The Last Fix (6 page)

    Henning
parked at the bottom of Cort Adelers gate. Aker Brygge, a shopping precinct,
lay like a fortress in front of Honnor wharf, the City Hall square and Akershus
Castle on the other side. Although it was around midnight, it didn't seem like
night. They strolled down the tramlines, passed a taxi rank, and two younger
taxi drivers whistled after Katrine who was walking by the broad display
windows in Aker Brygge. She glanced at her reflection. It felt good to see
herself. It felt good to make faces at her reflection: to be saucy but not
tarty. Confident, but not cheap. This is me, she thought. This is how I am. Not
naked, not dressed; not hungry, not satiated.

    They
made friends with a drunk in the queue at McDonald's. He grabbed Katrine's hand
and winked at Henning. 'Christ,' he said. 'I wish I was young like you.'
Katrine bummed cigarettes off him. A street musician sitting on one of the
benches in front of the ferries to Nesodden began to play Neil Young's 'Heart
of Gold'. The drunk asked Katrine to dance. She did. The guests at the cafe
tables along the promenade sat like dark shadows in the summer night, shadows
who might be friends, who might be enemies. She didn't care about the shadows
scowling at her, not understanding what was going on. Tourists in shorts and
white trainers with purses on strings around their necks strutted past them in
the dark.

    Afterwards
she feasted on a double cheeseburger, chips with a dollop of ketchup and a
large Coke. Henning had a milkshake as always, a vanilla milkshake. That was
Henning.

    'Didn't
you get any food up on Holmenkollen?' he asked once they were back in the car.

    'I
spewed it up. Guess why.'

    'Mr
Nice Guy?'

    She
nodded.

    'He
tried it on?'

    'As
always.'

    Henning
produced a small joint from his shirt pocket, lit it and took a noisy suck.
'It's what I've always said,' he gasped, holding his breath for a few seconds
before continuing, 'The guy is enough to make anyone spew.' He was breathing
normally again. The smell of marijuana spread around them. Henning said: 'But I
wouldn't have thought you would chuck up. I thought you were normal.'

    'Shit,
I hate being normal.' Katrine grinned through a mouthful of chips and ketchup.

    Henning
took another noisy suck on the joint.

    'Would
you like to be normal?' he asked with tears in his eyes.

    She
tossed back her head and screamed: 'No! And it's wonderful!'

    They
drove along Mosseveien to the sounds of a gentle night-time voice speaking
through the car's speakers. Henning turned off on the old Mossevei by Mastemyr,
passed Hvervenbukta beach and drove at a leisurely speed along the night-still
road. Katrine switched off the radio and stretched her arms in the air. The
wind tried to flatten her arms; the verdant tops of the trees formed shadows
against the sky; there was a smell of grass, of camomile. The smell of summer
came streaming towards them. Henning turned right, down the road to
Ingierstrand.

    He
stopped and parked in a kind of gravel parking area, under some large pine
trees, with the bonnet facing the calm Bunnefjord and a narrow beach further
down.

    Both
of them turned at the sound of another car. They were not alone. A light came
round the bend, a car braked and came to a halt further back.

    Henning
smiled and started the engine again. 'Never any peace. I want us to be alone.'

    She
said nothing. She was considering what he said and wondered whether to say
anything.

    Henning
reversed and drove back the way he had come. But at the crossing with the old
Mossevei he took a right. They drove carefully round the bends and parked by
Lake Gjer. It was a wonderful undisturbed area. A table and bench and a few
bushes. Henning drove in between the trees. They could see across the lake; a
few hundred metres away they could make out the silhouette of the gigantic car
tyre marking Hjulet caravan site.

    Henning
switched off the engine. For a few moments they heard the chirping of a
cricket. Soon it too was quiet. The quietness around them made them feel as if
they had entered a void.

    She
wanted to tell him how she felt, to communicate to him the trembling sensation
she had which was making her skin nubble, here and now. But she could not find
the words. They gazed at each other. In the end the silence was broken by the
click of the electric lighter. Henning's face glowed red as he lit his
cigarette.

    The
leather seat creaked as she leaned back and peered up at the blue-black sky
where the stars sparkled, like the gleam from a lamp covered with a black
sieve. She said aloud 'Like the gleam from a lamp covered with a damn great
black sieve.'

    They
looked into each other's eyes again, so long that she almost felt part of her
was drowning in his dark eyes. She wondered whether it would always be like
this for her, whether the boundary between friendship and love would always be
confused.

    He
said: 'If we can move away, step back far enough, here on earth, we see a kind
of system in what is only fiery chaos. We can see two stars, one may have died
years ago, and been extinguished, and the other may be in the process of
exploding right now. We consider it a system, but everything is in constant
flux. The earth falls, the sun falls, stars explode in the beyond and create
time!'

    The
cigarette bobbed up and down in the corner of his mouth and his eyes shone with
enthusiasm. He is a little boy, she thought, taking the cigarette from his dry
lips. She held it between her long fingers and kissed him tentatively. He
tasted of smoke and lozenges. The stubble of his beard rasped against her chin.
He said something she didn't catch; the words caressed her face like silent
breaths of wind between fine beach grass. She opened her mouth as he went on,
parted her lips to blow at the whispering voice.

    'Imagine
a woman,' he whispered. 'A beautiful woman a long time ago, one who is a bit
wild…'

    'Wild?'

    'It's
a long time ago anyway, and one day she is walking along a path and comes to a
river. There's a bridge over the river, one of those old-fashioned ones made
with tree trunks, with no railing…'

    'Is
it spring or autumn?' she asked.

    'It's
spring, and the river is running high and she stops to look down, into the
foaming torrent. She stands there playing with her ring, but drops it in the
water…'

    'What
sort of ring is it?'

    'I'm
coming to that. The ring has been passed down through generations. And the ring
falls in the water and is lost. Many years later she meets a man. He's from
Canada…'

    'Where
is she from?'

    'Hm?'

    She
smiled at the bewildered expression on his face. 'You said he was from Canada.
Where is she from?'

    He
thrust out his hands. 'She's from… from… Namsos.'

    'You
see. It takes so little for you to lose your composure.' 'But you ask so many
questions. You're ruining my story.'

    She
smiled. 'That's because you get so excited. Don't be annoyed. Go on.'

    'The
two of them marry. But all his life he walks around with an amulet around his
neck. It's a small Indian box carved out of wood; inside he has a secret,
something he found in the stomach of a salmon he gutted as a young man…'

    'The
ring!' she exulted.

    Despairing
intake of breath from Henning.

    She
grinned. 'Are you denying that the ring is in the amulet?'

    He,
also with a grin: 'The ring is indeed in the amulet. But that's not the point.'

    'OK,
get to the point.'

    'The
point is that he dies.'

    'Dies?
Hey, you're evil.'

    '…
And when he's dead, the widow opens the amulet he wore around his neck all his
life… what are you grinning at?'

    'You're
such a hopeless romantic.'

    With
another grin: 'I'm never going to the cinema with you.'

    'Yes,
you will. Let's go to the cinema. Let's go tomorrow.'

    'But
you don't let anyone finish what they're saying.'

    'I
don't go to the cinema to talk!'

    'No,
tut I'm sure you'll sit there commenting on the film. I hate it when people
talk in the cinema.'

    'I
promise to be quiet if you come with me to the cinema tomorrow.'

    'What
will Ole say if you and I go to the cinema?'

    'Don't
bring Ole into this. I'm talking about you and me.'

    'And
I'm talking about the system,' he insisted, remaining objective. 'My whole
point is that it is not chance that made this man live his life with her ring
round his neck. No two rings are identical; it's the same ring she lost before
they met. He caught a fish with the ring in its stomach. However, the ring and
the man, plus her and the salmon, along with the ring, are all part of the
system, a pattern which becomes logical if it is put in the right perspective.
If you step back far enough.'

    'And
you're floating on a pink cloud,' she said, taking a last drag of his
cigarette. She held it out to him with a quizzical expression, then crushed it
in the ashtray in the car door when, with a wave of his hand, he refused. She
said: 'The strange thing about this story is that she didn't know about the
ring the man had around his neck all his life. After all, they were married.'

    He
sighed again. 'You're the one who's hopeless,' he whispered, and after a little
reflection went on: 'OK, but I think this guy had the ring in the amulet around
his neck because he dreamed about the woman who owned it, and I think he didn't
want to reveal the dream to his wife because he loved her so much. He didn't
want her to know about this dream he had about another woman.'

    'And
in fact it was his wife who owned the ring. It was her he was dreaming about
all the time.' She nodded deep in thought. 'In a way, that's beautiful.'

    Henning
leaned forwards, groped around the dashboard and pressed a button. A buzz came
from the roof of the car as it closed above them.

    'Wouldn't
you like to see the stars?' she asked with sham surprise.

    'I'm
a bit cold,' he answered - as though quoting a line from a book.

    With
the roof over their heads and the windows closed it was like sitting in front
of a warm hearth. The car bonnet reflected the glow of the starry sky. An insect
brushed against her forehead, leaving her with a mild itch which she rubbed
with her index finger.

    'What
I am trying to point out is the pattern,' he continued. 'Imagine the hand that
gathers strength to cast the bait, a second in an ocean of seconds, but still
this second is part of a system. It is at this second that the salmon takes the
bait - so that the man can land the fish and find the ring in its stomach. For
one moment, imagine that moment - the sun reflecting on the drops of water and
the metal hook - a hundredth of a second that fulfils the fish's feeling of
hunger and its drive to swim up the river. This hundredth is one link in a
system. Everything is connected: fate, man, woman, salmon, time and the ring
she fidgets with on the bridge. Together they are points in a greater unity.
Take us two. Or imagine two people, any two young people, two people who love
each other without being aware that they do.'

    'But
is that possible?'

    He
shrank back, stole a glance and said: 'Of course it's possible. These two
people see each other every day, they may meet every day at work - or not even
that - for that matter they might see each other every day at a bus stop - or
on a bus in the morning rush hour. She may run past a window where he is
standing and waiting every morning. Think about it: every morning she rims past
a particular office window to see him, and he rushes to the window to see her;
this is a moment of contact neither of them can analyze or understand to any
meaningful extent until a lot of time has passed. Later, with more experience,
with the passage of more time, they think back and know in their hearts that
what they had felt at that moment was a kind of love. They know that they
already loved each other then.'

    'But,
Henning,' she said, stroking his beard with her lips. She placed a light kiss
on Henning's mouth and whispered: 'You can let them meet again because you're
in charge, you're telling the story.'