Authors: Gunnar Staalesen
‘Well. That takes care of that,’ Jon Andersen said.
‘A one hundred per cent watertight alibi,’ Hamre repeated. Thoughtfully. Almost absently.
A constable knocked and came in. Nodded quickly to her colleagues. She was in her thirties, good-looking. Blonde hair with a hint of grey. Eyes and lips which hadn’t seen make-up for a long time. ‘There’s a little boy out there with Hansen. Says he lives here.’
‘Roar. Roar!’ Wenche Andresen suddenly burst into sobs. ‘What’s going to happen to us? What’s going to happen?’
Hamre motioned the constable over to Wenche Andresen. Said to Jon Andersen, ‘Go out and tell them to wait. We can’t let the boy in here. Not while …’
He didn’t have to finish the sentence.
We sat and waited for Wenche Andresen to get hold of herself. The constable put her arm around Wenche and tried to calm her down.
My neck was stiff and it hurt. I knew it didn’t look especially bright for her. Nor for Roar, and I was mixed up in this, too, for reasons I didn’t quite understand. I sat there with a heavy feeling. Sad. These people mattered to me. A week ago I’d had no idea they existed. And now they mattered to me. For keeps. Until death us do part.
Roar. He’d come to my office. Reminded me of another little boy. He’d believed in me, and I’d been his hero for a while. Maybe I still was.
Wenche Andresen. She’d been unlucky. Somebody who’d got the crooked end of the stick. A young woman suddenly left alone. Who missed being cared about and – she’d kissed me. Or I had kissed her. And the memory of her lips lay like a breath across my own.
And Jonas Andresen. I’d liked him. He’d unfolded his whole life for me on that red-and-white tablecloth. Unfolded it like a road map. He’d showed me the side roads, the secret paths, and he’d trusted me with the direction he planned to take. But it had been the wrong road. It had led straight to a dead end.
And there were the others. Joker. He’d frightened me and he’d angered me. But somehow I could understand him. Or I thought I could. There was his mother. Hildur Pedersen. I’d liked talking to her through the fog of vodka. There was Gunnar Våge. I hadn’t liked talking to him, but he’d told me some things which perhaps had done me some good.
And Solveig Manger. The mysterious Solveig, but still someone I felt I knew from that quick wordless meeting – and from Jonas Andresen’s descriptions of her and of a love I could well understand. All too well.
I looked around me. I’d seen all these little embroideries before. The ones he’d told me about, the ones he’d felt hemmed in by. He’d been right. There were a lot of them. Too many, in fact.
Wenche Andresen was calm now, and Jakob E. Hamre was saying in his implacable, always friendly voice, ‘Do you have any relatives in the city, Fru Andresen?’
She shook her head.
‘Friends, then. Someone who could look after Roar for a while?’
I knew what was coming. I’d been waiting for it. But she
still didn’t understand what he was telling her. ‘But – can’t I …?’ she said.
Hamre was the only one with nerve enough to look at her as he said, ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to take you to the station for a while, Fru. For the moment. Just as a witness, but I’m sorry to have to say this. The circumstantial evidence is a little too strong. We can’t risk your being out as long as the case isn’t cleared up. It involves tampering with the evidence. Things like that. You’ll be given a fuller explanation later tomorrow morning. Before you’re brought before the court. And of course you need to talk to a lawyer. Do you have one?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Does this mean I’m under arrest? But you can’t believe that –’
‘Now, now. We don’t believe anything. We don’t have the right to believe anything. But we don’t have the right to stop thinking either. And frankly, the whole thing looks pretty clear. But we’re going to have a full investigation. You can count on that.’
Her eyes searched for mine. I’d helped her before, but I couldn’t help her now. Not now anyway.
‘But Roar –’ Hamre said.
She interrupted him. ‘Varg! He really likes you. Since you were here – the first time – you’re almost the only thing he’s talked about. Can’t you drive him to Sissel – to my sister – in Øystese?’
Hamre looked at me. Doubtfully.
I nodded. ‘I can. If I’m allowed to. He can spend the night with me, and I can drive him there in the morning. If the police will fill them in on what’s happened.’
I looked at Hamre. He nodded. ‘We’ll do that. Looks as if everything’s settled. If it’s all right with the boy.’ Then he looked at Wenche Andresen. ‘Would you like to talk to him?’
‘Oh, no.
No
!’ she burst out. ‘I can’t. I can’t do that. Not now. I’d just start crying. I – no!’ She turned to me. ‘You do it. Can’t you take him with you before I leave?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And …’
‘Yes?’
‘Just – just tell him everything’s going to be fine. Say I’ll be away for just a little while. Tell him I’ll explain everything – when I come back.’ Tears veiled her eyes.
‘Keep in touch with us, Veum,’ Hamre added. ‘We’re going to need your statement again. More formally.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’ll get in touch as soon as I get back.’
I stood up. Went on standing there. I wanted to walk over to Wenche Andresen, put my arms around her, hug her and say, ‘It’s going to be all right, darling, it’s going to be all right.’
But I couldn’t. We carefully shook hands. ‘We’ll talk later on,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you know about Roar.’
She nodded mutely and I left her there. With the four cops and that silent corpse. I left her there – with a completed past and an uncertain future. With the memory of a kiss and the touch of a hand. That was all I’d had to give her. The only comfort I could offer.
Out in the foyer they’d laid the white sheet on the floor alongside Jonas Andresen’s body, and I knew from experience the only thing they were waiting for was the go-ahead from Jakob E. Hamre. Then they’d lay Jonas on a stretcher, tie him down and take him to Gade’s Funeral Home. They’d better be sure to tie him down tight – so he wouldn’t try to escape.
I left the flat and went to Roar.
He was out on the balcony. All the way down by the lift room with the other constable. He was big and jowly with a ruddy face. He looked like a nice guy.
Roar looked lost. His face was so pale it was almost
translucent
and his light hair seemed lustreless and dead. His eyes were huge. Anxious. It was clear that nobody had told him anything. And that was probably the worst of all.
I went over to him. Put a hand on his shoulder, moved my fingers up along his neck and ruffled his hair. ‘Want to come home with me, Roar?’ I said. My voice sounded like a stranger’s. Rough. Choked. I coughed. ‘Would you like that?’
He looked at me puzzled. As if he didn’t recognise me. Then, as if they were imitating his mother’s, his eyes filled with tears. He cried silently. The tears ran down his cheeks and he didn’t try to stop them. Or hide them. ‘Is my mum dead?’ he said. Searched for me through the rain.
I squatted down in front of him. ‘Of course she’s not. She’s fine. Said to say hello from her. She’s just a little busy. She’ll be busy for a while.’ Maybe for weeks – or for years. It all depended. ‘I’m going to drive you to Øystese. To your Aunt Sissel. Tomorrow morning. You’ll stay with her for a while – until your mother’s got things settled.’
It was too hard to explain and I hadn’t talked to a child about such serious things for years. And I was afraid he wasn’t going to be a child much longer. I was afraid he’d grow up too early, brutally and at once.
I stood up, took his hand and led him along the balcony. Through the lift room, and out on to the balcony of the other wing. Down all the stairs. Out to the front of the building. Out to the car. Into it. I didn’t look back. I would have turned into salt.
I sat him beside me, fastened the seat belt around him.
Fastened
mine. Drove off. Neither of us said a word.
We sat in my kitchen. Darkness had settled down outside in the alley, had pushed the houses aside to fill the city with night, had locked all of us into our four lighted corners, behind our secure windows and to our familiar kitchen tables.
We’d eaten. I’d fried eggs and bacon. He’d had milk and I’d drunk tea. We’d talked about everything except what was on our minds.
He’d told me about his school. His class. His schoolmates. His teachers. And a girl named Lisbeth who wore pigtails and had a dog named Arnold.
I’d told him about when I was a boy after the war and about the city’s burnt-out vacant sites that hadn’t yet been built on. I’d told him about the shacks we’d put up and the battles we’d fought. With gangs as rough as Joker’s but who we’d fought to the finish. I told it all with the calm a certain length of time always lends such memories.
We forget the times we came home with bloody noses, skinned knees and head wounds. What we remember is the one time when there were so many of us that we routed them. Chased them out of their own street and into the park in a rain of rocks, bits of wood, empty tin cans. A rain of everything we could lay our hands on. Or use.
Afterwards we went to the living room. Turned on the TV and saw the end of the evening news and a horse-faced man
who said there’d be rain and thunder the next day. Snow in the mountains.
I asked Roar if he was sleepy.
He nodded.
I straightened up my bed and got ready for a night on the floor. Or on the sofa. Except that the floor was roomier.
I found a new toothbrush. He brushed his teeth, borrowed my soap and facecloth. Then he went to bed.
I turned out the light, stood in the doorway and looked at him. ‘Goodnight, Roar.’
‘Goodnight.’
I sat up and stared at the flickering TV, a dead aquavit in one hand and nothing in the other. The images on the screen had no content. Meant nothing. Even the clear fluid in the clear glass meant nothing. When people die too soon that’s how it is. And that’s how you feel about it.
The phone rang at ten. It was Hamre. ‘Magistrates’ court tomorrow at eleven. We’ll ask for three weeks’ custody. Ban on mail and visitors. Just wanted to let you know.’
‘No mail or visitors? As serious as that?’
‘It is.’
‘Has she – who’s her lawyer?’
‘Smith.’
‘Fine-Print Smith?’
‘That’s right. Old Fine-Print. The best there is. So that’s something anyway. For her, I mean.’ A long dark pause which felt like a vacuum in the telephone system. Then he said: ‘How’s the boy?’
‘Asleep,’ I said.
‘Well. You’re taking him in the morning?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Be in touch when you get back.’
‘Relax. I’ll be seeing you.’
‘Don’t doubt it for a minute. Goodnight, Veum.’
‘Goodnight.’
I sat there with the phone in one hand and the aquavit in the other. Then I put the phone down, emptied the glass in one gulp and went to bed. On the floor.
I woke early. Couldn’t go back to sleep. Too many nameless monsters inside me, too many things lurking behind tall, bare, black trees. They wouldn’t leave me alone.
I let Roar sleep and sneaked into the kitchen. Abandoned one of my principles and drank coffee on an empty stomach. Brewed up a huge cup, sat and stared into it as into a
bottomless
well. But there was nothing to read in the well, and there weren’t any grounds in the cup. All the grounds were inside me. Behind my eyes. On my tongue. And in my soul. If I had one.
I tried thinking things through. Jonas Andresen was dead. He’d lived his last day and for the first time in thirty-odd years the sun rose on a hemisphere where Jonas Andresen didn’t live and breathe. It wouldn’t make much difference to the rest of us. It had meant everything to him but he’d gone to the mysterious country, to foggy deep valleys and hidden woods. He’d climbed to those mountain kingdoms waiting for all of us when our days are finally numbered.
He’d died quickly and brutally. I myself had seen him going to his death even though I hadn’t seen the exact moment. I’d seen Wenche Andresen running out of her flat after it had
happened
. And later on I’d seen Solfrid Brede leaving the lift.
And I’d seen Jonas Andresen. Too late. A few minutes and one eternity too late.
He was stabbed with a knife Joker would have used. But
Joker hadn’t used it, because Joker was with me when it had been used.
Who had used it?
I saw Wenche Andresen’s drawn face again. When she sat on the sofa with her hands clutching the handkerchief I’d given her. I saw her eyes and her mouth. I saw Jakob E. Hamre. I saw the knowledge in his eyes, the certainty around that firm mouth of his. I saw his calm expression.
Who else was there? Solveig Manger? Her husband? Or a stranger whose face was still shadowed, who hadn’t yet moved into the light?
It was the police’s job to find out. Mine was simpler in a lot of ways. It was to drive Roar to Øystese and myself home again. Drive towards an uncertain future on the way there and to a misspent past on the way back.
Outside, a new day was reluctantly dawning. When time had been created, this day had been coded as a new day in March, as a day of restless clouds racing across the sky with lovely flecks of blue between them. The low-hanging sun draped some
dawn-yellow
rays over the city, between the clouds, but they quickly disappeared again. Spring was aiming its searchlight at us, but then it drew back to safer places, waiting for better times.
Roar stood in the doorway. Barefooted. In his underwear. ‘Varg? Are you awake?’
The road from Bergen to Hardanger is a road most
Bergensers
can drive with their eyes closed and with plugs in their ears. At least as far as Kvamskogen. But this winter it had snowed up in the mountains and this was the first time I’d driven that way. I’d had better things to do than ski up to Kvamskogen and back down again. I’d rather go fishing. In white water. Or in aquavit.
Around Skuggestranden you drive on one of the latest improvements to what might be called a motorway and a lot of the excitement is gone. Now you can see two hundred metres ahead of you.
Like all little boys, Roar liked being in a car. I watched his tense expression slowly change to eagerness. He became talkative.
‘You’re a very good driver, Varg.’
‘Think so?’
‘Have you – have you chased a lot of criminals in your car?’
‘Not a lot. Just every Friday. On
Detective Hour
.’
‘Tell me.’
‘There’s not much to tell. It happens so fast you don’t remember a thing afterwards. You’re just glad to get out of it alive and in one piece.’
‘Oh. But …’
There’s a café a little before you get to Tysse. It’s in the middle of a sharp turn and there are always lorries parked outside. It doesn’t look very inviting from the road. But if you go through the place, you end up in a dining room that reminds you of an old-fashioned winter garden. With big windows like the squares on a chessboard and a wonderful peaceful view of the sea glinting between tender foliage if it’s summer.
Now naked branches clutched at the picture but it still gave you the feeling of leaving a garish world behind, of escaping from reality and entering a wonderland. No matter what you ate, you sat there and stared through that big window. It gave you a crick in your neck, but you were in a better mood when you slid behind the wheel again. That landscape put peace in your soul, steadied your hands and improved your eyesight.
Roar and I ate shrimp sandwiches with more mayonnaise
than shrimp in them. They were garnished with a limp lettuce leaf and an even limper slice of lemon. But the view was beyond interfering with and you didn’t pay a sales tax on it.
I drank another cup of coffee, and he drank his soda through a straw. The straw was red and the soda colourless. The
tablecloth
was green and the view …
Three lorry drivers were at another table. They had voices like the sounds you hear in a coal mine shaft and fists like
bulldozers
. Their faces were as wide and square as the lorries they drove. It was a sign of the kind of work they did, a symptom or an occupational disease even though the Workers Protection Act couldn’t cure it.
I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. But it didn’t matter. I could hear those rumbling voices and that was good enough. They belonged here just as they belonged in all the world’s roadside cafés. On all the world’s highways. The last dedicated cowboys.
If you meet one of them some dark night in the middle of a curve and your car’s smaller than a locomotive and you’re too far over to the left, you’ve had it. You won’t be worth more than the mixture of blood and petrol spilling across the road where you and your car were a few seconds earlier. You’re not worth that kilometre where you drove over eighty, or that minute you saved so you’d meet your own unexpected death on time. In the middle of a curve. In an instant coffin of twisted metal and dripping oil …
But the view …
Roar sipped his soda through a red plastic straw. I looked at his face. Who did he remind me of? His mother? Father? I tried to visualise them. Wenche Andresen with her eyes dosed and her mouth suddenly ready to kiss. And Jonas Andresen
with glasses and his moustache suddenly decorated with beer foam, his fingers around a glass. And suddenly dead.
No. He didn’t remind me of either of them. He reminded me of himself. Of a little boy wearing a worn-out blue ski jacket and jeans with patches on the knees, of a boy who’d
suddenly
appeared in my office – when? How many days ago now? Five? Six? And he constantly reminded me of another, younger boy who hadn’t appeared in my office for a long, long time.
‘Do you think that’s pretty?’ I said, nodding toward the window.
He looked questioning. ‘What is?’
‘The view.’
‘The view?’
No. He was too young. You don’t see the view when you’re eight. You have to have been in love for the first time before you begin to see the view.
We finished our drinks and we left.
The roads over Kvamskogen were clear of snow but black with rain. The snow lay up on the mountainsides in a thin, miserable layer. You’d have to go much higher before you could count on clean fresh ski trails.
They were good roads. The days of the legendary washboard roads over Kvamskogen were past. Tourism had reached even this part of the world. Though not without opposition.
We drove quickly past the jam of summer cottages that made the landscape look like a field of stubble and swooped down through Tokagjelet where the tunnel swallowed us up and spat us out as if we were spoiled fish.
Then the land flattened out again, out towards
Hardangerfjord
and Nordheimsund. And suddenly it was spring.
It was one of those moments that only come once this time
of year. Suddenly it’s as if a celestial hand folds the clouds back and lets the sun loose over the landscape. The sun rolls down the mountainsides, picks up traces of last year’s green, mixes them with winter’s brown and white and dirty grey and throws them at your feet like dice in a back-yard game. It’s spring.
It was spring. Sunlight fell like a net over the land, over the nose-diving mountainsides behind us, over the roads that threw themselves at the fjord, over that blue-white fjord down there and over the blue-grey mountain on the other side. Over the red, white and green farmhouses, over a red bus puffing toward us. Over an old woman wearing a heavy grey skirt, a brown cardigan and a black scarf on her head and standing by the side of the road at a milk collection ramp. She looked at us with a time-worn face. It was spring.
And I kept quiet so as not to break the spell, so as to keep the whole picture from shattering into a thousand pieces. And I noticed in the sudden silence that Roar had seen it, too. That he’d also seen the sudden sunlight over that luscious landscape. He’d felt the same change in himself, had felt the sun setting a new weight on the scales of time, felt an old winter ebbing away and a new spring moving like a flood tide down in the fjord, out in the sea, up in the sky. So maybe you didn’t have to be in love after all.
The short stretch between Nordheimsund and Øystese lay along a fjord that shone like blue silver and reflected cascades of sunlight, celebrating spring.
So we arrived in Øystese with winter still in our blood but with spring-like hope in our eyes, and summer-like longing in our skins – until winter and death suddenly seized us again. When we remembered why we were there.