Authors: Torkil Damhaug
He lifted her up on to the rim of the basin, pulled off the translucent string.
– Axel, she scolded him. – Not here, the kids might wake up.
But that was exactly what she wanted, for him to take her right there and then, sitting on the cold porcelain basin, only half undressed, protesting against the damage to her dress when he pulled the shoulder straps down and fastened his mouth to one of her breasts, raised her lower body and pushed himself inside her.
When she came, she swallowed back the sounds. It ended up a long-drawn-out rattle, unlike anything he’d ever heard from her before. He didn’t come. When it was over for her, he carried her out of the bathroom.
– Wait, she groaned. – At least let me pee.
He got into bed. Through the open door he heard her flush the toilet, wash her hands, open the cupboard, almost certainly to remove her contact lenses. Then she came padding into him, naked, and closed the door behind her.
– Can’t a poor girl get even a few hours’ sleep? she complained.
He pulled her down and turned her round. – Oh Axel, she moaned, the way he was used to hearing her. He bent her body at the hips and entered her from behind, lying there without moving, like an insect.
– Tell me where you’ve been, he whispered as he began to move slowly inside her.
– What is it with you, Axel? she groaned.
– Tell me what you did tonight.
– Lotta and Maren. We ate at Theatrecaféen. Then we went on to Smuget.
– Did you meet anyone?
She twisted her body.
– A whole crowd, she sighed.
– Did you dance?
– Of course.
– With lots of men?
– One especially. A policeman.
He withdrew, then entered her again, quicker and harder.
– He wouldn’t take no for an answer. Must have been ten years younger than me. Yes, like that, harder. Oh fuck, yes.
She didn’t usually swear; it moved his excitement up another notch. He couldn’t face asking any more questions about the policeman, whether they went on anywhere else afterwards, but he could see them in his mind’s eye as she put her arm around his neck and pressed up close against him. He surrendered, pushing her down into the mattress, forcing himself up tight against her buttocks. As he came, a face appeared far away inside the darkness. It came closer, veiled in green, looking in at him through an open car door.
A
XEL WOKE AT
six o’clock. He wasn’t on duty this weekend and could lie in as long as he liked. But he felt himself well rested and swung his feet on to the floor. A few minutes later he was running through the copse, towards the farm lane. It was still only dawn light, the outlines of things flowing into each other. But he could tell that it was going to be a clear autumn day.
By 7.30, he had laid the breakfast table and was sitting fresh from the shower in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, with coffee, orange juice and the
Aftenposten
. He read it back to front, quickly through the sport, lingering over the financial pages. The price of oil was down, in general bad news for those with their money in unit trusts. All the same, as long as there was war and terrorism in the Middle East, prices would stay high. He had some money invested, but not enough to create a dilemma for him. He glanced through the news. Man threatened with a knife in Rosenkranz gate, woman missing in the Nordmarka, electricity prices on the way down after all the rain in the early autumn. He heard someone slipping into the toilet, saw bare feet padding out into the hallway. Marlen popped her head in.
– You sleepyhead, he chided her as he put the newspaper aside. – It’s the middle of the day.
She stood there bleary eyed, in a red nightie with a crocodile across the front.
– You’re always bragging about how early you get up.
He laughed.
– You want egg and bread, or muesli?
She poked out her lip, sat down and gave the question some thought.
– Egg, she decided.
He buttered her a slice of bread with a squeeze of caviar, then turned to her and conjured an egg from her ear.
She pulled a face and stared out of the window, the trees still hidden behind the grey morning mist.
– Get out the wrong side of the bed today?
She turned to him with an exasperated sigh.
– Dad, everyone has the right to be in a bad mood in the morning. For half an hour. At least.
– Quite agree, he conceded. – That is a human right.
– Which came first, the chicken or the egg? she asked.
– The egg?
– Wrong. Because God doesn’t lay eggs.
Axel peered into Tom’s room and discovered that his son had come home last night after all. He could just make out his shape as he lay under the duvet, his breathing heavy, his face turned towards the wall. There was a close, confined atmosphere there, and the smell of smoke. Axel picked up a shirt that had been tossed over the back of a chair, sniffed at it. He’d seen several of the kids Tom hung out with sitting on the grass behind the centre smoking, but Tom denied that he would ever do anything like that. Axel opened the window, stood a while beside the bed, decided to let the boy sleep on for a while.
Instead, he let himself into the loft. Been putting off for far too long clearing up all the things that had just been tossed in there. He sorted out the sports gear the kids had grown out of, and the clothes he didn’t use any more. Suits and shirts that he thought were okay himself, but that Bie had condemned as old fashioned and refused to let him wear. Over the years the Salvation Army had done pretty well out of Bie’s aesthetics.
In the furthest corner of the loft, behind the empty suitcases and the drums full of winter clothing, was an old mahogany cupboard. The key hung from a hook on the ceiling. For the first time in years, he opened it. The two upper drawers contained the few things he had kept after his father’s death. A peaked hat. Military paraphernalia. Two pistols: a Spanish one that had been used in the civil war, and a Luger taken when the Germans were disarmed in the final days before the surrender. There was a box containing letters sent to Torstein Glenne by friends being held in the prison camp at Grini. He’d read them all to Axel. Sometimes to Brede as well, but mostly to Axel, to teach him that
freedom has its price
. The maps were in the same box.
On summer evenings, when Colonel Glenne had been sitting long enough in front of the terrace fire with his whisky and his pretzels, he would sometimes allow himself to be persuaded to go up and fetch the maps with all the secret routes inscribed on them.
I probably shouldn’t be showing you these, boys
, he’d growl, though twenty-five years had passed since the German surrender.
I might let slip things I’ve promised on pain of death never to reveal
. And then without further ado he would describe the various hiding places along the Swedish border. Here was where they had hidden out after their actions. After they’d blown factories to smithereens, cut vital telephone wires, helped refugees over the border: Jewish children, Resistance members who had been betrayed, even those occasional oddballs who just panicked and wanted to get out even though the Germans weren’t after them.
His father had marked the maps: a cross for each meeting point, dotted lines for the escape routes, circles for the hiding places and communication centres. Afterwards Axel and Brede would play refugees and border guides, and especially Resistance fighters engaging in mortally dangerous sabotage operations. They sank the
Blücher
in the waters off Drøbak, and drove the
Bismarck
and the
Tirpitz
into narrow and treacherous fjords. Above all they blew up the heavy water plant in Vemork. At the very last moment they managed to light the fuse, just before Hitler had finally made his atom bomb; all that was needed was just a few litres of that water, and the Glenne brothers had ruined everything for him. Hitler was furious. He developed an obsessive hatred of them and sent his most dangerous SS men to Norway to capture them. The twins fled to the forest and hid out in the cabins their father had told them about. They sneaked from one to another, dog patrols on their heels, hearing the barking and the shouting of the commandos in German, the most gruesome of all languages. But if one of them was captured, the other would get away, because both had sworn to die rather than inform on his brother.
These games would get Brede so worked up that he could lie awake all night. Sometimes he would even wake Axel to swear the pact all over again:
You will never betray me. I will never betray you.
Even when they weren’t playing, Axel knew he had to look after his brother. That no one else would do it. Every time Brede did something terrible, their parents talked about how they couldn’t have him in the house any longer. Axel thought of these as threats meant to get Brede to pull himself together; he never dreamt they might actually mean it. Brede couldn’t pull himself together. One week after Balder was shot, they sent him away.
He was sitting on the sofa with Marlen playing Buzz! Jungle when Bie appeared. She stood in the door and watched them. It was 11.30. Axel was still in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, Marlen in her nightie.
– So this is where you are.
– Don’t interrupt, Mum, can’t you see we’re working?
– I see, is that what you’re doing?
– Don’t you know that playing for children is the same thing as working is for grown-ups?
– Yes, I guess it is. But what about Daddy? He isn’t a child, is he, or at least not completely.
– Daddy has a day off. I’m the only one that’s working.
Bie stood behind them and followed the game on the TV screen for a while. Then she bent down and put her arms round them, both of them, hugging one against each of her cheeks. Axel put his hand behind her and let it slip up under her dressing gown; she was still naked underneath.
– You’re a fine one, she whispered in his ear.
– Stop whispering, Marlen protested.
– I only said to your daddy that he’s, er, very fine.
– You’re putting him off, she complained. – See, he just lost a life.
– Serves him right. Bie gave up and disappeared into the kitchen. Shortly afterwards she called out:
– Have you read the paper, Axel?
– Sort of.
She was holding it in front of her as she came back into the room again.
– Did you see this about the woman missing in the Nordmarka?
He continued laying waste with the Buzz! control.
– Did you see who it is? she asked. – Hilde Paulsen, my physio.
Only now did he react, jumping to his feet, crossing to her. With narrowed eyes he read the story she was pointing to.
He called the police station, explained what it was about. A woman with a strong Stavanger accent came on the line. Her voice was also unusually loud.
– At what time of the day did you meet her?
Axel thought it over. He’d been up at Blankvann around 4.30. With the puncture it took him perhaps twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, to get down to Ullevålseter. He hadn’t checked the time again until he was at Sognsvann, when he noticed it was 6.15.
– And how did she seem? I mean, her mood.
Axel held the receiver well away from his ear.
– Nothing special. Just the usual good mood.
He knew what the policewoman was angling for, but he found it hard to believe that Hilde Paulsen’s disappearance had anything to do with her state of mind. A woman in a tracksuit, with walking poles. She’d stopped to discuss a patient with him. An old man with back pain was what was on her mind at that particular juncture. Not suicide.
R
ITA POURED COFFEE
for them.
– She was going for a walk in the Nordmarka, she said as she sliced the macaroon cake she’d baked over the weekend. – And since then there’s been no sign of her.
Every Friday, and some Mondays, Rita served up
a treat
for lunch. On more than one occasion Inger Beate had taken Axel aside and asked how they could talk to her about it without hurting her feelings, because they couldn’t sit there forever stuffing themselves with cake. Axel had a good laugh at her worries and said it was up to each individual how to deal with that particular dilemma.
– Do any of you know who she is?
– Should we? asked Inger Beate, her mouth full of salad. Axel knew there was a case she wanted to discuss with him, but she wouldn’t bring it up as long as the student was sitting there. He’d have to call in and talk to her later in the day.
– You know her, both of you.
Inger Beate glanced over at Axel; he was looking the other way.
– About time you told us, Rita, she said, irritated.
– Hilde Paulsen, that physio from Majorstua.
– Really! exclaimed Inger Beate.
Rita held up the plate of macaroon cake and looked from one to the other.
– The police think she’s been murdered.
Axel turned abruptly to her.
– How do you know that?
– A friend of mine. Her daughter’s a journalist, works for
VG
. They know all that kind of thing there. The police seem to think that Hilde Paulsen met someone while she was out walking, or else someone was waiting for her up in the forest.
She shivered as she said it and nearly dropped the cake plate on to the table.
About four o’clock, Miriam knocked on Axel’s door.
– I’ve written up the journal notes.
He didn’t look up.
– The woman who was knocked down from behind, she reminded him. – Question of whiplash.
– I’ll have a look at it before I leave.
She didn’t move.
– You seem very preoccupied today.