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often stood outside the entrance to the shopping centre, silent and dignified, his uniform immaculate, holding a tin. Sometimes he had pushed a fifty-krone note through the slot and felt very pleased. Pleased, but not good. In a way the officer did the work for him. If I had stood there myself holding the tin, Alvar thought, then I would have felt better, that could have been deemed an active contribution. And I have a lot of my life left to live, or eleven years at any rate, and I can continue doing good work. Sponsor a child in India, perhaps, in Peru or Zimbabwe? He dismissed the thought instantly. A sponsored child would want letters and presents and he did not know how to relate to a foreign child in a country far away, a country he would know nothing about anyway. He had no experience of foreign cultures. But it would have been a good thing to do. Perhaps he would receive a photo of the child which he could hang on the wall above the fridge, a beautiful brown child with white teeth. Suddenly another thought cropped up, it came out of nowhere, like a bolt of lightning, possibly because a man was coming towards him, a very obese man struggling to walk, his cheeks flushed with exertion. What if this man collapsed from a heart attack right there and then on the street, what would he do? Stand there petrified, unable to move? He did not know first aid, he did not own a mobile phone, he would not even be able to phone for help. He visualised the grim scene, him standing there paralysed, his arms hanging limply. Others would come running and deal with it. The image instilled profound despondency in him. A sensation of worthlessness. The feeling was so painful that it stopped him in his tracks. He stood there, still staring at his newly polished shoes, as a car raced past, causing his coat to flap; it billowed like a sail. And then his tuft of hair stood up, something which always sent a shiver down his spine. A feeling of having been revealed as a fraud. For a long time he stood like that, but snapped out of his trance as a lady passed him on the outside of the pavement. Quickly he averted his eyes.
    He walked on thinking, once I get myself to the gallery and the paintings then I'll be myself again. Because the paintings, these frozen moments, always filled him with serenity. Finally he could see the front of the stately building where he worked. A three-storey, twentieth-century villa, very well maintained and exclusive, painted a warm, creamy shade of yellow with a few details in red. Columns fronting the entrance, large arched windows and a double, reddish-brown oak front door with magnificent carvings. He did not earn a huge salary from his work there; however, he could manage on very little. He had inherited the flat in Nøste from his mother and the mortgage had been paid off ages ago. In the yard behind the house stood an old Mazda, which he would use if the weather was awful or if he fancied seeing a little of the surrounding countryside. He was very good at saving money and he had no expensive habits.
    The owner of the gallery was an art dealer called Ole Krantz. He had run it for years and had many regular customers. Then suddenly at the age of fifty he had started to paint himself. It was going surprisingly well, he painted with latex on thick, high-quality watercolour paper. Decorative, colourful, easy-to-sell pictures. The subject might be the wing of a bird, a pansy, a bowl of strawberries, the kind of images people like having on their walls. Ole Krantz had become a child again following the amazing discovery that he had a talent for painting. Though, when discussing his own work, he said that it hardly counted as great art and this was consequently reflected in the price, which was moderate. The pictures went for anywhere from five to ten thousand kroner. Alvar truly felt at ease in the gallery. He enjoyed visual art, it was a subject he was well versed in and comfortable with, and he was a good salesman. He was