Midnight Sun (15 page)

‘Oh, that,' I said. ‘He wanted me to pay for some of his services.'

‘And you don't want to?'

‘I don't know. I haven't decided yet.'

Down by the church a figure was walking along the side of the road. As we passed I looked in the wing mirror and saw her standing in the cloud of dust watching us.

‘That's Anita,' Lea said. She must have seen me looking in the mirror.

‘Oh,' I said, as neutrally as I could.

‘Speaking of wisdom,' she said, ‘Knut told me about the conversation you had with him.'

‘Which one?'

‘He says he's going to get a girlfriend after the summer. Even if Ristiinna says no.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes. He told me that even Futabayama the sumo legend kept on losing and losing before he started winning.'

We laughed. I listened to her laughter. Bobby's had been light and bubbly, like a lively stream. Lea's was a well. No, a slowly flowing river.

In places the road curved and passed through gentle slopes, but mostly ran straight across the plateau, kilometre after kilometre. I held the strap above the door. I don't know why – you don't exactly have to hold on when you're going at sixty kilometres an hour along a flat, straight road. I've always done it, that's all. Holding the strap until my arm goes numb. I've seen other people do the same. Maybe people do have something in common after all, a desire to hold onto something solid.

Sometimes we could see the sea, at other times the road ran between hills and low, rocky knolls. The landscape lacked the striking drama of Lofoten or the beauty of Vestmark, but it had something else. A silent emptiness, a reticent relentlessness. Even the greenery of summer held a promise of harder, colder times that would try to pull you down, and which would win in the end. We encountered very few other vehicles, and saw no people or animals. Every so often there was a house or cabin, which raised the question: why? Why here, of all places?

After two and a half hours the houses began to appear more regularly, and suddenly we passed a sign at the side of the road that said ‘Alta'.

We were – to judge by the sign – in a city.

When we came to some crossroads – the shops, schools and public buildings that surrounded it all adorned with the town's coat of arms, a white arrowhead – it turned out that the city didn't just have one centre, but three. Each of them was like a very small community of its own, but all the same: who would have guessed that Alta was a miniature Los Angeles?

‘When I was little, I was convinced that the world ended here in Alta,' Lea said.

I wasn't sure that it didn't. According to my estimation, we were now even further north.

We parked – not a huge problem – and I managed to buy the things I wanted before the shops shut. Underwear, boots, a raincoat, cigarettes, soap and shaving equipment. Afterwards we went to a branch of Kaffistova for dinner. With the taste of fresh cod still in my mind, I searched in vain for fish on the menu. Lea shook her head with a smile.

‘Up here we don't eat fish when we go out,' she said. ‘When you're out, you want something fancy.'

We ordered meatballs.

‘When I was growing up, this was the time of day I liked least,' I said, looking out at the deserted street. Even the urban landscape had something oddly desolate and relentless about it: here too you had a nagging sense that nature was in control, that human beings were tiny and impotent. ‘Saturday after closing time, before evening fell. It was like the no man's land of the week. Sitting there with the feeling that everyone else had been invited to a party or something that was about to start. Something everyone else knew about. While you yourself didn't even have any other loser friends you could pester. It got better after the news at seven o'clock, then there was something on television and you had stuff to take your mind off it.'

‘We didn't have parties or television,' Lea said. ‘But there were always people around. As a rule they wouldn't even knock, they just came in and sat in the living room and started talking. Or they just sat there quietly and listened. Father did most of the talking, of course. But Mother made the decisions. When we were at home, she was the one who decided when Father needed to calm down and give other people a chance, and when they had to go home. And we were allowed to stay up and listen to the grown-ups. It was so safe, so good. Once I remember Father crying because Alfred, a poor drunk, had finally found Jesus. When he discovered a year later that Alfred had died of an overdose down in Oslo, he drove four thousand kilometres to pick up the coffin and bring it back here so he could have a decent burial. You asked me what I believe in . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘That's what I believe in. People's capacity for goodness.'

After dinner we went outside. It had clouded over, creating a dusk of sorts. Music was streaming from the open door of one of the kiosks advertising hotdogs, French fries and soft ice cream. Cliff Richard. ‘Congratulations.'

We went in. There was a couple sitting at one of the four tables. They were both smoking, and looked at us with visible disinterest. I ordered two large ice creams with chocolate sprinkles on. For some reason, the white ice cream that oozed out of the machine and curled neatly into the cones made me think of a bridal veil. I took the cones over to Lea, who was standing by the jukebox.

‘Look,' she said. ‘Isn't that . . .?'

I read the label behind the glass. Inserted a fifty-øre coin and pressed the button.

Monica Zetterlund's cool but sensual voice crept out. As did the smoking couple. Lea leaned against the jukebox; it looked as though she was soaking up every word, every note. Eyes half closed. Hips swaying almost imperceptibly from side to side, making the hem of her skirt move. When the song was over, she put another fifty øre in and played it again. And then again. Then we went out into the summer's evening.

Music was coming from behind the trees in the park. We automatically walked towards the sound. There was a queue of young people in front of a ticket booth. Happy, noisy, dressed in light, bright summer clothes. I recognised the poster on the ticket booth from the telephone pole in KÃ¥sund.

‘Shall we . . .?'

‘I can't,' she smiled. ‘We don't dance.'

‘We don't have to dance.'

‘A Christian doesn't go to places like that either.'

We sat down on one of the benches under the trees.

‘When you say Christian . . .' I began.

‘I mean Læstadian, yes. I know it can all seem a bit odd to an outsider, but we stick to the old Bible translations. We don't believe that the contents of the faith can be changed.'

‘But the idea of burning in hell was only read into the Bible in the Middle Ages, so that's a fairly modern invention too. Shouldn't you reject that as well?'

She sighed. ‘Reason lives in the head, and faith in the heart. They're not always good neighbours.'

‘But dancing lives in the heart too. When you were swaying in time to the music on the jukebox, did that mean you were on the verge of sinning?'

‘Maybe,' she smiled. ‘But there are probably worse things.'

‘Such as?'

‘Well. Such as socialising with Pentecostalists, for instance.'

‘Is that
worse
?'

‘I've got a cousin in Tromsø who sneaked out to go to a meeting of the local Pentecostalist group. When her father realised that she'd been out, she lied and said she'd been to a disco.'

We both laughed.

It had got slightly darker. It was time to drive back. Even so, we remained seated.

‘What do they feel when they're walking through Stockholm?' she asked.

‘Everything,' I replied, lighting a cigarette. ‘They're in love. That's why they see, hear, smell everything.'

‘Is that what people do when they're in love?'

‘You've never experienced it?'

‘I've never been in love,' she said.

‘Really? Why not?'

‘I don't know. Obsessed, yes. But if being in love is like they say it is, then never.'

‘So you used to be an ice princess, then? The girl all the boys wanted, but never dared talk to.'

‘Me?' She laughed. ‘I hardly think so.'

She put her hand in front of her mouth, but removed it just as quickly. It's possible that it was unconscious, because I had trouble believing that such a beautiful woman could have a complex about a tiny scar on her top lip.

‘What about you, Ulf?' She used my false name without a trace of irony.

‘Loads of times.'

‘Good for you.'

‘Oh, I don't know about that.'

‘Why not?'

I shrugged. ‘It takes its toll. But I've got very good at handling rejection.'

‘Rubbish,' she said.

I grinned and inhaled. ‘I would have been one of those boys, you know.'

‘Which boys?'

I knew there was no need for me to answer: her blushes revealed that she knew what I meant. I was actually a bit surprised: she didn't seem the blushing type.

I was just about to reply anyway when I was interrupted by a sharp voice:

‘What the hell are you doing here?'

I turned round. They were standing behind the bench, ten metres away. Three of them. They each had a bottle in their hands. Mattis's bottles. It wasn't easy to know which of us the question was aimed at, but even in the murky light I could see and hear who had asked it: Ove. The brother-in-law with inheritance rights.

‘With that . . . that . . . southerner.'

The slurring in his voice made clear that he had sampled the contents of the bottle, but I suspected that wasn't wholly responsible for his failure to find a more cutting insult.

Lea sprang up and hurried towards him, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Ove, don't—'

‘Hey, you! Southerner! Look at me! You thought you were going to get to fuck her now, did you? Now that my brother's in his grave and she's a widow. But they're not allowed to, did you know that? They're not allowed to fuck, not even then! Not until they're married again! Ha ha!' He brushed her aside before raising the bottle in a wide arc and setting it to his lips.

‘Mind you, it might work with this one . . .' Alcohol and saliva sprayed from his mouth. ‘Because this one's a whore!' He stared at me, wild-eyed. ‘A whore!' he repeated when I didn't react. Not that I didn't know that calling a woman a whore is an internationally recognised signal to stand up and plant a fist in the speaker's face. But I remained seated.

‘What is it, southerner? Are you a coward, as well as a cunt-thief?' He laughed, evidently pleased with himself for finally finding the right words.

‘Ove . . .' Lea tried, but he shoved her away with his drinking hand. It might not have been intentional, but the bottle caught her on the forehead.
Might
not. I stood up.

He grinned. Held the bottle out to the friends standing in the semi-darkness under a tree, came towards me with his fists raised in front of him. Legs apart, with quick, nimble steps, until he got himself into position, head slightly tilted behind his fists, with a look in his eyes that was suddenly clear and focused. As for me, I hadn't done much fighting since I left primary school. Correction. I hadn't done any fighting since primary school.

The first punch hit me on the nose, and I was blinded by the tears that instantly filled my eyes. The second one hit my jaw. I felt something come loose, and then the metallic taste of blood. I spat out a tooth and threw a wild punch at the air. His third blow hit me on the nose again. I don't know what it sounded like to them, but to me the crunch sounded like a car being crushed.

I punched another hole in the summer night. His next blow hit me in the chest as I tumbled forward and wrapped my arms round him. I tried to pin his arms down so they couldn't do any more damage, but he got his left hand free and hit me repeatedly on the ear and temple. There was a banging, squeaking sound, and it felt as if something cracked. I gnashed my teeth like a dog, got hold of something, an ear, and bit as hard as I could.

‘Fuck!' he yelled, and yanked both arms free and locked my head under his right arm. I was struck by a pungent smell of sweat and adrenalin. I'd smelled it before. On men who had suddenly been confronted with the fact that they owed the Fisherman money, and didn't know what was going to happen.

‘If you touch her –' I whispered into the remnants of his ear, hearing the words gurgle with my own blood – ‘I'll kill you.'

He laughed. ‘And what about you, southerner? What if I knock out the rest of your lovely white teeth?'

‘Go ahead,' I panted. ‘But if you touch her . . .'

‘With this?'

The only positive thing I can say about the knife he was holding in his free hand is that it was smaller than Knut's.

‘You haven't got the nerve,' I groaned.

He put the point of the knife to my cheek. ‘No?'

‘Come on them, you fucking –' I couldn't work out where my sudden lisp had come from until I felt the cold steel against my tongue and realised that he'd stuck the knife right through my cheek – ‘inbreed,' I managed to say, with some effort, seeing as it's a word that requires a certain amount of tongue gymnastics.

‘What did you say, dickhead?'

I felt the knife being twisted.

‘Your brother's your father,' I lisped. ‘That's why you're so thick and ugly.'

The knife was suddenly pulled out.

I knew what was coming. I knew it was going to end here. And that I'd pretty much demanded it, as good as begged for it. A man with the violent genes he had inherited didn't have any choice but to stick the knife into me.

So why did I do it? Fucked if I know. Fucked if I know what calculations go on inside our heads, the way we add and subtract in the hope of getting a positive result. I just know that fragments of that sort of calculation must have fluttered through my sleep-deprived, sun- and alcohol-addled brain, where the positive result was that a man has to spend a hell of a long time in prison for first-degree murder, and in that time a woman like Lea could get a long way away, or at least could if she had the sense to keep hold of some of the money she knew where to find. Another plus: by the time Ove was released, Knut Haguroyama would have grown up enough to protect them both. On the negative side was my own life. Which, considering the probable extent and quality of the time remaining to me, wasn't worth much. Yep, even I could do the maths.