Punishment (7 page)

S
omething had happened. The room seemed lighter. The oppressive feeling of an old-fashioned sickroom was gone. The metal bed had been pushed against the wall and covered with a bright blanket and lots of colourful cushions. Someone had carried in a wing chair. And in it sat a well-dressed Alvhild Sofienberg with her feet on a footstool. Her slippers were just peeking out from underneath a blanket. Someone had managed to breathe something that resembled life into her grey wispy hair; a soft curl fell on to her forehead.

‘You look so much younger,' exclaimed Johanne Vik. ‘Alvhild, you look so well, sitting there.'

The window was wide open. Spring had finally come. The National Day celebrations had left behind an early summer feel that had lasted for a couple of days now. The smell of old onions was not noticeable. Instead, Johanne breathed in the smell of damp earth from the garden outside. An old man had raised his hand to his cloth hat as she crossed the yard. A good neighbour, explained Alvhild Sofienberg. Gardening was his hobby. He couldn't bear seeing the garden going to seed when she was ill. Her smile was softer at the edges now.

‘To tell you the truth, I hadn't expected to see you again,' she said, drily. ‘You didn't seem very comfortable when you were here last. But I can understand why. I really wasn't well. In fact, to be honest, I was very ill.'

She tossed her head, a gesture that she immediately rectified.

‘I am still seriously ill. Don't be fooled. The strange thing
is that I feel as if death has been standing over there by the wardrobe waiting for several weeks, but now has suddenly gone for a wander and disappeared. Maybe he's busy with other people at the moment. I'm sure he'll be back soon. Coffee?'

‘Yes, please. Black. I can get it myself, only . . .'

Johanne started to get up. Alvhild's look made her sit down again.

‘I'm not dead yet,' she said tersely. ‘Here.'

She poured some coffee from a thermos on the table beside her and handed the cup to Johanne. The porcelain was beautiful, nearly transparent. The coffee was pretty thin too.

‘Sorry about the coffee,' said Alvhild. ‘It's my stomach. It's not up to much. And to what do I owe the honour?'

It was incredible. When Johanne had decided to go and visit the old lady once more, she hadn't been certain whether she would find her alive.

‘I've found Aksel Seier,' she said.

‘Oh, you have?'

Alvhild Sofienberg lifted her cup to her mouth, as if she wanted to hide her curiosity. The movement irritated Johanne, in a way she couldn't quite explain. ‘Yes. I haven't found him in person, if you see what I mean, but I know where he is. Where he lives. Well, that is to say, it wasn't actually me that found him, but my . . . Well, Aksel Seier lives in the USA.'

‘The USA?'

Alvhild put her cup down again, without having touched the contents.

‘How . . . what is he doing there?'

‘I have absolutely no idea!'

Alvhild put her hand to her mouth, as if she was frightened to show her teeth. Johanne sipped the light-brown liquid in the blue porcelain.

‘At first when I found out, I was surprised that anyone
with a record would be given an entry visa to the US,' she continued. ‘They are incredibly strict about things like that. Then it dawned on me that perhaps the rules were different at the end of the sixties, when he went over. But they weren't. Aksel Seier is in fact an American citizen.'

‘That wasn't mentioned at all when . . .'

‘No, I'm sure it wasn't. But that's not so strange. He was born in the USA, on a trip his parents made in connection with a short-lived and disastrous attempt to emigrate. He kept his American citizenship, though he was of course Norwegian as well. There was no reason whatsoever to make a point of this during his trial. Or subsequent appeal. He was presumably only asked in summary if he was Norwegian. And he was. Or rather, is.'

Alvhild Sofienberg was astounded. There was a sudden quiet in the room and Johanne jumped when the door opened and the man in the hat popped his head round.

‘That's it for today,' he grumbled. ‘What a mess. Don't know that I'll be able to train those roses. And the rhododendrons have seen their best days, Mrs Sofienberg. Well, good afternoon.'

He withdrew without waiting for an answer. It was cooler in the room. The open window started to rattle and Alvhild Sofienberg looked as if she was about to fall asleep. Johanne went over to close the window.

‘I was thinking about going to see him,' she said lightly.

‘Do you think he'd like that? Do you think he'd welcome a visitor? A complete stranger, an academic from the old country?'

‘Difficult to say. But it is an interesting case. In terms of my project, it is the clearest, most . . . To get Aksel Seier to talk would be so important for my research.'

‘I see,' said the old lady. ‘I don't quite . . . quite understand exactly what it is you are doing. With your research.'

When Johanne was first contacted by Alvhild Sofienberg, through a colleague who knew Alvhild's daughter personally, she had got the impression that the old lady had only a superficial knowledge of what she was doing. Alvhild had never asked. Had never shown any interest in the project. She was living on borrowed time and had used her failing energy to get Johanne interested in her case, the story of Aksel Seier. Everything else was superfluous. She would soon be seventy and did not want to waste time showing false interest in other people's work.

There was fresh colour in her cheeks, she didn't look ill at all and certainly not tired. Johanne pulled her chair closer.

‘My starting point is ten murder cases from the period 1950 to 1960,' she said, stirring the thin coffee for no reason. ‘All the defendants claimed they were innocent. None of them changed their plea while serving their sentence. As far as they were concerned, they were innocent. My aim is not to find out whether they were telling the truth or not, but rather to compare and contrast the fate of these people while they were serving their sentence and in relation to any appeals, retrials and subsequent release. In brief, my aim is to establish the extent to which external interest is important to how the legal system deals with such cases. As you know, Fredrik Fasting Torgersen, for example, was . . .'

Johanne smiled bashfully. Alvhild Sofienberg was an adult when the Torgersen case was heard. Johanne was not even born.

‘Sentenced to life for the murder of a young woman. He has persistently pleaded innocent for over forty years. To this day, other people, who initially at least were complete strangers to him, have continued to fight tirelessly for him. Jens Bjørneboe, for example, and . . .'

Again she blushed and held back.

‘But of course, you know all of this,' she said quietly.

Alvhild nodded and smiled. She said nothing.

‘I guess I want to try to say something about two things,' continued Johanne. ‘First, do cases that get a lot of attention have any particular common features? Are they particularly weak, in terms of proof? Or is it the defendant's – subsequently the convict's – personality that makes the case more interesting to others? What sort of role does media coverage play in terms of the investigation and legal proceedings? In other words, is it purely arbitrary whether a case falls from public view the moment the judgment is made, or if it continues to attract interest, year after year?'

She noticed that she had raised her voice.

‘Then,' she continued, in a quieter voice, ‘I want to look at the consequences of a case being kept alive in the public interest. To be cynical and in purely legal terms, Torgersen, for example, has hardly reaped much joy from all the support he has had. Of course, I understand . . .'

Johanne noticed the intense interest in Alvhild's face. It was as if the old woman had galvanised all her energy, her back was straight as a courtier's, and she barely blinked. Johanne went on:

‘Of course, I understand that on a personal, human level, it must be of great importance to know that someone out there actually believes you . . .'

‘At least, if you are innocent,' Alvhild interrupted. ‘But we don't know that in Torgersen's case.'

‘Of course, that's a valid point. In general, I mean. But not in terms of my research. I have to look at the actual consequences of external interest.'

‘Fantastic,' said Alvhild to no one in particular. Johanne was not entirely sure what she was referring to.

‘Don't you think it's strange,' she said thoughtfully, to fill the silence. ‘I mean, isn't it peculiar that the Aksel Seier case just died once he'd been sentenced, when several papers were
extremely critical of the legal proceedings? Why did they just drop the case? Was it something to do with the man himself? Was there something disagreeable about his personality? Did he refuse to cooperate with journalists that meant him well? Is Aksel Seier really just . . . a bastard? Who no one really cared about in the end? I would get a lot out of talking to the man.'

The door opened quietly.

‘Is everything all right?' asked the nurse and continued without waiting for a reply. ‘You've been sitting in that chair for too long now, Mrs Sofienberg. It's time for you to lie down again. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask your friend to . . .'

‘I can do that myself, thank you.'

Alvhild pursed her lips again and lifted her hand to stop the white-clad woman.

‘Would it not be wise to write to him first?'

Johanne Vik got up and popped the unused notebook back in her handbag.

‘In some situations I choose not to write letters,' she said slowly, putting her bag on her shoulder.

‘And those are?'

The nurse had opened the bed covers and was about to roll the monstrous metal construction out on to the floor.

‘When I'm afraid of not getting a reply,' said Johanne. ‘No reply is an answer in itself. Nothing means “no”. I don't dare risk that. Not from Aksel Seier. I'm flying out on Monday. I . . .'

The nurse caught her eye.

‘Yes, yes,' mumbled Johanne. ‘I'll leave now. Maybe I'll phone you, Alvhild. From America. If I have anything to tell, that is. I hope that everything is fine . . . well, as good as it can be in the meantime.'

Without thinking, she bent over the old lady and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek. Her skin felt dry and cold. Once she was well out of the house, she used her tongue to moisten her lips again. They tasted of nothing; just dry.

E
milie had been given a present. A Barbie doll with hair that was curled up inside her head so you could pull it out and then wind it back in with a key on her neck. The doll had nice clothes, a pink sequinned dress that came in the same box as the doll and a set of cowboy clothes as an extra present. Emilie played with the cowboy hat. Barbie was lying on the bed beside her with her legs splayed. She didn't have a Barbie doll at home. Mummy didn't like toys like that. Nor did Daddy, and in any case, Emilie was too big for things like that now. At least, that's what Auntie Beate said.

Auntie Beate was probably angry with Daddy now. She probably thought it was his fault that Emilie had disappeared. Even though she was only walking home from school, like she had so many times before without anyone coming and stealing her away. Daddy couldn't keep an eye on her all the time. Even Auntie Beate had said that.

‘Daddy . . .'

‘I can be your daddy.'

The man was standing in the doorway. He must be mad. Emilie knew a lot about mad people. Torill down the road in number fourteen was so mad that she had to go to hospital all the time. Her children had to live with their grandparents because their mum sometimes thought she was a cannibal. And then she would light a bonfire in the garden and want to roast Guttorm and Gustav on spits. Once Torill rang the bell in the middle of the night; Emilie woke up and followed
Daddy down to see who it was. Guttorm and Gustav's mother was standing there stark naked, with red stripes all over her body, and wanted to borrow the freezer. Emilie was hurried off to bed and didn't really know what happened next, but it was a long, long time until anyone saw Torill again.

‘You're not my daddy,' whispered Emilie. ‘My daddy is called Tønnes. You don't even look like him.'

The man looked at her. His eyes were scary, even though he had quite a nice face. He must be mad.

Pettersen in the green block was mad in a different way from Torill. Mummy used to say that Torill wouldn't hurt a fly, but it was different with Pettersen in the green block. Emilie thought it wasn't quite true to say that Torill wouldn't hurt a fly when she actually wanted to roast her own children on a fire. But Pettersen was worse, all the same. He had been to prison for messing around with young children. Emilie knew what messing around meant. Auntie Beate had told her.

‘I'm sure we'll be friends one day,' said the man, and grabbed the Barbie doll. ‘Were you pleased to get this?'

Emilie didn't answer. It was difficult to breathe in here. Maybe she had used up all the air; something was pressing on her chest and she was dizzy all the time. People need oxygen. When you breathe you use up the oxygen so the air becomes empty and useless, in a way. That's what Auntie Beate had explained to her. That was why it was so horrible to hide under a duvet. After a while you just had to lift up a corner to get some oxygen. Even though it was a big room, she had been there a long time. It felt like years. She lifted her face and gasped for air.

The mad man smiled. He obviously had no problem breathing. Maybe it was just her, maybe she was going to die. Maybe the man had poisoned her because he wanted to mess around with her afterwards. Emilie gasped desperately for air.