“And maybe you want to flirt with a girl in a bar, buy her a few drinks, and go home to Elsa. In which case, my bad. And I will walk over there and tell Nina that, and maybe she will come back and you can buy her some drinks. But Cal, man, you have needs an actual fuck cut into the lines in your face.”
“What are you saying?”
“Oh come on,” he said. “I saw the way you leapt away from her when her leg brushed yours. You yelped.”
“I did not yelp.”
“You yelped. What’s that, if not a guilty conscience?”
“Tell Elsa, from me, that I don’t fuck other women.”
He laughed, shook his head.
“What’s funny?”
“Just . . . Elsa’s pretty much erased me from her life.”
“I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”
His eyes searched mine. He looked away. “Maybe you can understand that I worry about you guys.”
“Do you think she’s faithful to me?”
He took a long slug of his pint. He put the glass carefully down on the table. “Cal, mate, no one comes easily through losing a child.”
“So that’s a no?”
He ignored me and carried on. “People become strangers in their own home and they fuck other, easier strangers in bars.” He took another long swig. “But I really don’t think that’s Elsa. She’s completely devoted to you.”
“I always thought that.”
“So what’s changed? Have you and Elsa stopped having sex?”
“Well, I can’t speak for my wife . . .”
Jo was looking out at the snow, orange in the light of the streetlamp. “I’m not an audience. Don’t turn this into a joke.”
“I don’t seek an audience.”
He was right, though. He was my closest friend here; he had known Elsa since they were children. I wanted to tell him that our marriage was eroding, that I had lost a daughter and now I was losing my wife. But Jo was Elsa’s friend before he was mine, so instead I said, “You were about to tell me about Edvard.”
“Okay. Let’s do me instead.” He made a bridge of his hands, fingertips pressed together. “I am coming to the conclusion that the man I love actually hates me.”
I laughed.
Jo stared at me for a moment. The look in his eyes told me he was serious. “Since Garden Island, Edvard works stupid hours, and last Friday he called me and asked if I could bring his uniform and his shaving kit to him on my way to work, because he’d been up all night and had to be at a press conference. And I was running late, but I said sure. And then my train was delayed, and I didn’t think . . .” He was looking down at his feet, shaking his head. “And you’re going to find this ridiculous, Cal, because it is utterly ridiculous, but I left the uniform in his rucksack behind the counter at the café opposite the station, because I’ve done it a million times. But that was before Garden Island. Everything’s changed now, hasn’t it?”
I thought of the Andersen brothers in their police uniforms, the badges torn by briars. “Yes,” I said. “I guess it has.”
“And when Edvard got there it was gone. On the CCTV there’s this little wiry kid hanging about, but you don’t see him take it, and the staff remembered nothing. And it’s probably not terrorists and it’s probably just a kid being a kid. But it doesn’t matter how many times I try to speak to Edvard’s boss, because she really doesn’t care that it’s my fault and not Edvard’s. Edvard is responsible for his own uniform. And Edvard hates me. I mean, he tries not to, I know, but he does. I humiliated him. I put him under suspicion.”
“Did you get it back?”
“No. And you can’t talk about this.”
“I can see that.”
“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.” He laughed bitterly. “Was. Now he turns away when I kiss him.”
I said, “I’m sorry, mate.”
“I am so fucking stupid. Because I know the uses a police uniform can be put to . . .”
Twenty-One
At half past eight the streetlights in Oslo would go out, all at once. Sunrise was officially at nine, though we rarely saw the actual sun. The filtered daylight felt like a mistake, an unintended interruption to the unending dark.
Elsa and I settled into our new reality as parents of a missing child. We grew used to television cameras and microphones, to stares in the street and to journalists who could not quite meet our gaze. We dressed like concerned parents in respectful, conservative clothes. I took to wearing dark suits; Elsa to high-buttoned blouses and long-flowing skirts.
We read prepared statements to the press, which we agreed in advance with Tvist:
If you have any information, anything at all . . .
We miss you, Licia.
Please come home . . .
We were kind to each other inside the home, made a point of holding hands and kissing in front of the children. To look at us you would think we were getting by. But Jo was right to be concerned. It was February. The truth was that in eight months Elsa and I had not fucked once. And the lie she had told about her therapist: I could not let go of that.
Later that month I lost my column in the Beltway Times.
“Your writing’s gotten serious, Cal,” my editor said. “This is a satirical column.”
“Satire’s purpose is serious, Gina.”
“And your writing always had a point behind the laughs. But white supremacist murderers? Every week? Do you want to be on these guys’ radar?”
“Isn’t that my risk to take?”
“Plus our readers need some actual laughter . . .”
The argument was lost. I could come back, she said, when I was ready. But I knew that—in the kindest, nicest way—she was firing me.
Now I was adrift in this country and it frightened me. I knew I should tell Elsa about my column, that by not sharing the truth I was failing her, but I was ashamed at my own lack of resilience. I was afraid that the winter would finish us as a family. I knew that it must not.
I learned everything about the murders on Garden Island. I memorized the coroner’s report, learned the Norwegian terms for hollow point and jacketed, for bone fracture and lung collapse. I forced myself word for word through the articles that detailed the time and the manner of every death. Hard to explain, but knowledge kept at bay the fear that threatened to enfold and engulf me. It kept Licia alive in my mind.
We had to survive the next few months. The trial date was set for June.
We hunkered down. We coped, though how Elsa managed I was not sure. She floated around the apartment like a heroine in an Ibsen play, all buttoned-up blouses and long flowing skirts.
At night I would hear Elsa in the bathroom. She would turn on all the taps, stand naked under the shower screaming her fury and her frustration at the cruelties fate had dealt us. When I met neighbors on the stairs I would see in their faces that they heard her too. Perhaps she thought the water disguised her screams.
I took to going for walks. Occasionally I would catch sight of Elsa in a grocery store, talking easily with the staff, or see her laughing happily with people I did not know as she waited for the train into town. I would marvel then at how easily she fit into this place, while I stood on the periphery, watching. How easily a person might think my wife was happy, when I knew for certain she was not.
One afternoon I found myself at the coffee bar in the mall. I stood by the thick plate glass, scanned the interior. Baskets of bread hung from a heavy wire, slowly making their way down from the bakery to the walnut-topped counter. There were candles; there were tablecloths; there was raw blackberry jam. All very clean, very hygge.
Bored-looking women in slack suits drank fruit drinks through steel drinking straws, their lips plumped with collagen. One of those moments when you could imagine everybody who lived in this country was tall and white and blond. Every tooth was straightened, every blemish removed, every strand of hair professionally lightened. And there was Elsa, alone at a table, listlessly rea
ding Posten.
Elsa reached for her coffee, took a slug, winced at the taste. A strange erotic thrill, watching my wife, unseen. So beautiful, as she sat there, radiating don’t-come-near. So unlike these other women, with their puffed lips and their smoothed cheeks, their foreheads stiff with botulinum.
Where was Franklin? I looked about me, at the strollers lined up outside the door, their wheels resting in loose slush. In a stroller very like ours, a child swaddled very like ours reached out a fist and beat at the air. I leaned toward him, ready to lift him and carry him into the café’s warm air, but it was not Franklin. I turned. Elsa was looking down now, speaking softly. She had Franklin at her side, I guessed, just out of sight.
I began to lean my weight against the door. I paused.
That man at the next table, staring at Elsa. His entire being was directed at my wife. I took a step into the shadows, amused. How could he be so obvious? For a time, Elsa did not seem to notice him. Then she looked up, met his gaze, dismissed him with a half smile.
I smiled too. Not a chance, friend.
Elsa turned the page of the newspaper. But something had caught her off balance. She took a sip of her coffee, and this time—I could see it—she forced herself not to wince at the flavor. Every time she looked up, there was the man, all eyes. His hair was disheveled, his movements staccato, but his clothes were clean and his trousers pressed.
The man leaned across, rapped twice on Elsa’s table. I noticed his shoes now, leather-soled, highly polished, not a salt mark to be seen. He spoke a word that looked like Hello.
Elsa looked up. This time she did not smile. The man spoke again. His fingers hovered by the pocket of his jeans, then by his breast pocket. Elsa’s brow knotted in annoyance. From beside her she picked up Franklin, asleep in his car seat, put him gently down on the table.
You see? I thought. My wife. My son.
Now the man was on his feet. As I watched, he walked to the end of the counter, where he stood by the coffee machine. He exchanged words with the girl behind the machine. The girl smiled.
Around me the babies slept peacefully in their strollers. Footsteps crunched heavily on gritted paths. Car wheels spun on ice. The man laughed gently with the girl behind the machine. In a concrete gym across the parking lot blonde women in leotards danced to a beat I could not hear. Soon they too would be making their way to the café, to detoxify their bodies with wheatgrass and ginger.
The man was walking toward Elsa carrying two cups of coffee. He slid one carefully to Elsa’s side of the table. Surely now she would ask him to let her be?
But no. She nodded politely. The man sat down at her table, his back to me.
I could end this. All I had to do was enter the café, approach Elsa, introduce myself to this man, and ask him his business. But I stayed in the shadows, watching as Elsa took Franklin’s seat from the table, placed it carefully at her feet.
The man was the first to leave. I hung back as he walked toward his car, shoulders hunched against the wind. A gray Volvo, rust-stained around the wheel arches. He got in, slammed the door shut. A line of wet snow fell from the roof on to the tarmac.
I took out my phone and wrote the plate number into it.
Dinner that evening was dominated by Franklin: he pushed food from his plate; he burbled; he dropped his spoon experimentally onto the floor and watched, fascinated, as Elsa picked it up. Every time. His eyes fizzed with delight.
Elsa was on her hands and knees, reaching under the table.
“Actions have consequences,” I said. “Maybe leave it there, love.”
Elsa got to her feet, passed the spoon to Franklin. “Don’t use the word love like that, Cal. Like it’s a control mechanism.”
“He’s right, though, Mum,” said Vee. “Why are you being Franklin’s bitch?”
“Vee,” I said, “don’t.”
“Or what? Mum will get worse? How could she actually be worse than she is right now?” She folded her arms, angry with us both.
Elsa sat in her place. “I guess we’re all a little on edge.” She reached out across the table, took my left hand. “Sorry, Cal.”
“Sorry, love.” I smiled a careful smile. “How was coffee at the mall today?”
“Good,” she said levelly. “Coffee at the mall was good.” But I could feel the racing of her mind. Had she told me she was having coffee? Had she told me she was going to the mall?
“Franklin sleep all the way through?”
Perhaps Elsa could hear the edge in my voice. She smiled as if puzzled.
“Yeah,” she said. “Franklin slept.”
“Good,” I said. “Sorry if I was sharp.”
We both turned to look at our daughter.
“What is this?” said Vee. “How come suddenly it’s the two of you united against me?”
“This isn’t about sides,” said Elsa. “But in the future please don’t use the word bitch in front of your brother.”
“Fine. Just—”
She was on her feet, heading from the room.
“Vee, would you please—”
“No.”
“—pick up your plate—”
The door swung shut behind her.
I sat staring at Elsa, waiting for her to speak, but she simply sat staring back.
“I wasn’t completely straight with you,” she said at last. “I’ve been feeling weird about that.” She smiled; her wolf eyes fixed on mine, gauging my reaction.
“I wasn’t straight with you either,” I said.
Franklin pushed his dish across the platform of the high chair, over the edge, and onto the floor, where it landed facedown. He sat staring down at it, transfixed. Elsa looked at him, then at me.
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “I know you met someone at the mall.”
She laughed. “You followed me?”
“Kind of by mistake.”
She turned, looked me very deliberately in the eye. “See, I’m pretty sure I saw you, lurking in the shadows outside.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.” She said it on the inhale.
I said, “Who was the man?”
She sat for a while, as if weighing her options. She gave a tiny grimace.
“Elsa?”
Then she looked me very directly in the eye with her blue-white wolf eyes. “Hedda thinks our policy of honesty doesn’t work in my favor.”
“What’s that even supposed to mean?”
But she simply sat there staring at me, refusing to answer my question.
I went out, angry and confused.
I walked into town along the freeway, hands freezing, shoes and trousers stained with salt.
What would Elsa have seen if she had been watching me? That I fell twice on the icy street. That I entered the bar self-conscious and covered in snow. That I sat, talking to a woman on a high stool.
“Where are you from?” the woman said.
“Here,” I said.
She looked at the stain where the snow had soaked into my jacket, amused. “No,” she said. “I really don’t think you are.”
A tall woman with elaborately pinned hair and a short skirt. She remembered me, she said, and I remembered her.
“Okay,” I said. “What was your name again?”
Nina. Her name was Nina. With her open face and her strong thighs.
We retreated to a booth in a dark corner. When I told Nina that I had no friends in this town she reached across and mussed my hair, and although that was a friendly gesture, I suppose it was open to misinterpretation. If my wife had been watching through the plate-glass window she would not have liked it.
Outside the bar, electric cars cut silent paths through the snow.
From the street perhaps it looked as if we were caressing each other’s hands, though, for all my longing, it was innocent and chaste. I did not once look at Nina’s thighs, despite the shortness of her skirt.
The truth is I wanted to talk to someone who didn’t have an opinion about m
e, who hadn’t seen me on television, and who didn’t know that I was the father of the missing girl. I wanted to flirt and laugh for an hour or two, and for it all to mean nothing. And Nina was kind and funny, and I told her at the start that I was married and loved my wife. And she admired my wedding ring and told me it was beautifully designed, and I in turn admired hers.
I wanted to tell Nina that the foundation of my marriage was honesty, and that something had begun to erode that. But even the thought felt like a betrayal.
At one I went home to my wife. My troubling wife, who met men I did not know in coffee shops in malls.
I lay down beside her. “Elsa,” I said. “I want to know the truth about that man.”
She muttered something I did not hear, turned on her side.
I lay staring at her back, angry at myself for wanting to hurt her.
When I was certain she was asleep I got up from the bed. I sat at the computer, typed the license plate into the register:
Pavel Lisowski
Thor’s Gate 41
Pavel, mate. What’s your interest in my wife?
What’s my wife’s interest in you?
Twenty-Two
The cafeteria at the hospital was almost empty of people. The walls were white-painted, the furniture ash. I hung by the door as Pavel Lisowski ordered coffee. He was wearing a gray-black coverall, carrying a leather satchel in his left hand and a tray in his right.
When he sat down I bought a machine cappuccino for myself, then approached his table.
I put my coffee on the table opposite him.
He studied my face. “Please sit.”
He was not surprised to see me, then.
I said, “Why did you contact my wife?”
“Your beautiful Elsa. Please. You have nothing to fear.” His smile was weary; there was a wounded sadness to it. I sat down.
He was staring at me again. “Elsa told you that she has met me?”
“She did not tell me that.”
Love and Other Lies Page 17
