When he ordered Emilie out of bed to wash herself the other day, she was stiff as a robot. But she did it. Staggered over to the sink. Took off her clothes until she stood there naked. Washed herself with the cloth he’d brought in with him. Put on the clean underpants, faded green ones with a cheeky elephant on the front. He had laughed. The underpants wouldn’t stay on and she looked completely ridiculous when she turned to him: thin and pale with her right hand closed around a handful of material by the trunk.
Then he had washed her clothes. Put them in the washing machine with fabric softener in the rinse. He hadn’t bothered to iron them all, but she could still have been more grateful. She just kept on lying there in the underpants. Her clothes lay folded beside the bed.
“Hey,” he said brusquely, from the doorway. “Are you alive?”
It was quiet.
The little bitch didn’t want to answer him.
She reminded him of a girl he’d gone to primary school with. They were going to put on a play. His mother was going to come. She had made the costume. He was going to be the gray goose and only had a couple of lines. His costume wasn’t too great. The wings were made of cardboard and one of them had a crease in it. The others laughed. The beautiful girl was a swan. The feathers frothed around her, white tissue-paper feathers. She tripped on something and fell off the edge of the stage.
His mother didn’t turn up. He never knew why. When he got home, she was sitting in the kitchen reading. She didn’t even look up when he said goodnight. His grandmother gave him a slice of bread and a glass of water. The next day she forced him to visit the swan in the hospital and apologize.
“Hello,” he said again. “Will you answer!”
There was a slight movement under the duvet, but not a sound was made.
“Careful,” he said through gritted teeth, and slammed the door again.
It was pitch black.
Emilie knew that she wasn’t blind. The man had turned off the light. Daddy would have given up looking by now. Maybe they’d had a funeral.
Most likely she was dead and buried.
“Mommy,” she said mutely.
FORTY-EIGHT
Kristiane woke up on Friday morning with a temperature. Or rather, she didn’t wake up. When Johanne was woken up by Jack at ten past eight, the child was still sleeping, with an open mouth and sour breath. Her cheeks were red and her forehead was warm.
“Sore,” she mumbled when Johanne woke her. “Thirsty tummy.”
It was actually a good thing for Johanne to stay home. She threw on an old sweat suit and called work to let them know. Then she called her mother.
“Kristiane’s not well, Mom. We can’t come over this evening.”
“What a shame! That really is a shame. I managed to find some super gravlax; your father knows… Would you like me to come and watch her?”
“No, that’s not necessary. Actually…”
Johanne needed a day at home. She could clean the apartment before the weekend. She could repair the chair in the kitchen, the one that had given way under Adam’s weight. Kristiane was a remarkable child. She slept herself back to health, literally. The last time she had the flu, she’d slept more or less continuously for four days, until she suddenly got up at two one night and declared:
“Better. Daisy fresh.”
Johanne could finally try that hair treatment Lina had given her. She could lie in the bath in peace. But there were a couple of things she had to do before the weekend.
“Could you come a bit later? Around… two?”
“Of course I can, dear. Kristiane is so easy when she’s sick. I’ll take my embroidery and a video I got from your sister the other day, an old film she thought I would like. Steel Magnolias with Shirley MacLaine…”
“Mom, I’ve got loads of videos here.”
“Yes, but you’ve got such… strange taste!”
Johanne shut her eyes.
“I do not have strange taste at all! There are films by…”
“Yes, yes, dear. You do have slightly unusual taste. Just admit it. Have you cut your hair yet? Your sister looks so lovely; she’s just been to that new, hot hairdresser in Prinsensgate, what’s his name…”
Her mother giggled.
“He’s a bit… they so often are, these hairdressers. But my goodness Maria looked wonderful.”
“I’m sure. So see you around two then?”
“Two o’clock on the dot. Shall I buy supper for the three of us?”
“No, thank you. I’ve got vegetable soup in the freezer. It’s the only thing I can get Kristiane to eat when she’s sick. There’s enough for all of us.”
“Good. See you later.”
“See you.”
The bathwater was just a couple of degrees too hot. Johanne leaned her head against the plastic pillow and inhaled the steam in deep breaths. Lemon and chamomile from an expensive glass bottle that Isak had brought back from France. He still always bought her presents when he was abroad. Johanne wasn’t quite sure why, but it was nice. He had good taste and lots of money.
“I’ve got good taste too,” she grumbled.
There were three worn-out towels hanging on the hooks. One had a big picture of Tiger Boy and the other two had been washed to a light pink.
“New towels,” she said to herself. “Today.”
Her friends envied her her mother. Lina loved her. She’s so kind, said the other girls. She would do anything for you. And she’s always so with it. Reads and goes to the theater, and the way she dresses!
Her mother was kind. Too kind. Her mother was a general of good causes, friend to prisoners, honorary member of the Norwegian Women’s Public Health Association, nimble-fingered and unable to communicate directly. Maybe that was the result of never having worked outside the home. Her life had been her husband and children and volunteer work; an endless number of unpaid positions and commissions that required a consistently friendly attitude to everyone and everything. Her mother was a born diplomat. She was as good as unable to formulate a sentence where the content was what she actually wanted to say. Your father is worried about you meant I’m worried sick. Marie looks fabulous at the moment was her mother’s way of telling Johanne that she looked like something the cat dragged in. When her mother arrived with a pile of women’s magazines, Johanne knew that they would be about new fashion trends and twenty ways to find a man.
“You work so hard,” said her mother, and patted her arm.
And then Johanne knew that her mother didn’t find jeans, sweatshirts, and four-year-old glasses particularly flattering.
Lina’s hair treatment was actually very pleasant. Her scalp tingled and Johanne could actually feel her tired hair sucking in the nourishment under the plastic cap. The water had made her skin red. Jack was asleep and she heard nothing from Kristiane’s room. She had left the doors open, just in case.
The book about Asbjørn Revheim was about to fall into the water. She saved it just in time, and moved the coffee cup from the edge of the tub to the floor.
The first chapter was about Revheim’s death. Johanne thought that it was a strange way to start a biography. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to read about his passing, so she flicked through the pages. Chapter two was about his childhood in Lillestrøm. The book fell into the water. Quick as a flash she pulled it out again. Some of the pages had stuck together. It took some time before she found her place again.