The Boy at the Door

by Alex Dahl

  *

  Tobias is a very beautiful child. There isn’t any doubt about that, and I catch all three members of my family frequently gazing at him adoringly – he really is cute. I can tell that Johan loves having a boy around – Nicoline and Hermine have never once humored their father with ball-throwing, but Tobias does, though rather clumsily. Nicoline and Hermine, who some might say are a bit sullen, and more interested in YouTube make-up tutorials than anything else, have actually benefited from having Tobias around – they both think he’s sweet and want to be his favorite, so they fight less when he’s around. More than once, when I’ve gone to wake the children in the morning for school, I’ve found both girls fast asleep in Tobias’s room, snuggled up to the tiny stranger. This, I must admit, I find strangely moving. Tobias doesn’t smile often, but when he does, his whole face lights up and his otherwise expressionless eyes get a warm, lovely glow, and it feels like you just want to keep that kid smiling.

  I park down by the road and run up the steep path on my heels, feeling my dress snag on some brambles on my way. Though I’ve only been here that one time before, it is as though I know the path well, and by the time I reach the door with its peeling blue paint, I feel a strong sense of déjà vu. The terror of that night, the crash of the rain, the abandoned boy... I raise my hand to knock, but decide against it. Instead, I listen awhile at the door, but can’t pick out a single sound coming from within. It is a quiet, clear night, and bitterly cold. I shiver in my cocktail dress, but probably noticing less than I would, had I not been so tipsy. I put my hand on the door handle and think about how, as it turned out, this house was Annika’s last home. How many times she would have trudged up that same path, in the morning, in the evening, in the middle of the night, probably. The door opens soundlessly and I step into complete darkness, trying to stave off the thoughts of Annika Lucasson floating on dark water. She haunts me, day and night, in death like she did in life. She would have liked that.

  The house is as empty and scary as the first time I came here, but in the light from my iPhone screen I can make out small footsteps in the thick layer of dust. In the first couple of weeks after Tobias was found and Annika died, this house was cordoned off by the police; I know this because Johan and I drove past here a couple of times, just to see, really. Now, new dust has gathered and nothing remains of the police investigation, except half a roll of police tape in a corner in the living room. I follow the footsteps into the kitchen, where a drawing I recognize as Tobias’s has been left on the dirty countertop. It is a drawing of many trees standing closely together, their distinctive trunks and branches meticulously and skillfully penciled. No sign of Tobias. I turn around and pick up the footsteps again, following them through the adjoining bare living room, then up the stairs.

  Tobias is fast asleep on the floor in the smaller of the bedrooms, the one I’d assumed was his the first time we came here. He’s inside a sleeping bag I recognize as Hermine’s, which he must have found at home. Relief hits me so hard I feel tears spring to my eyes and run down my face. I sit down by his side, about to nudge him awake, but then I realize I’m too drunk to drive, and I just can’t do it with a little child in the car. I have some blankets in the back of the car, so I run back outside and get them. In the bedroom, I sit against the wall, wrapped in the blankets, watching him sleep. I text Cornelia and Luelle to say I’ve found him and not to worry, and can feel my eyelids growing heavier and heavier.

  *

  When I wake, it’s still night and so cold I sit up, gasping. My blankets have slipped off me and my arm is exposed, and so frozen I can barely feel it. My face feels tight and strange and I am so consumed by this that it takes a few moments for me to realize that Tobias, too, is awake. He is sitting up against the wall next to me, the sleeping bag zipper closed all the way up to his chin, watching me seriously.

  ‘How did you know Anni?’ he asks finally, his breath bursting out of him in puffy white frost clouds.

  8

  There are only two places we can go from here. I could tell Tobias the truth, and my life, as I know it, would be over. I can’t imagine what life after that could look like. Or I could tell him a lie. Another lie. I’m good at lying. Sometimes, in life-changing moments, we are afforded at least a few minutes to contemplate the stakes before making those crucial calls that can alter the very course of our lives, but other times, a moment’s hesitation will give it all away. This is one of those moments. I decide to be brave and take a chance on the slight, ghoulish child levelly holding my gaze in the frigid night’s shimmery moonlight.

  ‘How did you know Anni?’ he asks again. He’s clever in his choice of words; had he simply asked Did you know Anni? I would have chanced a straight-up lie, but he has already informed me that he knows that I knew her.

  I consider myself a collected kind of person, accustomed not only to white lies, but pretty proficient also in the murkier shades of fabrication. Still, hearing Anni’s name spoken out loud and having to acknowledge her and any connection to her fills me with dread.

  ‘Tobias,’ I begin, in the calmest, lowest voice I can muster, trying to copy Laila Engebretsen’s ridiculously pedagogical intonation. Tobias’s gaze doesn’t waver. ‘Sometimes adults find themselves in some very tricky situations. Very tricky. And, uh, you know, in situations that are so difficult you just couldn’t possibly have even imagined them, you are forced to make decisions without even understanding what the consequences may be. Do you understand what I’m saying?’ Slight nod. ‘Sometimes, you’re lucky and everything works out okay. But sometimes... sometimes everything is so unclear and difficult and impossible, and you end up making one single decision that makes everything that follows veer off course forever.’

  I’ve got him. He is listening intently, his eyes still not leaving mine, but also glazing over slightly as he seems to consider my words in the context of whatever he is thinking about.

  ‘You’re very young, Tobias, and I don’t expect you to understand everything I’m telling you, but you deserve to know the truth. Things that seem clear-cut and obvious when you’re young don’t always seem that clear when life has had its way with you. Anyway. Look. Johan and I have had some very big problems in our marriage for many years now. Problems that would make most people decide to end a relationship. But when you have children together, it is very difficult to make that decision, because as a mother, you just need to know that you are doing the best thing possible for your child. Tobias, I really believe that any mother does what she believes is best for her child, even though it doesn’t necessarily seem that way at the time.’ I pause for a long moment, and draw the blankets snugly around my shoulders, but still I’m shivering. Tobias is still looking at me closely, but not in the same confrontational way as when I woke.

  ‘What kind of problems?’ he asks, finally. ‘Is Mr Wilborg angry with you?’

  ‘No,’ I say, accompanied by a sad little half laugh.

  ‘But what? And what about Anni?’

  ‘Tobias, I haven’t told anyone what I’m about to tell you,’ I say. A small hand appears at his chin, where the sleeping bag is tightly zipped shut. It emerges and he lets it rest a long moment on my shoulder before putting it back inside. I have to look away. ‘I used to buy something very bad from Anni, that’s why I knew her.’

  ‘Is it smack?’ The fact that Tobias, aged eight, knows what smack is makes me momentarily want to cry, and reverse the direction I’ve guided this conversation. I shake my head.

  ‘No, sweetie. It isn’t. But if I’m honest, it isn’t so much better. It’s not something that you’re allowed to buy, and it is very bad for you.’

  ‘Is it coke?’

  ‘Ummm, yes. Yes, it is.’

  ‘But... but why?’

  ‘Like I said, I’ve had a very difficult time in my relationship with Johan, and although that is absolutely no excuse for substance abuse, I’m telling you as an explanation. I want you to feel that I am honest with you.’ Tobias nods slo
wly, but his little face is scrunched up in a grimace.

  ‘Does Mr Johan hit?’

  ‘No, sweetie. No, he doesn’t. Never.’

  ‘But... what, then? It’s nice in your home.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is. It’s just that… Between... between him and me, it’s very difficult.’

  ‘But... how?’

  ‘Can I trust that this stays between you and me, Tobias? I haven’t discussed these things with anyone before. And, like you probably know, buying the things that Anni sold isn’t allowed. I could get problems with the police and everything.’

  ‘I promise, I’ll never, ever tell anyone!’

  ‘Okay. Well, all right, I will tell you, though you probably won’t entirely understand what I’m saying. Just please never repeat this. Not to anyone.’ Head nodding furiously.

  ‘My husband loves me but not in the way that most husbands love their wives. Because... because Johan likes men.’

  ‘He’s bad?’

  ‘No. No, he isn’t bad. At all. He just loves men.’

  ‘So, he’s bad.’

  ‘No, Tobias, he isn’t.’

  ‘It’s bad to... to be that.’

  ‘Says who? It doesn’t make him bad. It’s just who he is. But... as his wife, it’s been very difficult. He didn’t know when he was younger, or when we met. Sometimes we find out things about ourselves that come as big surprises, even after we thought we were all grown up and thought we knew everything. And, sometimes, people change, and that is just how it is. I’ve changed, too. When I was younger, I used to be really relaxed and fun. I was always the one with the crazy ideas and the one who thought that life was just one really big adventure.’

  ‘You’re still fun,’ says Tobias, and gives me that sweet, rare smile, the one I don’t deserve. The smile I can’t bear.

  ‘No. Well, like most adults, I’m just... tired sometimes. Too tired, and too sad, and too weak, to change the things that could maybe be changed to make things better. And that is why I started buying the, uh, the stuff from Anni. I hope you know how terrible the consequences can be from taking things like what Anni used, and sold. I know I’m not the right person right now, to say that it’s bad to do that when I’ve just told you I have done it myself. But… Everybody... everybody has hard things in their life. Most people find better ways of dealing with them. I guess I just made a really bad decision.’

  Tobias nods. ‘You... you just don’t look like someone who shoots needles.’

  ‘Oh God, I don’t! Never any needles. Not that it matters. Or maybe it does. Yes, I think it does. Well, to me it does.’ Tobias narrows his eyes and I realize that I’m rambling about drug use to an eight-year-old. He just looks very tired.

  ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘What do you say we go home?’

  After a long pause, Tobias nods.

  ‘I liked this room and I liked the trees. I wanted to see it again.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I understand that, sweetie. But do you think you can feel at home at our house, too?’ Tobias looks down at the dusty floor, or maybe at my stilettos poking out from my woolen blanket.

  ‘I came to look for something.’

  ‘What was it?’ For a moment, Tobias looks so pained, I wonder if he is going to cry.

  ‘It... it was a little bear. Like a toy bear. My mother stitched it for me.’ My heart pounds so loud I’m sure he can hear it.

  ‘Your… your mother? Do you mean Anni?’

  ‘No. My mother. She made me a little bear. And it’s gone. Anni lost it but I wanted to see if it was here.’

  ‘Did you find it?’

  Small shake of his head.

  ‘Tell you what. We’ll go to the store and buy a new bear. I know it won’t be the same, but maybe that will help.’

  Tobias frowns, his dark eyebrows almost meeting in the middle. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘If your husband likes men and it isn’t a bad thing, why can’t he be with a man? Why don’t you find someone who likes you even if you’re a girl?’

  ‘Well, Tobias, it’s more complicated than that. We have two daughters. It’s important that they have both of us and a nice home.’

  ‘But it’s also important to be happy in your house.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘I have one more question.’

  ‘Of course, sweetie.’

  ‘When did you last see Anni?’

  ‘When did I last see Anni?’ I repeat. Buy time, pretend to think. When did I last see Annika? ‘I... I think it must have been right at the beginning of summer. Maybe... maybe, say, June. Yes, that must be it.’ Tobias doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at me calmly, and it occurs to me again that I’m terrified by an eight-year-old. ‘It’s been a long time since I, uh... you know, used any of those things that Anni sold.’ Finally Tobias nods, and two small hands appear at the top of the sleeping bag’s zipper, and when he’s undone it all the way, he steps out of it, wearing only his Star Wars pajamas, recently bought for him by Johan.

  ‘Come,’ I say, and lead him slowly towards the staircase, my hand on his shoulder. I’m not afraid of driving now, in spite of all the booze earlier – my head has never been this clear, though my heart is hammering. I need to think. I need to get Tobias home, and then I have to have a long, hot shower and a couple of espressos. With pharmaceuticals. And then, I’m going to have to come up with some kind of plan or otherwise my carefully curated life will erupt into the biggest shit show Sandefjord has ever seen, and that won’t happen. Over my dead body.

  *

  My personal take on marriage is that it’s nobody’s fucking business how you conduct your life behind closed doors. Unfortunately, because Norway is such a normative society, I feel a lot of pressure to live life a certain way. It’s all laid out for you here, how you’re supposed to live. When I was younger, I felt so restricted by these norms. I had quite a wild phase during the years Johan and I lived in Paris, and deep down, I never wanted to return. Johan eventually wanted to go home, establish a real career, buy a house, be respectable parents, have a mountain cabin. Be like everybody else. So, we moved back, and I rebelled. Quietly, but still. I’d pursue little flings discreetly, living for those moments of intense exhilaration when I felt a new man’s hand move slowly down my spine. I’d go back to Paris for occasional weekends, walking around our old neighborhood behind Panthéon, feeling stung by breathtaking regret for what I’d left behind. I’d do a line or two of coke with my wild university friends, who were still working in gloomy bars and dating numerous unsuitable people. Back then, Sandefjord often felt like death’s antechamber. But then, as Johan’s career took off, I got increasingly comfortable and it became clear to me that I no longer wanted the messy, hand-to-mouth life of a Parisian twenty-something. I wanted to be rich, and I wanted to be like a shiny picture – the perfect woman that everybody envied. And here I am. Sometimes I look at Johan and I see a middle-aged banker whose skin is prone to eczema and feel wild with longing for other men, for more excitement, for foreign cities, naked breakfasts in bed, inappropriate encounters. But here’s the thing – and this might be the thing that has ensured I tend to come out on top when life gets tricky – I’m not stupid. I know what I have and I’ll be damned if I let anything threaten it.

  People want different things, that’s just life. Some of my friends, like Cornelia, for example, want soppy romance and passionate amore. Good luck with that, I’ve always said, and it would seem that my cynical approach isn’t so silly after all; Cornelia’s love life is made up of an endless line-up of idiotic, lying, nasty clowns. And then there’s Fie, who is married to Bent, a penniless substitute teacher for whom she left her first husband – dependable, wealthy, boring Arne. She’s an imbecile. Three years down the line, when infatuation wears off, she’ll realize she had it all and gave it up to live in a tiny, ugly house with an emasculated geek. And there I’ll be, still, in my stable, content marriage with the most desirable man in Sande
fjord, in my wonderful home, with our gorgeous daughters. It isn’t a big price to pay, to live with moments of acute boredom. It’s not like we don’t love each other. We have sex occasionally, but less so, these days. It’s not like I don’t have my own pursuits – I have an active imagination and some very impressive toys to play with when Johan travels, and that is as far as I will go these days. Once bitten, forever shy.

  At home, the poor boy finally fell asleep at gone four a.m., after I let him draw for half an hour while I was in the shower, trying to warm my frozen bones.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, as I stood up to leave his room, after tucking him in tight. ‘For running away and for saying that your husband is bad.’ I nodded, and ruffled his hair a little, but he pulled away instinctively, then seemed to reconsider, and smiled sweetly.

  ‘It’s okay. But please don’t run away again. We want you here, Tobias.’ He opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something else, then decided against it and turned slightly towards the wall. If you lie to somebody all the time, are they less likely to suspect you of lying as they can’t compare it to the truth?

  9

  In my room is a bed, a desk and a chair. The desk has three drawers on one side, and I always wanted a desk like that. It’s nice to have somewhere to keep your things. I guess I didn’t have many things before, but I do now because the family has bought a lot of things for me. You need this and this and this, they say, and bring me bags of things that I never knew I needed. Yesterday it was a folded pencil case with Yoda on it. The dad in the house knows I like Star Wars. He handed it to me wrapped in a white paper bag with red writing that said ‘Changi Airport’. Moffa and I used to watch Star Wars together, and he made me a lightsaber once, too. Inside the pencil case are lots of colored pens and pencils, each neatly placed in a little hoop so it’s easy to find the color you want. In a separate compartment there’s a ruler, an eraser, a compass and some plastic shapes with numbers on. A few days before that, the mother in this house gave me loads of small packets containing colored cards. Some were football cards and some were Pokémon cards. Many children at school have these cards, and I was very happy to get them. She also gave me some round glass balls. She said they’re called marbles and that she used to play with them when she was small. Inside some of these balls are colored swirls, and in others there are air bubbles you only see if you hold them up to the light.