Hunger (11 page)

God, the sort of ideas you get! I thought angrily; imagine running around like a madman on sopping-wet streets in the dark of night! My hunger pains were excruciating and didn't leave me for a moment. I swallowed my saliva again and again to take the edge off, and it seemed to help. I hadn't had enough to eat for many, many weeks before this thing came up, and my strength had diminished considerably lately. When I had been lucky enough to get my hands on a five-krone bill by some maneuver or other, the money generally didn't last me long enough for my health to be fully restored before a new hunger spell descended upon me. My back and shoulders had borne the brunt of it; I could stop that gnawing pain in my chest for a moment by coughing hard or by walking extremely bent over, but there was nothing I could do for my back and shoulders. Anyway, why did my prospects simply refuse to brighten up? Didn't I have the same right to life as anyone else, such as Pascha the second-hand bookdealer, or Hennechen the steamship agent? Didn't I have the shoulders of a giant and two stout arms for work, and hadn't I even applied for a job as wood-cutter on Møller Street to earn my daily bread? Was I lazy? Hadn't I applied for work and listened to lectures and written newspaper articles and read and plugged away like crazy day and night? And hadn't I lived like a miser, eaten bread and milk when I had plenty, bread when I had little, and gone hungry when I had nothing? Did I live in a hotel, did I have a suite on the ground floor? I lived in a godforsaken loft, a tinsmith's shop abandoned by everybody and his brother last winter because it snowed in there. So I couldn't make head or tail of the whole situation.

I was thinking about all this as I walked along, and there wasn't as much as a spark of malice, envy or bitterness in my thoughts.

I stopped outside a paint store and looked in through the window; I tried to read the labels on a couple of tin cans, but it was too dark. Annoyed with myself for this new whim and stirred up and angry because I couldn't find out what was in those cans, I knocked once on the window and walked on. Seeing a police officer up the street, I quickened my pace, went right up to him and said, without a shadow of a pretext, “It's ten o'clock.”

“No, it's two,” he answered, surprised.

“No, it's ten,” I said. “It's ten o'clock.” And groaning with anger, I took another couple of steps forward, clenched my fist and said, “Listen, you know what—it's ten o'clock.”

He pondered awhile, giving me the once-over and staring at me in bewilderment. At last he said, rather quietly, “It's time for you to go home in any case, isn't it? Would you like me to come with you?”

I was disarmed by this show of friendliness; I felt the tears coming and hastened to answer, “No, thanks! I have only been to a café and it got a bit late. Thank you very much all the same.”

He touched his helmet for goodbye as I left. His friendliness had overwhelmed me, and I cried because I didn't have five kroner to give him. I stopped and followed him with my eyes as he slowly walked away, clapped my hand to my forehead and cried more and more desperately the farther he got. I reviled myself for my poverty, shouted epithets at myself, invented insulting names, priceless treasures of coarse abusive language that I heaped on myself. I kept this up until I was nearly home. When I got to the gate I discovered I had lost my keys.

Of course, I said bitterly to myself, why shouldn't I lose my keys? Here I am, living in a house where there is a stable downstairs and a tinsmith's shop upstairs; the gate is locked at night, and no one—no one—can open it, so why shouldn't I lose my keys? I was wet as a drowned rat, a bit hungry, just a wee bit hungry, and ridiculously tired in the knees, just a little—so why shouldn't I lose them? For that matter, why couldn't the whole house have been moved out to Aker township when I got home and wanted to go in? . . . And I laughed to myself, hardened by hunger and exhaustion.

I heard the horses stomping their feet in the stable and could see my window upstairs, but I couldn't open the gate and get in. And so, tired and bitter at heart, I decided to go back to the pier and look for my keys.

It had started to rain again and I could already feel the water soaking through on my shoulders. At the jail I suddenly had a bright idea: I would ask the police to open their gate. I turned to an officer at once and begged him earnestly to come and let me in, if he could.

Yeah, sure, if he could! But he couldn't, he didn't have a key. The police keys weren't here, they were in the Detective Department.

What was I to do then?

Well, I had better go to a hotel and turn in.

But I really couldn't go to a hotel and turn in, I didn't have any money. I had been out, in a café, he would surely understand . . .

We stood a little while on the steps of the jail. He considered and pondered and looked me up and down. Just beyond us the rain was pouring.

“Then you'd better go to the officer on duty and report yourself as homeless,” he said.

As homeless! I hadn't thought of that. That was a damn good idea! I thanked the policeman on the spot for this excellent suggestion. All there was to it was to go in and say that I was homeless?

Yes, that was all! . . .

“Name?” the officer on duty asked.

“Tangen—Andreas Tangen.”

I don't know why I lied. My thoughts fluttered about in disarray and gave me more fanciful notions than I could handle. I hit upon this far-fetched name on the spur of the moment and tossed it out without any ulterior motive. I lied unnecessarily.

“Occupation?”

Now he was forcing me to the wall. Hmm! I thought first of turning myself into a tinsmith but didn't dare; I had given myself a name not borne by each and every tinsmith, and besides I was wearing glasses. Then it came into my head to be foolhardy—I took a step forward and said, firmly and solemnly, “Journalist.”

The officer on duty gave a start before writing it down, and I stood before the counter with the lofty air of a homeless cabinet minister. It didn't arouse any suspicion; the officer could understand quite well why I had hesitated with my answer. Had anyone heard the like, a journalist in jail, without a roof over his head!

“With which paper, Mr. Tangen?”

“With
Morgenbladet
,” I said. “I'm afraid I've been out a bit late this evening—”

“Well, we won't mention that,” he broke in, adding with a smile, “When youth steps out, you know . . . We understand!” Turning to an officer he said, as he rose and bowed politely to me, “Show that gentleman up to the reserved section. Good night.”

I felt the chills running down my spine at my boldness, and I clenched my hands as I followed him, to hang tough.
¹
“The gas light will be on for ten minutes,” the officer said from the doorway.

“And then it goes out?”

“Then it goes out.”

I sat down on the bed and heard the key being turned. The bright cell looked friendly; I felt safely indoors and listened with pleasure to the rain outside. How could I wish for anything better than such an excellent cell! My feeling of contentment grew; sitting on the bed, hat in hand and my eyes fixed upon the gas jet on the wall, I started to mull over the high points of my first involvement with the police. This was the first time, and how I had fooled them! Journalist Tangen, beg your pardon? And then
Morgenbladet
! I had really struck home with
Morgenbladet
! We won't mention that, eh? Sat at the Prime Minister's in gala till two o'clock, forgot my gate key and a billfold with several thousands at home! Show that gentleman up to the reserved section. . . .

All of a sudden the gas goes out, so strangely all of a sudden, without diminishing, without dwindling; I sit in utter darkness, unable to see my own hand or the white walls around me—nothing. I had no choice but to go to bed. I got undressed.

But I wasn't sleepy and couldn't fall asleep. I lay awhile looking into the darkness, a thick massive darkness without end that I wasn't able to fathom. My thoughts couldn't grasp it. It struck me as excessively dark and I felt its presence as oppressive. I closed my eyes, began to sing in an undertone, and tossed back and forth in the bunk to distract myself, but it was no use. The darkness had taken possession of my thoughts and didn't leave me alone for a moment. What if I myself were to be dissolved into darkness, made one with it? I sit up in bed and flail my arms.

My nervous state had gotten out of hand, and however hard I tried to fight it, it was no use. A prey to the quirkiest fantasies, there I sat shushing myself, humming lullabies, perspiring with the effort to calm myself down. I stared out into the darkness—and never in my born days had I seen such a darkness. There was no doubt that here I found myself before a special kind of darkness, a desperate element which no one had previously been aware of. The most ludicrous ideas filled my mind, and every little thing frightened me. I am greatly absorbed by the tiny hole in the wall by my bed, a nail hole I come across, a mark in the masonry. I feel it, blow into it, and try to guess its depth. That was no innocent hole, not by any means; it was a very intricate and mysterious hole that I had to beware of. Obsessed by the thought of this hole, quite beside myself with curiosity and fear, I finally had to get out of bed and find my half-pocketknife to measure its depth, so I could assure myself that it didn't go all the way into the next cell.

I lay back to try and fall asleep, but in reality to fight the darkness once more. The rain had stopped outside and I couldn't hear a sound. I kept listening for footsteps in the street for a while, and I didn't rest easy until I had heard a pedestrian go by, a policeman judging by the sound. Suddenly I snap my fingers several times and laugh. What the hell was this! Ha! I imagined I had found a new word. I sit up in bed and say, It doesn't exist in the language, I have invented
it—Kuboå.
It does have letters like a word—sweet Jesus, man, you have invented a word. . . .
Kuboå
. . . of great grammatical importance.

The word stood out sharply against the darkness before me.

I sit with open eyes, amazed at my find and laughing for joy. Then I start whispering: they might be spying on me, and I intended to keep my invention a secret. I had passed over into the sheer madness of hunger; I was empty and without pain and my thoughts were running riot. I debate with myself in silence. With the oddest jumps in my line of thought, I try to ascertain the meaning of my new word. It didn't have to mean either God or amusement park, and who had said it should mean cattle show? I clench my fist angrily and repeat once more, Who said that it shall mean cattle show? All things considered, it wasn't even necessary that it should mean padlock or sunrise. It wasn't difficult to make sense of such a word. I would wait and see. Meanwhile I would sleep on it.

I lie there on the bunk chuckling, but I don't say anything, express no opinion one way or the other. A few minutes go by and I get nervous, the new word worries me incessantly and keeps coming back; in the end it takes possession of all my thoughts and makes me stop laughing. I had made up my mind what the word shouldn't mean, but had taken no decision on what it should mean. That is a minor question! I said aloud to myself, clutching my arm and repeating that it was a minor question. The word had been found, thank God, and that was the main thing. But my thoughts worry me ceaselessly and keep me from falling asleep; nothing seemed to me good enough for this rare word. Finally I sit up in bed again, clasp my head with both hands and say, No, that's just what is impossible, letting it mean emigration or tobacco factory! If it could mean something like that, I would have decided in its favor long ago and taken the consequences. No, the word was really suited to mean something
spiritual
, a feeling, a state of mind—couldn't I understand that? And I try to jog my memory to come up with something spiritual. Then it seems to me that someone is speaking, sticking his nose into my chat, and I answer angrily, What was that? Oh my, you'll get the prize for biggest idiot! Knitting yarn? Go to hell!
²
Why should I be under an obligation to let it mean knitting yarn when I was particularly opposed to its meaning knitting yarn? I had invented the word myself, and I was perfectly within my rights in having it mean anything whatsoever, for that matter. As far as I knew, I hadn't yet expressed an opinion. . . .

But my brain grew more and more perplexed. At last I jumped out of bed to find the water tap. I wasn't thirsty, but my head was feverish and I felt instinctively a need for water. When I had had my drink, I went back to bed again and decided that I was going to sleep, by hook or by crook. I closed my eyes and forced myself to be quiet. I lay for several minutes without moving a muscle, began to sweat and felt the blood pulse violently through my veins. Wasn't it just too funny, though, that he should look for money in the cornet! And he coughed, just once. Is he still walking around down there? Sitting on my bench? . . . The blue mother-of-pearl . . . the ships . . .

I opened my eyes. How could I keep them closed anyway, when I wasn't able to sleep! The same brooding darkness around me, the same unfathomable black eternity which my thoughts recoiled from and couldn't grasp. What could I compare it to? I made the most desperate efforts to find a word black enough to signify this darkness for me, a word so horribly black that it would dirty my mouth when I uttered it. Good God, how dark it was! I am again put in mind of the harbor, the ships, those black monsters which lay waiting for me. They wanted to suck me up and hold me tight and sail with me by sea and land, through dark kingdoms that no humans had ever seen. I can feel myself on board, pulled out to sea, soaring in the clouds, descending, descending. . . . I give a hoarse scream of terror and clutch the bed; I had been on such a perilous journey, had whizzed down through space like a faggot. How wonderful it was to feel safe again as I clapped my hand against that hard bunk bed! This is what it's like to die, I said to myself, and now you're going to die! I lay thinking about this, that now I was going to die, for a few moments. Then I sit up in bed and ask sternly, “Who said I was going to die? Having found the word myself, I have the right to decide what it shall mean. . . .” I could hear that I was raving, could hear it even as I spoke. My madness was a delirium of weakness and exhaustion, but I was not out of my senses. All at once the thought flashed through my brain that I had gone mad. Terror-struck, I jump out of bed. I stagger over to the door, which I try to open, hurl myself against it a couple of times to force it, bang my head against the wall, groan aloud, bite my fingers, sob and curse. . . .