Yours Until Death

by Gunnar Staalesen

  ‘But was she actually …?’

  ‘No. She wasn’t actually raped. But it’s the same thing. They grabbed her. Went for her. Molested her – if you know what I mean. Joker took her trousers off and forced her … He showed them – so they all got a good look. But they didn’t go any further.’

  ‘But why didn’t she go to the police?’

  ‘To the police? And what can they do? Were there witnesses? Not one! Only the gang, and they won’t say anything. They’re as frightened of that Joker as the rest of us. There was a man here who tried to do something. They beat him up so badly I don’t think he’ll ever recover. If she’d gone to the police … In the first place, she’d never get her post again. There were some other parents who went to Joker’s – to his mother – and complained. Their post was always burning up after that. They stuff burning rags in the letter boxes. They finally had to get a box down at the post office. And those of us who are alone with young children you have no idea what they’ll do. Even to the little ones. There was one six-year-old girl. She came home with cigarette burns on her whole body – her whole body.’

  I could feel myself tensing. I could see them, one after another: the tall lanky one, the anonymous ones, fat Tasse – and then Joker himself. Looking like a priest, but with the eyes of a tiger and the teeth of a decaying corpse.

  And I thought about what they could have done to Wenche Andresen if she’d tried to retrieve the bike. ‘Would you yourself have gone up there?’ I said.

  ‘After what happened?’ She shook her head. ‘We’d have bought a new bike. Even though we can’t afford it. No! I’d never go up there – not alone!’

  ‘Isn’t there anybody who could have helped you? Don’t you know anyone?’

  She looked at me. ‘Have you ever lived in a place like this? How many flats are there? Fifty – sixty? Almost two hundred people. I do say hello to some of them who live on this floor. Sometimes to other people in the lift. But it’s like an anthill. Do ants say hello?’ She shook her head again. ‘I don’t know a soul. We’re as isolated now as we’ve always been – even when Jonas was living here.’

  ‘Are you divorced?’ I said.

  She lit a cigarette. ‘Separated. Eight months.’ She clenched her jaw, glanced restlessly around the yellow room. ‘Eight months.’

  Then she noticed the package of cigarettes and pushed it across to me.

  I said, ‘Thanks, but I don’t smoke.’ I took a biscuit instead. Just to show my good intentions.

  ‘More coffee?’

  I nodded, and she stood up. She was slim. Straight back, rather small breasts, a round little rear in the corduroy trousers, a little dimple in the nape of her neck.

  ‘Do you work?’ I said.

  ‘I do. I worked part-time before … And I don’t get much money from Jonas either. He already owes me a couple of thousand. I think … I think he stalls on purpose. He was the one who walked out, but he tries to blame me. But he was the one who didn’t have … who couldn’t control himself. He was the one who had to find himself somebody else – that tramp.’

  ‘Where do you work?’ I said.

  ‘In an office at the naval base. It saves me going all the way into town. Well, so much for that. The worst is suddenly finding you’re alone when you’re used to somebody being there.’

  She hunched her shoulders and stared into her coffee cup. Her lips trembled and her eyes were very dark. I ought to see about getting home.

  ‘I know how it is,’ I said. ‘I’ve been there myself.’

  She looked blank. ‘Where?’

  ‘I mean I’ve been … I’m divorced. Five years ago. Its better now. You get used to everything. It’s like having cancer. Maybe you get used to that, too.’

  ‘God knows,’ she said.

  We sat in silence for a while. I stared through the window, into that empty black night. I noticed she was looking closely at me. ‘Did your wife leave you?’

  ‘I suppose so. Or else she sent me away. Whatever. Asked me to move out.’

  ‘Because of someone else?’

  ‘I really don’t know if she’d already met him by then. I think she had. I wasn’t home much. I worked for Children’s Welfare. I was away a lot. Out at nights, out hunting for the dear little things. I found quite a few of them, too. Took them home and sat up late talking with their parents. And when I got home, I fell straight into bed. She never talked to me at breakfast. Just looked at me. She had a special way of looking, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Any children?’

  ‘Mmm. A boy. A little younger than Roar. He starts school in the autumn. Thomas.’

  Now it was my turn to hunt for reflection in my cup, to look for a face that wasn’t there, to listen for a voice that had become silent a long time ago.

  Then Roar came in from the living room. ‘Varg? Do you want to watch Detective Hour?’

  Wenche Andresen opened her mouth. I smiled. ‘No thanks. I like real nightmares better,’ I said. ‘And I ought to be getting home now.’

  He looked disappointed, but didn’t say anything.

  I cleared my throat and stood up. ‘Thanks for the coffee. It was nice talking to you,’ I said to the woman across the table. ‘And it was great meeting you.’ I ruffled Roar’s hair.

  All three of us went into the foyer. I put on my jacket, checked that the car keys were in the pocket, stroked Roar’s head once more and held my hand out to his mother.

  Her hand lay in mine. Thank you for your help,’ she said. ‘Do we owe you anything?’

  ‘Look at it as a friendly favour,’ I said. ‘And take care of your bike, Roar. See you.’

  ‘See you,’ Roar said.

  ‘Bye. And thanks,’ his mother said.

  I hurried along the balcony. I was the only one in the lift, and felt as if were riding to Hades.

  I left the building and walked to my car. When I’d unlocked it I glanced up. I could see a little boy with his face glued to the window with the green and white curtains. He waved.

  I waved back and got into the car. There were some long thin shadows, seven or eight of them, up by the corner of the building. It could have been a gang of teenagers. Or it could have been just the way the light fell.

  7

  Saturday and Sunday went by as such days do when February is about to change to March. You feel as if you’re mushing through knee-high snow. It never really cleared up. The clouds were a tight grey lid on the city. Walking on Mount Fløien was like climbing through dirty waterlogged cotton. I felt as if I were standing up to the roots of my hair in a pair of old sea-boots. No birds sang. And when I got home there weren’t any goldfish swimming in the aquavit. I emptied the bottle to make sure. I was right.

  I walked around Nordnes on Sunday. Once there’d been little wooden houses leaning against each other. Now there were dreary concrete cubes people lived in. Where there’d once been a playground and a seemingly endless park, an aquarium now housed big fish in too small tanks, and there was a Marine Biological Research Institute in a high-rise best suited for studying flying fish. There was asphalt where you’d once walked with a girl and had scuffed the gravel with the toe of your shoe. No goldfish swam in my second bottle of aquavit. Not one.

  I went back to the office on Monday morning. The sopping grey cotton had moved into my head, and the phone reminded me of a petrified toad.

  My city still lived outside the windows, but it lived without me. Down at the market, fish sellers with large red hands cut neat slices of grey-white fish for the ladies with their blue coats and brown nylon shopping bags. The florists stood around and looked as miserable as their brown-edged flowers. A lone grocer at the vegetable market peddled carrots from Italy, pak choi from Israel and heads of cabbage from the last century.

  Rain and sleet fell in curtains, and the water in Vågen rose up and barked. It was one of those days when people go around with faces like clenched fists and it doesn’t take much to make them attack. The afternoon arrived slowly a
nd late. As if it didn’t want to show up at all. The phone went on being silent.

  I sat and stared at it. I could call …

  I could call my mother if she hadn’t been dead for the last year and a half.

  Or I could call a girl I knew in the Census Bureau if she hadn’t been so sarcastic the last time. I’d said, ‘This is Veum.’ She’d said, ‘Veum who? The one with the phone?’ I’d spent several days getting the point. And hadn’t called back.

  Or I could call Paul Finckel, journalist. We could have a beer, eat dinner. But then he’d tell me about all the girls he’d had lately, and nothing’s worse than hearing about all the girls other people have had – especially if you don’t believe a word they’re saying. He was divorced too. I often think everybody’s been divorced. One way or another.

  Finally I dialled a number at random. A man’s voice answered. ‘Jebsen speaking.’

  I said, ‘Um. Is Fru Andresen there?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Fru Andresen.’

  ‘Wrong number.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Right,’ he said and hung up.

  I sat and listened to the dialling tone. A dialling tone’s a funny thing. If you listen long enough it begins to sound as if someone’s calling you. Or a lot of people. A chorus. If you listen long enough, the lady from the phone company comes on the line and asks you to hang up.

  So I hung up, and left the office before it died in my arms.

  Monday’s a strange day. The weekend’s depression hasn’t let go of you and the new week hasn’t begun. Maybe we could get along without most of the week. In my racket.

  8

  I ate dinner in the cafeteria on the second floor. Had a kind of meat stew. It tasted as if the street sweepers had forgotten it. But it was my own fault. I’d eaten there before.

  When I got home I brewed up a big batch of herb tea to clear the system of all the weekend’s fishing in the aquavit and settled down with a biography of Humphrey Bogart I’d already read. The photographs had that grainy grey tone which told you they’d been taken years before in a never-never land that’s long since gone. You don’t find the likes of Bogie any more. If he showed up in Bergen today, we’d laugh him right out of his trenchcoat. With his mournful eyes and whistling loose-denture voice, there’s no place in our world for people like Bogie except in a curio cabinet.

  Suddenly my phone rang. It was five-thirty and my phone was ringing. I picked it up. ‘You’ve got the wrong number. This is Veum,’ I said.

  ‘Veum! You’ve got to help me. Come right away. They’ve got Roar.’ Her voice was shrill.

  ‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘Relax. Who’s got him?’

  ‘Joker. The gang.’ She began to cry. ‘When I got home he wasn’t here, but I found a note in the letter box. It said they had him. That I knew where I could find him and they’d kill him if I called the police.’

  ‘Did you call them?’

  ‘No! Didn’t you hear …?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you anyway? Even though it’s … You can’t fall for it. They’re bluffing. They’re just kids. Don’t you see? They’re just trying to scare you.’

  ‘They have scared me, Veum. I won’t call the police. That’s why I … There’s nobody else who can help me. Can’t you? Of course I’ll pay – if it’s that …’

  ‘It’s not that. Of course I’ll come if you –’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes! Thank you. But get here. Come as soon as you can. Now. Will you?’

  ‘I’m already on my way. Just calm down. It’ll be okay. I promise.’

  I hung up, took a last gulp of tea, let Bogie rest in peace in his paperback grave and left the flat.

  Down in the alley the afternoon light was beginning to fade. Behind blue ruffled curtains a family was eating dinner. A blonde, red-cheeked mother set steaming dishes on the table while a man with a soup-bowl haircut, a pale moustache and a wrinkled forehead sat and stared anxiously at his two children as if they were reflections of himself in a cracked mirror.

  Through an open window on the second floor of another house a hoarse voice sang that it had lived its life by the side of the road. But the rolled ‘r’s were the only thing it had in common with good old Edvard Persson’s style of singing. It was one of your normal late afternoons in the alley, and Veum was on his way. Volunteer Veum. Comes whenever you call, except during office hours.

  The Mini coughed. Didn’t like having its siesta interrupted, and it died twice in the middle of town. When I told it I’d leave it flat and buy myself a Volkswagen the next time that happened, it hummed like a well-fed bee until we parked in front of the high-rise.

  I walked into the building. The lift was waiting. It was empty. Went all the way up. Good for it. I walked to Wenche Andresen’s door and rang the bell.

  Her face was red, her eyes swollen. She pulled me into the foyer and closed the door. Then she sagged against my chest and started crying. Her whole body shook. I didn’t know where to put my hands. Nobody’s sobbed against my chest for a long time. All too long, as a matter of fact. I put my hands gently on her shoulder blades, my fingertips against her back. I moved my palms carefully, didn’t say anything. It’s best to let them cry themselves out.

  She slowly stopped crying. Then she suddenly stiffened in my arms. I let go. She stared at the buttons on my shirt and I gave her my handkerchief. She dried her eyes, wiped her nose. Then she shifted her gaze to my face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t mean …’ Her mouth was swollen. It looked as if she’d spent a long sweet night making love.

  My voice – if that was my voice – scratched like an old seventy-eight record. ‘Have you got the message?’

  She nodded and handed me a crumpled piece of paper. I managed not to touch her hand.

  The writing was childish. We’ve got Roar. You know where to find him. Call the cops and we’ll kill him. No signature.

  ‘When did you get home?’ I said.

  ‘Four-thirty.’

  ‘But you didn’t call me until five-thirty. When did you get the message?’

  ‘He wasn’t here when I got home. So I went out and looked for him. Asked some of his playmates. But they hadn’t seen him. I went on looking for a while longer, then I came back at five and the message was there in the letter box. I was terrified. I don’t remember. I came straight up here. Beside myself. I didn’t know what to do. Who to ask for help. Then I thought of you. We had such a nice talk the other day. I thought maybe you could … But I didn’t mean … I mean, well, I’ll …’ She looked me in the eye. ‘I will pay you what you’re used to getting.’

  ‘We’ll talk about that later,’ I said. ‘We’d better find Roar first. You still don’t want me to call the police?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Well. You stay here in case he turns up. And I’ll see if I can find him.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’ll begin with the hut,’ I said.

  Her eyes widened. They were so big and blue it almost hurt to look into them. ‘But it could be dangerous,’ she said. ‘You could be …’

  ‘I can be dangerous myself. Now and then,’ I said. I tried to look as if I could be. And then I left.

  9

  When it gets dark on this side of the Lyderhorn, it’s darker than any other place I know. It’s as if that sheer mountainside makes the darkness twice as black. As if the mountain is night itself.

  I stopped a good way from the hut. Stood and listened. Nothing. Not a sound. I looked at each tree, but it was hard to make out anything in that heavy starless darkness.

  The woods could be teeming with life, but they could also be dead. A petrified forest.

  I walked up to the hut and stood by the wall just under the little window. It was too high to see through. I listened. Still nothing. But I had a definite, nasty feeling that I wasn’t alone. I checked out the trees. Was that a swelling on one of the trunks? Was that a broken branch or a head sticking out? Was that somebody breathin
g in the darkness?

  I inched along the wall. Peered around the corner. There wasn’t a door, just a piece of sacking in the opening. Impossible to see whether anybody was inside. I cautiously pulled the sacking to one side with my left hand and stared in. It was darker in the hut than it was out here and far quieter. Or did something move – there on the floor?

  Since nobody came storming through the doorway, there was only one way to find out. I stooped and ducked quickly through the opening, and then swung left with my back against the wall. Nothing happened. Nobody jumped me in the darkness. No fists. No knives.

  I waited and caught my breath. Let my eyes get used to the dark.

  It was a small square room. Some sacking and old newspapers lay on the ground. Some empty plastic bags. An empty carton under the window. A stink of beer, sweat, and something which could have been semen.

  A bundle lay in one corner, partly against the wall. It was Roar.

  They’d tied his legs together and his arms behind his back. Stuffed a dirty handkerchief in his mouth. He stared at me. Tear stains on his cheeks. When he recognised me, fresh tears oozed from his eyes. His clothes and hair were filthy. Other than that, he was in fine shape.

  I flipped open my pocket-knife, squatted in front of him and cut the ropes. When I took the handkerchief out of his mouth something between a gasp and sob filled the hut. He tried holding back the tears, but couldn’t. I hugged him and tried to muffle his sobs against my jacket. Tried to calm him. But he cried. Shook almost convulsively. His crying changed the silence. I couldn’t tell if what I heard now was silence or sounds which shouldn’t have been there. I listened so intently my head ached. But I simply could not hear anything except his sobbing.

  Maybe we were alone. Maybe they’d gone home to drink Cokes and play Parchese. Maybe the fun and games were over for today.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here, Roar,’ I said in his ear. ‘Your mum’s waiting.’