Her suspicions were confirmed.
– Well then, it’s probably not a good idea to get too involved.
Miriam sat staring out of the window for a while before she answered.
– Maybe that’s the reason. That I can never have him.
Anita had given up counting the glasses. It didn’t much matter. She had the whole of Saturday to recover. On Sunday she would fetch Victoria, hair neatly combed and stone-cold sober. But she might well go out on Saturday night. Never drank much when she was out in town. Over and over again her solicitor had told her how important that was. She did have a chance to get Victoria back, but only if she kept her nose really clean.
Someone rang the bell. She jumped. Had Miriam come back after all? She usually knocked.
There was a man standing there she’d never seen before.
– Anita Elvestrand?
She nodded.
– Something’s happened.
She stared at him.
– Victoria, he said. – You’d better come at once.
She felt as if she’d been pushed over. She took hold of the door jamb.
– Who are you?
– I’m a doctor, there’s been an accident.
– Where? What do you mean?
– Come with me, I’ll explain on the way. We tried to call you but you didn’t answer.
She was still feeling dizzy as she grabbed her coat, pushed her feet into her boots. He ran down the stairs ahead of her, led her to the end of the block. Heading up the street, he clicked on a key, there was a beep and the lights on one of the parked cars blinked.
He opened the passenger door. Anita wanted to pee and was almost weeping with anxiety.
– Where is Victoria?
– I’ll take you there, he said and hopped into the driver’s seat.
Abruptly he put an arm around her, pushing her upper body down. She felt him pressing a cloth against her face. It smelt of sharp splinters and opened up a world of memories: corridors and beds, nurses in white coats with masks over their mouths in blinding light.
The smell reached out from the cloth and claimed her.
36
Saturday 20 October
FEET SINKING INTO the mud, he can’t see the bottom through the murky water. There’s no life down there, he tries to say as he wades out. I can’t dive here. Somewhere far away: a telephone. He’s never heard that ringtone before, but he knows it’s for him. Hears Bie’s voice coming from somewhere; he can’t answer the call as long as she’s there. Disappears back down again into sleep.
When he woke up, she was sitting on the side of the bed. Even through the curtains the sunlight was bright. She stroked his forehead.
– I was almost starting to get worried about you, Axel. You went for a lie-down at about six o’clock last night and you’ve been out ever since.
He sat up.
– Has anyone rung?
– For you? No, for once the big wide world out there has left you in peace.
Bie put an arm around his waist and pulled him close to her.
– You work too hard, Axel. Weren’t you going to start saying no to these night shifts?
He grunted a reply.
– I’d like to hang on to you for a while yet, you know. The way you looked when you came home yesterday… You’re not twenty any more.
She leant against him, pressing him backwards, laid a thigh across his bare stomach.
– You’re the most precious thing I have, you know that, don’t you? she murmured, and he couldn’t remember the last time she had said something like that.
– What do you know about Brede? he asked suddenly.
She raised herself up on one elbow.
– Brede, your brother? Why are you asking me that?
– What do you know about him, Bie?
She looked searchingly into his face.
– No more than what you’ve told me. That he destroyed everything he touched. That it was impossible for your parents to have him living at home.
– There’s more. Something I didn’t tell you. We made this pact never to tell on one another.
She got up and opened the curtain, came back to bed again.
– What’s made you think of him now?
He looked up at the ceiling, the throbbing white light mingling with a hint of forget-me-not blue, Bie’s favourite colour.
– I saw him in town one day. He was gone before I could get to him.
– Are you certain? You’ve always been so sure he must be dead.
– He isn’t dead. There’s a lot you don’t know.
– I realise that. She scraped down his chest with her long fingernails. – Don’t you think I’ve noticed how no one in the family has ever talked about him in all the years I’ve known you.
She bent down and kissed his navel.
– Some things you just have to let lie, Axel. If we spent our lives digging up corpses, we wouldn’t have the energy to do anything else.
He twisted round, got to his feet. Found his boxer shorts by the bedside, pulled them on.
– Are you leaving?
From her tone of voice he knew what she had in mind.
– I’ve got a bladder the size of a nine-month womb, he said with a vague smile. – Just before the waters break.
– You’ve not forgotten we’re invited out tonight?
He let out a groan.
– I thought as much, she said tartly.
Mail from Daniel. He used to write every week, but it was a long time now since they’d heard from him. Normally it would have worried Axel, a twenty-two year old on his own in New York, but these day he had no time to think about it. As he opened the letter, a feeling of missing his elder son came sneaking over him. If he wasn’t careful, it might turn into an avalanche.
Daniel had taken his economics exam just the day before and for the past few weeks had been studying round the clock. Again he reassured his parents that New York was one of the safest cities in the world. Not like Oslo. For once there’s something about Norway in the New York Times. A big article about the two murders. Apparently people are afraid a killer bear is on the loose in the centre of the capital. Can’t find anything in the online editions of the Norwegian papers that denies it. What’s going on? According to the NYT article there’s an almost medieval atmosphere. Fears of being attacked by monsters in the dark streets at night. People afraid to go outside (can this be true?), and the journalist writes that it feels like being in a city where the walls were never pulled down. Couldn’t have a better advert. Soon you’ll be drowning in tourists on the lookout for something exotic and primitive in the heart of what is, after all, a modern capital. I keep having to remind my fellow students that yes, we do have electricity in Norway now, we’ve even got TV, and – of particular importance to Americans – we have flushing toilets.
Bie had called the family to lunch. Warm baguettes and boiled eggs.
– What are you doing tonight? Axel asked Tom when his son finally appeared.
– Dunno. Going over to Findus’s.
– Are you going to rehearse?
Tom shrugged.
– Aren’t you going to ask me? Marlen snuffled as she put Cassiopeia down beside her plate. The tortoise’s head and feet disappeared soundlessly inside its shell.
– But of course. What are you doing tonight, Marlen?
She stretched her neck.
– Not telling.
Axel didn’t give up.
– Aw, don’t be like that. At least give me a clue.
– Nothing you need to know about, she pouted as she sneezed across the plate.
The way she said it was so cheeky, Axel thought he might pull her up about it. But then she immediately sneezed again, this time into a serviette Bie managed to stick in front of her nose. Once she’d recovered, she announced:
– Sneezing is the best thing there is. It’s like travelling in a space rocket. It tickles and then it’s like everything disappears. Is it dangerous?
– You should ask the doctor, was Bie’s advice.