Fallen Angels

by Gunnar Staalesen

  We stopped by the gate, opened it and followed the drive up to the buildings.

  The countryside around us was strangely pale, as if summer and autumn had sucked out all the pigment and only the colourless remnants had been left for December. The cornfield we drove past was winter yellow, the grass a matt yellowish-brown, the trees in the copse behind the houses black and leafless, and even the sky arching above us had a stunning core of white in all the blue. It was like walking through an aquarelle painting in which the artist had used much too much water when mixing the colours. I parked the car.

  A youth on a dark-brown horse trotted slowly past the copse, his face turned towards us, long, fluttering hair, red checked shirt and faded jeans. At the other end of the field four or five young people were hoeing the ground with an energy that befitted the brightness. From inside the outbuilding a cow mooed in a long protest at being incarcerated, and through one of the windows in the farmhouse came the sound of typing. Some sparrows were tentatively – and unconvincingly – testing their voices for the season’s carols, and a well-fed cat sidled along one wall, away from the interlopers.

  We walked up onto the veranda in front of the house and knocked on the door. As no one reacted we opened the door and went in. A sign showed us the way to the office. Behind the green door we heard a typewriter hacking holes in the air around it. We knocked again, a voice told us to come in and we obeyed. Laila Mongstad first, followed by me.

  The woman who turned her head from the typewriter to the door was in her mid-thirties, buxom and stiff at the same time, strongly built and rounded, her fair hair combed back tightly over her scalp and held in a bun at the top. She was wearing a shirt, jumper and cords, without any make-up or jewellery, her dialect part of the nature around us. She crossed her arms in a way that signalled authority, yet her smile was open and warm-hearted.

  ‘And you would be…?’ she asked.

  ‘Laila Mongstad. You’ve kindly allowed me to write a news story about this place.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right. Great. Nice to meet you. I’m Jorunn Tveit.’ The woman rose and shook hands with Laila.

  Then she turned to me with her eyebrows raised.

  ‘Veum. I’d hoped to have a word with one of your patients here. Ruth Solheim.’

  Her expression was confused at first. Then it darkened. She shook my hand and said in a faint voice: ‘Jorunn Tveit.’ Then she went back to her chair behind the typewriter as if to occupy an official position in the tiny room, which otherwise contained little more than a couple of chairs, an old kitchen table, a brown filing cabinet and a telephone. ‘And what would the purpose be of your conversation with Ruth?’

  I said circumspectly: ‘Her father has just died, as you probably know.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, that’s why I’m here.’

  She sighed heavily. ‘So it’s about the inheritance, is it?’

  I nodded and clutched at the straw she offered me. ‘You could say that, yes.’

  ‘Well, I regret to say … Ruth’s no longer here.’

  I looked at her. Her eyes revealed nothing. She could have been a ferry company official informing me that, regrettably, the boat had left, but there was only an hour to wait for the next.

  ‘Really? Where is she then?’

  She shrugged. ‘In Bergen, I assume. She … she’s been restless for a while and I could see there was something brewing inside her. We did what we could to make her stay. The most important consideration is to keep them away from their old haunts.’ She had raised her voice and with a furrowed brow looked south, as though that was where Sodom lay. ‘We even managed to get Belinda to come out and talk to her…’

  ‘What did you say? Which Belinda?’

  She stared at me in surprise. ‘Belinda Bruflåt. Apparently she’s some sort of pop singer in Bergen, but she grew up here. Her father’s been the local council rep on our board for several years. She kept – used to keep – in very close contact with Ruth.’

  ‘Really? Did she come here regularly?’

  ‘Belinda? Yes. At a more formal institution they might’ve called her an official volunteer friend. For us she had a positive, social function. She got in touch with the residents here, talked their own language, belonged to the same generation – in short, she had a job here. But this time her visit didn’t help. Only two days after she’d been here, Ruth left.’

  ‘And when was that?’

  She checked a calendar hanging on the wall above the typewriter. ‘Hm. At the beginning of last week, I think. I can look it up in her notes, if it’s important.’

  I nodded. ‘Thank you very much.’

  While she was doing that I caught Laila’s eye. ‘Am I holding you up?’

  She gently shook her head. ‘I’m listening. This is good for background material.’

  Jorunn Tveit had found the right place in the medical notes. ‘Here it is. It was Monday last week.’

  ‘Right. Monday. Do you know where she stays in town?’

  ‘No. When they leave here they’re on their own. Staying here is a hundred per cent voluntary. The sole area we work on is motivation.’

  I looked out of the window. ‘What do you do here actually?’

  Again she sighed. ‘We’re a kind of rest home. We make young addicts an offer. They can come here, live in a free, independent, drugs-free environment, receive the treatment we can offer within our financial means – i.e., a doctor, psychologist, social worker – and hopefully get back on an even keel. We run the farm here, growing mostly vegetables and potatoes, and we have a few animals, plus the possibility of fishing in the fjord and doing various courses. In brief we try to activate them, get them to work with their bodies, minds, make them think about something else.’

  ‘I see. Do you get state help or are you a private institution?’

  ‘Both. We’re a private foundation, but we do get some financial support from the state, as well as personal donations and so on. We have an idealistic mission but we’re politically and religiously independent. Religious feeling has perhaps produced most of the problems, locally, and the local council has sort of put Bruflåt – Belinda’s father – in charge of us, like some kind of public watchdog.’

  ‘And are you successful?’

  ‘Depends what you mean. We manage to get some youngsters back on the straight and narrow, I think. Otherwise it would be a waste of time running this place. Some have stayed in this district permanently. We have a young family who run a little farm a couple of kilometres from here. Both the parents were hardened addicts before they came here. They had small children too, but now social services have given them back to them – for good. If you mean financially, then the answer is yes and no. We keep our heads above water, just. But we couldn’t cope with much more tightening of the public strings – we’d go under.’

  I nodded. ‘And Ruth – how long’s she been here?’

  ‘For six months, I’d guess. Maybe seven or eight. She was pretty run down when she came, slept round the clock for three or four days, only getting up for meals. But then … she recovered. Things seemed to be going well for a long time. But then the past started catching up with her again. Tormenting her. As I said before, we’d started worrying about her. She became dreadfully restless … as though … As though there was something she should’ve done, but which she hadn’t had the time to complete.’

  I leaned forward. ‘What was it in her past that was bothering her?’

  Her face became grey and forbidding. ‘I can’t answer that. Like all social workers I’m bound by an oath of confidentiality.’

  ‘Totally?’

  ‘Totally and absolutely and incorruptibly.’

  I nodded. ‘I see. So you have no idea where she could be in Bergen? She doesn’t have an address?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘What do you do about her post? Doesn’t it have to be sent on?’

  ‘She never has any. She never got any post.’


  ‘Could it be that some of the others here know a little more about where I could find her?’

  ‘If so, it would have to be Roar. She took care of him. But he’s out riding, I think.’

  ‘We saw someone riding through the woods when we arrived. Perhaps I can find him.’

  ‘You can try. But … be a little careful in the way you talk to him. He’s … special.’

  ‘I will. Can he turn violent?’

  She shrugged. ‘Not as such. But if he feels persecuted he is prone to run off. And we don’t like bothering the police too often.’

  ‘I understand.’ I turned to Laila. ‘I’ll leave you to do your own thing then. Shall we meet here afterwards?’

  She nodded.

  ‘We have lunch at one,’ Jorunn Tveit said accommodatingly, then turned all her attention to Laila.

  I left and closed the door behind me. The corridor smelt of old timber and new paint. The lino on the floor looked new and shiny. A staircase with a white balustrade led to the next floor. Through an open door I saw a lounge. There was a pile of creased newspapers on a low table and in a corner of the room the lifeless TV screen confirmed that nothing was happening.

  I went out onto the steps in front of the house. The young people working in the field were having a break. Some of them were smoking; a couple of them had sat down on the plough beside the wire-netting fence that enclosed the field. In the woods I could still make out the rider on the brown horse.

  I waved to him to let him know I was on my way and started to cross the land between us.

  The uneven terrain was hard on my flat town feet and I almost twisted my ankle when I stumbled over a raised tuft.

  The rider following the trees to the fjord paused, turned the horse and came back the same way – towards me. He reminded me of a guard. Perhaps that was what he was: someone who protected the property against incursions by underworld beings who haunted the minds of the residents.

  Now he had spotted me, and from a distance I noticed the fixed stare in his eyes. He reined in the horse and it moved at walking pace. The bare trees around them and the deserted fjord below made a desolate impression, in sharp contrast to the lively, dark-brown animal and the tense, pale-faced rider.

  His hair was fair and long, the way men wore it in the early seventies. He had a red kerchief tied round his forehead and the face…

  There was something strangely familiar about it that gave me a shock.

  It was…

  A small child I had known once?

  And his name was … Roar?

  While I was still walking over to him my bad conscience grew like an ink stain on dry blotting paper. He had often been in my thoughts. I had often wondered how he was. But I had never tried to get in touch.

  Of all the places on earth this was the last I would have wanted to meet him.

  He was holding the reins tight now and the horse had stopped. White steam was coming off the powerful animal and its dark-brown eyes watched me with a Lord of the Universe gaze, wounded that he had been caught by a pygmy.

  The rider’s face was like the country around us: wan and drained of colour. His skin was transparent and there was blond, golden down around his mouth. His checked shirt and blue jeans had both faded after a lot of washing and under the shirt he wore a greyish-white jersey with tiny black dots in the wool.

  As I stopped by him I could see he had also – vaguely – recognised me.

  I had to clear my throat before I could say anything. ‘Roar? I hadn’t expected to find you here.’

  He nodded, twice; the horse arched its neck and pawed at the ground. He tightened the reins.

  ‘You … remember me?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘How—?’

  I wanted to ask how he had been – I knew Roar from a case almost ten years ago – but he broke in: ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘OK. That wasn’t why I came here. I’m here on a completely different matter.’

  As though that was a relief, he said: ‘It became much too cramped for me in Øystese. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I returned … to Bergen.’

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘No one! To myself. I lived on the streets for several years.’

  ‘Your mother – how is she?’

  ‘I never talk to her, never see her.’

  ‘And then you started on drugs?’

  ‘You have to believe in something, don’t you.’ He had raised his voice and the horse arched its neck again as if to make clear it didn’t like what was going on.

  ‘Believe in? Drugs?’

  ‘Yes? No one cares about kids anymore once we’re hooked. I lived on the streets for three years. Do you think anyone came and asked after me, other than those who wanted to … to use me?’

  ‘There must’ve been social workers, the outreach unit?’

  ‘With a budget big enough to buy headed notepaper, yes. They don’t cover a square metre of what goes on. If I hadn’t been stoned – never mind from what – I would’ve finished myself off long ago.’

  I gulped, straightened up and said: ‘Anyway, now you’re here. And that must surely mean you’ve decided to do something new?’

  He looked past me, to the white farmhouse and the red outbuilding. ‘At least here I have a roof over my head,’ he said in a faint voice.

  I followed his gaze. Behind the buildings dark forests rose in a long curve towards the central parts of Lindås. In a couple of places thin plumes of smoke spiralled to the sky. Otherwise the area seemed dead, like somewhere you should have state wilderness aid for if you wanted to stay.

  I said thinly: ‘Actually I came here because of Ruth.’

  He didn’t react.

  ‘Ruth Solheim.’

  He still didn’t react.

  ‘But she’s gone back to Bergen, hasn’t she.’

  He nodded gently, with an impassive face.

  ‘I gather you got on well with her. Despite her being … How old are you now, Roar?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘Did she say where she’d planned to stay?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No address?’

  He had nothing to give me. His face was like stone, an abandoned child at a funeral.

  ‘Did you like each other? Did you enjoy being together?’

  Finally it appeared he was going to say something. He was searching for the words. ‘She … spoke to me. She was … kind.’

  I felt pressure behind my eyes and I had to swallow again before speaking. ‘Had she been a bit restless recently?’

  He shrugged, then nodded.

  ‘Do you know why?’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘Did she have any contacts in Bergen?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘Belinda Bruflåt? She came here to visit her.’

  ‘Yes, she did, but she talks to everyone, she does.’

  ‘But before Ruth went to Bergen, didn’t she come here to talk to her?’

  ‘Yes … I think so.’

  ‘Maybe she might know where she is?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said in a tone that suggested he wasn’t interested.

  ‘What about her family? Did she have any contact with them? Her mother, for example?’

  ‘There are no mothers who care about … us,’ he said with sudden passion. ‘But she…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Her sister used to ring. Now and then. That was the only contact she had.’

  ‘Sissel?’

  He shrugged, obviously his most frequent gesture.

  ‘Listen, Roar, one more thing. Last Monday when she ran off. Was there anything in particular that triggered it? Did she tell you anything?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Nothing? Didn’t she even say goodbye to you?’

  Again his face was stony. ‘She just left. She … We were sitting together, having a cup of tea, in the kitchen, and she was flicking through the paper. Suddenly s
he threw down the paper and asked if I’d seen the Saturday edition. I said I thought it was in the TV room and then … she went there. Straight afterwards she came back holding the paper. Her face was ashen and she said: “I’ve got to go, Roar. Right now.” And then she simply … left.’

  ‘But didn’t she say … Didn’t she say anything about coming back?’

  His gaze swept across the bare countryside around us. ‘They never come back.’

  ‘And that was all?’

  ‘That was all.’

  ‘Which newspaper was it?’

  He laughed drily. ‘Bergens Tidende. It’s the only one that reaches us out here.’ He gazed across to the other side of the deserted stretch of fjord and motioned in that direction. ‘Over there … there’s a place called Hosteland. “Coughing land”. It sounds like one of the places you go to in the children’s song “I Travelled over Land and Sea”. That’s how deserted it is here.’

  I looked up at him, past the horse’s large head. In a way they had merged into one: the boy and the horse. ‘Would you like … Shall I come and visit you, Roar?’

  Our eyes met. A faraway, forgotten look flitted across his face. Then he leaned half forward and patted the horse’s muscular neck. ‘No need,’ he said in a thick voice. ‘Only Jonas understands me anyway.’

  ‘Did you give the horse that name?’

  He shot me a glare, cheeks aflame. ‘And? Why not?’

  ‘Well…’ It was my turn to shrug. ‘Then…’ I motioned towards the farmhouse ‘…I’d better … Are you coming to eat?’

  He sat up straight again. His face was resuming its normal, pale colour. ‘Not yet.’

  I smiled at him. ‘I may come one day, anyway, Roar … Andresen.’

  ‘I don’t use that name anymore.’

  ‘Which one do you use then?’

  ‘That’s irrelevant.’ He tugged at the reins and then loosened them. The horse tossed its head and set off at a trot. They passed me as if I wasn’t even there.

  I walked back to the house. Occasionally I turned round and watched him. He had resumed his guard duty, back and forth along the line of trees. No one would launch a surprise attack from that direction.