Death By Water

by Damhaug, Torkil

  Tage still pronounced her name in that strange Swedish way. They had never got used to it. She remembered what she thought that day fifteen years ago, the first time he came to their house: a person who says Mother’s name in such a weird way is definitely not going to be allowed to move into our house. But thinking that hadn’t helped.

  Tage got no answer and called out again, adding this time: – It’s Liss.

  Liss heard a sound from the living room. The next moment her mother was standing in the doorway, her face drawn and without make-up. She gasped, but her eyes looked far away.

  – Liss, she murmured, and stayed where she was.

  Liss kicked off her boots, crossed the threshold, into the hallway. Had decided in advance to give Mother a hug, but that didn’t happen.

  – You’re here. Mother took hold of her arm, as though to reassure herself her eyes were not deceiving her. – There, you see, Tage, she came.

  – I never said she wouldn’t, Tage protested as he looked around. – Where are your things?

  – What things?

  – Suitcase, or bag.

  – I just left.

  – Okay then, Tage noted. He was an assistant professor in sociology, unless he’d finally got the chair he’d applied for hundreds of times. He always noted things before he permitted himself to have an opinion on them.

  They sat in the living room. Not much was said. Liss reeled off something about not being able to sit calmly and wait in Amsterdam. Her mother contented herself with a nod, but was hardly listening. Seemed even more remote now than when Liss had arrived. She must have taken some tranquillisers. It wasn’t like her; she never touched medicines. But now her eyelids were heavy and her pupils small.

  Tage withdrew to the kitchen to heat up some leftovers, though Liss had at first said no thanks. He wanted to bring the food into the living room, but she preferred to eat at the kitchen table. He sat with her. Her mother stayed where she was on the sofa. Leafing through a newspaper, Liss could hear.

  – How long can you stay? Tage wanted to know.

  As though she could give an answer to that. – It all depends.

  He nodded, seeming to understand what she meant.

  – Tell me what you know about Mailin, she said.

  It was the first time since entering the house that she had been able to say the name. In this kitchen where they had sat together since they were small children. Liss wasn’t sure what she actually remembered and what she had seen in old photographs, but in her mind’s eye she saw them sitting at this pine table eating breakfast and supper, scissoring and gluing, rolling dice.

  – She went missing on Thursday, is that right?

  Tage rubbed the tip of his nose. – She hasn’t been seen since Wednesday. Not that we know of.

  – What do you mean by that?

  He shook his head. – I don’t know what I mean, Liss. I daren’t have any opinion at all.

  – I have to know everything.

  Her voice sounded hard. Tage removed his glasses, wiped them with a handkerchief. The fat, probably spitting up from the frying pan, didn’t disappear but spread out in a film across the lenses. He blew on them, misting them, wiped again, still no effect.

  – She went out to the cabin, he said once he’d abandoned the cleaning and got his glasses on again. – That was Wednesday night. She always goes out there when she’s working on difficult projects. She spent the night out there, left there the next afternoon, it looks like. People heading for that café in the forest …

  – Vangen, said Liss.

  – Exactly, Vangen, people saw her car parked in the parking space down by …

  – Bysetermosan.

  – They saw it there Wednesday evening and the following morning. In the afternoon it was gone.

  – She hasn’t come off the road somewhere?

  An image of Mailin, trapped in her wrecked car in a deep ditch. Or at the foot of some cliff. Liss ran over the familiar roads in her mind.

  – We found her car, Tage told her. – It was parked in Welhavens Street, close by her office. She must have driven there Thursday, in the afternoon. She was supposed to be taking part in that talk show.

  – I saw that in the paper. That old rock-preacher Berger.

  Tage cleared his throat. – None of us have any idea why she agreed to do that. The man is a complete arsehole, pardon my French.

  Liss shrugged her shoulders. – He wants to break down a few taboos. Is that such a bad thing?

  – My dear Liss, Berger and his disciples are parasites on the conception of free thinking, Tage announced. – But pretty soon no one’s going to be allowed to say so out loud any more. The fear of being called politically correct is a more efficient way of censoring people than any dictatorship could come up with.

  It was clear that she’d got him going on one of his hobby horses. He walked over to the fridge, took out a beer, fetched two glasses and filled them both.

  – On the pretext of freeing us from old prejudices, they create new ones that are a great deal worse.

  Tage seemed irritated, which was unlike him. He could be grumpy and peevish, but he’d always found it difficult to display anger.

  – The worst thing is, young people have started turning him into a cult figure. Even my most serious students regard him as a revolutionary. And now you think of me as some old codger who doesn’t understand the changing times, or worse still, has no sense of humour.

  She had probably always thought of him as an old codger. But she could see that he had his own special sense of dry, intellectual humour. He could even make her laugh with his puns and his word games. All in all he was a decent, well-intentioned person. It was just that she’d never liked him.

  – Berger flirts with heroin abuse, with paedophilia, with Satanism; he turns all accepted ideas of what’s right and wrong upside down. But what I say to my students is this: that with views expressed in the public arena comes responsibility; these are public acts, something quite different from choosing which suit you think you look best in.

  – Mailin wanted to take part in his programme, Liss pointed out.

  Tage sighed deeply. – I’m sure her intentions were good. But I doubt she would have achieved anything beyond confirming that the right to be a bastard takes precedence over everything else, as long as people find it entertaining.

  It looked as if he were getting rid of a long-pent-up frustration by abusing some clapped-out old rock star who’d been allowed to let it all hang out on TV. You had to be pretty naïve to allow yourself to be provoked by something like that, thought Liss. Norwegian, at the very least – or Swedish. In Holland, that stuff didn’t attract much attention any more.

  She let him carry on while she ate a few mouthfuls. Then she interrupted: – You say her car was parked outside her office?

  Tage tugged at his beard. – She probably called in there on her way to the TV studio. We were sitting down and all ready to watch, but when the programme started, she wasn’t there. And that arsehole was cracking jokes at her expense. That she didn’t have the guts to turn up and other disgraceful comments like that.

  – And she hasn’t been seen since?

  Liss heard her mother getting up from the sofa in the living room. She joined them in the kitchen.

  – You’ve had a bite to eat, I see, she said listlessly, resting a hand on Liss’s shoulder. – I’m just going for a little lie-down.

  She disappeared again and went up the stairs.

  Tage watched her. – I don’t know if she’ll be able to take it if something really has happened.

  Really has happened, Liss almost interrupted. Four days had passed since anyone had seen Mailin. She controlled herself, poked at her spaghetti, chewed at a half-mouthful of the meat sauce. It tasted of nothing. Had to be at least twenty-four hours since she’d last eaten, but she didn’t feel even remotely hungry. Emptied the glass of beer.

  – The police?

  Tage refilled her glass. – They’
ve questioned us about everything under the sun. If she was depressed, if she’s ever gone missing before, all that. About her relationship with Viljam.

  – What do you think about that?

  He scratched his liver-spotted crown with a finger. – What can one say? Anything might have happened … Dear Liss, we’re terrified. I’m sure you are too.

  Terrified? Was that what she was? She went in and out of mental states. Mostly she felt remote. Now and then as though she was being torn to pieces. Then suddenly relieved: everything would come to an end. And then again the suffocating blackness that paralysed her. She’d killed someone. In her jacket pocket was a photo of Mailin. She could throw it down on the table in front of Tage: take me to the police station. Lock me up. But I can’t face the thought of talking about it.

  He patted her gently on the arm. – Of course the police are investigating everything that might possibly be significant. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. People who live together quarrel and … He replaced the rest of the sentence with a cough. – Incidentally, have you met Viljam?

  She shook her head. – Spoke to him on the phone three days ago, that’s all.

  Mailin had never said much about this Viljam, but then she never did when it came to boyfriends, and Liss hadn’t particularly wanted to hear about him anyway. She remembered the message she’d received: Keep Midsummer’s Day free next year.

  – He’s a law student, isn’t he?

  – Correct. They’ve been a couple for over two years now. He seems a likeable young man to me. As far as Ragnhild is concerned, he isn’t right for Mailin, but then you know …

  He inclined his head towards the door his wife had just left through.

  – Ragnhild implies that she gets these odd vibrations from him. She can’t quite make him out.

  Liss could feel the old irritation beginning to stir. In her mother’s eyes, none of Mailin’s boyfriends had ever been good enough for her. She always gave the impression that her daughters should feel free to choose whoever they liked, and at the same time she left them in no doubt as to what they ought to do. Usually she didn’t give up until things went her way.

  – Do the police think this guy Viljam might have … done something?

  Tage thought it over. – They interviewed him twice. But he was at work with a group of other students the whole of the afternoon when Mailin disappeared. I picked him up there, he came out here to watch the broadcast with us. The plan was for Mailin to join us afterwards. Viljam and I were out looking for her all night. In the morning we went out to the cabin to have a look there too. He seems as crushed as we are.

  – Why did you go out to the cabin? Didn’t you say her car was in town?

  – We didn’t know what to do. Just knew we had to try everything.

  – Might she have gone off somewhere?

  She could hear herself how thin it sounded, but she had to ask in order to endure being there at all, to keep a grip on the conversation, not get sucked down and dragged away … Of course Mailin hadn’t gone off anywhere without leaving a message. She wasn’t the type to let people worry on her account. Liss might have just taken off. But Mailin always wanted people to know exactly where they were with her.

  – We’ve asked ourselves every imaginable sort of question, Tage said in that slow way of his that perhaps expressed a kind of calm. – But where could she have gone, and why? Ragnhild even called Canada, to ask your father if Mailin had turned up there. An absurd notion, but as long as there was a theoretical possibility …

  Ragnhild had called her father. Liss knew that they hadn’t spoken for years. Fifteen, maybe, nearer twenty.

  – What did he say? she wanted to know.

  – She couldn’t get hold of him. He’s probably off travelling somewhere. Tage said this in a voice devoid of hidden insinuations. He had always been smart enough never to say anything implicitly critical of their father.

  Suddenly Liss felt herself drained of energy.

  She lay down in the room that had once been Mailin’s, in her bed. Too exhausted to sleep, her pulse hammering in her throat. She hadn’t spent the night in this house since leaving secondary school. Had to get up and walk, pacing over and over again the few steps between the door and the window. Switched on the light, sat down at the desk and froze. The photos were still up on the shelf above the table. One of Mailin in her graduation party outfit. The fair hair, the bright eyes that were so like her mother’s, but seemed happier. Another picture of Mailin and herself. She was probably about eight, which would make Mailin twelve. They’re standing on the rock outside the cabin, the one they used to dive into Morr Water from, Liss flailing her arms. It looks as if she’s about to fall. Mailin is holding on to her.

  She took the photo down, studied every detail. The spruce next to the rock. The way the light created an ellipse in the water far behind them. And Mailin’s anxious face. What’s to become of you, Liss?

  She couldn’t remember the picture being taken, but she could feel what it was like to stand teetering there, falling, and being held. – I’ll never be closer to anyone than you, she murmured. – Must find you, Mailin.

  4

  Tuesday 16 December

  SHE TOOK THE metro from Jernbanetorget. A copy of Dagbladet was wedged down the inside of her seat. It was a couple of days old. A story low down on page eight: Woman (29) missing in Oslo. Not been seen since last Thursday, she read. The police do not yet know whether there are any suspicious circumstances. Seven lines, no name, no picture.

  She flipped through it. Six months ago, she had been written up in Dagbladet’s magazine. She had been in an advert that was shown in cinemas in Holland. No idea how Dagbladet had managed to get hold of her. A journalist and a photographer turned up outside the flat in Marnixkaade. Zako claimed that he was the one who had tipped them off. They wanted to do a story. Young Norwegian girl on the verge of a career in modelling. They twisted things around, blew things up, created a picture of a non-existent her. Isn’t it a tough life for a girl in this business, with all the focus on your appearance? And then the standard question. What do you think about all the anorexia, the drugs, the instant disposability? The journalist wanted to combine a touch of glamour with a frisson of politically correct scepticism. You have to know what you yourself want, Liss had answered. You have to take control and make sure you don’t hand it over to anyone. What are your views on women as objects of the male gaze? She started to tire of the interview. I’ve got nothing against being an object, she said, and realised that she meant it. She could have expanded on her answer, refined it, made it acceptable, but couldn’t be bothered. On the contrary, she allowed herself to be lured into making pithy remarks that made her seem interesting. The result was presented as an example of the way the new generation of women thought. They skimmed the cream off what their mothers had fought to achieve, used it when it suited them. Enjoyed life, and themselves. Mailin called and congratulated her on the interview, even though she was sceptical about the message. Liss never heard a word from her mother.

  She looked up and saw that they were at Carl Berners Place and just managed to get out before the carriage doors closed. Jogged up the steps, into the daylight. Her boots were dry again, both of them with an uneven grey rim round the outside of the ankle. A few days ago she would have hated to have them looking like that. In the life she lived, every imperfection acquired a significance. But not now. Not here in this misty winter city.

  She was on her way to meet Mailin’s partner. Passed a post office. Wouters, she thought when she saw it. Saw in her mind’s eye the name of the detective inspector on an office door. She’s standing outside it with a letter in her hand. She’s written down exactly what happened that night in Zako’s flat. How she tricked him into taking all that Rohypnol and sat there watching as he became more and more helpless. How she left him there to collapse and drown in his own vomit. Mailin is missing, she protested. I can’t do anything for her if I write that letter.
>
  She carried on down towards Rodeløkka. There had always been something about Mailin’s boyfriends. When she was younger, Liss had been obsessed with the need to find out about them. As if there was a code to them, something that told her what she should be looking out for herself. Once, perhaps in an attempt to crack this code, she’d allowed herself to be carried away. After that, she wanted to know as little as possible about her sister’s love life.

  The house was away down at the end of Lang Street. She rang, waited, rang again. The front door wasn’t locked. She opened it and looked in. Light in the hallway and a staircase on the right.

  – Hello?

  She heard a door opening upstairs. He appeared at the top of the stairs. Then began descending towards her.

  – Sorry, I was in the bathroom.

  He stopped before he was all the way down. The eyes were quite large, the cheekbones high. His dark hair was longish and combed back. He gave a quick smile, came all the way down and held out his hand.

  – Viljam.

  He was quite a bit taller than her, but not particularly well built. She was surprised; she had imagined he would be like the person in the picture on Zako’s phone. But this wasn’t the man on his way out through the gate with Mailin.

  He squeezed her hand, not hard, released it at once. He was unshaven, but his sideburns curved in a delicate bow towards the angles of his jaw and were symmetrically trimmed. It struck her that he was better looking than any of Mailin’s former boyfriends. He seemed calm, and was perhaps deliberately striving to maintain that calm. She never trusted her first impression of people she met. It was always accompanied by uncertainty, and often deceptive. She picked up a host of signals, full of contradictions and hidden significances. Being prepared was no help, she thought as Viljam walked in front of her down the hall. Most of what she picked up on she couldn’t think about until the encounter was over, and often not even then.

  Liss looked round at the room. The ceiling was high, the room going halfway up into the next floor. The painting on the wall appeared to be of a winter landscape, snow through dark trees beneath a grey sky. Muted but full of light.