by Alex Dahl
I may look like a drowned rat, but the shop assistants know very well who I am and that I have money to spend. I buy a Missoni throw like the one I already have, but with a metallic sheen. I also buy a pair of white mock-croc Hunter boots, and a black wool dress by Malene Birger. Clutching the bags, I cross the square and am looking around for a taxi, when someone shouts my name. I turn and see a woman in her fifties I vaguely recognize as the receptionist at the swimming pool, cowering from the rain underneath a shop awning. This is the stupid bitch who put me in this situation in the first place. I walk over to her and raise an eyebrow, waiting for her to speak – she doesn’t even get a hello from me.
‘Hi, Cecilia,’ she says, smiling pleasantly, showing off a charming slick of coral lipstick on her teeth. Again, she is wearing something ridiculous – an oversized trench coat with drenched yellow faux fur, making her look like some freak animal. ‘I hope everything was okay with the little boy, ah, Tobias, yesterday?’
I stare at her.
‘Since when has Tobias been coming to the club?’ I ask, coolly.
‘Oh, uh, I think yesterday was the third or fourth time.’
‘And you’ve met his parents, presumably?’
Fat chin quivering, bland blue eyes dropping from mine to the puddles on the ground. ‘Well, yesterday he arrived with Yamal, another of the boys in the club. You probably know him.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Right. The other couple of times he’s arrived alone, but one time he was picked up by a woman.’
‘His mother?’
‘I would guess so.’
‘What did she look like?’
The receptionist looks at me strangely for a moment, like I’m asking something very surprising. ‘Is everything okay, Cecilia? You seem a bit—’
‘I asked you a question. What did this woman look like?’
Blink, blink. Mouth opening and shutting, as if thinking requires some kind of facial effort. ‘Well, she had shoulder-length light brown hair and was fairly tall, I suppose...’
‘Did she look like a junkie?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Did she look homeless, or like a drug addict?’
‘No... Well, not homeless exactly. She was a little shabby, I suppose. She asked for a glass of water and when I gave it to her she smiled slightly and I noticed that her teeth were very decayed. Quite unusually so, actually.’
‘Right.’
‘Why? Do you know her? Was she there when you dropped off the boy?’
I laugh incredulously, right in her face, then walk back into the rain, laughing some more at the thought of her still standing there, stunned, staring at me walking away from her. My heart is pounding so hard I hear it over the sound of the heavy rain. Could it be... ? No, I say to myself. It isn’t possible. And yet. I run through the park, holding the huge shopping bag to my chest because its cardboard is disintegrating in the rain, and my laughter becomes sobs. I sit a moment on a bench at the edge of the park, by the sea, tilting my head back so that my tears run with the rain, listening to the distant clunk and whirr of a harbor crane. I’m overwhelmed by a sensation of the past as a slithering snake sneaking up on me, ready to unleash its poison on this immaculate life I’ve fought so hard for.
Next to the ferry terminal is a slightly shabby sports bar I’ve never been to, but seen from the car. I make my way there slowly, stunned, trying to think. I’m wrong. I have to be wrong. The bar is empty. I order a vodka shot, then another, watched by the bemused, tattooed barman. To hell with the social workers; after all, what is mouthwash for?
‘My dog died,’ I say as he wipes down a shelf above me, briefly exposing a taut, intricately inked stomach, and he nods.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘That’s really shit.’ I stare at my hands, cradling the empty shot glass, not even attempting to stop the tears that drop from my eyes onto the slick, polished wood of the bar. I close my eyes for a very long time, and the images that rush at me are the ones I spend my life staving off. Then, a vague plan begins to form in my mind. I take my phone out, tapping in the number I know by heart, but haven’t stored in my contacts.
*
It’s a brisk walk home, and the combination of the warm vodka in my stomach and the rushing rain calms me down sufficiently to see more clearly. Maybe this won’t be the end of the world. The kid will just stay a few weeks, and then everything will go back to normal. Maybe his presence won’t trigger anything at all; maybe it won’t dislodge those huge, black boulders inside of me and send them crashing onto this life I’ve managed to preserve against some hefty odds. Maybe I can just be kind to him and do my best to make him comfortable during his stay. He is, after all, just a small, lost boy, and he doesn’t have the power to bring the past back out into the light. I have to believe that.
Johan meets me at the door. We both feel bad, and we fall into an awkward embrace across lines of rain boots and bags in the hallway. He moves in to kiss me but I turn away slightly – I’m afraid he’ll smell the vodka on my breath in spite of the chewing gum.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and he says it at the exact same time. We both smile, tiredly.
‘I’ve put Tobias in the blue room next to Nicoline, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘I was thinking I might head into town and pick up a few things for him,’ says Johan.
‘Oh,’ I say. I want to tell him that I need him here, that I’m afraid of being alone with the strange boy, of what this all means. But how do we ever tell anyone that we need them? I want him to know that inside of me there is a gash so deep and so black that it holds me in a perennial iron grip of anxiety and terror, and that it has been like that for me for a very long time. I want to tell him of that darkness, of all the nights spent awake, paralyzed with fear and regret, of the sensation of always walking atop the thinnest of glass floors laid across a tremendous abyss, but how could I? He wouldn’t want me then. Perfect Johan loves perfect Cecilia, that’s just how it is. Instead I pull out the Missoni throw and hold it up for him to see.
‘Hey,’ he says, and pulls me close. ‘Why don’t you sit down on the sofa with a nice cup of tea? I’ll take Tobias with me to the shops; he might want to choose some stuff himself.’
*
I must have fallen asleep, because when I wake, the rain has let up. I feel disoriented, like I’m still in a dream. I can hear Johan’s and Tobias’s voices from upstairs. I check my phone, and it’s full of missed calls and messages from clients I’ve been neglecting. I just can’t face talking to Rita Hansen about her curtains today, or Emilie Herbert about the fact that her husband now basically hates their home after I convinced her to paint everything moss-green. I need to go get my car, too, but can’t face getting up from the sofa just yet. I close my eyes again, and then I remember my dream, which wasn’t really a dream at all, but a memory.
A train platform in rural Normandy, fifteen years ago: a group of five young Norwegian backpackers, about to start the long trip home after a summer spent hitchhiking around France. The sharp morning sun throwing dappled shadows onto the field beyond the train tracks, where cows grazed peacefully. Aleksander and Maja sat close together, sharing a cigarette, looking up at the distant rumbling sound of the train arriving. Julian listened to music on his Discman, staring at his feet, probably missing the French girl he’d just had to leave behind in Brittany. Johan sitting next to me, close to the edge of the platform, watching the steely glint of the locomotive as it rounded the bend ahead. All summer, and for several years before that moment, he had tried to get me to be interested in him, not realizing that I loved him and always had. He wasn’t a pushy boy, and my rebuffs were gentle but firm. It’s all about the timing, and I knew that even then, at nineteen. You’ve got to make them want you desperately before you give in. Aleksander and Maja stood up and began to gather their backpacks. Julian placed the headphones around his neck and smiled at us. I knew the repercussions of what I was about to say, and felt a sudden clutch of
my heart, like a quick, dangerous hand.
I lit another cigarette with the new silver lighter inlaid with jade stones, the one I’d stolen in a bar in La Rochelle. The others stared at me uncomprehendingly. But... the train... It had stopped now and stood impatiently wheezing as the few passengers climbed on board. I’m staying here, I said, turning to Johan, who already had one foot on the lowest rung of the boarding steps, with my most dazzling smile. He stared at me with an open mouth, running through his options. He was about to go to university, his parents would kill him, we were about to run out of money... Stay with me, I said. Aleksander, Maja and Julian hung out of the open window of the carriage, staring, as if they knew that they were witnessing something life-changing and there was no point in saying anything. Johan stepped back onto the platform and the door immediately clanged shut behind him. He stood completely still, carrying his weighty backpack, watching me the way you would a creature who could easily kill you, and I burst out laughing at the craziness of the moment, of the missed train, my suddenly wild heart, the storm clouds gathering in the distance, the boy in front of me. I took both of his hands in mine as the train pulled away, and they were soft and warm, like a child’s. Hey, I said, and as he looked at me, he started laughing, too, and then we were kissing like crazy, and laughing again, and kissing.
5
Nine days later
Johan is sitting by the side of the bed when I wake, and it’s still pitch-black dark outside. My mind darts wildly to scenarios of death. My mother? One of the girls? My mind is slow, achy.
‘What is it?’ I whisper, gripped by fear. ‘What time is it?’
‘It’s just gone five a.m. The police just called.’
‘Jesus. What the hell is going on?’
‘A body has been found. Floating. In Kilen, late last night.’
‘Floating? In the water?’ I sit up fast.
‘Yes.’
‘They’re still waiting for definite identification, but the police are working on the theory that it’s Tobias’s mother.’
‘His mother?’ My voice comes out shrill and strange in the hushed, soft darkness.
‘Yes.’
‘Why would they think that?’
‘Apparently it’s someone known to the police. A drug addict, maybe, or a petty criminal—’
‘There aren’t any criminals in Sandefjord!’ Even as I say it, I realize how dumb I sound.
‘Cecilia—’
‘But they’d know if someone like that had a child?’
Johan looks at me, seemingly puzzled at my reaction. ‘Cecilia, listen. They’re... they’re saying it’s possibly... murder.’
‘Murder? In Sandefjord? But... but that’s not possible. It isn’t necessarily murder just because someone is found floating in water, they could have fallen in, or jumped in, or...’
‘Cecilia.’ Johan is looking at me strangely. I stop talking. ‘Don’t breathe a word to Tobias until we know for sure, okay?’
Johan pulls me close, and it’s a relief to bury my face in the soft fabric of his flannel pajamas so I don’t have to censor my facial expressions as dense webs of thoughts spread out in my tired mind, fading in and out of each other. A woman dead – no, murdered – in Sandefjord. I see her, face down in the murky harbor water, bloated calves bobbing on the surface like discarded bottles, hair spread out, reaching, moving, like the stinging threads of a jellyfish, hands immobile and set forever in a half grip. The boy still here, and still no clues as to his background, until now... I see his little face, too; the way he seems to have acquired an ability to merge into any background like a chameleon so you entirely forget he’s even there, watching, listening. I see his eyes, alert and quick like a soldier’s, sad like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and his small hands, which he always keeps awkwardly pressed to his sides. He’s stirring something in me, this boy, something I daren’t even touch upon; his very presence threatens to unleash a wave of grief and regret so huge it would knock me down forever if I don’t keep suppressing it at any cost. A small cry escapes me, a howl shooting up and out of me into Johan’s flannel pajamas, and he pulls back and looks at me gently.
‘Hey... hey, are you okay? It’s been a little much for you recently, hasn’t it?’ I nod, and he pulls me close again, stroking my hair and kissing my hand, which he’s clutching tight in his own. The last week has been the worst of my life. I haven’t even stopped by the office – every moment of every day has been consumed by everything that is going on in my family, and now... this. My head hurts, and so does my hand, and I pull it from Johan’s grip and slip it into my nightgown, above my heart. It’s racing. It would be so easy now, in the hushed, black, early morning, to whisper the things I haven’t told Johan into his ear. The things I’ve done. Maybe he’d keep holding me; maybe he’d still love me and stay with me... But maybe not. Most likely not. I try to control myself, but I’m sobbing silently now; all I can see is her, there in the harbor, floating on still, cold water. How could she have ended up there, in the merciless, freezing sea?
‘Shhh, baby,’ he whispers, lowering me gently back into the bed and lying down behind me in spoons. ‘Shhhh...’
*
Last weekend, we took Tobias and the girls to visit my mother. She lives in the house where I grew up; a large waterfront villa on the southern tip of Vesterøya, the same peninsula we now live on, but closer to town. Like ours, it’s a prestigious home, though definitely more old-school. From the gardens you can see all the way to Hvaler on a clear day, and when I was little, I loved to watch the boats cross back and forth, breaking the sea’s steely surface in straight lines, churning up frothy wakes.
The girls sat silently, answering my mother’s questions in monosyllables, barely glancing up from their iPads, until I became annoyed and took the screens away and made them go outside to play, even though it was cold and windy. I ushered Tobias outside with them and I watched from inside the house as Nicoline and Hermine began throwing fallen leaves at each other before collapsing on the ground in fits of laughter, wrestling, until Hermine’s mittened pink hand shot up in surrender. Tobias didn’t join the game, or even glance at the girls, though they were squealing and laughing; his eyes were trained firmly on the surging, unpredictable waves of Skagerak strait, an unreadable expression on his face. I noticed again how dark-skinned he is compared to the average Norwegian kid; he could easily pass for half-Indian, or perhaps Brazilian, or maybe... Cuban. His hair was ruffled by the wind and his cheeks already looked slightly chubbier and healthier than when he came to us. Watching him looking out to sea, I felt that deep, unsettled feeling again, and forced myself to look away from him, and stared down at my teacake instead, until I felt my mother’s eyes on me.
‘Is everything okay, Cecilia?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I’m just... a bit tired.’
‘You seem preoccupied. It must be a big change for you all to have the boy come and live with you.’ My heart clenched in my chest. I rubbed my neck; it was hurting where the collar of my sweater rubbed against it. I didn’t want to be there, making small talk. I wanted to run, past the children, towards the lighthouse, into the crashing waves.
‘Yes, well, for Cecilia it has been quite difficult, particularly,’ Johan answered before I had a chance to speak. ‘She does do most of the day-to-day stuff around the house because I’m away so much, and also, well, you know how sensitive she is.’
‘Sensitive?’ I asked, and again my voice sounded shriller and louder than I intended.
‘Kindhearted,’ continued Johan, after a careful pause. ‘I know how much Tobias’s plight unsettles and touches you, honey.’
‘A beautiful boy,’ said my mother, looking out the window to where he still stood, immobile. ‘The poor, poor child. What wretched parents could leave a little boy behind?’
‘I’m going to go and check on him,’ I said, but when I reached the double doors that open up into the garden, it felt as though they couldn’t be opened, that I didn’t possess
the strength needed to slide them apart, that a membrane separated me from the world in which this little boy existed. I turned around and saw that Johan and my mother were speaking intently, murmuring, probably about me and what a crazy lady I’d been this week. I could just make out Nicoline and Hermine down on the beach, almost at the lighthouse, running fast in their rain boots, darting in and out of licking waves. Such fiery children, those two; either best friends or sworn enemies prone to violence and screamed abuse.
I placed my hand on the door handle and mobilized all my strength to walk out there, in the wind, to him.
‘Hey, you,’ I said, crouching down on the hard, cool ground next to him, trying to get him to look at me, but his eyes stayed firmly on the gray waves. ‘Do you want to come back inside with me? We could play a game or something.’ No reaction. ‘Do you know Snakes and Ladders?’ It was like speaking to a statue; he just stood there, immobile. ‘Tobias,’ I said, surprising myself with what I was about to tell him, even trying to stop myself from going on, but finding I couldn’t. ‘When I was a little girl, I lived in this house. It was a wonderful place to grow up, and I used to do what my girls are doing right now, over there, look.’ I paused, and realized I hadn’t ever told my own children this. ‘I loved the beach, and the garden, and the little woods over there. I’m an only child, and I used to invent friends I’d play with for hours, and they were completely real to me. I loved the house, too, but inside, it was sometimes difficult. My parents weren’t happy with each other and they used to scream so loudly I’d wake up in the night from it. Other times they wouldn’t speak to each other at all for many days, maybe they thought I didn’t notice because I was little, but of course I did. Then, when I was only a little older than you, one day my father just disappeared. Gone. And he never came back.’ Tobias turned slowly and looked at me. I took his hand, but he immediately pulled it back and held it to his side.