The Drowned Boy

by Karin Fossum

  She stood up and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. Nicolai stayed where he was out in the dark, sipping his whiskey. He didn’t pay attention to Carmen’s commands anymore. He was on a slippery slope. He was losing control. Again, all he felt was indifference. Indifference about the dog, indifference about going into Palma the next day. He sat out there for an hour and listened to the voices down in the garden, which were by now only a faint mumble. Finally he went into the bedroom. A dog, he thought, a little terrier. Why not? Something to pet, he thought, as he crept in under the comforter. Carmen was sleeping heavily. Sweaty and warm and soft, she was like a radiator after a day in the sun. But he didn’t touch her. They hadn’t touched at all since Tommy died.

  32

  THEY WALKED HAND in hand around the cathedral and lit a candle for Tommy. There was something wretched about the whole thing. You put a euro into the slot, like putting money in a piggy bank, and then a little bulb lit up. They stood there, filled with emotion, looking at the weak, energy-saving light.

  “Do you think it will stay lit until the evening?” Carmen asked hopefully.

  “No, I doubt it will be more than a measly hour,” Nicolai remarked. “Everyone wants to make money. The church is no exception. Tomorrow we’ll have to put another euro in. Come on, it’s nothing more than a little dirty bulb, so let’s not get things out of proportion.”

  They sat in a pew and held hands. Carmen gave a little squeeze; she wanted so much to be kind. There were several other tourists in the church talking in hushed voices, a gentle murmur of different languages. Silence, prayer, and respect, for life and death. Their heads and hearts filled with the thought that there was perhaps more than this wretched daily toil with its suffering and grief. Nicolai liked the dim, beautiful interior. The church gave him a sense of peace. He could sit there forever in the hard pew and stare at the weak light from Tommy’s candle.

  Time passed and eventually they dragged themselves away and continued to explore the town. They went up to the main square, Plaza Major, where they found a bar. They each ordered a beer and sat and sipped it in the shade of the trees, looking out at the square and the passersby. A fountain splashed ice-cold water in front of the august buildings that lined the plaza. There were stalls selling all manner of things: flowers, fruit and vegetables, baskets and colorful shawls. As Nicolai enjoyed his beer, he thought about Carmen as he observed her surreptitiously over the edge of his glass: her golden skin, her slim hands fidgeting restlessly on the table. He knew that if he left her, if he actually did what he was thinking about, she would grieve for a few weeks and then she would settle into her new situation, adaptable as she was. He would of course have to move out of Granfoss. After all, it was Marian who had bought the house for them. And where would he go? He would also have to find himself another job. He couldn’t carry on working at Zita Quick if he was going to leave Carmen. That would be impossible. Jesus, he thought, I’m trapped. If he was going to leave, he would have to go far away, beyond the reach of all the tears and accusations. People saying that he was a worrier, as Carmen always claimed. A weak and helpless soul who couldn’t move on. He took a sip of beer and looked over at the other tourists; they all looked so happy, wearing shorts and sandals. Children’s laughter, ice cream, pigeons pecking at crumbs in the cobbled square. Meanwhile he was drowning in grief, gasping for air, desperately trying to force his heart to keep a normal speed. Down in the harbor, which they had passed on the way to the cathedral, he could see rows and rows of luxury boats: Doris, Fortuna, and Paradise. There were a few for sale. If you had a boat, he thought, you could just sail away from everything, out to the curve of the horizon.

  The waiter came over to their table with a bowl of salted pistachio nuts. Nicolai put one in his mouth.

  “Are you sad?” he asked suddenly. The words fell out of his mouth before he could think. Carmen raised an eyebrow and stared at him uncertainly.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” he snapped. “Tommy drowned in Damtjern on August 10. And I’m asking if you’re finding it hard. You don’t look like you’re sad. What are you actually thinking?” he asked, banging his beer glass down on the table. Beer splashed over the edges, and a sudden indignation flared up inside him.

  “What do you mean?” she said, still hesitating. “Stop playing around.”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. And what were you thinking when you carried him down to the pond? I can’t believe that you stood there on the jetty and threw him into the water. What if someone had seen you? What if people didn’t believe your crazy explanation?”

  She picked up her glass and took a couple of greedy gulps. Again, her cheeks were flushed, as if he had caught her lying.

  “I’ve given my explanation,” she said. “I was terrified. I was scared that I would be blamed and I couldn’t face that because it was an accident.”

  “An accident. Yes, rather convenient that you have epilepsy.”

  She leaned over the table. They sat and glared at each other, neither of them wanting to back down. Nicolai’s stubborn green eyes stared straight into her blue ones. Her defiance grew in the face of his accusation.

  “What are you trying to prove?” she asked. “What are you going on about? I’ve told the truth and I’ve got nothing more to say about Tommy’s death. You really are pushing it now. I don’t want any more accusations. I was the one who looked after Tommy. You were at work, and you weren’t there most of the time. I’m the one who had to answer all the questions. About what he could and couldn’t do, about his future, about why he was so slow, why he didn’t understand what we said to him. It hasn’t been easy, you know. I was pretty desperate at times. And you’ve damn well always been on the outside.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I was at work. One of us had to keep the money coming in. If you thought looking after him was so difficult, you should have said so. We could have swapped for a while; you could have worked at Zita Quick for as long as you liked. I even said as much, but you didn’t want to listen.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” she said, “because you’re fit and healthy. You don’t need to worry about suddenly keeling over. But let me tell you, it’s not great to live with. And I don’t feel particularly proud of myself either, about what’s happened. I admit that I did try to change my story, because I was terrified of being charged with negligence. It’s not damn easy knowing what the police are going to do. Everyone’s out to get me; you could at least be on my side. I’ve wept buckets too, so there.”

  “Yes, you’re certainly good at crying,” he said. “You turn on the waterworks whenever it suits you. But I’ve cried too. And the only comfort I have is some fantastic story about a moment’s confusion. You owe it to me to explain how you could think of doing something like that. Throwing a baby into the water to cover something you claim was an accident is just crazy. Honestly.”

  Carmen finished her beer, and then she too banged her glass down on the table. Her mouth was drawn and pale, despite the sun.

  “You should be damn grateful that you don’t have epilepsy,” she said in a bitter voice. “You don’t have to lie unconscious on the floor in spasms. And then come to again without being able to remember anything. Everything is just a blind spot in your head. Yes, I know it was stupid. But it’s too late for regret, and Tommy’s death was an accident. So why can’t you just believe me and be done!”

  Nicolai sat back and crossed his arms. “Not strange really, that the police keep questioning you,” he said calmly. “You’ve spun them a pretty good story. Think about when you’re in court. How will you get them to believe anything so far-fetched?”

  “They’ll believe me because it’s the truth,” she said. “Simple as that.” She finished the last of her beer and looked at him with pleading eyes. “Can we just for once be honest? I didn’t think it was much fun that Tommy turned out the way he did. That I would always have to deal with his problems.”


  “What do you mean, problems?”

  “Don’t make yourself out to be more stupid than you are. You know perfectly well what I mean. He would never be able to keep up in life. I would always have to explain to other people why my child wouldn’t do what was expected of a child his age. People are nosy and ask so many questions. Yes, I’ve got a son, but unfortunately he’s an idiot. I think you should apologize. I can’t believe you would accuse me of lying. Fuck you for being so self-righteous. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on inside as well. And it’s not as if you don’t have any faults.”

  “I don’t trust you,” he said and drank some more beer. Again he banged his glass on the table. “If you’re sitting there hiding a terrible secret, I hope it eats away at you from inside.”

  Carmen stood up and put her bag over her shoulder. Then she took her empty glass and threw it down onto the asphalt with all her might, so the glass shattered. “There you go,” she snarled. “You can tidy it up.”

  As she walked away across the cobbled square, she shouted over her shoulder to him: “I’m going back to the hotel. And this argument never happened.”

  33

  DEAR DIARY,

  The week is nearly over, it’s gone so fast. What am I going to do with Nicolai? Today he was so suspicious and I don’t know what to say. I have to watch myself every second of the day. I have to weigh my words. Because I need him to be on my side. We’re both going to court in June, and I need him to be my witness, to stand up for me. But he doesn’t seem to care about anything anymore. Doesn’t care about the future, doesn’t think about our case going to court and that we’ll have to be there. The only thing he thinks about is feeding his grief and the loss of Tommy, keeping the wound open at all costs. He smokes and drinks whiskey, sits out on the balcony and cries. I can’t bear it. And if I ask him something, his answers are monosyllabic and he’s not interested. Sometimes he gives me long, suspicious looks, I suppose to show that he doesn’t trust me.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about death recently.

  Death as final and terrible, death as merciless. But also death as gentle. And about God, though I don’t actually believe in Him. But sometimes I’m gripped by the thought that one day we will all be laid out in white in a cold grave—that damp black hole in the earth is waiting for us all. The worms and other creepy-crawlies will make their way in through the coffin and slowly we are eaten by the tiny teeth of time. But sometimes incredible things happen. Things that turn our ideas upside down. One day last November, I gave some money to a beggar. I don’t usually do that, because it goes against my principles. People have to find a way to make ends meet, isn’t that an obligation we all have? So it was just a whim. Just because it seemed right at the time. God bless you, the beggar said gratefully. I gave him a hundred-kroner note and his pale eyes filled and shone with tears. And right then, for that moment, when he said those words, I became deeply religious. I did not doubt for a moment that I would be blessed. A sudden warmth spread through my body and I felt like I was floating and light as a feather. Anything that was weighing me down slipped away and I loved everyone. I saw them so clearly as they walked toward me on the pavement. For the rest of the day I wandered around in this state of bliss, held on to the feeling. I wanted it to last forever. Fate had given me the chance to be a good person. But the days passed and doubt crept back, and my memory of the beggar lost its significance. Nothing lasts forever. I know that better than anyone. And then, dear diary, last night I had a horrible dream. That’s what I wanted to tell you, because it was so awful. I dreamed that we went to bed in our house up at Granfoss. It was late at night. I went to check that Tommy was OK first, like I normally did. But as I stood there looking at him, he started to scream. Nicolai immediately wanted to have him in our bed. He can’t lie there on his own, screaming like that, he said. I can’t stand it, it drives me crazy. Because when he cries it means that there’s something he doesn’t have.

  Yes, I said, obviously there’s something he doesn’t have. He doesn’t have intelligence, and you’ll only spoil him if he gets everything he wants the minute he makes a noise. He’s a baby, Nicolai, and they tend to cry over nothing. But Nicolai totally disagreed. He wanted to lift the boy up and comfort him. Come on, he’ll stop any moment, I said, convinced, and he’s going to sleep in his own room now. We can’t carry on like this and let the baby turn us out of our own bed. I’ll go crazy soon as well, I exclaimed, with all this fuss!

  As we stood there arguing by the crib, his screaming really started to get on our nerves. He screamed like his lungs were fit to burst. It was intense and piercing, and his face was bright red with sweat and effort. We left him and got into our double bed, but it was impossible to sleep as Tommy continued to cry at full volume. I wanted to leap out of bed and with all my might shake his little body into silence. After a couple of minutes we gave up. Nicolai pushed the comforter to one side and went over to the crib. Come and look! he shouted, obviously agitated. Tommy’s grown! He’s so big he almost doesn’t fit! Reluctantly I got out of the warm bed and went over to see what he meant. And then to my horror I saw that Tommy was enormous. See, Nicolai said. He doesn’t fit anymore, so we’ll have to move him.

  So Nicolai got what he wanted. I lifted Tommy out of the crib and he was so heavy that I only just managed to carry him. And then finally he was in our bed. And finally he stopped crying. I turned my back to him and closed my eyes, praying for some peace and quiet. But then, just as we were about to fall asleep, he started to cry again, and by now Nicolai was desperate. Look, he said, Tommy’s still growing. And when I turned over, I froze. Because Tommy was so big now that there almost wasn’t room for him. And as I lay there in the bed staring at him, he started to change color and slowly his body was covered by a gray, almost silvery shell. And then it dawned on me that Tommy had turned into a fish. I screamed at Nicolai in a panic, get him away from me! Get him away!

  Before I knew it, I had been squeezed over the edge of the bed.

  I woke up on the floor. But I was OK, despite the nightmare, because it was only a dream and I’ve always been a fighter. We’re going home tomorrow, and I can’t help but hope things will get back to normal again, even though it all seems pretty bleak at the moment. We’ll manage to sort things out, Nicolai and me. I’ve always been an optimist. I have so many nights ahead of me, hopefully without dreams about death. I know that Nicolai lies awake while I sleep like a log, exhausted by the sun and heat that they have so much of down here. Sometimes I say the Lord’s Prayer. It can’t do any harm and I need to find support somewhere, even if I am strong.

  I called good night to Nicolai, who is sitting on the balcony drinking. Taking the edge off your desperation with whiskey is a slippery slope and I’m very worried. Tomorrow he’ll be morose, slow, and hung-over. It doesn’t bother him in the slightest. It’s me who has to keep it all together and sort everything out, but I get tired sometimes.

  It’s nighttime, so I’m going to go to bed now. And there’s no Tommy there, taking up space, no scaly fish. I’m sorry to say it, dear diary, but I’ve already got used to him not being there. No matter how hard I try, I cannot feel any real deep despair. Tommy was hard work. I was ashamed of Tommy. He was a great disappointment. My hopes were for something completely different when I was pregnant. In the old days, the parents were blamed. A handicapped child was a punishment from a reprimanding God, and if that really is the case I can only apologize. I haven’t lived a life free of sin, but nor has anyone else, so there. No matter what, I want to start over again. With a strong, healthy child, because I deserve it. Why shouldn’t I get what everyone else does? I’ll call Nicolai one last time, but he doesn’t want to hear. And God only knows I’m trying to help. Maybe he’s right, maybe everything will just go to hell, but then he can deal with it on his own. I refuse to sacrifice my life for him, and charity begins at home. Isn’t that what they say?

  34

  TENTH OF OCTOBER. Night.

  In among
all the mess and files in his study, Sejer found some old court papers that piqued his curiosity. He took them, settled back down by the window, and started to read while he sipped at a generous dram of whiskey.

  Annie ruthlessly suffocated her daughter, who was only four years old. The killing is a tragedy and completely senseless. There are many special and apparently inexplicable circumstances attached to the event, and during the case several possible motives, or things that might have triggered the murder, were presented.

  Annie and her daughter, Beate, were alone at home. In the course of the afternoon, a friend, who was also four, came to play and then left around bedtime. Beate had a lot of fun and was overexcited. The friend was collected by her mother, who estimated that she got there just after seven o’clock. She and her daughter left about ten minutes later. At 7:34, the emergency services control center received a phone call from an apparently hysterical Annie who said that Beate had stopped breathing. It was a very dramatic exchange and the mother was screaming in panic. She was instructed to administer heart compressions and mouth-to-mouth until the ambulance arrived just under ten minutes later. The doctor got there five minutes after that. Attempts to revive the little girl were unsuccessful and stopped after three-quarters of an hour.

  The accused has the following history: In autumn 2002, Annie suffered from severe depression that resulted in her being admitted to the Østmarka Ward, St. Olav’s Hospital: a psychiatric institution. The record of her psychiatric illness proved to be long and of a complex nature, stretching over many years. Her childhood and puberty involved many difficulties. It was suspected that she suffered from dysthymia, with severe depressive episodes. She herself thought she suffered from a bipolar disorder, although a diagnosis of borderline (emotionally unstable) personality disorder had also previously been suggested—the diagnosis now finally given by forensic psychiatrists.