Pets (16 page)

“Guten Tag.”

Then he keeps quiet, much longer than he usually does on the telephone, and I imagine that the person on the other end of the line is explaining something to Havard, or takes all that time to introduce himself.

“In a little while?” Havard asks when he finally gets the chance to talk. “She is asleep then? Oh, really? And you are close by here? Yes, he must be coming home any minute now. Yes, yes, at least
. . .
we'll be here. I just say
willkommen
, madame.”

In other words it's Greta. She's tucked her daughter into bed, has probably had a shower, and is on her way over long before I myself am expected. I am rather surprised that Armann doesn't ask who was on the phone and that Havard doesn't mention it to him. No doubt he thinks of Greta as some surprise guest; he is about to treat Armann to an unexpected female visitor.

It is obvious that Armann has been thinking about something else while Havard was talking to Greta. As soon as the phone call ends, Armann points to something he wants him to look at and says:

“That's a rather impressive mustache.”

I try to guess which mustache he is referring to. I imagine that he is pointing at the cover of a CD, book, or video, and when Havard says that no decent music can come from such a man, I feel reasonably sure that the man in question is Joe Zawinul.

“Why don't we just carry on with Elvis?” Havard suggests.

“That's up to you,” Armann says. “I wasn't thinking of playing this, it was just the face that I thought was rather striking.” But he still seems to be thinking of the photo when he suddenly blurts out:

“There is nothing quite so ugly as a handsome man.”

“What?” I hear Havard say. “Nothing as ugly as a handsome man? Is
he
a handsome man?”

“I didn't mean that man in particular,” Armann answers, and I suddenly see the Austrian pianist from a new, unexpected perspective; he has become a example of masculine good looks.

“But tell me, how can a good looking man be ugly?” I hear Havard fiddling with the CD player. “Am
I
ugly? Would you say I was ugly, for instance?

“I'm not deciding who is ugly and who is handsome. What I am trying to say is that
. . .
”

“But I am asking you, Armann,” Havard interrupts. “Do you think I'm ugly?”

Armann hesitates for a few seconds and then says: “I think you harmonize quite well.”

“Harmonize!” Havard doesn't think much of this remark; I have to ask myself what his comment means exactly. “What kind of answer is that, Armann! Does it maybe harmonize? Is it some new grammatical term?”

I have to admit that sometimes I am surprised at Havard's expressions. Perhaps my low opinion of him has blinded me to his ability to express himself, an ability which is of course not confined to the “righteous.” If anything, it has more often been used, or abused, to obstruct the progress of righteousness; I consider myself to be a true spokesman for these virtues, at least compared to the misogynist, alcoholic, compulsive gambler, and, most recently, burglar Havard Knutsson (although he hasn't stolen anything since he broke into my flat yet).

“What I was trying to tell you,” Armann begins to explain “is that the good looks of the handsome, that is of the most handsome men, very often work against them.”

“You're talking about me, then!” Havard bursts out laughing.

“They are isolated by their own beauty, is perhaps a better way to put it,” Armann corrects himself. “Not only are their good looks worshipped by others, but they themselves become absorbed in their own admiration. They imagine that their beauty will transport them into some little paradise, but one day, when they are serving a teenager in a fashion shop, they suddenly realize in a flash that they won't get any further; they have reached their peak, serving penniless teenagers in some fashion store.”

“No, Armann, now I think you're treading on thin ice. Is there something wrong with working in a fashion shop? For instance, I bought these clothes today and the fellow who sold them to me was nothing spectacular; he wasn't exactly what you would call Mr. Universe.”

“It's a fine suit, I must admit, but I don't think you understand me properly,” Armann replies. “Tell me something, my good
. . .
? Havard, isn't it? Sorry, I'm not very good at remembering names,” he says. “It is Havard, isn't it?”

I don't hear any answer and can't quite make out what Havard is doing at the moment.

“But in every other respect I think I can state that I have the memory of an elephant,” Armann carries on. “I can remember the birthdays of all the important presidents and kings and, of course, when they died. I even think I remember when your friend Elvis Presley died.”

“Talking about elephants,” Havard interrupts, “Have you heard the joke about the elephant who stepped on an ant hill? Once upon a time there was this gigantic elephant who came tramping along the river bank.”

“Where was that?” Armann enquires, as if the place was of some importance.

“It doesn't matter,” Havard says. “Let's just say in India. Then, suddenly, as the elephant is about to have a drink from the stream, he steps on a little ant hill and naturally causes a great commotion for the inhabitants; half of them are killed and those who survive run off to save their lives.”

“Which they certainly do,” Armann adds.

“Then, while the elephant is drinking from the stream one ant climbs up his leg
. . .
”

“Crawls up,” Armann corrects him.

“
. . .
and a group of his friends
. . .
that is friends of the ant who was courageous enough to crawl up the elephant until he got as far as the neck. Just imagine: an ant is only so big.”

I can just imagine Havard measuring out the size of the ant with his thumb and forefinger.

“And then, when the ant reaches the elephant's neck,” he continued, “one of his friends down on the ground, who is crazy with excitement and thirsty for revenge, shouts: ‘Strangle him, Emil! Strangle him!
'
”

“What?” I hear Armann say.

“Strangle him, Emil! Strangle him!” Havard repeats.

I don't know why the name Emil is included in the story, but it is probably because the ant had the same name when I heard the joke some time ago, in primary school. I suspect that the drink is to blame for how long it takes Armann to imagine the tragicomic ant on the broad neck of the elephant (if one can talk about the neck of an elephant). And then—rather quietly to begin with—Armann begins to laugh; he shrieks, like an old, worn out laughter box, it sounds like oil is thrown on a fire or new batteries put in the laughter box. He explodes and between fits of laughter repeats the final sentences of the joke over and over again. I begin to think that he is literally losing his mind, that his mental balance has been endangered by this joke, so that Havard—for the first time in his life—will have to face the consequences of his deeds. But Havard doesn't seem capable of shouldering much responsibility at this point; instead of joining Armann's laughter, he starts imitating the voice of the father in the TV series about Emil at Kattholt. He shouts “Emil!” just like the father shouted when his son had gotten into mischief and was running to lock himself in the woodshed. Havard doesn't just shout once, he carries on almost as if his life depends on it.

I don't quite know if I should laugh or worry; if someone came across the pair of them in the living room right now, they would be sure that both of them were absolutely mad.

“Here, do you think I may help myself to one of those?” Armann asks when he has almost recovered from his fit of laughter. Havard stops shouting abruptly and says yes, he should help himself if he wants one.

“Emil the ant,” Armann giggles; the Indian elephant was still on his mind.

“Here's to Emil,” Havard says.

“Here's to Emil,” Armann says.

They clink their glasses. There is a sound of cellophane, which gets drowned out in the first tones of “Flaming Star” from Elvis Presley. Through the music and the partition I hear Armann groan with pleasure as he has exhales his first puff of cigar smoke.

Heaven's Reward

1

When someone knocks on the front door either Armann or Havard stands up and turns down the music.

“Well, well, do you think it's the master of the house?” Armann says enthusiastically.

“No, Armann, it's the
other
woman,” I hear Havard correct him.

“The other woman?” Armann asks, but he gets no answer. Havard has already opened the door.

“Come in,” he says, and I can just imagine Greta, tall and dressed in black, perhaps wearing a hat to protect her freshly washed hair from the frost. Her daughter is asleep now in her grandmother's soft bed. Her mother is back and she can't wait to wake up tomorrow morning to play with her new toys from London.

Greta has clearly felt cold on the way; she shudders and says something about the frost on this iceberg, something I have heard myself say under similar circumstances. However, I feel warm inside when I hear her ask if I have come back, and I imagine I detect a hint of concern in her voice. She must have sensed on the bus that I really wanted to see her again, and though Havard has told her that I came home and went straight out again, she is understandably surprised that I'm not here waiting for her. Instead she is invited in by the last man I would want my girlfriend to be introduced to. I am quite shocked when she asks Havard if she has perhaps seen him somewhere before.

“I don't think so,” he answers.

“I'm sure I have seen you somewhere before,” she repeats, and I say to myself: “Dear God, don't let them know each other.” Remember Armann instead, I mumble into the carpet. You must remember him from the plane. One doesn't miss a man like Armann. Just don't recognize Havard, I think to myself.

But it seems certain that she has met Havard at some stage; she repeats that she must have seen him somewhere before, and Havard simply answers that it's possible but he can't remember when that might have been.

“May I take your coat?” he asks. I imagine he puts it on one of the kitchen chairs, as he doesn't bring it into the bedroom.

Greta has obviously come into the living room, as Armann now greets her. He says: “Pleased to meet you,” then asks if she is a friend of mine. Before she gets a chance to reply, he says his name is Armann Valur, they met today; I had accidentally taken his glasses with me from the plane we were on together and he had just come a short while ago to fetch them.

“Then we were on the same plane,” Greta says cheerfully and sniffs. “Oh, by the way, my name is Greta.”

“Pleased to meet you, Greta, My name is Armann Valur,” Armann repeats and then asks: “But tell me, were you and Emil on the same plane?”

“You and I must have been on the same plane. If you were on the same plane as Emil, then we were traveling together,” Greta answers, and I say to myself that she has a pretty voice. It's warm and provocative at the same time—not at all thin and self-conscious, like Vigdis's voice, for instance.

“Then you weren't
with
Emil, were you?” Armann carries on in disbelief.

“Not like that, no,” Greta answers. She obviously seems to find this misunderstanding amusing. “Or I mean, yes of course I was
with
him on the plane today. And with you too.”

“Are we perhaps expecting more passengers from this flight?” Havard interrupts ironically and asks Greta if she would like something to drink, if he can bring her anything. She says that she brought a bottle of red wine, but maybe he could offer her a strong drink first, something to put a bit of warmth into her body, perhaps cognac if there is any.

“No problemo,” Havard answers, and I'm quite certain that the phrase “to put a bit of warmth into her body” awakens some unseemly thoughts in his mind as he fetches the cognac.

“But tell me, Greta,” Armann continues, suddenly becoming very formal, “Did you come back from London today?”

Greta laughs amiably; I would laugh with her if I could.

“Clever boy, Armann!” Havard calls from the kitchen, and I gather from Greta's next comment that she doesn't think it is right to tease Armann—an older man whom she has never met before—any more.

“Yes, I was just returning from London,” she says seriously; she is letting Armann know that he was right.

“So we were all returning from London,” Armann says. He seems to have understood the situation at last.

“Emil and I were once together in London,” Havard informs them, and I beg him not to say any more. But of course Havard can't hear a man who doesn't speak out loud and is, on top of everything else, under the bed in the next room. I, on the other hand, can hear him quite well when he goes into the living room (probably with a glass of cognac for Greta) and mentions the very subject which I was just—in my silent way—begging him not to discuss.

“We were looking after a whole house in London,” he says, as if he expects to be rewarded with the undivided attention of the listeners. “And not just a whole house, four little animals too.”

Why on earth don't I do something? What is wrong with me? What reason do I have for lying here under my own bed while these two men (one of them just released, or escaped, from some kind of institution in Sweden, the other, who should have been long gone, having come to collect his glasses) behave as if they are at home here; it seems as though they
are
at home, in my very own flat. The only reason I don't do anything is because it is too late. Now that Greta has arrived—this woman whom I have adored from a distance for nearly fifteen years and got to know by some amazing coincidence—I am not going to crawl out from under the bed and show myself—on the very day that promised to be one of the better days of my life—as the wretched coward that the day's events have turned me into.

“Then you weren't on the plane today?” Greta asks with a laugh.

“I was just having a look around Reykjavik,” Havard answers. “I have just come home from Sweden myself.”

“From Lund, by any chance?” Armann asks.

“Lund!” Havard almost spits the word out. “What the hell would I want to do in Lund!”

“Lund is in Sweden. You said you were in Sweden.”

I can't decide whether Armann is teasing Havard, and maybe trying to get a little revenge after being called a
clever boy
, but as a result Havard's stay in Sweden and London is not discussed any further. Greta begins to talk about the strange names of towns in Sweden; she mentions some name that I don't catch, and when Armann adds a few more and tells them that he has been to a language conference in Uppsala, Greta shows interest and the conversation veers too far from Havard for him to bring it back down to his level. He keeps quiet for a little while and though I'm fully aware of how much alcohol he can consume, I start hoping that he is getting tired.

“But what about you, my comrade Havard, were you studying there in Sverige?” Armann asks after Greta mentions that she attended an arts course on some island in Sweden.

“I'm
comrade
Havard, now am I?” Havard is offended and sounds as if he is feeling rather isolated. “No, comrade Armann, men like me don't have any need for education.”

Without having formed an exact plan, I begin to imagine that Greta could help me, that I could possibly let her know that I'm here without giving her too much of a fright, and she could find a feasible way to get rid of Havard and Armann. If she went to the toilet, I could perhaps get her attention by whistling quietly. I know it is risky—she might get frightened and scream—but if it worked I could ask her to find me a piece of paper and a pen, and then I would pass her a message when she re-emerged from the toilet. It's also possible that I could slide out from under the bed for a second and fetch pen and paper, somehow catch Greta's attention when, sooner or later, she goes to the toilet, and give her instructions on how best to get rid of our inopportune guests.

2

Now, when I think back to the party in Hjalmholt fifteen years ago, where Greta disappeared into the children's bedroom, I put myself in the shoes of that boy my age whom I have always envied for his experience that evening, even though I suspect that he was too drunk to remember it properly. But there is always the possibility that nothing happened; that the boy was too drunk to rise up to the expectations of the blonde super girl (as I imagined her) and that she had mussed up her hair and reddened her cheeks herself, to give the impression that something remarkable had taken place under, or on top of, the child's soft duvet. I have sometimes asked myself why I wasn't the one to spend that half hour with her in the children's bedroom, but today, as I finally get to know Greta, I am really glad that we haven't met before. If that had happened, she wouldn't be standing in my flat now; we would probably have said hello on the plane, maybe chatted a little (not mentioning the previous meeting), and then said goodbye without arranging to meet again in the evening. That's how I imagine it anyway.

But then it's a question of whether it would have been more fun to have the memory of a wonderful half hour in bed with this girl, or to have her come to meet me at my flat, while I'm hiding under a bed in a room that a child uses several weeks a year.

“Didn't Emil say when he was going to come back?” Greta asks when Armann mentions that he is hungry and that they should find something to eat.

“I haven't heard from him at all,” Havard answers and adds that something must have happened, it looks as if I had rushed out in a hurry.

“But you said you were expecting him any minute, didn't you?”

“I thought so, yes.”

“But it must be quite a while since he came home. He did mention that he had to stop somewhere in the taxi on the way home, but he said he was just going to relax at home after the flight.”

“Well, he called me at least,” Armann comments, and I seem to hear him stand up; he groans with the exertion. “He left a message on my answering machine and told me about my glasses.”

I am in the process of turning over on my side—I am extremely tired of lying on my stomach—when Armann comes into the hall, puffing and panting like he has just come in from a long walk. I roll back on to my stomach, lift the sheet slightly up from the floor, and see him go into the bathroom. He has taken his cigar with him (which is no doubt the reason for his heavy breathing) and puts it down, still smoking, on the edge of the sink while he gets ready to urinate. I can hear that Greta and Havard are still wondering where I have gone. She suggests that I have gone to visit my parents, but Havard rules that out because of the telephone call from my mother.

“Something must have happened,” Greta says. “I think it's rather strange that he hasn't let me know, we had agreed that I should come here to meet him.”

“Yes, I think so too,” Havard says. “I expected him to be at home, it's not every day that
I
am in Iceland.”

“He must turn up,” Greta says, trying to make it sound as though there is no reason to despair. “He can't have gone far, at least.”

I am here, Greta, I whisper under my breath, though there is no reason to whisper as Armann is making so much noise as he urinates that it probably drowns out all talking. I resist the temptation to watch him, let the sheet fall carefully to the floor, and decide to change my position until Armann comes out. But he suddenly shouts “Damn it!” and I lift the sheet a little to see what is going on. The first thought that comes to mind is that he has bumped into the burning cigar, but when I look at him there is no mistaking the fact that he has pissed over the edge of the toilet; he is holding his penis with one hand and looking down at his pants and wiping them with his other hand. I lift the sheet up slightly higher and can see his face; he is frowning and muttering something in a huff.

“What's going on?” Havard calls from the living room.

“There is some damn puddle here on the floor,” Armann answers, as if the bathroom doesn't quite meet his hygiene requirements.

“You should take more care not to pee on the floor,” Havard shouts, and I'm glad that Greta doesn't laugh at his pathetic joke. “You will flush the toilet, won't you?” he carries on, as if he is doing his best to make Greta laugh, but she isn't amused, or—as is likely—she doesn't think Havard's comments are funny in the least.

Either Armann shuts out Havard's comments or he is too busy wiping his pants and shoes with my towel. In any case, he doesn't reply. When he has flushed the toilet and put down the towel beside the sink, he calls out to the others in the living room that it might be time for them to eat something. I get the feeling that they—Armann, Havard and Greta—are the ones who live here and that I am at the most some sort of insect, some dust mite that has fallen onto the floor from the sheet and will be sucked up in a few days when Greta orders Havard to get out the hoover. I really want to slide out from under the bed and grab hold of Armann's leg when he comes out of the bathroom—this impossible situation is getting on my nerves again—but he still has something left to do. Instead of washing his hands, he begins to examine his face in the mirror, and I can see him begin to squeeze a spot or a wart on one of his nostrils.