by Jo Nesbo
I swallowed. Looked at him, the way one poker player looks at another who has gone all in. Was he bluffing? I couldn’t quite believe that Daniel Egger, one of the city’s most prominent and respected citizens, a real pillar of society, was threatening me with criminal methods that might have come from a Mafia boss. On the other hand, he had been an officer during the war, and isn’t that exactly what gives society’s alpha males and females their positions? That they’re willing to go further than others.
I nodded in resignation, took a sheet of paper from my desk drawer and began to write.
It took me almost four minutes to write down the formula using the chemical codes in which the world is boiled down to elements, molecular connections, pressure and temperature.
I handed him the sheet of paper.
His eyes scanned the symbols.
‘The Holy Writ,’ he said. ‘But what’s this?’ He pointed to the title, a symbol like a T with a loop above it.
‘The hieroglyph Ankh,’ I said. ‘The symbol for eternal life in ancient Egypt.’
‘Elegant,’ he said, as he folded the sheet of paper with infinite care and placed it in the inside pocket of his tweed jacket.
I watched him as he disappeared down the corridor. He was swinging his stick, and it made a cheerful clicking sound each time it hit the parquet floor. Like the second hand on a clock.
The countdown had started.
* * *
—
I didn’t know how long it would take Egger to find out I had tricked him. Not even the researchers on my own team would be able to dismiss what I had written on Egger’s sheet of paper as nonsense, since their knowledge was only partial. But given time, they would of course put two and two together and discover that the formula on the page did not add up to four.
It took me a week to find somewhere to hide Klara.
As a young medical student I had once, along with some other students, been shown round a mental hospital. It was a place in which the associations with hell could only have been matched by the nightmares and hallucinations of the inmates who lived there. The dark corridors reeked of sterilising fluids and excrement, and from behind locked doors came heart-rending shrieks and groans. Looking in through the food-delivery slots I saw pale faces, empty and terrified, gazing as though hypnotised into the darkness and confusion of their own souls. The person who showed us round, realising from our horrified expressions what we were feeling and thinking, told us that things hadn’t always been this way, and that prior to the Last War the state had had the money and the technology to give the mentally ill a more dignified life.
The place I found for Klara seemed to offer just that. Dignity.
It called itself a convalescent home and was located on a hillside overlooking the sea. Clean, pure mountain air, spacious grounds, large, airy rooms, two nurses to each patient, and daily conversations with a psychiatrist. And – what was even more important – it was in the area formerly called Switzerland and had preserved a form of autonomy that gave it certain privileges. For example, the privileges of discretion, which meant they did not have to report the identities of their patients to the authorities or anyone else. Naturally, it was a service designed for the elite. And the elite were the only ones able to afford the price.
Even using all my savings I would not have been able to afford to keep Klara there for long. Then I thought of our house in Rainerstrasse. It had been in the family for generations, and Klara and I simply adored it. But it was large, and could and indeed should have been home to a family with children. Two rooms and a kitchen were all Klara and I needed. And each other.
‘Now let me show you the gym,’ the female superintendent continued.
‘Thank you, Fru Tsjekhov, but I have seen enough,’ I said. ‘Let’s get the papers signed and I’ll bring her in tomorrow.’
* * *
—
The desert wind whispers a secret, a formula out there. The way Klara now and then could lean into me and whisper forbidden words, words meant for my ears alone, a formula of her own that opened up the gates and made the nitric oxide and norepinephrine start to flare inside me. That for a moment gave eternal life. I don’t want to think about those other words of hers, the hate-filled ones she hurled at me when I came to fetch her. But I must. I must think of her rage, how she spat at me, scraped at the wallpaper with her fingernails and screamed that she had to get out, her eyes rolling wildly. Think how I finally managed to get enough sedatives down her to get her into the car. But also think of her peaceful face as she slept in the back seat while I drove through the night. The car began to overheat on the winding, uphill road leading to the home, but we made it. When I left Klara stood on the steps in front of the home, a nurse at each side ready to restrain her. But Klara didn’t move. Her arms dangled by her sides. Big, heavy teardrops rolled from her eyes as she whispered my name, over and over again – I kept hearing it all the way back. Twice I was on the point of turning round and driving back to fetch her.
I need to think of all this. Think it so that it can be deleted from my brain, so there are no memory traces left to lead them to where Klara is. And I need to think it quickly, with no unnecessary digressions, complete in every respect, so that everything, absolutely everything, will be gone. Because my watch is ticking louder and louder now. Tick-tock. Daniel Egger’s walking stick is getting closer. So I need to think about the visit.
The Visit
Late one evening, two weeks after I had driven Klara to Switzerland, there was a ring on my doorbell. Already it had been a bad day. Fru Tsjekhov had telephoned and explained that their own doctors wanted to stop administering the medicine that I, as Klara’s doctor, had left them, with instructions that it be administered by injection every evening. I had explained that it was to counter Werner syndrome, but now they were of the opinion that it was in fact these injections that were the cause of her psychotic episodes, and that if they didn’t stop dosing her with what was, for them, an unknown medication, then there was a real danger she would descend into a life of full-blown schizophrenia.
The endless acid rain poured down, etching itself into the roof tiles, eating up our house inch by inch. I had put the place on the market – there was even a board out on the lawn – and my first thought, as I heard the doorbell ring through the sound of the drumming rain, was that it must be a potential buyer. That Daniel Egger could not possibly have had time to work out that the formula I had given him was not genuine.
But when I opened the door slightly and saw Bernard Johansson standing there I realised that this was not, in fact, impossible.
‘Well?’ he said, rain dripping from his smooth and strangely egg-shaped skull. ‘Aren’t you going to let me in?’
I opened the door and he stepped inside, took off his coat, shook it lightly and I watched the drops fall onto the Turkish rug Klara had bought when we were in Budapest. We sat in the living room, he on the sofa where Klara and I used to sit.
‘So, how can I help you?’ I asked.
Johansson laughed. ‘Christ, that sounds awfully formal, Ralph.’
‘Maybe, but let’s get to the point, shall we?’
He sat up straight. We could, of course, pretend that it was the most natural thing in the world for him to drop in just like that of a Friday evening, but given that neither this nor anything else remotely resembling social intercourse had ever taken place between us in the fifteen years during which we had worked together, I could see just two possible reasons for his visit. One was that he – the only person on the planet who in under three weeks could have realised the formula was faked – wanted to warn me. The other was that he wanted to exploit it.
Naturally, it was the latter.
‘I have a business proposition that could make us both rich.’ His smile was strained, as though his discomfort was as acute as mine.
He explained to me that
when Egger had come to him with the formula I had written down, he had initially – based on his almost complete knowledge of our research – been convinced that it had to be genuine and had told Egger so.
‘But as I continued to work on this so-called formula, I began to realise that you had done what any good liar would do and kept as close as possible to the truth. The omitted elements, however, are so crucial to its success that only someone with my knowledge of the material would be able to fill in the blanks or correct the deliberate mistakes.’
‘With all due respect I doubt it, Johansson.’ I did not, however, see any reason to deny that the formula was defective. Chemistry is chemistry, after all, and Johansson was no idiot.
He nodded slowly. ‘If I were to travel to Shanghai and offer an almost complete version of the formula to Indochina, they would not only give me unlimited resources and the best research team in the world, they would also pay me a fortune to solve the puzzle for them.’
‘But you can’t be certain you will succeed.’
‘Give us time and sooner or later we will.’ He sipped his tea. ‘With you aboard things will move much quicker, and they will pay more. So what I’m offering you is a partnership. We split fifty–fifty.’
I had to laugh. ‘Has it not occurred to you that if I wanted to get rich I would have done as you suggest, only gone it alone?’
‘Yes,’ said Johansson. ‘And for that reason I know that temptation is not enough. I need threats as well.’ His tone of voice was regretful, his expression hangdog.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘If you decide to reject my offer then, first of all, I will sell the project to Indochina. They will then make public what they are working on in order to stimulate the stock market, so that by an emission they can raise enough capital to fund the project. And once it is made public, I shall inform the board of Antoil Med that it is you who have sold the formula. And unlike you, who has shown no inclination to cooperate, I will be believed. Egger’s response will be…’ Johansson took another sip of his tea. Not just for effect – I think he actually enjoyed being as brutal as the situation demanded. He put down the cup as though he no longer liked the taste. ‘…quick, and not necessarily painless,’ he concluded.
‘You’ve thought it through thoroughly, Johansson. But there’s one thing you’ve forgotten. Suppose I’m not afraid to die? Or more accurately: what if Ankh is as important for mankind as the splitting of plutonium was a hundred and fifty years ago, offering the chance to make a better world, but also the possibility of destroying it overnight? There isn’t enough dreyran in the soil or the atmosphere to produce enough Ankh for everyone. So who is to decide who shall have eternal life? Who could accept not being among those chosen? With a population that dies only as a result of accident, suicide or murder, draconian legislation will be required forbidding the birth of children if the earth is not to be over-populated in the course of a single generation. And who is to decide who should enjoy the privilege of procreation, and who not? In short, if Ankh is not administered by a global authority then it will be not merely be confederation against confederation but every man for himself, the war of all against all in which neighbours and families turn on one another. My death is just a drop of blood in the ocean. But if I release the formula it’s an ocean of blood. So go ahead, Johansson.’
He nodded as though all this had already occurred to him. Or at least thought that it must have occurred to me. ‘Ralph, for as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been a utilitarian. And of course it’s a noble idea, that the individual should sacrifice himself for the greater good, as they say in the Western Confederation. That’s why I’ve always admired not just your intelligence but also your character and your ability to love others besides yourself. Where is Klara, by the way?’
I didn’t answer, showed absolutely nothing.
‘I see,’ he said quietly. ‘They will find her. And they will find the formula. They will use Exor on you. They will vacuum your brain.’
‘Nonsense,’ I said.
‘Is it?’
All that could be heard in the room for the next few seconds was the rain beating onto the permanently brown lawn out there. Exor was controlled by the army. It was rumoured to be in a bunker where the Louvre had once stood, guarded by an entire squad. That it didn’t need a whole brain to extract memories but that, using only microscopic fragments, it could interpolate its way to the whole memory bank. On the other hand this could take well over a year and cost the same as it cost to provide a big city with energy over the same period of time. Nevertheless, as was also usually the case in matters of technical research, Johansson was right. Offered the chance of a medicine that could give the generals eternal life, of course they would use Exor.
My brain approached the problem in the way prescribed by Descartes, using first intuition and then deduction. The conclusion that emerged was disheartening, but therefore also – strange as it may sound – liberating. Because there was so obviously only one solution there was no need to torment my brain with doubts, deliberations and procrastination.
‘You know, in former times hunters used to bring trophies home with them from Africa,’ I said as I stood up. ‘They used to mount the heads of rhinoceroses, zebras, lions and antelopes up here,’ I said, pointing to the wall above the fireplace. ‘But since there are no longer any large mammals left in Africa, this is what I took instead.’
I lifted down the heavy old elephant gun I had bought in a bazaar in Marrakesh. ‘The seller claimed that it was used to kill the last elephant in Africa. And I liked the irony of having a rifle above the fireplace instead of a lion’s head. A dead rifle that no longer has any function, that has been overcome and now hangs on the wall, an object of general ridicule. We all die, but what if, before that, we are able to do something that is useful for the whole flock, for the community? Yes, I probably am a utilitarian. I really do believe that we have a duty to carry out any act that benefits rather than harms mankind, whether we want to or not.’
I pulled on the breech. The rusty mechanism obeyed with a grating reluctance. I stared into the barrel.
‘Ralph,’ said Johansson, his voice uneasy. ‘Don’t be stupid, shooting yourself won’t help. You might mean it to be a utilitarian act, but Exor can extract data from your brain long after you’re dead.’
‘What I was trying to say,’ I went on, ‘is that the correct moral action does not necessarily need to be morally motivated. This action, for example, is primarily motivated by my egotism, my love for my wife, and my hatred of you.’ I turned the rifle on Bernard Johansson, aimed at his head and fired. The report was loud, but the hole left in Johansson’s forehead surprisingly small considering the heavy calibre of the bullet.
‘And yet it is, from a utilitarian perspective, correct,’ I said, walking round the body and registering the fact that Klara’s sofa would never be quite the same again.
* * *
—
It’s been a long journey back to the Spanish Sahara. For several days now I’ve been hearing the low, crackling sound of the larvae’s hungry chomping, not knowing whether it came from the suitcase or from my own head. But then it fell silent, the way a coffee pot does just before the water begins to boil. Then a low rumbling. Rising and rising. And now finally it’s boiling, Klara, my beloved. I hear voices and heavy, shuffling footsteps on the staircase. They aren’t afraid of me, they know they have all the superiority they need, but not all the time. None of us has that. From the moment we’re born we start to die.
These are the last thoughts, they’re about the letter. About the mice. About Anton. About the decision. And so, Klara, I have to leave you.
The Decision
Waking in the bed Klara and I had shared as the day broke, my first thought was that it had all been a nightmare.
But Klara was gone, and the body of Bernard Johansson lay on the sofa in the living room.
<
br /> I had thought about it all night and slowly begun to realise that getting rid of a body is a very difficult thing to do. That in preparation for obvious solutions such as dumping the body in the sea, or burying it in a wood, there are any number of practical logistical problems which can seem almost trivial but which, taken together, impose a dauntingly high risk of being caught.
What bothered me most was not being convicted of murder, but the thought that, lacking my brain, they could use Exor on Johansson’s. Because even though that wouldn’t give them the whole formula it would get them so close that – as he had correctly pointed out – sooner or later they would find the solution.
I looked at the clock. There was every reason to suppose that Johansson – who was, in most respects, a completely typical young researcher – had kept his criminal plans and his visit to me secret, so it would probably be a while before they started looking for him.
I dragged the body into the bathroom, hauled it up into the bathtub and covered it with the Turkish rug.
Then I headed off to work.
* * *
—
I sat in my office staring at the keyboard of my typewriter. Newspapers lay next to it, the headlines all about the planned meeting between the four confederations at Yalta. Of course the thought had occurred to me. I had dismissed it, thought it again, dismissed it. And now thought it yet again. I had even put paper in the typewriter and was ready. Because Egger had been right. It really is second nature for a researcher to want to share his knowledge. And if Ankh was to benefit all mankind then it could only happen one way: if everybody, absolutely everybody, was given the formula at the same time, so that no one could exploit the knowledge to further their own power. Of course, there might still be war over access to resources such as dreyran, but if I were to give the world leaders the formula while they were gathered at Yalta, and they realised that the only alternative to chaos and violence was if they reached an agreement, passed laws and ensured a fair distribution of resources, then it still might end well.