Per Clausen burrowed deep into the cushions and smiled sadly up to the ceiling while he let his whole body relax. It had been a delightful day. First there had been some unexpected work to take care of. The reasons behind Konrad Simonsen’s having brought a young woman to his interrogation session the day before instead of a seasoned colleague was not so easy to interpret, and he intended to repay in kind. He had purchased a camera and been successful in capturing his subject without a significant wait. He printed the pictures at a library and sent the papers with instructions to the Climber. The rest of the day he had been able to devote to himself.
He had been home. He had visited his childhood one last time.
Much had changed, but for those eyes that could really see, the street was the same as fifty years ago. The asphalt was still smooth and flat, and the coating just a little bit finer than anywhere else in the world, which is why it had always been the preferred gathering place whenever there was going to be a game of marbles or hazing. Kids of all ages came wandering from near and far and in the light summer evenings it had swarmed with life. A horde of children shouting and yelling, winning and losing, smiling and crying, as they quarreled over the rules or formed fleeting alliances. Boys in knickerbockers and long harlequin-patterned stockings, crewcuts with dirty ears and eternally runny noses, the girls in plaid skirts with elastic waistbands that could be pulled down to reveal their pink underpants.
He crouched down with his left knee against the ground and his right leg sticking out behind him, and ran his fingers along the street in a long, sweeping motion one last time.
For a while he kept his eye out for a cat; just one little straggly kitten to help him relive the past, but he didn’t see one. Back in his day the apartment buildings had been swarming with cats. In the daytime they sat on garbage cans or lay on steps lapping up the sun as they patiently kept watch for the cat mother, who turned up faithfully three times a week with sweet words and fish scraps. In the night they rent the silence with their mating yowls and territorial fights. When the cat catcher was on the street, all animosity fell away and everyone knew their role. The girls gathered together in small groups and chased the cats away; the boys attacked them with blow straws and slingshots. The little kids ran from apartment to apartment and called for assistance, while others peeled celluloid from handlebars and used their magnifying glasses to light stinking fires under the animal catcher’s car. He usually left with unfinished business. Furious and cursing but without a catch in the back of his vehicle.
The last window on the second floor of the yellow building was his mother’s. From it, she called goodbye to him when he went to school in the morning and called him up in the evenings when it was time for bed. The glass in the window was cracked and only his mother knew why. He had been sitting in the window at the time. The cornice of the building was cracked with frost and posed a hazard, so a scaffolding was erected and a large, jolly plasterer got to work. He sang beautifully while he worked, sang the sad song of the wild duck as well as any street singer. Housewives rewarded him with coffee—some even with beer—served straight out of the window. He had stood there on the scaffolding, singing and swinging his mortar and trowel, and caught sight of his mother in the window. He had made a cheeky comment about how the prettiest woman in the building deserved some extra mortar. The clump clung to the window and slid down over the glass pane. She had scolded him for his foolishness and secretly thrilled at the traces of it for the rest of her life.
He stood there for a long time, his mind attuned to the past, his reflection in his mother’s window, before he quietly returned to his starting point.
*
Now he was at journey’s end.
He removed his belt and tightened it around his left arm so that his veins stood out. He took the syringe out of his inner pocket, attached the needle, and filled it from two ampules. There wasn’t much light—he was grateful for that, slid the needle in between the thumb and pointer finger, the student’s comfort. He calmly pressed the plunger, loosened the belt, and closed his eyes.
He noticed with a tinge of irritation that someone had entered the room and he was a bit surprised that he could see the door from his vantage point under the cushions. Then he heard her voice and forgot everything else. She was wearing the pretty, white ruffled skirt he had bought for her when she was six years old and that he liked so much. She stood before him shining, happy, full of health, and he felt the tears stream down his cheeks; then he spread out his arms and ran over to meet her. She had been away from him for so many years and now he held her in his arms again. His wonderful little girl.
CHAPTER 20