Joking, he bent down and examined the footprint next to where he had found the cigarette.
– The pattern of the sole here looks like a map. Let me see the bottom of your boot.
– Ha ha, said Karsten.
Dan-Levi held the cigarette up next to his ear. – Don’t deny it was you who made me, Karsten, he said in a hoarse voice.
Karsten grinned fleetingly but still didn’t look too happy.
– You know what happens if you won’t quit sucking away on things like me? Dan-Levi croaked, thinking that this was actually a good idea for a puppet show: use cigarettes and butts for the different parts. Something to try out on the kids at the Bethany centre. But he didn’t want that kind of thing lying about in his own front garden. Rakel was not only always thirsty, she also had an astonishingly strong urge to put everything she came across into her mouth. He tossed the matchstick figure into the bin.
– Was there something you wanted to talk to me about, something else beside chess?
Karsten cast a quick glance at him, and Dan-Levi felt pretty sure he was right in his surmise. But before he could say anything else, Karsten mounted his bicycle, waved goodbye and headed off down Erleveien.
19
He jumped up. A thick grey light seeped through the curtain. He swore quietly and pulled on his trousers. Shouldn’t have slept, not in this room, not beside her. He turned towards the bed. Monica wasn’t there. The bedroom door was ajar; he saw her sitting in the living room, half turned away from him. She was holding a mobile phone in her hand. Her own was lying on the living-room table. He was about to open the door wide. Just then he heard a faint sound. It came from the mobile she was fiddling with. The sound of a siren. With an effort he was able to pick up other sounds, because he knew every detail of that particular video. It was his own commentary he was hearing now, and the distant booming of the burning stable.
He took charge of his anger. Turned it into something that could be melted down and reused, no matter what it was he was going to have to do. Without moving a muscle, he watched her as she sat there and played the video clips from his phone. Her wet hair just about reached her shoulders. There was a plate on the table in front of her, a glass of juice half full, a steaming cup. She found the clips from Furutunet and the nursery school before returning to Stornes farm. She played it over again before getting up and putting the phone back in his jacket pocket. She carried on fumbling there; he knew what she’d find. Her hand re-emerged holding the spare keys he had taken. She stood there a moment, studying them, and he heard her muttering something or other to herself. But not until she had replaced the keys in the pocket, picked up her own phone and started to dial did he emerge from the bedroom. She jolted as though hit by an electric shock. For a second she stared at him, two seconds, her pupils dilating, then her glance slid away. The hand holding the mobile sank to her side.
– Hi, she said, her voice unnaturally loud. – I didn’t want to wake you.
He took a few steps towards her. No decision had yet been taken. He stopped no more than half a metre away from her. There was a smell of coffee and toast. She glanced up at him, and he searched for something in her eyes, some kind of solution, something they could both laugh about, but he couldn’t find anything but fear in her gaze. She was wearing a white blouse and narrow skirt. Ready to go to work. She stood there as though frozen. She wouldn’t be going to work. Abruptly he felt sorry for her.
– I need to make a call, she said, so quietly it was almost inaudible.
He took the phone from her. It said Roar on the display, but the call had not been placed. It was just the touch of a fingertip away, a slight pressure on the OK button. And then he knew how it would happen.
– Go into the bathroom.
– I’ve just showered, she murmured.
– You have showered, he said. – You smell good.
– Got to go to work, she whispered. – Got a meeting, starts in a few minutes.
He shook his head.
– They’ll wonder where I am, she said. – I’m never late.
– They’ll wonder where you are, he said, and took her by the arm, not hard, mostly to feel the tension in it, weigh the resistance.
A tremor passed through her chest, as though a scream had just been born in there, and he shot out a hand and clamped it over her open mouth. The scream collided with his palm and was thrown back inside her, coming out through the pores of her skin and through her eyes. She began to struggle, but it took no more than a twist of the arm and her body was locked.
– Come on, he said, and walked her into the bathroom.
Still steam in there. It had coated the mirror and windows. Mingling with the smells of herbal soap and creams. On the edge of the washbasin an open box of tampons. So she hadn’t been bluffing about that, he registered.
– You’re a good girl, he said, and relaxed his grip.
She struggled for breath. – I have to go, she tried again.
– Fill the bathtub.
– No.
Her voice had taken on contours now, as if it focused in the steam. He took hold of her arm again, still not hard, but hard enough to make her bend forward and put the plug in.
– Turn on the tap.
She did as she was told.
– What are you going to do?
He smiled, but everything was different now and he saw that it frightened her.
– Nothing that will hurt, he assured her. – You told me what I came to hear. You don’t need to speak any more.
She reached out a hand, placed it against his flies. He took it away.
– I’m not like that, he said, avoiding the use of her name. Mustn’t start to mess up now. Don’t think too much.
– Get undressed.
She looked down. – I’m bleeding.
– You can keep your panties on.
When she stood there, half turned away, he saw that she was trembling.
– You’re cold. Get in.
She didn’t respond.
– Get in, he said again, and heard how his voice was suddenly sharp, though he felt no anger, nor even annoyance.
He didn’t want her to be afraid. He opened the bathroom cupboard, pulled out a packet of Valium and a tray of Imovane, filled a glass with water and handed it to her with a tablet of each, but she turned her head away.
He looked at his watch. Twenty past eight.
– Take them. Not a lot else is going to happen.
She took the tablets, dropped them in the bathwater.
A grimace flickered across his face. – That’s a shame, he sighed, and took another two tablets from each packet. – Now we’re going to have to double it up.
She shut her mouth tight. He took her by the hair, bent her head back, forced the tablets in between her lips and followed them with the water. She coughed and gasped; bits of tablet and spittle ran down across her chin.
He waited until she was breathing normally again. – It’s a pity you’re making this so difficult, he said calmly, and handed her another four tablets.
Reluctantly she took them and swallowed them down. Afterwards she squatted at one end of the bathtub, holding around her knees with her hands. The water still reached no higher than to her ankles. He stood by the washbasin and waited as it crept up over her legs.
– If you go now … she began to say.
He sat on the edge of the bathtub. – If I go now?
She stared straight ahead. – I’ll never say anything.
– Say anything?
– About the fires, she whispered.
He laid his hand on her shoulder, stroked it. The skin was ice cold.
– That’s good. Don’t say anything about it.
She looked up at him. – Will you go? An almost imperceptible slurring had crept into her voice. – Can I finish this alone?
He continued to caress her neck.
– I don’t want you to be alone.
She lowered her head. – I can help you
.
He liked her for saying that, regardless of what she meant; it was a nice thing to say. Just then her mobile rang. It was still lying on the living-room table.
– Can I take that? Please?
She looked up at him again, and for a few seconds he met her pleading gaze.
– You don’t need anyone else now, he said.
The water had risen halfway up her legs.
– Wait here.
He stood up, taking the pills with him. There was a mortar on the kitchen worktop. As he emptied them into it, he heard splashing sounds from the bathroom and then steps in the hallway. Within two seconds he was there. She stood fumbling with the lock on the front door. Momentarily he thought of letting her open it and get out on to the staircase.
He grabbed her from behind. She screamed and kicked at the door. He wrapped both arms around her, one hand under her chin, pressing it upwards so the teeth clashed, lifted the dripping body, carried her back to the bathroom and placed her carefully back in the tub.
– Finish your bath first, he said quietly into her ear. Back in the kitchen, he stood so that he was able to keep an eye on the bathroom door as he pounded the tablets to a dust in the mortar. She might scream again. It would take a couple of seconds to get to her. She might have got up, broken a glass, found a pair of scissors. He dismissed the thought with a shake of the head. That trembling girl in the bathtub wasn’t capable of anything like that any more.
He was very thorough about it. By the time he was finished, there were fifteen Imovane and twenty Valium in the powdered mix. He found orange juice in the fridge, emptied the powder into the drink, stirred and stirred until most of it had dissolved.
In the bathroom, the tub was full, water splashing down on to the floor. She sat in the same position, staring straight ahead. He turned off the tap, handed her the glass.
– Here.
She didn’t move.
– Then I’ll just have to help you again, he said quietly and lifted up her chin with a finger, squeezed his hand around her mouth, opened up a gap between her lips into which he could pour.
– Don’t be afraid, Monica. I’ll look after you.
20
The window was slightly open. There was a chaffinch sitting on the roof guttering; it sounded happy. The feathers on its head rose up into a crest as it sang in the afternoon sunlight, its own little Mohican. Karsten knew perfectly well that the song wasn’t an expression of joy but that the bird made these sounds as a way of marking out its territory. It didn’t want any other males there competing for the females and the food. He closed the window, tried once again to concentrate on the drawing he’d made, a round disc penetrated by a cylinder. It might just as well have been a manhole cover. The business of Archimedes’ gravestone was one of his maths teacher’s bad ideas. He leant forward across his desk, studied the drawing, went through the formulae again, knew that a simple solution lay just around the corner, but his thoughts kept wanting to go off in another direction.
It was Friday. He’d had a text from Jasmeen. 6 o’clock. That was all. Nothing else. It came this morning as he stood in the bathroom brushing his teeth. He’d tried to call back: no answer. He was about to change his mind, go with his parents to the mountain cabin anyway, but just then Adrian had rung. The conversation didn’t last long, a couple of minutes maybe. Adrian did most of the talking.
A few minutes later, on his way down Erleveien, Karsten had seen Dan-Levi come out on to the steps. He parked his bicycle, suddenly determined to tell him everything. About Jasmeen, about Adrian, about the meeting with that Sæter. But as he was about to begin, Dan-Levi started fooling around with a cigarette he’d found on the ground. After that it was too late.
When his father looked in on him, Karsten was busy with his physics assignment. The change in the speed of an atom of oxygen when emitting a photon. That kind of thing. How much mass the sun loses per second, given the total effect of its radiation. Simple problems. His father peered over his shoulder. The little cough was a sign that he had seen at once that Karsten’s solutions were correct.
– No clouds in sight, he reported. – But if you do tear the house down, make sure it’s back up again before Maundy Thursday, five p.m. at the latest.
He chuckled, probably to show he was only joking. Karsten followed him downstairs and out on to the steps. Synne had wound down the back window of the car.
– Remember what you promised to do?
Karsten rubbed his chin and pretended to be thinking. – What was it again? Am I supposed to be feeding your pets?
– I’ll kill you, she warned him. Just recently her language had got a lot rougher; he wasn’t sure that he liked it.
– I’m supposed to record a programme for you. Sesame Street, wasn’t it?
Her eyes narrowed, but he could tell that she was struggling not to laugh.
– I’ll kill you, she said again. – I’ll drip poison in your ear while you’re sleeping.
A strange way to kill someone. Something she must have got from a TV series or one of the hundreds of books she read. She had almost finished The Lord of the Rings; he’d never even started it.
– Stop teasing, his father ordered. – She’ll only take it out on us.
Karsten nodded his head several times. The same way Adrian did, it occurred to him. – Okay. Michael Jackson.
– The whole programme!
He stood on the steps and watched them drive away before going into the living room and flopping down on to the sofa. The silence came in waves, almost like something that hurt. Suddenly he leapt up, wandered around from room to room. It was five thirty. He fetched his maths book, drew the gravestone and the cylinder once more on one of the blank pages at the back. Instead of writing out the formulae, he carried on playing about with the drawing. He didn’t write Archimedes’ name on the gravestone but instead put his own initials and date of birth, followed by a hyphen. Played with the idea of adding a date after the hyphen. Fifty years on, maybe, or just one. He thought of Adrian’s mother, who sat with a deck of cards and told people’s futures. Why not ask Elsa Wilkins about that date, as an experiment?
Another idea struck him. He fetched a dice from his yatzy box. Made out a table giving values to the different numbers of dots that came up and started to roll it. The day of his death came out to be this year, even this month. He shook his head at all this nonsense but still realised that he was reluctant to roll the dice twice more to find out what day.
At that moment there was a ring at the doorbell. Two short rings. Despite the text, he had never believed she would show up. Had hoped she would change her mind. It would be a relief, it would be a disappointment. He didn’t know which was worse.
It had started to rain, and before he had opened the door properly Jasmeen was inside. He’d turned off the light by the front door. She stood there in the half-dark, a black scarf around her head.
– You came, he managed to say at last.
– Did you think I wouldn’t?
– No, course not. Well, I wasn’t sure.
She unbuttoned her coat. Underneath she was wearing an outfit in some kind of silky material. It was light brown, with a reddish sheen. A large floral motif was sewn on the outside, across the hips. She was from another world.
– You think I look weird.
– Not at all.
– Had to say I was going to visit my cousin. So that meant I had to wear this.
She was still holding her coat in her hand. He took it off her and hung it up.
– I trust Rashida better than anybody else I know.
He let her pass; they went into the living room. – Will you be going back to school soon?
She turned towards him. – I don’t know.
– Can’t you just go?
She shook her head. – You don’t understand, Karsten. She took a quick look around the room before adding: – They want to take me with them to Pakistan. They’ve arranged for me to be married there. In the su
mmer.
She walked over to him, took his hand. – He’s thirty-five and he has bad teeth and can hardly read. I’ll never do it. Understand?
– You’ve spoken to Adrian about this, Karsten asserted.
She nodded. – He’s helping me
– How?
Now she hesitated slightly. – He’s telephoned my dad, she said after a while. – Dad acted funny afterwards. He was both angry and upset. Adrian told me he knew my family from before. I had no idea.
– Have they said anything more about making this complaint?
– They’ve given up that idea.
– Because Adrian rang?
She turned away. – My father’s changed his mind about it anyway, and Shahzad’s always been opposed to it. Karsten, can we talk about something else?
– Shahzad would prefer to beat me up, isn’t that what you mean?
She looked at him for a long time. – He won’t do that. Not now.
They were still standing in the middle of the floor. She leant forward, pressed her cheek against his. She smelt different. Maybe the rain had washed away the sweet sharpness that usually surrounded her.
– I think about you, Karsten. All night, all day. That’s why I’m here.
Now she’d said it. If she were to leave without anything more happening, he would remember this. He put an arm around her, pulled her down on to the sofa, pressed his lips against her neck. Suddenly she stood up again.
– I need to use the bathroom.
He was still sitting there when she came back. She stood in the middle of the room. A kind of dark red cape hung down behind her dress, all the way to the floor. She followed his gaze, lifted it and rolled it up. – I look stupid.
He leant back and looked up at the ceiling, and suddenly she was there beside him, stroking his hair. He put his arms around her, his fingers gliding over the silky material. She pulled herself free and sat down beside him on the sofa.
– Be careful, Karsten. She took his hand away from one of her breasts, where it had found its way without any effort on his part. – We have to be careful, she repeated quietly. – If it’s going to be us.
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