'OK,'he said.
'Tellme now they did,' she begged. 'Tell me they met again.'
'OK,'he repeated. 'The two of them met again. This is how it happened: he wassitting on a train going south. The train stopped at a station and he got up tolook out of the window. Then he saw her.
Becauseanother train was standing in the station too. She stood looking out of thetrain window – the train going north, in the opposite direction. A metre of airseparated them. Can you imagine that? Her standing with the wind playing in herhair. She was wearing a white summer dress which was semi-transparent; through twotrain windows he could see the dress clinging to her body – he could see theoutline of her stomach muscles under the dress. They saw each other for fiveseconds, looked into each other's eyes until the trains moved off. One trainwent north, the other south. And they were separated again.'
Shecaressed Henning's chin with her lips. 'What's her name?' she whispered.
Hegrinned and shook his head. 'This isn't about me. This is a story. This issomething that happens every day. To someone. The one thing you can say is thatthere is something beautiful about the moment the two of them experience.'
'Andyou're in a world of your own,' she whispered. 'Do you fantasize about her?'
'Ofcourse.'
Hissmile was sad: 'The only comprehensible thing you can take from the system thataffects those two is the poetry. The language, the words we say to each otherform a box in which we can collect the beautiful things in life and reveal themto each other at moments like now – here, you and I in this car, tonight.Language and poetry are our way of sensing the incomprehensible because wecannot step far back enough, outside ourselves, to a place where you can enjoythe logic and the inevitability of reality.'
Hewas breathless from all the speaking. Henning is actually very charming, shethought, Henning is naive, child-like and charming. She said:
'Idon't agree.'
'Eh?'
'You'regood at storytelling, but you don't know anything about reality.'
Hesent her a gentle, sarcastic smile. 'That's how easy it was to get off withyou.'
'Nowyou listen to me,' she said. 'Outside Kragerø there is a little placecalled Portør. It's not the name of the place which is important; thepoint is that you can see the whole horizon from there. It sticks out into thesea – all that is between you and Denmark is the Skagerrak. Once upon a timethere was a dead calm. Do you know what that is? Dead calm. That's when thewater is like a mirror, not a ripple. I was swimming, early in the morning, thesun was shining, the water was warm, not a breath of wind and the sea wascompletely still. I began to swim, towards the horizon. You know how I loveswimming. And I swam and I swam until I felt so tired I needed to rest. I layfloating on my back looking up at the burning sun. I could see my white bodyunder the surface of the water and I glanced around. And do you know what? Ihad swum so far out that it was not possible to see land anywhere. Whicheverway I looked there was just calm, black sea. I couldn't see anything, not aboat, not a sail, not a strip of land. And I lay there thinking about the blackdeep beneath me, thinking that I had no idea which way led back to where I hadcome from, and I closed my eyes. Lying there like that was the biggest kick I haveever known, before or since. I knew in my heart that this was what it is allabout. This is life; this is what actually happens every day. Every second ofthe day is like lying there, alone in the sea.'
'Butyou found the way back?'
Shesmiled. 'Of course I did. I'm here, aren't I?'
'Yes,I know, but how? Was it just luck that you swam in the right direction?'
'Maybe.It might have been luck, but that's not the point. The fact is that it was themost important experience I have had in my life.'
'Whydo you think that?'
'Itwas what made me decide to come off drugs. But perhaps even more important thanthat was the revelation.'
Shesmiled and whispered softly. 'My single thought while I was out there was thatnothing is predetermined. There is no system. You tell great stories, Henning,but this business about predetermined systems is just bullshit. My life beginssomewhere between me and the sea. I believe in myself and in reality. That'sit.'
Thefinal word hung quivering in the air. Neither of them said anything. They satclose together and Katrine could feel the heat from Henning's thighs againsther own. 'What kind of amulet did he have?' she asked.
'Who?'
'Theguy from Canada.'
'Oh,him…' Henning tried to force a hand down into his trouser pocket, but had toraise his bottom first. 'Here,' he said, passing her a beautiful, small, whitebox. She took it. There were neat drawings in gold on the lid. 'The kind weused to keep our amphetamines in,' she said, weighing the small box in herhand.
'Notlike this one,' he said, taking off the lid.
'Marble,'she burst out. 'Is it made of marble?'
Henningnodded. 'It's the same technique they use in the Taj Mahal. The mother-of-pearland the blue stone have been worked into the material. Feel,' he whispered,stroking the smooth surface of the lid with his finger. At that instant theireyes met. She slowly lowered the white box and put it in her lap. Then sheloosened the thick band of massive gold with two inlaid jewels she was wearingon the ring finger of her left hand. She dropped the ring in the box where itfell with a dry thud. She closed the lid and passed him the box. Henning tookit with a gulp.
Theyhuddled close together and the intimacy between them grew. She stared atHenning's glowing skin, at his black eyes shining in the dark. Sinews and veinsformed dark shadows in his skin. That's how I want him, she thought. And thatwas how she took him. She forced Henning under her and fucked him, there in thecar; she rode him until the constellations in the sky made small reflections inthe beads of sweat on his forehead. She could read in his dark pupils how hisorgasm was building up, and when he came inside her, she covered his mouth withhers and let him scream as much he was able, deep down into her stomach.
Afterwardsshe dozed off. Her body ached when she woke up; her right leg felt bloodlessand numb. That's the first time I've slept in a car since I was little, shethought. It was colder now. Henning was emitting low snoring sounds. Sheloosened her arms from around his neck and sat up straight. In the mirror shesaw that her hair had become tangled. She looked like a woman waking up in thearms of a man in a car in the middle of the night. My leg has gone to sleep,she thought, and began to massage her calf and thigh. And I am cold. Outsidethere were still stars in the sky. The tiny crescent moon that had hung overthe water had moved further south, and the sky, above the treetops on the otherside, was lighter, had a bluer tinge. 'Fancy that,' she said in a husky voice.Henning was mumbling in his sleep. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard.It was past two o'clock.
Sheshivered, put on her thin blouse and straightened her skirt. She examined herface in the car mirror and wished she had a comb. The inside of the car windowshad steamed up. She was hungry. And she needed a wash. She searched the glovecompartment for cigarettes, but it was empty apart from the log book and a fewpaper napkins. She dried the condensation on one of the side windows. Outsideit was dark behind the spruces. She rolled down the window. The air waswonderful, fresh, but light and cool to the face. Her upper arms began to getgooseflesh. She grabbed the gear lever, eased her leg across to find the clutchpedal. At last she got the car into neutral and manoeuvred her hand around thesteering wheel without waking Henning. Then she turned on the ignition. The carstarted, and she put on the fan heater. The white cone of the headlamps pickedout a tree trunk and a mass of green vegetation. Henning was still fast asleep.She thought about going for a wash in the water. It would be wonderful to rinseaway the taste of smoke from her mouth. But there didn't seem to be an obviouspath. The area between the road and the lake was a murky jumble of trees,bilberry bushes and sharp ends of bare branches. She shuddered. She thought ofsnakes, horrible coiled snakes slithering between the dead leaves on theground; she thought of spiders and huge anthills, crawling with millions ofants, and she shuddered again.