Love and Other Lies

by Ben McPherson

  Had the police really not asked her about the websites?

  Her eyes flicked back to the television. On-screen a dark-skinned man turned toward the camera, shaven head glistening under the lights.

  A caption:

  Ephraim Tvist, Chief of Police, Oslo District

  “Mr. Tvist,” said the woman on television, “Mr. Tvist, you are Oslo’s first black police chief. You have been in the job three weeks.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “Today is like one long psychotic break. That’s the man who interviewed me.”

  “Yes,” said Tvist cautiously. “I’m not sure what either of those facts—”

  The journalist cut him off. “Why was Garden Island not on lockdown after the explosion in town?”

  “We had four islands in the Oslo Fjord on lockdown.”

  “Again: Why not Garden Island?”

  “Garden Island was rated as a medium-risk target. The four islands on lockdown were considered high-risk targets.”

  This was not the Tvist I had met. The camera reduced him; he looked shifty and out of breath.

  “On those other four islands,” the journalist was saying, “there were career politicians present. Garden Island was a youth camp with only youth politicians. Is this the reason for the medium-risk designation?”

  “The designation was signed off by my predecessor, six months ago.”

  “My God,” said Elsa quietly. “Did he really just blame the last guy?”

  The journalist on-screen was studying her notebook. “Mr. Tvist, how many helicopters did you mobilize?”

  “I’m not certain that a helicopter is the correct response to an event of this type.”

  “So, no police response helicopter was available? Seems barely credible.”

  Tvist looked away, tapped the tips of his fingers together.

  The journalist looked severe. “May we take that as a no?”

  Tvist made himself tall. He was looking directly at the camera.

  “Elsa,” I said, “he thinks someone in this apartment was accessing crusader knight websites.”

  Tvist was speaking slowly, as if appealing to the nation. “We did not consider a helicopter to be the best use of police resources.”

  “This is absurd,” said Elsa. “Obscene.”

  “Elsa, did you hear what I said? Those are basically the people who carried out the attack. Someone in our apartment was downloading their material.”

  “And Mr. Tvist . . .” The reporter on-screen was consulting her notebook. “Mr. Tvist, the first shot was fired on the island at six-oh-three p.m.”

  “That doesn’t in any way worry you, Elsa?”

  Elsa did not respond.

  “At six-oh-three p.m., Mr. Tvist,” the journalist was saying. “Can you confirm?”

  “That sounds correct.”

  “Who’s that man?” said Vee from the doorway.

  An uncomfortable pause. Elsa and I exchanged a look.

  “Dad, who is that?”

  I studied Vee’s face. She gave no sign of having heard us arguing.

  “It’s the police chief, love.”

  “He interviewed Dad.” Elsa smiled, a little too brightly. “So we have his attention. That can only be good, right?”

  “I suppose,” said Vee.

  “Mr. Tvist, at six thirty-one p.m. two police officers arrived at the slipway on the mainland, but did not make the crossing to the island. In fact, they returned to their vehicle, citing safety concerns.”

  “My briefings did not include mention of these officers,” said Tvist.

  “But you can confirm that at seven fifty-one p.m. your tactical weapons unit brought the two perpetrators into custody?”

  “Fuck,” said Vee, eyes wide.

  “That’s to say: between six-oh-three and seven fifty-one these two men, armed with assault rifles and nine-millimeter automatic pistols, were free to roam across the island, executing children at will, and they did exactly this until seven thirty-three p.m., when they ran out of ammunition. At which point they sat and waited patiently to be arrested . . .”

  “That’s like a kill a minute,” said Vee. There was something almost admiring in the way she said it.

  “. . . and all this despite the fact that you had officers at the scene, at the slipway on the mainland. Mr. Tvist, did those first officers at the scene have firearms in their vehicle?”

  “Cal.” Elsa’s voice, very quiet. “Maybe it’s time we switched this off.”

  I nodded.

  Tvist was speaking again. “This was a complex and rapidly evolving situation, with many variables and many dangers.”

  “Particularly for the children,” said the journalist, “who waited in vain for rescue. The only officers in the vicinity waited in their car on the mainland, concerned solely for their own safety, while on the island these children were cut down by men impersonating your officers. These men claimed they were there to put the island on lockdown. You appreciate the irony, I’m sure . . .”

  I almost felt sorry for Tvist. The air had been knocked out of him.

  “Mr. Tvist,” the reporter was saying, “your country has a population of, what? Five million?”

  “Five-point-three.”

  “And in an average year you have twenty-five murders, and in a bad year you have, what? Thirty? Perhaps?”

  You could see it in Tvist’s eyes: the realization that he was being walked into a trap. He made to speak, but the journalist cut him off.

  “So how would you describe ninety-one dead in a single afternoon, Mr. Tvist, the majority of them children?”

  While Tvist sat there considering his response, Elsa walked to the television and switched it off.

  I was bathing Franklin in the kitchen sink when Vee walked in. Franklin made fists of his tiny hands, shook them excitedly at his sister. Vee held out her pinkie, and he grasped it.

  “Okay, so look,” she said, “if I watched things I shouldn’t have . . . I mean, I’m not saying I did. But if I had, how bad would that be?”

  “What things?”

  She looked down. I had not seen the phone in her hand. She unlocked it and held it out to me. “This is the only one left up.”

  I took the phone.

  On the screen was a video. A tomb in a medieval church, and on the tomb a carved stone knight in full battle armor, arms folded across his breast. Across the bottom of the screen was the text Tactical Brigades of the Knights Templar.

  “You need to press play, Dad.”

  The shot held on the knight’s tomb, then began slowly to zoom in to the hands crossed on the knight’s chest. The music swirled, grand and romantic in intent; through the phone it sounded tinny and bombastic. The music dipped. A voice began: “Today we honor our forefathers. Today the fightback begins.”

  “Vee, why would you be looking at this?”

  An evasive little flick of the eyes.

  The camera was tilting down the knight’s sword. The shot dissolved to two men in combat gear, bearing Ruger short-barreled rifles. I felt my throat beginning to tighten. These were the men Elsa and I had seen being led off the boat and into the waiting police cars.

  I pressed stop. “You understand these people are fascists?”

  “Fascist is what you call people who don’t agree with your articles.”

  “Listen to me, Vee, I’m not joking now. These men believe in racial hierarchies; they want to concentrate power in the hands of a small number of people; they believe violence justifies their end.”

  She was looking blankly at me.

  I said, “That’s about as good a working definition of fascism as you can get. How much have you been visiting these sites?”

  “A bit. I guess. A lot, maybe.”

  “Oh, Vee.”

  “They had answers to some difficult questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like who’s actually in control.”

  “Let me guess: the Jews and the Marxists?”

  “Plus
Muslims. Plus bankers.”

  “The Marxists and the bankers and the Jews and the Muslims? All on the same side?”

  “Okay, it sounds extra-stupid when you use your satire voice.”

  I sighed. “Really not using my satire voice, Vee . . . But can you not see where this kind of conspiratorial thinking leads?”

  “I’m not saying I think they’re right. But what do we do that’s so great, Dad? Mum takes pictures that no one understands and that no one wants to buy anymore. You write articles telling people to get angry about the government. Every week. I mean, how are these things even jobs? And I don’t know if it’s the Jews or the Muslims or the Marxists, or if it’s the government and the bankers, but the world’s kind of going to hell right now and what are we doing about it? I mean, when did you last grow your own food, or rescue people from hunger? This is pretty much the richest country in the world, Dad, and one family in ten is below the poverty line. Why aren’t we helping them?”

  “So these people are attractive because they offer meaning in a meaningless world?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Vee, I want to understand. Because this stuff normally appeals to people whose lives are spiraling downward. And I don’t think that’s you.”

  Vee sighed heavily. “I mean, yeah, shoot me for looking for a little meaning in my life. Dad, I didn’t know those men would actually do what they did. I promise you. And anyway, we’re supposed to be going home next week . . .”

  She paused. She must have seen the look on my face. “Except we can’t now, can we?”

  “Vee,” I said, “was it you who deleted all the browsing histories?”

  Vee nodded.

  “So you knew at some level that engaging with this stuff was wrong?”

  “I guess . . .” Her eyes flicked away. When she looked at me again I could see they were misting with tears. “Dad,” she said, “am I responsible for what happened to Licia?”

  “No, Vee, no. You couldn’t have known.”

  Eleven

  I got up at six, all hope of sleep gone.

  I stood for a while in Franklin’s room, listening to the snuffled in-in-and-out of his breathing. The children all breathed in the same pattern, inherited from Elsa. They would pause in the middle of the in-breath, inhale a second time, pause again for the tiniest moment, then exhale fully.

  In, in, and out: always most noticeable in sleep. In the early days it had terrified me, the thought that Vee or Licia might simply stop breathing and never begin again. I would keep watch over them for hours, though Elsa always told me there was no need. With the passing of the years I relaxed a little.

  These days, my children’s breathing was a detail, like eye color: at least it was for Franklin and for Vee. Licia had not been so lucky. On top of her mother’s breathing, she inherited the asthma that shortened her grandmother’s life. Not a problem, the doctors had said. Entirely controllable. And it was, with her Ventolin inhaler.

  Licia was not among the dead. Not yet. But if she was alive, what then? Was she lying alone somewhere, hurt and afraid and gasping for breath?

  I felt tears pricking at the backs of my eyes. Tell me at least that she has her inhaler.

  I wiped the tears away with the pads of my hands. I opened the door to Vee’s room, thinking to sit awhile on the wooden floor, to watch her as she slept.

  Vee’s bed was empty.

  I walked into the living room, opened the door onto the balcony at the back.

  Vee was not there.

  I walked into the bedroom I shared with Elsa.

  Elsa must have felt my presence. She sat up in bed. “Everything okay?”

  I said, “Did Vee mention anything to you about having plans?”

  “No.”

  “She went out.”

  Elsa swung her feet across the bed. She picked up her phone, squinted for a moment, checking the time, then dialed Vee’s number.

  We watched each other, anxious.

  “Straight to voice mail,” said Elsa.

  In the middle of the parkland was a play area. A sign warned children from the neighboring areas to keep away.

  “Vee!” I shouted uselessly. “Vee!”

  I walked on. I stood on the high metal bridge above the station, but there was no one on the platforms and I could see no one on the tracks. On a balcony in an apartment building very much like ours an old woman turned to watch me. From another balcony, farther away, a man with binoculars tracked me as I walked.

  “Vee!” I shouted again. “Vee!”

  I walked the path that skirted the perimeter, eyes searching the ground forty meters below. I found a smaller, narrower footway that led me down on to a dry mud track, and followed that until I could follow it no more.

  Elsa would have called Julie’s mother, and after Julie’s mother her own father, then a couple of friends back home in D.C., in case Vee had called.

  I took the footbridge down to the main road, walked along the high grass bank, heading past the mall. Nothing would be open there, not at this time, but it was the only place I could think of going. Outside were the cleaning staff, sharing cigarettes, waiting to be let in, speaking in languages I didn’t recognize. Every one of them was a foreigner, I guessed.

  The vehicle fumes smelled of burnt licorice and ammonia.

  Elsa called.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “The boat key’s gone.”

  At the marina I took my key fob from my pocket, held it up against the reader. The gate clicked open. I could see that our rented boat was not on its mooring, but I ran out along the pontoon, needing to be sure.

  Four tensioned ropes, two on each side. Vee had set them neatly in place on the spits; she had folded the tarpaulin canopy of the boat into four and left it on the pontoon, along with the steel hawser and the padlock.

  I called Elsa. “Boat’s not here.”

  Elsa’s breathing, the sound cutting in and out on the line.

  “You there?” I said. “Jo and Hedda brought it back for us, right? Elsa?”

  “Vee took Licia’s life jacket off the peg. I’m assuming she took the boat.”

  “So, what, she has some kind of a plan to find Licia?”

  “I’m going to call my dad. Ask him to drive up and fetch Franklin.”

  The highway cut through commuter towns, low-built and ugly. Elsa drove without speaking, eyes flicking from mirror to mirror, rarely settling on the road.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked her after a time.

  She glanced at me. “Same as you, Cal. Exactly the same as you.”

  She reached across with her free hand, and I clasped it tightly, threaded my fingers through hers.

  We drove on in silence, hands entangled, until we came to the exit for Garden Island.

  We stood on the slipway. The body bags were gone from the shoreline. Farther up the coast children were swimming. Hard to believe, after what happened here. But out across the water there was nothing to suggest the violence done so close by. The fjord was mirror-still. From here the island looked inviting.

  I could see the diver units farther out: the marker buoys on the surface, the boats tracking the divers under the water. Elsa watched a diver as he handed something to the man at the helm of the boat.

  “Cal,” she said, “don’t bodies float in seawater?”

  “I guess.”

  “Then Licia is not down there.” She took my hand. “Come.” She led me along the shore to a small sandy cove. Just above the waterline lay a white fiberglass boat with a small outboard engine.

  “Pull from the bow,” she said.

  “You serious?”

  “We’ll bring it back.”

  I looked toward the phalanx of police cars on the slipway.

  “We’re day-trippers,” she said. “Far as they know.”

  No one was watching. “All right,” I said.

  I bent down, took off my shoes, threw them onboard. Elsa stepped easily over the side
as the boat slipped into the water, while I stood knee-deep, steadying the hull. She leaned forward, pulled out a pin, lowered the outboard into the water. She braced against the side of the boat, drew evenly on the start cord. I felt through the hull the tug and thrum of the engine. I jumped in, took my place in the bow, facing my wife. We pulled out into the bay, Elsa scanning the horizon, leaning forward, steering by instinct.

  Halfway across she slowed the engine. “There.” She stood, hands shielding her eyes. I turned, saw ahead of us the silhouette of our wooden speedboat on the brilliant fjord, and at the helm a resolute little stick figure.

  Vee turned to face us, then turned away.

  I began to get to my feet.

  “Cal,” said Elsa. “Down.”

  I was tipping us. I didn’t have her instinct for the sea.

  I hunched down, watching the little red speedboat. Vee was heading behind the dock on Garden Island.

  “Did she see us?”

  “Who knows?”

  We continued on our course until we were past the island, then turned in. Soon we drew level with the dock, emptied now of boats. Signs in Norwegian and English warned us not to moor.

  Vee had not stopped here. Elsa nodded toward a spit of red-pink rock that ran out into the sea, hiding the coastline beyond. She turned. Her eyes flicked to mine.

  There?

  I nodded. Out of sight, I knew, were the cliffs, and the staircase cut into them. Licia had been alive on those steps; we had seen her reaching up toward the helicopter.

  We rounded the spit. There was the cliff wall. There was our wooden speedboat, moored at the foot of the steps.

  Elsa was frowning. Where was Vee?

  As we drew level with the speedboat Elsa hooked an arm across the side of it, passed a rope through a metal ring and back. She stood up, looked down into the boat. Her hand brushed my shoulder.

  I stood up, cautious. There was Vee, crouching low in the boat, hands across her face, rocking backward and forward.

  “Vee,” I said.

  I felt Elsa slide past me, saw that she was securing the boats at the bow. I swung a leg across, stood, finding my balance as the speedboat gently rocked.

  “Vee.”