The Other Name Read online

  Good dog, Asle says

  Good boy, Bragi, good boy, he says

  and Asle strokes Bragi’s fur with his shaking hand and kneads his fur and Asle thinks how can he have thought about going into the sea, because who would take care of the dog? there’s no way he could decide to leave the dog, Asle thinks, and now he’s shaking less, but he’s still shaking, his body is trembling, I think and no I don’t want to think about Asle any more, I don’t want to see him before my eyes any more, his long grey hair, his grey stubble, I don’t want to think about him any more, there’s no point in thinking more about him because he’s just one person among many like that, he’s alone, he’s one of the many solitary people, he’s just one artist among many, one painter among many, just one of the many painters almost no one knows about except some close family members and a few friends from school days, and maybe a few fellow artists, he’s one of thousands, no I don’t want to think about him any more, I think, and then I think again that I should have dropped by to see him, alone as he is, falling apart as he is, I should have dropped by and asked him to come get a drink with me, yes, he could have a pint of beer with a glass of something stronger and I could have a cup of coffee with milk since I don’t drink beer any more, no beer or wine or anything stronger since I stopped drinking, that’s what I should’ve done, because if Asle had something to drink it would be easier for him, he’d stop shaking, then he’d calm back down, just getting something to drink would make things easier, the stone would get lighter, yes, his stone might shift off him a little bit so that he could get a little light and a little air, I should have taken him with me someplace where there are other people, where other people are having drinks, where people are together, comforting their souls, that’s what I should have done, I shouldn’t have just driven past his building, I should’ve stopped and then taken him with me out into life, yes, so he could live a little, yes, but instead I kept driving north like I wasn’t worried about him, like I was in such a hurry to get away from him, because I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t see Asle lying there, I think and so I just kept driving past the building in Sailor’s Cove where his apartment is, as if Asle was too hard, as if his pain, or his suffering, maybe that’s the better word, made me want to keep driving, not because I didn’t want to see him or spend time with him but because, no, I don’t know, but I wanted to get away, and maybe I thought I could drag his pain with me in a way, pull it behind me, that I could pull his suffering off of him and away from him if I kept driving? anyway that’s an excuse I can think of now for not having stopped and visited his apartment but instead having just kept driving, because why didn’t I go see him? was it because I was scared to? not prepared to share his pain with him? share his suffering, but what do I mean by that? that’s just a manner of speaking, share his pain, share his suffering, it’s a manner of speaking, as if you could share someone’s pain, or suffering, I think and I see myself sitting there in the car and I’m looking out the window and looking at the playground down below the turnoff, there are no children in it, but there, yes, there’s a young woman with long black hair sitting on the swing and there on a bench next to the swing is a young man, he has medium-length brown hair, he’s in a black coat, wearing a scarf, it’s late afternoon or early evening and he sits there and looks at the woman sitting on the swing, and there’s a brown leather bag hanging over his shoulder, and she’s staring straight ahead, it’s autumn, some leaves have already started changing colour, this is the best time of year, the most beautiful, I think, and maybe most beautiful of all in the evening when the light is right at the point of disappearing, when some darkness has entered the light but it’s still light enough to see clearly that some of the leaves have lost their green colour, I think, this is my time of year, it always has been, for as long as I can remember autumn has been my favourite, I think and I look at the young man sitting on the bench not moving and staring straight ahead as if not seeing anything and I look at the young woman sitting on the swing, she too is staring straight ahead, as if at nothing, and why are they sitting so still? why aren’t they moving? I think, he on the bench, she on the swing, both just sitting there, why are they just sitting there? why aren’t they talking to each other? why are they completely still, motionless, like a picture? I think, yes, yes, they’re exactly like a picture, like a picture I might paint, I think and I know that precisely this moment, precisely this picture, has already lodged itself in my mind and will never go away, I have lots of pictures like that in my mind, thousands of them, and from just one thought, from seeing just one thing that it looks like, or for no reason at all, a picture can turn up, often at the strangest times and places, a picture, a motionless picture that still has something like a kind of motion in it, it’s as if every picture like that, every last one of the thousands of pictures I have in my head or wherever I have them, is saying something, saying something almost unique and irreplaceable, but it’s practically impossible to grasp what the picture is saying, of course I might think that the picture is saying this or that, obviously I can think that, and obviously I do think it, and I manage to think some of what the picture is saying but never what it’s actually saying because you can’t fully understand a picture, it’s as if it’s not entirely of this world, as they put it, and yes, it’s strange, it’s weird, he and she in that picture I see inside me that’s so inexpressible, I’m really seeing them, he’s sitting on the bench there, she’s sitting on the swing there, they’re sitting like they can’t move, like something invisible is holding them in place, and like they’ve been sitting there a long time, that’s how it seems, yes, it’s as if they’ve been sitting there like that always, forever, for always, and she’s wearing a skirt, a purple skirt, and the skirt has turned a bit dark in the early evening darkness, yes, the purple is moving towards black, and he’s sitting in his long black coat, with the brown bag hanging over his shoulder, and his hair is brown and medium length, and I don’t see any beard on his face, but I can’t just sit here like this, I think and I think that they, he and she, are sitting without moving and that’s what I’m doing too, just like them, I’m sitting without moving, and I can’t very well just stay sitting in my car like this because anyone driving by will wonder why I’m just sitting in my car, why I’m not driving any farther, but there’s no one driving by and if anyone did drive by they wouldn’t find it unusual that I was spending a moment in the turnoff, and anyway so what if they did, the people in the playground would certainly think that if they noticed me but clearly they haven’t noticed me, at least neither of them has looked up at me sitting in my car while it’s slowly starting to get dark out, it’s still light but darkness has come into the air, slowly, slowly the darkness comes into the air, I think, sitting there looking at the young man in the black coat on a bench with a brown leather bag on his shoulder and the young woman in a purple skirt on a swing, because they’re still just sitting there, without moving, yes, like part of a painting, yes that too, but when I paint it’s always as if I’m trying to paint away the pictures stuck inside me, yes, the ones like this picture, of him and her sitting there, to get rid of them in a way, be done with them, I’ve sometimes thought that that’s why I became a painter, because I have all these pictures inside me, yes, so many pictures that they’re a kind of agony, yes, it hurts me when they keep popping up again and again, like visions almost, and in all kinds of contexts, and I can’t do anything about it, the only thing I can do is paint, yes, try to paint away these pictures that are lodged inside me, there’s nothing to do but paint them away, one by one, not by painting exactly what I’ve seen or what’s stuck inside me, no, I used to do that too much, paint just what I saw and nothing more, just duplicate the picture you might say, and that always turned out as a bad painting and I didn’t get rid of the picture inside me either, the one I was trying to paint away, no, I have to paint a picture in a way that dissolves the picture lodged inside me and makes it go away, so that it becomes an invisible forgotten part of myself,
of my own innermost picture, the picture I am and have, because there’s one thing I know for sure, I have only one picture, one single picture, and all the other pictures, both the ones I see and the ones I can’t forget that get stuck in me, have something about them that resembles the one picture I have inside me and that isn’t something anyone can see but I do see some of what’s in it, some of what’s lodged inside me, yes, that’s what it’s like now in what I’m seeing while I sit in my car and look at a young man and a young woman just sitting and staring into space and not looking at each other, they’re not saying anything to each other, but it’s like they’re listening together, like they’re one, because it’s like he can’t be seen without her and she can’t be seen without him, her black hair, his brown hair, her long hair, his medium-length hair, they are inseparable from each other as they sit there, and the fact that they’re not moving is probably no odder than the fact that I’m not moving, I’m just sitting quietly in my car for no particular reason, just sitting, and why? I think and then I realize I could go down to them, get out of the car and just go right down to the two of them there in the playground, but it wouldn’t be right to do that, would it? they should be left alone, the two of them are sitting there in such a big slow calm fragile peace that I can’t go bother them, it would disturb them if I went down to them, they’re so calm there, so peaceful, I think, but still, am I going to stay sitting in my car like this as if I can’t do anything, can’t manage anything any more, as if I’m exhausted from having seen Asle in his apartment by the sea in Sailor’s Cove and seeing all the shaking in his body, as if I’m too tired after all the errands I ran in Bjørgvin, I think, now I need to get home, drive back home to my old house in Dylgja, my good old house, because enough is enough already, I think and I look at the young woman sitting on the swing and the young man sitting on the bench and he’s thinking that when he was young they used to spend a few weeks every year in the summer with his grandparents, his mother’s parents, and their house was next to a playground exactly like this one, a little playground with a swing, a bench, a see-saw, and a sandpit, it was a grey brick house, not too big, and the flagstone floor in the hall comes into his mind, and there was a little outbuilding half-hidden behind the grey brick house, surrounded by some bushes, and then, next to the house, a little beyond it, was a small playground, and he spent a lot of time in that playground, he thinks, and maybe he should tell her that, but she’s probably not interested in hearing things like that and now they’ve been sitting there for such a long time without saying anything, he should break the silence by saying that when he was little he sometimes stayed in a grey brick house next to a playground like this one, he thinks, because they can’t just stay sitting like this forever, can they, not even saying anything, he thinks