by Alex Dahl
‘The police believe that woman is dead,’ says Elisa.
‘Maybe. But you don’t.’
‘No.’
‘You seem very certain about that. But the police seem equally certain that Silwia Truja was the same woman who you met with.’
‘She wasn’t.’ Elisa shakes her head with conviction. ‘I’ve said that all along. The woman I met was extremely sophisticated. She was also a native Norwegian speaker. And I feel like she really was the mother of the little girl – there was that unmistakable bond between a mother and her child there.’
‘Okay, so I believe you. I don’t think someone like Truja, who was a known heroin addict with a long criminal record, could have convincingly posed as a Norwegian mother to the point where someone like you wasn’t even remotely suspicious. I just don’t think it’s possible.’
‘I… Right. Thank you,’ says Elisa. ‘Nobody else seems to believe me.’
‘I definitely believe you. Now, let’s take this further: if the woman posing as Line wasn’t Silwia Truja, what could have motivated her, a sophisticated and presumably fairly privileged mother from Norway, someone who sounds a lot like yourself, in fact, to participate in the kidnapping of a young child?’
The question hangs in the air between them, the Blix couple looking stunned and uncomfortable. Selma notices that Elisa Blix is digging the nail of her index finger into the side of her thumb incredibly hard. The skin whitens, then pierces. Dark droplets of blood appear. Elisa sees Selma looking at her and withdraws her hand behind her back.
Selma stands up, and Elisa and Fredrik exchange a surprised look.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I guess we’re done here. I hope, with all my heart, that Lucia is found and returned to you. Don’t hesitate to contact me again if you come up with the answer to that question.’
She turns around and walks away from the Blixes, sensing their shock at her sudden departure. She goes through the revolving door and into the throng of people rushing to Nationaltheatret Station – it’s rush hour and the cold but bright day has given way to a gloomy, foggy early evening. She walks away from the crowds, down towards the harbor at Aker Brygge. She finds an empty bench and sits staring at the black water streaked with orange from the streetlights behind her on the promenade. Her mind feels entirely uncluttered and calm. Something happened there, with Fredrik and Elisa. People can act as controlled as they want, but they can never completely control their non-verbal reactions. And Selma saw it there, in Elisa Blix’s eyes: a jolt of doubt, a flash of dread – unmistakable.
53
Elisa
I need to think. On the train home, Fredrik won’t stop talking. Unusual – my husband isn’t particularly chatty. He keeps going over the meeting with the journalist, saying how she seemed odd and a little rude. I nod and stare out the window at a milky white fog settling upon the western outskirts of Oslo until the train disappears into a tunnel. I need to think. I feel his eyes on me, but I keep mine firmly on the view, even though there’s nothing to look at but the sweep of the wall lights rushing past. I run my index finger over the bloody groove I made on the side of my thumb; it had stopped bleeding but starts again with a gentle prod. I feel the blood prickle out before wiping my finger discreetly on my dark jeans.
We walk home in heavy silence, through downtown Sandefjord, along the harborfront, past the shipyard and then up the long hill. It’s cold and windy. It’s Friday and Lyder has been picked up from school by Fredrik’s parents, who’ll take him to their cabin in Kviteseid until Sunday. In the past year this has become a routine – every other weekend Vigdis and Karl take Lyder to the cabin, which is a welcome break for him as well as us.
When Lyder is around, Fredrik and I try to keep things as normal as possible. We eat together as a family most days, we help with homework, we put Lyder to bed at a reasonable time. To an outsider, we probably seem ordinary. Whole. Happy, even. But on the weekends, when Lyder is away in Kviteseid building snowmen, drinking cocoa and being doted on, Fredrik and I give in to our despair and powerlessness.
We spend hours on our laptops, staring at maps of the roads to Mölleryd or Sainte-Ode, or reading through the investigation material, or scrolling through the chat forums on the internet to see what people are saying about ‘the Blix Case’. This, of course, is dangerous, because just like I suspected at the beginning, people say horrible, cruel things – about us, and about how they pray that Lucia was killed quickly because the alternative would surely be much, much worse. But no matter how hurtful and distressing the comments, I carry on reading in the hope that somehow, somewhere, some random person might stumble across a theory that leads to us finding Lucia. I can’t live with the possibility that the answer might be out there, on one of those forums, and I missed it. In the evenings we sit in front of the TV, watching old American sitcoms and drinking bourbon on the rocks until we can no longer decipher the empty jokes or string a sentence together. We usually fall asleep like that, on opposite sides of the huge sofa, closing our eyes against the spinning room, the canned laughter the last thing we hear.
‘What a stupid question to ask,’ Fredrik says, again, as he disables the alarm and hangs his jacket on a peg in the hallway.
I know he wants to continue this conversation, but I can’t face it. I need to think, and I need to be alone. What if Selma Eriksen is right to insinuate that what’s happened to us could be some twisted act of revenge? I stare at my husband, at his mild, faintly lined face and his big blue eyes that make him look as innocent as a child.
‘Is it really such a stupid question?’ I ask, and he narrows his eyes before relaxing his face back into its usual blank, slightly bewildered expression. In this moment, I hate him. Even though he’s done nothing wrong, I hate him for his meekness, his idiotic look of perplexity.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Every single theory and line of investigation to date has led nowhere. None of it makes any sense. At least she asked a question that does make some kind of sense. Would it really be so stupid to look into possible personal motives?’
‘But, Elisa, it’s not like they haven’t done that already.’
‘Maybe they didn’t look deep enough. Maybe we didn’t. I’ve been trying to say that to you.’
‘What are you saying? That someone hates us so much they could have taken Lucia?’
‘I don’t know!’
I do, of course, know that this could be the case. And yet I thought it was impossible. I’ve trusted the police and their main line of inquiry, even when a small voice in my head has said that it simply seemed too random. Because what are the odds that of all the children in this unremarkable suburb it was Elisa Blix’s child that was taken in an abduction so seamless it was as though she’d vanished into thin air? What are the odds?
And yet, through all of my sleepless nights since 19 October 2017, I’ve concluded that what has happened to our family must be because of karma. A terrible, cruel punishment – brutal justice exercised in the most fundamentally painful of ways. Sometimes the punishment really does not fit the crime. And sometimes it does, however much it hurts to admit it. I’ve been thinking about these things in a cosmic way, but what if it wasn’t cosmic or magical like Fredrik said, but rather willfully plotted by someone to bring me to some kind of twisted justice?
‘You tell me, Elisa! Does anybody really hate you?’
He practically spits the words out and I back off to get away from the hot blast of his breath on my face, but he grabs my wrist and yanks it hard.
‘Are you totally crazy? What’s got into you, Fredrik? Jesus!’
‘I said, have you given anyone reason to hate you!’
I shake my head, but Fredrik’s eyes are hard on me. I sink to the tiled floor of the hallway and expect him to gather me in his arms and kiss my hair the way he usually would, but he backs away from me, then rushes up the stairs.
*
I scrub every surface in the kitchen, moving the sponge around in a
circular motion, counting. Four times to the right, six to the left. Repeat. It gives me something to think about. The bleach in the cleaning product has seeped into the open wound on my thumb and the stinging pain feels almost good, as if some of what is held inside me is finally physically tangible.
My wrist, too, hurts from Fredrik’s forceful grip. He’s never grabbed me like that before or caused me pain. But my husband is no longer himself; how could he be? He might look more or less the same, but he’s a different man underneath his skin.
Since that October evening eighteen months ago, I am no longer myself either. I am simply not the same person. The journalist, Selma, asked us if we could imagine anyone hating us, if a person exists out there who could hate us so much that they’d go to great lengths to take our daughter from us. I sit down with my back to the dishwasher, which is humming as it runs. I look out at the dark, empty dining room that leads into the lounge, also empty. Once, this house was messy and busy with the constant activity of young children. Lucia tottered around here as a toddler, holding on to these same cabinets for support as she took her first steps. Lucia ate breakfast at that table every morning. She would have, at some point, touched most if not all of the objects in this room. I run my hand along the cabinet next to the dishwasher, seeing the baby Lucia once was in my mind’s eye, clutching this brass doorknob in a soft, chubby fist. What would be worse – if she was taken randomly like the police believe, or if she was taken very specifically by someone who hates us? Someone who hates me. Deep down, I know that if this is the result of someone’s intense hatred, then it is more likely to be me they’re after.
My mind churns with the possibilities this scenario suggests. Someone watching us – for years perhaps. Planning. Someone studying every detail of my family’s routine. Waiting. Someone who hates us. Me. Someone who would do anything, absolutely anything, to get revenge. Someone who knew that when the day came, there would be absolutely nothing I could do to stop them.
I feel the past stirring in me, as if time were running on a loop and I will now be forced to go back there. There are things that if I said them would cost me everything I have left. Fredrik, Lyder, this home, my job, perhaps even my life. Any chance of getting Lucia back. But could it be, if Lucia was taken for revenge, that speaking up could prove to be the only way to find her? And we have to find her. I have always said I would give up anything, even my own life, to find my child. But would I? Would I really?
54
Selma
She’s there when they open, like every day this week. She hardly slept, and though it’s just gone 5 a.m., Selma is alert and focused. She kicks off her sneakers and hangs her jacket in the changing room before going through to the gym. She warms up quickly, doing some stretches to soothe her aching triceps and some running on the spot, before launching a violent attack on the punchbag. With every hard, precise thud her jittery nervousness begins to fade. She feels like a bear emerging into the warm, fragrant spring air, shaky with hunger after months in hibernation.
She was awake most of the night. She kept seeing Fredrik and Elisa Blix in her mind: their sharply different body language; Fredrik’s exaggerated surprise at her question, Elisa’s focused attempt to show no reaction; and the strange thing Elisa did to her hand. To Selma she looked like a human pressure cooker, a person who might at any moment explode into bursts of burning air.
When she’s finished pummeling the punchbag, Selma sits for a long while in the changing room, just stabilizing her breathing. She takes her phone out, scrolling through the news, clicking on any mention of Lucia Blix, but the media channels are just regurgitating old material now in anticipation of another breakthrough. A body – that’s what they are after, thinks Selma. She finds Elisa Blix in her contacts and decides to give her just the smallest of prods.
Hi Elisa, I have some new thoughts I’d like to discuss with you. Perhaps we could meet again? All best, Selma Eriksen
She walks down Ullevålsveien towards the city center, deciding to stop in at a Deli de Luca for a double caramel spiced latte – her first in well over a year, since her regular fixes when she was working at Dagsposten. It’s while she’s waiting for her order that she glances at her phone. She’s not like many of her generation, who seem to be glued to their screens, checking for likes and messages throughout the day. Even now, she doesn’t feel the urge to constantly check her phone; chances are, Elisa Blix will take her time getting back to her, and it’s not as if there’s anything else important going on. Selma doesn’t have a boyfriend, or a lot of friends. She likes to keep all Facebook notifications turned off. She doesn’t need the distraction of a vibrating signal to let her know that Trine Jørgensen with whom she played the trumpet in third grade just got engaged to a man Selma will never meet and has no interest in, or that Petter Franzen went running with his Irish setter and posted seven pictures of it.
‘One new message,’ says her phone. From Elisa Blix, sent two hours ago.
Hi Selma, I’m afraid Fredrik and I feel that it’s best to speak to the press only on the instruction of the police and to remain focused on the direction of the ongoing investigation. With best wishes, Elisa Blix
Selma feels a hot surge of disappointment and anger at Elisa’s message. She would love to know what has transpired since she sat across from Elisa and saw the unmistakable flash of dread in her eyes. What is she afraid of?
She takes her coffee and steps back onto the busy street, where a blue tram hurtles past. She turns her face towards the sun emerging briefly from a dense mass of grey clouds. Is Elisa worried that an investigation into potential revenge motives might implicate her somehow? Selma supposes that her question could be seen as suspicious towards Elisa, implying that she must have done something to inspire such hatred.
She can’t face returning home to while away the rest of the day indoors with Medusa, watching patches of sunlight on the wooden floor, lost in her own head. It’s such a beautiful spring day, the first after what’s felt like an endless spell of rainstorms. She walks aimlessly in the direction of Stortinget, the Norwegian Parliament. She heads down Lille Grensen and looks up at the big glass windows of Dagsposten’s offices. When she worked there, she used to sometimes walk past on a weekend, gazing up and counting down to Monday morning, the buzzy excitement of the editorial office and Olav waving at her through the glass wall. Now, she can’t wait for the look on Olav’s face when she tells him about the developments with the Blix couple. Or perhaps she’ll keep it to herself for a while longer, until she uncovers something properly juicy.
In front of Stortinget, Selma stops and takes in the scene around her. Throngs of shoppers are milling around on Karl Johans gate, a couple of homeless men are sitting on a bench surrounded by bags full of returnable plastic bottles, and the sun has disappeared again, leaving a gloomy sky. A plane turns in a wide circle high above and Selma wishes she was on it, going somewhere far away. An idea occurs to her, and she pulls her phone out again.
No worries, Elisa. I’ve explored a little further and have some very interesting ideas about potential revenge motives. I’ll pass them directly on to the police to assist with the investigation. All best, Selma
She has walked less than halfway down Karl Johan in the direction of the royal palace when her phone begins to vibrate in her pocket. She doesn’t need to pull it out to know who’s calling. For a brief moment it stops, and then it starts up again. She smiles to herself, trying to keep calm, relishing the excited flutter in her stomach. She puts the phone on flight mode, then strolls around the royal palace’s public gardens, drawing the scent of freshly sprung bluebells deep into her lungs, marveling at the vivid bursts of green on the birch trees. In less than a fortnight, on 17 May, Norway will celebrate Independence Day, and the entire country will become one big street party. Children will wear their bunads, the ornate regional folk costumes revered by her countrymen, and they’ll file onto the square in front of the palace, holding Norwegian flags and singing the national
song to the royal family, who will stand on the palace balcony, waving to the crowds.
Lucia Blix would have been one of them. Could it be that she’s being held somewhere where she can hear and perhaps observe festivities like 17 May, reminding her of what it was like to be a normal child? Again, Selma has a strong sense that Lucia could be hidden not in a basement or attic but somewhere altogether more clever, right underneath everyone’s noses. And the answer, Selma is increasingly convinced, lies with the parents.
She begins to walk again, and for a long while she wanders around the city, lost in thought, around cozy Briskeby, over to the Vigeland sculpture park, which is busy with tourists and rollerblading kids, and then later among the swanky shops of Bogstadveien. It feels good to be out among people, even if she doesn’t have much of a plan. She sits for a moment on a bench outside a coffee shop, considering what to do next. There might be an interesting talk on at the Literature House – it’s not too late to become the kind of person who might unselfconsciously turn up to such a thing alone – but she decides against it. She’s getting hungry and can’t afford to throw away any more money in kiosks and cafés today. She walks up Pilestredet, before cutting across towards St Hanshaugen where she’d bought her little flat five years previously, with the money left to her after her mother’s death.
The irritation she felt when Elisa declined to meet with her has been lifted by the long walk and the little game she played on a hunch. Perhaps it was cruel, to make Elisa nervous by implying she has some kind of information, but it might be the only way she can get Elisa to talk. There’s something guilty about her – Selma can sense it. She doesn’t for a moment doubt that Elisa is a loving mother or that she’s suffering deeply at the loss of her daughter, but that dread in her eyes, at the Hotel Continental… To Selma, Elisa is unquestionably a woman living in fear.
