throat and vomit again. My stomach contracts, I cough and the pain in my side is suddenly back, oh, how welcome, old friend. My balance falters, but I jerk myself into a standingposition, and now the boy in the upstairs window has both hands to his temples and his lips clenched into a line. I wipe my mouth and retreat until I feel the car against my back, raise my hand and start to wave and go on doing that until I can see he cannot help himself and waves back, and then his mother emerges from the dark room behind him. She bends forward to find out who he is waving to,and then I go around the car and get in.
When the house is out of sight I do not drive much further, just turn on to a forest track and stop a few metres along and lean back in my seat with eyes closed until my stomach feels less upset. Then I sleep for a quarter of an hour, and when I wake up I’m feeling better. It is something new in my life, this being able to fall asleep anywhere at any time.I do not know what to think about that.
I start the engine and reverse on to the road and drive through the forest and out on the other side along a field where two horses stand in the rain. One is brown, the other is black, and the sun breaks through the clouds while the rain keeps falling on the forest and the field and the farm on the hill, all seasons are queuing in the same line while everythingslowly slides from grey white to dirty yellow. The two horses glitter in the slanting light as the shining rain falls mercilessly upon them, I can see each single drop as they strike like icy cold pellets and how they spurt up again, and the horses stand motionless, their heads down and their muzzles together close up to the fence, abandoned by all, being only horses with the rain comingdown and down upon them, and they share no hope in this world. The sight of them totally unhinges me, I clench my jaw and I clench my fist and beat at the steering wheel, and my foot hits the gas, and all this merely because I haven’t had anything to eat. But then I think: it would all be different if I had owned a horse.
There used to be a shop here I know has closed down, because I have driventhis way several times, and then it has been shut. But when I come round the curve it is open, with a new sign above the door. No doubt an idealist from Oslo wants to run a country store in a godforsaken place, far from the madding crowd, but is it far enough? I don’t think so. Anyway, it is open now, and I stop the car on the gravel outside, go in the door which has a sheep-bell at the top andis supposed to ring as in the good old days, and a young woman comes out of the room at the back. She smiles expectantly. No doubt, I am the first customer today, and all I want is some brown bread and a litre of milk. I put a Kvikk Lunsj chocolate bar on the counter to give my purchase more substance. She is wearing a huge apron with big stains of what looks like clay. Through the half-open doorbehind her I can see not an office but a pottery workshop, and when I turn round I see one end of the shop is full of bowls and vases and candlesticks and cups. All the same blue colour. I think the colour is pretty, and I think
she
is pretty. I go over, pick up a cup and weigh it in my hand, but there is no price tag on it, so I ask: “Are you expensive?”
“That one is a hundred kroner,” she says,and her voice breaks slightly and she clears her throat as if it were a long time since she last spoke. It seems a lot, a hundred kroner for a cup, but then I don’t know much about pottery, it may not be so costly. It is suddenly such a beautiful blue that I could not think of leaving without it.
“That’s not so bad,” I say, carrying the cup to the counter and putting it down in front of her.“I’ll have it.”
And she wraps it in tissue paper and enters the items in the till, then puts everything into a plastic bag and she looks so pretty in her apron doing this that I would not mind seeing her wearing
When the house is out of sight I do not drive much further, just turn on to a forest track and stop a few metres along and lean back in my seat with eyes closed until my stomach feels less upset. Then I sleep for a quarter of an hour, and when I wake up I’m feeling better. It is something new in my life, this being able to fall asleep anywhere at any time.I do not know what to think about that.
I start the engine and reverse on to the road and drive through the forest and out on the other side along a field where two horses stand in the rain. One is brown, the other is black, and the sun breaks through the clouds while the rain keeps falling on the forest and the field and the farm on the hill, all seasons are queuing in the same line while everythingslowly slides from grey white to dirty yellow. The two horses glitter in the slanting light as the shining rain falls mercilessly upon them, I can see each single drop as they strike like icy cold pellets and how they spurt up again, and the horses stand motionless, their heads down and their muzzles together close up to the fence, abandoned by all, being only horses with the rain comingdown and down upon them, and they share no hope in this world. The sight of them totally unhinges me, I clench my jaw and I clench my fist and beat at the steering wheel, and my foot hits the gas, and all this merely because I haven’t had anything to eat. But then I think: it would all be different if I had owned a horse.
There used to be a shop here I know has closed down, because I have driventhis way several times, and then it has been shut. But when I come round the curve it is open, with a new sign above the door. No doubt an idealist from Oslo wants to run a country store in a godforsaken place, far from the madding crowd, but is it far enough? I don’t think so. Anyway, it is open now, and I stop the car on the gravel outside, go in the door which has a sheep-bell at the top andis supposed to ring as in the good old days, and a young woman comes out of the room at the back. She smiles expectantly. No doubt, I am the first customer today, and all I want is some brown bread and a litre of milk. I put a Kvikk Lunsj chocolate bar on the counter to give my purchase more substance. She is wearing a huge apron with big stains of what looks like clay. Through the half-open doorbehind her I can see not an office but a pottery workshop, and when I turn round I see one end of the shop is full of bowls and vases and candlesticks and cups. All the same blue colour. I think the colour is pretty, and I think
she
is pretty. I go over, pick up a cup and weigh it in my hand, but there is no price tag on it, so I ask: “Are you expensive?”
“That one is a hundred kroner,” she says,and her voice breaks slightly and she clears her throat as if it were a long time since she last spoke. It seems a lot, a hundred kroner for a cup, but then I don’t know much about pottery, it may not be so costly. It is suddenly such a beautiful blue that I could not think of leaving without it.
“That’s not so bad,” I say, carrying the cup to the counter and putting it down in front of her.“I’ll have it.”
And she wraps it in tissue paper and enters the items in the till, then puts everything into a plastic bag and she looks so pretty in her apron doing this that I would not mind seeing her wearing
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