The Co-op. And there was the road and the bridge. She flipped the indicator arm, lurched across the bridge, and drove carefully up the mountainside in second gear. Her pulse began to race again, and she saw the cabin in her mind’s eye, a small dark wedge, simple and modest, with its totally improbable treasure, a pure fairy tale, the key to an untroubled life. Maja should have seen her now, she would have approved, the way she liked people who helped themselves to the good things in life. At any rate she wouldn’t have wanted the money to go to the state. Two million — how much interest would that be at 6 or 7 percent? No, she couldn’t use a bank. She bit her lip, she’d have to keep it in the cellar. Nobody must know about it, not Emma, not anyone. And she mustn’t throw money around or talk in her sleep or get drunk. In fact, she reflected, life would become rather complicated. The Ascona crept on upward, Eva didn’t meet a single car, it was as if she were on a different planet, completely uninhabited, even the sheep were absent. It was probably too cold, Eva didn’t know much about such things. Fifteen minutes later she passed the tourist hostel on the right. She drove on, with the lake on her right now, and searched for a turn that would take her down to the shore. There was no snow, but up here it was lighter, the sky was so big. On her left was a large cabin, with a light in one window. It gave her a bit of a start. If there were people up here she’d have to watch out. The people with mountain cabins — Oslo types who’d had cabins up here for generations — would probably keep in touch with one another. Yes, we saw a car pass by here yesterday evening, well it would have been about midnight. We didn’t recognize the sound of the engine, Amundsen drives a Volvo and Bertrandsen has a diesel Merc. It must have been a stranger, we’re sure of that.
Eva drove on around the bend, following the lake all the time. It was so calm it was like glass and glowed with an almost metallic glint, as if it were covered with ice. She caught sight of a small shed by the waterside and assumed there’d be a track leading to it. It was awfully bumpy. She crept down it, staring about her all the while, but she couldn’t see lights anywhere else. She didn’t stop until she was right by the water’s edge. It was possible to drive around the shed and park behind it. So she did. She switched off the ignition and headlights, and for a few seconds she sat still in the pitch blackness.
She was just about to slam the door, when she changed her mind. The sound of a car door would reverberate like a gunshot in this silence. Instead, she pushed it gently to, didn’t bother to lock up, and put the keys in her pocket. Then she lifted the day sack onto her back, the sack that contained the hammer and chisel and torch, did up her zip and tightened the hood around her face. She couldn’t remember just how long it took to walk from here, but thought it was about fifteen to twenty minutes. It was freezing now, the cold stung her cheeks as she walked with head bent, up the potholed track, and then strode out along the road. She hoped she would recognize the cabin when she saw it. There was a stream behind it where they’d brushed their teeth and got water for coffee. The mountains reared up in every direction. They’d climbed the biggest, Johovda; she’d looked out across the Hardanger Plateau and felt so very small, but it was a good feeling, the feeling that most things in the world were bigger than herself. She liked it. Funny, she thought suddenly, as she walked on alone in the dark, we all know we’re going to die, and yet we live as hard as we can. She found the thought strangely moving.
She rounded a bend and saw some cabins in the distance. There were several, four or five, but no lights in any of them. This caused her to increase her pace a bit. Could it be there? Hadn’t it stood alone by its stream, or was her memory playing tricks? No, the others had probably been built since then, but it made no difference provided they were unlit, and she couldn’t see any parked cars. They were so oddly arranged, almost like emergency rations dropped from a plane, spread out as if at random. From here they all looked black, but she approached the first and thought it was brown, the windows were white. A set of antlers splayed under the gable. She stared at the one on the left, it lay closer to the stream, but it wasn’t red. This meant nothing, it could have been painted. She walked more slowly, there was a wooden sign hanging on one of the walls, it looked new, and even though she couldn’t remember what the cabin had been called before, she was certain now. This was Maja’s cabin. It proclaimed itself to be “Hilton.”
She went around the back. The stream cut into the heather, more deeply than she recalled, but she recognized the boulders they’d sat on and the small path like a pale snake up to the entrance. She’d arrived. She was alone. Nobody knew a thing and the night was long. I’ll find that money, she thought, even if I have to claw my way through the floorboards to get it!
She didn’t dare use the torch. She examined the windows with the little night vision she had, they looked pretty rotten. Especially the kitchen window. But it was rather high up, she needed something to stand on. She walked around the cabin again, found a small wood store and a chopping block. The block was heavy, almost impossible to move, but it would make a good platform, sturdy and smooth. She got a firm grip of it and tried to roll it. It worked. She took off the day sack and pushed and upended the great slab around the corner and over to the kitchen window. Then she fetched the sack, took out the chisel, and got up on the block. Just as she was standing there in the autumn darkness with the chisel in her hand and her heart thumping at the sheer notion of the money, almost all her breath was sucked out of her. She hardly recognized herself. This wasn’t her cabin, her money. She jumped down, pressed her hands to her chest for a few moments, and drew the ice-cold air into her lungs. Johovda was suddenly pointing heavenwards so threateningly, as if to warn her. She could scuttle back home again, with her morality largely intact, apart from the sixty thousand she’d already taken, but then she hadn’t been herself, she’d been almost out of control, so that could be forgiven. This was quite different. This was pure theft, exploitation of Maja’s death. The thumping gradually subsided. She stepped up again. A little hesitantly she pushed the chisel into a gap between the window and the frame. The wood was as soft as putty, the chisel dug in deeply. When she let go, it remained there. She jumped down, found the hammer, and carefully tapped the big chisel even further in. Then she let the hammer fall and levered the chisel to the side. The whole lot gave. She heard splintering wood, and the catch on the inside snap with a small bang. The window jumped out ten or fifteen centimeters and hung loosely on its top hinges. Eva looked about, picked up the day sack, and opened the window fully. It was blacked out with a thick curtain. She shoved the sack through and dropped the tools in after it. She pushed her head in, stretched her arms across, and tried to haul herself after. The chopping block could have done with being a bit higher, she’d have to do a little hop. The window was very narrow. She bent her knees slightly and gave a jump, lay across the opening with her head and arms inside and her legs outside. The window scraped at her back. The kitchen was in total darkness, but she could feel the work surface beneath her hands, so she wriggled carefully across the edge, hooked her foot around the window frame, and slid to the floor. She brought pots and pans clattering and crashing down from every direction, and her chin banged on the floor. For an instant she lay there floundering, partially tangled up in a rug. Then she sat up and gasped for breath. She was inside.