by Karin Fossum
She decided to go for a walk along Kirkelina. This was not something she normally did, but she had had the window closed all night and needed some air. She hoped that Olaf might be out with Dolly. When she got to the bottom of the steps, she was seized by uncertainty. How many steps would it be down to the road today? Could she walk without counting? Her whole system relied on her measuring the distance down to the mailbox, thus defining her own space and exactly how big it was. She was not able to break the pattern. She took a few hesitant steps. The damned counting in her mind started immediately, and after ten steps, she took four back. Then she walked forward for eight and back for five, then thirteen forward and three back. When she had completely lost count, she started to walk faster, it was only a few metres down to the road. She had outmanoeuvred her own system. Triumphant, she turned round. The footprints looked like a horde of people had been playing in her driveway.
She set off towards the church, with her hands deep in the pockets of her coat. She met no one. Every now and then a car drove past, but they were also going slower than normal, it was Sunday, after all, there was no need to rush. The cold air on her cheeks felt good, but was the right cheek not extra cold? Had the hole not healed as she had hoped, it felt like the chill was in her bones. She stamped her feet hard on the ground, to make her presence known. Of course it cut to the bone, she had no fat on her body, and the wind was coming from the right, blowing the bitter cold from the river that ran through town, all the way up to Kirkelina. A taxi came driving towards her, the light on the roof was on, perhaps it was Irfan. The shop would be closed today, and he might want to earn some Sunday fares. But it was not Irfan, she discovered. The driver looked at her directly as he passed, possibly in the hope she would wave him down. She carried on. Huddled over as she was freezing now, but she liked it, liked walking briskly up the road without meeting anyone. After some time, she lifted her head and looked around. To think that she had walked this far, time had stood still, no ticking either inside her or out.
Later, she sat at the kitchen table and drank some hot tea from a large cup with two handles. The window here was dirty as well, covered in a grey film. It would not be easy to wash them while it was cold. She could not remember them being like that the day before, but that’s often the way with things that happen slowly, she reflected, like the division of cells in the body, never the same as before. Was anything happening in there at all, she wondered, or were her organs in fact in the process of shutting down? One machine at a time, until the whole biochemical factory lay cold and deserted? She leaned closer to the window and spotted a mark that she could not work out at first, until she noticed a small feather quivering in the wind. A bird must have crashed into the window, perhaps it was lying dead in the snow below. She stood up, opened the window and looked down. But she could not see a dead bird. Either it had been eaten by a cat or it had just got a terrible fright and flown away. She closed the dirty window, went over to the computer and sat staring at the screen as it sprang to life.
On YouTube, she found ‘The Jumper’, but a thought struck her before she pressed play. The young man who jumped from the building, hit the asphalt, then got up and left the frame was remarkably familiar. She had seen him before, no, not just seen him, she felt that she knew him, or had known him once a long time ago, because there were some strings in her that resonated every time she looked him in the eye. It was of course a ridiculous thought, the video was not even Norwegian, and she did not know any young men, apart from Audun. And he certainly did not look anything like Audun. The video only lasted a minute. But those sixty seconds always seemed to stretch on for much longer. There he was, on the roof of the building, only a few steps from the edge. He was slim and dressed in dark clothes. A black jacket that sat neatly on his hips, but was not buttoned. He stood there for a long time without moving, preparing himself for the great fall, then he stepped out to the edge. Not a sound to be heard. No music, no traffic from the street below, no shouts or screams. That was perhaps why the images made such an impact, because of the silence; everything had stopped, everyone was holding their breath, just as she was holding her breath. Then he spread out his arms so he looked like a cross, or a figurehead. And in fact, he did not jump at all, he fell forwards into a swoop, as elegant as a swallow. His jacket swung open and fluttered around him so he looked like a flying squirrel. The noise of the body hitting the ground was the first sound on the video. He immediately started to bleed from his ears and mouth, and the person with the handheld camera stormed across the street to get a close-up of him, she could hear his footsteps and shallow breathing. Time started again. Ragna took a deep breath and waited. Any second now he would slowly move one hand and lift his head, muster his strength and manage to pull his body up until he was standing, then he would start to walk, staring straight at the camera, at her, Ragna Riegel, with that inscrutable expression. Only this time it did not happen. He stayed on the ground, and the pool of blood expanded and grew, as though the lifeless body was emptying itself of fluid. He did not move so much as a finger. The seconds ticked by and she waited, touched the screen with her finger, poked him. A minute passed, and another, had the computer frozen? She knocked it a couple of times to jolt it into action, but nothing happened. Four point seven million people had watched this video and now it was over. The screen went black. But still she waited, she knew that it automatically went back to the beginning, it would play again and again, on a loop, until she decided to watch something else. But the screen remained black. Even though the blue light was still flashing to show that the computer was on, she could not find ‘The Jumper’ again. It was just another trick, they had fooled her once more. She could not believe anything any more, everything was fixed, everything was a trick. Everything that happened outside the windows, everything that happened inside. She lifted her hand and studied it carefully, imagined the blood flowing through the tiny veins that coloured the tips of her fingers pink, imagined the cells that were constantly renewing themselves to make her fingers sensitive. Divide, for God’s sake, divide! she thought. She came abruptly to herself when someone knocked hard on the door.
Chapter 25
The relationship and atmosphere between them had changed, but Ragna could not put her finger on when exactly it had happened. Even Frank, who was lying by the window, was on his guard. He had pricked up his ears when she came into the room and was full of expectation when she went over to say hello. She looked at Sejer with a more critical eye, saw every wrinkle and line in his serious face. She thought he was less sympathetic and spotted something new in his slate-grey eyes, a doubt that had not been there before, a different attitude. She said nothing. She sat as she always did during these interviews, like a schoolgirl, with her hands on her lap.
But now the silence unsettled her, which was also something new.
‘Is there a letter from Berlin?’ she asked.
Sejer did not answer immediately. She could not understand why he was so reserved, which she found disconcerting. Three seconds passed, and then twenty.
‘Yes, there is,’ he replied reluctantly.
‘Have you read it?’
‘Yes, we have.’
‘But I can’t yet?’
‘You’ll get it soon.’
He immediately wrote something on his notepad. She could see that it was more than a keyword this time, was in fact several sentences. She did not want to ask what he was writing, she was not really bothered anyway, all she cared about was the letter waiting for her, maybe even in the inspector’s desk. But she held her tongue. She had some rights, and he had not said that they would hold the letter back.
He put the pen down and scrutinised her face. More closely than before, Ragna felt, they were obviously no longer going to be friends. It was serious now. For some reason he had decided to be mean. The room felt different, the light was sharper. He was willing to throw the trust she had built up overboard, she was now going to be pressed into a corner. Time was running out, p
erhaps; he wanted to close the case, to move it on through the system. She had never for a moment believed she would get away with it. And she did not want to either, she just wanted to explain herself properly.
She could not bear the silence any longer.
‘Do you think Rikard Josef could get a temporary release?’ she whispered hopefully. ‘So he could come and visit me?’
‘I doubt it very much,’ was Sejer’s short reply. ‘Be happy with the fact that you’ve been allowed to receive a letter and read it, despite correspondence and visitation restrictions. We’ve done a lot for you. And I’m afraid I don’t know anything about the rules for leave from Plötzensee Prison.’
‘So now you don’t want to do any more for me.’
When he did not answer, she made another attempt.
‘Why are you looking at me like that? What is it?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out myself,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to understand what actually happened.’
‘Who have you been talking to?’ she asked nervously. ‘What did they say?’
She pulled down the sleeves of her sweater to hide her hands.
‘What are you frightened they’ve said?’ Sejer asked. ‘An uncomfortable truth?’
Ragna put a hand over her throat, as though the scar might give her away, and she had to avoid that at all costs. She did not like the direction this conversation had taken. She had told the truth, she had laid her cards on the table from day one. She had a feeling there was something she had forgotten, and that her desire to cooperate was no longer appreciated. What was the point in continuing? Maybe she should stop talking for good now, and let him work it out himself. Lots of people did, they said nothing, on the advice of their lawyers. She had been given the same advice too, but ignored it. She crossed her arms and sent him an injured look. They were clearly in a new phase now and were going to fight with different weapons. It struck her that they had not fought at all, never used any weapons, the words had just flowed, from her to him and back again. She thought about her son and felt anxious. Maybe they wanted to punish her, for whatever it was she had done, by not letting her see his letter. Only Rikard was important now, and everything they were going to say or write to each other. She felt effervescent joy at the knowledge that he was thinking about his mother, and that he called her ‘Liebe Mutti’. She wanted to know more.
‘I can see that things have changed,’ she whispered.
He nodded in reply.
‘I’ve spoken to the people who know you,’ he explained. ‘It’s routine to question them, people who have been in contact with you for some time and know something about you.’
‘The people who know me? That can’t have taken much time.’
‘There’s more of them than you think,’ Sejer said.
She reached for the water jug, but he was quicker and poured a glass, pushed it over the table towards her, seemed kinder again. She left the glass standing there, her hands were shaking too much and she did not want him to see.
‘They can’t have had much to say,’ she said faintly. ‘I’ve never been particularly chatty, for obvious reasons.’
‘Our eyes provide us with a lot of information. I’m sure you know what I mean. And as you don’t say much, I’m sure you keep your eyes open when you’re with other people.’
‘So what have they seen then?’ she asked truculently.
Because she was annoyed, she had stopped shaking. She picked up the glass and drank down the water in great gulps, then banged the glass back down on the table.
‘What are you frightened of hearing, Ragna?’
‘No one knows anything,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s all guesswork and assumptions. Everything we think we know about each other is wrong. I don’t know what you want, I don’t know what you’re after – I’ve put all my cards on the table. I’ve not held anything back. It’s you who is keeping things back.’
‘Sometimes we have to.’
‘We?’ She looked around the room. ‘There’s only you and me in the room. So from now on, you’re going to be tactical, is that it?’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ he replied calmly.
‘I’m going to get that letter from Rikard,’ she whispered with determination. ‘I’m not going to say another word until I get my letter, it’s my right.’
‘Strictly speaking, it’s not,’ he said.
They looked at each other for a long time, and in the end, she had to look away.
He stood up and went over to a shelf where Ragna’s letter was lying, pushed it over the table to her.
‘You opened it with your fingers,’ she complained, ‘as though it were just advertising.’
She held the torn envelope up to show him.
‘You could at least have used a letter opener,’ she said. ‘This is a valuable document.’
She could not sit still; she waved the envelope in anger and had trouble expressing how she felt.
‘Yes, we should have,’ Sejer conceded. ‘You’re right.’
‘We?’ Ragna said again. She sounded bitter.
‘I,’ Sejer corrected himself. ‘It was me who opened the letter, and I opened it with my finger. I am very sorry that I did not show greater respect.’
He looked her in the eyes when he said this.
‘I want to read it in my cell,’ she demanded. ‘I want to read it now. I want to go back.’
Chapter 26
Liebe Mutti,
All I see through my window is the prison wall. It is eight metres high. On top there are great rolls of barbed wire, which remind me of nests that no bird wants to live in. And I can see the tower, of course, where the guards are on patrol 24/7. The top is made of glass and is a bit like a diamond cut with six surfaces. They walk slowly, their eagle eyes looking out over the enormous prison grounds. I often sit here watching them, while I try to imagine what they think as they trudge their set round, always in a circle, as though they were in a running wheel. I can also see a small patch of sky, it’s not very big, really too small to get any sense of the weather. I have to go out into the exercise yard to do that, but I’m out there every day, as a rule in the afternoons. But I’m not that bothered about the weather, as I’m neither a farmer nor a fisherman.
Yes, of course we are serving our sentences under the same sky, even though sometimes, as a child, I wondered if we actually lived in the same world. We now have something in common, something that unites us, which might be a good thing and lead to a better understanding. A new openness. But I don’t expect much, I’ve learned not to, I was worn out by everything that went on at home, that I escaped from. But it feels good to write to you, it’s new to me. When Helmut passes down the corridor with the post, I go out and call after him, as there might be something from you in the big pile. The others get letters, and now I’m no different from them.
There’s a small cafe in the prison that we call Plötzen which is open for a few hours in the evening. I don’t often go there, but every now and then I go down to get a cup of coffee, or something else I can take back to my cell. The cafe is run by a girl, and there aren’t many of them in the unit. Not that that particularly bothers me, but sometimes it does good to hear her voice, which is high and bright, like I remember your voice was. I realise that young Peter also has quite a high, girlish voice. Just like all the other inmates, he’s found a survival strategy, you have to. He’s the youngest here, and the thinnest, so the most vulnerable. He thinks before he speaks. Behaves like an angel, is quick to lower his eyes. No one lays a hand on him. There are not often fights, more verbal disagreements, which blow up out of nowhere, but then subside before they turn into violence. None of the men in my unit are violent. Most of them have something that gnaws at them, they have secrets, but then we all do. You too, Mutti. It’s a human right to have secrets. Something we carry deep inside, that we will carry to the grave, and that’s the way it should be, I think.
I don’t know what you must be thinking as you
read this. Maybe you hope that one day I’ll come home, or come to visit you in prison, if I get out before you. But I will never move back to Kirkelina, you must understand that there is nothing for me to come back to. And as for us, well, the future will tell, but we won’t ever share that future. Is that what you sit there dreaming about, and now I’m crushing your dream?
It’s nearly dinner time here. The chef is good, a Chinese man, but he doesn’t beat the chef at the Dormero. As staff, we used to eat in the kitchen whenever we had the chance, we’d lean against the metal counters and worktops and help ourselves to the heavenly food. But those days are long gone. So much belongs to the past now. So, I’m going to go down to the canteen and find myself a place. Maybe you eat on your own in your cell. As I remember you, you would probably prefer that.
Greetings from your son,
Rikard Josef
Ragna folded the pages and held them to her chest, over her beating heart. She tried to feel her son’s pulse in the thin paper, to hear his breathing.
She had a very clear image of him sitting in his cell at a desk by the window. He was sitting there writing to her. But she could only see his back and neck, not his face, she could not get hold of it, had no idea of what his face looked like as a grown man. When she played in her imagination, she saw brief glimpses of her father, his straight nose, his thick, black brows. Or she saw Walther’s square jaw and high forehead. She was certain that Rikard had thick, beautiful hair and was not stuck with her wispy thin bird’s nest. He would be tall and broad, she reckoned, with muscles from all the hard training. Goodness, he must be so handsome. She sat for a long time with the two pages to her heart. They nourished her soul. The words penetrated in through her skin, passed her ribs, joined the bloodstream and flowed straight to her heart, she could live on this for a long time, a long time! But after a while, other thoughts started to jostle for attention, his words echoed in her head.