Activity

They get up in the early evening. They shower and dress and go outside, they walk closer to each other, even more closely, it really is possible. It’s because we love each other, they say. It’s because we’re so passionate. We’re enthralled by the power of love.

‘I’ve never felt like this about a…

They unpack in the same room. In an old house where Norwegian researchers and students are put up. A window overlooking a courtyard, laundry flapping in the wind, cats on the flagstones. His suitcase in one corner, hers in another. His toiletries on one end of the bathroom shelf, hers on the other.…

Something happens for the first time there, later it will happen frequently and eventually she gets so used to it that she forgets that two people can have more than one nice week together. The dramas, the scenes, the quarrels and the sweet reconciliations. Howling, screaming, breaking things, figh…

‘She’s upset,’ he says when Ida comes back. ‘She says that maybe she still loves me.’

That is how you feel when you are on the verge, when you are about to experience loss.

‘What are you thinking?’ Ida wants to know.

He runs his hand over the back of his head, the heat has left small beads…

She pulls the duvet over both of them and tucks it under them, under him and herself, little Arnold, my darling, my beloved. But at the same time a little voice at the back of her mind is saying: Is this how it’s going to be? Will he always be the child?