“Yes,” he said. “I was at work. One of us had to keep the money coming in. If you thought looking after him was so difficult, you should have said so. We could have swapped for a while; you could have worked at Zita Quick for as long as you liked. I even said as much, but you didn’t want to listen.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she said, “because you’re fit and healthy. You don’t need to worry about suddenly keeling over. But let me tell you, it’s not great to live with. And I don’t feel particularly proud of myself either, about what’s happened. I admit that I did try to change my story, because I was terrified of being charged with negligence. It’s not damn easy knowing what the police are going to do. Everyone’s out to get me; you could at least be on my side. I’ve wept buckets too, so there.”
“Yes, you’re certainly good at crying,” he said. “You turn on the waterworks whenever it suits you. But I’ve cried too. And the only comfort I have is some fantastic story about a moment’s confusion. You owe it to me to explain how you could think of doing something like that. Throwing a baby into the water to cover something you claim was an accident is just crazy. Honestly.”
Carmen finished her beer, and then she too banged her glass down on the table. Her mouth was drawn and pale, despite the sun.
“You should be damn grateful that you don’t have epilepsy,” she said in a bitter voice. “You don’t have to lie unconscious on the floor in spasms. And then come to again without being able to remember anything. Everything is just a blind spot in your head. Yes, I know it was stupid. But it’s too late for regret, and Tommy’s death was an accident. So why can’t you just believe me and be done!”
Nicolai sat back and crossed his arms. “Not strange really, that the police keep questioning you,” he said calmly. “You’ve spun them a pretty good story. Think about when you’re in court. How will you get them to believe anything so far-fetched?”
“They’ll believe me because it’s the truth,” she said. “Simple as that.” She finished the last of her beer and looked at him with pleading eyes. “Can we just for once be honest? I didn’t think it was much fun that Tommy turned out the way he did. That I would always have to deal with his problems.”
“What do you mean, problems?”
“Don’t make yourself out to be more stupid than you are. You know perfectly well what I mean. He would never be able to keep up in life. I would always have to explain to other people why my child wouldn’t do what was expected of a child his age. People are nosy and ask so many questions. Yes, I’ve got a son, but unfortunately he’s an idiot. I think you should apologize. I can’t believe you would accuse me of lying. Fuck you for being so self-righteous. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on inside as well. And it’s not as if you don’t have any faults.”
“I don’t trust you,” he said and drank some more beer. Again he banged his glass on the table. “If you’re sitting there hiding a terrible secret, I hope it eats away at you from inside.”
Carmen stood up and put her bag over her shoulder. Then she took her empty glass and threw it down onto the asphalt with all her might, so the glass shattered. “There you go,” she snarled. “You can tidy it up.”
As she walked away across the cobbled square, she shouted over her shoulder to him: “I’m going back to the hotel. And this argument never happened.”
33
Dear diary,
The week is nearly over, it’s gone so fast. What am I going to do with Nicolai? Today he was so suspicious and I don’t know what to say. I have to watch myself every second of the day. I have to weigh my words. Because I need him to be on my side. We’re both going to court in June, and I need him to be my witness, to stand up for me. But he doesn’t seem to care about anything anymore. Doesn’t care about the future, doesn’t think about our case going to court and that we’ll have to be there. The only thing he thinks about is feeding his grief and the loss of Tommy, keeping the wound open at all costs. He smokes and drinks whiskey, sits out on the balcony and cries. I can’t bear it. And if I ask him something, his answers are monosyllabic and he’s not interested. Sometimes he gives me long, suspicious looks, I suppose to show that he doesn’t trust me.
I’ve been thinking a lot about death recently.
Death as final and terrible, death as merciless. But also death as gentle. And about God, though I don’t actually believe in Him. But sometimes I’m gripped by the thought that one day we will all be laid out in white in a cold grave — that damp black hole in the earth is waiting for us all. The worms and other creepy-crawlies will make their way in through the coffin and slowly we are eaten by the tiny teeth of time. But sometimes incredible things happen. Things that turn our ideas upside down. One day last November, I gave some money to a beggar. I don’t usually do that, because it goes against my principles. People have to find a way to make ends meet, isn’t that an obligation we all have? So it was just a whim. Just because it seemed right at the time. God bless you, the beggar said gratefully. I gave him a hundred-kroner note and his pale eyes filled and shone with tears. And right then, for that moment, when he said those words, I became deeply religious. I did not doubt for a moment that I would be blessed. A sudden warmth spread through my body and I felt like I was floating and light as a feather. Anything that was weighing me down slipped away and I loved everyone. I saw them so clearly as they walked toward me on the pavement. For the rest of the day I wandered around in this state of bliss, held on to the feeling. I wanted it to last forever. Fate had given me the chance to be a good person. But the days passed and doubt crept back, and my memory of the beggar lost its significance. Nothing lasts forever. I know that better than anyone. And then, dear diary, last night I had a horrible dream. That’s what I wanted to tell you, because it was so awful. I dreamed that we went to bed in our house up at Granfoss. It was late at night. I went to check that Tommy was OK first, like I normally did. But as I stood there looking at him, he started to scream. Nicolai immediately wanted to have him in our bed. He can’t lie there on his own, screaming like that, he said. I can’t stand it, it drives me crazy. Because when he cries it means that there’s something he doesn’t have.
Yes, I said, obviously there’s something he doesn’t have. He doesn’t have intelligence, and you’ll only spoil him if he gets everything he wants the minute he makes a noise. He’s a baby, Nicolai, and they tend to cry over nothing. But Nicolai totally disagreed. He wanted to lift the boy up and comfort him. Come on, he’ll stop any moment, I said, convinced, and he’s going to sleep in his own room now. We can’t carry on like this and let the baby turn us out of our own bed. I’ll go crazy soon as well, I exclaimed, with all this fuss!
As we stood there arguing by the crib, his screaming really started to get on our nerves. He screamed like his lungs were fit to burst. It was intense and piercing, and his face was bright red with sweat and effort. We left him and got into our double bed, but it was impossible to sleep as Tommy continued to cry at full volume. I wanted to leap out of bed and with all my might shake his little body into silence. After a couple of minutes we gave up. Nicolai pushed the comforter to one side and went over to the crib. Come and look! he shouted, obviously agitated. Tommy’s grown! He’s so big he almost doesn’t fit! Reluctantly I got out of the warm bed and went over to see what he meant. And then to my horror I saw that Tommy was enormous. See, Nicolai said. He doesn’t fit anymore, so we’ll have to move him.