Naturally, I stroked and humoured him as if he were a lost dog. I listened to all his stories, both those that showed him in a good light, and those that showed him in a less flattering one, as a parasite. The narrative about the curse of alcohol, which I wanted to understand, the cold and the loneliness, the wide road to perdition. I wanted to make a difference, to mean something to this forlorn individual, because I was in a friendly state of mind, and time was running out. Naturally I acquired another bottle of vodka and put it in the cupboard. And I continued to visit the park near Lake Mester. I sat on my bench and waited for the others; gradually they came trooping up, like beasts to a waterhole: Ebba, Lill Anita, Miranda, Eddie and Janne. The huge, unhappy black man from the Reception Centre. The strange thing was, although Arnfinn and I could now be counted as friends, or at least acquaintances, he never seated himself next to me on my bench. And he never started a conversation when we met in the park.
