RiT: the monument of contrasts

Memory from Svanhild E. Haugnes

I walk along the fence that is put up around RiT. Square, empty eyes gaze at me. The place is quiet. Piles of crushed building mass are left behind the fence. It is Sunday. I am on my way to visit you. At the crematory “Tilfredshet”. I let my eyes glide across the phased. Which floor was it? Which window?

The distant sound of hammering comes from somewhere in there. My memories bring me back to a day in early summer. The sun was shining. The sky blue. The birds where singing. In the threes, in the ally towards the main entrance, the leaves where dancing. They glimmered, bathed in sunlight. I walked with a friend. We joked and laughed. Fooled around each other. Filled with the joy of life. She would wait don in the café while I visited you. Some construction workers whistled as we past. You laid up in the silence. After the evening meal, they had forgotten to raise the bed staff. During night you had fallen out of the bed. To the cold, hard floor. You where so weak. And blue. Big blue marks on the arm. In the face. You looked at me and said that you wished to die. That there was no joy left in living. Not like this. My friend did not say a thing when I came down again. We went back the ally in silence. I can remember that the sun still was shining. But I can’t remember if the birds where singing. Or if the leafs where still glimmering. No one whistled as we past. A grayness had laid itself as a lid on the city. It burdened. Pressed my shoulders toward the tarmac.

RiT, a stone monument. The diary of contrasts. I hang my fingers in the fence. Go up on my toes. Was it something I heard, or did I read it somewhere? That you can buy parts of building? I know what I would have chosen. One of the elevators! I am a child again. My family has just moved up to Røros form Meråker. My best friend with her family come visiting. The best weekend in a long time! It is winter. On the way home it goes wrong. A steep hill. Ice. At the bottom of the hill, 90 degree turn before the tunnel under the railroad. The car is out of control. Faster and faster. A crash into the wall at the end of the hill. I visit her at RiT. The last time she stumbles away on crotches. Soon she is going home. We play in the elevators. Up and down. In and out at different floors. We go on exploration, until we are discovered by gruff guards in white coaches.

If I where to buy a memory it had to be an elevator. A good memory. For all memories from RiT are not good. Like the last time. You had been in coma for several days. Rather than going to the library, I brought my books with me and sat with you. You had a single room. Quiet and white in the bed. I was on a chair by the window, looking out. Out at the city. I can’t remember if it was raining, but it must have been. The world was grey and sad. Time stood still. I could not concentrate, so I talked instead. I told you about my life. Dreamt of the future. Talked about memories. Things we had done together. Told you about the painting of your cabin that was palled later this summer. Then you woke up. You tried to speak, but the words refused to form. Far down the throat there where sounds that wanted so much, but could do so little. You tried to open the eyes, but your eyelids was too heavy. A nurse came into the room. She commented that you had wakened. Talked to you. Changed your position.

Two day later. Emptiness. During the morning you left us. You balanced the doorstep. As the nurse touched you where at the other side. So little was needed. You had come so far on your journey. Here your soul left our world. Here, at RiT. Your soul, with many others’. This shell of a building is a stone monument. A monument for the fallen. For the loved ones. The Trondheimers. And now it is going to be evened with the ground. The souls gravestone.

My fingers are getting cold. The fence leaves red marks in my hands. I put them in mu pocket. Cast a last glace at the building. Which floor was it? Which window? It was far up, on the right hand side. Far down the corridor. Was it that window? Or that? Maybe. I shiver, put on my hood and walk along. To the body gravestone. It will not be evened.