Odd Numbers

by Anne Holt

  “No. Not quite literally. They weren’t in a boat. Figuratively.”

  It still seemed as though he did not hear what she was saying. He persevered: “My neighbor’s active in NCIN. Fortunately he wasn’t there on Tuesday. Good guy. He’s a bus driver, but he won 9 million in the lottery a few years ago and bought a terraced house right beside us. A Pakistani, which almost 70 percent of the NCIN members are. His name’s Asif. Asif Afridi.”

  “So you do remember that name . . .”

  Håkon, taken aback, looked at her.

  “But I know him! As I said, he’s a lovely person. More willing to take on voluntary work than all the rest of the row in Langmyrgrenda put together. Three beautiful children. Two boys and a girl. His wife’s a bit reserved, I must admit, and I suspect she can’t speak Norwegian too damn well, even though she’s been here for twenty years or more. But nice enough. Never any nonsense with them. And, Silje, isn’t it actually true that NCIN stands for exactly what we want . . .”

  He broke off, hesitating, and sipped his coffee.

  “They’re the kind of Muslims that we Norwegians really want to have here,” he said, unusually thoughtful.

  “Or ‘the kind’ of Muslims that are the way they want to be,” Silje said, yawning. “Norwegian, nothing less. More Norwegian than Muslim, as Professor Siddiqui said.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Håkon, eager now, leaned forward, legs straddled with one elbow on each knee.

  “But they actually threaten both extremes of the scale equally, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Are you going to call the car service for me?”

  “Ones like that Grønning-Hansen and Kari Thue and the dregs of the Progress Party don’t want Muslims like them in NCIN, do they? They want to have nutcases like Mohammad . . . what was his name again?”

  “Awad.”

  “Ones like Mohammad Awad and Mullah Krekar. The crazy ones—they’re who they want. The ones who threaten prime ministers and issue fatwas and that sort of thing.”

  “I’ve never heard of a fatwa being issued on Norwegian soil. And now I really need to go home, Håkon.”

  “The paradox is that the extreme wing of Muslims wants the same thing,” he continued, almost excited now. “They don’t want truly Norwegian Muslims. Not people who celebrate our National Day on May 17 with regional costumes and waving flags. Nor do they want city councilors and internists and coaches for junior varsity football. They don’t want Muslim women who marry Norwegians and write the Nynorsk language better than 90 percent of us ethnic Norwegians.”

  “We’ll discuss this another time.”

  “But don’t you understand where I’m going with this?” he was almost shouting as he leaped out of his seat. “The Security Service is working on the theory that this bunch of losers, this crowd of young men, led by a smart-ass halfway to being a lawyer, has been manipulated by jihadists. But couldn’t they just as easily have been tricked by some right-wing extremists?”

  The Police Chief headed for the door before stopping.

  “Phone me if anything significant happens. But it really must be something of great importance.”

  “Yes, of course. But do you agree?”

  “With what?”

  “That as far as NCIN are concerned, both the Islamists and the racists have exactly the same interests?”

  “Maybe,” she said as she exited the door in high heels that she had been regretting for hours on end. “You may be right.”

  Maybe he ought to have told Mom about the unexpected guest. Immediately after the policeman with the big head had left, he had been quite sure that he should do so. But then he saw to the pigeons and forgot about Henrik. He was no longer even sure that his name was Henrik. Yes, it was Henrik, but he hadn’t said what his last name was.

  When Mom came home, he remembered the unexpected visit.

  But Mom was so stressed out.

  Troubled, the way Gunnar absolutely didn’t like his mom to be. She seemed to walk from room to room without actually doing anything, and when she said that Peder needed to take two of the pigeons, he got angry. Mom could not stand him getting angry. That’s when her eyes grew dark and her voice high-pitched and everything came to a grinding halt.

  Gunnar was actually the only one who could handle the pigeons. Peder had become pretty good, but Mom was far too heavy-handed. You had to attract them to you with warm hands and a gentle voice, not grab them straight out of the nest. He could persuade every single pigeon, apart from the very youngest ones, to go voluntarily into the transport cages.

  “No,” he complained, rocking from side to side on the sofa.

  “Yes,” his mother said firmly. “And you can sit here while Peder takes care of the pigeons.”

  She went away.

  Gunnar began to cry. He would have to make use of the opportunity while she was gone. Mom nearly always lost her temper when he cried, apart from when he had really hurt himself. Sometimes he thought that it was because grown men shouldn’t cry. And if he cried, it demonstrated that he had never become properly grown-up. Mum hated it that he had never become a proper grown-up.

  As a matter of fact, there were lots of things Mom didn’t like, but fortunately they weren’t only Gunnar’s fault. He crossed over to the window, even though he had been told to stay on the sofa until she came back.

  Peder was a good brother, but Gunnar did not like him being in the pigeon loft without him. He saw them down there. Mum emerged with the first cage. It was too far away for him to see which one was inside, but he feared it was Winnie. Winnie needed rest and unsalted peanuts, a treat that Gunnar brought out for only the very best racers.

  The pigeons did not tolerate salt well.

  Cows had rock salt in their pasture; he had seen that last year when they were in Valdres. Dogs liked peanuts, but they probably weren’t especially good for them. As for himself, he didn’t like potatoes without lots of salt, and for a moment, he tried to recall the name of the strange man who had rung the doorbell that morning.

  Gunnar was looking forward to summer.

  He would be able to go swimming then, and it would be exciting to follow the young pigeons that would soon be hatched. Mom had said that several buyers had applied for the very last of the Colonel’s offspring.

  He was going to earn some money.

  He might be able to buy something nice for Karina; it struck him so suddenly that his face broke into a big smile as his eyes slid up to the left.

  No. He didn’t know what had become of Karina. The Pakistani boy had pushed her, and afterward Gunnar didn’t have much idea what had happened.

  The policeman had a really big head, he thought, and sat down on the sofa again. There must be space for a lot of thoughts inside there.

  He was reminded that this was not true of his own brain, and he burst into tears again. He let the tears flow to get them over and done with. It wouldn’t be long until Mom was back, and he would have to get a smile back on his face by then.

  The smile that Mom loved so much.

  “I love fish,” Henrik Holme said, helping himself yet again to the homemade fish fingers. “How on earth do you make these?”

  “You buy fresh cod,” Ida Wilhelmsen said seriously, as her eyes followed the journey made by the slices from the serving dish to Henrik’s plate. “Then you chop them up into rectangular pieces. Then you dip them in egg. In another bowl you have corn flakes that you just crush as much as you can with your hands. And salt and pepper, of course. Then you roll the fish in it and fry it on medium heat with a pat of good butter. Until they’re lovely and golden.”

  “Good butter,” Henrik repeated, smiling. “I’ve never heard anyone under the age of fifty say ‘good butter.’ ”

  Ida was still looking at him with great seriousness.

  “I don’t want to be mean,” she said, “but you really do have a very big Adam’s apple.”

  Henrik smiled.

  He liked Ida. Id
a did not speak in codes.

  “I know that. It bothers me quite often. My mom says I should consider having an operation.”

  “The kind that trans people have?” she asked inquisitively.

  “It’s bedtime now,” Hanne said.

  “But he hasn’t finished eating yet,” Ida protested. “It’s impolite to leave the table before guests have finished eating.”

  “No more impolite than passing remarks on a guest’s appearance,” Hanne said tartly. “Go and get ready. I’ll come and say good night in twenty minutes flat.”

  “Both of you can actually be pretty impolite,” Henrik said, using a napkin decorated with Merry Christmas in slanted gold lettering to wipe his mouth. “Now and again, sort of thing. And to be perfectly honest, I like it.”

  “Mommy’s coming home tomorrow,” Ida announced as she carried her plate over to the kitchen. “Have you met Mommy?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll like her. Everybody likes Mommy.”

  “In contrast to . . .”

  Hanne gave her daughter a crooked smile as she disappeared into the kitchen. They heard her rinse the plate under the tap before she placed it in the dishwasher and came back.

  “Everyone who knows you likes you,” she said. “The problem is that hardly anyone knows you. Everyone knows Mommy.”

  The little girl rubbed her hands together, as if she’d just undertaken a filthy task. She seemed to hesitate for a second, before she approached Henrik and gave him a hug.

  “Night-night, Henrik. Come back soon.”

  “That was really very polite,” he said, smiling and aware that a blush—that damned blush of his—had flooded up over his neck.

  In waves.

  He had never received a hug from a child before. Not since he was really tiny. It was a moment of sheer contentment. He picked up his water glass and sipped as if it were the finest wine.

  “Night-night, Ida,” he said. “It was very nice to meet you. And you are a fantastic cook, if I may say so. When I was your age, I could only fry eggs.”

  Ida departed.

  “Lovely child,” he said when he heard another door open.

  “Yes. A bit precocious at times, but a good girl. Do you think you could manage to clear the rest away?”

  Henrik stood up. He tried to think whether he had ever cleared anyone’s table other than his own and the one at his parents’ house. As he stacked plates and cutlery in the dishwasher, he came to the conclusion that he had never been a dinner guest at all. Not in anyone’s home, except for relatives.

  “That’s it,” he said when he returned to the dining table with a cloth. “Thanks for a delicious meal.”

  “So Karina was with him that evening,” she said as he energetically wiped the massive oak table.

  “Gunnar said so. It was a slip of the tongue, obviously. It’s possible this is the very first time he’s disclosed that. Do you know what I think?”

  “Do you remember what I told you this morning?”

  “That we shouldn’t envisage anything. But listen to this . . .”

  He gave one last sweep with the cloth across the end of the table and sat down.

  “It’d be a good idea not to leave the cloth lying there,” Hanne said, pointing. “It’ll leave marks.”

  “Sorry.”

  He leaped up and took it back to the kitchen.

  “You don’t need to say sorry about absolutely everything,” she called out, and he thought he detected a touch of irritation in her voice.

  “No,” he said, lifting his hands in the air as he came back. “Apologies. I’ll stop.”

  She gazed at him with mild reproach.

  “Do you drink wine?”

  “No. Yes. I mean, of course I drink wine. But I don’t like it very much.”

  “What would you like, then?”

  “Nothing, thanks. I’m fine.”

  He raised his water glass, which was still sitting on the table.

  “Okay,” she said. “What were you about to say?”

  “Gunnar’s brain injury seems extensive,” he said. “If I were to take a guess, his mental age must be around six years old. Possibly eight. In contrast to the majority of six- to eight-year-olds, he also has quite a limited capacity to remember things. Usually from one moment to the next, it appears to me. At the same time, though, there’s a lot he can remember. He keeps pigeons, for example. Racing pigeons. I assume that requires both knowledge and routines, something that again demands both the ability to memorize and to keep track of time. Now I’m not exactly a brain researcher, but . . .”

  He paused to reflect and tried to re-create the conversation with Gunnar in his own head.

  “He obviously still retains a few things from the past,” he said finally. “He hasn’t forgotten Karina. He has kept hold of this story about the two Pakistanis since the time he was able to speak following the attack. What if . . .”

  He stared at the window, looking north. There was still a diagonal crack, almost as straight as an arrow, across the glass.

  “So Karina and Gunnar were at the dam,” he began over again. “I don’t actually believe that Gunnar is capable of lying.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too difficult. Too complicated. It’s problematic enough for him to keep things back—that is, not to tell what he does know. I think that’s where the limit of his capacity reaches. When he made reference to Karina, and especially when he mentioned that she had fallen into the water or, to be more precise, was pushed, he became quite upset. I may well be the very first person he has told about this.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly.

  “Why would you, a stranger, get him to talk him about something he hasn’t mentioned to anyone else for eighteen years?”

  Henrik got to his feet. He touched each side of his nose three times with a shy smile. He tapped his forehead with his left knuckle and tugged at his right earlobe.

  “Because I talked with him, not to him. You understand, Hanne . . .”

  He sat down again, and pushed his hands under his thighs.

  “It’s quite difficult, being different.”

  “I know all about that,” Hanne said.

  “No. With all due respect, you don’t.”

  He managed to maintain contact with the glacial blue eyes without wavering.

  “Go on,” she said after a few seconds.

  “Your differentness arouses admiration. Anger too, I think, and maybe inadequacy.”

  He was on the brink of adding love, but did not dare.

  “Stories about you still circulate at police headquarters,” he said instead. “Your differentness is, in a way . . . quite exalted. Mine, on the other hand, makes people laugh. In the worst-case scenario, I arouse disgust. In the best case, sympathy. I am defined downward, you outward. Or in fact upward, by many. The first time I heard about you, you were described virtually as a semigoddess.”

  Now she was smiling. All the way up to her eyes.

  “With people like Gunnar, however, the differentness reinforces itself. In the first place, he has an even more striking appearance than I have. Not particularly attractive, to be honest. Maybe he was, once upon a time, but his grimaces are . . . ugly. Second, it’s really something of a trial to speak to him. He often responds to questions in an odd and seemingly deficient fashion. And his own expressions, for that matter. He might say, for instance, that he’s going now and then just stands there. I think that in time—a fairly short time—a health aide will have to start supervising him. I mean . . .”

  He inclined his head and peered at his water glass.

  “His mother loves him probably just as much as every other mother loves her child. But it is entirely possible that looking after him could easily slide into the role of being a boss. She has a son who suddenly became a little boy again and who is going to be her responsibility for as long as she lives. She has to make all decisions on his behalf—in all likelihood, right down to details such as
when he should take a shower and change his underwear.”

  He looked at Hanne again. She seemed intent on listening, yet slightly distracted at the same time, as if listening carefully to what he said and simultaneously thinking about something else.

  “I think that Kirsten Ranvik talks to her son. Not with him. If Gunnar had ever told her that Karina was with him that evening, wouldn’t she have taken that information to the police? We can see from the case documents that she was upset, to put it mildly, about the lack of progress!”

  Hanne smoothed her bangs away from her forehead and nodded.

  “Point,” she said tersely.

  “And when Gunnar mentions that Karina fell into the water, I think in fact that she . . .”

  He lifted his glass from the table.

  “. . . fell into the water. And he must mean into the Akerselva River. The Maridal Lake is fenced off because it’s a source of drinking water.”

  “It’s easy to climb over the fence,” she interjected with what he interpreted as a smile. “Bill . . . a friend of mine and I used to catch crayfish illegally there when we went to—”

  “Climb back over a high fence with a broken hip and severe head injuries? Gunnar was found outside the fence, Hanne. Which means that we’re talking about the river. And Akerselva is fast flowing at that point and full of rocks. I went there to check after I’d been at Gunnar’s.” Once again he sprang up from his chair before resuming his seat and continuing: “If Karina fell into the water, then it was pretty dramatic.”

  “You’re smart.”

  “What?”

  “Do you have Asperger’s?”

  “Asperger’s is no longer a diagnosis. But no. I was tested, in fact, when it was suspected that I had a minor degree of autism. When I was younger. But the psychologists thought my ability to form attachments was too good for me to be suffering from that. I get extremely fond of people I’m allowed to grow fond of. I enjoy physical contact too. Very much so. Even though I don’t get very much of it.”

  He was taken aback to realize how calm he felt.