He stood up and looked at it. – I have to take this.
She stood up too.
– You mustn’t go now, Liss.
– No, she said, I mustn’t.
He disappeared out into the kitchen, closed the door behind him. She could hear his voice through the wall, not the words, but a low note that made her feel calmer again. Suddenly overcome with gratitude that a man like him existed. Mailin must have felt the same sense of calm when she talked to him. Mailin too needed someone to help her carry her load.
She strolled over to the window, looked out. The grey was denser now, but it was moving, and the light behind it was sharp. The snow in the garden was wet and covered in twigs and autumn leaves. The property ran up towards the forest, where it was framed by trees that swayed mightily in the wind. One window was open slightly and through it she could hear the sound, the way they moaned.
The sideboard was covered in family photographs. She recognised the daughter she had met in the doorway, wearing a white frock with bows on it and a satchel on her back. Another was of Dahlstrøm, taken a few years earlier, the hair thicker, the face firmer. But with that same calm gaze. Constitution Day, 17 May. He was wearing a suit and tie, and a boy that looked like him was sitting on his shoulders waving a flag. The next picture was of a dark woman with wavy hair. There was something Greta Garbo-like about her face. It was a black-and-white picture, and Liss guessed this was Dahlstrøm’s mother. Another photo showed the same woman wearing a long, waisted frock. A man with dark, slicked-back hair had his arm around her. He too had deep-set eyes and a chin that jutted even more than Dahlstrøm’s. Liss picked up the photo and held it to the light. It struck her that she was surprised that Dahlstrøm had parents, as though she had been thinking of him as belonging to a completely different species.
At that moment he came back in. She was startled, didn’t have time to put the photo back. It didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.
– Are you interested in family histories?
She gave it a moment. – It’s interesting to see who we get what from.
– Who do you resemble most? he asked.
– My father, she answered without hesitation. – I get it almost all from him. And his mother, my grandmother. If I showed you pictures of her, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between us.
– Are you like her in other ways too?
She found a lock of hair and began twisting it. – My grandmother on that side was strange. No one understood her. I’m sure she felt she didn’t belong in this world. She died in the mental hospital, Gaustad. Liss avoided saying her name.
– You say that as though there was a sort of forewarning in it. There was a question somewhere inside his observation.
– Maybe… She wriggled away from it. – Isn’t your life also determined by who your parents and grandparents were?
– To a certain extent, he answered. – My father wanted me to be somebody, preferably a doctor. He had no views on psychiatry, there’s not much prestige in it. He ran a gents’ outfitters, as people used to call them in those days. He spent more than sixty years dealing with clothes, and in his eyes I had taken a big step forward. At the deepest level, that was what life was about for my father, to help the next generation take another step up the ladder.
Something struck her. She didn’t know where it came from. She was still standing there with the photograph of his parents in her hand. She lifted it up and stared at the well-dressed man with his arm round this woman who was looking not into the camera but beyond it, smiling, if that was what she was doing.
Mailin’s document on the CD, she thought. There was something about Jacket’s father there.
– I read everything I could find on the net about Elijah Berger… His father didn’t sell clothes. He was a pastor in the Pentecostal church.
Thoughts that had been lying jumbled up and separate from each other suddenly whirled together. She turned towards Dahlstrøm and heard herself whisper: – Jacket.
She glanced up at his face. It stiffened, the eyes narrowing in the depths beneath the forehead. And then she knew it. – They called you Jacket where you grew up.
– That is correct.
She felt she didn’t have enough air. Viljam never said that Berger was Jacket, she was the one who had come to that conclusion. Viljam said he would rather die than reveal Jacket’s true identity…
Dahlstrøm’s gaze didn’t waver. To avoid it, she closed her eyes. The shame surged through her. Apologise to him, she thought. Dahlstrøm is a good person. Apologise to him, Liss, for what you’re thinking. Was there any way she could get out of here without looking up, just turn and run for the door without having to meet his gaze again? What will be left of me, Mailin?
– You told me a story from Amsterdam, Liss. You made a mistake and the consequences were terrible. I listened to you until you had finished. Now I want you to listen to me.
– How long was he lying in the water before he died? she murmured.
She was still standing with the picture of his parents in her hands. Didn’t dare to put it down.
– Spring thirteen years ago, he began, and from the corner of her eye she could see that he had collapsed a little, placed one arm on the sideboard and rested his head in his hand. She didn’t want to hear, but couldn’t tear herself away.
– I stopped him when he was going to drown himself. I saved him. And he saved me…
Reciprocal help, she thought in disbelief. Is that what you call it?
– You had sex with him, she managed to say.
The shame continued to stream through her, hitting in bursts.
– Only the once. Or just a few times. Carefully. On his conditions. He was proud of it. I did everything I could to help him, Liss. Please understand that. He couldn’t keep on coming to me, but he wouldn’t let go.
She noticed a current deep down in his voice. She could let herself be carried along by it, wherever he wanted. She could throw herself at him and let him do what he wanted. Or hit him with a stone. Until he lay on the floor bleeding from the eyes, unable to rise any more.
– Ylva Richter, she said. – You knew that he had killed her.
He shook his head slowly. – You must believe me, Liss. I no longer had any contact with Viljam. Eight years went by without my seeing him. One day he showed up in my office. He stood in the doorway, wouldn’t sit down. He was standing on the brink of a precipice, staring down. I couldn’t begin treating him, but I knew someone who was unusually talented.
She was struggling to comprehend what he was saying. – It was you who referred him to Mailin.
Only now did she raise her eyes. His face looked grey, and the lines on his forehead sunken, squeezing it.
– Mailin found out. She realised that you were Jacket.
– My dear Liss. If you only knew…
His voice grew thicker. Still that need was there: lean into him, let him put his arms around her, carry her away. But it was vanishing. The other thing was overtaking now. If she let it loose, it could fill the whole room, crushing everything that stood in its way.
– Had you not destroyed Viljam, he would never have killed Mailin. She said it without raising her voice, and the fact that she did so made her anger manageable and she was able to control it. – You killed Mailin.
Then he said: – There is a limit to how much guilt you can ask one person to assume, Liss. Once that is reached, you have to stop pouring, or the person goes under. If I manage to stay afloat, I can help many people. If I don’t, they’ll find that they’re alone again.
She felt his hand on her shoulder.
– You told me of your fatal mistake, Liss. I’ve told you mine. It’s possible for us to say that we’re quits. That we have something that binds us together. That there are two of us to share the burden as we walk down the road.