What is Mine (37 page)

“Are you sick?”

The policeman had put his smile back on, a horrible slash across his face. Karsten hadn’t heard him coming. He straightened up slowly, very slowly; he was dizzy and held on to the counter.

“No, not at all. Just thirsty. Just been out jogging.”

“You keep in shape then.”

“Yes. Is there anything I can . . . Do you have any more questions?”

“You seem a bit tense, to tell you the truth.”

The policeman had crossed his arms. His eyes were a camera again, clicking around the room. The high cabinets. The coffee filter. The carving knife. Evidence against him.

“No, not really,” said Karsten Åsli. “I’m just a bit tired. I was out for an hour and a half.”

“Impressive. I ride, myself. Got my own horse. If I lived here . . .”

Stubo waved at the window.

“. . . I’d have more. Do you know May Berit?”

He turned as he spoke. The policeman’s profile was dark against the light from the living room. The left eye, the lie detector eye, was hidden. Karsten swallowed.

“May Berit who?” he asked and dried his mouth.

“Benonisen. Her name was Sæther before.”

“Can’t remember, I’m afraid.”

The thirst would not go away. His mouth felt like it was full of fungus; his mucus was sticky and swollen and got in the way of the words he wanted to say.

“You’ve got a very short memory,” said the man, without turning to face him. “You must have had a lot of girlfriends.”

“A few.”

One word at a time. A. Few. He could manage that.

“Do you have any children, Åsli?”

His tongue loosened. His pulse slowed. He could feel it, hear it; he heard his own heart beating at a steadily slower rate against his breastbone. His breathing was easier, thanks to his larynx opening, and he smiled broadly as he heard himself say:

“Yes.”

This man was no worse than the others. He was just as bad. He was one of them. Policeman Stubo stood there making himself look important while the child he was looking for was only fifteen yards away, maybe ten. The guy had no idea. He probably just went from place to place, from house to house, asking the same stupid questions, making himself look important, without knowing anything. What they called routine. In reality, it was just a way to pass time. There must be lots of people on the list that he no doubt had in his inner pocket; the man was constantly feeling his chest under the jacket, as if he was considering whether to show him something.

He was just like all the others.

Karsten could see men and women, young and old, in his features. His nose, straight and quite big, reminded him of an old teacher who had amused himself by locking Åsli in a closet with medical bowls and bags of peas until all the dust made him lose his breath and cry to get out. Stubo’s hair was brushed back, diagonally over his head, just like his old scout leader, the man who took away all Karsten’s badges because he thought the boy had cheated. He could see women, lots of women in Stubo’s mouth. Full lips, pink and plump. Girls. Women. Cunts. His eyes were blue like his grandmother’s.

“I’ve got a son,” said Karsten, and poured himself some coffee.

His hands were steady now; solid fists with hard skin. Karsten felt strong. He ran his finger down the carving knife handle; the actual blade was in a wooden block to protect the edge.

“He’s abroad at the moment, with his mother. On vacation.”

“Aha. Are you married?”

Karsten Åsli shrugged and lifted the cup to his mouth. The bitter taste did him good. The fungus disappeared. His tongue felt thin again. Sharp.

“No, no. We’re not even partners anymore. You know . . .”

He gave a short laugh.

Stubo’s cell phone rang.

The conversation didn’t last long. The policeman shut his phone with a snap.

“I have to go,” he said curtly.

Karsten followed him out. Evidence of a light shower clung to the grass; it would be cold again tonight. Might even fall below freezing; the breeze had an edge to it that meant it could freeze, at least up here on the hillside. Early summer scents teased his nose. Karsten breathed in deeply.

“I can’t really say it was nice to meet you,” he smiled, “but I hope you have a good trip back to town.”

Stubo opened the car door and then turned toward him.

“I’d like to talk to you again in town,” he said.

“In town? You mean Oslo?”

“Yes. As soon as possible.”

Karsten thought about it. He was still carrying his coffee cup. He looked into it, as if he was astonished there was nothing left. Then he raised his eyes and looked straight at Stubo and said:

“Can’t make it this week. Maybe at the start of next week. Can’t promise you anything. Have you got a card or something? Then I can call you.”

Stubo’s eyes did not leave his face. Karsten didn’t blink. A confused fly buzzed between them. A plane could be heard far above the clouds. The fly ascended to the skies.

“I’ll be in touch,” Stubo said finally. “You can be sure of that.”

The dark blue Volvo bumped out of the open gate and rolled slowly down the hill. Karsten Åsli watched until it reached the small woods where he knew the road forked. He couldn’t remember the last time the valley had looked so beautiful, so clean.

It was his. This was his place. Through a break in the clouds he could see the vapor trial from the plane heading north.

He went inside.

Adam Stubo stopped the car as soon as he thought he was out of sight. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. The feeling that the child was nearby had been so strong, so overwhelming, that it was only his twenty-five years’ experience that stopped him from ripping the place apart. There were no provisions that would allow that. He had nothing.

Nothing more than a feeling. There wasn’t a judge in Norway who would give him a search warrant on the basis of a hunch.

“Think,” he hissed to himself. “Think, for Christ’s sake.”

It took him less than eighty minutes to get back to Oslo. He stopped outside the block of apartments where Lena Baardsen lived. It was the evening of Monday, June 5, and it was already half past eight. He was scared that time was running out.

F
IFTY-FOUR

A
ksel Seier stood in front of the old, flecked mirror in the living room. He ran his hand through his hair. It smelled of oranges. His bangs were gone and the hair at the base of his neck was soft and bristly when he rubbed it the wrong way. Mrs. Davis thought that for once he should look like he came from a civilized part of the world. After all, he was embarking on a long journey to a country where people might think Americans were barbarians, for all she knew. They often did, the Europeans. She had read that in the
National Enquirer.
He had to show them he was a well-to-do man. His shaggy gray locks were fine here in Harwich Port, but now he was going to another world. She had cut him badly on the ear, but otherwise his hair looked even enough. Short all over. The orange pomade had been left behind by one of her six sons-in-law. It was supposed to be good for your scalp. Aksel didn’t like the smell of citrus. He wasn’t leaving for another day and decided to wash it out before he took the bus to Logan International Airport in Boston. Matt Delaware had offered to drive him to the bus stop in Barnstable. And so he should; the boy had gotten both his pickup and his boat for a good price.

The property on Ocean Avenue had, on the other hand, been sold for 1.2 million dollars.

As it stood.

It had only taken him an hour to figure out what he wanted to take with him. The glass soldiers that he’d taken four winters to make would go to Mrs. Davis. The risk that they would break during the trip across the ocean was considerable. She was moved to tears and promised that none of her grandchildren would be allowed to play with them. She would love the cat like her own, she exclaimed in a loud voice. Matt bowed and scraped the ground with his foot when Aksel offered him the chess table and the large tapestry over the sofa on the condition that he send the galleon figurehead to Aksel as soon as he had an address in Norway.

The figurehead looked like Eva. There wasn’t really much more that was worth bothering about.

Aksel didn’t like his new hairstyle. It made him look older. His face was more visible. The wrinkles, the pores, and the bad teeth that he should have done something about long ago, they somehow seemed more obvious when his bangs had gone and his face was naked and unprotected. He tried to hide behind a pair of old glasses with brown frames. But the lenses were not the right strength anymore and made him feel dizzy.

He had been to the bank. The money for the house came to about ten million kroner. Cheryl, who had grown up in Harwich Port and started to work at the bank a couple of months ago, had given him a big smile and whispered, “You lucky son of a gun” before explaining to him that the buyer would pay the outstanding amount in installments over the next six weeks. Aksel would have to contact a bank in Norway, open an account, and then everything should be fine and the authorities couldn’t make a fuss. It’ll be just fine, she assured him, and laughed again.

Ten million kroner.

To Aksel, the figure was astronomical. He tried to ground himself by remembering that it was ages since he knew what a krone was actually worth, and Norway was an expensive country, after all. At least that was what he had understood from the odd article he came across about his homeland. But over a million dollars was over a million dollars wherever you were in the world. He could even get a place in Beacon Hill in Boston for that amount. And Oslo couldn’t be more expensive than Beacon Hill.

Mrs. Davis had gone to Hyannis with him to buy clothes. There was no way around it. Aksel Seier didn’t quite trust her taste—the plaid pants from Kmart were particularly awful. Mrs. Davis said that plaid pants and pastels made him look rich, and he was, so that was that. When he mumbled something about the Cape Cod Mall, she rolled her eyes and claimed that the shops there fleeced you before you’d even set foot in the door. What you couldn’t buy in Kmart wasn’t worth buying. So now he had a suitcase full of new clothes he didn’t like. Mrs. Davis had confiscated his old flannel shirts and jeans; she was going to wash them before giving them to the Salvation Army.

He must remember to call Patrick.

Aksel took a step back from the mirror. The way the light fell, slanting from the window, he found it difficult to recognize himself in the flecked mirror. It wasn’t just his hair that was different. He tried to straighten his back, but something in his neck and shoulders stopped him. He had looked at the ground for too many years. Aksel’s back was bent from thousands of days toiling over heavy work, turning away from other people, and long evenings crouched over fine handiwork and his own thoughts.

He lifted his head again. There was a pain between his shoulder blades. He looked thinner now. He forced himself to stand like that. Then he stroked his hand over the brown jacket and wondered whether he should put a tie on before he left. Ties were respectable. Mrs. Davis was certainly right there.

If he had enough money when he’d done everything he needed to do, he would pay for Patrick to come over. Even though his friend earned good money in the summer season, he spent most of his earnings on maintaining the carousel and living through the long winter months, when he had no real income. Patrick had never been back to Ireland. He could come to Oslo for a week or two and then stop over in Dublin on the way back, if he wanted to.

Aksel suddenly realized that he was frightened. There was still a lot to do before he left. He had to get a move on.

He’d never been on a plane, but it wasn’t that that frightened him.

Maybe Eva didn’t want him to come. She hadn’t actually asked him to. Aksel Seier pulled off his new jacket and started to pack the glass soldiers in the tissue paper that Mrs. Davis had bought.

He cut his finger on a small blue splinter. It was the remains of the general that Johanne Vik had broken. Aksel sucked on his finger. Maybe the young lady had lost interest in him when he just disappeared.

He hadn’t been so frightened since 1993, when the nightmares about the wet-eyed policeman with the keys had finally stopped plaguing him.

F
IFTY-FIVE