The Frozen Woman

by Jon Michelet

  ‘Is Lips in the States?’ he asks.

  ‘His mother in Florida is ill,’ Kykke replies.

  ‘Does his mother live in Florida?’

  ‘Don’t keep asking questions and digging.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Beach Boy says and lets out an off-key whistle. ‘Shit-hot machine. Could get a boner from less. How many cc is it? Nine hundred?’

  ‘More than a thou. To be precise, one thousand and fifty-two. And it’s got unbelievable thrust considering the cc. Lips says hi and he’ll throttle you if you ride it like a maiden aunt.’

  ‘Tell him that won’t happen.’

  The red van they had seen earlier passes by slowly, only one school leaver visible inside, and that is the driver. On the cab of the superannuated Transit the driver has put an orange roadwork sign, which says in black letters: Plantation Work In Progress.’

  ‘Cool,’ Beach Boy says.

  The Transit disappears around the bend northwards.

  ‘I don’t like that red van,’ Kykke says. ‘Anyone would think they were spying on us.’

  Beach Boy says it would be unusual for a cop to dress up in red as a nineteen-year-old school leaver, drive around in a red van, booze and make out with the girls. Kykke is forced to agree, but he tells the lad not to chat with the driver if he comes back and stops.

  ‘You’ll have to jump off now,’ Kykke says. ‘I’ll go for a trial run and test the brakes. Think they’re a bit tight.’

  ‘Your helmet,’ Beach Boy says, going over to Kykke’s bike and fetching the helmet from the seat.

  ‘Just going down to Joker’s in Folkestad. Don’t need it for such a short trip.’

  ‘What about the police?’

  ‘In their hammocks cooling down in this heat,’ Kykke says, putting his leather top back on and wrapping a scarf round his neck.

  ‘I fancy an ice lolly. Do you want one?’

  ‘Please,’ Beach Boy answers. ‘Will you get me Moss Avis as well?’

  ‘I reckon you’ve got more than enough newspapers,’ Kykke says, pointing to the wad sticking up from his coat pocket and the Verdens Gang on the ground.

  He starts the engine, revs up with a roar, lets the throttle go and does a speedway turn on the gravel, straightens and heads for the road on the rear wheel.

  ‘Neat,’ says Beach Boy.

  He strolls into the concrete building. Switches on the light inside. Nothing happens. The tight-arse bosses at the council have probably cut the Seven Samurai off with another of their dirty tricks to get rid of the bikers in The Middle of Nowhere. His eyes slowly accustom themselves to the darkness.

  The room seems empty compared to how it was when he was last here, in January. There is a boat on trestles, a plastic dinghy with a weak six-horsepower outboard motor at the rear. He hasn’t seen that before. A lot of what he was used to seeing has gone: all the club’s tools, the lathe, the drill stand. Kykke’s blue toolbox is on the work bench. The camp bed where Kykke usually sleeps has been moved to the corner, with a sleeping bag on top.

  Beach Boy opens the fridge beside the bed. It stinks of mould. He finds an unopened bottle of Farris. The lid is difficult to get off, but he manages and takes a drink.

  With the curiosity of a thief he opens the big toolbox which Kykke brought back with him from the oil rig when the bastards on the North Sea Star gave him the boot.

  If he has the Ninja all summer he will need to borrow some of Kykke’s tools, and he has plenty of them. All of them top quality: Bahco. At the bottom of the box there is a big, military-green egg in a nest of oil-stained rags.

  Beach Boy carefully lifts out the hand grenade and wipes an oil stain on his trousers.

  ‘Cool,’ he says, ‘that Kykke’s taking good care of the souvenir I gave him from Våler Forest.’

  It is a Mills grenade which he found when he and Jens Petter broke into an overgrown bunker by Kasper’s land one summer night eternities ago. They discovered that these small steel pineapples from the Second World War still had a bang in them when they tried a couple. They went off like bazooka shells and splinters whizzed through the scrub like a swarm of angry bees.

  He hears Kykke turning into the drive, packs the hand grenade away and pats the cotton and rags round it. Wondering what Kykke actually wants with a live grenade in his toolbox. But, as he said before, it is a hard world out there.

  ‘Crap shop,’ Kykke says, sitting on the Ninja. ‘They didn’t have the new Manchester United lolly at Joker’s. Can you nip down to the kiosk at the Skjellfoss crossroads and buy a couple?’

  ‘Of course,’ Beach Boy answers. ‘But I’m a bit hard-up.’

  ‘You’ll get some start-up capital from the club, Beach Boy,’ Kykke says, fishing out a note from his wallet. ‘All I’ve got is a grumpy Sigrid Unset, but she’ll do for a couple of lollies, a full tank and a bit more.’

  He gives Beach Boy the silver-glinting five hundred-kroner note.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Beach Boy stammers.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Kykke answers. ‘Thought we should take care of you when you came out.’

  He scratches his beard furiously and starts describing in great detail the big patches of snow on the slalom piste in Middagskollen and how this is a sign of the speed with which summer came.

  ‘Right, I’m off,’ Beach Boy says.

  ‘I’ll just adjust the brakes first,’ Kykke says. ‘They were even tighter than I thought.’

  ‘It’s very dark in the workshop.’

  ‘Trust me. I can fix brakes blindfold. Even if I was blind in both eyes,’ Kykke says, pointing to the eye covered by the black patch. ‘You’re probably wondering why the room looks so bare. We had to sell a number of items to pay the electricity bill and all the other council charges. As far as that goes, we could have used your million.’

  He laughs and says the club will soon be back in operation. Beach Boy laughs too, but has to raise a finger to his eye and wipe something away.

  ‘Don’t be sad because of the council,’ Kykke says.

  ‘Everything’s so bloody unfair. Why do we never get a real chance in life?’

  ‘We will, we will.’

  ‘There are just limits and restrictions everywhere.’

  ‘Break them then,’ Kykke says. ‘Fuck them. You’ve been brainwashed by the prison welfare officer and have learned fine words, which actually only put a damper on your mood and sense of freedom.’

  ‘I haven’t been indoctrinated, if that’s what you think,’ Beach Boy replies. ‘We had what are called constructive discussions.’

  ‘Fair enough. That’s what they pay the jug shrink to tell you. But when it comes to the crunch Zen has got more to it than all that psycho-babble people are so free with. With Zen and Greek mythology you can go from here to eternity, and a good bit further.’

  ‘I’d like to learn more about them.’

  ‘Here’s Lesson Number 1,’ Kykke says. ‘Paradise is wherever you are now. The instant you flick your fingers or race along the road to Lofoten you’re in the only place that can be called heaven.’

  ‘It was Lofoten where you lost your eye, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ Kykke answers. ‘It was on a trip to Czechoslovakia. We didn’t know that Hells Angels ruled the roost in the country pub where we went. I had a smashed glass thrust into my face. That was a kind of eternity moment. You think you’re gonna snuff it, it hurts like hell. But you get through it, into something new and better.’

  ‘Jesus. Hells Angels,’ Beach Boy says.

  Kykke rolls the bike through the doorway and stands it against the work bench.

  ‘You know I don’t like having someone looking over my shoulder when I’m busy,’ he says, and goes in search of a chilled Carlsberg in the cooler bag on Brontes. ‘Sit in the sun and drink, but no more than half.’
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br />   Beach Boy listens to Kykke cursing and banging in the dark. He has enough flakes of tobacco in a little plastic pouch to roll himself a thin joint. He lights it and knocks back the beer in quick swigs.

  A car coming from the south at great speed brakes and turns into the gravel drive, sending up clouds of dust. The car is a type Beach Boy has seen only in advertisements before: the latest Opel sports car, a shiny aluminium Speedster with the hood down in the sunny weather, two occupants – no room for any more – and German plates, easily recognisable by the four letters and EU logo. The woman in the passenger seat is wearing a scarf, as women do in convertibles. She opens her mouth and Norwegian, not German, comes out.

  She asks for directions to Bærøe Farm.

  Beach Boy says to drive north through the Våler bend, on to the straight and then take a right at the Skjellfoss crossroads. Then follow the signs on the gravel roads.

  ‘But you can’t drive right up to the farm,’ he says. ‘When you come to Lake Bærøe there’s a sign that says “Trespassers Forbidden”. They’re pretty strict about that.’

  ‘We’ve been invited to Bærøe,’ the woman says in a saccharine tone.

  ‘Can imagine,’ Beach Boy says. ‘Please pass on my regards to the farm-owner. He’s the richest man in Østfold.’

  The Speedster drives away. Beach Boy considers one finger is too little and gives them the full fist. He hides the empty beer can under the bench.

  Kykke comes out, pushing the Ninja, with his toolbox on the seat. He straps the box to the back of Brontes.

  He must have heard the car, must be able to see the beer can has gone and can perhaps smell the joint. But he says nothing.

  Beach Boy says that now the rich are taking over the best spots in the forests in Våler and Hobøl. The richest man in Østfold lives on Bærøe Farm. He’s renovated the whole farm. All the yellow farmhouses have been painted and ditto the red barn.

  Kykke answers, with weary intonation, that it is normal for rich people with yellow farmhouses and red barns to paint them, they can afford it.

  ‘You don’t understand what I mean,’ Beach Boy says. ‘I think there’s something wrong with society when we get only shit from the council for wanting to spruce up The Middle of Nowhere while a rich man gets the go-ahead to take over a farm estate as easy as wink. Even if he can’t comply with the requirement that he lives there and runs the farm and all that stuff. They’re pampered while we’re treated like pariahs, like beggars in India.’

  Kykke polishes the tank until something invisible disappears.

  ‘Now it’s gleaming like the Emperor of Japan’s jewels,’ Kykke says. ‘Fancy a ride?’

  ‘Just guess, man.’

  ‘Got instructions from Lips. You know how precise and finicky Lips is with everything and how hard he rides. He won’t be very pleased if he returns from the States and finds his superbike knackered. Have you ridden anything other than motocross bikes?’

  ‘Christ, yes,’ Beach Boy replies with a laugh.

  ‘Don’t give me that. You’re a motocross guy, we know that. When you came here and begged to become a member you were covered in mud. The biggest bike you’ve ridden is probably a Honda 350. The one that dickhead pal of yours, Jens Petter, had. And you rode it a bit last summer and autumn.’

  ‘OK, you’re right.’

  ‘Remember this Ninja is three times more powerful than the old Honda crap, and a lot heavier. Before I entrust you with such a monster for the summer I want to see you ride it properly round bends. When you’re back from the kiosk I’ll stand here and watch you coming like a bullet out of the bend and leaning over at an appropriate angle. Not like in a road-racing comp, but at an acute angle.’

  ‘I’ll be coming like a bullet all right,’ Beach Boy says.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Kykke answers, stroking his beard. ‘Don’t go all dreamy now. I can see you’re going to get carried away. Listen to the following precautions from someone who has ridden from here to Mars, and the stretch from here to the moon was bends: when you accelerate out of here take it easy. The first bend comes on you faster than you think. Take your foot off the gas. Don’t brake. Only boneheads brake into a bend. I never go into the Våler bend from the south at more than eighty. Lips thinks I’m a bloody wuss and I ride like an old codger. Lips takes it at a hundred. But I prefer to be safe and you should too. Especially when you’ve smoked a joint and drunk a beer. When you’re in the first gentle bend and have started to lean over you can brake, but easy, easy, easy.’

  ‘You should be a teacher,’ Beach Boy says. ‘Or perhaps, even better, a headmaster.’

  ‘In my next life I’m planning to be a shrink.’

  Beach Boy gets up on the Ninja. His smile has gone. He asks if the vehicle registration is all in order, and Kykke answers that they can check on his return.

  ‘It’s all yours, Beach Boy baby,’ Kykke says and pats him on the back.

  Beach Boy glances at the helmet on the seat of the Kawasaki.

  ‘You didn’t wear a helmet,’ he says, ‘on your little burn-up.’

  ‘Right,’ Kykke answers.

  There is a silence. It is broken only by the chirp of a blackbird in the trees across the road.

  ‘Well?’ Kykke says.

  ‘Dunno. I’ve kind of lost a bit of my zing.’

  Kykke brings his boots together and stands to attention.

  ‘Will Private Viirilä explain to the colonel what he means by his anarchistic statement?’ Kykke asks in a mock-fierce tone.

  Beach Boy laughs and replies: ‘Ha, ha, ha, ha… long live anarchy and blood-stained rags. May a storm arise and send socks skywards to dry on the polar star… heh heh heh.’

  ‘Good, Private Viirilä! The next time they make a film of The Unknown Soldier you should apply for a job.’

  ‘Does Colonel Karjula mean it is in order to make a better version than the one that became a cult hit in a certain Norwegian Bikers’ Club?’

  ‘Everything is possible, Viirilä. Fortune favours the brave. If Frederikstad-ers can become directors in Hollywood there’s hope for other bold Østfold-ers. Here come the tanks by the way. The Russians are coming. Bloody Finnish sheep! Stay in your posts! Don’t move. One step backwards and you will be shot!’

  Beach Boy hangs over the handlebars, convulsed: ‘Shit-hot, Colonel Karjula.’

  ‘I believe you said something about a bowel movement?’

  ‘Stop it before I piss my pants.’

  ‘Did you allude to micturating in your trousers?’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘You are not in a position to give me orders, Private Viirilä. This is your Colonel speaking. You stop it! Where are you going?’

  ‘To Lapland to fuck wolves,’ Beach Boy gasps.

  Kykke pauses for a dramatic effect, flings out his arms in resignation and shouts: ‘Right, I see, pampered Finnish soldier. The wolves here in Våler Forest aren’t good enough for you. You have to go all the way to Lapland to find a receptive vixen.’

  Beach Boy laughs out loud. But his eyes are suddenly vacant.

  ‘Not the forest, twat-face, the road,’ he mutters to himself, and then louder, as if in supplication: ‘Just do it!’ He twists the throttle and sends gravel flying, roars on to the road, on to dry tarmac. Leaving a smell of burnt rubber. The wind catches his baggy trousers. He accelerates like a rocket, like a Nike off the launch pad. The engine whines like a tormented animal. Beach Boy must have been doing more than a hundred as he comes into the bend.

  The roar falls silent somewhere, invisible to Kykke, in the gentle left bend. Again there is a silence. Kykke thought he heard the sound of metal on tarmac, of branches cracking.

  He observes a tremor in his hands as he packs the boy’s reefer jacket and the extra helmet and straps both on to the Kawasaki. The CD player and the Dictaphone he puts in the side pannie
r. He starts up and lets a post office van pass before turning on to the R120 northwards.

  ‘Adios amigo,’ he whispers. ‘Adios The Middle of Nowhere.’

  He snakes into the bend, glances to the right, stops, sees cracked branches glistening white like skeleton bones, and deep into the scrub a wheel spinning slowly, the spokes glittering. Even further in: a doll-like figure with spiky yellow hair on a blood-stained head. The body plastered to a tree. Arms and legs pointing in every conceivable and inconceivable direction.

  Kykke, a lump in his throat, tells himself there is no point going to check. Carries on, taking it calmly. Meanders peacefully through the villages in Hobøl municipality.

  At the Elvestad crossroads he sees a police car with a blue light coming from the Askim area and indicating to turn right on to the main road towards Våler and Moss. At the Shell station is the red Transit with the plantation sign.

  Kykke swings right on to the E18. Goes through Elvestad, fucking Riverton in Beach Boy’s translation. He always used to give Norwegian towns English names. A dump like Kroer became Pubs and Skotbu Shothouse.

  He shifts up a gear. But adheres to the speed limit more or less. Daft to get stopped now.

  The boy was out of his mind. May peace be with him.

  In the middle of Fossum Bridge Kykke stops, loosens the bundle of clothes and drops the boy’s reefer jacket over the railing. He watches it hit the springtide’s brown waters of the Glomma.

  ‘Vaya con dios.’

  The water looks repugnant. Filthy.

  He stops at the snack bar east of the bridge. Takes the phone from the tank bag and taps in Borken’s number. Borken answers at once.

  ‘Just to let you know the song bird has stopped twittering,’ Kykke says. ‘Crash-landed. Wings clipped.’

  Borken says ‘We’re grateful for that’ and switches off.

  Kykke wanders behind the snack bar and throws up.

  He buys a bottle of Farris to rinse his mouth. Goes into the toilet and washes the oil off his hands. Removes the patch from his right eye and massages his eyelid with a wet paper towel. He has to cover five hundred kilometres and will need both of them.