The Cold Song

by Linn Ullmann

  “Yes, well, nice talking to you,” Jon said, tearing his eyes off the ladybug.

  “Maybe we can pick up where we left off some other time?” Hansén said.

  Jon smiled noncommittally.

  “My dog, Leopold,” he said, “relishes the inner organs of beasts and fowls—a well-read man like yourself will get the reference, right?—anyway, the dog must have his evening walk.”

  Hansén nodded curtly and walked away. Jon glanced around, looking for Karoline. She and Kurt were standing a little way off, talking to Steve Knightley from Seattle. Karoline felt his eyes on her and made a little gesture with her hand that he found hard to interpret. A wave, perhaps, or a caress? He smiled at her and strolled off to find Siri. She was talking to some distant aunt who’d just had a hip operation, and Siri was listening and nodding and being sympathetic and looking stunning and slightly aloof in the pale blue silk dress with her dark hair in a silver clasp. Jon went over to her, put his arm around her. He kissed her on the cheek, whispered in her ear, “Where’s Jenny?”

  Siri smiled and nodded, outwardly giving the aunt her full attention, and whispered back, “In her room, plastered.”

  Jon squeezed her hand, they had not had a chance to talk about it, had not talked about Jenny, upstairs in her room, drinking her brains out, but this was not the right moment. Jon flashed his most winning smile and asked the old lady with the newly operated hip a few hip-related questions before excusing himself and leaving.

  “Our dog needs his evening walk,” he said. “He’s shut up in my study, feeling a bit lonely and neglected …”

  The aunt nodded, but Siri shot him a puzzled look.

  “You’re taking the dog out again?”

  “Well somebody has to,” Jon replied. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back in twenty minutes or so. Maybe half an hour. I’ll pick up some milk and bread for tomorrow’s breakfast.”

  Siri nodded and turned away. He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she wouldn’t let him, and walked a few steps and turned her attention to one of the guests, an elderly woman of about eighty wearing a very short, apple-green frock.

  Jon opened the door and entered the house, the silence inside was deafening. He ran up the stairs and collected Leopold from the attic.

  “Okay, Leopold, let’s go. Come on,” he muttered. “We’ll slip out the back way.” He scratched behind Leopold’s ear and the dog wriggled and squirmed and dragged him down the stairs.

  Out on the road it was very dark for that time of year. He decided to walk to the shore, maybe pick up a hot dog at the kiosk and a couple of beers at the grocery store, sit on the beach and look at the sea. He checked the time, the store was open until ten. He loathed parties. He hated to see Siri becoming someone else, the perfect hostess, swanning around the garden, laughing to all and sundry. What was there to laugh about? It was bullshit, all of it, a pack of lies. He had tried to talk to her about it once. Her duplicity when they had company. And she had laughed and said, “My duplicity, Jon? My duplicity?”

  He had tried to tell her that he hated it when she put on an act.

  “It throws me,” he said, “when you act all sweet and obliging and charming and witty.”

  “You hate it when I’m sweet and obliging and charming and witty?”

  He nodded.

  “You prefer depressed and unfriendly?”

  “I think you know what I mean.”

  “No, Jon, I don’t know what you mean.”

  What he meant was that he wanted the real Siri. The naked Siri with the kinked waist whom he could stroke and fuck and lie close to. Not the Siri with the swift, shrewd gaze and fine creases of dissatisfaction around her mouth or the Siri with disappointment and contempt choreographed into every single, graceful little move. But no matter how he worded it, it would come out wrong. He knew that.

  A hot dog with all the trimmings and a couple of beers. Half an hour on the beach. No more.

  “Just you and me, Leopold, okay?”

  The dog looked pleased.

  “And a hot dog for you too,” Jon said.

  His cell phone trilled inside the pocket of his suit jacket. He took it out and read: Why Sweetheart Like You exactly?

  He sighed and told himself that he would have to get out of this: little Milla, nineteen years old. The nanny. He couldn’t …

  Jon slipped his cell back into his pocket. Leopold strained at the leash, letting him know that he couldn’t wait to run free on the beach. Jon pulled out his phone again. He looked at the text message he had just received and eventually wrote: Dear Milla. I don’t really know why that song reminded me of you. Something to do with the title. Sweet. Sweet like you. Sweetheart you. Something like that. J.

  Back came the immediate reply: I’ll be around this evening if you feel like getting away from the party and having a glass of wine with me, at the Bellini, maybe?

  Jon tied Leopold to a post outside the shop and went inside. He grabbed a six-pack then wrote: Some other time, maybe, Milla. My presence is required elsewhere. See you tomorrow. J.

  JENNY HAD NODDED off on the bed but was woken by Siri calling her. “Listen to me now, you’ve got to come down! The party’s started and your guests are all waiting for you!”

  She opened her eyes with a groan. Her head was pounding.

  Siri. My little girl.

  It was as if she could see the two of them right here in this room many, many years earlier, herself in front of the mirror, her little daughter right behind her, and she smiled remembering how she had let Siri brush her hair every evening. She could hear her daughter’s voice back then: Bend forward, Mama, and she would bend forward, sending her hair cascading to the floor. One. Two. Three. Four. Oh yes, there had to be a hundred strokes or it didn’t count. Five. Six. Seven. And Jenny remembered that it had hurt her back, standing like that, bent forward, but that it had been absolutely essential that Siri be allowed to finish brushing. The warm scent of her daughter’s skin, the eager little hands, the brisk strokes tugging through her hair. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. And how she had tried to think of other things: books she had read, men who had made her laugh, the trip to America that she had dreamed of making but that had never come to anything, Siri’s father who had run off and moved in with that Swedish whore in Slite, no, don’t think about that, think about something good, to help forget that she was doubled up like this with her back aching. Forty-four. Forty-five. Forty-six. That she was still young and beautiful, well, not quite so young, maybe, on the wrong side of thirty as Jane Austen would have put it, but beautiful, of that there was no doubt. Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy. And how in the end all her thoughts twined together to form one thought, the one, constant thought. Eighty-four. Her boy. Syver. All thoughts ran into Syver. Ninety-one. Why had she let the children out on their own? Why had she insisted on their being outside? They’d been huddling there, knocking on the door, wanting to come in, but she’d needed a little time to herself, she’d needed peace, it was a lot to cope with, having two young children when you longed to do something else, she remembered how she had looked forward to both children being old enough to start school so that she could go back to work, and she had told them that in this house we have inside time and outside time, and right now it’s outside time, come back at two o’clock. Her only boy. Those blue eyes. That gray woolly hat. Those slender, delicate hands and long fingers. That soft body. That piping voice. Those heavy bangs, with the cowlick that always stuck straight up. And that it wasn’t possible to end it all, even though life without him was, and would always be, bereft of light. It wasn’t true what they said, that it gradually became easier to cope with loss, that time would work in her favor. It had become something of a sport to tell her this and every time they said it she had wanted to lash out, she had wanted to scream, what the hell did they know about time, they hadn’t lost a child, but she couldn’t end it all, she had one more, she couldn’t … A HUNDRED! Siri cried. And every time Siri cried A HUNDRED Jenny
straightened up and tossed her hair back and let it fall down around them both, because that, to Siri, was the most beautiful thing in the world.

  Jenny met her own eyes in the mirror. The hairbrush lay on the dressing table along with two clasps and a perfume bottle. She pinned up her hair, put on lipstick, and stood up. She staggered slightly. The black dress fit neatly over her breasts, yes, but was a little too tight across the stomach. She could hold that in though. In a woman’s posture lies her beauty. If it hadn’t been for her thundering headache this party might have been bearable. She looked around the room, the Cabernet was all gone. She had no choice but to squeeze her feet into her sandals, descend the stairs, go out into the garden, and greet all her guests. Because in the garden there was more wine and here in her room there was nothing. And she had never said never. She had said one day at a time.

  Jenny got out the receipt on the back of which she had noted down her speech.

  Dear family and friends. Dear Siri, who has organized this party for me. Dear Irma. Here we are, standing in the fog and wondering whether it’s going to rain …

  Was that all she had managed to write before she nodded off? She had the very clear impression that she had written a lot more and possibly also something a little more meaningful. A few words about Siri, for instance, would have been in order. Siri, who had arranged all this. This celebration, which no one wanted, it’s true, least of all Jenny, but all the same. Jenny was sure she had jotted down a few key words for what to say to Siri in any speech she might make. Something that would make Siri happy. Something that meant something. She glanced around the room as if looking for another sheet of paper, although she knew very well there was no other sheet of paper.

  Here we are, standing in the fog and wondering whether it’s going to rain … No, that wasn’t very good. Not good at all. She would have to come up with something much better than that. Or not bother at all. She had made it clear that she wanted no speeches from anyone, so maybe it was all right that she didn’t make a speech either.

  Although it would have been nice to say something to Siri. Something proper.

  Jenny looked at the speech.

  Dear family and friends. Dear Siri, who has organized this party for me. Dear Irma. Here we are, standing in the fog and wondering whether it’s going to rain …

  No, this would not do and Jenny took one day at a time, as in fact she had always done, ever since the day Syver died. Garden parties were not for speeches, anyway. She could always tell Siri a thing or two when she had her to herself. I know it wasn’t your fault. You were just children out playing. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Siri should have watched her little brother, shouldn’t have taken her eyes off him, but she was only six and it wasn’t her fault and Jenny would tell her that. She ought to hear it. Not now, but when all this was over. Jenny held her breath. And now … She twirled in front of the mirror. The black silk fit perfectly over her breasts. Yes, now it was time to go down and greet her guests.

  LEAVE HER ALONE, Jon had said, and everyone had quieted down and listened to the song of the lapwing, but Siri hadn’t cared about the bird, she had wondered why he had defended Milla.

  The girl had picked a flower from the white flower bed and put it in her hair. And then she was gone. Siri remembered seeing Milla, all alone, bent over the buffet, piling her plate high with those little marinated chicken skewers. Siri had lingered, watched. It was she who had made the chicken skewers, but not for Milla to eat them all. Siri saw one chicken skewer after another disappear into the girl’s mouth and down into that bottomless maw. All over the fog-bound apple orchard, festively clad people were chatting and drinking toasts and it seemed none of them noticed Milla. At the time, Siri thought I’m the only one who notices her, but as it turned out, lots of people had noticed her. Lots of people would say that they had seen the girl in the red dress and red shawl (the one she had borrowed from Siri), with the flower in her hair. Milla was there, at Jenny Brodal’s seventy-fifth birthday celebration, she was seen. And then she disappeared so definitively that, try as they might, no one could find her.

  There were, in fact, many who went missing that night. Jon slipped away and didn’t come back until around eleven. His suit was damp and creased and he said he had fallen asleep on the beach. He had needed a bit of time to himself, he’d said, had gone off with the dog to listen to the waves and had fallen asleep.

  Jenny and Alma had also been gone for a while. Their plan had been to go to the beach and sit on deck chairs under parasols, but no, they hadn’t gone to the beach (well, if they had, they would have met Jon), Jenny had taken Alma for a drunken joyride, up, down, and around the narrow country roads in the Opel. They hadn’t gotten back until very late. Drinking and driving with Alma in the car, “Unforgiveable,” Siri said. “Just fucking unbelievable.” But then, when it transpired that Milla had disappeared, not just temporarily disappeared, as Jon and Alma and Jenny had, but well and truly disappeared, the showdown with Jenny had been postponed.

  According to Alma, her grandmother had been “perfectly sober the whole evening,” which was more, she pointed out, than could be said of her parents.

  A first thought was that Milla had gone home with someone, some strange boy or man, and Siri remembered making up her mind to have a serious talk with her about the risks of going home with strangers, although in fact what she had really felt was rage. Milla running off. Milla flaunting herself. Siri couldn’t understand why this should make her so angry. Milla wasn’t a child. A child-woman, maybe. But not a child. She wasn’t somebody who Siri was supposed to take care of. Moon-pretty, needy, flaunting herself. And what had happened, why hadn’t she come back? And just before noon the day after the party, after many fruitless attempts to call Milla’s cell phone, Siri had sent Jon out to look for her.

  “But where will I look?” Jon said.

  “I don’t know,” Siri snapped. “Everywhere, anywhere. Down at the jetties or outside the Bellini, she’s bound to have been at the Bellini.”

  “But it’ll be closed now, won’t it?” Jon looked at his watch and Siri sighed.

  “Look everywhere for God’s sake! Just find her! She’s our responsibility. And I’ve got to go to the restaurant. She’s probably sleeping off whatever stupid thing she did last night. Just find her, okay!”

  And that morning became the first day without Milla. Jon walked up and down the long road, around the jetties, knocked on the door of the Bellini Bar, which was obviously closed in the morning, and by two o’clock that day, Siri left the restaurant and looked with him, and it was almost evening before Jon rang Milla’s parents, wondering if they might have heard from her, that surely there was nothing to worry about, but she had been gone since last night and was this something she’d normally do, hook up with friends, perhaps. Did they know whether she had friends visiting town or if she might have gone somewhere and not told anyone.

  Amanda and Mikkel came to town that night and began searching for their daughter. They asked Siri and Jon again and again when they had last seen her.

  “But surely, you must know something?” Amanda screamed the following morning, when Milla had been gone for two nights. “You can’t just stand there and not know. It’s not good enough! Please! She lived in your house! You were supposed to watch over her! Where is she? Where is she goddamn it? Tell me where she is!”

  By now the police were brought in, search teams were formed, and with that, reporters from every corner of the country descended on the little town a few hours south of Oslo.

  Simen hadn’t told anyone that he had seen her on the night she disappeared, hadn’t wanted to tell his parents that he had been out bicycling without his helmet on. That he had fallen and hurt himself and nearly wrecked his bike. They would never let him take it out in the evenings again. His mom and dad joined the search team and looked for her, but Simen thought those search teams would just scare her. It was better to look alone. Maybe he’d be the one to find her and fix whatever it wa
s that needed fixing and that had made her hide.

  The young man known as K.B. soon became the focus of police attention and was called in for questioning several times, but was eventually released. He’d had a couple of drinks with Milla at the Bellini, he said, and they had left the club together and parted as friends. K.B. gave interviews to the press in which he confirmed that they had strolled around for a while, hand in hand, kissing a little, but that he was tired and hadn’t felt like walking all the way up the long road to Mailund, so they parted at the foot of the slope and K.B. went back to his parents’ house and fell asleep on his bed. The part about coming home and falling asleep was confirmed by his mother, who claimed she had been awake and looked at her watch. K.B. was sorry now that he hadn’t been more of a gentleman, he said, looking distraught in all the photographs that were taken of him, he hated himself for not having walked her all the way home. “I liked her so much,” he said, “I hope she’s all right.”

  More than a week went by, and now it seemed everyone knew or had known Milla in some way. There were many stories of people who had seen her after she disappeared, in a coffee shop in Kristiansand, on a crowded street in Oslo, outside the cathedral in Trondheim, and one young woman claimed to have spotted her in New York. A Norwegian student named Karin, majoring in fashion design, swore she had seen Milla in Central Park and she had a picture on her cell phone to prove it. Not a very good picture, but a picture nevertheless. A dark-haired girl on a bicycle, turning her head toward the photographer, a red scarf around her neck, blurry. “I saw her from afar,” Karin said to the Norwegian journalist who was taken off an entirely different story involving the indictment of a United States senator in order to interview the girl witness. The story about the girl in Central Park was discredited the next day, but it made all the headlines and did its rounds on social media. “I know you can’t tell from the picture,” Karin said, “but I know what I saw. I’m sure it was her. I tried following her, but she was on a bicycle and I lost her. Look at the picture, I know it was her. I know it.”