In such situations Singer sometimes had an urge to repeat the trick with the book that he’d held by the spine and slammed closed, but something told him that Isabella wouldn’t exactly appreciate that. Instead he told the, in this instance, two serious, candy-eating girls that he’d make sure they got library cards to the adult section of the Deich­man Library before they were actually allowed to have them. He couldn’t promise them access to the adult section when they turned twelve, but when they were fourteen he’d be able to ensure that they got library cards to the adult section, which was the real book collection of the Deich­man Library. Then a whole new world would open up for them, he said, but the two candy-eating girls merely gave him inquiring looks, their expressions disinterested. It was and would continue to be difficult for Singer to figure out Isabella and her best friends. Now he no longer needed to cheer up Isabella for her own sake or for his, and yet he was left with a peculiar feeling of irremediable loss every time he failed to impress her and her friends and get them to stare at him, wide-eyed.

  Yet Inge­mann did manage to do this. By now Inge­mann had given up his acting career, which had never been as successful as he’d hoped. He’d started working for commercial TV, first in front of the camera, but now behind it, not as a cameraman but as an idea man. He lived in a fairly miserable two-room apartment in Majorstua, but he was brimming with energy and a zest for life, even though he too was well over forty. But he was now earning good money, as manifested by the fact that he’d bought himself a very expensive car, which stood parked at the curb on the street where he lived, right outside the dilapidated building where he had a two-room apartment. Often when Singer went to visit him, taking Isabella along, Inge­mann would stand at the window looking down at his car with a self-satisfied expression, which did not seem at all repellent because it was the expression of a man who, after all, lived in a fairly miserable two-room apartment, fairly devoid of any comforts and lacking in orderly living arrangements. It was also quite dark inside, and in the summer it was unbearably hot and not much brighter; the apartment was on the second floor and dark even on bright summer days, projecting a strong sense of being closed up in a cramped and stifling existence, from which there was no possibility of escape. But Inge­mann would stand at the window, looking down at his fancy car, new and shiny, and after they’d stood there for a while, he’d say:

  “It’s so nice of you to come over. Let’s go out to a restaurant, it’s my treat.”

  And off they’d go, for example to the Theater Café, where Inge­mann would treat Singer and Isabella to dinner, with red wine and cognac for Singer, and one soda after another, as much as she wanted, for Isabella. Singer noticed that Inge­mann was also generous with the tips he left, something that he happened to remember as typical of his friend in the past, although now his generosity seemed to know no bounds.

  Sometimes Singer might also hear a honking outside his own window on Suhms gate, and then both he and Isabella would run to the window and sure enough, there was Inge­mann’s car; he was honking because he wanted them to come down and go for a ride. This man, with his fairly phony charm, was the one who could manage the feat of making Isabella laugh.

  Singer had not expected this. Singer himself thought Inge­mann could be rather tiresome in his attempts to be a so-called entertainer who amused those around him in his spare time. It’s true that he was capable of witty remarks, but all the notions that followed the witty remarks could seem fairly annoying to Singer, even though Inge­mann was his friend, and he’d known him almost as long as he could remember. This was not always the case, of course; as a rule Singer both had fun and thrived in Inge­mann’s company, but that was mostly because he was Inge­mann, and Singer felt connected to him, even when Inge­mann could seem a little phony. These were merely aspects of his friend, aspects that Singer couldn’t imagine Inge­mann without, but the fact that these aspects were able to entice laughter from his serious stepdaughter, that was something he’d never thought possible. Yet it was possible.

  Inge­mann made great efforts to amuse Singer’s stepdaughter, who seemed to have little appreciation for these efforts. He tried tickling her, but she pulled away, in a polite manner, and responded only with a socially acceptable, and for the occasion, fairly restrained titter, which did not encourage Inge­mann to try again. Instead he tried other tricks. He opened a soda bottle for her using his teeth. That impressed her, but provoked no merriment. He continued to try to impress her with a series of tricks from his boyhood that had once proved successful. And they were still successful, Isabella was more or less impressed by all these ancient tricks, but they didn’t cause any frivolous laughter. Usually she would give him a serious look, but with an approving expression. She was not dismissive of his tricks, but she never asked him to perform any others, nor did she ask him to repeat those she had clearly approved of or even appreciated. Until one day when he tugged at her nose. Inge­mann tugged at the nose of Isabella who was then eleven years old. She looked utterly astonished, she stared at him open-mouthed, but she didn’t laugh. Not at that instant. But a moment later she burst out laughing, bright childish laughter, prompted by something else entirely.

  And that did it. Inge­mann had made her laugh. Singer felt an inexpressible relief at seeing her finally start to laugh, even though he wasn’t the one who’d been able to entice her to do it. He felt as if his problem had been solved, even though he wasn’t the one who had solved it. Isabella was still a serious child, but now and then she might burst out laughing, prompted by the strangest notion on Inge­mann’s part. When Singer and Isabella were alone, she never laughed, she didn’t care to laugh. But when Inge­mann was present, she might laugh now and then. Inge­mann’s presence made her laugh. His phony charm and old tricks summoned a merriment in her that she otherwise tried to hide from Singer. Singer hadn’t managed to entice laughter from her, even though he’d tried. That’s a fact. Now he no longer needed to worry about that fact. He had Inge­mann, after all, and Singer could withdraw into himself. Live his own life.

  And so it was that when Isabella entered puberty and joined the “ranks of teenagers,” as that term was used in Singer and Inge­mann’s youth, it was Inge­mann and not Singer who offered her guidance. She felt attached to Inge­mann and not to Singer, even though it was Singer she lived with and who also provided for the young teenage girl. But he had lost her, whatever that meant.

  Whatever that meant. Singer had known Inge­mann all his life, they’d been inseparable throughout their childhood, and later in life each had regarded the other as his friend, no matter where each of them had lived. Now they both lived in Oslo, in separate milieus, and they were interested in different things, that has to be assumed. But now and then Inge­mann would show up at Singer’s apartment on Suhms gate and invite Singer and his stepdaughter out for one reason or another. For example to take a drive on a Sunday. Isabella nodded, her expression serious and deliberate, when Singer told her they were going for a drive with Inge­mann. They went downstairs and out to the street where Inge­mann’s fancy car was parked. In front, in the passenger seat next to the driver’s seat, sat a beautiful woman, her hair fluttering. She shook hands with Singer through the open car window, as Isabella stood behind him, and the woman gave the teenage girl a friendly nod. Inge­mann jingled his car keys and got in behind the elegant wheel, in the driver’s seat, while Singer and Isabella got into the spacious back seat. Then they started off. The car accelerated dramatically, and they raced through Oslo’s quiet, Sunday-afternoon streets.

  It was beyond the scope of Singer’s imagination to wonder why Inge­mann had come to get him, Singer, or why he was suddenly sitting in the back seat of his friend’s car together with his stepdaughter, while Inge­mann sat in front with a beautiful woman; yet up to now Singer had imagined this configuration to be natural for both of them.

  The car raced along the E-6, heading for the small market town and former industrial center of Moss, where, on the green and quite flat island of Jeløya there was a well-known gallery called f15. At great speed, and resting comfortably on the soft seats, were all four passengers. Inge­mann and the beautiful woman conversed a bit, apparently talking shop since both of them, as Singer understood it, shared the same perception of reality and had jobs in the same field, although working for different companies. Sunday in Norway, in Østlandet, the southeastern part of the country, at the head of Oslo Fjord, on its eastern side. An outing to a well-known art gallery housed in an old manor house on the island of Jeløya near Moss.

  Yet Singer was feeling anxious as he sat there. An impossible configuration had developed, he saw that now. Inge­mann behind the wheel, jovial and merry, sharp and phony at the same time, driving confidently, at great speed, along the E-6 as he alternated between talking companionably with the beautiful woman with the fluttering hair, and partially turning his head to offer cheerful comments to the anxious Singer and his thirteen-year-old stepdaughter sitting together quietly in the back seat. Inge­mann behind the wheel, in a companionable unit with the beautiful woman, most likely his new lover. Singer and Isabella, together, as the other unit, in the back seat. You’d have to be blind not to see it. The two friends, Singer and Inge­mann, in a car, each in his own unit, driving along the E-6 on a Sunday afternoon. If that wasn’t blatant enough, it became even more so after driving through the green island of Jeløya, parking in the lot outside the Alby manor, and then walking from the parking lot to the manor itself, where Gallery f15 was housed; they stayed in the same configuration even then, in what seemed a completely natural way: Inge­mann and the beautiful woman walking companionably ahead, with Singer and his thirteen-year-old stepdaughter right behind, with Inge­mann now and then turning his head to offer some cheerful remark to Singer, and Singer smiling wanly in response, a remark that was, however, caught by Isabella, in all the ungainly alertness of her body. Singer became more and more withdrawn, and anxious. He also felt anxious as he sat again in the back seat on the way home after their visit to Gallery f15 and lunch, which was Inge­mann’s treat, at the Refsnes estate, and he felt linked to Isabella — which either he’d never had the opportunity to feel before, or he’d squandered these opportunities to draw close, whatever that might mean — and Isabella was linked to him, Singer, like an unavoidable fate which she accepted without complaint, the two of them in a merciless unit that made him feel dizzy as he sat there in the back seat, meaning together with his little teenage stepdaughter, and he understood that his friendship with Inge­mann had ceased to be a reality.

  Isabella was now stretching out, slowly, through several years, toward her own womanhood, as she continued to live with Singer on Suhms gate and made herself inconspicuous. For his part, Singer also continued to live his quiet life, in the metaphorical basement of the Deich­man Library, as he went back and forth to work through Oslo’s streets, back (and forth) to his own apartment, where he’d let himself in (and out) with a little click of the Yale lock. When he came home, the young lady would be looking at her face in her own mirror in her own room, with the door closed. He knew that she was sitting there, looking at herself in the mirror, because he had gone in once unannounced and seen her; he had immediately muttered an apology and averted his eyes because he’d neglected to knock on the door, and ever since he’d made a point not to burst into her newly developed life in that manner. She would come out and walk through the rooms with her astonishing, newly stretched-out form, to find things, discard things, for example a magazine that she’d drop onto a table; or she’d sit down in an armchair with her legs carelessly, and unconsciously, draped over the armrest as she watched TV, and then disappear into her room again, where she sometimes played music, just like other teenagers, but not nearly as loud as he’d heard, or read, that other teenagers did, and again with the door closed.

  Singer didn’t like the situation. Isabella moved without constraint through the rooms and grew up; she stretched up in height and reached toward her own forms, all the while continuing to be herself — Isabella an sich — and completely unconstrained by him. Singer found himself hovering at a respectful, and anxious, distance. What was this? He felt superfluous, yet here he was, after all, in the same apartment as a fifteen-year-old girl, who was in his care. She was still an obedient girl who did what he asked her to do. And if she occasionally did not do what he asked her to, she didn’t make a scene or fuss but simply neglected to do it in a discreet manner, as if she had accidentally forgotten. Exhibiting the greatest self-confidence, she moved around in the apartment and grew up, stretching toward life and her own future as a young woman; it was in that direction she grew and conformed. Singer could see that. She walked around in the presence of a stranger, a man who also lived here and who provided for her. She was completely unconstrained by the fact that he provided for her. It was as if she didn’t even notice he was there. She had nothing against him per se, but he was of no importance to her, that was what Singer came to realize, now that Isabella was stretching toward her womanhood. And he found this even more painful now than when she was a child. Because now it kept pointing back at himself: at Singer, the forty-six-year-old librarian who lived such an insular life.

  Occasionally he would ask her how things were going at school; she was now in middle school, still at the Marienlyst school building close to where they lived. Then she would answer pleasantly, telling him about any difficulties at school, or which subjects she liked best, and sometimes she would also ask him, Singer, about things that had to do with her schoolwork, factual matters regarding English grammar, historical conditions, political figures, geographical places, and many other things. And Singer was happy to reply, trying to be as factual as possible. It could be that she found his response a bit dry, but there was nothing to be done about that. Otherwise he knew very little about her. Her girlfriends came and went, a couple from her childhood, but also several new ones, classmates from middle school. Once the phone rang and a young voice, a boy’s voice, asked to speak to her. She hesitantly began talking on the phone, and Singer went out to the kitchen. When he came back to the living room, the phone was hung up and Isabella was back in her room. She didn’t say a word about who had called, and Singer didn’t ask, but later on he couldn’t see that this phone call had had any effect on how she lived her life.

  He didn’t know what sort of music she played, even though he could hear it clearly, though faintly, through the closed door, and he didn’t recognize the music, he made no connections to it, which isn’t especially strange since it was music for teenagers. A couple of times he did ask, in an attempt to be friendly, about the tune she was playing, and she always told him, both the name of the singer, whether it was a specific solo act or a group, and the name of the song, and she spoke this solo act or the band’s name, and the title of the song with obvious respect. But Singer had a bad habit of forgetting quite quickly both who was singing and what the title was, so that the next time he happened to ask her about the music he heard playing, it occurred to him as he asked, that this tune sounded exactly like what he’d heard the last time he had asked, not even a week ago, and he would abruptly stop and begin talking about something completely different, a topic pulled out of the blue, such as: oh, now it’s about to rain, and there’ll be thunder because it’s so sultry, pointing to the open veranda door where some heavy, threatening clouds had appeared in the sky, almost black in color, about to splinter the sunlight on that all-too-sultry May day. Because he did not really want to demonstrate in this way, so clearly and directly, his lack of interest in what she, and her girlfriends, found so immeasurably fascinating. When it came right down to it, he didn’t want to have that sort of attitude toward what she found so fascinating, even if, as was now apparent, it was actually true that he felt completely indifferent to what sort of music she and her peers listened to. He couldn’t very well start taking an interest in that type of music just because his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter was so fascinated by it, could he? Even though this might have been opportune, he felt such a strong resistance to the very idea of pretending to take an interest, for her sake, that it upset him greatly, and it continued to upset him for weeks afterward, every time he thought about it, for example as he sat in his metaphorical circumstances in the basement of the Deich­man Library.