Cursed

by Thomas Enger

  Nora’s boyfriend.

  Father to her as-yet-unborn child.

  He was standing in front of Henning in his worn corduroy jacket, with his messy, shoulder-length hair, trying to make eye contact with the man behind the bar. They both started slightly when they spotted each other. Henning immediately saw discomfort in Iver’s eyes; they told of stories that he didn’t want to hear right now; not ever, in fact.

  Iver tried to smile, but didn’t quite succeed. ‘So, this is where you’re hiding?’ he joked.

  ‘I’m not hiding,’ Henning replied.

  Iver nodded, looked him up and down.

  ‘What happened to your face?’ he asked.

  ‘Roller skiing,’ Henning told him.

  Iver looked at a loss for a few long, awkward moments, then turned to the bar and asked for a beer. ‘Do you want one?’ He glanced at Henning.

  Henning hesitated, but then nodded. Iver held two fingers up.

  When the barman had given him the drinks, Iver turned to Henning. ‘Have you got a table?’

  Henning was about to point to the booth where he’d been sitting. ‘I did,’ he said, looking at the three men who were now installed there.

  ‘There’s an empty one over there,’ Iver said, nodding to a table in the far corner, by the window onto the street. ‘Shall we sit down?’

  ‘Think my back would be grateful if we did,’ Henning said.

  Iver gave Henning one of the beers and headed over towards the empty table. Once they had sat down, he said: ‘Didn’t think I’d bump into you here.’

  ‘Likewise,’ Henning mumbled.

  Soon the room would be spinning. A new song blasted out over the loudspeakers.

  ‘Didn’t exactly think you’d show up here,’ he continued. ‘Not now, at least.’

  Iver looked down and drank some beer in silence.

  ‘I hear Nora’s told you,’ he then said.

  ‘Mm,’ Henning said and raised his glass. ‘Cheers.’

  Iver hesitated then clinked glasses with him.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it,’ he said. ‘I think I understand how difficult it must be for you.’

  Henning put his glass down so hard that the foam sloshed over the edge. ‘Difficult?’ He stared hard at Iver. ‘You think it’s difficult for me to hear that you and Nora are having a baby?’

  Iver started to say something, but didn’t manage to get the words out of his mouth.

  ‘You know fuck-all about how I feel.’

  Iver pulled in a little closer, putting his elbows on the table. ‘No, maybe I don’t, but hasn’t it occurred to you that it might be difficult for me, too?’

  Henning looked up at him.

  ‘I mean, you and I – well, we work together, and when you think about everything you and Nora have been through…’ Iver didn’t finish the sentence.

  Neither of them said anything for a quite some time. Iver drank some more beer then put his glass down; he watched a woman as she walked slowly towards them, then turned away when she saw there were no empty places.

  ‘And we didn’t exactly plan it,’ he continued, and pressed his fingers together. ‘I’m not sure that I’m ready to be a father. Certainly not now.’

  Henning had never seen Iver like this before. He was always the life and soul at work, someone who attracted attention as soon as he came into a room, full of stories and anecdotes, someone who made people laugh and feel at ease. Now he seemed smaller than usual, Henning thought. More frightened. More vulnerable. And it made him like Iver more than he was willing to admit.

  Henning picked up his glass, took a drink. The room swayed.

  ‘And Nora, she…’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ Henning said.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you do,’ Iver conceded.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, each with their own thoughts, drinking some more. Their glasses left wet rings on the table. A man at the next table emptied a handful of nuts into his mouth and chewed happily.

  ‘What about Nora?’ Henning heard himself ask.

  Iver wet his lips. ‘She’d perhaps hoped for, well, a bit more enthusiasm on my part.’

  More beer. The room got foggier. Aerosmith tried desperately to sing about love in an elevator.

  ‘It’ll all work out,’ Henning said, eventually.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Just give her time, she’ll understand.’

  Iver wiped the corners of his mouth, then ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘It’s like having a gun to your head,’ Henning said.

  Iver looked at him.

  ‘Being a dad.’

  Iver nodded, but Henning could see that he didn’t understand what he meant.

  ‘You go around being frightened the whole time,’ he explained. ‘Frightened that something might happen.’ He looked down as he said this, turning his glass round and round.

  The volume of the music increased. Henning struggled to hear his own thoughts and words, but he knew them by heart.

  ‘And you think that all the awful stuff you read about in the papers – it won’t happen to you and your child; it only happens to other people’s kids.’ Henning could hear that he was slurring his words. ‘And as long as that’s true, it’s the best thing in the world. Being a dad. You know that only you and one other person can give this little person everything he needs. It’s something that’s impossible to understand, until you’ve been there yourself.’

  He raised his glass again, tilting his head back.

  ‘I didn’t understand it at first,’ he admitted. ‘In fact, it took a long time before I understood anything. But I am very glad that I did, before it was too late.’

  Iver didn’t say anything. He didn’t drink; he just looked at Henning.

  ‘That sounds pretty good,’ he said.

  ‘And when it’s gone, then…’

  Henning didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Or in fact, he did, he just didn’t want to.

  ‘I know one thing for sure,’ Iver said, a moment later.

  Henning tried to focus on him.

  ‘And that is that you’re drunk as a skunk.’

  Henning picked up his glass, unsure that there was anything left in it. ‘You’re right,’ he slurred.

  ‘And I don’t think you’ll make it home on your own.’

  Henning blinked. Blinked again, when nothing got clearer.

  ‘Say when you’re ready to go and I’ll make sure you get home.’

  Henning put the glass back down, tried to pick Iver out from everything that was swirling around the room. Thought he caught his eyes somewhere between the waves.

  ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ Henning said.

  ‘Do what?’ Iver asked.

  Henning waved his hands around. ‘Be here,’ he said.

  ‘Here?’

  Henning’s eyes started to roam again. ‘Be your friend,’ he said. ‘See you with Nora. With the baby. I don’t think I can fucking cope.’

  Iver nodded sagely. Then he emptied his glass and said: ‘Come on then, Henning. I think you need some sleep.’

  28

  Nora was tempted to stay at the police station until the detective from Sweden showed up, but it would take too long; her deadline was looming and she hadn’t yet found an angle for tomorrow’s piece. Not one they could print, at least. She had no plans to turn herself into headline news.

  Løken had reached the same conclusion as Nora – that the shots were fired to frighten her, so he had no concerns about letting her go. But he did advise, even urge, her to go home and lie low for a few days. Nora mumbled an unconvincing ‘yes’.

  Strangely enough, she didn’t seem to be that affected by the shooting incident. Yes, it had been pretty intense at the time, and yes, it had been frightening, but she was calm again now and not just a little curious. She was also aware that any reaction might be delayed. In the meantime, she fully intended to use the energy she had left.

&nbs
p; So she set out for Kalvetangen, where Hedda’s mother lived. Mothers often knew their children in a special way, Nora reasoned, and she had a whole host of questions she wanted to ask Unni Hellberg. The real question, however, was whether or not Unni would be responsive, particularly now that Nora had trespassed on her property.

  Kalvetangen had been a dumping ground for industrial waste, until the area was redesignated as a commercial zone in the mid-1980s. Towards the end of this redevelopment, applications were submitted to build housing for security guards and support staff, but there were no regulations that covered this, and so, before long, Kalvetangen looked more like a residential estate. And even though Nøtterøy Council had stipulated how many of the buildings could be used for residential purposes – no more than fifty percent – and that no building was to be more than 150 square metres in size, big villas were soon being built, several of them well over 300 square metres, with imaginative descriptions of the businesses that would operate from them. The most common ploy was for the owners to register a sole trader at the address and then rent out parts of the building to themselves.

  Nora had no idea whether this was what Oscar and Unni Hellberg had done, but she did know that they had bought into the exclusive residential area in 2007 for the tidy sum of twenty-six million kroner.

  Nora couldn’t help dreaming a little as she drove slowly past all the villas. It would be fantastic to have so much money, she thought. It would certainly have solved a problem or two, even though she knew that, generally, when you got something you wanted, your worries and problems then just shifted onto something else.

  Before Jonas came into the world, Nora wanted nothing more than to have children. Once he was there – living, breathing and growing, and more beautiful than anything she had ever seen – all her concerns were focused on satisfying his needs. And her worries changed as quickly as those needs: how would he get on at nursery, would he make friends, what would happen when he started school? And whenever he got ill, she would worry that it was something more serious than it ever was. It struck her that no matter how fantastic it had been watching Jonas grow up, it had also been difficult.

  Could she really face going through all that again?

  Could she face filling her life with all that fear, all those niggling concerns?

  Nora got lost in her thoughts. She wasn’t paying attention and soon realised that she had driven too far, so she had to turn back at the end of the road. The houses closest to the water were the grandest, with shiny, expensive cars in the drives. Nora followed a dense, neatly trimmed hedge until she came to the Hellbergs’ home – which actually looked like several houses that had been put together under a single, red-tiled roof. The house included a double garage, but there were no cars parked outside. The closest thing to a neighbour on the right-hand side was a car park for the marina. A crowd of masts stood tall over the water, supported by millions of kroner, no doubt. Nora couldn’t see a single basic, wooden boat.

  The house itself was painted white, and the pillars by the entrance appeared to be holding up the first floor. The clean window panes twinkled in their glossy white frames. And behind the house, the water lapped against the shore. Nora got out of the car, and walked up the paved driveway, past a floodlit fountain with its soothing tinkle. She had to ring the doorbell twice before she heard footsteps behind the double door with its two oval windows that looked like cartoon eyes. A woman appeared behind the glass; she opened the door warily.

  Unni Hellberg was a few centimetres taller than Nora, with short, highlighted hair and square spectacles with thin red frames. She was carefully made up, but the skin on her face looked like it had been overstretched. She had a cigarette in her hand and the blue smoke spiralled upwards. She lifted her chin and looked down at Nora from where she stood two steps above.

  ‘Yes, can I help you?’ she said.

  When Nora introduced herself, Unni Hellberg’s face changed instantly. Her lips parted slightly, her eyes narrowed. She quickly stepped forwards.

  ‘I’ve just spoken to my lawyer,’ she said. ‘He told me what happened. Are you alright?’

  Nora was taken off-guard by her concern, which didn’t tally at all with the impression that Hugo Refsdal had given of Hedda’s mother.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you,’ Nora assured her with a smile. ‘But it was a close shave.’

  ‘Yes, goodness,’ Unni said.

  ‘I apologise for breaking into your property,’ Nora said. ‘I’m only trying to find your daughter. That’s why I was at Hulebakk.’

  Unni lowered her eyes, and took a drag on the cigarette.

  ‘Did you read the article I wrote about Hedda in today’s paper?’ Nora asked.

  Unni continued to stare at the ground. ‘Yes,’ she said, blowing the smoke out slowly. ‘It’s…’ She shook her head. ‘You have no idea how much time I’ve spent looking for Hedda,’ she continued, and lifted her head. ‘And then it turns out she came back the very day she…’

  Unni looked away. Nora noticed that the hand holding the cigarette was shaking. She took another quick drag on the cigarette, which now had a long tip of ash.

  ‘She must have found someone else,’ Unni said, turning back to Nora. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’

  ‘What do you mean? Do you think—?’

  Unni held her hand up. ‘I have no reason to think that.’ She smiled sheepishly. ‘But why else would she be picked up by anyone other than her husband?’

  She took a final drag on the cigarette, descended the front steps and went over to a marble ashtray that had been discreetly positioned on the ground by the wall. She bent down and stubbed the cigarette out, then carefully put the lid back on the ashtray.

  ‘People are always finding new partners,’ she said, putting her hand on the small of her back as she came up the steps. ‘All the time, everywhere.’

  A great sadness scudded across her face. Then she seemed to pull herself together and smiled at Nora again.

  ‘Please don’t say anything about that; it’s pure speculation on my part.’

  Unni Hellberg spoke with a lilt, and enunciated all her words. Nora wasn’t sure whether she was trying to sound grand, or it was simply her natural way of speaking.

  ‘Would you like to come in?’ she asked.

  Nora smiled. ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Just so you know, I would rather not end up in the papers. It’s hard enough for me as it is.’

  ‘Of course not, there won’t be any need for that.’

  Unni pushed open the door and showed Nora into a hall that was bigger than her living room. The tiles on the floor were black and white, like a chessboard, and a white spiral staircase coiled up to the next floor. Nora took off her boots. She felt like she was stepping into a museum, its rooms stuffed with precious treasures.

  ‘Let’s go into the drawing room,’ Unni said, leading the way.

  The house was quiet, the kind of house where the walls would creak and crack at night, the kind of house that Nora couldn’t live in herself. It was too big, too grand, too expensive and would take too much time to look after. She had the feeling that Unni Hellberg had dedicated the last few years of her life to this house. All the furniture had been placed thoughtfully, the chandeliers sparkled, the floor in the drawing room was dark, solid wood – Nora guessed it was oak – the walls were hung with stuffed elk heads, and long, elegant rifles from past generations, as well as ancient portraits.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?’ Unni asked.

  ‘No thanks, I drank too much coffee at the police station,’ Nora said with a smile. ‘But please, don’t let me stop you.’

  ‘Given what you’ve just been through, I should perhaps offer you something stiffer, but I saw that you had the car.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Nora said.

  Unni directed Nora over to a leather sofa and armchairs, with a dark wooden table in between. Nora could imagine men in tartan trousers smoking cigars, talking about business and e
xchanging hunting stories over generous glasses of cognac.

  Unni sat down opposite her, one leg crossed over the other, smoothed out a crease in her trousers and folded her hands on her lap.

  ‘Do you know if anyone has been out to the summer house recently?’ Nora asked.

  Unni picked a hair off the sofa. ‘Hugo was there one afternoon,’ she said, and folded her hands again. ‘But other than that, no one has been there for ages. There simply wasn’t time for it this summer, with Oscar so ill.’

  ‘But someone has been there,’ Nora said. ‘There was certainly someone there today. And I have good reason to believe that someone has been there recently.’

  Nora told her about what she had seen through the windows.

  ‘What do you make of that?’ she asked.

  Unni shifted on her chair, wetting her lips. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she replied, and put a finger behind the glass of her spectacles and rubbed the thin skin under her eye.

  ‘You’re the only one who has keys to the place, is that right?’

  Unni nodded slowly for a few seconds. Nora thought about Georg, the fact that he had gone there. He had driven in through the wrought-iron gates, so he must have had keys; unless he had stolen Unni’s set. Nora didn’t want to ask the question; it would allow for too many counter questions, which she didn’t know if she could or should answer.

  Nora looked around the room, her eyes resting on the guns over the fireplace.

  ‘I see you’re a hunting family.’

  Unni followed Nora’s gaze. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s a tradition: grouse, elk – and Oscar even went over to the west coast to hunt deer as often as he could. If there was something he could shoot, he would.’ She rolled her eyes.

  ‘Did Hedda hunt too?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Unni said, clasping her hands again. ‘She always wanted to do what the boys were doing, and when she got older she was allowed to; she became quite a good shot, or so I’ve been told. I never joined them – I’ve never liked hunting; I think it’s a barbaric tradition.’

  Nora nodded, more to herself than anyone else.

  ‘What about Georg, was he ever part of the hunting party?’