– Is that where you are?
Through the grunting of the pig and the squealing of her young he heard Kai breathing heavily just behind the loose planks. Yes, he could have shouted, here I am. Because waiting for what was about to happen was worse than anything. Then the sound of footsteps again, continuing along the wall and disappearing.
He shouldn’t have got up, should have carried on lying there without moving a finger, but he felt something soft against his throat, a damp snout grunting in his ear, and he scrambled to his knees, feeling round in the dark. He found a shelf, pulled himself up. A sliver of light entered through the broken plank. He backed away, his foot hit something – a bucket that tipped over and emptied its contents. The pig began to run round him, her squealing shredding the darkness into thin strips. Then Kai’s voice was there again.
– Don’t try to hide, you little bastard.
Karsten heard the rotten plank being pulled away with a ripping sound. He ran into the darkness, banged into a gate, hopped over it and staggered into a large space, glimpsed a tractor and a plough. A ladder behind it. He climbed up, pulling himself up from the top rung into an open loft. There was the sound of a hard blow from the room he had just been in, and suddenly the shrieking pig fell silent and all that could be heard was the whimpering of what sounded like newborn piglets. He crawled in towards the back of the loft. Pale light fell from a small window under the gable. There were some skis there, and tins of paint. A spade. He squatted, not moving.
– You’re going to have to come down. Kai was talking to him from somewhere right next to the ladder. – I don’t understand why you’re so afraid. You haven’t done anything wrong, have you?
The voice was friendly now, and for a moment Karsten felt like climbing down, shaking Kai’s hand and apologising for having gone through his things like that.
– I’m coming up, said Kai. – And then we can have a little chat.
Karsten heard him step on to the ladder and begin to climb up, rung by rung. Suddenly he saw Synne, still sitting at the kitchen table and staring at him. She’s afraid, and he wants to comfort her, because she doesn’t trust anybody else.
Kai’s head appeared above the edge of the floor, just about visible in the light from the opening. He seemed to be smiling, his eyes two black holes in his broad face. Karsten grabbed the spade by the wall, swung round and struck with all his might, screaming as the handle snapped. He heard the body tumbling down and hitting the floor with a dull thud, dragging the ladder with it.
He backed away towards the other end of the loft, couldn’t bear to look down. He found a beam, clambered up and managed to get his legs round it. It sloped downwards, he slid briefly and a huge splinter penetrated his thigh. He let go, fell, landed on his feet and rolled forwards.
Getting up, he trampled in something wet and sticky. He kicked the overturned bucket away, found his way back into the room he had first entered. The hole in the wall was bigger now. In the grey vestiges of light that filtered through, the pig lay still, the piglets swarming round the body. Karsten stepped on to the soft body, pushed up against the loose planks and dragged himself out into the mud. The dogs began baying again. He ran across the yard. Keep running down the road, he thought, keep on running till I’m home. Then he saw that the passenger door of the Chevy was still open. He reached inside, the keys were there. He crawled across into the driver’s seat, turned the ignition, the engine began to thrum. At that moment he saw a shadow from the corner of his eye. It grew larger as it pressed in through the half-open window.
– Leaving without me?
Karsten put his foot down. There were lights on the dashboard, but the engine wouldn’t catch. Then Kai’s hand was holding him by the neck in an iron grip.
– You’re one of those types who likes to play alone, Kai whispered, his lips pressed to Karsten’s ear. – You’re the type who keeps to himself. You’re afraid of everybody.
– I won’t say anything, Karsten gasped.
– Say anything? About what?
Karsten opened and then closed his mouth, unable to speak.
– About what, Karsten?
Pyromaniac. The word sped through him, black, and the blackness swept over him from every direction, like a narrowing tunnel, and the voice in his ear was getting fainter and fainter. I’m going to die, he thought, fumbling at the buttons on the door, pulled one, didn’t know which, heard the window glide up. It took him a moment to realise it had become a gravity-inverting guillotine. He heard tiny crackling sounds from the throat next to his ear, like the sound of small bubbles popping. They swelled to a howl of pain. Kai seized hold of the edge of the window, held it with one hand, grabbing for Karsten’s hair with the other. Karsten threw himself forward, still pulling on the button for the window hoist.
– Keep away, he howled.
The face hanging from the side window looked swollen, eyes bulging like a boiled fish.
– I’ll cut your head off. Understand?
He heard a distant sound from the bursting face, saw that Kai was forcing the window down with both hands and had opened it enough to pull his head free. Karsten fumbled for the key in the ignition, his right hand shaking so much he couldn’t turn it and had to steady it with the other. The engine coughed. He stamped down with his foot, but there was no clutch there, and he turned the key again, felt the vibration up through his spine as the car roared and leapt forward a few metres, the engine almost choking. At the last moment he managed to pick up acceleration, and the car raced towards the steps to the main house. He yanked the gearstick into reverse, backed up and turned, was thrown against the steering wheel as he smashed into the Mazda that was parked behind him. He rammed the gearstick into drive. The open passenger door was banging loose as he pulled free of the other car. Something had landed in front of the bumper, there was a loud noise as he drove over it. For a moment he thought it was Kai’s body he had smashed. Then he saw the short, broad figure coming towards him in the cone of light from the headlamps.
He put his foot down and accelerated straight towards it.
Part II
April 2011
1
Dan-Levi managed to pop home for a brief visit. Sara didn’t finish until three, and Pepsi had to be taken for a walk before that. Rakel had long schooldays, and the others were too small to take the dog out on their own.
The walk up to the end of Erleveien and back took him nine minutes. The whole time Pepsi was straining at the leash like a ferret, and if he tried to talk sharply to her, she would start biting at the leash. There was no shortage of information about how to train a dog, and there were obedience classes too, but they had long ago realised that they would never manage to squeeze anything like that into their weekly routine.
At a quarter past one he was in his car again. The paper was running a series on the new spirituality. He had interviewed a healer in Vormsund earlier that week, and the owner of a corner shop who had studied at Princess Märtha’s Angel School. Now it was the turn of a woman who told people’s fortunes by reading the cards. He had planned to do an hour’s research for the interview beforehand but hadn’t managed it, not that it worried him much. His greatest challenge would be to keep his scepticism at bay.
She lived in a house in Volla, not far from the swimming baths. Dan-Levi stood in the middle of the yard and studied the little semi-detached. It appeared to be from the 1950s but looked well maintained, painted white with red frames. In the flat furthest away, the curtains were closed, but that wasn’t where he was going.
The woman he had arranged to interview ran her own company, registered up at Brønnøysund, and she earned well in excess of four hundred thousand a year, after tax. She couldn’t possibly make that much just from fortune-telling, he thought. But if that was the case, then maybe he should consider starting up in the branch himself. In his thoughts he added to himself that he was being ironic. Dan-Levi had grown up in a home where card games were sinful, and where the use of cards
to tell fortunes was an even greater sin, since it represented an attempt to put oneself in God’s place; in other words, become Satan. But his father had not been the kind of man who went about spreading the fear of eternal damnation. Right up until his final service at Bethany, five years ago, the word Pastor Jakobsen wanted to spread was one of joy.
Had he not checked beforehand, Dan-Levi would have thought that the woman who opened the door to him was well under fifty. She had dark brown hair and only a few lines around her eyes. As they shook hands, she looked directly at him. Secure, that was the first word that occurred to him. He didn’t make a habit of judging women as members of their sex, but Elsa Wilkins had been and indeed still was a woman he would unhesitatingly have described as attractive. He allowed himself a good look at her as she led him into the living room, all what you might call part of the assignment. She was almost as tall as he was, and decidedly feminine in shape. Dan-Levi had always liked buxom women and didn’t mind it at all when Sara began putting on weight each time she was pregnant. He thought it suited her, skinny thing that she was normally.
– So you call yourself a Parotist? he said once he had sat down on the sofa.
– Tarotist, Elsa Wilkins corrected him with a smile as she handed him a cup of herbal tea. – I also hold courses in other subjects.
– Courses?
– Self-development, meditation, getting in touch with yourself.
– I see, he said, picking up his notebook and writing down a couple of key words as he stemmed a tide of critical questions. His greatest strength as a journalist was probably his ability to get on well with the people he interviewed. People trusted him quickly and often told him more than they had intended. But he was careful about how he used this talent. No one should feel they had been exploited.
– And is that something you can earn a living from? He didn’t reveal that he had checked her income beforehand in the tax office listings. – From tarot and meditation and that kind of thing?
– It’s probably the same as with anything else, she said, gliding her fingers through her hair and tucking it behind her ear on one side. – If you’re good at what you do and work hard, you can go as far as you want. It’s probably the same in your job too.
Without him having to ask, she then began to talk about a centuries-old wisdom that had survived both the prohibitions of the Church and the arrogance of modern times. She talked about the collective unconscious and about archetypes, something Dan-Levi vaguely remembered reading about at university. She spoke about developing one’s intuition, about finding different ways towards a knowledge of oneself. Hard to object to stuff like that. He chose to leave out the most critical questions he had intended to put to her, questions he had obliged both the healer and the angel school graduate to wrestle with. But nothing this woman said would have caused Pastor Jakobsen to raise his eyebrows.
Dan-Levi moved carefully over into the personal sphere.
– Wilkins, that’s not a typical Norwegian name?
She was silent for a moment. – My ex-husband is English.
Dan-Levi waited, checking for any signs that she didn’t want to talk about the past and the failed marriage.
– Have you lived in England?
– In Birmingham, and in Zimbabwe. It was half a lifetime ago.
Again she smiled, but he saw the trace of a shadow glide across the dark blue eyes.
– But you are from round here?
She sipped her drink, and he did the same. It tasted of peppermint and something sharper, he wasn’t quite sure what.
– I grew up on a farm not too far from here. Stornes. We ran a stables.
– Stornes? he exclaimed. – That’s where the fire was.
She nodded. – That was a long time after the place was sold. Once my parents were gone, there was no one in the family to take over.
– A tragic story, said Dan-Levi. – The fire, I mean. The kind of thing you don’t forget, not even years later.
– It was eight years ago, she said. – Actually to the very day today. I remember it was on the first of April.
Dan-Levi made no comment on the coincidence. – Children? he asked as he turned a page in his notebook. – Please just say if you don’t want to talk about that kind of thing. It is after all the Tarot I’m going to write about.
– It’s quite all right. I have a boy. Elsa Wilkins interrupted herself with a smile. – Not a boy any more, actually. He’s about your age.
Dan-Levi had a thought. – Maybe I …?
– I doubt it. He grew up partly in England and partly in Africa. He studied in Oslo one spring, many years ago, while he was living with me. But he didn’t stay. He’s always enjoyed looking for challenges.
– And he studied what?
– History and political science. Then he joined the army. He’s been in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dan-Levi found this interesting. – Is he still out there?
She poured more tea. – He took over a firm his father started. They provide security for the people living in the south of Iraq. Adrian has never been afraid of anything. It keeps me awake at night sometimes.
She looked out of the window.
– I used to call him Lionheart when he was little. He was always wanting to protect me … I’d like to show you how I work. If you’re interested.
Elsa Wilkins stood up, and Dan-Levi understood she didn’t want to talk any more about this son of hers, this Lionheart.
– I wouldn’t show this to just any journalist, she said as she went ahead of him up the stairs. – You seem a trustworthy type of person.
The room upstairs smelled of incense and some kind of spice. Elsa Wilkins lit three candles on a table covered with a dark red cloth with black fringes that hung down towards the floor. She indicated for him to sit in one of the chairs, it was comfortable, covered in soft leather. She took a pack of cards from a drawer in the table. The cards were large and decorated on the back with yellow stars.
– The Tarot pack consists of fifty-six cards known as the Minor Arcana. That means the lesser secret. They are the basis of the normal pack of cards that I’m sure you use at home.
He made no response to this.
She spread the cards out in a fan across the table.
– The four suites are called wands, cups, swords and pentacles, and relate to differing material and spiritual sides of human life. The swords, for instance, are closely related to the world of thought, and the cups to feelings. You’ll see why this is so in a moment. In addition to these fifty-six cards, there are twenty-two others known as the Major Arcana.
– The greater secret?
– Correct. These cards symbolise the most important themes in life, from growth and love to decline and death.
Dan-Levi resisted the temptation to ask how life’s secrets and possibilities came to be hidden in a pack of cards. He had to admit he was curious. The room with its smells and its candlelight and the allegedly magic cards on the table made him think of circuses and wandering gypsies.
– Let’s say you’ve come because you need advice regarding something that’s troubling you in your daily life. Shall we pick a hypothetical problem, or talk about something real? You choose.
He thought for a moment. In his mind’s eye he saw Pastor Jakobsen’s friendly face. This is my job, he offered in his defence.
– Can’t we just look at what the future holds? In a general sense.
– Then we choose the six-month special, she nodded, and laid the cards out in seven rows, three cards in each. – This first row relates to things that are on your mind at the moment.
There were a couple of wand cards there, and a jack holding a cup with a fish in it. Elsa Wilkins sat for a while studying the rows of cards, as though looking for a pattern. Dan-Levi glanced over towards the curtain. Through a gap he saw that it had started to rain. In a little while he’d head back to the newspaper and finish a couple of articles. Then he’d fetch Ruth and Rebekah from nursery s
chool, then home and help with the dinner. After dinner, drive with Ruben to football. He was trainer and helped out at practice sessions whenever he could. Then back home again, help out with any homework, tidy up the kitchen, then off to the youth group he led at Bethany. Somewhere among all this, Pepsi had to be given her walk.
– You are a man who manages to get a great many things done, Elsa began, making an instant connection to what had been running through his mind. – You are an asset. People think of you as a good person. She paused. – Yet you are not completely happy with yourself.
Who is? thought Dan-Levi with a slight stab of irritation. Should a person be completely happy with himself? But Elsa Wilkins seemed to be asking rather than insisting. She looked straight at him, maybe debating whether to drop this about not being content. He noticed that he was tensing up and leaned back in his chair. The articles about alternative forms of faith and the new spirituality were not supposed to be a critical examination of New Age and other spiritual fast foods. At the editorial discussion they had agreed that he wouldn’t write about charlatans and people being tricked out of their money but instead treat those he was interviewing as sympathetically as possible.
She pointed to the card with the eight wands.
– This might indicate new horizons. Are you planning a journey?
Now he was unable to hide his smile. If there was one thing he associated with fortune-telling, then this was it. Was there ever actually anyone anywhere who wasn’t in some way or other planning a journey? For years he had dreamed of crossing the United States on a motorcycle, coast to coast across the endless plains, with the Rocky Mountains just visible on the horizon. He and his best friend Roar Horvath had planned to do it together, sharing the same attraction to all things American, the nature, the mindset, the music. And still, at times, Dan-Levi could start talking to Roar about this journey to end all journeys, although never without regretfully patting himself on the stomach, as though it was this that prevented it happening.
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