What the hell?
I lifted her arm tentatively and examined her hand. There appeared to be no wound of any kind.
I stood still for a moment and looked around.
Where could it have come from?
I went into her work area in the other room. And there, on the desk, lay the head of the cat. It had been torn from the body, sinews and threads of flesh protruded from the blood-soaked neck.
The eyes were wide open, bright yellow against the dark fur. They looked so alive.
Some sketches of the detached head lay in a small pile next to it.
Oh, Christ.
What’s happening to you, Tove?
I switched the light off, went over to the sofa to make sure she was still asleep, switched the light off there too and then went back outside to Egil who was standing with his hands in his pockets looking in the direction of the winking mast.
“She was inside,” I said.
“I thought she might be,” he said. “Was she asleep?”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I’m not going to wake her, that’s for sure. She hasn’t slept for days. Maybe she’ll be all right once she wakes up. Anyway, all we can do now is wait and see.”
“So you won’t be needing me anymore tonight?”
“No,” I said. “Or wait a minute. If it’s not too much to ask? Only there’s that badger?”
He nodded.
“It’s in the living room,” I said, going into the house with Egil behind me. I paused at the door and turned the key.
“How are we going to tackle this?” I said.
“Maybe just open the door and then move away?” he said. “It’ll find its own way out, I reckon.”
“What if it goes upstairs? The twins are up there.”
He laughed.
“A badger taking the stairs? You think so?”
“What do I know?” I said. “I’ll just pop up and make sure their door’s closed anyway. Won’t be a sec.”
Ingvild’s door was closed, I could see as I glanced down the corridor. And the boys’ was too, upstairs.
“OK,” I said to Egil. “Shall we let it out?”
The badger must have known we were there, for it was standing motionless, looking up at us as I opened the door.
It growled and bared its teeth.
“Oh, yes,” said Egil. “It seems to be in a bad mood. Let’s leave it alone and see what it does.”
We went back out into the hall.
“I’ll stay here until it’s gone,” said Egil. “How about a beer while we’re waiting? We can sit in the garden and keep an eye on it from there.”
“Good idea,” I said, and got two bottles from the fridge, taking them with me to the table outside where we positioned the chairs so we could see the door.
Had she killed the cat? And torn off its head?
I could hardly believe it.
But the head was there on the desk.
“Cheers, then,” Egil said, lifting his bottle to mine.
“Cheers,” I said. “And thanks for your help.”
We sat quietly for a bit. Beyond the pools of artificial light, the darkness of the August night lay thick over the land and everything around us was still.
The bridge of my nose throbbed with pain and it occurred to me that it must have been hurting the whole time, though I hadn’t sensed it until I sat down.
High above us shone the new star.
I sat looking at it for a while as Egil hummed softly to himself and examined his fingernails, as was his habit.
“Nice beer,” he said eventually. “What is it?”
“It’s from Nøgne Ø,” I said. “Good brew, but damn expensive.”
He nodded.
At the bottom of my field of vision I registered a movement and saw the badger poke its snout through the doorway.
“There he is,” said Egil.
“Shh,” I said.
It looked right and then left, then right again, as if it were a schoolkid about to cross a road. Then it emerged and shuffled off, hugging the outer wall only a few meters in front of us. Its low center of gravity made it look like a kind of trolley trundling along the path.
“It’s a splendid animal,” said Egil.
“Yes,” I said. “Strange that they exist here.”
“How do you mean?”
“They look like something out of a fairy tale. Or something exotic from a faraway land. It seems hard to grasp that they belong here.”
“What animals do you think belong here?”
“Dogs and cats. Cows and sheep.”
He looked at me with a grin on his face. As so often before, it felt like he knew something about me to which I myself was oblivious.
I gulped the rest of my beer and put the empty bottle down on the table.
“Fancy another?” I said.
“It won’t do any harm, I suppose,” he said.
“Actually, I might be promising more than I can deliver,” I said. “I’m not that sure I’ve got any more, come to think of it.”
I got to my feet and went inside, first to Ingvild’s room thinking I’d look in on her, only to change my mind when I realized that if she was still awake she’d only berate me for drinking again. The fact that it was only beer wouldn’t mean a thing to her. Instead, I went to the bathroom for a piss.
Christ.
The damn state of me.
My nose was swollen and bent, and crusted with blood. My eyes were red, and my hair was all over the place.
I took a cloth and wrung it out in some hot water, then dabbed gently at the congealed blood.
My piss, once I’d cleaned myself up, was dark yellow, brown almost. Probably the hot weather, I told myself. All my fluids had come out in sweat.
There was only one bottle left in the fridge, but there, at the back, behind two cartons of juice, was a can of Hansa.
“Cheers,” said Egil when I handed him the bottle.
“All quiet?” I said as I sat down.
He nodded.
“I’ll be making tracks after this. It’s been a long day. When are you off back anyway?”
“Day after tomorrow was the plan. It depends on how things stand with Tove now, though.”
“When does school start?”
“Wednesday.”
He nodded again, as if my kids’ school was something he cared about.
Could a psychosis make her do something like that?
I’d have to remember to get rid of the head before the kids woke up.
We sat for a bit without speaking. His face glistened slightly with perspiration in the dim light from the outdoor lamps. My skin too felt clammy, my thin shirt stuck to my chest and upper arms. I picked at the fabric and it barely lifted away.
“What was that book you mentioned? The Duisburg something-or-other?”
“Augsburg. Das Wunderzeichenbuch. The Book of Miracles.”
“Oh yes?”
“It’s a sort of illustrated catalog of all the miraculous signs and portents that have appeared in the world from the days of the Old Testament until the book was produced in 1552.”
“And you’ve got it?”
He laughed.
“I’m not that well off, I’m afraid. There’s only one copy. Fortunately, Taschen published a facsimile edition a couple of years ago.”
“And what about it?”
“In 1103, on the first Friday of Lent, a new star appeared in the sky, it says. It was visible for twenty-five days, always during the same interval. And in 1173 a new star was again recorded. That was during a solar eclipse, so it may not have been visible until then. On the other hand, it was much bigger than the other stars. And in December 1545 two new
stars appeared in the sky. They too were much bigger than all the other stars.”
“You’ve got a good memory for detail, I’ll give you that much,” I said.
“Not at all,” he said. “But I can remember the details because they’re so interesting. There are lots of other signs in the book too, of course. Blood rain, comets, birds falling out of the sky, earthquakes, solar eclipses, celestial swordsmen, you name it. A fish with a human face, a chicken with four legs.”
“Aha,” I said. “For a moment, I thought we were talking about some kind of scientific record of celestial phenomena. But it’s all just nonsense and superstition?”
“Is that star up there nonsense?”
“No,” I said. “But it’s not a sign from God either.”
He smiled.
“Since when were you an authority on God?”
“Come on,” I said. “You believe in miracles now too?”
“I don’t need to believe,” he said, and lifted his gaze toward the star. “It’s enough just to look.”
“So it’s a sign, is it?”
“Everything’s a sign. That tree over there. The leaves. Signs, everything.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“All right, then. Signs from what? Who’s contacting us?”
“The world is contacting us. The signs are from the world. From that which is.”
“You’re going to get my back up in a minute,” I said, patting my pockets in search of my cigarettes.
“On the table,” he said.
I picked up the packet, tapped one out and lit up.
“Let’s just move on, shall we?” I said.
“Fine by me,” he said. “It’s time I got going, anyway.”
“How long will it take you to walk home?”
He got to his feet and finished off what was left of his beer.
“Half an hour, maybe,” he said as he put the bottle down on the table.
At the same moment, a long-drawn-out squeal came from somewhere close by.
“What was that?” I said, glancing around.
There it was again.
“Sounded like it came from over there,” Egil said, nodding toward the shrubbery by the wall of the house, the foliage green and luminous in the light of the outdoor lamp above.
I got up and followed him over.
He drew the bush aside with his hand.
“Damn,” he said.
“What is it?”
“A dead cat. And that kitten you were looking for.”
He reached into the shrubbery, turned and straightened up with the kitten in his hands. It squeaked and squealed.
I bent forward and saw the cat lying there smeared with blood, its head missing.
“Must be the badger,” he said.
“Do you think so?” I said, drawing myself upright again. “Would a badger take a cat like that?”
“They can do, yes. Here, you’d better look after this poor thing.”
He handed me the squirming kitten.
It was warm and soft and terrified.
I held it to my chest in both hands as it struggled to get free.
“All right, then,” said Egil. “Catch you later.”
“Yeah, see you,” I said. “And thanks again.”
I stood for a minute as he went toward the drive.
He stopped and turned.
“What about tomorrow by the way?” he said. “Who’s going to look after the kids if you’ve got to take Tove to the hospital?”
“I’ll give my mother a ring,” I said. “You’ve been more than enough help for now!”
He lifted his hand by way of good-bye and a moment later was round the corner and gone.
“Poor thing,” I said, stroking my hand along the animal’s thin spine. My first thought was to take it into Ingvild’s room, she loved cats, but then I realized the explanation would have to involve some facts she probably wouldn’t appreciate being woken up for. And anyway, she’d had enough drama for one day.
“So you’ll have to stay with me,” I said as I went back into the house, stepped out of my shoes and went upstairs to the bedroom as quietly as I could, clutching the kitten to my chest.
I closed the door behind me and put the kitten down on the floor so I could get undressed. Immediately, it scurried away and hid under the bed.
In just my underpants I knelt down and tried to retrieve it, but it cowered out of reach and all I could do then was get into bed and go to sleep. I’d thought it could lie under the covers beside me where perhaps it would feel safe. Now it would have to lie on its own there on the floor, with its pounding heart and gleaming eyes, I thought to myself, or pictured in my mind—for thoughts come as both pictures and words, a bit like light, which comes as both particles and waves, one could imagine, as indeed I had, many times.
KATHRINE
The air shimmered above the sidewalk; the whole street seemed like it was swaying in the heat, the shadow sides of the buildings having taken on a dreamlike, stooping appearance against the sky that was so blue, the rays of sun that made everything they touched glitter and glow. The lawns surrounding Lille Lungegårdsvannet were packed with people. But inside the shopping center, so delightfully cool, there was hardly a soul. I went slowly down the rows of shelves in the pharmacy, taking various items I needed, toothpaste and new toothbrushes with pirate designs for Peter and Marie, two kinds of sugar-free chewing gum they liked, cotton buds and cotton wool balls, a deodorant and a packet of paracetamol, things I imagined would make the pregnancy test I’d come to buy less conspicuous. Still, I couldn’t help but glance around me when I took it from the shelf, as I did again when placing my items on the counter in front of the assistant.
She looked up at me before scanning them one by one.
Was it an inquiring look she gave me?
Did she know who I was?
Or was it simply because she thought me too old to get pregnant?
As I opened my bag to get my money out I noticed my phone light up, still muted after the seminar. I took it out and saw that it was Gaute. I hesitated a moment before declining the call and dropping the phone back into my bag.
I needed to get myself together first.
“Would you like a bag?” the assistant asked.
I shook my head.
“That’ll be 420, then, please,” she said without looking at me.
She was small and round, with fair hair and glasses that had thick black frames, and she wore the quasi-medical uniform in which all the pharmacy staff were clad, her large breasts making hers seem rather tight across the chest. She looked like the child-bearing type, someone who could give birth with ease. But that was just prejudice, I told myself as I held my card to the reader, for surely it wasn’t true that curvy women were more fertile than those of more slender form?
I put my items away in my bag and went back out onto the main concourse, taking the escalator up to the cafe on the top floor, which was quite deserted apart from an old man sitting at the window eating a piece of chocolate cake with trembling hands, shreds of coconut stuck to his lips, a pair of crutches leaned against the chair beside him.
I went to the ladies’ room and into the cubicle, texting Gaute first to say I’d call him back shortly, then I opened the test kit, hitched up my skirt and pulled down my pants, and sat down on the toilet.
How silly I felt, hysterical almost. What had got into me? I was forty-two years old and on the pill. How could I be pregnant? The nausea I’d been feeling could have any number of explanations. Was it some kind of unconscious autosuggestion?
But why would my subconscious want me to be pregnant?
The door opened and someone came in.
They rattled the handle of the cubicle. Couldn’t they see it was occupied?
>
I stood up and rearranged my clothing, put the test back in the packet unused, flushed the toilet and went out. A girl in her early twenties stood waiting, staring at the floor. There was something familiar about her face, but I was unable to place it. She did not acknowledge me in any way, but went straight into the cubicle, so clearly I was imagining things, I told myself as I washed my hands.
In the cafe, I bought a Diet Coke and sat down over by the window, at the table farthest away from the old man, almost drinking the whole glass in a single gulp, so much more thirsty than I’d realized. I then sat for a short while, looking out on the square below where people milled about and birds fluttered.
Was it perhaps a sign that I should stay? My subconscious telling me it understood my life with Gaute and the children to be good, doing what it had to in order to prevent me from removing myself from that life?
Anchoring me with another child.
I’d have been happy too. Another child would have been such a joy.
Only not with Gaute.
Could I turn things around?
A step sideways, and everything would be good.
Dear God, please let me take that step. Let life with Gaute fill me with happiness again.
The shadows outside were growing long. The cries of the gulls, so melancholy as they issued into emptiness, were faintly audible through the windows.
How strange the episode had been with the bird of prey the day before. I’d never heard of anything like it.
Why was the thought of it so unsettling?
It wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. It was a change in what was supposed to be unchanging.
The door of the ladies’ room opened and the girl came out. She glanced at me before descending the escalator. Now I remembered her. It was the girl from the reception desk at the hotel.
So I hadn’t gone completely senile.
I got my phone out and called Gaute.
“Hi,” I said. “You rang just before. I was in a meeting.”
“Yes,” he said. “I wanted to apologize, that’s all.”
“For what?”
“For my accusations yesterday. I don’t know what came over me. I’m very sorry about it.”
The Morning Star Page 32