‘James Dean is no good. I’ve told them all along, but no one will listen. I don’t get what a great bird like Kari’s doing with him. Maybe we have to do a little kidnapping. Are you up for it?’ I try to laugh, but it’s not funny.
‘I’ll do whatever you tell me. You’re the boss on this one.’
‘Maybe there is no problem. But, whatever happens, Kari and the baby are coming with us when we drive back. Kari’s always been OK with me.’
‘So you owe her, is that it?’
I shrug. ‘She’s my sister,’ I say. ‘Call it what you like.’ Arvid is about to answer, and then he doesn’t and looks away and says to the window:
‘Sorry. Stupid thing to say.’
Yes, it was, but I can’t think about that now. Behind my eyes there are images flashing, making it hard to see straight. My hands tingle, and heat wells up inside me, and inside the car the windows are freezing up, until finally I can’t see a thing. Arvid takes an ice-scraper from the glove compartment, but the humid air freezes and clogs the windows faster than he can remove it, and I have to pull over, roll the windows down and then we both scrape the windscreen. I look at my watch again, this is taking too long.
‘Jesus, haven’t you finished yet?’
‘Take it easy,’ Arvid says. ‘We’ll have to drive for a while with the windows down, I guess. The fan’s not the greatest in the world.’ He scrapes the windows clean on the inside, and I do the outside. I kick at the snow and check my watch and say:
‘OK, let’s get the hell out of here.’
I drive through Gjerdrum to Ask with the windows open, it’s cold as hell, and from Ask I cut across to Kløfta, towards Ånerud. That’s where his place is. I have been there only once, for the christening, but I remember exactly where it is, I remember JD on the steps with the baby in his arms, the proud father, and Kari, pale and worn in the background.
I turn just before the Shell station and look at Arvid. He is quiet and serious.
‘Do you remember the last time we were here?’ I say. ‘At least this time we’ve got enough petrol.’ The petrol gauge is at three-quarters full. He smiles, but says nothing.
‘Do you regret coming with me?’
‘Hell no, it’s not that. Of course I want to come with you.’ That’s about all he has to say, and I do not ask, I have to keep my mind on the driving. The road goes up hill and down dale out here, and there are sudden bends, and even though the road has been cleared, it’s still slippery and churned up. We round a bend, and I concentrate so hard on what’s straight ahead of me that I miss the driveway. I don’t have time to slow down, so I brake instead, and skid sideways past the gate and come to a stop crosswise on the road some twenty metres further down. There is no one else around, only the engine is humming, and Arvid looks at me.
‘No problem,’ I say, wrenching the wheel hard. There is just enough space to coax the car straight, and it’s back and forth a hundred times, but I make it in the end, and then I slowly drive up to the gate and switch the engine off. We sit looking at the house. It’s quite a large house for two adults and a baby. Once upon a time the house was dark, built with tarred boards perhaps, and then later he might have made a half-hearted attempt to paint it white, and given up after one coat, and the brownish tar is showing, and now the paint is flaking off and the house looks weary. On the drive there are two snow-covered vehicles: the lorry I have seen before and a Ford Mustang, and there are no footprints or wheel tracks in the snow. To the right, at the back, is a woodshed. As far as I can make out, there are no tracks leading up to it. Inside the house, the curtains are drawn. No smoke from the chimney. It all looks cold and abandoned.
‘Hell, there’s no one here,’ Arvid says.
‘We’ll see about that.’ I get out of the car and slam the door so hard you can hear it from miles away, and I wade in through the gate and halfway to the house. The snow is up to my ankles. I stop and stare at the curtains in the window on the first floor.
‘KARI!’ I shout. My voice cracks in the freezing air and falls in splinters over the drive, there is a tinkling sound, like glass. I just know someone is standing behind the green flowery curtains.
‘KARI!’ I shout again. My back starts to itch, and I have this fleeting feeling that I have stood like this before, a long time ago, and then I remember when and decide I will not run off a second time and leave Kari behind. But from the house there is not a sound. I walk slowly towards it. A saw and a crowbar stand up against the porch. I pick up the crowbar and feel the frost tear at my palm.
‘Audun!’ I turn. Arvid has opened the car door. He’s getting out, he looks at me and points to the crowbar and shakes his head. ‘Drop that damned thing!’ he shouts, but I hold the metal tight in my hands, and then the child is screaming inside the house. There is a pain in my chest, and I hunch around that pain. I smash the crowbar against the porch, sending a sharp, crisp report into every room, a dry twig snapping in the cold, a gunshot. There is something about that sound. I raise the crowbar, I am about to strike again, I am ready now, I will smoke him out if I have to, and the door swings open, and Kari comes out in her red coat with a large sheepskin bag in her arms. The baby is all wrapped up, I can’t see its face, but I can hear the little whimpers from deep inside, and then Kari stops, rocking the bag gently and says:
‘There, there, little one, everything’s fine,’ and I stand with my arm still in the air, I don’t know what to do with it. I squint so hard my eyes start to ache, and I stare into the dark behind her.
‘Where’s James Dean?’ I say. The words feel sluggish and stiff in the cold.
‘James Dean?’ Kari is puzzled, she looks up at the crowbar and then at me and bursts out laughing. ‘Oh, Audun, that’s so like you. You mean Alf. He’s gone to Eidsvoll. He’s been there for two days. He had some cars to buy.’
‘But why did you ring, then?’ I lower the crowbar like some alien thing I try to make invisible, but I have cramp in my forearm, and my hand feels numb and maybe it’s frozen fast to the metal. Kari follows my every move, and she’s no longer smiling.
‘I told you, didn’t I. I want to come home. What exactly were you going to do with that crowbar, Audun? Demolish the house? The door was open, I heard the car come and saw you from the upstairs window,’ she says, pointing, ‘and I just had to dress little one. She didn’t want to be dressed, of course, so she cried like a stuck pig, but that’s how it is. She hates that bag. Here,’ she says, handing me the whole bundle. I have to drop the crowbar, it makes a clanking sound on the doorstep, and I take the bulging bag and hold it with numbed fingers. The baby starts to cry at once, and I stand there breathing smoke signals.
‘Rock her then, Audun,’ Kari says. And I rock away and hear Arvid coming up behind me.
‘Hi, Arvid,’ Kari says, ‘I just have to fetch a few things. I didn’t know you two would be here so quickly. When I had changed this little cry-baby, I rang you back, Audun, but you must have left already.’ She turns and goes into the house. The door makes a creaking sound, and just before it bangs shut, a cat comes shooting out. Arvid rounds me like a buoy and throws himself at the cat, and he catches it and rolls around in the snow, wrestling as if the animal were ten times bigger, howling like Johnny Weismuller in the movies. After a short struggle he gets up, holding the cat firmly by the scruff of its neck. He is all white with snow and has a scratch on his cheek, the cat’s wriggling and hissing, and Arvid raises a clenched fist and grins.
‘I’ve got a brilliant idea,’ he says. ‘Why don’t we kidnap the cat! Then at least we’ll have accomplished something. What do you think?’