Sohlberg and the Gift

by Jens Amundsen

  Who is she really?

  Who sent her?

  Why?

  Is she telling me the truth? . . . Half-lies? . . . Outright lies?

  ~ ~ ~

  Sohlberg discovered that Astrid Isaksen had at least been truthful when she had left him a voice message at work and mentioned that she lived during the week with her aunt on Tøyengata in the dangerous Grønland neighborhood which surrounds the Zoo:

  “I stay with my aunt until the weekend. That’s when her boyfriend Jon Næss comes to visit. He works with her at the railroad but lives in Bergen. So on weekends I stay with my grandparents. You can meet me there this weekend.”

  On Thursday during his lunch period Sohlberg had taken a brisk 20-minute walk to the dingy apartment building on Tøyengata. The sight of Muslim women wrapped in face-covering veils depressed him. Women trapped in full-body burkas enraged him.

  Why migrate to Norway and then dress and live in a backwards medieval lifestyle?

  Pakistani and Somali women looked utterly out of place in the frigid snow-covered streets of European Oslo. The cultural disconnect would be more visible and extreme in the summer when half-naked ethnic Norwegian women stood next to Third World Muslim women clad in what is basically a bodybag for the living.

  The building manager confirmed Astrid Isaksen’s story and the fact that her aunt cleaned passenger cars for Norges Statsbaner or NSB Norwegian State Railways. A visit to NSB corporate offices later that day also confirmed the aunt’s life-long employment. Sohlberg was however unable to find and interview Astrid and her aunt. Despite several attempts Sohlberg never found them at home.

  Petra Sivertsen’s list came handy again. Sohlberg made a call and one of Petra Sivertsen’s secretary friends at the jail took a look into criminal records to find out if Astrid Isaksen or her aunt or her grandparents had ever been charged with any crime. The inquiry’s result: clean records for the four Isaksen family members. The parents of Astrid Isaksen weren’t as clean.

  Both parents had multiple previous contacts with the police.

  The mother had multiple convictions for petty theft beginning from when she had been a teenager. She had been waiting for a trial on shoplifting charges when she died. A senile old man had accidentally killed her ten years ago when he accelerated instead of braking for pedestrians at the corner of Karl Johans gate and Kirkegata.

  The father was a low-level informant who should have been but had not been arrested for numerous bar fights and frequent if not habitual theft. He had been picked up during two major drug busts but released without ever being arrested for meth dealing and possession. Oddly enough his criminal résumé ended abruptly seven years ago. Jakob Gansum had suddenly gone off the crime grid. No jail or prison in Norway lodged him. He no longer worked the police as a snitch. That probably meant he was dead or imprisoned in some other country. Stone-cold rehabilitation into a law-abiding lifestyle was the least likely option.

  Does a leopard lose his spots?

  Rarely. But it happens. The ex-con becomes an evangelist. Or a baker of organic breads. Or a doting stay-at-home father.

  So far so good. No lies or discrepancies in what Astrid Isaksen had told him.

  ~ ~ ~

  The visit to Astrid Isaksen and her grandparents required that Sohlberg drive his Volvo sedan on the E-18 Highway north into Oslo and then northeast on the E-6 towards the East Side of Oslo and its endless stretches of newer apartment buildings. He again had the feeling he was being followed. This time by a white Volvo. As before the driver dropped far behind as soon as Sohlberg slowed down. He got off the highway three times and waited until he was sure that no one was tailing him.

  “Uggh . . . here we go to lovely Østkanten,” muttered Sohlberg as he hurled down the snow-cleared E-6 and passed the Ring 3 Highway towards his destination in the East Side.

  As Sohlberg drove and looked out the car’s window he thought of how East Oslo had gone downhill.

  During my childhood the rough and poor Grønland and Tøyen neighborhoods had minimal crime. Ditto for the areas north along the Akerselva River to lower Grünerløkka and the poor suburbs east of the Akerselven.

  But now these neighborhoods are as dangerous as the Bronx in New York or South-Central Los Angeles in the USA.

  Sohlberg was not alone in remembering the 1970s of his childhood when Norway was safe and relatively crime-free. But that all changed for the worse when the political elites flooded Norway with Turkish and Pakistani immigrants. Like most Norwegians Sohlberg had seen first-hand the crime wave that followed the multi-cultural insanities of the elites.

  Insanity. That’s the perfect description.

  It got even worse when our leaders then tried to look like the world’s greatest bunch of humanitarians. Their refugee insanity brought us a swarm of criminals from Pakistan and Vietnam and Bosnia and Somalia.

  What a mess.

  Sohlberg sighed. He had no power at all to change such matters. Zero. He was just a small cog in the criminal justice wheel. But he at least could make a difference in the Janne Eide case. He was determined if not obsessed to do so. Even the powerless can do good for others when they choose to do so.

  With increasing angst Sohlberg dreaded his east-bound journey. He intensely disliked the far East Side of Oslo—the armpit of Oslo. He hated its urban sprawl and lack of character. He loathed the excess criminal population of East Europe that had encamped en masse to Østkanten thanks to the liberal immigration policies of the so-called tolerant elites of Norway. The drunk and the idle and the addicted had found a new host country to leach off ever since East European countries had ended the lavish cradle-to-grave welfare systems of communism. Oslo’s elites could now brag of having 300% the crime rate of New York City.

  Hideous big box buildings thrived as promiscuously as lice in the armpit of Oslo. So did row after row of 3- and 4-story pyramid-like complexes stacked with the traditional recessed terraces that allow Norwegians to get maximum exposure to the sun during the summer.

  The eastern reaches of Oslo depressed Sohlberg even more because the area was in transition. In other words East Oslo was in that irreversible downward spiral into crime and blight and poverty as ethnic Norwegians fled and East European and Third World immigrants moved in. Sohlberg had a hard time accepting Oslo’s white flight—once a symptom of dying American cities like Detroit. Sohlberg had an even harder time accepting that Islam was now the second largest religion in Norway. A large mosque dominated the Furuset neighborhood that Sohlberg drove past.

  During the last part of his trip Sohlberg began to think carefully about the questions that he would present to the grandparents. He had to be careful and subtle. Astrid Isaksen had warned him that her grandparents were still bitter in the extreme over their daughter’s death and that they hated her father for having abruptly abandoned her seven years ago “for another woman”.

  After exiting onto Karihaugveien he turned right into the narrow lanes of Edvard Munchs vei. Deep piles of snow covered the Ellingsrud neighborhood. The further he got away from the clean snow-plowed freeway the more dicey the roads became. Clumps of snow weighed down the pines on both sides of the road. Another right turn brought him into the impossibly narrower lane of Dragonstien. He had to leave his car at a parking lot on the right because Dragonstien disappeared under a six foot wall of snow. So much for global warming.

  Rows of pyramidal four-story buildings beckoned at the top of a small hill. It looked like he’d have to post-hole his way up the plush piles of snow on the hill until he saw a tramped path in the snow.

  After getting lost and frozen for more than 25 minutes in the maze of pathways between the buildings Sohlberg finally found the Isaksen ground floor apartment. He knocked and after a few minutes the door opened. A chain jiggled on the door’s security fastener. He shouted his name and showed his badge through a two-inch crack.

  “Can I come in?” said Sohlberg with impatience as the door remained chained.

  Metal parts moved
. The security chain slid off. The door opened and a frigid welcome followed his bone-chilling walk.

  “Yes,” said the grandmother reluctantly. “I guess so. Come in.”

  The modestly furnished two-bedroom apartment smelled of old age and that smell reminded Sohlberg of his own grandparents. Vague aromas of ointments and medicines hung in the air along with pungent wafts of old-fashioned traditional recipes being slow-cooked in the kitchen. His nose detected fiskesuppe laden with heavy cream. But one sickening smell prevailed above all others: the acrid stench of tobacco which permeated and overpowered everything and everyone.

  “Who is it?” said someone in the living room with a voice that sounded like sand blowing on a dune.

  Sohlberg watched in disbelief at the living skeleton of Astrid Isaksen’s grandfather. The old man’s oxygen tank stood next to smoldering cigarettes piled high on an overwhelmed ashtray. Open and closed medicine bottles littered the room and pills of all sorts of pedestrian and fantastic sizes and shapes and colors spilled out everywhere. An IV bottle hung above the grandfather. The line dripped milky fluid into his veins. The ailing Isaksen waved his hand and in a mocking tone said:

  “Welcome to my empire of pain.”

  Not books but vodka and aquavit bottles lined the bookcase and window sills. Sohlberg tried not to stare but the man’s emaciated face and wasted body reminded him of the horrific multiple car pile-up on the highway that warrants a second or third or fourth lookover.

  “This one is a cop,” said the surly grandmother by way of introduction. “He’s the one Astrid talked to on Monday. Sit down Inspector . . . if you must.”

  Trying as hard as he could Sohlberg could not calculate the ages of the decrepit man and woman. He couldn’t tell if they were in their 60s or 80s. But one thing was obvious and certain: both grandparents had been aged—ravaged—by a life of hard living pickled in tobacco and alcohol. Sohlberg thought it was a miracle that Astrid Isaksen and her healthy peaches-and-cream complexion could survive this den of nicotine and 90-proof grain alcohol.

  “Thanks for letting me come visit you. I wanted to talk about—”

  “I’m dying,” said the grandfather who spoke in the strange solitary soliloquy of the dying. He seemed to hear conversations from other people who were not in the room or in this dimension.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “They never told us at the navy shipyards. Just fix this or that. Or . . . clean this and that. Yes sir! . . . Aye aye captain! . . . No one told us about the asbestos. Just pretty words about serving King and Country. What a fraud.

  “Where’s my King now that I need him?

  “Where’s my Country when it should’ve protected me from the asbestos?

  “Where were my Olav and Harald the Fifths?

  “What good are these kings?

  “They just want me and other chumps to bow down and stare at them in their pretty uniforms at their parades and their weddings and their funerals. Mind you . . . no royals . . . no majesties will be attending my funeral . . . will they? . . . Any chance?”

  “No,” said Sohlberg. “None.”

  Herr Isaksen turned and looked at Sohlberg for a long time before he said:

  “This . . . they call it lung cancer. But it’s just another name for pain. In pain we come into the world . . . pain is what we leave behind. They call this lung cancer terminal . . . but so is life.”

  Sohlberg turned when the dying man pointed at an empty spot at Sohlberg’s right.

  “Anne-Sophie! . . . You’re here at last. Inspector . . . do you know my little Annie? . . . I actually look forward to dying . . . except for leaving Mama behind. Yes! . . . I look forward to my cremation. Going up and flying away in that pure blue flame. Burn me blue baby. Burn me blue.”

  The monologue for the dead and the living lapsed as suddenly as it began. A serene fog misted Isaksen’s eyes which eventually closed shut.

  While Isaksen slept the fitful sleep of the dying Sohlberg had to admit that the Viking ancestors had it right: burn the body on a fiery boat pyre; free the soul; let it sail away on a new journey into the eternities—The Great Beyond.

  Time passed. Eventually Sohlberg cleared his throat and said:

  “Herr Isaksen . . . I came to talk about your granddaughter Astrid Isaksen.”

  “What? . . . Who?”

  “Your granddaughter . . . Astrid Isaksen.”

  “She’s a feisty one. Just like her mother. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll do well.”

  “Tell me about her parents.”

  “Parents? No one gives you an instruction manual . . . do they? . . . Even if you got one it always turns out you did everything wrong. Too late then to do anything about it. Don’t you understand? . . . I ran out of time. If I could only do it all over again. Time! . . . I need time. I never had enough time with my daughter . . . oh my beautiful dead daughter.”

  Sohlberg looked away from the sobbing man and softly said, “Yes.”

  “It’s too late. Too damn late. Too little too late. Put that on my tombstone.”

  “Astrid came to see me this past Monday. She told me some incredible things . . . she said that her father—”

  “Father? . . . He’s no father. No sir. Just donated some D.N.A. That’s all he did. That dirty rotten bastard of Jakob Gansum ruined everything. He ruined my daughter ever since they was kids. Got her to stealing. Lying. Knocks her up . . . and knocks her around! Wouldn’t leave her . . . wouldn’t marry her. Gets her into drugs. Ruined. All ruined.”

  “Gansum is a dog,” interjected the grandmother. “Slept around all the time behind her back. Gave her no love but herpes and more.” She pointed at the liquor bottles and the IV line. “Do you think we were always like this?

  “No. We were fine people once. Good family. That Jakob Gansum . . . the snake slides inside our paradise. He comes to destroy . . . to ruin. You don’t have to be a murderer to kill a family. You can do it slowly . . . over time . . . break hearts with insults and deceptions . . . lies and letdowns . . . hopes dashed over and over. . . . One disappointment after the other. . . it all adds up.”

  Sohlberg was about to ask a question but the grandmother raised her hand.

  “Let me give you an example of how you kill off a family. Jakob Gansum was always in and out of our lives . . . in and out of my daughter’s life . . . in and out . . . same goes for Astrid. Gone for years and years. Then out of the blue he writes here and she gets the letter that weekend and she opens it because we were at the hospital. If we had been here I would’ve burned the letter and she would’ve never known more about him.”

  “Burn it,” yelled the grandfather. “Astrid should’ve never read his lies . . . his insanities. He’s responsible for all this. Might as well have killed our daughter.”

  “He did,” said the grandmother. “Broke her heart. He broke her.”

  Sholberg looked around. “Is Astrid here?”

  “No,” said the grandmother. “She’s staying with one of her school girlfriends. The family’s real nice. They were going to the movies and didn’t want her coming up here so late . . . especially with the storm. We’ll see her next weekend.”

  “Who are you?” yelled the grandfather who studied the politiinspektør as if he had just stepped into the room.

  “I’m with the police . . . I’m Chief Inspector Sohlberg.”

  “Police? . . . Lot of good you’re doing showing up now. For so many years we wondered why Jakob Gansum had never been arrested for his thefts and drug deals and fencing stolen property and plenty of other crimes. Of course we later found out that he’s an informant. A snitch. That’s why you police would never arrest him. He was your man.”

  “I wanted to ask you about—”

  “About what? You have nothing to ask me. No sir. I’m the one who has something to ask you. Is that understood?”

  “Yes . . . that’s okay if you have questions. But I want you to tell me if—”

  “I�
��ll tell you but first tell me this . . . why did my daughter have to die so young?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Lot of good you are,” said the grandfather. “But what I most need is time. Time! It’s time that I need. More time! Don’t you understand? Right now . . . I’m running out of time.”

  “We’re all running out of time,” added the grandmother. “It’s the one thing we just don’t have in this world.”

  A deep hacking cough attacked the grandfather.

  “Everything hurts! . . . Oh my God . . . it hurts . . . it’s eating through my spine. . . .” A litany of complaints followed in the obsessive and egotistical manner of the aged and the sick and the dying.

  Sohlberg realized that he would glean nothing more from the grandparents for his investigation. The Isaksen house was a house of grief and anger and dying. Nothing would be shared here other than pain and grief and anger. Nothing would change in this house until both grandparents reunited with their dead daughter.