by Anne Holt
‘Are you asleep?’ asked Geir in surprise.
He had undone the top part of his snowmobile suit. It was dangling down and flapping around his hips. He reminded me of Ida when she comes rushing in after she’s been picked up from nursery, and hasn’t time to take her outdoor things off before she climbs up on my knee for a hug and a ride around the apartment.
I must remember to call home.
‘No, of course not,’ I said in confusion, blinking furiously.
I really must remember to call.
‘We’ve secured the hole,’ he said, raising his fist in a victory gesture. ‘With planks and sheets of metal and whatever else we could find. Then we packed the whole thing with blankets and nailed them to whatever we could. It’s as cold as hell up there, and the draught made it almost impossible to get close to the damaged part of the wall. Plus the entire corridor is full of snow. But ...’ He knotted his sleeves around his waist. ‘We’re still here. It’s starting to warm up again. In an hour or two it will at least be habitable in here.’
It was about time. My lips had gone numb, and my jaws were aching from pressing my teeth together to avoid biting my tongue.
‘What about the other side?’ I asked. ‘Have they managed to seal up that opening too?’
‘Yes. Two of the lads from the Red Cross and one of the joiners got a couple of men from the train to help them. It was easier from that side. They were finished before us.’
He patted his breast pocket.
‘Good old Telenor. The mobile coverage has been brilliant. We were in touch all the time.’
I took a deep breath and tried to lower my shoulders. But the cold sank its claws into me once again, and every muscle in my body tensed. I looked around for Magnus Streng. The wound at the top of my thigh was still bleeding. I hadn’t dared to look at the other side.
The doctor was nowhere to be seen.
‘Come with me,’ said Geir, beckoning me after him as he set off.
‘What do you want?’
‘Come with me.’
It was obvious that I was more troubled by the cold than others were. I was bleeding, and had been sitting still for a long time. I had probably fallen asleep as well. Following Geir might not be such a bad idea. He headed for the main entrance and opened the door to a narrow passageway before helping me into the outside porch. The kiosk, which was on the left at the bottom of a small flight of stairs, and which couldn’t be more than twenty-five square metres in area, was packed with people who didn’t really know what they wanted. The scenario struck me as a confused symbol of western culture: we had all looked death in the eye, and immediately sought consolation in the quest for something to buy. Pollyanna was sitting at the till, smiling broadly. She was, as far as I could see, the only person who had a reason to be in a good mood. In general the atmosphere was subdued, anxious and oppressive, just as it was among those who had settled down in the lobby when it became clear that the damage to the wall could be repaired.
Adrian and Veronica were looking at sunglasses on a stand. It was obvious the boy had been crying, and when he raised his head and caught sight of me, he instantly grabbed a pair of dark glasses and put them on. Roar Hanson was standing right next to him. He was feeling at a pair of orange Ulvang socks, and didn’t even look up when I tried to say hello.
‘Beyond here,’ said Geir, banging the outside door with his fist, ‘we’re just going to let the snow block the door. Even Johan says it’s not worth wasting energy trying to keep it clear. It would just be too much. Since strictly speaking he’s the only one who can stay outside for any length of time, we’re not going to bother.’
‘Fire,’ I said.
‘Fire?’
‘What do we do if there’s a fire?’
‘Jump out of one of the upstairs windows. Tear down the insulation we’ve put up where the carriage was. Something like that. But there isn’t going to be a fire. There has to be a limit to what we’re expected to suffer ...’
He smiled faintly.
‘Have you worked out,’ I said when he had helped me get my chair over the threshold into the lobby without being asked, ‘how many of us there are in here now?’
‘Fewer and fewer all the time,’ said Geir with forced cheerfulness as he pushed me further into the room. ‘When the carriage fell there were seventy-nine people in the wing. We were 196 in total in the entire complex ...’
‘194,’ I corrected him. ‘You have to take out Elias Grav and Cato Hammer.’
‘Exactly. And you have to add four joiners. One of them is over in the wing. The other three are here. So that makes ...’
‘118,’ I said. ‘There are 118 people left in the hotel.’
Kari Thue had gathered a little court around her at one end of the table. The conversation stopped abruptly as Geir and I got closer. At that precise moment I wished she had got her way. I wished she had taken her subjects to the wing and stayed there.
Twenty-four hours ago, there were 269 people on board a train. Then we became 196. When two men died, we were 194. Now there were only 118 of us left.
I thought about Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.
I immediately tried to dismiss the thought.
And Then There Were None is a story that doesn’t exactly have a happy ending.
iii
‘I expect it’s the shock,’ said Magnus contentedly, shovelling down a large piece of salmon, ‘that’s made you start bleeding again. Perhaps you’ve bumped into something. At any rate ...’ he raised his knife like an exclamation mark above his plate, ‘there’s nothing to worry about! You’ll be absolutely fine!’
It was eight thirty in the evening and I felt anything but fine. I was so tired I was finding it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the food. My own body odour had begun to bother me. The only consolation was that everybody else smelled just as bad. Which was more reprehensible on their part; they had access to showers and hot water. On the other hand, we had all had other things on our minds apart from personal hygiene.
‘I must say,’ said Magnus Streng, mopping up sauce with a piece of coarse bread, ‘that the kitchen here really does maintain an excellent standard. I mean, this fish must have been frozen, but even so. Delicious! Do you realize that while all these terrible things were going on, all this business with the carriage and so on, our friend the chef and his faithful companions were in the kitchen baking bread. Baking bread! That’s what I call a dedicated professional!’
He laughed delightedly and popped the last piece of bread in his mouth before emptying his glass of red wine in one draught.
The temperature had returned to a reasonable level. It was probably no more than fifteen degrees, but compared with the level during the hours after the carriage fell, this felt positively tropical. For the first time I had capitulated when it came to the stairs leading down to the dining room. Geir had insisted. Johan had helped him to negotiate my chair down the three steps before I managed to gather my strength for a real protest. Perhaps I was too tired. Perhaps I really wanted to do it. To sit at a table. To eat in a normal way, along with other people. To eat good food in the company of other people.
And I had actually called home.
I didn’t say much, but I did call.
Nefis was pleased.
Her friends can’t understand how she puts up with me.
I meet them from time to time, of course. Nefis gives parties. She invites people to dinner. She goes so far over the top when it comes to celebrating Christmas that you can easily forget she’s a Muslim. Last Christmas Eve there were so many of us around the extravagantly laid table that it looked like a scene from Fanny and Alexander. And I can live with that. I hardly ever say anything, and Nefis’s friends stopped talking to me long ago, apart from a few absolutely necessary and as a rule completely meaningless phrases. But I am there. I sit there at the far end of the table, eating and listening and looking at Nefis, at how happy she is. I always go to bed early. As
I fall asleep to the murmur of voices from the dining room, I know they can’t understand what she sees in me.
I think I know; I never have any doubts.
From the moment I met her at a pavement café in Verona, when I was trying to escape from a sorrow that I thought would cost me my life, I have been sure about Nefis and me. When I was shot in the back a few years later and lost my mobility, and no longer had the strength to do anything other than to push away those friends I still had, I held on to Nefis. She was the one I wanted there, by my sick bed. She was the only one who was allowed to come when I tried in vain to regain some movement in Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital, and she was the one I wanted to come home to.
In late winter four years ago she woke me in the middle of the night. I had been allowed home from hospital for the first time, two months after the accident. We had had such a lovely evening. Now she was weeping quietly, overcome with guilt. She was pregnant. I had said no to children, over and over again, ever since the question had come up on the very first night we were together, and I explained that I didn’t want to burden any child with a mother like me. Nobody should have a mother like me, and since then there had never been an ounce of doubt: we were not going to have children.
But now we were.
I smiled in the darkness that night. I think I said thank you. It was impossible to sleep. I have never been so happy.
I never have any doubts about Nefis and Ida and me. In times like these, perhaps that’s enough.
I was missing them both.
This feeling of longing is something I have never known. Except when I was a child, and I yearned for so much that I never really knew what it was. This longing was something quite different, a warm, lovely pull in my stomach that almost made me smile.
‘You look as if you’re about to fall asleep with food in your mouth,’ said Berit.
‘That’s all right,’ I said.
‘Coffee,’ said Geir, placing a cup in front of me. I hadn’t even noticed that he’d left the table. ‘Drink. It’s red hot.’
I curled my hands around the cup. The heat alone made me feel good. I blew gently and drank.
Roar Hanson had been glancing surreptitiously in my direction all through the meal. He was sitting with his colleagues from the church commission a couple of tables away from us, in the main dining room. Every time I looked over, he glanced down. In my mind I cursed Magnus Streng who had been so determined to bring up my police background when he treated me that first time. If he hadn’t done that I would have been spared it all. The intrusiveness. The worry. And the annoying curiosity about what it was that Roar Hanson actually wanted to tell me. I had no doubt that he was pondering whether to confide in me about something.
Veronica and Adrian had become inseparable. They had tried in vain to get a table to themselves, but every chair was needed, which meant they had to share with others, so they had taken their food up to reception and disappeared. I hadn’t exchanged two words with the boy since the carriage fell. He was obviously embarrassed, and I had been too tired to try to distract him.
Many people had tried to get a seat at Kari Thue’s table. Despite the fact that it had filled up as soon as she sat down, several others had pulled their chairs over and were sitting with their plates on their knees. I could only guess what they were talking about. They were speaking quietly, consciously avoiding looking in our direction. Berit shrugged her shoulders and put down her knife and fork.
‘She’s hardly likely to try again.’
‘Don’t count on it,’ I said. ‘Even if it’s no longer possible for her to seek refuge in one of the apartments, she could still demand that some of us are locked in.’
‘An intelligent person, that Kari Thue. Very intelligent.’ Magnus Streng refilled his glass, almost to the brim. ‘But not very sensible,’ he added, raising his glass in a toast. ‘A very dangerous combination, in my considered opinion. I’ve seen her film, Deliver Us From Evil. Fascinating. What about you, Hanne? Have you seen it?’
‘No.’
‘It’s good, unfortunately. Extremely politically correct, apparently. Not exactly Michael Moore, if I can put it that way.’ He beamed as dessert was placed in front of him. ‘The problem is that the film is basically unethical, in terms of both methodology and content.’
I wasn’t up to this.
‘Of course you’re not up to this,’ said Magnus Streng, waving over one of the waitresses. ‘I don’t suppose it would be possible to have a little more of this fantastic strawberry sauce?’
He patted his stomach and picked up his spoon again.
‘You know ... People like me don’t frighten other people. Not really. As long as I can remember I have been met with ... mainly curiosity. Silence also, of course; as a child I sometimes found it quite difficult to deal with the silence that always came down over me like a cheese-dish cover whenever I moved outside my own little circle. Sometimes I felt like a piece of Port Salut. Not that I smelled like a ...’ He smiled wryly and went on: ‘Silent curiosity! That’s what people usually feel when they catch sight of someone like me.’
The serviette he had tucked inside his shirt collar was slipping. He tucked it back in and shook his head as he looked at me.
‘And disgust. Sometimes disgust.’
I probably ought to have protested.
‘But not fear,’ he added quickly. ‘Not hostility, and never fear. Other than the obvious fear of having children like us. And do you know why?’
Nobody felt the urge to guess.
‘There aren’t enough of us to make anyone nervous,’ he said slowly, stressing every single word. ‘Persons of restricted growth simply do not constitute a threat. Insofar as we still exist. I mean, there are methods of eliminating us before the political majority in this country regards us as being capable of sustaining life ...’
One of us should definitely have said something.
‘So I expect we will soon be a phenomenon for the history books. Not a threat. Our friends over there, on the other hand ...’
He nodded towards the woman in the headscarf and her travelling companion. They were the only ones who had managed to keep a table for four all to themselves. They ate their food as it was placed in front of them, without a word to each other or to the waitress.
‘A really lovely couple,’ said Magnus Streng with a smile. ‘They look normal in every way. A little extra skin pigment, different headgear and a different name for God are the only things that distinguish them from us. When it comes down to it. But it’s enough. And why?’
Nobody answered this time either.
‘Because there are a lot of them. Because there are more and more of them around us all the time. Fear, ladies and gentlemen, is often a question of quantity. Just as none of us is afraid of one buzzing bee, but we all panic when the swarm arrives.’
‘Well, a swarm is obviously more dangerous than just one bee,’ mumbled Geir.
‘Not necessarily!’
Magnus Streng leaned forward.
‘Ask a beekeeper! Go to the expert! Ask a beekeeper!’
I had some difficulty in seeing the similarity between a bee and a Muslim, and topped up my glass of water.
‘What is worse,’ Magnus Streng continued eagerly, ‘is that once we have been frightened by the swarm, we regard every bee that comes along with suspicion. And once we are afraid of bees, it’s only a small step until we are afraid of every buzzing, flying creature among our fauna. That, my friends, is what is known as collectivism. Dangerous stuff. Kari Thue over there, now I should think she’s a woman who’s been stung a few times. Kari Thue is a frightened woman.’
He looked at her with something approaching sympathy.
‘I have to talk to you!’
I almost jumped. The businessman whose name I couldn’t remember was leaning over Johan. The man was still clutching his laptop; I was beginning to wonder if he took it to bed with him. His medium-length hair was blond and thick with expensive streaks, s
omething that would probably have looked quite good if he hadn’t been too old for such vanity, and overweight into the bargain. The combination of smooth skin, a noticeable double chin and a youthful haircut made him appear soft, almost feminine. And if his intention was that other people shouldn’t hear what he was saying, then he failed badly. He was whispering so loudly that he could be heard from several tables away.
‘Talk away,’ said Johan without looking up from his meal.
‘Not here. I really do have to talk to you.’
‘In that case you’ll have to wait. I’m eating.’
‘It’s important. Come with me.’
He was no longer whispering. Instead there was an ambiguously threatening note in his voice. He straightened his back and assumed an expression that I imagine could be effective in some board meeting. Here it just looked comical.
‘I’d like to make you an offer,’ he said. ‘A particularly lucrative offer.’
Johan grinned and put down his spoon.
‘I see. And what is this offer?’
‘Not here. Let’s go to —’
‘As you can see, I’m sitting here having my dinner.’
‘You’ve finished. Come with me.’
‘No. I’m going to have another cup of coffee. Besides which, I’ve just decided. I don’t want to talk to you. Not now and not later. I’m actually quite happy sitting here. Go away.’
‘A million,’ said the man. ‘You could earn a million kroner.’
Johan started to laugh. He wiped his mouth and looked up at the businessman.
‘Now that’s what I call an offer,’ he said, getting slowly to his feet. ‘An offer worth considering. Thank you for dinner. And for the company.’
He nodded briefly to each of us before holding his hand out to Magnus Streng. The doctor looked surprised as he extended his own large, chubby hand.
‘I’ll speak to you later,’ said Johan, before turning on his heel and following the man with the laptop.
‘Steinar Aass,’ said Magnus Streng, pulling a face when the pair had just about reached the lobby. ‘Not exactly a man to do business with.’