I am looking for someone. I have been looking for this person for thirteen days now. I have crisscrossed the city in every direction. I have been through every hotel lobby, looking, searching. I have ridden the tram randomly, expecting, as a matter of course, to see that blue coat standing out among the passengers. I have been every place where people congregate, searching their faces, in case this one face should cross my path once more. But no. Perhaps I just want to look at those features for a moment, to recognize them. We don’t know each other’s names. I just want to look at those features for a moment, sink into that human soul for a short second and take it with me. Look into the depths of a human soul, given to me one night by two grieving hands.
It is really very difficult to say what it was that made me notice her. It was probably many things, my own mood, the weather, the emptiness of that particular day. What do I know? Certain days are like that . . . empty. You ache inside and the day sets you apart and turns you away. And I was drifting, not wanting to go anywhere, not wanting to go home either. It was the kind of spring evening that brings a little rain, just enough rain that you notice tiny pinpricks on the pavements while the blue dusk stays mild and clear at the same time. The streetlamps had just been turned on, blond candles jumping out into the blue half-light. It smelled of March evening and damp pavements. I drifted into the railway station. I really had no business at the station, but I bought a newspaper at the newsstand to make it look as if I had a reason for being there.
It was then that I discovered her. Just as I was stuffing the newspaper in my pocket and turning around to leave, I noticed her standing there looking for someone, waiting for someone. Mother-of-pearl dusk was seeping through the glass roof above us while a yellow light from a lamp fell across her shoulders and her hair. Her head was bare. Her face was in the shadow. I didn’t see any of it clearly.
Inside the station voices sounded like the singing blows from a hammer. All sounds were reverberating, enclosing us, shutting us in together. Perhaps that was what did it, and also this searching look of hers. I felt as if she was looking for me, or something; it’s hard to say because she looked so perfectly ordinary and I didn’t need a girl. I hadn’t thought of any such adventure that evening. But I have to dwell a little on this because it is a particularly clear memory. I have to caress it a little and hold it closely, even though it may seem insignificant.
A young girl was standing there. I imagined her to be nineteen or twenty years old. A complete stranger to me, whose face I could not even see. She was standing there with a small red suitcase in her hand, looking as if she didn’t know where to go. Her coat hung open and loose around her body. She had one hand in her pocket. The hand holding the suitcase was naked, without a glove. Smooth hair, flat shoes. I walked around her and came up behind her; she had bent her head a little. I spoke to the hair hanging softly down to her shoulders. There were no particular intentions on my part and I did not think about what I was saying at all, nor about having to say anything.
“Can I help you with anything, Miss?” The warmth in my voice surprised me a little; there was always the possibility of being turned down, and also that she might be a streetwalker. She shook her head slowly without turning to look at me; she wasn’t even interested in turning around to see who was talking to her or to give me an icy stare. I still hadn’t seen her face. I said, “I will carry your suitcase for you.” She started walking then, her head bent. She walked toward the exit. I followed close behind. She stopped, as though she couldn’t quite make up her mind. I said, “We’ll take the other exit.” And I walked past her without looking at her, knowing she was there, following on my heels. I noticed that her suitcase rattled a little; I sensed her breath, and the sound of her shoes right behind me felt intimate and close, as if she were whispering to me.
My thoughts were chaotic. Where were we going, what in the world was I going to do with this strange girl, who was she, how was she, what would be the end to this evening? Offhand I said, “Your place or mine?” She walked a moment before she answered. “Let’s walk a little first,” she said. I turned toward her then and allowed her to catch up with me. It was then that I first looked at her, seeing her face for the first time. And now I must dwell once more because there is something to this, seeing a person’s face for the first time. You want to look back to that moment to find the connection with the next phase: the moment you see the person who owns this face, the real person. We were just walking toward a streetlamp. It had become slightly darker. The light fell across her face, undressing it for me. Then we were past the lamp and her face returned to the shadows. It was as if she had hidden herself again. But during that short second while the light fell across her features I noticed that she was considerably older than I had thought, in her late twenties, maybe closer to thirty. There was something childlike in her features, something yet to be experienced, but the fine lines around her eyes and a quite noticeable line running from the base of her nose had all taken their time to develop. She said, “Let’s just walk around.”
We walked in silence. Cars slid slowly past on the pavement, streetlights played with our shadows, swirling them around us. From time to time I looked at her; she was looking straight ahead, something darkly brooding in her eyes. Her mouth was large and blooming with sensitivity, but was without color, and it firmly shut over her thoughts. If she had any thoughts. I didn’t know, maybe didn’t even think about it. I was puzzled by the fact that I had no desire for her. But my heart beat uncomfortably. Her footsteps were whispering at me, and her proximity felt like an unsettling touch.
When you experience something, an event or a human being, that forces itself into your life, giving it meaning, you often notice the little things most. Everything that connects you with the experience, even the most inconsequential detail, takes on a life of its own and demands something of you. Here I was walking around the streets on a wet March evening with a strange girl. We didn’t talk, I didn’t know her name, but everything that happened burned into my consciousness and will always be a part of me, part of my deepest self. We were approaching the docks. I smelled the odor of the sea, and from where the fishing boats were anchored came the scream of a seagull. I will always experience this powerful feeling again when I smell the odor of the sea, and I thought it strange to hear the scream of a seagull in the evening. It was just one single scream. Then a car honked and a tram rattled by, screeching in its tracks. Her hair had become wet, sticking to her head. It was smoothed away from her forehead and hung straight down. Whenever the light hit it, it was yellow; otherwise it was ash blond. Light and shadow fell across her as we walked. Her face slowly glowed, then receded into the shadows once more. We were approaching the old part of town. There were only a few gas streetlamps, whose tentative light created phosphorescent zigzags among the rain-soaked cobblestones. The tiny houses were either in the middle of the street or hidden by a stump of a garden, without any order, without symmetry. They hid behind newer storage buildings and peeked out anxiously, their tiny windows filled with flowers, dozing in the light from the gas lamps.
She came to a halt in front of one such little house and grabbed the iron fence that protected the remnants of its small garden. Her voice was warm, ripe with womanhood.
“I’ve always wanted to live in such a house,” she said. “Such a tiny little house with curious windows and many flowers.”
I said nothing. A certain mood emanated from what she was saying, from this small talk about clothes on a line and a tiny little house. Some people can talk about art or literature, or they can tell an interesting anecdote that you listen to, but none of it reaches more than your brain, your conscious mind. But this telling can also be done so that what is being said sneaks through your skin and lets you experience something with your innermost self. This girl was talking about clothes hanging out to dry and sunshine and a little house in a way that involved me. She created a mood that went to my blood and made me experience it. That’s why I have to dwell and think about this; I have to live through it again because it opened a door into this person whom I did not know. When we approached the center of town once more, she almost imperceptibly crept closer to me. I didn’t physically desire her. But I wished our walk would never end. Her shoulders touched my arm from time to time. It felt good. I didn’t want her any closer.
There was a lit shop window with coils of rope inside, and fishing gear and heaps of handwoven nets. She stopped, her back to the window. She had this dark, brooding look in her eyes.
“You.”
Copyright © 2026 by Torborg Nedreaas. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
