The footsteps stop right in front of him. Henning blinks and looks up, sees red shorts and a naked torso. Gunnar Goma is smiling down at him.
‘What are you sitting here for?’ his neighbour asks him, cheerfully but surprised. Henning looks around. He is slumped on the stairwell.
‘I–I don’t know,’ he replies.
It’s like waking up in the middle of a dream. Or perhaps he is dreaming? No. If he had been, his feet wouldn’t have been hurting.
‘How long have you been sitting here?’
‘I’m… I’m not really sure.’
Their voices echo between the walls.
‘I was just going out for a run, and then I find you here. I thought you were a ghost.’
Henning tries to get up. The pain shoots through his feet again.
‘It looks as if you’ve stepped on some glass.’
‘What time is it?’ Henning stammers.
‘Time? I don’t know, I never look at the clock these days. I look outside to see if it’s light or dark, hot or cold. That’s all a man of my age needs to know.’
‘Mm.’
Henning wants to pull himself to standing, but the banister is on the opposite side to him.
‘Do you have some disinfectant upstairs?’ Goma asks him.
‘I think so.’
‘Okay, you can’t stay here. Take my hand.’
Henning looks up at him.
‘Take my hand,’ Goma repeats.
Henning finds Goma’s face and eyes, discovers a determination and a gravity he hasn’t seen there before. He never would have thought that he would need helping up the stairs by a seventy-six-year-old bypass patient naked from the waist up. Nevertheless, he holds out his hand and staggers to his feet. He moves like a drunk. They take the stairs one step at a time. Goma wheezes. His old hand feels rough and full of cartilage. Working hands, Henning thinks. All the time he can hear someone sawing, hammering or hitting something in the courtyard.
They reach his flat. Henning fishes out his keys and opens the door, allows himself be led into the hallway. He stops, looks at the folding steps and the smoke detector, then he looks at Goma.
No, Henning tells himself. This is a job you need to do on your own.
He thanks his neighbour for his help.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Goma says.
Henning looks down. ‘Sorry, I don’t really know what… what happened-’
Goma holds up his hands. ‘Don’t worry about it. We all have our senior moments. I once came round just as I was about to go into Kondomeriet. I don’t know how I ended up in front of a sex shop.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes. But once I was there, I obviously had to go in and-’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Henning interrupts him and holds up his hand. A long moment passes in silence. They look at each other.
‘Can I offer you a cup of coffee or something?’ Henning asks.
‘No, thank you, I’m off to Sultan’s to buy tomatoes.’
‘Some other time perhaps?’
‘Yes, I would like that.’ Goma looks at him for a long time. ‘Right. Got to go. You take it easy now.’
‘You too.’