Хьелль Аскильдсен - The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat and Other Stories from the North

Thick, coarse hair grazed his fingertips. [3]

“Go!”

I discover to my horror that she has decided to do just that after I have told her to for the fourth time. I regret rebuffing her even more when she sticks her arm into the sleeve of her pale-blue Peak Performance jacket and gets ready to leave the flat. Consumed by self-loathing, I tell myself to go over and embrace her, apologize and beg her to stay, but my body refuses to obey. I glower at her while she puts on her jacket and her shoes, drops the cigarette packet into her handbag and heads for the door. I really don’t want her to go. I want her close to me again and I want to tell her that I love her, over and over. But all I can do is watch her sad face as she leaves because I’m unable to move or utter a single sound. Get it together, you moron! I know that I’m in the wrong, it was my fault that we started arguing, and that it was stupid, ugly me who provoked, offended and hurt her after a crap day that left me bursting with suppressed anger. Now I look at her adorable, wistful eyes and my remorse is so great that the ocean seems but a drop by comparison. My shame leaves me silent and immobile, but still overdosing on madness. Why can’t I just admit that I was wrong? I look at her beautiful face when she gives me a placating look just as she is about to leave.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

I’m sorely tempted to show her how contrite I am, but why, why is she apologizing? Why does she take on the blame? Once more I’m overcome with rage and I glare mercilessly at her with my ridiculous face. I watch her go.

“I love you,” I whisper and the door shuts.

I jerk violently and then I rush to the door, taking big strides, and I lock it so ostentatiously that my beloved must be able to hear it. I hope desperately that it will make her so angry that she will come back and bang on the door, but I realize that she has given up when I hear her fetch her bicycle and her presence starts to fade. I run to the window to look for her, but she is already too distant to hear my frantic knocking on the windowpane. She is far away, gone, and I am left alone with myself. A dreadful loneliness starts to grow inside me. Serves you right, go on, feel sorry for yourself, be lonely, stop whingeing, you got exactly what you wanted, she has left, she is gone. Fia, you bloody idiot, it’s your own fault that she left you. I bang my heavy head against the wall to punish myself for my impatience and stupidity. Darling. Beloved, I’m sorry. Come back, beloved, and I will prove to you that my love for you knows no limits. Beloved, give me another chance; believe me when I say that you’re more important to me than I am. Please understand that I didn’t mean what I said. Come back and kiss me again, cry in my arms, scold me and give me the chance to comfort you. I will die unless you return.

The feeling crawls from my heart to my lungs and then up my throat before it explodes out of my mouth. My body grows limp and I start to wail, my face distorts, and the snot runs. I don’t care if the people above or below can hear me because there’s no way I can control myself. I throw my heavy body on the bed and sob into her scented pillow which is drenched by the time I fall asleep.

Sara, my beloved Sara, come back.

I wake up thinking that a mouse is trying to escape from my hand, but realize that my mobile is vibrating. Last night’s dreadful events hit me full force. Then a feeling of joy grows inside me: my beloved is calling because she wants to come back to me.

“My darling, I’m sorry. Come back to me. I love you. Sara, I love you, I love you so so much.”

I don’t bother with hello because I’m so busy telling her all the things I should have said before she left, so that she will understand. I’m still half asleep and I can’t make out what she is saying. There has to be something wrong with my brain since her voice sounds so different. It is unrecognizable.

“We’re calling you because we can’t find anyone else to contact, and we can see that you’ve called Sara’s mobile. Do you know Sara?”

Perhaps she is still pissed off with me. Perhaps she is trying to wind me up and maybe she is not yet ready to forgive me.

“Sara, darling. I’m sorry.”

I’m not angry with her at all because I can still remember the horrible and crazy stuff I said to her. Sweetheart.

“Fia? You’re Fia, aren’t you?”

Slowly it dawns on me that the person I’m talking to is not Sara.

“Come on, pass the phone to Sara. Or tell her that I love her. Yes, tell her that I love her and that I want her to come home. Tell that I’m not upset and that it’s my fault and mine alone that we argued last night. Would you? Please would you tell her? I can understand if she doesn’t want to talk to me. Tell her that I understand. No, tell her that I love her more than anything in the whole world.”

The woman I’m talking to, who must be one of Sara’s friends, heaves a deep sigh. She might be about to pass the mobile to Sara or tell her what I have just said.

“Ubgofsjfuofbwjnfjsbfjn sfjfou ofbosjkfbsobegjb ojefbkjbfjbf cnjfeojfbjbfdjgfnaoe,” the woman replies—and when I fail to understand her, I ask her to say it again.

“Rkfkgjbdkfjb kekhjbg efkjekgjuuenaljefkjebgaebug.”

“WHAT?”

I’m in agony, all my muscles tense up, and for some inexplicable reason, my heart starts to pound. I don’t want to listen to her gobbledygook any more. I feel dizzy and I want to throw up. The words align inside my head and take shape.

“She has been knocked down by a car and I’m afraid that she’s dead.”

The idiot woman’s words start repeating inside my head: knocked down. Dead. Knocked down. Dead. Knocked down. Dead. And all I can think of is San Francisco, SF…

Prussic’s song “Qarasat neri10ppoq, imaaru10lerpoq vakalerpoq” from my childhood returns. I wonder why that silly song is going around my head and when I can’t come up with an explanation, I just blame it on my messed-up brain.

Right… If I ignore my madness, then I think that I’m OK. I’m not sad. I’m not happy. I feel nothing. I don’t know if I’m alive or dead. I only realize that I have arrived in Denmark when I hear young, angst Danish teens talk: “It’s fucking sick, that’s what it is. Bitch nicked my iPhone, and she can’t even be bothered to admit it! I mean, what the fuck! Stupid slag, but she won’t get away with it if that’s what she thinks! Bitch!” It is like being on a bus full of teenagers in Nuuk on a Friday night. They remind me of Nuummiuts who talk just like that when they mess with each other, mixing Greenlandic and Danish and shit, but end up sounding like a bunch of fucking morons. “Shit, whorersuaq niaqulaaruloorpaat! Kalassuaq, utaqqilaar unatagaaruluussaatit! Arnapalaaq!” The Danish teenage slang takes me back to a period I can’t bear to think about, and it pains me so much so that I can no longer control myself. As they are in front of me and are still mouthing off, I run to catch up with them. I slap the boy with the big mouth on the back of his head, snatch his baseball cap and position myself right in front of him. I fling out my arms as wide as I can, shove my face up close to his and start screaming so loudly that the sinews in my neck stand out.

“Shut the fuck up! Learn to talk properly! I’ve had it up to here with you bloody kids!”

I turn my back on them and start to walk away, but then I spin around and erupt in one last roar.

“AARGH!”

I hurl the boy’s cap at him and stumble along, away from them. What the hell? What just happened? What do I think I’m doing? When I turn around to apologize, they are already gone; they have probably fled. Fancy me being in Denmark. I don’t even remember being on the plane.