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“Who is?”

“Your daughter.”

The Latino family was being told off; Jane heard the guard go on about hands being visible. When the guard turned his back to them, one of the teenage girls did something that made the whole family laugh quietly until the little boy burst out laughing too.

“What about Greg? My husband? Do you keep thinking about him?”

“I don’t know, Ms. Ashland. No, I don’t. Not as much, anyway. Sorry. I am sorry about that. You see, it’s like I see her all the time. She’s lying there.”

“Julie?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a problem with saying her name?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I haven’t said it ever before. I feel bad about that, Ms. Ashland.”

“Can you stop saying Ms. Ashland in every fucking sentence?”

“Yes.” Tears were beginning to well up in his eyes.

“Don’t cry!” Jane said. She got up and stood with her hands on the table. The guard slowly looked their way.

“Sorry, Ms. Ashland.” Myers swallowed and clenched his jaw muscles and then looked the other way when he could no longer hold it back. Small sobs kept escaping.

“Stop it!” Jane hissed.

Shameful memories made her turn away. She remembered the times she had treated Julie like this and then forbidden her to cry. Like the midmorning playground session in Olin Park, when Julie had fallen from the monkey bars but Jane hadn’t seen it happen and thought the crying was just attention-seeking.

Oh god, these burning cheeks. How they triggered pangs of anger. She wanted to make him lick the ground. He was as stupid and innocent as a bull calf. She could make him do anything. And it struck Jane that the evil in her mind now exceeded whatever had been in his at the moment when he killed Julie.

“So, if I forgive you, you won’t hang yourself?”

Myers slumped in his seat, his reddened face sagging between his massive shoulders. As he began to speak to her his eyes rolled upward, but when his gaze surfaced it cracked and dissolved into thin air. It was similar to his courtroom behavior but not quite the same.

“There are these things inside my head that I don’t get… but I’m not really crazy. They say it’s because I can’t sleep. Like soldiers, they’ve found it out in research. But if you said you didn’t hate me then I could remember that every time I think about…”

“Julie?”

“Yes. Like, instead of. Because I think about her almost all the time. That’s why I’m training hard.”

Jane was approaching a boundary. She hadn’t uttered so many consecutive words for a long time. The visiting time must be almost over. She was going to check the time on her watch, but it was of course in a locker at the security gate, together with her wallet.

“Can you say it, Ms. Ashland?”

It came out at once: “I forgive you.”

Myers was picking at the key again.

“What’s the matter?” Jane asked.

“It didn’t sound as if you meant it.”

“I don’t mean anything I say, Scott.”

She had addressed him by his name. Why had she used his name?

“I open my mouth and sounds come out. Mostly, I try to say the things people want to hear. I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you.”

Myers was twisting uneasily in his seat. Then he rubbed his face again.

“You want me to say whatever will make your head work properly. There’s a system built into your mind that makes you want to stay alive. The system asks me to help you. Perhaps I can. But how much is the built-in system worth? What are you worth?”

He looked at her with the eyes of an animal one is about to kill.

“Please, Ms. Ashland, there are so many hours in here.”

“There are just as many outside.”

Jane rose. As she started walking around the table, he also got up and came toward her. The guard’s hand went up to something in his belt. And then Scott Myers put his arms around her and hugged her tight. A large, soft little kid.

Jane heard the guard say: “Five seconds, Myers.”

She noticed that he nodded over her shoulder, and sensed his breath and the smell of his body, stale and boyish, and automatically began to stroke his back as you would with somebody else’s child, a little one who had fallen over and hurt himself in the playground when the parents were not around, and you would comfort the child because that is what you have to do, which makes you realize that without feeling anything, it is possible to imitate how it used to be done.

THERE’S SOMETHING GOING on outside. It sounds like a heavy object being pulled through the heather. She unravels her arms from the sleeping bag, like a brittle insect. Next, the legs. Now she is on all fours, gathering strength in the glowing light that filters into the tent. Once the zip is down, she sees the moon shining. Only torn-off rags of the fog hang on to the slope, the rest is gone.

She crawls outside and attempts to get upright. She stands, with flashing in her eyes, rocks from side to side, draws the cold air into her lungs. The mountains are there again. A faint red sheen glows at the far horizon but the cold has stretched the sky until it turned white, leaving only small moth holes that let out the ancient light of eternity.

Now that the air has cleared, she discovers that the tent has been erected on a raised bit of ground next to a marked path. In the moonlight, the cairns show up like lit lamps. Below, she sees the wide vein of silver that is the main road. Two cars move smoothly in the valley with a discreet shushing sound that she can, more or less, distinguish from the blood rushing through her ears. She sees the railway line. The electricity poles along it look like scorched tree trunks after a forest fire. Ulf had taken for granted that she would find her way back. In more ways than one, they were back to where they started.

She realizes what woke her and counts fourteen of them moving slowly as a group over a low ridge behind the tent. Long, ragged fur almost covers their hooves and conceals the swinging gait of the grazing animals. They are traversing the landscape as if on rails, with their muzzles buried in the heather.

An attack of cramp makes Jane bend over. She stands for a long time with her hands on her knees. Then, gradually, she straightens up and lets everything that is not moonlit and cold pass through her mind untouched before she starts walking with long, weightless steps toward the animals.

Acknowledgments

I’m grateful to the contributors of Beyond Tears: Living After Losing A Child (ed. Ellen Mitchell) for their insight and willingness to share their experiences.

About the Author

BORN IN 1974 Nicolai Houm has published two novels, which were both critically acclaimed in Norway. The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland is the first publication of his work in English. He works part-time as an editor in the publishing house Cappelen Damm, and lives in Lier with his wife and daughter.

Original title: Jane Ashlands gradvise forsvinning by Nicolai Houm

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