by Karin Fossum
She pulled into the side of the road and stopped. Lit another cigarette and pondered a bit. It was almost midnight and she was tired. Perhaps she wouldn’t find it, perhaps her memory was playing tricks on her. It had been so long ago, over twenty-five years, they were just kids then. Maja had led the gang and the others had trotted along behind like sheep, Eva, Hanne, Ina and Else Gro. Old, green sleeping bags and tinned food. Cigarettes and lager. Maybe the old shop had been pulled down and they’d put up some huge shopping centre instead, she thought, or maybe they didn’t build shopping centres deep in the forest. She’d just have to drive on, she gave herself twenty minutes more and if she didn’t find it she’d have to turn back. Or she could spend the night in the car and carry on looking when it got light. But the notion of sleeping on the back seat wasn’t very appealing, this was pure wilderness, she didn’t know if she dared. She put the car in gear and moved out on to the road again, extinguishing her cigarette in the ashtray which was now full to overflowing. She took another look at the time and accelerated. She seemed to recall that the road had crossed a bridge, there’d been sheep and goats there, then they’d zigzagged upwards driving round hairpin bends. In the winter they cleared the road only as far as the tourist hostel, and Maja had to do the final bit on skis. But luckily there was no snow yet, or perhaps there was higher up, perhaps she’d have to wade through it on the final stretch, she hadn’t considered that. Eva wasn’t exactly the outdoors type, but now she felt ridiculous. She lit yet another cigarette, they were making her feel thoroughly queasy by this time, and peered into the gloomy forest searching for light. She turned up the heater. The air was different up here, sharper. It was so damned far! Elmer was probably in bed now, nightmares lurking, or perhaps he sat alone in his living room with his third whisky, his wife long since gone to bed, sleeping the sleep of the innocent under the duvet. It couldn’t be easy lying there with the image of Maja in his head, the feeling of those legs kicking under him as he pushed her into the mattress with the pillow, she must have put up a fight. Maja was strong, but men were so much stronger, it never ceased to amaze her. They didn’t even need to be particularly big, it was as if they were made of totally different stuff. Suddenly she braked. There was a light in the distance, on the left. Soon she saw the familiar orange sign of the Co-op.
The Co-op. And there was the road and the bridge. She flipped the indicator arm, lurched across the bridge and drove carefully up the mountainside in second gear. Her pulse began to race again, and she saw the cabin in her mind’s eye, a small dark wedge, simple and modest, with its totally improbable treasure, a pure fairy tale, the key to an untroubled life. Maja should have seen her now, she would have approved, the way she liked people who helped themselves to the good things in life. At any rate she wouldn’t have wanted the money to go to the state. Two million – how much interest would that be at six or seven per cent? No, she couldn’t use a bank. She bit her lip, she’d have to keep it in the cellar. Nobody must know about it, not Emma, not anyone. And she mustn’t throw money around or talk in her sleep or get drunk. In fact, she reflected, life would become rather complicated. The Ascona crept on upwards, Eva didn’t meet a single car, it was as if she were on a different planet, completely uninhabited, even the sheep were absent. It was probably too cold, Eva didn’t know much about such things. Fifteen minutes later she passed the tourist hostel on the right. She drove on, with the lake on her right now, and searched for a turning that would take her down to the shore. There was no snow, but up here it was lighter, the sky was so big. On her left was a large cabin, with a light in one window. It gave her a bit of a start. If there were people up here she’d have to watch out. The people with mountain cabins – Oslo types who’d had cabins up here for generations – would probably keep in touch with one another. Yes, we saw a car pass by here yesterday evening, well it would be about midnight. We didn’t recognise the sound of the engine, Amundsen drives a Volvo and Bertrandsen has a diesel Merc. It must have been a stranger, we’re sure of that.
Eva drove on round the bend, following the lake all the time. It was so calm it was like glass and glowed with an almost metallic glint, as if it were covered with ice. She caught sight of a small shed by the waterside and assumed there’d be a track leading to it. It was awfully bumpy. She crept down it, staring about her all the time, but she couldn’t see lights anywhere else. She didn’t stop until she was right by the water’s edge. It was possible to drive round the shed and park behind it. So she did. She switched off the ignition and headlights, and for a few seconds she sat still in the pitch blackness.
She was just about to slam the door, when she changed her mind. The sound of a car door would reverberate like a gunshot in this silence. Instead, she pushed it gently to, didn’t bother to lock up, and put the keys in her pocket. Then she lifted the daysack on to her back, the sack that contained the hammer and chisel and torch, did up her zip and tightened the hood round her face. She couldn’t remember just how long it took to walk from here, but thought it was about fifteen to twenty minutes. It was freezing now, the cold stung her cheeks as she walked with head bent, up the potholed track and then strode out along the road. She hoped she would recognise the cabin when she saw it. There was a stream behind it where they’d brushed their teeth and got water for coffee. The mountains reared up in every direction. They’d climbed the biggest, Johovda; she’d looked out across the Hardanger Plateau and felt so very small, but it was a good feeling, the feeling that most things in the world were bigger than herself. She liked it. Funny, she thought suddenly, as she walked on alone in the dark, we all know we’re going to die, and yet we live as hard as we can. She found the thought strangely moving.
She rounded a bend and saw some cabins in the distance. There were several, four or five, but no lights in any of them. This caused her to increase her pace a bit. Could it be there? Hadn’t it stood alone by its stream, or was her memory playing tricks? No, the others had probably been built since then, but it made no difference provided they were unlit, and she couldn’t see any parked cars. They were so oddly arranged, almost like emergency rations dropped from a plane, spread out as if at random. From here they all looked black, but she approached the first and thought it was brown, the windows were white. A set of antlers splayed under the gable. She stared at the one on the left, it lay closer to the stream, but it wasn’t red. This meant nothing, it could have been painted. She walked more slowly, there was a wooden sign hanging on one of the walls, it looked new, and even though she couldn’t remember what the cabin had been called before, she was certain now. This was Maja’s cabin. It proclaimed itself to be ‘Hilton’.
She went round the back. The stream cut into the heather, more deeply than she recalled, but she recognised the boulders they’d sat on and the small path like a pale snake up to the entrance. She’d arrived. She was alone. Nobody knew a thing and the night was long. I’ll find that money, she thought, even if I have to claw my way through the floorboards to get it!
She didn’t dare use the torch. She examined the windows with the little night vision she had, they looked pretty rotten. Especially the kitchen window. But it was rather high up, she needed something to stand on. She walked round the cabin again, found a small wood store and a chopping block. The block was heavy, almost impossible to move, but it would make a good platform, sturdy and smooth. She got a firm grip of it and tried to roll it. It worked. She took off the daysack and pushed and up-ended the great slab round the corner and over to the kitchen window. Then she fetched the sack, took out the chisel and got up on the block. Just as she was standing there in the autumn darkness with the chisel in her hand and her heart thumping at the sheer notion of the money, almost all her breath was sucked out of her. She hardly recognised herself. This wasn’t her cabin, her money. She jumped down, pressed her hands to her chest for a few moments and drew the ice-cold air into her lungs. Johovda was suddenly pointing heavenwards so threateningly, as if to warn her. She could scuttle back home a
gain, with her morality largely intact, apart from the sixty thousand she’d already taken, but then she hadn’t been herself, she’d been almost out of control, so that could be forgiven. This was quite different. This was pure theft, exploitation of Maja’s death. The thumping gradually subsided. She stepped up again. A little hesitantly she pushed the chisel into a gap between the window and the frame. The wood was as soft as putty, the chisel dug in deeply. When she let go, it remained there. She jumped down, found the hammer and carefully tapped the big chisel even further in. Then she let the hammer fall and levered the chisel to the side. The whole lot gave. She heard splintering wood, and the catch on the inside snap with a small bang. The window jumped out ten or fifteen centimetres and hung loosely on its top hinges. Eva looked about, picked up the daysack and opened the window fully. It was blacked out with a thick curtain. She shoved the sack through and dropped the tools in after it. She pushed her head in, stretched her arms across and tried to haul herself after. The chopping block could have done with being a bit higher, she’d have to do a little hop. The window was very narrow. She bent her knees slightly and gave a jump, lay across the opening with her head and arms inside and her legs outside. The window scraped at her back. The kitchen was in total darkness, but she could feel the work surface beneath her hands, so she wriggled carefully across the edge, hooked her foot round the window frame and slid to the floor. She brought pots and pans clattering and crashing down from every direction, and her chin banged on the floor. For an instant she lay there floundering, partially tangled up in a rug. Then she sat up and gasped for breath. She was inside.
All the windows were thoroughly blacked out. There was no chance that light could seep out. She switched on her torch.
It sent a bright white beam straight into the fireplace. She moved to the middle of the floor and tried to get her bearings. The sofa was covered with a checked travelling rug, Maja had once sat there relating all her adventures, and there’d been many of them. Even though they were no more than thirteen at the time. And they’d gawped at her, with a mixture of trepidation and awe. Some had lowered their eyes. Ina pursed her lips and didn’t want to hear more, she was a committed Christian.
A troll with a warty nose and a spruce tree in its hand stood in the fireplace. A witch doll was hanging from the ceiling; it glowered down at her with shiny button eyes. She saw the dining table, a small corner cabinet high up on the wall, a dresser displaying cups and plates. A chest of drawers, probably containing mittens and woolly hats. Two diminutive bedrooms, with their doors open. The little kitchen with drawers and cupboards. The iron ring in the floor and the trapdoor she’d have to open to get into the cellar. An excellent hiding place, dark and cold. Or the shed with all its tools, and the outside loo which had been incorporated into the cabin. They just had to pass through the lobby first, they’d gone in twos, petrified and hysterical because Maja had been reading them some blood-curdling real-life murders. They went with shoulders hunched and the paraffin lamp quivering. And there was the gas stove. ‘Now, don’t go blowing the hut to bits!’ were her father’s parting words as he went back to his van. There were two large bookshelves above the sofa, lots of paperbacks and some cartoon series. Maja had brought several issues of Cocktail with her, she remembered, they read aloud to each other, but only after Ina had gone to bed.
Eva felt cold. There was no point just sitting there in a daze, she had to make a plan. Try to put herself in Maja’s place, work out what had gone through her mind as she’d stood there with her money in her hands and wanted to make sure no one would find it. She had lots of imagination and could have come up with something quite improbable. Eva immediately thought of the earth closet. That the cache was submerged in the night soil. Or, good God … could it be buried outside amongst the heather? She got up, trying to hold the panic at bay. Time was limited, she had to get away before it was light. Elimination, she thought, forget about the places where the money certainly wasn’t. The obvious places. Like the desk, the corner cupboard and the chest of drawers. Search systematically and calmly, she imagined it might be in plastic bags or envelopes secured by rubber bands, protected from the damp. The first bedroom contained a chest of drawers. She rejected that too, and concentrated on the more unusual possibilities. First the cellar, it was the least pleasant place, after all. She got hold of the iron ring and raised the trapdoor. A black hole yawned at her, and an icy draught arose from the darkness. Perhaps there were rats down there. The trapdoor could be hooked open and she climbed down with the torch in her hand. It was impossible to stand upright, so she crouched on her haunches and directed her light at the shelves, at jam jars and pickled cucumbers, red and white wine, port, sherry and more jam jars. A cake tin with pictures of Snow White and Cinderella. She shook it and heard the small cakes inside leap and dance with fear. Frozen potatoes with long chits, cans, which she lifted – they were heavy and intact. Some bottles of beer and more of wine. Maja never managed to empty her cabin for the winter. The beam of light played over the uneven stone floor; there was the smell of rot and decay, but otherwise it was completely bare. Finally, she seated herself on the bottom step and shone her torch right over the tiny room once more, slowly and carefully. No cartons or crates by the stone walls and no cavities in them. Was it possible to roll notes up and push them into empty wine bottles? No, for goodness’ sake, she rose and climbed back up again, replaced the trapdoor carefully and began opening the kitchen cabinets. The ones that contained crockery and glass she closed again immediately, but cupboards with saucepans were examined more thoroughly, she lifted them off one another, looked into them, shone her torch into the back of the compartment. Nothing. She peered into the oven, moved into the living room and looked under the sofa. Inside the books on the shelves perhaps, it would be a bit of a job if she had to open each one individually, but obviously she hadn’t put the money there either, but it might be in the fireplace, perhaps a little way up the chimney. She put one foot into the grate and pointed the torch upwards. Nothing. Then she thought of the settle bed by the dining table. They usually contained storage space, and this turned out to be the case here, too. Inside were slippers and old ski boots, thick sweaters, an aged anorak and a couple of rugs. And then she caught sight of an old radio, and had the idea that maybe Maja had opened it, taken the insides out and hidden the money there, but she doubted that Maja had the technical ability for such an operation.
The bread bin, she thought suddenly, on the kitchen work surface. Or the tureen on top of the corner cupboard. Inside the wall clock perhaps? What about the old rucksack hanging on a nail – that’s where it is, she thought, and pulled it down. Empty. Eva illuminated her watch, which showed almost one o’clock. Then she went into the bedrooms, removed the bedclothes and mattresses, took a quick look through the chests of drawers anyway and two narrow wardrobes which contained windcheaters and down jackets. An old salt tub was full of scarves and thick woollen socks. Back to the kitchen again where she opened all the small china jars, which were filled with exactly what their labels proclaimed: salt, flour, pearl barley and coffee. Out to the lobby where she fumbled behind a small curtain beneath a bench, but found nothing other than a washing basket, a brush and a sticky bottle of disinfectant.
There remained the extension. The workshop, the tool shed, the earth closet. The door creaked ominously as she opened it, and the room was windowless. The floor sagged slightly. Eva could hear her starchy windcheater crackling in the silence. A large workbench stretched along the room. There was a tool-board on the wall, and someone had drawn round each individual item with a pencil, so that it was easy to replace after use. Another chopping block. Old garden furniture, an old mouse-nibbled foam rubber mattress, skis and ski poles. Snow shovel. She didn’t know where to begin. Unless to try the earth closet first and shine the torch down there. She crossed to it and opened the door. The toilet was tiny, but it had two seats, and it was a long way to the soil beneath. Both holes were covered with squares of polystyren
e and there wasn’t much of a smell inside, it probably hadn’t been used for a long time, and it was cold. A picture of Crown Prince Haakon wearing a blue v-necked jumper graced the wall. His teeth shone chalky white in the darkness. Did he realise, she wondered, that people hung his picture in their loos? There was a piece of rug on the floor. Eva pushed off one polystyrene square and bent over. She tried to hold her breath as she looked round the underside in case it was taped in position. She could see nothing. She removed the other square and shone her torch there too, the dark mass down below was indistinct, but she could make out individual bits of white paper. She imagined how millions might lie at the bottom of that heap, in a metal box, for example. That would have been a job.
She stood up again and breathed out. Perhaps she should prod the mass with a ski pole or something, there were several pairs by the workbench. Some really old ones with tattered rings, others of fibreglass with little white plastic discs on the bottom. Then all at once she felt silly, realised that of course the money wasn’t buried in the ordure, there were limits. For a moment she stood indecisively looking about. An old, flecked plastic bucket stood beneath the workbench with a couple of bottles of turpentine – and a tin of paint. It was a large tin, maybe ten litres. She stole over to it, crouched down and read: Protective Wood Stain, Mahogany. Shook it and heard something flop about inside the tin. She put her nails under the lid and tried to prise it off, but it wouldn’t budge. She found a screwdriver on the board above the workbench, forced it under the rim and eased it up. The tin was full of flat packets. Packets covered with aluminium foil, they resembled ordinary packets of sandwiches. She gasped and stuck the torch under her chin, picked up one of the packets and began to tear off the foil. A wad of notes. She’d found it!