“What does your daughter have?” he asked.
“I think it’s that influenza.”
One of her arms was down in the aquarium; she moved the hose around the bottom and sucked up the small wormlike excrement.
“I’ve told Ulf to buy bigger fish,” she said resentfully. “He says they wouldn’t be happy. They would be happy; I know they would, I told Ulf that I was certain they would. But he said, no, the big ones wouldn’t be happy.”
All of a sudden he felt tired of her. He just wanted to be left alone. He wondered if she were finished with all the rooms. She probably was; she usually did the aquarium right before she went home.
“Are all the rooms finished?” he asked.
She turned and looked at him; her eyes were brown and questioning.
“The rooms?”
“Yes.”
He thought that she should not be wearing such tight jeans. A fleeting thought flew through him, he wondered if her husband was good to her? Was he kind to her?
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I was just thinking out loud,” he said.
She went back to the aquarium. She’d spread out newspapers all around so that she wouldn’t get the area wet. Hans Peter had the book in his briefcase, the book he’d borrowed from Justine. As soon as Ariadne left, he’d take a look at it. He longed to hold it. A strange feeling had come over him, a feeling of ceremony. He had placed the book in his briefcase with careful hands, as if it were something delicate and fragile. He had finished it after only a few days, and he thought about how he was going to take the book back to her. He wanted to lengthen the time that he had the book so that he could fantasize about how it would be when he brought it back.
The book had moved him in a special way. It was about a man in middle age, Dubin, who wrote biographies and one day began to look at his own life. There was a similarity he felt between Dubin and himself that made him uncomfortable. As if he had never really lived, as if his life was running out on him and he could do nothing to stop it. He longed to discuss the book with Justine. He didn’t know her, but he had held her nude foot, held it in his lap and warmed it.
Ariadne placed the glass cover back in its spot and started to roll up the green rubber hose. She looked sad.
“I’ll pick up the newspapers for you,” said Hans Peter.
She made a hopeless gesture.
He squatted on the floor and started rolling up the newspapers. They were soggy, and a blackened and slimy water plant was lying on one of them. She was out in the kitchen, rinsing thoroughly at the faucet. He started feeling guilty. He squeezed behind her and threw the papers in the garbage.
“Is she very ill, your little daughter?” he asked gruffly.
“A fever.”
“Say hi to her from me. Tell her to get better.”
Ariadne nodded. He took her lightly on the shoulders.
“Have a good Saturday night, then,” he said. “See you on Monday.”
He dialed Justine’s number. He almost thought that it wouldn’t be in the telephone book, that she would prefer to keep it unlisted, but there it was. He recited it a few times to himself without noticing he did so, and then he had it memorized.
He signed in a few guests, gave them their keys. At around ten in the evening, he lifted the hand set and keyed in Justine’s number. Five rings went through. Oh my God, maybe she was asleep at this hour? He was just about to hang up, when someone took the call, but the line was silent.
“Hello?” he said expectantly.
No one answered.
He said it again.
“Hello, may I speak with Justine Dalvik?”
A snap in his ear and the line went dead.
When he woke up late the next morning, he stayed in his bed for a very long time. In his sleep, he had seen her in front of him. She was balancing on a row of sharp stones; she was barefoot, slipping and sliding. The bird circled over her head; how it continually dove at her head. He saw himself in the dream, too. How he ran and waved his hands, trying to make the bird disappear. Instead, Justine was frightened by the noise and she fell onto the sharp stones and slit her throat. He stood and watched her, how her head was stuck in a little narrow heap of stones. He was gripped by deep despair and some of that was still with him when he woke up.
He got up. Outside, the temperature was milder, the shine of rain on the window. He stayed in the shower for a quarter of an hour. Then he called her number again.
This time she answered. When he heard her voice, he began to sweat under his armpits. Immediately he forgot the words he was going to say.
“Hello?” he said somewhat stupidly.
She seemed as if she had a cold.
“Who is it?”
“Oh, sorry, it’s me, Hans Peter. Maybe you don’t remember me.”
“Of course I remember you.”
“How’s your foot?”
“Better. Not completely, though.”
“Great. I mean, that it’s better.”
She laughed, but began to cough.
“Oh, have you also gotten the flu? The cleaner at the hotel, her daughter…”
“Oh no, not at all. I’m just a little tired this morning.” “I thought… that book.”
“Yes? Have you finished it?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think?”
“I kind of wanted… to talk to you about it. With you most of all… so to speak… and eye to eye.”
She laughed a low laugh. He saw her now, the round cheeks, the freckles on her nose. He wanted to ask what she was wearing, what she was doing the minute he phoned, what she wished for herself.
“Come on over, then,” she said. “Let’s talk.”
She was wearing black tights and a sweater that went to her knees. Or maybe it was a thick, knit dress; he really didn’t know for sure. Her fingertips were ice cold.
“It’s so cold here in the house,” she said. “I’ve been keeping the fire going in the fireplace, but it doesn’t seem to help.”
“I don’t think it’s cold.”
“No?”
“No, pretty warm in fact. But I’ve been walking quickly, and so I’m, well, all heated up from inside.”
“What may I offer you?”
They went into the kitchen. He noticed two glasses of red wine on the counter. He felt some of his energy slipping away. “Right now I feel like having a large cup of strong coffee.
I’ll set the coffeepot on; would you like that?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Justine had put a sock on the injured foot. He noticed she still had difficulty walking. Now she stood and measured the coffee into the filter. She rested her back against the counter and breathed heavily.
“Fact is, I have to have some coffee to turn into a human being,” she said. “I had a late night. I’m a little hung over.” His palms tickled a bit. He turned away from the sight of the glasses.
“What? You’ve never been hung over, Hans Peter?” “Of course, of course I have. But it’s been awhile now.” “I don’t like it, the whole day is lost.”
“Well, if you had fun the night before…”
“I don’t even like it then.”
“Did you have a party, or something?”
“No, not really. A friend came here. A woman who’d been a classmate of mine in school.”
