Black Seconds

by Karin Fossum

  Sejer thought about what she had just said. About seeds and feathers all over the place. She sounded as if she knew a great deal about what keeping a bird involved. Had she already got rid of it?

  "Perhaps you know someone who keeps a bird?"

  "No," she said quickly. "People my age don't keep that type of pet. A friend of mine's got a cat. Her whole house stinks of it. It's for the company, I suppose, but personally I don't need that. I don't spend my days sitting in here staring out of the window like a lot of people I know."

  "That's good," he said. He started folding the nightie, but deliberately made a mess of it. She was watching him out of the corner of her eye.

  "So you don't recognize this nightie?" he asked once more.

  "Absolutely not," she claimed. "What would I want with it?"

  "You might have bought it for someone else," he suggested.

  She did not answer and used all her strength to maintain her rigid posture at the table, as if a change of position might give her away.

  "But it's pretty, don't you think?" Sejer smiled, putting it back in the shopping bag. Then he tied the handles into a knot. "We can agree that whoever bought it had an eye for beauty as well as quality. Well, that's what one of our female officers said." He smiled.

  "Absolutely," she said quickly.

  "Expensive, too. Four hundred kroner," Sejer lied.

  "Oh," said Elsa Mork. "I would have thought it was more."

  Sejer got up from the table. "Please forgive me for disturbing you," he said. "I realize you don't have children of that age. It's a size fourteen years. But it might have been for a granddaughter. I have an eleven-year-old grandchild," he added.

  She relaxed somewhat and smiled. "Well, I do have a son, but he's over fifty," she said. "And he'll never have kids."

  She wanted to bite her tongue. Sejer pretended nothing had happened. The fact that she had a son meant nothing in itself. But she had seemed alarmed by the admission. As though mentioning her son would give Sejer cause for thoughts he had not been thinking so far. He left the green kitchen quietly. He did not want to frighten her by asking her for the name of her son. And anyway, it would be easy for him to discover. She followed him out.

  "Just a small thing," he remembered. "Do you own a dark coat?"

  Elsa Mork smiled her ironic smile once more. "Every woman over seventy owns a dark coat," she said. "With a fur collar?" he asked.

  She squirmed in the doorway. "Well, it's some sort of fur collar," she muttered. "Not sure what it is. It's an old coat." He nodded; he understood.

  "But I still don't know why you came here," she said in sudden despair: she had to put words to her confusion; she could no longer control herself.

  "Because you look like the woman in the artist's impression," he said.

  "But you've never met me before. Someone must have called you!" The latter came out as a cry of indignation.

  "Yes," he said. "Someone did call. I'm going to visit the next person on my list now. Or rather, the next woman. That's what I do. Door-to-door inquiries."

  He walked the few steps to his car and looked at her once more. "Thank you for your time," he said, bowing again. Her eyes flickered slightly. She realized it was finally over. She was free to go back into her kitchen, where she could sit by the window and wait. Sejer was back in his seat. He opened the paper once again and looked at the artist's impression. He knew she was standing behind her curtain, watching him.

  CHAPTER 20

  Emil Johannes's throat was getting sore. He had been standing by the waterfall, grunting, for a long time. The roar from the water, which he needed before he had the courage to start, also made it difficult to hear whether he was successful at making a sound or not. If he had managed individual words, or an "O" or an "A."

  Now he was back in his house. He went to the mirror in his bathroom and pursed his lips. There was no waterfall here, but he could turn on the cold tap and lean toward the mirror. How would he ever explain it? Suddenly he had so much to say. He had never needed to speak, never needed to explain himself to anyone. Imagine standing by the waterfall shouting, he thought, and blushed. A grown man behaving like that. Despondently he stared down into the sink, where the slightly discolored water had stained the porcelain. There was rust in the pipes, but his disability benefit would not stretch to having them replaced with new copper ones. Not that he cared. Only his mother cared. She gathered together all his whites and washed them in her own machine. Otherwise you'll end up with tea-colored bedsheets in a few weeks, she nagged. Emil wasn't in the least interested in the color of his bedsheets. He didn't think such things mattered. His mother would turn up with citric acid and tell him to add it to the water when he washed up. It'll make the water clear, she explained. But he couldn't make out how to use the powder. And he couldn't see that his plates had changed color.

  He stared stiffly at himself in the mirror. He didn't usually do that; he avoided looking at himself. Nor did he look properly at other people when he drove around on his three-wheeler or wandered around the shelves in the shops. However, he liked watching television. Liked being able to stare at people without them knowing it. He could laugh at them, or threaten them with his fists, and there was nothing they could do about it. Sometimes he made terrible faces, and occasionally he would stick his tongue out at them. However, they were inside a box and could not get at him; they did not care what he did and they would never ask him questions. Still, they were good company. He watched a lot of television. Political debates. Agitated people calling out and gesturing, people who got excited and flushed and heated, who banged the table with their fists and flung out their arms like squabbling children. He liked that.

  Through the splashing from the tap he suddenly heard the telephone ringing. He made an involuntary movement with his head and let it ring. It rang eight times, then stopped. From experience he knew that it would soon start to ring again. It was his mother. She would not give up.

  He turned off the water and went out into the living room. Threw a hostile glance at the telephone, which was the old-fashioned type with a rotary dial. The bird instantly tripped along its perch and tilted its head. Perhaps food was about to appear between the bars. Emil felt caught between a rock and a hard place. He wished his mother would leave him alone and stay away from him. At the same time he knew he needed her. There were things he was incapable of figuring out. Once, his power had been cut off. He had no light, no television. Yet still he had sat in front of the television all night, watching his own reflection. That had been a really boring evening, Emil thought. His mother had had to call the electricity company on his behalf. He thought it was good that she talked, that she dealt with things and got them fixed. The telephone rang again. He waited a long time. Instinctively he turned his back to the telephone as he answered it. A rejection she would not be able to see.

  "Emil?" He could hear that her voice sounded very strained. "Have you seen today's paper?"

  Emil looked across the room to where the newspapers lay untouched on the table. "No," he replied truthfully.

  There was total silence at the other end of the telephone. Emil knew that this did not happen very often. It intrigued him enormously. It also made him feel scared. There was something ominous about his mother's voice; normally she sounded so self- assured.

  "Well, just leave them then. It's almost too much to bear," she groaned, and Emil heard how impotent her voice sounded. He realized for the first time that his mother was frightened. He had hardly ever experienced that. Not since he was a boy.

  "The police were here," she whispered. "Have they been to see you?"

  He shook his head in terror. At the same time he looked out at the drive. There was nothing to see. "No," he said.

  "I'm scared they might turn up," she said. "If they come knocking, then don't let them in!" "No," he said.

  "If they stop you on the road, shake your head and drive on. Just be yourself," she pleaded. "Don't try to explain anything; you wo
n't succeed, so it's best if you keep quiet the way you always do. They'll give up when they realize what you're like. Just roll your eyes or stare at the ground, but don't let them in the house. And for God's sake don't sign anything!"

  "No," he said.

  "If they turn up, you must call me. It might be best if I come over right now. They've just been here. If I'm with you when they turn up, I can speak for you. You won't be able to handle this on your own; we both know that. We just have to keep them at bay as best we can. And this time you'll do as I say, Emil. I hope you realize how serious this is. I don't know how much allowance they'll make for you, but I wouldn't automatically assume that they'll let you get off more lightly than others." Her voice was close to breaking.

  Emil poked at a scratch in the table with his fingernail. Oh, he always got off more lightly than others. He simply refused to answer. Then they gave up. They always gave up. No one ever had the patience.

  "Dear Lord," he heard her voice down the telephone, "this will be the death of me. You know I'm strong, but this is getting to me, even to me. What's going to become of you, Emil?" She sighed deeply.

  Emil often got fed up with his mother's complaints, but what he was hearing now was worse than ever.

  "Have you thought about what all this is doing to me?" she said. "I'm seventy-three years old, Emil! Have you thought about that?"

  "No," he said. To be honest he'd had no idea how old she was. She has always been the same, he thought. He wanted her to hang up, so that everything would be quiet.

  "So," his mother said with another deep sigh, "don't talk to anyone. And don't sign anything. Do you hear me? And don't you dare cross me!"

  "No," he said.

  He hung up. Went over to the kitchen table and found some old brown wrapping paper in a drawer. There was a pencil on the windowsill. Slowly he wrote his name in large, clear letters. There it was in all its glory. Emil Johannes Mork.

  He looked toward the window. His face took on a defiant expression, like that of a child who insists on showing you something, who will not be thwarted. I can explain it all, he thought.

  The sun was shining outside. S U N. He wrote that down. Some words were easy. He wrote FOOD because he felt hungry. Other words were harder. He thought of the word "misunderstanding," but had to give up. Whereas the word DEAD was easier. After a few minutes he scrunched up the paper. He stood for a long time squeezing it, compressing it into a tiny hard ball. Then he pulled himself together and went into the living room. First he opened the door to the cage. Then he held the ball of paper out to the bird. The bird instantly lifted its claw and snatched it. It began tearing the paper into shreds with its beak. Sharp ripping noises could be heard as the paper fell to the bottom of the cage in fine strips.

  Emil opened the newspaper. He turned the pages slowly, then froze as he saw the artist's impression. Oh no, he thought, shuddering. The drawing was horrible because it resembled his mother and yet at the same time it did not. He worked his way through the text. Many of the words were too complicated for him, but he understood the gist of it. He let the newspaper fall and rubbed his head nervously. This is all going wrong, he thought. They don't understand anything.

  CHAPTER 21

  Tomme arrived home at Madseberget. He opened the door to the hall and put his bag down. Immediately he heard his mother's footsteps. A second later she was standing there giving him a searching look. She wanted to know how his trip had gone. The kind of things mothers always wanted to know. They think they've got a right, Tomme thought. Do they?

  He peeled off his jacket, the ticking inside his head continuing all the time. I could tell it like it is, he thought, I could spin round and scream it right in her face. That something truly awful has happened. Something she wouldn't believe. Whereupon everything would explode inside both him and his mother. He did not do so. He chose the ticking. Heard his own voice saying it had been a nice trip. The words came easily and he was amazed to hear his own account of the weekend in Copenhagen, which included the weather, which had been windy, the tasty sandwiches they had eaten at the café, and their tiny cabin. Then he went to the bathroom. He desperately needed to brush his teeth.

  Ruth looked after him for a long time. She did think he seemed pale and drawn, but boys will be boys, she thought. Bjørn, the friend he had gone with, was a very sensible boy, she was sure of that. Tomme was still in the bathroom. She thought he might have fallen asleep in there, on the heated floor, the way Marion used to when she was little. He was taking a long time. It was very quiet.

  "You haven't fallen asleep, have you?" she called through the door. He coughed briefly and she heard the sound of the taps being turned on.

  "Oh, no," he replied.

  She retired to the kitchen. He's practically a grown-up, she thought. Why should I expect him to report back to me whenever he's been away from home? They had to try to get back to some sort of normality. However, Ida's death had upset the whole family. There was strain and tension everywhere, she felt. And wasn't he strangely pale? His voice sounded mechanical, as if he were delivering a rehearsed speech. She had never questioned Tomme's honesty. She took it completely for granted. She thought the same of her daughter, Marion, and her husband, Sverre. That they always told the truth. Yet she felt uneasy whenever she thought of her son and the way he was acting. Something kept on nagging at her. She had a strong feeling that he was struggling with something. A deep-seated instinct was telling her that he was lying. It's just because I'm tired, she thought. I'm not thinking straight. It's a vicious circle. From now on I have to trust that he's telling me the truth. From now on, she thought.

  Cheered by this decision, she faced the evening. She thought, life goes on. Ida has been buried. The police will find her killer. She calmed down. Made coffee and heated up some waffles in the microwave. Called to Marion.

  "Come downstairs," she said, "and let's watch the news."

  They sat close together on the sofa. Ruth put her arm around Marion's shoulders. Again they showed the photo of the white nightie.

  "It's a pretty nightie," Marion said.

  "Mm," Ruth said quietly. "It must be strange for Helga to see it on TV."

  "Why do you think they did it?" her daughter asked, looking at her.

  "Did what? Kill her, you mean?" Ruth said.

  "No. Why did they dress her in a nightie?"

  "Why do you want to know?" Ruth asked.

  "Don't know," Marion said gravely. "I don't really know."

  "Everything can be traced," Ruth speculated. "They can find out everything about that nightie. Life's strange like that. It's practically impossible to hide anything. The truth will always out. It just takes time." She stroked her daughter's chubby cheek. "Are you scared?" she wanted to know.

  "No," Marion said.

  "I mean, when you're out walking and a car drives past you?" "But I'm hardly ever outside now," Marion reminded her. "No," Ruth said. "I'm sorry if I'm going on about it. It'll get better."

  "Yes."

  Marion put jam on a heart-shaped waffle. Tomme came downstairs and sat in an armchair. This did not happen often. Ruth appreciated it. Everything was so peaceful. His dark head was bent over a magazine. Marion ate waffles till she was sated and then started on her homework. Sverre was abroad again, in London this time.

  Then the telephone rang. Tomme did not seem to want to answer it. Ruth went over. Baffled, she listened to the voice at the other end. It was a woman. She introduced herself as Anne Oterhals, and Ruth realized that she was Willy's mother. She stared at her son in disbelief; she could not take in what she was hearing. For a moment she felt dizzy. She could see Tomme sitting there, terrified at what was happening right now; she could tell from his shining eyes that something very complicated was going on inside his head. He kept his eyes fixed on the magazine, but he was no longer reading.

  "Tomme," Ruth said reluctantly. "Do you know where Willy is?"

  He looked at her with glassy blue eyes. "Willy? He's with a fr
iend, I think." His voice is so faint, Ruth thought. He held her gaze for two seconds, then hid behind his magazine once more. Ruth recognized it as Illustrated Science.

  Tomme was staring right at a photo of the Egyptian god Anubis. It looks like Willy, he thought. The lean face with the protruding chin. Like a dog. He heard the ticking again. He thought his mother must be able to hear it, too, and his sister, who was sitting over by the dining table. It filled the whole room; it was like a prickling sensation in his ears.

  His mother was still on the telephone. She was bewildered. "I don't understand this," she said into the telephone. "Tomme went to Copenhagen with Bjørn. Bjørn Myhre."

  She listened to the other woman. Her face is so naked, Tomme thought. He was peering up at her. He did not like seeing her like this. Marion was bent over her books. She was listening, too. There was something wrong with the mood in the whole room; she dared hardly breathe or cough or stir over by the table. In her math book were illustrations of squares, triangles, and cubes. She decided to make this her own private universe and lose herself in it. So that was what she did.

  "Oh?" Ruth was saying. She was yanking the telephone cord while her eyes flickered. "Yes," she said. "Hold on. I'll just ask." She pressed the receiver against her chest and looked at her son. "It's Willy's mother. He hasn't come home after his trip to Denmark. You said you were going with Bjørn. Did Willy come, too? What's going on?" she hissed.

  "It was just Willy and me," Tomme said. The words were barely audible. The ticking faded for a moment, but increased in volume when he stopped talking.

  "You lied to me?" Her voice was quivering.

  "Yes," he said flatly.

  "So where is he, then?" she said, louder this time. "His mother is saying he's not back. Did you get on the same bus?"

  "We went our separate ways in Oslo," Tomme said, studying Anubis. "He got on the subway. At Egertorg." He visualized the dark blue jacket as it disappeared down into the depths. He had rehearsed this image earlier.