In Dust and Ashes

by Anne Holt

  Jonas closed his eyes again. The heat from the nurse’s hand spread through his whole body. Since New Year’s Eve 2003, no one had touched Jonas, apart from a handshake now and again.

  Perhaps he was dead. It felt as if he had wet himself, but his crotch wasn’t damp.

  “You must lie still,” the friendly nurse said. “We have you connected to a host of machines. To be on the safe side. You also have a catheter inserted. You’re peeing into a bag, in other words.”

  Jonas was not dead. He was in hospital.

  The tears began to roll.

  “You were dreadfully cold,” the nurse said. “It was your neighbor who found you. Or her dog, in fact. An elkhound, the lady said, she phoned to find out how you are. We can’t say too much, of course, as I’m sure you know, but I let her read between the lines that everything’s fine. Do you know Tassen? Your neighbor’s dog?”

  Jonas had not even succeeded in taking his own life.

  Neither had he succeeded in watching over Dina, nor had he been able to keep hold of Anna, despite that being the only thing in the world he wanted. He had never learned to live with his guilt, but he hadn’t managed to shake it off either. Or diminish it, as he had asked the God he did not believe in to help him with, in his darkest moments. If only it could all turn into something he was capable of dealing with, he begged, so that it might be possible for him to build some kind of existence on the ruins of what had once been a life.

  He sobbed so violently that the nurse grabbed a remote control to raise the mattress into a sitting position.

  “There, there. I realize this hasn’t been easy for you. We’re looking after you now, you see. Do you want us to phone anyone? Your neighbor wasn’t entirely sure whether you had–”

  “No,” Jonas whispered.

  “Sure?”

  Jonas nodded and turned his head away. The light from the ceiling lamps was excruciatingly bright, and he closed his eyes again.

  “Now I’m going to talk to the doctor,” the nurse said. “I’ll find out whether you can have a sedative. This must have been a terrible strain, and it’s absolutely understandable that you–”

  “I just want to sleep,” Jonas said, his voice barely audible.

  “Back in a minute,” he heard her say.

  Jonas went on weeping. He had wept through more than fourteen years, but this was different. Unfamiliar warmth spread through his body, and he had to open his eyes to examine his own hands. He thought his tears tasted of vanilla and raisins, and they ran copiously, as if emanating from an inexhaustible source. Jonas inhaled, more deeply with every breath he took. It was as if he could breathe again at last, really breathe with his whole being, for the first time since one December morning in 2001.

  He could not bear any more. He had not even managed to take his own life, but the sorrow and guilt he had carried on his own for all these years had finally grown far too heavy.

  It was time to share it.

  The thought ran through Jonas’s mind that he would do that at last, before he fell asleep.

  “A what?” Henrik smiled as he repeated: “What did you say it was?”

  “Tyrfing was a magic sword,” Hanne reiterated. “Odin’s grandson Sva … Svala …”

  She had to cheat by glancing down at her notes.

  “Svafrlami,” she articulated with a rolling and overly distinct ‘r’. “He forces two dwarves he had captured to forge a very special sword. It was to strike anything it was aimed at, and cut through steel and stone. The dwarves fashioned this fantastic sword, but they were pretty annoyed at being forced into it. And so they put a curse on it.”

  “And what was that, then?”

  “That it would kill Svafrlami and also commit three crimes.”

  Henrik poured Cola Zero into a glass full of ice cubes. Ida had just come into Hanne’s home office with refreshments before leaving for riding school with Nefis.

  “Why are we sitting in here now that the others have gone?” he asked, looking around. “I’ve somehow become used to working at the dining table.”

  “Don’t get into any habits in my house. I can’t be bothered moving all these papers.”

  Henrik raised his glass a bit too abruptly and knocked it against his front teeth.

  “Sorry,” he let slip.

  “You can safely say that the name Tyrfing was a rather unfortunate choice by Iselin,” Hanne said, taking no notice of him and giving a lopsided smile. “She met the same fate as Svafrlami. Tyrfing cost the woman her life.”

  “But that’s what you’re not entirely convinced of, surely?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Even though she didn’t commit suicide, it’s still reasonable to hold the possibility open that these writings of hers cost Iselin her life.”

  She helped herself from the cola bottle.

  “And as far as Tyrfing’s crimes are concerned,” she said, taking a swig, “we’re well past three and counting. Let me hear what you’ve discovered.”

  Henrik took a folder from his bag.

  “Iselin Havørn,” he began slowly, running his eyes down the top sheet before glancing up. “She was buried on Friday, did you know that?”

  “Yes. It’s been in all the newspapers, Henrik, even though that crazy Lotto prize was given most column space yesterday.”

  “EuroJackpot.”

  “Same thing.”

  “No – Lotto’s the Norwegian lottery, VikingLotto is all the Nordic countries, and EuroJackpot is–”

  “Henrik.”

  “Apologies.”

  Hanne gave an almost inaudible sigh before rotating her hand in a pleading gesture.

  “Iselin Havørn,” Henrik began again. “Born 3 November 1953 in Oslo. At that time her name was Iselin Solvang. I’ve found hardly any information about her childhood, except that she attended Lilleborg School as a child, and later Hartvig Nissen’s School. Which she only just scraped through, is my impression, even though she began studying law in Oslo when she left high school in 1972.”

  “Law was open to anyone then.”

  “Open? What do you mean?”

  “Anyone at all could enter, regardless of exam results.”

  “What? For law? But that’s one of the most difficult faculties to enter!”

  “Now, yes. But not then. What happened after that?”

  “Following two years of study she dropped out and got a job as an industrial worker at the Christiania Spigerverk steel company. Incredibly odd, if you ask me.”

  “She was joining the proletariat.”

  “What?” He looked up in confusion.

  “It fitted with her becoming part of the Marxist-Leninist movement, don’t you think?” Hanne asked impatiently.

  “Well, I haven’t exactly found any kind of membership lists,” Henrik said. “But I was at the University library yesterday. Have you ever been there?”

  “There was a time before the Internet, Henrik. A pretty long time before the Internet, in fact. Of course I’ve been there.”

  “Unbelievable number of books!”

  “It’s a university library. And this is going to take an unbelievable length of time if you’re going to head off in all sorts of different directions.”

  “Sorry. At the University Library I found a fair amount of literature about the Marxist-Leninist movement in Norway. And yes, by all accounts Iselin Solvang was quite a central character in it. Did you know they used code names? I mean … code names! As if they were at war or something!”

  When Hanne raised her eyes to the ceiling, he rushed on: “She stopped working at the steel company in 1978 and started at Journalism College. She went to classes there for two years without ever taking any exams. Nevertheless she got a job at Dagbladet, and at this point the sources multiply. Not exactly dealing with her life, as such, but the newspaper has digitized a lot of her material from that time. It’s pretty easy to find a huge amount of what she wrote throughout the eighties. She started as an ordinary journalist, that is writing m
ore day-to-day material. Eventually she was able to write articles that were more like features, as well as some in-depth interviews. Quite good, in fact. In 1985 she started working for NRK.”

  Producing a picture, he placed it on the table in front of Hanne.

  “You looked a bit … freaky in those days,” he commented, with a smile.

  “Don’t look at me,” Hanne said. “I was walking about in a police uniform!”

  The photograph showed Iselin Solvang in front of a colossal NRK logo that Hanne assumed was made from polystyrene with a coat of blue paint. A tall, slim woman dressed in flowing robes, layer upon layer, all in blue and purple. Her hair was long on one side of her head and slightly shorter on the other. The short part was dyed a shade of blue and the long side was bleached. What at first glance resembled huge salmon flies were hanging from her ears.

  “She was given her own program in 1986,” Henrik added. “It was called Tivolini.”

  “I remember it,” Hanne said absentmindedly as she studied the earrings to see if they were in fact fishing hooks. “A popular entertainment program of the type that was really trendy then, with a suitable dash of controversy. It ran for three seasons, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Yes. Then Iselin became ill.”

  “Mercury poisoning,” Hanne said. “So-called. I know all that.”

  “Well, it turned into more of a search for a diagnosis. Iselin subsequently wrote a lot about it. She felt listless and lacking in energy, and at times it was so bad that she had to lie down in a dark, quiet room for days on end. Something like ME patients nowadays.”

  “ME isn’t a genuine diagnosis.”

  “Maybe not. But it’s definitely a condition. A really distressing condition.”

  “Which obviously has a psychological origin,” Hanne said stubbornly before returning the picture to the bundle. “People feel it’s a matter of life and death for them to find a physical explanation for their symptoms. I can’t fathom why.”

  “Maybe because it feels very physical?” Henrik ventured.

  “There’s no difference between physical pains and conditions on the one hand and psychological problems on the other. Physical and psychological are closely linked. Have you never had a stomachache when you were dreading something? Pains are not imaginary because they arise from a psychological condition. Far from it – they can be really authentic.”

  “Yes, true enough. But I think ME might be a bit more complicated than–”

  “Where did she end up?” Hanne interrupted him.

  “With a bit of everything,” Henrik went on. “Candida, for a while. A whole heap of food allergies. She was treated at one of those clinics, you know.”

  “Quacks.”

  “They came to the conclusion that it was mercury poisoning. Later, when computers became increasingly common, it turned out that she was hypersensitive to electricity. She had a whole host of her own protective gadgets made so that she could use a computer and a cellphone.”

  “Is that possible? There’s no such thing on earth as–”

  Henrik squeezed the cola bottle so tightly that the plastic crumpled.

  “Hanne! Could you please stop spouting so many opinions? I’ve done exactly what you asked me to do. Now I’m telling you what I found out about Iselin Havørn. I’m not the one who believes all these things! You’re splitting hairs with someone who’s dead, Hanne, and I find that downright counter-productive.”

  “Okay. Do go on.”

  Hanne crossed her arms over her narrow chest and kept her mouth demonstratively buttoned. Henrik stared at her for a few seconds to make sure he would not be interrupted.

  “During the period from 1989 to 1995, Iselin Havørn was certainly ill. She had also changed her name following what she later called …”

  His skinny fingers riffled through the documents now perched on his lap.

  “‘Spiritual contact from the cosmic universe’ was what she wrote. She had seen a sea eagle. Outside Reine in Lofoten.”

  Hanne pressed her lips even more tightly together. Henrik pretended not to notice.

  “And even though she spent years trying to find out what was actually wrong with her, she claims that the sight of this huge eagle was the beginning of her long journey back to health. It was also at that time she came into contact with what you might call more conspiratorially inclined circles here on earth.”

  He shook his head gently.

  “Conspiracy theories as a phenomenon are probably just as ancient as humanity itself,” he continued. “But heavens above, the Internet has made it easier for those people. For Iselin, it began with a battle against the doctors who thought there was nothing wrong with her, and against the pharmaceutical industry that she claimed was exclusively intent on creating ever-increasing opportunities to earn money from gullible and naïve sick people. Her skepticism, or paranoia, call it what you will, developed further into something that can be briefly summarized as that Americans are behind most of what is wrong with the world. The rest is taken care of by Muslims. Moreover, they are also ruled by Americans, in fact. It is pretty difficult to follow her line of reasoning, to be honest.”

  “And Jews?” Hanne asked with a note of resignation. “Aren’t they out to get us too?”

  “Yes,” Henrik said. “But then they’re American! Whether they are Israelis, Norwegians or British, the Jews and USA are tarred with the same brush. At what time Iselin moved from general dissatisfaction with academic medicine to a belief that the CIA is Satan himself, is difficult to pin down. All we know about Iselin from this period was actually recorded in retrospect. She was apparently really poorly and did not work. Wrote nothing. At least nothing that has been made accessible to the public.”

  “Off her head,” Hanne mumbled, only just audibly.

  “In 1995 she was better. What she lived on during this period is anyone’s guess. There are limits to how long you receive sickness benefit. Maybe she was declared incapacitated for a time. Anyway, there’s a lot to suggest that she was hard up. She didn’t own her own apartment and she moved address frequently. Until she got a job at a refugee reception center.”

  “A … what?”

  “A refugee reception center. At Tanum in Bærum. It’s closed now, but it was one of the first reception centers to be established.”

  Hanne opened her arms wide, taking in the paper printouts now stacked in four separate bundles before her.

  “I’ve followed Tyrfing’s writings for two years and gone all the way back to the first time that blog name appeared. But I’ve never seen any allusion anywhere to her ever working in a refugee reception center!”

  “Seeing as Iselin Havørn had no wish to be identified, it’s maybe not so strange that she made no reference to her CV, don’t you think?”

  He could not resist a smile.

  “Touché,” Hanne said. “Go on, then.”

  “But here, on the other hand …”

  He fished out two sheets of paper in a red plastic cover that he set down on the table.

  “… is an article she wrote in 1997. Under her own full name, in fact. The job at that reception center was nothing but undercover journalism. And now she was able to write about what it was really like in a reception center. You can read it at your leisure, but the short version is …”

  With a sigh, he squashed the already damaged empty bottle. A brittle sound of shattered plastic provoked Hanne into pointing at the wastepaper basket.

  “Asylum seekers are ungrateful. Filthy. Demanding and far too alien. They are not actually being persecuted. They are fortune hunters, and only the strongest of them travel here. The weak ones, the really destitute, never leave their respective homelands. We should help the ones who are truly distressed where they are, and not admit any of them to Norway.”

  With a shrug, he dropped the bottle into the basket. “Along those lines. You know the script.”

  “That could easily be printed today,” Hanne said. “But in 1997? The climat
e was quite different at that time. Was it really published in a Norwegian newspaper as early as that?”

  “No.”

  “No? But–”

  “It was turned down. By Aftenposten at any rate, I know for a fact, but whether she tried to get it published anywhere else, I’ve no idea. It’s not available on the Internet.”

  “If it was turned down, how did you get hold of it?”

  “Surplus information,” Henrik said, smiling. “Easy as pie. This article was left over from the work done on the May 17 terrorist attack. As you know, we undertook a pretty thorough search of all possible racist, nationalist stuff over the past twenty years. Since so many of the suspects were getting on in years, we had to go pretty far back in time.”

  “To huge protests from press organizations, as far as I recall. We wanted to get our claws on unpublished material.”

  “Something the Supreme Court felt we had no need of,” Henrik added. “More or less as expected, but it was worth a try. This article, though, was something one of our colleagues at Police Headquarters found. Or more accurately got hold of. From a now retired … night editor, I think it’s called these days. At Aftenposten. He’d been so shocked by the content that he held on to it. And when half of Oslo was blown sky high, he secretly went to the police with a pretty cool stash of rejected articles he had collected in the course of a long career in Akersgata.”

  “And this was one of them?”

  “Yes. I was given the task of going through the pile in the summer of 2014. I came across it yesterday when I was doing some research on Iselin as you asked me to, and found this in the archives. Or … it’s a copy, of course.”

  “Okay. Then we know that Iselin Havørn’s attitude goes back to quite an early period. The blogger Tyrfing did not appear until 2007. What was she doing in the meantime?”

  Henrik pushed his chair slightly to the left and fixed his eyes on the enormous painting on the wall. Hanne could not abide it, he knew. It had been a gift from Nefis and was tolerated for that reason. The night scene in Las Vegas was so realistic it could easily be mistaken for a photograph. He leaned forward a little and studied the two police cars in the foreground.