TRUDE MARSTEIN
Deep Need – Instant Nausea
Some sad human beings keep pumping the jukebox with money and putting on lousy music. Her glass is empty. He still has three or four centimetres left. For every beer she has drunk she has had to wait until he has finished his and each of them paid for their own beer each time. She cannot remember if they have had three or four large beers. “Have we had three or four beers?” she asks. “I’ve only had three,” he says. “So you must have had four.” She has long come to terms with his chat up line – “Do you come here often?” – but now it is irritating her again. She thought that he was being wry, that he was playing on the cliché, but he wasn’t. He was perfectly serious and waited for an answer and she had to say, “No, not that often.” She doesn’t feel like another beer, she can’t afford it, and she doesn’t feel in the least like sitting and talking to him; everything has been said, the conversation is going nowhere, And the last thing he said was that he liked the sounds in the bar. Must be compassion, she thinks to herself, but she can’t even muster that for the music. The simplest thing would be to say, “Let’s have another beer”; not only would it be easier to say than “Let’s go, shall we?”, but it would be easier than sitting there one second longer with an empty glass. “Shall we have another beer?” she says in a suitably interested tone of voice; she looks at him as she speaks, but then at once coolly looks away. “No, I’m just so tired,” he says with a smile. “I can’t manage another beer.” And then he begins to tell her about his nephew. Tells her that the boy could read fluently when he was four and now by the age of eight he reads Knut Hamsun. He’s an obnoxious boy, he says. She laughs, not out loud; she forms a broad smile with her mouth and forces air through her nose twice. He doesn’t laugh. She cannot fathom why he won’t have another beer. It crosses her mind that she has to do the dishes before going to bed. He suggests going to the cinema tomorrow. “Maybe,” she says. “I promised I’d go and see my father. I’ll ring you.” The barman comes to take away the dead glasses. They get up and go out. He stands outside with his hands in his jacket pockets. “It’s quite early still,” he says. “Yes, it is,” she says. “Do you like listening to music?” he asks. “Would you like to come to my place and listen to some music?” She hesitates for a few seconds, but without actually giving it much thought she looks at him, smiles and says, “Yes.” They start to walk. “Shall we take a taxi?” she says. “No, let’s walk,” he says. “It’s not that far.” She is wearing new shoes and they are beginning to chafe. He walks at an abnormally fast pace. Once he is almost run over because he charges across the road without stopping to look. Despite walking so fast, he talks all the way to his flat, first of all about social issues: about the advantages and disadvantages of immigration, about whether prostitution should be legalised or not and about the quality of Norwegian kindergartens vis-à-vis Swedish ones. Then he talks about himself, about the jobs he has had and his plans for the future. She has more than enough to deal with just keeping up with him and is quite out of breath. It is all she can do to say “Uh-huh” and “uh?” “You’re a bit shy, you are,” he says with a smile over his shoulder. “No, I’m not,” she says. “Perhaps you’re just not very talkative,” he says. Her heels hurt. It feels as if the blisters have burst now. He practically stops dead in his tracks in front of a door. “This is where I live,” he says. The key is already in his hand; he unlocks the door and goes in ahead of her. She looks at his back as they go up the stairs. He lives on the fourth floor and neither of them says a word. He has quite a cute bum, but his trousers are not up to much. She is not sure that she actually wants to sleep with him. In the hall she bends down to undo the laces of her shoes. “Please take off your shoes,” he says. He opens a door. “Here’s the bedroom,” he says. She can feel a pee coming on. The bed is quite narrow. There is a magazine on the bedside table. “It’s a bit messy,” he says. Two or three items of clothing hang over a chair. She stands there with her arms crossed, her weight on one leg and her head thrust upwards; she can feel that her sweater has ridden up and her stomach is visible. I need to pee first, she thinks. The bed wear is flowery, a pastel shade and the duvet nicely folded over. He leaves the room. She follows him. “This is the sitting-room,” he says. The walls are a burgundy red. There are green plants and pleated yellow lampshades, with reproductions of Van Gogh and Munch on the walls. He waves his hand towards the stereo system and three shelves of CDs. “I spend much too much money on music,” he says. Now a whisky, she thinks, a whisky first. “Where’s the loo?” she asks. Not content with pointing to the door, he goes right over and opens it, gestures with his arm into the bathroom as if showing her around. On the edge of the bath there are glass jars of pink bath salts and round, light-blue capsules of bath oils. Towels, also pastel-coloured, are arranged in neat piles on the shelves according to size. She has a pee a cleans herself carefully with moistened toilet paper. The floor is spotless; there isn’t a hair or any dust to be seen. She kneels down and peers under the bench; nothing to be seen there, either. There are cans of hairspray and bottles of moisturising cream on the shelf under the mirror. When she comes out, there is a CD playing. She asks what it is, but she has never heard of the music and she takes an immediate dislike to it. There is a diploma hanging on the wall, black letters on mint green paper; the paper looks old and faded. She reads it. It is from 1979, with his name on, third prize in downhill skiing. “I beat my brother,” he says. “We were competitive about everything. HE was the eldest and always came on top in everything. He was more popular than me, better at school and generally better at sport. But that time I won.” He points to the diploma. “My brother had a cold and came fifth,” he says. He moves something from the sitting-room table. “He had more luck with girls, too. I hated him.” He comes over to her. He is carrying a bowl with a spoon in. There is something brown in it and it has set; chocolate pudding perhaps. “When he died I realised that I didn’t hate him that much,” he says. “But it was absolutely fine that he was dead.” He goes to the kitchen. She hears him putting the bowl down on the steel sink unit before returning. “When did your brother die?” she says. “In April,” he says. He goes over to the sofa and starts arranging the cushions, systematically; he gently pats the square cushions into position, working from one end to the other. Then he goes to the toilet. She wonders whether she should sit on the sofa, waits a little, remains standing and then looks at the CDs. He returns so quickly that without thinking she says, “Have you already been?” He walks past her and positions himself on the other side. “He had dreadful taste in music, he says, “but he would never admit it. I played in a band for a few years, but I’ve given up.” On the shelf above the CDs there is a photograph framed in glass and held with clips, resting against a brass candlestick. Three pale, skinny boys with unnaturally twisted limps lying on their backs on a carpet. “The one in the middle is my son,” he says. “He’s got cerebral palsy. He lives in Tromso. I haven’t seen him for eight months, He’ll recognise me when we meet.” HE puts two glasses down on the sitting-room table. “Would you like a glass of Coke?” he asks. She says, “Yes please,” and moves toward the sofa to sit down. He goes into the kitchen and returns with a large bottle of Coca-Cola and sits down in an armchair. He fills the glasses, passes one over to her, lifts the other one up and, while looking at the wall, holds it in his hand without drinking from it. Set in one wall is a closed door. “What’s in there?” she asks, pointing. “My sister’s room,” he says. “We share the flat. She’s not here right now.” “When will she come home?” she asks. “Not until tomorrow,” he says. “Now I can understand the hairspray and the skin cream in the bathroom better,” she says, smiling. “I’m not one for one-night stands,” he says. “I like to get to know a girl before I go to bed with her.” She looks at him, doesn’t say a word. “If that’s fine by you,” he says, “that we don’t sleep with each other.” He looks at her. “Of course,” she says. “I hadn’t thought about it, either.” “No, of course not,” he says. “But it would be nice if you would stay the night.” She nods, smiles, takes a swig of the Coke. “You’re good to talk to,” he says, smiling. “And you’re good-looking.” He knocks back the whole glass in one and puts it down on the table. She can see by the way he bends his chin down towards his chest and opens his mouth that he is belching noiselessly.
Translated by Don Bartlett
Deep Need – Instant Nausea
Some sad human beings keep pumping the jukebox with money and putting on lousy music. Her glass is empty. He still has three or four centimetres left. For every beer she has drunk she has had to wait until he has finished his and each of them paid for their own beer each time. She cannot remember if they have had three or four large beers. “Have we had three or four beers?” she asks. “I’ve only had three,” he says. “So you must have had four.” She has long come to terms with his chat up line – “Do you come here often?” – but now it is irritating her again. She thought that he was being wry, that he was playing on the cliché, but he wasn’t. He was perfectly serious and waited for an answer and she had to say, “No, not that often.” She doesn’t feel like another beer, she can’t afford it, and she doesn’t feel in the least like sitting and talking to him; everything has been said, the conversation is going nowhere, And the last thing he said was that he liked the sounds in the bar. Must be compassion, she thinks to herself, but she can’t even muster that for the music. The simplest thing would be to say, “Let’s have another beer”; not only would it be easier to say than “Let’s go, shall we?”, but it would be easier than sitting there one second longer with an empty glass. “Shall we have another beer?” she says in a suitably interested tone of voice; she looks at him as she speaks, but then at once coolly looks away. “No, I’m just so tired,” he says with a smile. “I can’t manage another beer.” And then he begins to tell her about his nephew. Tells her that the boy could read fluently when he was four and now by the age of eight he reads Knut Hamsun. He’s an obnoxious boy, he says. She laughs, not out loud; she forms a broad smile with her mouth and forces air through her nose twice. He doesn’t laugh. She cannot fathom why he won’t have another beer. It crosses her mind that she has to do the dishes before going to bed. He suggests going to the cinema tomorrow. “Maybe,” she says. “I promised I’d go and see my father. I’ll ring you.” The barman comes to take away the dead glasses. They get up and go out. He stands outside with his hands in his jacket pockets. “It’s quite early still,” he says. “Yes, it is,” she says. “Do you like listening to music?” he asks. “Would you like to come to my place and listen to some music?” She hesitates for a few seconds, but without actually giving it much thought she looks at him, smiles and says, “Yes.” They start to walk. “Shall we take a taxi?” she says. “No, let’s walk,” he says. “It’s not that far.” She is wearing new shoes and they are beginning to chafe. He walks at an abnormally fast pace. Once he is almost run over because he charges across the road without stopping to look. Despite walking so fast, he talks all the way to his flat, first of all about social issues: about the advantages and disadvantages of immigration, about whether prostitution should be legalised or not and about the quality of Norwegian kindergartens vis-à-vis Swedish ones. Then he talks about himself, about the jobs he has had and his plans for the future. She has more than enough to deal with just keeping up with him and is quite out of breath. It is all she can do to say “Uh-huh” and “uh?” “You’re a bit shy, you are,” he says with a smile over his shoulder. “No, I’m not,” she says. “Perhaps you’re just not very talkative,” he says. Her heels hurt. It feels as if the blisters have burst now. He practically stops dead in his tracks in front of a door. “This is where I live,” he says. The key is already in his hand; he unlocks the door and goes in ahead of her. She looks at his back as they go up the stairs. He lives on the fourth floor and neither of them says a word. He has quite a cute bum, but his trousers are not up to much. She is not sure that she actually wants to sleep with him. In the hall she bends down to undo the laces of her shoes. “Please take off your shoes,” he says. He opens a door. “Here’s the bedroom,” he says. She can feel a pee coming on. The bed is quite narrow. There is a magazine on the bedside table. “It’s a bit messy,” he says. Two or three items of clothing hang over a chair. She stands there with her arms crossed, her weight on one leg and her head thrust upwards; she can feel that her sweater has ridden up and her stomach is visible. I need to pee first, she thinks. The bed wear is flowery, a pastel shade and the duvet nicely folded over. He leaves the room. She follows him. “This is the sitting-room,” he says. The walls are a burgundy red. There are green plants and pleated yellow lampshades, with reproductions of Van Gogh and Munch on the walls. He waves his hand towards the stereo system and three shelves of CDs. “I spend much too much money on music,” he says. Now a whisky, she thinks, a whisky first. “Where’s the loo?” she asks. Not content with pointing to the door, he goes right over and opens it, gestures with his arm into the bathroom as if showing her around. On the edge of the bath there are glass jars of pink bath salts and round, light-blue capsules of bath oils. Towels, also pastel-coloured, are arranged in neat piles on the shelves according to size. She has a pee a cleans herself carefully with moistened toilet paper. The floor is spotless; there isn’t a hair or any dust to be seen. She kneels down and peers under the bench; nothing to be seen there, either. There are cans of hairspray and bottles of moisturising cream on the shelf under the mirror. When she comes out, there is a CD playing. She asks what it is, but she has never heard of the music and she takes an immediate dislike to it. There is a diploma hanging on the wall, black letters on mint green paper; the paper looks old and faded. She reads it. It is from 1979, with his name on, third prize in downhill skiing. “I beat my brother,” he says. “We were competitive about everything. HE was the eldest and always came on top in everything. He was more popular than me, better at school and generally better at sport. But that time I won.” He points to the diploma. “My brother had a cold and came fifth,” he says. He moves something from the sitting-room table. “He had more luck with girls, too. I hated him.” He comes over to her. He is carrying a bowl with a spoon in. There is something brown in it and it has set; chocolate pudding perhaps. “When he died I realised that I didn’t hate him that much,” he says. “But it was absolutely fine that he was dead.” He goes to the kitchen. She hears him putting the bowl down on the steel sink unit before returning. “When did your brother die?” she says. “In April,” he says. He goes over to the sofa and starts arranging the cushions, systematically; he gently pats the square cushions into position, working from one end to the other. Then he goes to the toilet. She wonders whether she should sit on the sofa, waits a little, remains standing and then looks at the CDs. He returns so quickly that without thinking she says, “Have you already been?” He walks past her and positions himself on the other side. “He had dreadful taste in music, he says, “but he would never admit it. I played in a band for a few years, but I’ve given up.” On the shelf above the CDs there is a photograph framed in glass and held with clips, resting against a brass candlestick. Three pale, skinny boys with unnaturally twisted limps lying on their backs on a carpet. “The one in the middle is my son,” he says. “He’s got cerebral palsy. He lives in Tromso. I haven’t seen him for eight months, He’ll recognise me when we meet.” HE puts two glasses down on the sitting-room table. “Would you like a glass of Coke?” he asks. She says, “Yes please,” and moves toward the sofa to sit down. He goes into the kitchen and returns with a large bottle of Coca-Cola and sits down in an armchair. He fills the glasses, passes one over to her, lifts the other one up and, while looking at the wall, holds it in his hand without drinking from it. Set in one wall is a closed door. “What’s in there?” she asks, pointing. “My sister’s room,” he says. “We share the flat. She’s not here right now.” “When will she come home?” she asks. “Not until tomorrow,” he says. “Now I can understand the hairspray and the skin cream in the bathroom better,” she says, smiling. “I’m not one for one-night stands,” he says. “I like to get to know a girl before I go to bed with her.” She looks at him, doesn’t say a word. “If that’s fine by you,” he says, “that we don’t sleep with each other.” He looks at her. “Of course,” she says. “I hadn’t thought about it, either.” “No, of course not,” he says. “But it would be nice if you would stay the night.” She nods, smiles, takes a swig of the Coke. “You’re good to talk to,” he says, smiling. “And you’re good-looking.” He knocks back the whole glass in one and puts it down on the table. She can see by the way he bends his chin down towards his chest and opens his mouth that he is belching noiselessly.
Translated by Don Bartlett
