Self-Control. Stig Saeterbakken

of … well, mercilessness, completely lacking in compassion, as if she was ready to clear every obstacle out of her way by whatever means necessary. It frightened me when I saw it. It was like I was sitting face to face with a superior power. I looked at her, closely examined her whole face, which I had studied with pleasure only a few minutes before … but it seemed as though it had changed, and now I thought it was a wonder that I hadn’t noticed it right away, this cool, calculating, yes, cynical feature of her mouth. It wasn’t possible not to see it. And what I had initially considered a disruptive element, a blemish, was now revealed as the very thing that, in reality, gave her her own particular appearance. I stared at her mouth: unmistakeably hers. And eventually … unavoidably perhaps … there was something nasty about it, the slow, sort of lazy motion at the corner of her mouth … it was as though I was hearing the sound of them, her lips, every time they tore free of one another, again and again, for every word she spoke. And it was only when I realized that she had been sitting staring at me a while without saying anything that I managed to tear my eyes away from that fold of skin … only to discover that I hadn’t the slightest notion of anything appropriate to say …

      Once again it was she who saved us from an embarrassing silence.

      “How are things with Mom anyway?” she asked, in an offhand kind of way, as if it didn’t matter to her whether she got a proper answer or not.

      “Marit,” I said, squeezing my buttocks together, because a brief bout of stomachache had suddenly become a bubble of air that wanted to get out, and it was as if the coldness of the seat was trying to pull it out of me by force.

      “Your mother and I, we’re getting a divorce.”

      She was startled. It was as unexpected for her as it was for me. I had to use all my strength to tame the demon that was wreaking havoc down in my rear end, a loud piercing fart cracked against the seat before I managed to gag it, but she was, fortunately, too beside herself to notice. Because we both sat there, shocked by what we had heard. Yes, even she sat there now, with glistening eyes and a flushing flower on each cheek. But only for a moment, she was quick to regain her composure, find her way back to her pale, feigned attitude of insensitivity.

      “I see” she said. “I see, so the two of you are getting a divorce.”

      A few moments passed, then she added: “That was a surprise.” She shrugged, in resignation … or indifference perhaps … as if to illustrate how little she cared, and drank what looked like the last dregs from her cup. I said a silent prayer that she would let the subject lie, which it seemed she wanted to do as well. She was probably uneasy about showing too much interest in the unexpected news, and at that moment I was indebted to her for exactly that. Because what would I have answered, if she had begun to question me … about the cause of the breakup … about our reasons for wanting to leave each other … about how we planned to organize our new lives … when we had no intention at all of doing any of it?

      My spontaneous lie made it difficult for us to continue our conversation, that was plain to see. So I drank up as well, a cold, pasty sediment that made me shiver, and we took care of what we had met up to take care of in the twinkling of an eye, quickly and efficiently, without saying any more than was necessary to each other, like a customer and an employee; I gave her the money, we exchanged a few words, I waved to the waiter and asked for the bill. Marit insisted on paying, but I was strongly opposed, there was no sense in it, I thought, if she was going to use the money she had just gotten.

      She said good-bye to me as soon as we were outside the cafe. I was a little bewildered since the most natural thing would have been for me to accompany her, I could almost have followed her home without going out of my way … on the other hand I was also aware of how easily an awkward atmosphere could develop in the course of an unplanned extension of our time together … possibly it was precisely this that she was considerate enough to want to avoid by our taking leave of each other … or she could have to run an errand downtown for that matter … what did I know? I wondered if I should ask her to say hello to Karl-Martin, but thought it best not to mention his name any more than was absolutely necessary. We shook hands. And suddenly I felt the impulse to hug her, to hold her, just for a moment … be left with a perfumed imprint on my body as a memento … but I refrained, I thought that it would only make the situation more difficult for her. And for me. Maybe she would have to twist herself free from the embrace … as from an assault … and then she would have gone home with the feeling that she’d been molested, a feeling which would then be imprinted on her memory of this meeting, overshadowing all its positive aspects, no matter if they were in the majority … which they were … as opposed to now, I thought as I stood there watching her walk away, there where we parted, if not in an especially affectionate way, then at least in a polite and level-headed one, so she could walk home, if not with any great happiness, that’s for sure, then without bearing a grudge, without having experienced her father as a particularly clumsy or unpleasant person.

      Her head stuck up out of the coat like a flower from a vase, I saw her neck, white beneath her close-cropped hair, and I thought I could almost picture the way it had been when she was small … there was something about her neck … their necks … that made such an impression on me every time I saw them, although I couldn’t remember the reason. But there was something nervous about the way she walked, out here … she sort of danced along … which didn’t quite fit with the impression I had gotten from her in there, cool and self-assured, that arrogant attitude she had adopted … which she had probably had from the start, it had just taken a little time before I recognised it … and which my insane fabrication about the divorce had been the only thing that … for a fraction of a second … had managed to puncture. I tried to remember if I’d had any firm opinion of myself when I was her age. In any case, I was convinced it was a lot less developed and self-assured than hers. I had once wished all the best for her, I thought, no matter what. As little pain as possible, and as much joy as possible. That she would succeed in everything she did, however far her interests might be from the pursuits I myself considered meaningful. No matter what she chose to invest her time and energy in, that the investment would prove to be worthwhile, that the profit would be plentiful, that her efforts would only make her stronger. I wanted her to be a fast learner, wanted her to do all right as far as her circles of friends; wanted her to have, preferably, a prominent position; wanted her not to be bothered by anyone, have the wool pulled over her eyes by anyone; not to be exploited by any two-faced creeps, stripped of her independence and self-respect by some twisted psychopath or other. I wondered if she and Nina still kept in touch, or if the years had come between them, as they can so easily, and so quickly, between siblings … and I remembered that that was what I’d been thinking about before-hand and had wanted to ask her, if it had been a long time since she’d heard anything from Nina, if they ever met up, or rang each other now and again, if she knew where Nina was at the moment, where she lived, who she lived with if she wasn’t living alone … I tried to think, were they more alike than unlike, those two, would a stranger seeing them for the first time notice the similarities or the differences if told that they were sisters. But it was as though I couldn’t quite manage to picture both of them side by side … it was as though I didn’t have room in my thoughts for the both of them … only Marit, or someone who resembled Marit …

      She disappeared behind a growling bus, and I couldn’t help feeling a certain relief at the thought that it would probably be a good while before we would meet again. I let my eyes wander, slowly. I tried to remember if there was any particular name for them, the clouds I saw, which looked like they were stuck to the blue of the sky, clouds that would soon diminish and which awoke a strange and highly conflicted feeling in me … It was as though I was close to exploding with joy over something that in reality was dreadfully sad. I stood looking at the traffic light, just there where Marit had disappeared, a round, red blot, like an overripe apple that would soon fall. Finally I decided to go … why hang around there, in the middle of a busy sidewalk, with my bag in my hand? … besides, I was freezing … and I turned my head slowly as I walked so as not to let the traffic light out of my sight: I thought that if it changes to green while I can still see it then a disaster is going to take place somewhere in the world tonight, a catastrophe so big that it would be all over the front pages tomorrow morning and that there’d