NOVEL
The Old Factory on the River Plain
The Love We Had, Chapter 15
I’m standing in the locker room; I take my shirt and trousers down from the pegs in the cupboards. I thought I heard an alert from the phone, but I can’t see anything.
I think of her, Eira, the woman who I have attached myself to because she has attached herself to me. I put the thermos bottle in the bag, put the lunch box in the same place, lock the cupboard, take the bag by the handle and go out.
I walk across the night-black asphalt between the bathroom building and the factory gate, feel raindrops against my face. I am confused about what to do now. What I’m waiting for is a sign from her, just a few words like can tell me that everything is fine. It’s nothing else, I hope. I ask for a little hint so I can know that things are as we said.
As I walk up towards the block on the flatland, I try to clear my thoughts and recall her messages. She has sent me many short messages where she says things that I like to read. I like that, and the short messages make me long for her.
When I get inside the door I first walk around the room and turn on the light. Nothing is so discouraging as coming home alone to a dark, cold and empty apartment.
I check my mobile for alerts and decide to actively take care of the case. I sit down with the PC and open the inbox of my e-mail. It’s a little strange to re-read these messages. I feel that I smile when I read what I myself have written and what she reports back. She says that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved. She writes that the future can be planned, but we can never have full control.
I probably disagreed a bit, because I have written back that having loved and lost is second best. And better than having loved and lost is to love and win. Eira, I highly value what you and I have in common, and I want to tell her that loving and winning is the only option I envision.
It is dilapidated and neglected, the old factory on the river plain, and this is how it has been for many years. The foreign owners are not interested in investing fresh capital in modernization measures, expansions, conversions and the like.
I many times have thought of the factory as a human. It’s a tired centenarian. He has seen his best days long ago, this factory. He is a dying old man at the bottom of a fjord arm in the western parts of the country.
But he gives me work, as long as it lasts. He gives me income, the money I need to keep going. So that I can go in here, feel the heat from the furnaces, see the hellish fire that burns deep inside. I can pull around here while I think of her who makes me soft and warm inside me.
Then I would rather bite into the inconvenient shift work hours, taste the fine carbide dust, breathe in the airborne dust that might give me a serious illness, what do I know? Because after I met Eira, I decided that it has become more to live with, to walk around here in the factory, stand with the broom or shovel in hand and think about life and her.
I feel an inner turmoil, waiting for a word from her, need to know that she wants me to feel that I am alive. Restless, I retrieve phone logs on the e-mail, open the inbox, but see no new message.
I want contact, write a few words in the hope of getting an answer. I hesitate before I send the email thinking that she probably has a lot to do, children, house and home and all that.
I look for some words, in the end, some words that can reach her, words that I will give her next time we are together:
“You give me what no one else gives me and I will give you what no one else gives you.»
I write down the words that come to my mind. I want to say these things to her, and watch her face as I say them:
«We lift each other, we give the other courage and strength to stand safely where we are.
We are fearless, we are faithful to the secret dream that lives in us.»
I stop there and reread the sentences. I taste the words.
«One day I want you to give me your secret dream.
One day I will reveal my secret dream to you.»
I write what I want her to read. A modest try from a hobby poet.
Then I write to her that I think a lot about her, that I will meet her again, one day very soon. I tell her that I miss her very much, want to be close again, meet her as before.
Hours go by, I feel like I’m starting to get fed up with this. Then the night goes by and the next day goes by without me seeing anything of her. Nothing! Time goes by, she does not answer. I feel that I cannot accept this. She becomes less and less visible. Hour by hour, day by day, she becomes more and more distant to me. I decide to take action.
The story that the novel tells takes place in a small industrial town at the end of a fjord in western Norway. The story being told and the characters are fictional.
The photos included in the chapters are taken on location in the Odda Smelter (Odda Smelteverk, 1906–2003), the carbide factory that is mentioned in the story.
The Love We Had
Part 1 The Longest Night -chapters 1–3, told by Lars Part 2 The Light Inside -chapters 4–17, told by Aslak Part 3 Save Our Secret Love -chapters 18 — XX, told by Eira
Links to earlier and later chapters:
Part 1
Chapter 1 I Love It When Things Are Normal
Chapter 2 I Came Home as Usual
Chapter 3 I Believe in What I See
Part 2
Chapter 5 All we have is — ourselves!
Chapter 6 Coming together — escaping loneliness
Chapter 7 When I first met her
Chapter 8 An unskilled factory worker
Chapter 9 That Sunday morning we met at the parking lot
Chapter 10 At some point they gradually stopped listening to one another
Chapter 11 Going into the furnace hall to dig out shit from the smelter furnace
Chapter 12 In a small boat far out on the high seas
Chapter 13 The ugliest city can be the happiest city in the world
Chapter 14 A Man from the North
Chapter 16 You Give Me Warmth and I Love It
The Love We Had: A Novel Kindle Edition
by ØIVIND H. SOLHEIM (Author)