From Vaim, which will be published in October by Transit Books. Translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls.

So, I said, well here we are, I said, and I ran my fingers through my beard, my graying beard, I wasn’t young anymore, no, but I wasn’t an old man either, it would probably be fair to say aging, yes, an aging man, neither more nor less, and it was about time I stopped taking these little sprees to Bjørgvin, what was the point anymore, tying up at the quay of the Wharf in Bjørgvin and not using my time there to do anything but sit in a bar or restaurant or café, yes, usually the Fowl, that’s what they call the place, but sometimes I’d go to the Food Hall or the Last Boat or the Country Inn—other than going somewhere like that or just staying in the cabin of my boat there wasn’t really anything to do, or, well, the first day, or first couple of days, there’d be something I needed to buy, yes, always, this or that, there’d be one thing or another that I’d thought might come in handy and I’d written it down on a sheet of paper on my living-room table back home, something I couldn’t get at the Vaim General Store but that would come in handy, it was always different, it could be anything, yes, over the years I’d gradually bought everything I really needed but a needle and some black thread to sew a loose button back on, yes, that’s what I needed to buy this year, but actually it was a lot harder than you’d think to buy a single needle and a single spool of black thread in the city of Bjørgvin, Norway’s second biggest city, it was almost unbelievable how hard it was, you’d almost think that the shopkeepers didn’t want to bother selling something as small as a needle and spool of thread, because I’d walked from one clothing shop to the next and none of them had anything like that for sale, no, they said, no, we don’t carry that, and you’d have to say that there was something a little bit mocking in their answer, and in their face behind that answer, and when I asked where I might be able to buy it the answer was always the same, no, we don’t know, sometimes they would add that they don’t sell needle and thread in this shop, only ready-to-wear clothes, and now if I wanted to buy myself some new clothes, if I could afford it, and I have to admit that one of them, or maybe more than one of them, was hinting that I needed some new clothes, but I didn’t need new clothes, I was doing just fine with the clothes I already had, because I didn’t look like a beggar or anything, no, even if some people probably thought I did, but these clothing stores were packed with clothes and that was probably the reason for this hinting, and also the reason why they didn’t want to sell me a needle and thread, but eventually there was someone standing in front of me, bowing to me, in a suit, damn it if he wasn’t wearing a pink tie, who said that if I wanted to buy a needle and a spool of black thread I would need to go to a tailor’s, and when I ventured to ask him where I might find a tailor, this shopkeeper’s assistant, or maybe it was the store owner for all I knew, just laughed, he laughed long and loud with his mouth wide open and said how should he know, and then he said that there always used to be a tailor on Skostredet back in the day, but that was a long time ago, because it’s been a long time since there’ve been any tailors in Bjørgvin or probably out on the coast in Strileland either, he said, and then a woman came in through a door behind the counter that the man in the suit and pink tie was leaning on and asked a bit impatiently if there was something she could help with and the man in the suit and pink tie said yes, so, um, well, and then I mumbled that I wanted to buy a needle and a spool of black thread and she asked if I needed it to sew a loose button back on and I said yes, that’s what I wanted, and she said she could get that for me, yes, and then she disappeared through the door she had just come through and the man in the pink tie said yes, yes, you see, the things I don’t know, the things I can’t do, and I asked if he’d just started working in the shop and he said he’d been working there his whole life, since he was a little boy, because the woman who’d just gone to get a needle and thread was his mother, and after his blessed father had died much too young it was Mother, as he put it, yes, she owned the shop, and he had never gotten any further in life than to work as a shop assistant for his own mother, he said, and she was someone who sold anything she could, he could say that for sure, yes, she’d sell her own grandmother if it came to that, yes, that was what they liked to say about enterprising salespeople in Bjørgvin, he said, so now his mother had probably gone upstairs to their apartment to find a needle and some thread in her own sewing kit, it wasn’t the first time she’d done that, yes, go get something from the apartment to sell it, that’s how his father’s wardrobe had disappeared, not at all once, of course, it took its time, but eventually everything got sold, so I’ll get my needle and thread, the man who was also her son said, and then we stood there not saying anything and then the door behind the counter opened and she came in, and she held up a spool of black thread and there was a needle stuck into the thread, I could see it and yes well here you have your needle and thread, she said, the widow, mother, and owner of a clothing shop in Bjørgvin, yes, I have everything anyone might want for sale, she said, with maybe a little pride in her voice, and her son in the suit wearing a pink tie shrugged, and he wasn’t exactly young, more like a male old maid by the look of him, but how can I think such a thing, to tell the truth I’m no less of an old maid than he is, probably more of one actually, since it seems like I’m a lot older than the son with the pink tie, but then again I had nothing womanly about me, not at all, but that guy, the son, in the suit, with the pink tie, yes, he was as feminine as he was masculine, and that’s probably why I’d hit on that phrase, old maid, yes, and his mother both looked like a man and was acting like one too and she held out her hand with that spool of thread with a needle stuck into it and she said to me

That’ll be two hundred and fifty kroner, she said

and I couldn’t believe it, two hundred and fifty kroner for a spool of black thread and a needle, yes, everyone knows that these Bjørgvin people sure gouge money out of people but this was above and beyond even for Bjørgvin, this was outrageous, exorbitant, yes that’s the word, exorbitant, there’s nothing else you can call it, I could buy myself a new shirt for that, several shirts, and avoid the trouble of sewing the button back on too, because it’s always a hassle, just getting the thread through the needle always takes me a long time, my eyesight isn’t the best, and even my glasses don’t help much when it comes to seeing the eye of the needle

Well, the woman standing behind the counter said with a kind of swagger

Well, what’ll it be, she said

and I had to just buy that needle and thread from this awful woman, owner of a clothing shop in the city of Bjørgvin, mother of a son in a pink tie, there was probably nothing else I could do, I thought, and I took my wallet out of my jacket pocket, but really, no, I couldn’t, I couldn’t pay that much for a little needle and a little thread on a spool where most of the thread had already been used, yes, as far as I could tell there was only a little thread left on the spool, maybe not even enough to sew a single button on with, no, really, but once you start something you have to finish it, once a person’s said a they have to say b, as the saying goes, and if I said no to buying it now it would be kind of humiliating, yes, I’d probably look like a pauper in the eyes of this lady behind the counter, and that’s exactly what I didn’t want, I didn’t want to give her that pleasure, I’d rather she have the somewhat dubious pleasure of having cheated a man, of having cheated a dumb hick from Strileland even, I thought as I stood there with my wallet in my hand and I took out a two-hundred-kroner bill and a fifty, and I put them down on the counter, I laid the money down without saying a word and as soon as I put the bills down they were in that woman’s hands, and then I stood there like a fool looking at the spool with a needle stuck into what was left of the black thread and she, the owner of this clothing shop in Bjørgvin, didn’t say anything and I didn’t either, I was glad I wasn’t going to give her an answer and her son, in the black suit and the pink tie, where had he gone off to? I looked all around the shop and it was a big and nice shop, I had to admit that, and there, way in the back, in front of a mirror, was the son, grooming himself, running the palm of his hand over his hair, straightening his tie, standing up straight to his full height, making himself look as thin as he could, and I put the needle and thread in my pocket and thought, now, yes, now I’ve got to get out of this hellish shop, the sooner the better, and I headed for the door without saying a word and behind me I heard the mother and son saying as if with one voice, Thanks for coming in, hope to see you again, if there’s anything else the gentleman needs or wants, thanks for coming in and hope to see you again, I heard from behind me, and the words were still echoing in my ears even after I was back out on the streets of Bjørgvin and never again, never again would I set foot in that clothing shop, never, never, I thought, because I’d never been cheated that badly in my whole life probably, I thought, and now I had to get back home to Vaim, I thought, and why did I always take these boat trips to Bjørgvin anyway, they never really had any point, these excursions, when I had a few days off work then yes I’d just go to Bjørgvin, but it wasn’t so often nowadays either, I thought, not for the past few years anyway, yes, for many years now I’d only taken one trip a year on a summer’s day even though back when I was younger, yes, back then I would constantly be coming to Bjørgvin, one or two days off and I’d head out, and back then I was a regular customer at the bars, and the reason why was probably that I was hoping, even though I didn’t want to admit it, yes, I was hoping to meet someone, yes, someone to share my life with, as they say, but no, not this time, as they say, yes, and now I’ve gotten so old that the hope is gone, I’m alone and I’ll stay alone, yes, that’s how it is on that subject and that’s how it’ll stay too, yes, so now I took these trips to Bjørgvin just to buy something I couldn’t get at the Vaim General Store, but actually there was and is little or nothing I couldn’t get at the Vaim General Store, they sell most things, all kinds of things, yes, it was only things like this needle and thread that made me think I’d better go to Bjørgvin.