Into a Raging Blaze

by Andreas Norman

  “The 22nd of September.” Madame Bernier looked at her. “You’re sure about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did he seem?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, when you met?”

  “He was . . .” Carina tried to find the right words in French. She wasn’t used to this kind of situation; she usually took part in negotiations and used diplomatic French, negotiation French—she didn’t normally have to describe a dead civil servant to his widow. “He seemed stressed. He really wanted to talk to me about a report he didn’t like.”

  “I understand,” said Madame Bernier, who seemed lost in her own thoughts.

  Carina got up. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m very sorry, I probably ought to—”

  “No, no—sit.” Madame Bernier made a vague gesture.

  Carina sat down again, on the edge of the sofa.

  “So you talked?”

  “Yes, we went to a restaurant near the EU Commission. We were there for about half an hour, then he left.”

  “And you don’t know where he went?”

  “No.”

  “Jean disappeared that day,” Sylvie added. “They found him a few days later at Marie and Jean’s place in the country. It’s close to Assenede. He didn’t mention Assenede? That he was going to meet someone there?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  Madame Bernier stubbed out her cigarette with a rapid movement and promptly lit another. “You’re sure that he didn’t mention Assenede to you?” she said and looked straight at Carina.

  Yes, she was sure. She couldn’t remember him mentioning it. She shook her head and carefully tried to stand up.

  “He didn’t tell Marie that he was going there. We think he met someone there,” said Sylvie seriously, and she turned quickly to Marie and put a hand on her knee, as if to calm her. Madame Bernier had turned away. “We don’t know. These are just guesses.”

  Madame Bernier nodded silently.

  “They found him out by the house four days later. The police said it was insulin shock. They say he must have died on the 22nd or 23rd of September.”

  “Jean was careful with his medication,” Madame Bernier hissed angrily. Her mascara had streaked a little. “Jean would never have made a mistake like that. Do you know how much insulin you have to take to cause a shock?” She didn’t wait for a reply, because it was clear she didn’t need one. She merely shook her head and reached for the cigarette packet. “The police say that he killed himself, but that’s just wrong,” she continued. “I know my husband.” She fumbled with the lighter and blew out smoke in a hard exhalation.

  Carina nodded without knowing why. She felt numb. There was no longer a Jean Bernier to solve the situation for her. That possibility had never existed, because Jean Bernier had died, perhaps just hours after they had met.

  “Do you think that someone killed him?”

  “I spoke to the neighbor’s wife out there. She’s certain that she saw people in the garden. But the police didn’t care about that,” said Madame Bernier coolly, with a piercing gaze toward her.

  “I understand,” Carina said quietly and stood up again. Madame Bernier was sitting with her back turned, smoking, and seemed to have lost all interest in Carina. It was probably time to leave.

  “I hope it works out for you,” said Sylvie, without moving an inch.

  “I’m sure it will,” she replied.

  She went down the stairs and, after the front door had closed behind her, she hurried as fast as she could to get away from that gloomy, suffocating apartment and the two women wrapped up in their grief. She reached a large crossroads and continued along a boulevard, gradually calming down and walking slower. She was alone in Brussels; there was no reason for her to stay here. She brushed a hand across her face and tried to stand up in the face of the soft hopelessness that had found its way into her thoughts. Jean Bernier was dead. And someone had killed him? Every step she put between herself and that crypt of an apartment made it seem more unlikely. He had probably committed suicide. He was stressed, had crossed the line. She swore aloud. What was she meant to do now? No one would ever believe her; no one would listen to her. Without a plan, she wandered from block to block, surrounded by a sunny Brussels, full of people having lunch and hectic traffic, while dismal thoughts whirled within her.

  “Madame!”

  Carina was on the way through the lobby, past a large group of auditors who seemed to have gathered to go to lunch together. They filled the entrance with their lively voices, so at first she didn’t hear the concierge calling after her.

  “Madame!” The concierge passed an envelope to her with a smile. “A message for you.”

  She thanked her and stayed where she was, holding the envelope. Inside was a folded note; on the front it said, in rapid blue ballpoint handwriting, Ms. Carina Dymek. She unfolded it. The message was in English; three lines written on the hotel’s notepaper:

  Ms. Dymek,

  We need to meet. Be at Gare du Midi, south entrance. Today, Saturday, 17:00.

  A friend of Jean Bernier.

  She scrunched up the note. Goosebumps appeared on her arms. It was almost too good to be true. A friend of Jean Bernier? It could be anyone, but it was probably a colleague. Perhaps her calls to the Commission had borne fruit, in spite of everything. It had to be someone who was careful and didn’t want to be seen with her openly; Gare du Midi was Brussels’ large southern train station, a place where it was easy to disappear into the crowd. The person who had written the message clearly knew where she was staying in Brussels—that was strange. She couldn’t remember having mentioned that to anyone; not even Jamal knew she was there.

  Who had left it? No, the concierge, a young woman who was fully occupied checking in two new guests, shook her head. She didn’t know who had left the note; it had been there when she had arrived.

  Carina went up to her room, got out a tourist map, and spread it out on the bed. She found the Midi station. Her hands fluttered as she bent over her suitcase; a faint nausea rippled through her stomach; she was nervous and found it difficult to choose what to wear. She didn’t want to be too sloppily dressed if she was going to meet someone from the EU Commission. Eventually, she changed into a pair of new jeans, a T-shirt, and a black turtleneck, then she checked that she had her cell, wallet, and the map.

  Jean Bernier was dead, so the question was, what could a friend of his do? But she had no other option. Now she would at least find out more about what had actually happened—the true story.

  Dazzlingly sharp autumn sunshine met her as she came out into the street and began to walk to Midi. She had caught the subway from De Brouckère station to Gare de l’Ouest and changed on to a southbound train, alighting at Clemenceau, where she had reemerged into the sunshine. She had very little cash, and withdrew two hundred euros from an ATM. She was ravenous and stopped at a café to buy two croque-monsieurs and a coffee, which she consumed quickly, standing by one of the small bar tables, before continuing. The beautiful weather had tempted people into the streets; people were in the outdoor seating areas of restaurants and the streets in Ixelles were full of life. She passed a small market where the typical blend of Ixelles residents and tourists wandered between the stands of organic bath products and batik-dyed sweaters, but she couldn’t stop to look, restlessness drew her onward.

  A few hundred meters from the station, she found an Internet café. It was shadowy and deserted. She was assigned a computer and sat down for a while to read her e-mails. Nothing from Jamal or Greger, just one from British Airways that she almost deleted.

  Egypt: she had completely forgotten that she and Jamal had booked tickets. She smiled to herself; it was unreal to think that in a few weeks they would be on vacation together, in the sun, just the two of them. She still had Jamal. That thought made her calm. She glanced through her friends’ and colleagues’ updates on Facebook and went to Jamal’s profile. But he posted rarely; the page hadn’t been
updated for over a month. She would call him later in the evening, she decided.

  Out in the autumnal sun, she followed the street that led into the hustle and bustle of Rue Bara. The Midi Tower’s glittering mirrors rose above the rooftops. Rattling streetcars traveled past her as she stood on a street corner and tried to work out at which end of the station the south entrance was located. She was close to Place Victor Hortaplein and, if she wasn’t mistaken, the meeting place ought to be on the other side of the station. In which case, she had to hurry. She jogged past the bus stops around the Midi Tower and scattered a cloud of dirty gray pigeons, which took off as she bounded across the deserted square outside the station as the clock struck five.

  Thousands of people passed through Gare du Midi in Brussels every hour; it was one of the three large railway hubs of the city. From here, people were distributed to the whole of the Brussels region and throughout Europe. A group of newly arrived travelers blocked the entire entrance with their suitcases. She hurried up to a taxi driver. Yes, this was the north entrance. “Go through the concourse,” he said in a stressed tone and waved his arm toward the grubby, glass façade of the station building. “The exit for Fonsnylaan.”

  Inside the station building, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the pallid light. She slowed down, took in her surroundings. The entire train station was a rundown, clattering passageway. A swarm of people were moving beneath the low ceiling. An arrow pointed straight ahead for Avenue Fonsny.

  It was two minutes past five, according to a clock suspended from the ceiling. She was late, but made an effort not to walk too fast.

  When she was close to the Fonsnylaan exit, she caught sight of an older, graying man who appeared to be waiting for someone. He was wearing a thin coat over a gray suit; a typical civil servant, unperturbed by the crush of people around him, splaying across the concourse. It was clear he was waiting for someone; he looked at his watch with a small grimace and began to pace to and fro, swinging his laptop bag.

  She raised her hand in greeting and began to make her way toward the man, but he didn’t see her—a group of young people with enormous rucksacks obscured her. She was only a few paces away from him when he fished his cell phone out of a pocket and, with a smile, looked at the screen before disappearing through the exit, swallowed by the city. Clearly she wasn’t meeting him, she noted with disappointment. She stood in the throng of people. It was five past. She had arrived a little late, but only by a few minutes; surely that didn’t mean the meeting was off? There was a constant stream of people flowing toward her like black shadows in the glare, forcing their way past her. She moved to the side and followed the faces passing by. Whom she was waiting for she did not know, but, among all these people, the person she did want to meet would surely appear at any moment.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a man with a shaved head moving toward her on the concourse. He was young and wearing a hoodie and a padded jacket—not the appearance she had expected of the person she was meeting. But she was not mistaken: the man was on his way toward her, forcing his way through a group of travelers. But something in the way he was moving wasn’t right. He was walking too quickly, too purposefully.

  About ten meters to the right, she spotted yet another man approaching in the same rapid, purposeful manner. Their grimaces were directed at her, among all the crowds of people. She swallowed; her mouth was dry. Something was very wrong. Or was she imagining it? For a second, they vanished from sight. The loud clatter of the concourse and the station loudspeaker pounded against her; her pulse beat against her head. She gazed through the crowds and quickly spotted another, then two, then four men—all moving straight toward her. She backed into a souvenir shop window. Her insides became a sucking, corrosive emptiness. She should never have come here. It was a mistake. Obviously no friend of Jean Bernier would have been able to find her at her hotel.

  She stumbled on her feet and regained her balance. The rubber soles of her shoes gripped the surface. Her legs didn’t obey her at first. Her feet were heavy like lead; each step sucked her down to the flat, hard surface and it felt like she was running in slow motion. All she could hear in her head was that she had to run, faster, had to get out—off the concourse. For a second, she saw the man in the hoodie, and the other one in the leather jacket, close beside her in the crowd. She collided with an elderly man, who spun one hundred and eighty degrees and fell headlong against a billboard, and then, for some reason, the crippling sensation disappeared—her legs were carrying her again. Astonished, angry faces appeared right in front of her, but she barely noticed them; the entire concourse had narrowed to a long, black tunnel. Everywhere, strangers were in the way—sluggish bodies that she bumped into. Without knowing where she was going, she ducked to the side, into a passageway.

  She had a small head start of twenty or thirty meters when she reached some stairs, slipped, fumbled for the handrail, and heaved herself up through the throng that was pouring down the steps. She just managed to glimpse a pink school bag and a girl falling over. Someone shouted at her.

  She reached a platform where a commuter train was standing, ready to depart. The door-closing warning signal had already begun as she threw herself up the final steps and rushed toward the nearest car, tackling the half-closed doors and pressing her body between them. She fell into the car. One foot was still sticking out; she pulled it in and fell, panting against the wall by the door. Go, for fuck’s sake! And, as if she were able to control the train by the power of thought alone, it began its endless and soft acceleration out of the station.

  She got up and looked around the car. Three teenage girls, who had been sitting with their heads close together over a cell phone, stared silently at her. Faces looked at her anxiously, with caution. The commuters around her were probably wondering why a woman had come crashing in like that, and trying to work out whether she was drunk, dangerous, or psychologically disturbed, before slowly losing interest.

  They were already on the way into the tunnel. None of her pursuers seemed to be in the car. Who were those bastards? She leaned against her knees and struggled to control her breathing. Had the Belgian police tricked her into going to Gare du Midi in order to arrest her? That was completely sick. Why would the police set a trap for her? She didn’t know much about police work, but it wasn’t difficult to work out that it was a pretty major operation to track her down, leave a message at her hotel, and then lure her to a train station to arrest her. It didn’t make sense. Even if the Security Service was interested in her because of that damn report, it was still completely crazy.

  At the next station, she stood by the door, ready to rush out, and popped her head out as soon as the doors opened. But no one moved between the cars; no one seemed to be looking for her on the platform.

  She went another two stops, got off at Noordstation and stuck close to a group of girls in headscarves as she left the platform. She descended into a long underground passageway with small shops and eateries to the sides. No one in the stream of people seemed to care about her one bit.

  She had been tricked. It was all just a trap; there was no friend of Jean Bernier. She had to think clearly. The hotel, it struck her—she couldn’t go back; they knew she was staying there and would probably be waiting for her. But her passport, her bag, all her things were still in the room. For a second, a sob quivered in her throat. She couldn’t stay in Brussels, either; the people looking for her would find her again. Thoughts chattered inside her head.

  She found herself on a narrow street just outside Noordstation. A long row of worn buildings faced the railway tracks. Pink neon, red signs, and flickers of electric blue glowed along the street in the afternoon gloom. Large shop windows housed restless, moving silhouettes: women for sale. She had come to the red-light district, the north of the city. It was deserted, but in a few hours, when the shiny banking houses turned off their lights, the sordid trade would begin in earnest.

  She hurried over the pedestrian cros
sing and continued at random along a rundown street. She didn’t really know what to do, whether to try and find a hotel or boarding house nearby, try to hide and wait, or take a chance and go straight back to the hotel. Wandering around the city all night was not a possibility. Maybe it was best to try and leave the city. But how would she get back to Stockholm without her passport? She was probably wanted and would be caught at the first border control she reached. Maybe she could cross the border by night, hitch-hike with a truck. For a second, that seemed like a completely reasonable idea. She had only seen it in films but had never considered that she might do it in reality. It was dangerous, but a possibility.

  At first, she couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from: a sharp engine noise that made her turn her head. The blank surfaces of the skyscrapers rose into the afternoon sky and had become pillars of velvety, shimmering light. The brick station-building was in shadow; it was only possible to discern people as small, dark figures. Then she caught sight of them: two figures on motorbikes by the station. Shiny helmets.

  For a brief moment, she wanted to believe she was wrong. But then the motorbikes turned, crossed the crossing, and accelerated toward her with a sharp roar.

  She ran like a four-hundred-meter sprinter on the home stretch, down a small and deserted side street, and had just reached a crossroads when the roar of the motorbikes came right up beside her. In a desperate attempt to escape, she threw herself right into the road and only just managed to jump out of the path of a van, before taking aim at a fence, throwing herself against the splintery wood, pulling herself up, and tumbling over the edge. She fell hard onto a pile of cement bags. The pain radiated up through her shoulder.

  A demolition site: piles of mortar and brick, and a backhoe enthroned in the middle of the plot like a sleeping, prehistoric beast. At the other end of the pitted site was a decimated residential building—a ruin. On each floor there were gaping holes where rooms that had been torn apart stared into the abyss. Fear made her teeth chatter. Reality was flickering; she was struggling to take in and comprehend what she could see around her. It was definitely not the police chasing her; it couldn’t be—the police didn’t try to run people over with motorbikes.