– Sufi music, Berger informed her. It meant absolutely nothing to her.
The smell in the room also had an Oriental origin. He picked up a smoking pipe from an ashtray and offered it to her. She declined. Hash made her distant and slow; her thoughts went off in directions she didn’t like, became dense and nightmarish.
Berger slipped down on to the sofa, put his long legs on the table and puffed away.
– I hope you don’t mind my taking my afternoon medicine, he said. – You who live in Amsterdam are probably used to this kind of thing.
– You asked me to come, she interrupted. No more than an hour had passed since she received his text as she was wandering around in the park at Tøyen trying to collect her thoughts.
– I did ask you to come, Liss, he nodded inside his cloud of cannabis smoke.
She waited.
– I liked Mailin, he said. – She was a fine girl. Preoccupied with her principles, but nevertheless fine.
– She had an appointment with you. That evening she disappeared.
– We talked about that last time.
– But now she’s been found. If this has anything at all to do with you… She didn’t know what to say, tried to calm down. – You don’t seem in the slightest surprised. You seem cold and unaffected.
He shook his head firmly. – You’re wrong, Liss. Death doesn’t surprise me any longer, but I am not devoid of feelings. She deserved to live for somewhat longer.
She listened out for any kind of ambiguity in what he was saying.
– Death walks alongside us all the time, and you can choose to look another way. That will be the essence of my next show. Naturally it will be the last Taboo in the series. Beyond death, there isn’t much more to talk about.
– Are you a junkie? she asked suddenly.
He half slumped in the sofa. Was wearing a sort of silky kimono. It wouldn’t have surprised her if he was naked beneath it.
– You can’t be in paradise all the time, Liss, that’s what the junkies don’t understand. You have to control it. You need a will of iron to balance on that particular razor’s edge.
– And paradise, that’s when you get a fix?
He showed his tiny white teeth. Lying slumped there like that, grinning, unshaven, his hair sticking up, he looked like a pirate chief out of some children’s book.
– Try it, Liss. That is all I can say. You must try it. Or not. It’s impossible to talk about it. It is how God reveals himself to us, giving us a ticket to a grandstand from where we can sneak a glance into the most complete perfection. Like wrapping a warm blanket around yourself, not around your body, but around your thoughts. Your soul, if you prefer. Within all is perfect peace. You desire nothing more than to be exactly where you are. No artist, no mystic has ever managed to describe the sensation. It is beyond words.
She tried to recall what it was she had thought of saying to him. He distracted her the whole time, and she couldn’t seem to stop him.
– Can you live in such a way that death will be something to relish? he asked her. – Prepare yourself to turn it into your life’s climax? Imagine you’re having sex and achieve orgasm at the precise moment of your dying, disappearing in a movement that never ends. That is what my last programme will be about. But not in the way people might expect. You must never do what they expect, always be a nose in front.
He took a last drag from his pipe and put it back in the ashtray.
– How do you imagine you will die, Liss?
She couldn’t bring herself to answer.
– Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it. I can see by looking at you that you’re preoccupied with death.
Should she share her innermost thoughts with this semi-naked and wholly uninhibited priest? Tell him about the marsh by Morr Water. It would be like taking him out there, like having him there beside her when she lay down and looked up between the trees as the blanket of snow spread itself across her. She pulled herself together, but again he was there before her.
– There’s something about you, Liss. You’re from another place. You make me think of an angel of death. Do you know the effect you have on other people?
She sat up straighter. His eyes were growing distant now, as though he was looking deep inside himself.
– What did you talk to Mailin about?
Berger put his head back. The dressing gown slid to one side, and it occurred to Liss that he was about to expose himself to her.
– We spoke always of passion. She was interested in it. Passionately so.
– The passion of the adult, Liss corrected him. – In his encounter with the child.
– That too. Your sister was of the opinion that the recipe for a good life lies in in controlling the passions.
– While you believe they should be liberated.
He gave a hollow laugh. – Not liberated. Liberate yourself on them. Let them withdraw all the power from you. Would you really exchange fifty years of boredom for the intense pleasures of a year, or a minute?
– You sound like an evangelist.
– You’re right, I’m more of a priest now than I ever was when I stood at the altar and delivered sermons from the Bible. I proselytise because I enjoy the staring and the contempt, but also the curiosity, the desire to allow oneself to be tempted. Where does that desire come from, Liss? Why have you come back here again?
– You asked me to come. I need to know what happened that evening Mailin went missing.
He picked up a remote control, turned off the music. – Did I tell you last time that I knew your father?
She sat there open mouthed.
– It was in the seventies, long before you were even thought of. We hung out with the same crowd. I was a lapsed priest; he was an artist with more ambition than talent.
He seemed to be thinking about something before he added: – I suspect that was Mailin’s real reason for coming here. And why she said yes to the chance to appear on Taboo. She wanted to know what I could tell her about this father of yours who left you.
– I don’t believe you.
Berger shrugged. – You can believe whatever you like.
– When… was the last time you saw him?
– Mailin asked me the same question, Berger sighed. – I met him in Amsterdam about ten or twelve years ago. It was when he had an exhibition there.
The pipe had gone out; he picked it up anyway and puffed away on it. It emitted a gurgling sound.
– I’m sure he thought he would make his name in the international art market. But he wasn’t intended for great things. Deep down inside he knew that himself.
She sat stiffly on the edge of her chair, unable to take her eyes off him.
– But then he rang me not too long ago. He’d heard that Mailin was going to appear on Taboo. I think he’s kept track of you two all along, from somewhere out there.
– You’re making stories up to get me interested, she yelled at him. – That’s what you did to Mailin, too. Enticed her here.
He sat up, leaned across the table towards her.
– You still believe that I am the one responsible for her death?
She couldn’t say anything.
– You think I met her at the office, drugged her, carried her out to the car, locked her in the boot and drove her out to a disused factory. Undressed her and played with her until I got bored, killed her and then left.
– Stop it!
A spasm jerked across his face. – Why should I stop when this is what you came here to hear?
She stood up, suddenly unsteady. – I don’t know why I came here.
He stood up too, rounded the table. Towering in front of her. She was forced to inhale the smell of his naked body, the male sweat, the unwashed hair, all kinds of bodily fluids, and the whiff of his guts from his mouth as he bent down towards her. Then something happened to his eyes, the gaze widened, and he began to shake. Suddenly he grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her close to him, held her tightly.