Read Online Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller - Free Book Online

They sat at Pascal’s, with its excellent cakes and absurdly priced ice-cream served in pathetic plastic cups. A massive ocean liner was at anchor by Akershus Fortress, and a stream of large humans with cameras and appetites was approaching.
    On seeing the hungry tourists, Sheldon pulled his $12 cup of ice-cream a little closer.
    â€˜Papa, all I’m saying is that there are five symptoms, and we should consider them.’ Reading from a piece of paper, she said — in as cooperative and supportive a voice as she could muster — ‘First, asking the same questions repeatedly. Second, becoming lost in familiar places. Third, being unable to follow directions. Fourth, getting disoriented about time, people, and places. And fifth, neglecting personal safety, hygiene, and nutrition.’
    It was Saturday morning, and the edge of spring was giving way to the long, lush days of Norway’s eternal summers.
    Sheldon listened and nodded. Then he ran two fingers up the sides of the beer glass and collected the condensation. He closed his eyes and ran the cool water over his eyelids.
    â€˜Ever do this? Feels great.’
    â€˜Papa.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Why do you keep buying beer if you never drink it?’
    â€˜I like the colour,’ he said, his eyes closed tightly.
    â€˜Do you have any thoughts about what I just said?’
    â€˜Yup.’
    â€˜Do you remember the question?’
    That provoked him. Sheldon turned to Lars, who was attentive. ‘Watch this.
    â€˜Number one. Getting people to repeat their own questions forces them to figure out what they’re asking. If you’re not willing to ask a question three times, then you don’t really want to know the answer. Number two, you have brought me to Norway. Nothing’s familiar. I can’t become lost in familiar places. I just become lost. Number three, I don’t speak Norwegian, so I can’t follow any directions. If I understood … that would be demented. Number four, I don’t know of any half-intelligent, self-aware person who — if they give it a moment’s thought — doesn’t find time, people, or places all highly disorienting. In fact, what is there to disorient us other than time, people, or places? And for the three-part finale I say this. I have no idea what it means to be neglectful of personal safety. As measured against what? Under what conditions? As judged by whom? I’ve sailed into a storm of tracer bullets, face first, on the Yellow Sea at dawn. Was I neglectful? I married a woman and stayed with her until the end of her life. You call that safe? As for hygiene, I brush my teeth and shower daily. The only one who thinks I’m dirty is someone who thinks I don’t belong, and so is probably an anti-Semite, and you can tell him Sheldon Horowitz says so. And nutrition? I’m eighty-two and I’m alive .
    â€˜How did I do, Lars?’
    â€˜Better than I could have done, Sheldon.’
    Rhea remembers the story. But she says to him, in front of Sigrid, ‘He was lucid. He has powerful reasoning skills. He was showing off.’
    Lars shrugs. ‘It worked on me.’
    â€˜OK, maybe it isn’t dementia per se. But he’s odd. Really odd. And he’s increasingly talking to the dead.’
    Even as she speaks, she accepts the doubts. Whatever is going on in his overtaxed mind is complicated. It comes and goes. She does know that Sheldon isn’t well. That Mabel’s death has fundamentally altered his place in this world. That he is unmoored. Beyond that, she can’t say.
    Sigrid listens and then says to Lars, in English, ‘You don’t think it’s dementia.’
    Lars taps his fingers on the table. He doesn’t want to disagree with Rhea. Not in public. Not about her own family. But he feels an obligation. Before saying it, though, he wonders whether he can set the scene so Rhea will arrive at the same truth herself.