Gunilla Mørk had celebrated her seventieth birthday with her children and friends and neighbours, and now she was glad it was over. The platter she’d ordered from the cafe was quite excellent, so too the cake table to which she had contributed a delicious marzipan ring. Will I make it to eighty? she wondered, looking out of the kitchen window. Many don’t live that long, and it’s not a given that I will either. As active, agile and clear-headed as I am.
The sky was bright blue, and the sun was rising. God has given us another gorgeous day, she thought. I must make the most of it. It is our duty as human beings: we must appreciate the good things. And if we don’t, we’d better have a good reason. This was Gunilla Mørk’s philosophy of life. But because she’d turned seventy, she had also begun thinking of death. It hung over her like a dark cloud, and wouldn’t give her peace. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, this darkness came to her and disturbed her thoughts. She pulled the curtains aside and looked at the lawn. As she thought about death, she saw her own hand — it was no longer young and smooth, but dry and wrinkled. For a few moments, the sight terrified her. She raised her hand and examined it carefully, brought it close to her cheek. Of course it was warm and able, as always. So why these silly thoughts? Sometimes it seemed as though the moment cracked open and let in a dose of hard reality.
I don’t have much time left.
It was early morning. She heard a little thump out front, the sound of her local newspaper being dropped into her mailbox. The postman had already moved on to the next house. He rode a bicycle with a small trailer hitched to it, and with strength she was no longer capable of mustering, he pedalled up the hill in his red uniform. Out in the garden she turned her face towards the sky and felt the sunlight. It glows the same way it did when I was sixteen, she thought, just as rich and golden. Just as invigorating. The wind is mild and the grass is overwhelmingly green and lush. I could get on my knees and eat it, just like cows do. She headed to the mailbox and fetched her paper. On the first page she saw a picture of a man with his arms around a sheep, and she read the headline. THE MYTH OF THE NORWEGIAN SHEEP FARMER
She went inside and set the newspaper on the kitchen table. She would certainly read that article, because she had her opinions about sheep farmers. But first she wanted to brew coffee and butter a piece of bread. Everything had to be done just so, and at the right pace. Why should she hurry? After all, there was only one direction. Now I’m complaining too much, thought Gunilla Mørk, but God expects no more of a person than is given him. The food tasted good. The jam was made from berries grown in her garden, and she hadn’t ruined it with too much sugar.
She started reading about the sheep farmer.
The myth of the Norwegian sheep farmer and the love he feels towards his animals lives on, but it is overblown. The image of the devastated farmer kneeling by the body of one of his sheep following a bear attack is not about grief; rather, it’s about economic impact. When they want to get on the good side of public opinion, when they want to obtain larger subsidies from the state, they become first-rate actors.
This claim was made by a professor she had never heard of.
The man in the photograph, a man called Sverre Skarning, claimed that he loved all his sheep, even the black ones. She studied the farmer and the sheep. She tried to form an opinion, but didn’t know what to think. They probably are fond of their sheep, she thought. And she liked the photograph. A man and a sheep in close contact put her in quite a good mood. She flipped to the next page. In between she drank her coffee, which energised her, strong and hot as it was. I’ll get some things done today, she thought. Maybe I’ll stain the garden furniture; it’s got terribly dry during the summer. She concentrated her reading on the ongoing tragedies unfolding in the poorer parts of the world — cyclones, earthquakes, war and more war — then raised her head and looked out at the quiet garden, at the flowers and trees, and thought it marvellous that she of all people had been granted this peaceful spot on earth where nothing bad ever happened.
She came to the obituaries.
These she always read carefully, because sometimes she knew someone. She also made a note of the year of their birth, recognising that her own was drawing near with alarming haste; those who’d now used up their allotted time had been born around 1930. Gunilla, she thought, you’ve got to stop. You’re sitting here in the kitchen, and you are alive and well. Sunlight falls through the window, the coffee is strong. At that very moment she gasped in shock, staring directly at her own name. Gunilla Mørk, she read, was dead; she had died in her sleep. She let go of the newspaper and put a hand to her heart. She could hardly breathe. No, it was a mistake. If it wasn’t a mistake, there must be others called Gunilla Mørk. She glanced around the kitchen to reassure herself that everything was in order — that she wasn’t caught in some form of madness. But all she saw was the good old kitchen, with cups and bowls. She reread the notice. Everything was correct, the birth date, the year.
OUR KIND AND CARING MOTHER, MOTHER-IN-LAW AND SISTER, GUNILLA MØRK, BORN 17 JULY 1939, PASSED AWAY QUIETLY IN HER SLEEP TODAY, 25 JULY. IT’S GOOD TO RESTWHEN YOUR STRENGTH FAILS YOUAFTER YEARS OF TOIL AND STRUGGLEAT SOME POINTTHE HOLY NIGHT COMESAND THE MUSES OF ETERNITYCHANGE THE BITTEREST SORROWYOU’VE HAD TO A HUNDRED FIDDLES
ERIK AND ELLINOR, FRIENDS AND OTHER RELATIVES. FUNERAL SERVICE TO BE HELD AT EASTERN CREMATORIUM, SMALL CHAPEL, 1 AUGUST, 10.30 A.M.
Gunilla Mørk put her head down on the table.
She knocked over her coffee cup.
The newspaper said she was dead.
Erik and Ellinor — her children. And that stupid poem. Erik and Ellinor would never have chosen something so pompous, something so ridiculous and distasteful. And Eastern Crematorium, good Lord. What did it mean? Who had done this inexplicable thing? Could the newspaper have made a mistake? Of course they couldn’t have; if they had, the world had become unhinged. She shot up from the chair and paced around the room. Stood in front of the mirror over the sink. An old woman stared back at her with a face she had never seen. It was unsettling. Everyone I know will read the announcement, she thought. I have to call them. I have to call Erik and Ellinor. She returned to the chair and slumped in it, gripping the edge of the table. Maybe I nodded off and dreamed it, she thought, but that was obviously silly. Again she read her own obituary. She sat motionless, growing cold all over, because someone had picked her out. From the mass of people they had found her and hatched their hideous plans. She wanted to grab the telephone; she wanted to dial her son Erik’s number at once. Then she would know what had happened. But it took some time for her to get up. And when she was finally on her feet, the phone in her hand, she began to cry.
Johnny Beskow sneaked into the hallway.
Because it was important to be prepared, he stood there listening. Apparently, his mother was not at the stove. There was no smell of food, just the familiar stench of coats, dust and mould. She must be on the sofa, he thought, and looked at the clock. It was eleven in the morning, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to be drunk at this hour. Once he’d found her at seven in the morning, drinking vodka in big gulps while clinging to the armrest with her free hand. She’d done this for an hour before going off to lie down, under the duvet. In this manner she moved from the chair to the bed, to the sofa, and to the chair again. And to the grave, he thought, can’t you move to the grave? I’ll dig the hole. Then you can just roll over the edge. He slipped into the lounge to see. Yep, she was lying on the sofa under a blanket. So he shuffled off to his room and closed the door. He lifted Bleeding Heart from the cage and fell on the bed with the guinea pig at his neck. People believe what I tell them, he thought with satisfaction. I can call whoever I want and claim whatever I want, or demand whatever I want, and people do what I say. They are polite and friendly, and they are happy to help. It’s pure magic. The possibilities are endless. I can disrupt an entire community, it occurred to him, an entire city. All I have to do is pick up the phone or write a letter. I hold this power. He could feel the power in his head, the power rushing through his veins, and it made him warm and strong, even though he was, strictly speaking, a weakling. Or as they’d called him at schooclass="underline" the wimp from Askeland.