by Linn Ullmann
“What are you,” Siri interrupted. “What exactly are you?”
Irma raised her hand, turned on her heel, and tossed her head to indicate that the conversation was over.
All of this was going through Siri’s mind as she sat at the kitchen table, drinking ice-cold red wine. In one hand her cell phone and in the other hand the baby monitor. She mustn’t forget to call Jon and hoped Irma would be out for a while yet—she was doing errands and had left Siri in charge. Irma loved the baby monitor.
“It’s important to listen in to Jenny’s sounds,” she said before she left. “She might stop breathing. Might call for help. Might hurt herself in some way.”
Siri nodded.
“But if all you hear are normal sounds, just leave her alone. Don’t keep popping in and out to check on her. It upsets her.”
Siri nodded again.
She wanted to ask Irma what she meant by normal sounds, but she refrained. Don’t spoil the good mood and don’t say anything that could be construed as sarcastic.
It was the beginning of September. Jenny was more or less bedridden now, apart from when Irma washed and changed her, carried her down the stairs like a little peacock, and wheeled her into the kitchen for her one o’clock omelet.
Siri stared at the baby monitor. When you switched it off there was silence, except for the hum of the fridge. She poured herself another glass of red wine. She had also been meaning to talk to Irma about the baby monitor. Wasn’t it a violation of Jenny’s privacy to have that thing sitting on her bedside table? Shouldn’t Jenny be allowed to keep her dying sounds to herself? And wasn’t this kind of surveillance an infantilization of a person who had, after all, always been very protective of her independence? Siri drained the glass and punched Jon’s number. She was not looking forward to this. He didn’t answer so she sent him a text, asking how things were at home and this he replied to straightaway.
Shit, shit, shit.
Siri read the message and called Jon’s number again. He didn’t answer. She sent a text: Pick up yr phone.
Seconds later her phone rang. It was Jon. She could tell right away that he had been drinking.
“What’s going on?” she said.
“Hah, do you really, really want to know?”
“Jon. Stop it. What’s going on?”
“Okay. Here it comes. Alma hit a girl in her class. It was a regular fistfight, apparently. I don’t know why. According to witnesses, Alma started it. The other girl, the little blonde, you know the one, Mona Haugen, had a bloody nose. There was blood everywhere, I’m told—”
“How’s Alma?” Siri interrupted.
“Oh, Alma—she’s fine. Suspended, of course. When are you coming home?”
Siri eyed the wine bottle. She’d had two glasses.
“I’ll drive home this evening. I’ll be home as soon as I can. How’s Liv?”
“Liv’s okay. She went home with one of her friends today. Laura. Laura’s mother sent a text to ask if she could pick up Liv along with Laura, she said they play well together, that they have a great time.”
“Well, that’s nice.” She closed her eyes. “Anything else?”
She heard him wavering.
“Well …”
She heard him attempting to pour himself a drink (whiskey? wine?), trying not to make any noise.
“Jon, what is it?”
“Oh, it’s just that for some months now I’ve been getting texts from Amanda Browne.”
“What? Milla’s mother?”
“Yes.”
Siri’s voice rose. “Have you slept with Milla’s mother?”
“No, Siri, I haven’t. Stop it.” Jon sighed. “I said I’ve been getting texts from her. She texts me and she calls. Sometimes she calls and then hangs up right away. Sometimes she calls and doesn’t say anything.”
“We should have written that letter,” Siri said, emptying her glass.
“The thing is that I think she thinks we’re mixed up in it.”
“Mixed up in what?”
“I don’t know! Mixed up in it. How the hell am I supposed to know what it means? She’s crazy. I suppose she believes that we’re somehow to blame for what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened!” Siri said. “Do you know what happened?”
“No. You know I don’t know.” He hesitated. “It has to be that boy that did it, that K.B. But as long as she remains unfound … I mean, as long as there’s no body—”
“Were you in the annex that night?” she asked, interrupting.
“No, I told you. I wasn’t in the annex! Jesus … are you accusing me now? Is that all you can do? Shouldn’t we try, just once, to stick together? Sort this out together?”
“Okay,” Siri said. “Did you fuck Milla?”
Jon screamed. He screamed so loud that she began to cry. “I did not fuck Milla, okay? I was not in the annex, okay?”
“Okay.”
Siri held her breath. She couldn’t sit here and cry, not now. What if Irma walked in? She switched on the baby monitor. Just heavy breathing. Jenny was sleeping. She eyed the empty wine bottle.
“Okay. I’ll leave here in a couple of hours. Is there anything about Milla that you haven’t told me? If you and I are going to stick together, as you put it, you absolutely have to tell me everything.”
“There is one thing,” Jon said.
Siri laughed. “Ah yes, I thought as much.”
“It’s nothing really,” Jon went on. “But I just think you ought to know. Milla’s mother, Amanda Browne, hasn’t mentioned this in any of her texts, but it might come up. Although I don’t think it will. It’s really not important.”
“Okay?”
“Do you remember the photograph that all the papers were running in their reports of the case? Do you remember we talked about it? She looked different than the way we knew her. Blue denim dress. Ponytail.” He paused. She heard him take a drink. Then he went on: “We talked about it, you and I. We talked about the picture. You talked about it a lot. It’s pretty blurred, a close-up. I remember you saying that Milla looked prettier in the picture than in real life. Not quite so moonish, you said. There’s no way of telling, not really, where the picture was taken. It could have been taken anywhere, by anyone. It’s a perfectly ordinary cell-phone snap of a perfectly ordinary girl. The only thing is this black speck in the bottom left-hand corner. Something bushy. Do you remember?”
“No … or, yes. Maybe,” Siri murmured, thinking of that black smudge.
“It’s not something you’d notice,” Jon said. “You’re looking at the girl, right? But, the thing is, that black, bushy speck is a bit of Leopold’s tail.”
“What?” Siri straightened up.
“What I’m trying to say is that I took a picture of Milla that summer and then she posted it on her Facebook page before she disappeared.”
Siri didn’t answer, and Jon went on: “She came up to my study to ask about something or other. Probably something to do with the kids. And for some reason she told me that she didn’t have any pictures of herself, as a grown-up girl I mean, so I took a snap of her with her cell. That’s it. That’s all. And just as I took it, Leopold must have gotten up and walked past.”
Siri said nothing.
“Are you there, Siri?”
“Yes.”
“It was just a picture.”
“Yes.”
“Will you be home this evening?”
Siri switched off the baby monitor then switched it on again. Click click click.
“Yes, I’ll drive home later this evening. We can talk more about it then.”
She had never liked driving at night, the dusty warmth of the car, the headlight beams sweeping across the countryside that she knew so well, but with which she never became particularly familiar. This evening she didn’t seem able to keep her eyes on the road, her hands on the wheel, she felt like calling Jon and screaming, Why did you take that picture, but that wouldn’t serve any purpose. It was a
ll just a pack of lies anyway.
The thing was, she didn’t want to go home and she didn’t want to turn back and she couldn’t just stop in the middle of the road either, could she?
FIRST SHE RANG the bell. When Irma didn’t open the door she let herself in and shouted hello.
“Irma, you there?”
She went out again and walked around to the other side of the house, where Irma had her own entrance to the basement flat.
“Irma, you there?”
Her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her handbag. Unknown number. She pressed the TALK button and held the phone to her ear.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
“Hello? Why don’t you say something?”
Then the line went dead.
It was more than a week since Siri had been to Mailund—and her plan for today was simply to sit for a little while at her mother’s bedside. Not long. Siri had to get back to Oslo that same evening. She walked all the way back around and sat down in the kitchen. She stared at the baby monitor. Jenny was up in her room, calling for Siri’s father, Bo Anders Wallin. Although calling was hardly the word. There was almost no strength left in her mother’s voice.
She spoke her own language.
“Bo! Why don’t you come!”
If you didn’t know the language it sounded like this: “O! Ay doan oo ccc omm!”
Siri had heard somewhere that when the dying start calling for the dead, as if they were actually right there beside them, it wouldn’t be long before the dying person was dead themselves.
“Syver!”
Or rather: “–yyyver!”
She went upstairs, knocked gently on Jenny’s bedroom door, looked back more than once to check whether Irma was nearby. Siri opened the door a little way and peeked through the crack. Her mother was in bed, a tiny white strip of flesh and heart and sound.
“Is that Syver?” she said.
“No, Mama, it’s me, it’s Siri.”
“Who’s Siri?”
Siri crossed to the bed and sat down on it. She ran a hand over her mother’s cheek and said, “Sometimes I have the feeling that this is all an act, that you’re actually pretending to be mad, and that you know very well that you are you and that I am me and that Syver is dead.”
Jenny laughed, and then she said, “Maybe you could fetch my shoes. They’re in the cupboard. I’d like to go now.”
“Oh, where are you going?”
“To the palace,” Jenny whispered.
“See, Mama, that’s exactly what I’m talking about, when you say things like that I can’t help thinking that you’re pretending to be mad. Like Hamlet.”
Her mother squeezed her eyes shut, then she opened the left one and peered at Siri.
Siri placed a hand on one of her mother’s breasts where it lay limply on her chest. Siri put her ear to her mother’s heart and heard it beat.
“I know this house,” Jenny whispered, “I know these rooms, but I don’t know who lives here. Do you know who lives here?”
“You live here,” Siri said.
“With Syver,” Jenny replied.
“No,” Siri said, “Syver’s dead. He died thirty-six years ago. But I used to live here with you. And when I grew up and became a wife and mother I used to spend my summers here with Jon and Alma and Liv.”
“And Alma? Where’s she?”
“Alma’s at home in Oslo. I’m glad you remember Alma.
You didn’t the last time we talked.”
“Alma, yes,” said Jenny, nodding.
Or maybe she said something else. Siri wasn’t sure. It sounded something like: “A mm iss.”
Siri said, “Is there any message you’d like me to give to Alma?”
Jenny shook her head.
“Alma misses you. I can bring her with me another time. She’s having a bit of a tough time—”
“The car broke her.” Jenny nodded.
“What?” Siri said.
“The car broke her,” she said again.
“What are you saying?” Siri asked.
“The car broke her,” Jenny said and looked at Siri. “Alma and I were in the car and the car broke the girl on the road.”
“What girl?” Siri said.
“Give me water,” Jenny said.
“What are you talking about?” Siri said. “Who?”
Jenny shook her head and lapsed into her own thoughts, but then she whispered, “Who really lives in this house?”
Siri placed her hands on her mother’s shoulders as though she were about to put her arms around her and whisper, You, you live in this house, but instead she tightened her grip and began to shake, she shook the skinny body that looked as if it might snap in two, shook the big, lolling head, shook the long, withered hair (that had once wrapped itself around them both), shook the old deflated breasts and the beating heart, shook the wasted vocal cords that pressed out fresh, incomprehensible sounds every day. Two wasted cords that coiled from Jenny’s lips to Siri’s ear.
“What girl?” Siri asked again, louder this time.
“Don’t,” whispered Jenny.
“What girl?”
“No!” said Jenny. “Don’t! You’re hurting me!”
And Siri might have gone on shaking her mother until there was nothing left to shake, if a third voice had not interposed.
“Stop it right now!”
Siri turned. Irma filled the whole doorway.
“Get out,” she hissed.
But Siri would not stop.
“What girl?” she shouted at Irma. “Does she mean Milla?”
She looked at her mother again. “Are you talking about Milla?”
“Get out,” Irma said.
Siri released her grip on Jenny’s shoulders and her mother curled in on herself in the bed.
Irma didn’t move.
Siri went on shouting. “Did you see Milla that night, when you were out drunk driving with Alma? Did you? Did you see her and say nothing? Did you see her?”
This time Irma took three strides across the room and lunged at her.
“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out!”
And then she dragged Siri away, hauled her over the doorstep, and slammed the door shut.
HALFTONES
IT HAD BEGUN to snow as they were driving out of Oslo and the snow had followed them all the way to Mailund; there had been snow on the roads, on the windshield, on the children when they ran to and from the shop at the gas station to buy candy, on the trees, on the roofs, on the fields and barns and farmhouses, on the jetties, and on the long road that wound from the old bakery all the way up to the house; they had been here for two days now and it just kept on drifting down.
Christmas was coming and would be celebrated at Mailund.
“Couldn’t we just go and stay for a little while?” Siri had said.
She couldn’t decide what to do with her mother’s house. It had been in the family since just after the war and she didn’t want to sell it.
“We need the money,” she said, “but I just can’t imagine strangers living here.”
“No,” Jon said.
He looked at her. He was sitting on the sofa, she was standing with her back to him, looking out the window at the garden, the maple tree, the white flower bed, which was whiter now than it had ever been, covered by new-fallen snow. He longed to touch her.
Jon had recently applied for and gotten a temporary job as the editor for a new book club. He would be starting after Christmas, which was perfect. A proper job.
“But,” Siri said, “it would probably cost far too much for us to keep it.” She flung out her arms, as if to embrace the whole house. “I mean it’s completely run-down and I don’t know how you and I would ever be able to maintain it. We can’t afford to do it up and we can’t afford to maintain it, we can’t even afford to replace the boiler, never mind all the rewiring, I think the fuse box is from the fifties, and it would be horrible just to sit here and watch it all fall
apart.”
“I could clean the gutters,” Jon said.
Siri turned and smiled. The light from the window fell on her face and he felt like telling her that she was so beautiful standing there in the light, but he didn’t, he knew that if he said you are beautiful standing there in the light she would shrug and turn away. Jon would have to invent an entirely new language, one that didn’t include the word light, if he was to get through to Siri.
Every morning over the past few months Jon and Leopold had taken a walk down to the butcher in Torshov to get Leopold his fresh meats; there weren’t too many butchers left in Oslo, but in Torshov there was a butcher, and a pretty little park where Jon could sit with a coffee while Leopold wandered about. Leopold no longer ran away like before and could be allowed to run loose.
It had started with the trip to the butcher, but Jon had found that he liked being in this part of town, he knew no one, no one knew him, and gradually he discovered that on these early-morning walks he acquired what Strindberg once described as an impersonal circle of acquaintance. These were people whom he saw every single day but never spoke to. They all recognized one another, they nodded to one another, and that was that. An elderly man with a big, playful golden retriever. A pretty young mother of two on her way to nursery school with a four-year-old and a five-year-old. The four-year-old almost always lay down at the same spot in the road and howled that she was tired of walking. She wanted to be carried now. She would lie there on the pavement, all rigged out in a pink snowsuit, pink boots, and a pink woolen hat with rabbit ears. And her mother and five-year-older sister would turn to look at the tot and wait patiently until she couldn’t be bothered to lie there screaming on the pavement any longer. Reluctantly, then, the little girl would get up and join them.
Jon recognized a writer couple on their way to have breakfast. Each morning this husband and wife had breakfast together in the same coffee shop. Sometimes they held hands and he wondered what their lives were like, were they happy. Yes, he recognized them and they recognized him. But they respected each other’s reticence, it would never have occurred to any of them to stop and say Hello, or How are you, or, worse still, How funny, seeing you here every day, do you live around here? That would ruin everything. The writer couple would find somewhere else to have their morning coffee and Jon would find somewhere else to take his walks. A nod. A friendly, but not too friendly, smile. The impersonal circle of acquaintance, which had become Jon’s preferred (and only) circle of acquaintance, had its own unwritten rules. And rule number one was that you did not attempt, by look or word, to make anything that could be construed as an approach, that you stayed within the bounds of the completely impersonal. For the most part this worked well, although some dog owners might cross the line by asking, “Is that a male or female you’ve got there?”
