled. Her face was already a familiar face. She was pretty. I smiled back. She probably smiled like that at all the customers in this café, at least the male customers, I thought, and she probably smiled like that to the man who had just left and had been sitting at this very table, which was my table now, right before I came to the café in my purple coat and was hungry.

‘Bon appétit,’ she said.

‘Thank you. It’ll do me good,’ I answered, and she said:

‘I hope so,’ and started walking back to the counter. I watched her leave.

‘Excuse me,’ I said.

She stopped and turned.

‘Would it be very impolite,’ I said, ‘if I asked you what your name is.’

She hadn’t been smiling when she crossed the floor with her back to me. There could have been several reasons for that, not only that she had finished with me and was resting her lips for the next male customer.

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it would be impolite. Berit,’ she said. ‘My name is Berit.’

‘Berit,’ I said. ‘Thank you. That’s good. I’m glad you told me. It was kind of you.’

It wasn’t easy to explain, but I am sure it was her skin, her neck, that made me ask. I would have liked to put my hand on it so much, to touch it, again , you could almost say.

‘Kind of me. Maybe,’ she said, and still she didn’t smile, she was looking quite serious now, as though there was something seriously wrong. With her name perhaps. Or something else. How could I know. But she was pretty. I liked looking at her.

‘I hope there’s nothing wrong,’ I said.

‘I guess not,’ she said.

I nodded. Something was definitely wrong, and somehow we were in the same boat now, that was it, that’s where we were heading, and I nodded again, as warmly as possible, but not so warmly I would have to add something to bring us even closer, we were close enough already. It was my own fault. I could have kept my mouth shut. I’ll let it stop there, I thought. There is no other way out of this than politely letting it die of its own accord, what had emerged between us, from lack of oxygen, or will, or maybe even courage, yes, maybe even that, and so I said nothing. I dropped my head slowly to the table and the plate of food I still hadn’t touched. She turned away just as slowly, and in a short glimpse I could see she looked older now. She looked older when she didn’t smile. But she was still attractive.

I ate without once looking up. I should have had a newspaper in front of me, I thought, Aftenposten , preferably, or Dagens Næringsliv , that would have looked better, it wasn’t natural to sit so hunched over the table like this for such a long time. But what else could I do, I thought, and then I thought, where is Jim right now. I didn’t know where he lived, how could I. He was on the bridge this morning, but it was not likely he lived anywhere nearby. No one fishing on the bridge lived nearby, everyone in Ulvøya knew that, you could see them in the half-dark of the night, or the early morning, and otherwise they were wiped off the face of the earth, and who knew who they were. Not me. So Jim could be living anywhere, in Oslo, or further out, Enebakk, Nesodden or Drøbak. No, not Drøbak. But anything was possible. He moved from Mørk when we were eighteen. We had known each other for almost all those years, he was a year old when his mother came to Mørk with her rolling ‘r’s and Jim wrapped in her arms and a big bag and very little else, it’s what I’d heard. Nevertheless, it was a long time ago. A whole life came to an end that day at the Central Hospital, that was how it felt then, and it still felt that way, even after thirty years. And all of a sudden it was impossible to comprehend. How could I have lived without him for so long. How could I have. And with my face turned to the table, I started to cry, and I thought, how could I have lived without Jim. I tried to cry quietly into the plate, which was almost empty now, just a couple of rashers of bacon left, but it wasn’t easy. I squeezed my eyes to hold back the tears, I squeezed my mouth to hold back my breath, but then my shoulders started to shake, and I could not stop them. In one of my pockets I had a handkerchief. I searched my trouser pockets, but it wasn’t there, and then my jacket pockets, and then the coat hanging over the back of the chair. It was all a bit awkward and clumsy, for I couldn’t raise my head or turn, but instead had to twist my right hand hard behind my back, and finally I found the handkerchief at the bottom of the inside pocket on the left, and what on earth was it doing there, but I fished it out and wiped my face thoroughly and blew my nose so it would seem as if I had a cold, which in fact I did, I’d had one for several days, that was why I had a handkerchief in the first place, I didn’t normally carry one. This time I put it in my trouser pocket, and then I raised my head, and there she was, giving me her full attention from behind the counter between the coffee machine and the cash till. There was no one between us, no one at the till or the tables around me, and there was something about the way she was standing, with her one hand on the counter, and then the other placed itself next to the first, and neither hand had a finger with a ring on it. She wasn’t smiling. It was my fault. I could have kept my mouth shut. It was almost unbearable. I looked down at the table again and wiped my nose with the back of my hand, the way I did when I was a child, and stood up and took the purple coat from the chair. It was a heavy coat. I glanced over at her and nodded briefly, letting my gaze drop, and thought, God, am I glad you have to pay upfront. And then I left the café with the coat over my arm.