Elise's Room

        I HAD ARRIVED I THE CAPITAL in preparation for the journey. The scholarship did not cover air ticket and a collection was called from the townsfolk who had settled in the capital. Many contributed moral donations and useful counsel. One pledged to get me a vaccination card, which was the only material collection I received. A ticket materialised somehow. An Indian trader agreed to buy the ticket on the condition that he were to it until my boarding of the plane. A passport officer was given some tea and a passport was secured.

        It was winter, when I arrived. Kristiania was wrapped up in snow. A bus waited, and there were other students arriving from other developing corners of the world. We were shuttled to the student town. Rooms were assigned and I got a room in the fourth floor above the administration. A bare dark room. An enamel sink. Cupboards and bookshelves. A sleeping sofa. And a bedside lamp. In my corridor there were five other students, four foreign students-Pablo the Spaniard, a Greek and a Chinese art student. And two native girls, Camilla and Elise.

        The university was located not far from the student town and on fine weather I cycled there. After a week of orientation, registration and filling application forms for the scholarship-which was a 'loan' to natives and 'development aid' for students from poor countries-I began in the language class.

        It began as the era of what I came later to remember as the year of letters for reasons that I will explain later. I was quick to grasp the language. It took a short while before he mastered the common tones of the language. This allowed him an opportunity to break the natives' armour as it was easier to engage them in scanty contact. The language class was a rainbow of tongues, drawing from all poor corners of the world. Some students became acquainted with him in the necessity of the learning process and being alien. Generally we clustered together as one group although a scratch revealed that fundamental differences remained. Learning the new language, however, brought us together. It was through this solidarity in learning that I met the Indian girl. The recalcitrance of her tongue to take on the new vowels sort of pushed her to may way. At the outset, I shared with her lessons at the university cafe after class. Later on, she had the courage to invite me to her room in another block, the one behind the hostel's cafe. But as these things are there is no memory as to how she started coming over to my place but she did and we became intimate more than her compatriots allowed. Indian palavers were convened in the hostel, warnings were issued and finally she relented and re-classed our relationship to a platonic level, as she said. "As brother and sister." Shortly before the end of the course, she got married to a cafe owner in the Neighbourhood in the other end of town.

        I wrote home to inform mama of my safe arrival and also wrote to my cousin a postcard with the postage stamp from Europe. I dutifully explained the thrills of being here and the possibilities opened before my feet. Winter came and the first snow fell which I documented in fur-covered images which I sent home. I wrote about the measured mobility of things-buses ran, trains kept time and order prevailed everywhere. When there was a fire the fire brigade turned up within no time. It so happened that when one had no job, one got money from the authorities; all what one had to do was to walk in a certain office, pronounce himself unemployed, fill in some forms and one got paid an allowance. The allowance was big enough to start a foundation of a house.

        In this excitement I got caught in a tangle of expectations and the hopes of those who received my letters. It was not long after the letters were answered. The Butcher wrote back a long chatty letter where he wished upon me blessings of ancestors. His business, the Butcher wrote, was running perfectly and himself was in a tip-top condition facing challenges in my felt absence. Mama wished me well and prayed that I shouldn't eat pork or set foot in church. Mama also updated me on the condition of my drunkard uncle whose liver had failed a number of times although he had continued his revelries as before. It was during this time Through some classmates I got a job cleaning in a hotel in town. The friends had countrymen who had lived in Kristiania for a many years. I worked on weekends.

        Mama in her next letter had it written that the Sheikh had passed away in the hands of a woman who was not his wife. The woman lived behind our orchard and in avoiding to scandalise the astral body of the Sheikh, it was decided to ship the body clandestinely, in the dark. This was done successfully but they had to tear down our fence. Mama wrote that she needed money for repair before thieves found their way to the coop of chicken in the yard. I sent her two weeks' worth of my wages and asked her to give a quarter of the money to the Sheikh's family as our family's condolences.

        Not long, the Butcher wrote and complained that his business was not running well and that he had constantly to bribe the market officials to keep his stall. What he desperately needed was serious capital to buy a proper butchery. In the same letter he mentioned that loquacious Lailoja was ill. People said that he had contracted tuberculosis although the depleted state of his thin frame hinted at something more serious. Lailoja's people had taken him to the Lake town where able medicinemen were to be found. My uncle urged me to write to Lailoja's family and wish well. I sent the Butcher the remaining two weeks' wages, and enclosed a note of heartfelt sympathies to Lailoja's family. Then Lailoja's family wrote back thanking me for consistent respect and that they knew long before, when I was little, that I would not change even if I went to Europe. "Treatment of tuberculosis is costly," they wrote, "as you know, doctors have to be given something before they can treat a patient and medicine are expensive." Lailoja himself signed a sickly hand saying he was deeply in debt. Spring emerged with marked shades and school extended its blessings. We closed for three months holidays. I worked mostly that summer and managed to send enough money home. The evenings, however, I spent with my corridor mates.

        One bright summer evening my friend Pablo suggested we went to town. Camilla and Elise, two native girls, had invited Pablo, who invariably extended the offer to me. Generous as ever, Pablo explained to me: "You people have the rhythm. Maybe you can teach these girls how to shake a leg." I must also add that these compliments were not uttered in front of the girls. Pablo was merely alluding to their ghostly rhythmless presence. At the time, I had a vague notion that something heavy was going on between Camilla and Pablo. But since he had chosen not to tell me, I felt it was none of my concern. Camilla was tall, trim but for full-round hips. Her moult of blond hair, often in two braids, mastered her fine-featured face and made her seem bold. Pablo had told me before what he went for, so there was no surprise.

        I had talked with Elise a number of times. She was slender and not without grace, if you got to know her. To an unappreciative eye, Elise looked like a German lesbian; short hair, stern gaze and a severe way of dressing. Elise was anything but Sapphic; she was beautiful in a quiet, serene manner. You had to pause an eye to notice. I was impressed by the panache of her cold beauty; firm nose, firm forehead, tight mouth, but there was always, you have to believe me - always - a small measure of a smile at the corners. Her voice was both serious and playful. To me the music of her beauty was a new reflection. Beauty was not fragility dressed as a chandelier; it reposed in the details, not the show. Elise was nice to talk with, she pleased the eye and made me warm; her grey eyes shot right through me and tickled the flow of my blood. And especially when she flaunted her carriage in denims and khaki shirts. The pull of her simple charm was irresistible.

        But the girls didn't wear denims that bright summer night. The girls rigged themselves out in floral peasant dresses which pleasantly hugged them and addressed the looking eye with limited intimacy; as hints of plunging shapes, bending and rising with the speed of adulterous desire. Pablo was in a suit, a stylish and dark baggy one. Without tie. I remember to have worn my usual outfit which you know very well. The girls' rising fragrances enveloped the corridor as we left, crowding the elevator, then the lounge and the Good Lord's swarms of stars outside.

        I remember that evening as round, warm and clear. The subway buzzed. When we reached the national theatre station, the world was hopeful. Elise took my hand and walked me to a Tandoori restaurant. Pablo and Camilla, a step or two behind, kissed lightly. After a sumptuous meal the girls suggested a pub round the corner where we got properly drunk and left for the discotheque.

        At the Baroque, the doorman refused us entry, because, he said, we were not properly dressed. Camilla loudly flung her arm at a jean-clad native couple who was allowed entry, "What about them?" The doorman, adamant as ever, declared us drunk. Elise inquired of the doorman if it was our presence, Pablo's dark Latino hue and my brown chocolate, which was the reason. To which the doorman riposted as a "figment of her paranoia". The other did not notice the funky music coming out when the doorman added that the Baroque, "sought to maintain a certain standard". I asked Camilla to leave the doorman alone and since it was late in any case we could take the taxi home. "That attitude encourages people like him," she said in the fog of her drunkenness, "They should be confronted each time they come up with their petty schemes," she roared. "But what is the point of going in a place where one are not wanted?" I remember to have argued. "We are not making points. We want him to know that what he is doing is unacceptable," Camilla said. She became more vocal and abusive. A woeful pain sunk in my kidneys and I asked if we could just go to another place. Elise knew a pub nearby and we left dignified, the nasty memory of Baroque safely tucked back in the beyond of nocturnal unpleasantness. Later, when thoroughly plastered, Elise whispered her desire. We took a taxi and split the fare in four.

        Pablo offered a night-cap. Elise and I were not interested. Elise insisted that we should repair to her room, which was next to Camilla's, which again was next to mine. Elise's room was spartan, the only piece of decoration, apart from a print of C�zzane's Blue Nude, was a pot of dahlia in a corner. She said she had a bad habit of making noise, so she excused herself and put on music, which was shortly answered by the wall to Camilla's room. A long, far away sob of a long ecstasy crowned with Spanish grunts. The Spanish speed is a marvel. Her own wails when they inevitably appeared, came with a crystal clear native lilt and floated in the opulent light of her amp. The bedside light resolved the wanted anguish of her face as she pleaded wistfully, uttering unspeakable things to my ears. Elise covered all possibly uncovered skin of my body, her hands rowed from the busy blades of my shoulders down; fluttering touches of warm damp inside surfaces of soft palms. Only my upper body, from my waist up, escaped the ardour of her claim; elsewhere we wended together as she subdued all motions I might have fancied to effect; fervently, she took my breath away but for a momentary flash of madness that came in convulsive clutches of her embrace. For a while, we lay still in the chaos of the music. Later she said she had something for me but I had to go to the bathroom first.

        "You haven't have this done to you before?"

        I was ashamed that no answer came. Quietly, her mouth left a warm trail on my stomach and the silvery gleams of her eyes turned to purple as did everything else in the room; my mind was blurred, all sense united to the rhythm of reception as she clasped with the delicate affection of her lips. Those very smiling lips.

        My fling with Elise was to be curtailed shortly, however. Three days after, to be precise, by the firm hand of one gentleman called Sigurd. It happened that this Sigurd, a two metre bulk of flesh, was a 'sometime' boyfriend of Elise's. Because after that fateful night, Elise asked to be left alone - to think. Hard as I tried to lighten up her sullen pondering, she became colder and more rejecting. When I proffered to keep her company at nights, you know, talk (and joke) about this and that; the sort of talk she always found hilarious - helping the starving children of Bahr Al-Ghazar or about female genital mutilation in the West Africa, Elise was not interested. "I am busy," she said curtly. I think it was particularly from that nagging of mine that the two metre hunk was activated.

        The sometime boyfriend emerged on the fourth day, in the dim corridor, ugly as sin; like an apparition from the uninhabited remote past. The mute brute stood framed by the illusion of the window at the end of the corridor, high-arched opening to unruly branches of oaks, which added to the gloom. Inscrutable in his hatred and explicitly sober in his strength; towering locks, gleams of gold, impaling blue eyes, a thin, odiously open mouth under a strong dismissive nose. His outline come out in ascending shades, the faint light of the window, then the yellow of the bulb and yellower still of his own vibes. Sigurd was a plague sitting on two legs. A touch of fear came over me. It was before the evening news, I think, because I used to be home then. I had just opened the door, already flustered by the level of misunderstanding outside. Someone does something with the least of bad intentions, and the other misunderstand completely. Anyway, what good did this easy morality help me before the monster blocking my way? Nothing.

        Sigurd asked as of the state of my relation with Elise. "Very nice," I said, hastening to finish off the encounter. Using superlatives, I knew, would hasten the unfavourable outcome. "Elise is a wonderful person and I am learning a lot about this society from her."

        The Viking was not sold. The specimen stood as impassively as the dark walls of the corridor. All other doors were closed. Michu was still toiling at campus, Filipo was making friends in the cafe and Camilla and Pablo were probably at it somewhere. Except for the shaft of light on Elise's door, which rained slantwise down onto the cold linoleum floor. The corridor was gloomy, a shadow solved itself in the dimness, Elise's now familiar body leaned on the wall. He grunted. The genie was not yet in the bottle. Sigurd announced this form of learning about his society as of that moment invalid. He would not allow this piteous excuse to harass his girlfriend to continue, he said. And I should know that here, in this country, if a 'lady' as he called Elise, said no, it meant no:

        "You cannot pester people with your uncalled for kindness. Yes, at some point she wanted your company, but now she doesn't! Do you understand?"

        There was no way I shouldn't have understood. Sigurd was a menace to sight and heart. You knew that had he wanted to make a bad case of my limbs, I would have needed at least six months to recover. "I understand," I said.

        "Elise is mine." Sigurd hissed and went out. He disappeared as ceremoniously as he had happened upon me; he just staggered off like a voluminous wisp of smoke into the dark walls. A silence, as vast as all the combined solitudes of the earth, drove in the corridor. It didn't last long. Elise approached me, smiling and cheery as a deep-dish pie. "Hi!" She called out, her dimples dissolving into molasses.

        I took to myself for a while and tried to avoid the others' contact. I was away from the hostel for the most part, at school and the hotel where I worked extra hours. I ate at the hotel where we were allowed free meals after work. The Butcher wrote asking for more infusion of capital since his business was not going well. He also advised me to be careful with money and that he was willing to find a plot for a house. He installed himself the future building contractor. Mama had in the meantime taken in two pregnant cousins of hers; fathers of the pregnant girls had evaporated into the wars of dreams. I sent Mama that month's wages and lived off my scholarship.

        One early morning when the hotel did not call I was in the kitchen. I put a kettle on the cold plate and was waiting for it to boil. I sat down. Kristiania was waking up from the fourth floor where I lived. Lime-coloured veils ringed around gleaming tops of the national stadium. It was a morning of promise and surprises opened up slowly. The kettle hissed. I prepared the last of the instant coffee I got from home. It wasn't the smell of coffee, but of leaves; settled morning leaves, which sometimes gave out a smell of the inside of a barn. If it had been home I could say it was the smell of upturned soil in the orchard in the backyard.

        I drank the coffee. The kitchen was dirty, full of unwashed dishes. The Greek student, had guests for dinner last night. I heard repeated ramblings of toilet flushing. I assumed it was from one of the girl's room. Then the door darkened as the nimble figure of Elise crowded the kitchen. She was an early riser. She greeted me quietly and walked to cupboards for a box of cornflakes a bowl and a spoon. The pale pink flesh of her rear-end trembled against her nightgown as she bent to get a box of milk from the fridge. I must have watched her with puzzlement for she said after a pause between pouring and stirring: "I am moving out." I murmured my sympathies. We still talked when we met in the corridor. That long corridor with six doors opening who knew where was quiet.

        "I have found someone I want to share my life." She said. I said I was happy on her behalf. "She is the one I love. I found out last week when I met her."

        I took my cup and went back to my room. I parted the inquiring pipes of folds of my cabbage-green curtains. The car park was empty, the asphalt gave out a dewy shimmer. On my table, strewn with a jumble of shocked books. An uninvestigated book lay open pleading for a page to be lifted to unburden its weight. I neither intended to read nor to learn. A Camilla wail came from the bookshelf on the left wall. I had had enough.

        I spent the day walking in town. I walked along the quay and the Town Hall. When I got hungry I walked in the direction of the Flower Market. Then I remembered the caf� where someone had told me they sold inexpensive food. I turned east and walked down the road.


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