by Alex Dahl
62
Kristina
I fell asleep easily moments after settling closely against Eirik in the comfortable, deep sleigh bed in the sleeping alcove, my whole body heavy and aching. In the middle of the night I wake with a start and the sudden movement sends waves of pain up my leg and I have to bite my lip not to scream out loud. Eirik shifts slightly beside me. I push myself up against the pillows into a half-sitting position and feel about on the nightstand for the painkillers he laid out for me before we went to sleep. I take two ibuprofen and an oxycodone. I can make out a faint milky glow from the window high up on the wall, and realize it is still snowing.
This sleeping alcove seems to have been made by integrating a storage space into the cabin, and not originally intended for sleeping. I don’t understand how it could be possible to get this bed here, then I realize it must have been built in place. I lie back down and close my eyes, waiting for sleep to carry me away, but it doesn’t. My mind is racing with disjointed, strange thoughts. I keep seeing myself running through the forest, the snowflakes biting my skin, those last terrifying moments before I fell to the ground, my screams hollering down the hillsides. This image bleeds into the other image, and I’m her again, the kid running for her life in the Venezuelan jungle.
The familiar nausea rises in me, the way it always does when I can’t control my thoughts and they go to where I can’t allow them to go, not ever, if I’m going to stay alive, if I’m going to stay Kristina; success story, survivor, wife, psychotherapist.
The contours of what Leah has actually done are becoming clearer. But did her snooping around kill Elisabeth? It was as if one of the blank patches in my mind disappeared when I read her words, rebuilding the scenes in Venezuela. The dirty Mazda. The clifftop house. Xavier, with the bottomless eyes and the slashed cheek and the warm hands and the rough stubble deliciously turning the skin around my mouth raw as he kissed me. The gun glinting in the moonlight.
Of course they will find out about your past, Leah wrote, it’s a simple Google search away. Except it isn’t. It’s true that if you were to look, you’d find old media coverage of what happened in Carúpano; it was all over the newspapers for weeks. You might find some quotes from the witness statements I gave at the time, though my name was Kristina Hellerud then, not Kristina Moss, so you’d probably only make the connection if you were specifically looking. You might see the picture of me arriving at Gardermoen Airport, being met by my parents and the foreign secretary at the aircraft steps.
Do you ever think about how his life turned out?
He, too, must return to that night. For the first time, I try to imagine what his life might be like, and find that I can’t. Another blank. What game is Leah trying to play?
Tears are flowing down my face and I snuggle closer to Eirik. I’m facing him now and though the light is dim, my eyes are used to the dark and I can make out the outlines of his peaceful face. His hair is cut shorter than usual, and I realize I haven’t noticed this until now. His eyelashes are long and fluttering slightly as his eyes shuttle back and forth beneath his closed eyelids. His jawline, which was always strong and clearly defined, has softened slightly, and this makes me feel a flush of empathy for him. All those late nights at the office, too many dinners out of a delivery box. And all the while, I’ve been at home, waiting and waiting with dinner, until I inevitably give up and eat alone, scrolling on my phone. I don’t mind so much most of the time, I’m used to it by now, but lying here like this, next to my husband in the dark, I am filled with such conflicting emotions.
I am overwhelmed by relief and gratitude that he managed to find me and came straight here. What would this night have been like without him? I also feel that deep, constant love for him that I’ve been able to hold on to throughout the years of our relationship and marriage – fourteen now. And I feel something else, something new and frightening. Looking at my sleeping husband, I feel a sliver of fear run through me for how little we actually know of another person, how little we can ever know of what goes on inside their head. Life, and love, are like therapy sessions at the end of the day – we only know what someone says and shows. But what about the things they choose to hide, and go to great lengths to keep hidden?
What have you done? I mouth the words in the dark. Could Leah have followed Eirik around like she followed me and found something out about him that she now wants to tell me about? She was jealous, that much is obvious. Obsessive. And yet, I felt that she and I had a good therapeutic relationship and that we made solid progress over the years she came to see me. Was it all fake? Did Leah play a role in our sessions while attempting to inch ever closer to me, motivated by obsession, or is it more complex than that? I wish I could go through to the living room and read the rest of Supernova. I have to know, but more than that, I have to tread carefully. There is something about the measured tone and the controlled patience of Leah’s revelations that make me take her extremely seriously.
I very gently run my index finger across Eirik’s thick eyebrow, smoothing the wiry hairs into place as I go. He barely stirs but purses his lips. I love you, I think. And – I need you. And – What have you done?
63
Kristina
‘Honey? Honey, wake up.’ His words reach me, but slowly and buffered through a dream. I try to open my eyes but it is as though they’ve been glued shut. ‘Krissy, can you hear me?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Wake up.’
‘Mmmm.’ My right eye cracks open. My husband is sitting on the side of the bed, eyes puffy from sleep, dark stubble chasing up his neck, face serious.
‘Jesus, Kristina. You had me really worried there. You wouldn’t wake up.’
‘Sorry. I… My head hurts. Uh. What time is it?’
‘Just gone nine. I didn’t realize it was morning; it’s almost completely dark in here. Look, sit up. Bit of a problem.’ Eirik helps me to sit up, positioning me carefully against the pillows and the wooden headboard.
‘Ow.’ The pain is significantly worse today than yesterday. It feels as though I have been pummeled and then run over by a freight train.
‘Look,’ says Eirik and points across the living room to the windows facing out to the valley and the little lake far below. But we can’t see any of that, in fact we can’t see anything at all, because we are snowed in. When I was a child, we’d stay at my grandparents’ cabin in Valdres and we’d get snowed in fairly often, waking up in a muffled, hushed cocoon. My father would have to dig us out and sometimes Camilla and I would toboggan off the roof of the cabin, which would only be a meter or so above the ground. I didn’t realize it could happen as far south as Telemark, and especially this early on in the season – it’s only just November.
‘It’s fucking crazy out there. I’ll have to dig us out.’
Eirik half carries me as I limp over to the sofa. He places a large mug of freshly brewed coffee on the table in front of me.
‘My poor girl,’ he says, leaning in to plant a kiss on my cheek. Then he goes back to the front door and begins the slow and cold task of getting us out of here. He is wearing light jeans, a cashmere jumper and a lightweight down jacket, hardly the attire for unearthing an entire building devoured by snow, but it’s not like he thought he’d have to do that when he set off from Oslo yesterday. As the cabin is built on a slight slope, the snow will be deeper at the back of the building where the door is, so the windows facing onto the valley might be a better bet.
‘Try the windows, babe,’ I say. I sip my coffee and focus on taking deep, even breaths. The combination of the strange, unsettling situation we’re in and the terrible pain in my ankle is making my anxiety, which I have managed well for over a decade now, rear its ugly head. It’s like the bubble of boiling water in the pit of my stomach. And it’s like that moment after you realize you’ve seriously hurt yourself, before the pain crashes over you. A prolonged wince. I am itching to get back to Supernova, but I have to wait until Eirik has managed to get outside.
‘Like who?’
‘I don’t know? A friend? Bjørn?’ Bjørn is Eirik’s older brother, and they’re close enough to speak several times a week.
‘Nope. After that weirdo came to the house and I couldn’t get hold of you, I just got in the car.’
‘Thank God you did.’
We smile at each other and in this moment, I am overwhelmed by my love for this man. I know in my heart what a good man he is, and I’m furious with Leah for planting even a sliver of doubt about my marriage in my head.
‘But babe, how are you even going to get back down to the car? It must be, what, two meters deep?’
‘Yeah. Jesus. You’re right.’
‘You’ll have to make your way out through a window and then dig the front door free from the outside. Then we’ll have to focus on how to get you to the car or at least somewhere with phone reception.’ Eirik nods and pulls his iPhone from his jeans pocket as though he might suddenly have reception in this most remote of places.
‘Fuck, I only have twenty-six percent battery.’
‘Where’s the charger?’
‘In the car.’ We stare at each other. For a moment I almost feel the urge to laugh.
‘You couldn’t make this up.’
‘Nope. Okay, no time to waste. Operation window leading to operation evacuate invalid wife imminently commencing.’
I smile at him and he smiles back, and in spite of everything it feels good to be here, alone with my husband.
*
It was his determination that won me over. Back then, when we met at the student union bar at Oslo University, he wasn’t so special. He didn’t yet possess that easy authority that he does now – that came with money and power and age, but he embodied a grittiness I hadn’t seen before in a Norwegian boy my age. When you grow up in one of the richest countries in the world, where the school system is rather relaxed, and you’re statistically speaking unlikely to have faced any real challenges in your early life, it’s perhaps understandable that Norwegians often seem to be unusually laid back. Some might call it lazy, but it isn’t that, exactly; it’s more an ingrained belief that life doesn’t have to be a struggle and so why sweat it? It’s an easy enough attitude to cultivate in a country that has organized itself in a way that means life isn’t too much of a struggle for most people. A lot has been achieved in terms of gender equality and bridging the class divide. People are fairly compensated for the work they do, there is little unemployment and a livable minimum wage. We leave work at four on the dot and most people have access to nature and use it frequently for recreation. There is no reason to be fiercely ambitious, or work into the early hours – those qualities aren’t expected or particularly celebrated. And yet, that is what my husband is like.
He needs to be top dog and best at everything. Those qualities could have impacted Eirik’s likability but the reason they don’t, at least not in my eyes, is that he only compares himself against himself. He doesn’t gloat or make unfavorable comparisons to others, he merely acknowledges his victory and moves on. I wonder what he will do once he breaks through the ceiling of his own ambitions. Will he be able to just enjoy it and not chase the next achievement, or will he always be chasing the next thing?
He pursued me with the same quiet determination he goes about getting whatever he has decided he wants. He isn’t forceful or flamboyant or overtly persuasive. But he’s patient and secure in his own offerings. It’s a long game, Krissy, he often says, and I think he means everything: life, and love, and his career. He seems to have been able to settle into our marriage without growing restless after a few years, and has always made a point out of idolizing me. This is something I have struggled with at times, because by repeatedly claiming that I am ‘perfect’, and ‘the ideal woman’, and ‘ridiculously clever’, he is actually subtly stating his expectations of me. I know he doesn’t do it consciously but we have had many talks over the years about how I feel that those kinds of definitions feel like attempts at control. And yet I am lucky, because I have never had to doubt my husband’s love or devotion. He has never given me any reason to grow suspicious of his actions or motives. But what if I haven’t been looking in the right places? What if he has grown bored and unfulfilled in our marriage and started chasing the next thing, as is his tendency otherwise in life?
*
I swallow hard several times, trying to dislodge the raw hoarseness at the back of my throat. I watch Eirik unhook the window clasps carefully, running his palm against the blueish, densely packed snow outside. One window thankfully opens inwards, and I assume this must be intentional in the event of getting snowed in. Eirik begins to dig, using a metal mixing bowl from the kitchen, emptying the snow into the kitchen sink as he goes along. It is slow and painstaking work. He shrugs his jacket off, having grown hot from the physical effort of the digging and when I complain that I’m getting colder, he comes over and puts it on me, gently slipping my arms into the armholes as if he were dressing a child.
The last of the firewood is gone and to get more, we’d need to access the woodshed to the side of the front door. It occurs to me that if Eirik hadn’t come to my rescue when he did, I would likely have died here, even though I made it back to the cabin. I wouldn’t have been able to dig my way out of a window, climb through, and make my way down to the car in shoulder-height snow – I can barely stand up. I shiver at the thought that if I hadn’t had the sense to message Eirik when I did, mentioning that I’d gone to Leah’s cabin, he wouldn’t have found me. I would have gone through all the firewood and when it was gone I may actually have frozen to death in my sleep. If that had happened, how long would it have taken for someone to find me? It could have been years. We’ve all read the stories here in Norway, of dead bodies found in the beds of abandoned and remote cabins.
What would my parents and Eirik and the police have concluded happened to me in the absence of a body? Would Anton perhaps have been investigated, considering I called the police expressing concern about him just before I came here? And what would have happened to my clients? Some of them may have experienced real shock and substantial setbacks at my sudden disappearance. Several tell me they live for our sessions; at least that’s how it feels for them, that our weekly hour is the one place they feel seen and heard.
‘Look, honey!’ shouts Eirik. I follow his pointed finger out the window where he has succeeded in making a narrow tunnel through the snow, at the top of which is a sliver of blue sky.
64
Elisabeth, August
‘Thank you for coming all the way out again this week.’ Elisabeth smiles at Kristina, who looks tired and a little pale, and pours two mugs of steaming black coffee from the thermos. They’re sitting on a blanket on the beach below Villa Vinternatt. The huge Color Line passenger ferry, bound for Kiel, fills the narrow sound between Drøbak and Hurumlandet, and many smaller leisure boats float languidly on the water. It’s a beautiful day, and Elisabeth is glad; it feels easier having this conversation out here rather than inside one of Villa Vinternatt’s austere common rooms.
‘That’s okay. It’s good to get out of the city for the afternoon.’
‘How have you been?’
‘Yeah, good. A little tired. This summer has been quite full-on. Eirik has worked nonstop and I’ve been keeping busy with the research paper I’m submitting in September. But, you know, I guess I would have liked to get away for a couple of weeks. We talked about going to Cannes, but then he had to work. What about you?’
‘I’m good. Better and better,’ says Elisabeth.
‘You look and sound good, sweetie.’ Kristina places a hand on Elisabeth’s and smiles at her. ‘The work you are doing for yourself will serve you for the rest of your life. So many people would have given up, but you’re a fighter.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Elisabeth looks out at the deep-blue water,
sunlight trapped on little wavelets.
‘Is everything okay, Elisabeth? You know I can speak to them if there is something you need that you’re not getting here. Are the therapy sessions working out okay? Is it just once a week? Maybe twice would be—’
‘I don’t need any more therapy.’ Elisabeth speaks more firmly than she intended and feels Kristina’s surprise at being cut off. ‘Sorry. Just that I’ve had a lot of it.’
‘Sure.’ Kristina takes a sip of coffee and her eyes follow Elisabeth’s out on the water. She waits for Elisabeth to speak and Elisabeth is envious of her ability to just sit in loaded silence.
‘I was wondering if we could speak about what happened. In Venezuela.’ Elisabeth speaks quickly, then wishes she hadn’t thrown it in there quite so bluntly. She glances quickly at Kristina, who looks as calm and composed as ever, but Elisabeth has known her all her life and can tell by the vein pulsating visibly on Kristina’s neck that she is agitated beneath the surface.
It’s no doubt a surprise to Kristina that Elisabeth has chosen to bring up the shooting. They haven’t spoken about it in over a decade; there didn’t seem like anything more to be said, and Kristina never recovered her full memory and made her peace with that. She moved on. Why would Elisabeth drag the terrible tragedy back out into the light, when it would change nothing? Trine was dead and gone forever. In the last few weeks, since the vernissage and since the meetings with Ella Victor, who has visited twice more, Elisabeth has begun to question her decision to not speak up about certain things. After all, she put an innocent man in prison, where he remains to this day. How is she supposed to carry that for the rest of her life? She is starting to wonder whether by keeping secrets, they are what eat away at her and stop her from being really free.
‘You know you can talk to me about whatever you want, Elisabeth.’ Kristina is looking straight at her now, and her brown eyes don’t flinch or give away even slight anxiety.