The Body in the Fjord ff-8

by Katherine Hall Page

  Pix awoke with a start. She had no idea where she was. The steady drone of the jet engines brought her back to reality. Reality? What was that? She was on her way to Norway to join a tour group because her mother’s best friend was certain the key to her granddaughter’s disappearance and the death of her fiancé lay hidden somewhere among the camera-laden, sensibly shod, indefatigable tourists Kari had been shepherding. And if Marit Hansen believed something was true, there was no arguing. The only one Pix knew more stubborn than Marit was Ursula.

  “Why don’t you go out and find Marit and I’ll wait for the suitcases,” Pix suggested. Her mother had taken her cane out again. All the better to pass through customs, although a silver-haired grandmother, especially one who had not been to South America several times in the last month, would merit no more than a smiling, passing glance from the Norwegian passport control. It was, Pix reflected, the perfect cover. She also gave a thought to why her mother was posing as an old lady again. What did she have in her hefty purse?

  Captain Magnusson had been a man of his word and they were only a half hour late. It was eleven o’clock in the morning, June twelfth. June eleventh had been swallowed up by various airports and the time change. Pix felt only slightly fatigued, but she wished she could tap into Ursula’s energy source. Kelp pills? Ursula swore by them and all the vitamins she took.

  The two bags appeared, carry-ons that SAS had still insisted be checked, much to Ursula’s annoyance. “The whole notion of traveling light is to avoid having to check your luggage. Why can’t they understand this? Scandinavians are usually so sensible.’’ Pix pointed out that, judging from the name tags sported by the personnel at Newark Airport, it appeared no one working for SAS had been born anywhere near the Land of the Midnight Sun and let it go at that.

  Quickly passing through customs, blushing with guilt at the thought of her hair spray, gloves, and other paraphernalia, Pix pushed open the heavy door leading to Fornebu Airport’s main waiting room and was immediately embraced by Marit. Like most Norwegian women, she was well groomed, her bright white hair waving softly back from her tan face. In the winter, the color was from ski trips; now it was from the beach or the park. She was wearing a navy knitted suit and what Pix always called “the Norwegian Ladies Club necklace”—a heavy chain of gold they wore with everything from ball gowns to bathing suits. She was smiling as she greeted Pix. Pix was not surprised. Norwegians as a whole were not given to letting it all hang out. Erik was dead and Kari was missing—wanted by the police to aid them in their inquiries, as it was delicately put—but you’d never be able to tell from Marit’s demeanor. A Norwegian’s entire family could have been wiped out by a giant meteorite and the first thing he or she would say to a visitor would be, “You must be hungry. How about some coffee and a little cake?” And Marit was doing it now.

  “You are so good to come. How was the trip? Are you very tired? Or hungry? And where is Ursula? Surely she has not been stopped by customs.”

  “Isn’t she with you?” Pix looked wildly about the waiting room. It wasn’t very big. “She came out ahead while I waited for the bags.”

  “Now, now, don’t worry. There’re not so many places she could go. We’ll have her paged.”

  Pix had lost her children any number of times, ranging from agitated seconds in the aisles of Aleford’s Stop ’n Save to full terror at the Burlington Mall for five minutes before Danny emerged from beneath a sale rack at Filene’s. But she had never lost her mother.

  Marit was speaking to a friendly-looking woman at the SAS information counter. “Yes, of course we have Mrs. Rowe. She’s having some coffee and a little cake with us in the back room. She didn’t see you and we thought she’d be more comfortable here.”

  It was the first time Pix had heard Norwegian English in a long time and her ear welcomed the slightly singsong, lilting sound—some of the sentences ending on a questioning note—“Of course we have Mrs. Rowe?”—certain words punctuated by a quick intake of breath for emphasis, almost always with ja or nei. Marit had spoken this way, too, but Pix had been too busy scanning Fornebu for some sign of Ursula to appreciate it. She remembered with a sharp stab what her children had called “Norwegian teen-speak,” Kari’s frequent addition of a giggle or outright laughter at the end of a remark.

  Marit had tucked Ursula’s arm through hers and was leading the way out of the airport. She was making determined small talk—about the flight, about the plans to move the airport from Oslo’s center to Gardermoen, north of the city. “We all love Fornebu. It’s so convenient, except it really is too small. You know, we used to call it a ‘cafeteria with a landing strip,’ and it has gotten much bigger, but still the new one will be better. It will be nice to be on the fjord and not see the jumbo jets.” So far, nothing had been said about Kari or Erik.

  Pix followed, carrying the bags. She blinked in the bright daylight. Like the airport, the very air seemed scrubbed clean. And the cars—they all looked like new, no dents, no grime. Marit opened hers with an automatic key, apologizing. “It came with it and now I’m so used to it.” Another national trait: no bragging, no self-aggrandizement. The opposite, in fact. During the Olympics, there had been a concerted campaign to get the Norwegians to root actively for their own athletes, passionately as they might feel inside. They had to be reassured that it was quite acceptable and the world wouldn’t think they were a nation of show-offs. Showing off—a Lutheran sin, right up there with adultery, lying, and murder. There was even a Norwegian word for it, jantelaw, which roughly translates as “Now, don’t go thinking you’re better than anyone else.”

  It was a short ride to Marit’s apartment. When Marit’s husband, Hans, died, she and Kari, who was a young teenager, had moved to the capital city, using the house in Tønsberg for weekends and during the summer.

  Even in the car, Marit avoided the topic on everyone’s mind, but the moment they entered the apartment, it was the time and place. She firmly shut the door, announcing, “You have to get the two-fifty-five train to Voss to meet the tour, and we have a lot to talk about. You will need to take a little rest, too, Ursula?”

  Her friend shook her head. “I’m not at all tired, and besides, it’s a long train ride and I can rest then. Why don’t you tell us everything that’s happened since we spoke? Has there been any more news?”

  Marit led the way into the living room. The apartment wasn’t large, but it felt spacious because of the plate-glass windows overlooking the Oslofjord. The walls were painted a deep blue-green. The trim was white. Artwork of all sorts hung from floor to ceiling. There was a big stone fireplace and the floors were wood. A handwoven striped rag defined the dining area as separate from the living room. Where there weren’t pictures, there were bookcases crammed with books in several languages. Ursula and Marit sat on the couch, Marit motioning for Pix to sit opposite them in a comfortable-looking leather armchair. The inevitable coffee table, staple of Scandinavian home furnishing, did indeed hold coffee cups and plates.

  “I know they feed you all the time on those flights, but you should have a little something. We can eat while we talk.”

  Pix jumped up to help Marit, who insisted she stay put, returning almost immediately with the coffee and a platter of open-faced sandwiches, smørbrød. Despite the gravity of the situation, Pix felt a twinge of pleasure when she saw her favorite, the bread hidden by rows of reker, nestled on mayonnaise, a bit of lettuce, a curl of paper-thin lemon on top. Reker were tiny, succulent shrimp, only available this far north. Next to these open-facers, she liked reker best straight from the boats where

  they had been caught and cooked. One could buy them by the bag here in Oslo on the wharf in front of city hall and in the fish market in Bergen. It was the essence of being in Norway, strolling along a waterfront, eating fresh shrimp. But she doubted there would be any time for this in the days to come.

  “The police call constantly. They keep asking if Kari has gotten in touch with me. I think they are watching the hous
e, too, because they think I might try to hide her.”

  Ursula came straight to the point. “But why? How could they possibly believe she is responsible for Erik’s death? Surely it was an accident!”

  Marit shrugged. Her face now looked tired and the color faded. “Probably they don’t know what to believe, and the newspapers, television, and radio are full of the story from morning to night. Nothing better to do with their time.” Marit was disgusted. She paused. “They have dredged up the whole business with Hanna and it worries me that Kari, wherever she is, might be seeing it.” Marit had made it absolutely clear to them as they ate that in her mind Kari was alive.

  “Oh no, that’s disgraceful!” Pix was indignant. Hanna had been only a few years older than she was. There had been one golden summer when Ursula brought both her children to Norway and they joined the Larsens, their various cousins, and their friends on an island in the middle of the Hardangerfjord. The children all slept in one big room, the attic of an old farmhouse. They were outdoors from dawn to dusk. Pix had worshiped Hanna. Hanna swam like a fish, could climb any tree, and her arrows always hit the target. She told the younger children wonderfully scary tales of the trolls who inhabited the woodlands and came alive at night, pointing out their faces turned to stone by the sun’s first rays in the mountains surrounding the fjord. Yet there was a dark side to Hanna, the night side of the trolls. She was moody and no one was ever sure what would cause her temper to flare. That summer was the first summer her parents became the same

  kind of targets she trained her bow and arrow on. Again, she seldom missed.

  It grew worse as she got older. Tønsberg seemed hopelessly conventional. It was the sixties and she craved new experiences. Some of them, she found through drugs. Then she met Sven and he became the most powerful addiction of them all. Throughout, her mother and father strove to stay with her, fearing a break, offering her any kind of help, whatever she wanted, trying not to be demanding. They never wavered in their love, even when it was rejected. Across the ocean, Ursula would read Marit’s letters and feel helpless. She went to visit her friend alone and came back visibly upset. “This will not end well,” she told her daughter, who was by then old enough to know what was going on.

  Hanna took off with Sven. They went wherever their fancy took them. Marit and Hans received postcards and were grateful for them. Then the cards stopped. Hanna returned home eight months later, pregnant. Sven had abandoned her in Greece when he learned he was about to become a father. Hanna had thought he would marry her. Instead, he found another young girl and left. She was penniless and had to work to save money for a ticket home. She did not want to ask her parents for it. Maybe she wasn’t even sure that was where she was headed.

  When Kari was born, at first it seemed that Hanna was happy. She insisted on doing everything to take care of the golden-haired baby, a baby who always smiled, especially when her mother picked her up. It brought the Hansen family together for a brief, very special time, later a time treasured like the salvaged beads of a favorite broken neck-lace—not enough to string, but put away to save forever nonetheless.

  Hanna killed herself on Kari’s second birthday. She went deep into the woods, climbed high up into a tall Norwegian spruce, made a noose, and hanged herself. Some hikers found her.

  Now all the old accounts were being resurrected. Had the daughter done something similar, convincing her lover to join her? asked the papers. Or was there some aberrant strain in the family that erupted in madness and Kari had pushed Erik to his doom, then killed herself—or run away?

  “None of this is true, Marit. You know that.” Ursula was polishing off a smørbrød with a kind of ground meat patty and fried onions. “Stop reading the papers and don’t turn on the radio or TV. If there’s anything you have to know, the police or someone will tell you. Besides, you’ll be meeting us on the tour soon.”

  “I know, but I just wanted to tell you what’s been going on.” Marit pursed her mouth. “It makes people feel better if they think others are worse off.”

  Pix had never heard Marit speak so pessimistically. She thought of the questions she and Faith had raised. Now was the time to ask them. When they met Marit at the hotels the tour would be stopping at, they would supposedly be meeting for the first time and striking up a casual acquaintance. The tour. Marit’s call to Ursula had been a plea for Ursula to pose as a tourist, but the two women had quickly decided Pix would be useful. “You’ll be the hund,” Marit had told Pix earlier. “The dog—you know, like for the blind. You will be our hund, since we are now such old women and can’t do everything we once did.” Pix wasn’t sure how she felt about her new role, but it was true that, while in terrific shape, Marit and Ursula just might not be able to do things like the trip by horseback they’d taken across the vast Hardangervidda some thirty years ago.

  The Mermaid/Troll tour. It reminded Pix of her first question—actually, two questions.

  She had wondered from the beginning why Marit was adamant they join the tour to investigate, eliminating all other possibilities.

  “You seem so sure that whatever has happened is linked to the tour. I know it was where they were last seen, but couldn’t the explanation for all this lie somewhere else? A situation with a friend, someone they know

  at the university?” Pix was trying to ask her question delicately, avoiding words like drugs. She added, “Or a senseless attack by a stranger?”

  “I thought of those things—of everything. I have told myself enough stories for many novels.” Marit sounded bleak. “I think I have spoken to everyone Kari ever knew, gone through her address book, reached friends of friends. Nothing. Everyone seemed genuinely puzzled about where she might be and what could have happened to Erik. The only thing left is the tour.

  “Erik’s parents have believed from the beginning that it was suicide after a quarrel, and they blame Kari. They are very religious people and Erik seemed rebellious to them, although it was only normal growing-up behavior. Now, perhaps they feel he has been punished. I cannot pretend to understand, only grieve for them. They won’t talk to me any longer. But I don’t agree. I knew Erik and I’m sure he wouldn’t have taken his life. Kari and Erik were very happy together. As for a stranger, we do not have many of these random crimes in Norway, although I suppose it could have occurred. But why? They weren’t robbed. No, the tour is the only hope, and I have such a strong feeling about it. Almost as if Kari herself is telling me what to do.”

  She stopped, her lips set in a firm line. Pix knew there had never been any doubt about going on the tour. She’d just had to ask. This settled, or unsettled, the next question followed.

  “Isn’t it going to seem odd for us to be joining the tour so near to the end? Wouldn’t we have waited for the next one? What did you say when you made the reservations?”

  “Remember, Erik worked for this company last year, so I know a lot about it. Apparently, the most popular part is the fjord cruise. If there’s room, they let people sign up just for those four days. You can leave either from Bergen or Oslo and meet the rest at Voss. You won’t be the only ones, I’m sure.”

  “Also, can you tell us exactly what Kari said when she called Friday night?”

  Marit closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and recited from memory, a memory she had obviously been over many times. “She said the tour was going well. No rain—they’d had rain with the first one and everyone complained. I asked her where she was and she told me she was about to get on the train to Bergen. She was in the main train station, Oslo S, not the smaller one at the National Theater. She said, ‘I don’t have much time, Bestemor, and I’d like you to do a favor for me.’ ‘Anything,’ I told her. ‘Could you go into the top middle drawer of my desk, get my address book, and give me Annelise Christensen’s phone number? No, wait—they’re boarding and I have to go. There isn’t time. Call me with it tonight. The tour is staying at the Augustin Hotel; you know it.’ I said no problem and that I’d talk with her la
ter. ‘How is Erik?’ I asked, and she said, ‘He’s fine, but there’s something else…. I can’t talk now. I’ll tell you tonight.’ She hung up without even saying good-bye. At the time, I thought the train must have started to move, but now I think maybe someone came along, someone she didn’t want overhearing what she was about to say.”

  Pix nodded. “Two more things. Did she say anything about eloping? And who is Annelise Christensen?”

  “I’ve told you everything she said as exactly as I can remember. And if she had planned to elope, I know she would have said something. But she never would have eloped. It was always her dream to get married in the domkirken in Tønsberg where she had been christened and confirmed. Erik, too. They spoke of it when you were here, Ursula, and we went to that concert there.”

  “Yes, I remember. Kari was joking about how often she had been a bridesmaid lately. And you were reminiscing about your own wedding there during the war, wearing your grandmother’s dress and drinking the toast with some sort of raw alcohol mixed with orange soda your father concocted.”

  “And Annelise?” Pix persisted.

  “She was at school with Kari and now she lives and works in Bergen. She hasn’t been there very long, and you know how it is for us on the east coast. We cannot get used to the rain—and if you are not from Bergen, you are really an outsider to many people there. You know they always say Bergen, not Norway, when someone asks them where they’re from. I think Kari wanted to see how Annelise was doing—if she’d found friends.”

  “Why couldn’t she just look her name up in the telephone book when she got there, or ask information? Why would she call you for it?”

  “There are not so many names in Norway and there are as many Hansens as Christensens, I’m sure. That’s why we put our professions as part of our names so often. Without Annelise’s address, Kari would have had to call many A. Christensens, and she wouldn’t want to bother people.”