Naïve Super (13 page)
Shame on you,
I say to Obi.
Bad dog.
Walking a dog in the streets of New York is absurd. But it gives me perspective. Lots of it. I’m so far away from home. In a big city. All the people. And I am only one. The only thing I can be sure of at any given time is what I am thinking myself. I have no idea what the others are thinking. Do they think space is big and dangerous? I do. What do they believe in? I think nobody ought to be alone. That one should be with someone. With friends. With the person one loves. I think it is important to love. I think it’s the most important thing.
While my brother’s preparing breakfast, I write a postcard to Lise.
This is what I am writing:
Hi
Lise
,
New York is so big. I get a bit of the same feeling as I do with space. That I am exempt from responsibility. That there is nothing I can do except to try and have a good time. I am walking a dog named Obi. We live in an apartment with a doorman. He has a uniform and says how are you today, mister, and I say fine. My brother doesn’t want me to talk about time or space. I look forward to seeing you. I haven’t hammered since I last saw you. I think the most important thing is to love.
When I return from posting the card, Obi is gone. David has been to fetch him. I don’t have to call 1-800-Parks.
I ask my brother what David said, but he tells me that David hardly said a thing. He just apologised for being two days late and then he asked if the little bananas were real ones.
In America they don’t know if fruit lying on the floor is real or plastic.
While we eat, my brother asks me what I think.
About what? I say.
About all of it, he says.
I tell him about the perspective I just experienced, and that I think New York is a little like space and that the most important thing is to love.
My brother nods. He asks me whether I have ever considered thinking less.
I tell him I consider it all the time, but that it’s not that easy.
My brother says I should spend more time doing things that can only be experienced.
Like what, for instance? I say.
Play, he says. And he says that today I must let him decide.
I ask him what he is deciding.
He is deciding that we’ll be doing little thinking and lots of laughing.
Fine by me, I say.
We are sitting in the New York Public Library. My brother decided that we’d go here. It’s a great library. Big. Lots of people. And guards making sure those leaving haven’t stolen any books. I am looking at periodicals. In an issue of
Time
I see a picture of a gas cloud somewhere in the universe. The picture is taken by a satellite and the caption explains that the gas cloud is several trillion kilometres tall. This is the way it’s supposed to be.
My brother is sitting at the other end of the room, facing a computer. I can see he is laughing to himself. He waves me over. Directly opposite my brother a hobo sits reading. All his bags are standing on the floor. Probably fifteen bags. And his clothes are just rags. But he is reading in a book called
Economic Science
.
The woman in the elevator in the hotel in Oslo was right when she said the world is more complex than I think. But my brother isn’t that complex. He is sitting there searching for authors who have Norwegian taboo words for names. Now he’s typing a very bad word. He laughs and laughs. I think it’s a bit silly. But when the result comes up, I start laughing, too. It is terribly childish, but quite gratifying. I get sucked into it. And while I laugh, I am looking around hoping nobody realises what we’re up to.
We sit there for a long while. Maybe an hour. It is a magnificent experience. I haven’t laughed this hard in ages. The fun often lies in the gap between the authors’ names and the serious nature of what they’ve written. But sometimes I find it satisfying just to see the words appear on the screen. I feel we’re playing a trick on someone. My brother and I are outdoing each other in coming up with words. Some of them are pretty bad.
Here is some of what we find:
