Free Doppler by Erlend Loe

TV even I would have looked like an idiot.
    Everything which is human is alien to me.
    Before my fall in the forest I spent my evenings at home with the family. I have always shunned organised leisure activities. So almost every evening was spent at home. We ate, watched children’s TV, put Gregus to bed and then sat in front of the TV leafing through more or less interesting newspapers until the clock told us that it was time to pay bills on the Net. Always plenty of bills. Electricity, council tax, telephone, newspapers, plumber and nursery, as well as Nordberg Tennis Club which we regularly had deliver sixty-four toilet rolls straight to the door. We liked that. The old men up there keeping themselves busy with the organisation of the club. When they aren’t maintaining or using the courts they drive around delivering toilet rolls to the neighbouring district. It’s a kind of job for them. In that way they keep themselves alive and we have paper to wipe our bottoms with. But now I realise with a satanic grin that I have paid my last bill. I will never ever pay a bill again. Neither on the Net, nor in any other way. I will live from bartering or thieving or the forest. And when I’m gone the forest will live from me.  That’s the deal.
    I sleep fully dressed on the sofa, but wake after a while to sounds at the veranda door. Someone is fiddling with the lock. Fascinated, I sit up on the sofa and study the technique. After a few minutes, and without any noise of note, a man comes into the sitting room. It takes some time for him to realise I’m there.
    Good evening you there, I say.
    He is startled, but gathers his wits.
    OK, he says. You don’t need to be frightened. I’m not violent. I’ll be on my way right now. See, I’m going. He says moving towards the veranda door.
    Just come in, I say, going into the kitchen and putting on the kettle.
    Coffee? I shout.
    Thank you very much, he says. But I don’t know. Perhaps I ought to be moving on.
    Join me now you’re here, I say, stretching out my hand.
    Name’s Doppler, I say. Andreas Doppler.
    I can see he thinks the situation is awkward, but in the end he proffers his hand.
    Roger, he says.
    Just Roger?
    I’m a bit chary about giving my surname, he says, but folk call me Toolman Roger. I used to work with scrap.
    Interesting, I say.
    You know what I’m doing here, don’t you? he asks.
    Yes, I say.
    So you’re not kind of backward? he asks.
    No more than your average Joe, I say. Let’s have a look at the tools you brought with you.
    He holds out a bunch of various picklocks attached to quite a large key ring which in turn hangs from the end of an extendable ski lift card attachment, the type you often see in the Alps. This guy knows his way around, I think to myself.
    Do you take anything in your coffee?
    No thanks, he says.
    I can’t tempt you with something a bit stronger? I ask, hoping the flask of ethanol is still in the basement workshop.
    Not when I’m working, says Toolman Roger.
    Come on, I say. Drop your shoulders for heaven’s sake. It’s clean stuff.
    He looks at his watch.
    A little one then, he says
    The alcohol is in its usual place and I pour us both one.
    So you’re out and about robbing? I say.
    Yes, Roger says. I like this area. Lots of valuables and very few alarms. Higher up it’s right-winger country with alarms everywhere, but down here folk vote left and think about the good in people, and they’re rolling in it, too. For me that’s an unbeatable combination. And you live here, do you? he asks.
    Not at all, I say.
    I see, he says. But you’re spending the night here?
    That’s exactly what I’m doing, I say. I used to live here. And my wife and my children still live here.
    Divorce, he says, nodding. Sorry to hear that. I know about all that.
    No, I say. We’re still married, but I’ve moved up into the forest. I live there in a tent with a little moose.
    OK, he says, looking at his watch again.
    I give him some more coffee