a photograph from a faded album … I suddenly had to cough … a tingling itch in my throat was driving me crazy … and brought up an unexpected amount of phlegm that lay like an oyster at the very back of my tongue. Any words of welcome were out of the question, I just waved them in without saying a thing, careful to put on a friendly face so they wouldn’t take my muteness to mean we weren’t glad they’d come. I waited in the hall while they removed their coats and helped Elise hang hers up, the lump of phlegm still on my tongue: the thought that I may not be able to swallow it had made it impossible for me to make the attempt. Hans-Jacob soon started going on about the wine they’d brought, after first having handed me the bag, which was heavy and made a hollow clinking sound: it was a new type that had just come out, and in the end the only thing he probably didn’t tell me about this formidable Rhine wine or whatever it was … and I’d say he really had to restrain himself in order not to … was that naturally it was also very expensive. It wasn’t until they were on their way into the living room … I practically pushed them through the door … that I swallowed what in the meantime had grown to fill almost my entire mouth.
To prove that I hadn’t lost the power of speech, I made a few casual remarks. But it didn’t seem like either of them was really listening to what I said or even that they remembered that I hadn’t said anything when they arrived. Hans-Jacob followed me when I went into the kitchen with the wine, stood with his legs apart in the doorway so I couldn’t avoid listening to him while he took the ignoramuses to task, all the ignoramuses in the world, who buy wine for sixty or seventy kroners when all they had to do was spend ten or twenty kroners more in order to get something that was twice as good. That’s how he likes to measure things, Hans-Jacob, half or twice as much, a third or seventy percent, seemingly irrefutable figures, whether the topic is politics, religion, or women.
We raised a toast, as usual, standing in the middle of the living-room floor like some secret brotherhood, gathered in the greatest confidentiality, and even exchanged a few small nods, some discreet glances, like well-drilled signals. The smell from Hans-Jacob, who was standing right beside me, was on the verge of making me vomit: he has a particular kind of eczema of the scalp that always itches and which Elise has attempted to cure with vinegar, so far without success, so that a mild odour always surrounds him, like his own peculiar little aura. Elise asked if the blouse she was wearing, an old one she’d inherited from her mother, was frightful and I said yes, that it was frightful, truly frightful, and I laughed as loud as the situation permitted. Hans-Jacob started going on about something that was in the news, I didn’t catch what, but I soon thought there was something familiar about the opinions he was putting forward, as if I’d heard them before, just a little while ago. “Do you know what I mean?” he asked suddenly, and I was quick to nod: more than anything I wanted to put down my glass, put my arms around him, and squeeze it all out of him so that we could get it over with, and then we could make a start on something new, something fresh and unexpected, unfamiliar to us all. Perhaps he’d surrender completely in my arms if I did it, I thought, caught off guard by my sudden decisiveness? Perhaps if I squeezed hard enough, the air would go out of him as if he were a balloon, perhaps he’d empty completely, with a farting sound, so in the end I’d stand there with a slack little patch of skin between my hands, the sad remains of what was once Hans-Jacob Sandersen. It was impossible not to think of the words “hot air” I had thought them with regard to Hans-Jacob many times before, and now it was as though they had a new and greater meaning, as if they encompassed his entire person, the outer as well as the inner.
Then we ate, fondue with rice, chips, and vegetables. Elise and Hans-Jacob told us about a couple they knew via some friends, who they’d been to visit at a cottage down on the south coast somewhere, the man was an architect and had designed the cottage himself, or rather what seemed more like a fairy-tale castle than a cottage, if Elise’s description was anything to go by. Why did they want to tell us about this? What interest could we have in a filthy rich, self-indulgent … at least judging by Hans-Jacob and Elise’s portrayal of him … architect, of Swiss origin, who had obviously dazzled them all weekend long with his architectural escapades and exotic habits? It didn’t take long before we got to hear about all the fantastic food they’d been served as well … how rude, talking about another meal as they sat there eating food we’d served them … but I decided not to let it show although to intimate nonetheless that their adventure down on the south coast didn’t impress me much. Besides, I didn’t like the impression they were giving, that for their part they didn’t necessarily consider our friendship as being foremost, the one that would naturally take precedence in relation to their other friends and acquaintances. It was … I couldn’t manage to interpret it any other way … as though they wanted to leave us in no doubt that they ate good food and had good times at other places too and not just at our house, that it was important for them to get this across.
“He’s from Ticino,” said Elise, and it was obvious that the name, which she could be fairly sure meant nothing to us, gave her a particular satisfaction, to be able to throw it out there as something self-evident, so self-evident and yet requiring, in our company, elaboration, as she well knew. Nevertheless I was prepared to deprive her of this pleasure by not asking. But to no avail. Trembling with the compulsion to inform, Elise asked the question herself: did this name not mean anything to us … ? And with that she had the excuse she needed in order to tell us that Ticino was a canton in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, and then this was followed by a whole load of details that I did my best to forget as soon as I heard them. I couldn’t help imagining that it was the architect himself sitting there, with Elise’s face as a mask, that he had snuck in, like a little demon, because it wasn’t enough to hoodwink the friends of his friends, he had to slink along and prey upon their friends in turn, and then their friends, and so on. The demon’s goal was world domination, and every living soul would know of his fairy-tale castle off Kragerø, his French wife who had her family send herbs and spices to her from back home, and his plans for a new type of architecture, in harmony with nature, inspired by modern theories about ecological agriculture. There was a bowl right in front of me on the table filled with green olives with red tongues sticking out at me. It was as though they were sitting there shouting at me every time I glanced at them: KRAGERØ! KRAGERØ! ARCHITECTURE! ARCHITECTURE! Switzerland had been my favourite country when I was small, I thought sternly. But who the fuck had heard of Alfonso from Ticino?
Contrary to our well-drilled procedure … it was around now I should have been using the last of my after-dinner energy to repair to my armchair without so much as a thought of getting up for the next couple of hours … I helped clear the table. I noticed, to my surprise … and perhaps that was why I broke with routine? … that I was nothing close to as full as I usually am, on the contrary my body felt oddly light on the march to and from the kitchen, a feeling I was not familiar with at all. Hans-Jacob on the other hand, had regained his customary weight, I saw him heave backward and forward a couple of times in his chair in order to pack himself firmly down between its arms properly. I was reluctant to do the same … thought with horror about the hours that now lay ahead of us… and saw to my dismay, by way of a stolen glance up at the kitchen clock the last time I turned around, that we’d eaten dinner even faster than usual: it was as though cruel fate had added an extra hour onto an ordeal I already knew would be unbearable.
But there was no way out. I pulled myself together and with a cheerful “all righty!” almost leaped into the chair in front of Hans-Jacob. It gave him a start, he’d probably expected me to exhibit the same listless contentment as himself. We each set about removing bits of food from our mouths with toothpicks and once again I marvelled at Hans-Jacob’s strange habit of holding his free hand up in front of his mouth while he picked away with the other. His discretion has always irritated me, the hand shielding the view only draws your attention to what’s going on behind it and makes it seem all the more vulgar. I thought about asking him how he’d gotten into this habit, but there was something about the atmosphere, I felt, that wouldn’t quite allow it.
We sat in silence for a while. It looked like Hans-Jacob was pondering something, but for the moment he showed no sign of wanting to share it. We remained sitting like that for a good while, until my toothpick was broken
