The Whisperer

by Karin Fossum

  ‘A small animal, maybe,’ her father had replied.

  ‘Oh!’ she had exclaimed. ‘Can I choose which animal?’

  ‘I’m sure you can,’ he had said.

  She had squeezed his hand and said that she hoped she would be a small squirrel, and he said that he could picture that squirrel perfectly. Quick and bright, with a shiny coat, just like her. He winked at her, and she asked if it took a long time to change shape, and come back again. Oh yes, he thought, it took a long time. It takes a thousand years. But the trees will still be here, so you can play in them and hunt for nuts.

  ‘And what about you, Daddy?’ she had asked. ‘What do you want to be when you come back?’

  ‘I want to be your father all over again,’ he had replied. ‘I want to be your father until the end of the world.’

  ‘Father to a small squirrel?’

  ‘I can carry you in my inner pocket,’ he had said. ‘The pocket here, closest to my heart.’

  Since then, she had never feared death.

  She opened the fridge and looked in to see if there was anything she could eat or make quickly, but there was not much there. She took out a packet of salami and ate a few slices, which of course made her thirsty. She did not have any more Uludag Frutti, just a bottle of juice that was mouldy. She could not understand why her fridge was so empty. She went over to the sink and drank some water straight from the tap, even though her mother had often told her when she was a little girl that she risked getting a tape worm that could grow up to several metres long in her tummy and steal any food that she ate, so she would be thin as a rake. And I always have been, she thought suddenly, so the worm has always been there. Once she was back in front of the wood burner, she thought she could feel something wriggling inside her, demanding space, it twisted and turned like a metre-long piece of spaghetti. But she had worse things to deal with now than a worm in her stomach.

  She went out several times to collect wood. In and out in nothing but her nightgown, in the end she could not even be bothered to put on her boots. It was actually all right to walk barefoot in the snow, she had never done it before. She spent some time and a good deal of care piling the logs up on the floor, it might be a while before anyone came to her assistance. She would rather not have to go out and get wood in the dark, so she stockpiled enough now to last her until morning. Every so often she glanced at the TV, which was still on. She reckoned that sooner or later the Agent’s face would look at her from the screen, because he had been reported missing, or, even worse, her own face would appear. No, how on earth would that happen, no one other than Walther had any photographs of her. But she had to follow what was happening, she had to be prepared. She kept the fire going in the burner until the glass was black with soot and she could barely see the flames, only a few glowing points in the depths of the burner. She needed to rest again. She turned down the volume on the television and curled up on the sofa, pulled a blanket over her, and listened out for footsteps and voices, or cars pulling up outside and doors slamming. Looked up at the UFOs’ red flashing eyes.

  The fire had died down a long time ago, and there were only a few embers glowing in the blackened logs. She saw the Agent’s magazines scattered on the floor, they would burn well. So she got down on her knees in front of the burner and tore off the pages one by one, and watched the young orange thief being eaten by flames. The boy’s body curled up as it would in a crematorium oven. As she sat there staring into the flames, she realised that it would probably be a long time before she had the opportunity to visit her parents’ grave again. She had always enjoyed going there, and no one could say it was not well looked after. Which would not be the case with her own, when the time came, and that might be soon. But it was Sunday, she remembered. No shops would be open so she could not buy flowers or candles, and she could not go to the grave empty-handed, in the same way that one does not go to a party without a gift. She closed the door to the wood burner, steeled herself and ventured out into the kitchen to see if she had anything suitable. She avoided looking at the Agent. She might have something she could give them that would look nice on the white snow. She rummaged through the drawers and cupboards. She found the twisted advent candles that she had not used yet, but they would blow out straight away. Eventually she found a packet of serviettes that were cream-coloured, with pink roses and green spiky leaves. They were exceptionally beautiful, she thought. She popped them into her handbag. Then she put her coat on over her nightgown, found some gloves and pulled on a pair of wellies that were standing in the hall. They were not warm, but they were closest to hand.

  When she opened the door she discovered it was dark outside. Perhaps she would need a torch, but then she remembered all the spotlights in the graveyard, and one of them was not far from her parents’ grave. She did not bother to lock the door, did not know whether it was evening or night, as she had not bothered to look at the clock. But there were still lights on in Olaf’s house. As soon as she was out on the road, she realised how slippery the boots were and how cold it was. She was not wearing tights and her coat was short, so her legs were bare. Struggling to stay on her feet – as there was ice everywhere and the gritters had obviously not been out – she looked to the right and the left, then crossed the street. She walked quickly past the closed shop and remembered once again that it was Sunday, so there were not many buses. She never took the bus on a Sunday, but guessed there was only one an hour, or two if she was lucky, and she was never lucky. She waited and listened. The bus had a special drone that she would hear long before it appeared. She kept looking in the opposite direction, where she knew the police would come from when they got the message. But she saw no blue lights. She tried to curl her toes in the wellies, stamped up and down on the icy road, to keep the blood circulating in her body. Olaf’s house looked so warm and inviting. She could clearly picture Dolly, curled up in front of the fire. After a long wait, the bus came rumbling up Kirkelina, it was almost empty and she slipped into her usual seat. When the bus passed her house, she looked up at the light in the windows and found it hard to believe that it could look like such an ordinary house. No one knew anything about the Agent under the green tarpaulin, all they would see was the light, which they might associate with warmth. She opened her handbag and took out the packet of serviettes and admired them through the plastic. Her mother had taught her numerous ways to fold a serviette, she could make a fan or a rose, a bow or a heart, a lily or a pyramid. But she noticed these were three-ply and soft. The more expensive the serviettes were, the harder they were to fold.

  Her cheek against the window, her bag in her lap. No flashing blue lights coming towards them, and she could hear no sirens. She looked up at the black sky over the town. They all believed that it stretched on for eternity, whereas in reality, the atmosphere was as thin as a bride’s veil and the sky stopped just beyond the tallest skyscraper, or after twenty minutes in a rocket. Twenty minutes, she thought, and then nothing. Beyond was just dark and cold, and beneath the veil, tiny people lived inside a glass cloche.

  She slipped several times on the narrow path up to the church. The ice lay like a clear film on the paving stones and she moved as carefully as she could, bent over like an old lady. The boots were too big because she had no tights on, and the soles, although ridged, did not provide much grip. She turned to the left by the entrance and followed a well-trodden path round to the back of the church. When she saw her parents’ grave up against the wall, illuminated by the nearby spotlight, the sorrow sank through her like a heavy stone. It weighed her down. The feeling of loss was more acute than ever. Here they lay, as close together in death as they had been in life, but it was only she who thought of them, only she who offered kind thoughts. If I was God, she thought, I would breathe life into them again. But there was no God, not up there, nor down here. She fell to her knees, no longer cared about the cold, the snow on her bare skin was nothing. She glanced quickly over her shoulder to see if anyone else was around, but there
was no one there that cold Sunday evening, she was alone with the dead.

  She opened the packet of serviettes, felt the soft paper, and considered her options. What could she make with these? She ran quickly through the steps that she had learned as a girl, and then started to fold a swan with beautiful tail feathers. She had not forgotten how to do it, the folds were in her fingers. Despite the soft paper, the magnificent bird with its long neck stayed upright. She folded another one, identical to the first. Put them down in front of the gravestone, facing each other like two lovers, because they had loved each other, for better and for worse, though often it had been for worse. No, not worse, it had just been difficult. What is it about us? She felt miserable. Why can’t we cope? What is the point of that? She kneeled in the snow for a long time looking at the swans, they were proud and beautiful, just like her parents. The wind would catch them soon, and the snow, maybe even the same night. They would be blown away and chased from grave to grave until one of the workers noticed them and picked them up because he thought they were rubbish, just some wet paper, not a declaration of love. She stayed there for a long time. She burned the image into her mind, until she was sure she could recall it whenever she needed it.

  By then she was stiff and cold. She managed to stand up and was about to leave when a gust of wind raced through the graveyard, lifting up one of the swans. It flew a couple of metres and she ran after it, but just as she was about pick it up, there was another gust of wind, which was stronger than the first. She felt desperate as she watched the bird disappear between the gravestones, into the dark where there was no spotlight. She went over to look. She checked behind each grave, went to the right, then the left, further and further into the graveyard. It could not just disappear like that! She continued to search, walked in the other direction, towards the front of the church, even though that was not the way the bird had flown. No one saw her as she wandered around bare-legged, no one would understand her desperation, it was just a serviette. Then she suddenly found it, it had settled next to one of the rubbish bins by the wall. Relieved, she took it back and placed it in front of the grave again, listened to the wind, which had dropped. When she came out onto the slippery path down to the square, she lost her balance and fell forward, and her right knee hit the paving with force. Tears sprang to her eyes as the pain shot to her head and she let out a despairing howl, which no one heard. For a moment she lay there and tried to move her leg. Maybe she had broken her kneecap, maybe she would never make it down to the square, and if she was not able to do that, she would freeze to death. No one would come to the church until morning. She scrabbled around for her bag, got hold of it and pulled it to her, then managed to get up, and gingerly put some weight on her right leg to see if it would hold her. It was extremely painful, but she hobbled slowly down towards the bus stop, dragging her leg behind her. All she wanted now was to get home and sit down in the chair in front of the stove. Maybe someone had been to her house and sorted everything out, given that the door was open. While she stood waiting, she put all her weight on the left leg. The injured one throbbed and ached intensely and she was afraid that she would not be able to get onto the bus as the steps were so steep. When it finally came and the doors slid open, she grabbed hold of the handrail and used all her strength to haul herself up. Once she was sitting in the warmth and light of the bus, she pulled up her coat to look at her knee. It was very red and much bigger than the left one.

  She was surprised when she opened the unlocked door and went into her house, limping in the heavy wellies. She thought it strange that no one had come, that she was back in the same incomprehensible situation. This was her own little world; the others were all elsewhere. But she was happy. She thought of the swans as good work. Her mother had taught her a lot about duty, dignity, patience and humility. Her father had taught her many other things, but his was a wisdom she could not put a name to. It was all about being in the moment, opening your senses. Taking each second as it comes, not fighting it. She was in the moment now. Her bare legs were blue with cold and her knee was red and swollen, but she was still in one piece. Her bones were rattling, she could hear that, but she managed to cross the room. There was not even an ember in the wood burner now, just soot on the glass. She stood in the kitchen doorway to check the tarpaulin. There was no noticeable change in the shape, but she thought that the fabric was vibrating with life. Perhaps the warmth in the Agent’s body had been transferred to the tarpaulin, where it had woken to life thousands of microorganisms. Maybe, given time, they would eat him up. In her mind, she set fire to it all. Bennet with his long nails and prophecies of death. It occurred to her that the tarpaulin might not burn as it was synthetic, and would probably just melt into his cheap suit, and deposit chemicals on his pale skin. They would have to bury him in it, a hard, synthetic shell that could not be removed.

  She put some wood in the burner. It was dark outside, and there was no traffic on the road. She thought about the night ahead, and the day that would follow, Monday. Because it was Monday tomorrow, wasn’t it, or had she got confused? She thought she had an early shift. Gunnhild would phone as soon as they opened, if she did not show up.

  I feel so heavy, Ragna thought, my joints feel loose, and my knee hurts. There’s a great stone inside me, I’m cold and I haven’t eaten and I don’t know why all this has happened. I just know that it started a long time ago. I can’t wander around in the aisles at Europris with the pricing machine in this state. It was not the bones in themselves, she realised, it was the ligaments that held them in place that were about to snap. I’ll come apart at the seams like a ragdoll. The fire was soon burning merrily and she felt warm and peaceful. She saw some white letters on the TV screen. She had forgotten to turn it off before she went out. There was no picture any more, just a message that appeared when the television had been left on for too long.

  NO SIGNAL.

  She turned it off, and then on again, and got the picture back. It was good to watch the news, to see how everyone else was living their lives. The seven billion people beneath the veil that she would soon be cut off from for a long time. From now on, she had to live each minute in her own head. As if she had not always done that anyway.

  She spent the night on the sofa. The pain in her knee kept her awake, but she was all right with that, she wanted to be awake when they came to the house. With the daylight came a message from Gunnhild, asking if everything was all right.

  Ragna thought about the Agent in the kitchen. She did not want Gunnhild to come to the house. Someone else had to come, a man, several men, people who would not lose their heads, who would act according to set procedures, who had been into similar kitchens before. She sent a message back to say that she had all she needed, that she just wanted to rest. But after a while she got up all the same, dragged her sore leg behind her. And sat down to wait. She had pulled the chair over to the window, so she could see them as soon as they came. Every now and then she cried a little when she thought about what lay ahead, all that she would have to explain, without a voice. At other times she was overwhelmed by exhaustion and dragged herself back to the sofa, and when it started to get dark, and still no one had come, she went to bed. She wanted it to be Tuesday, because she was sure they would come then. She ate nothing and drank nothing, she was so weak it was almost like being intoxicated. She rose and sank, hovered and floated, there was a rushing in her ears. She thought about the two serviette swans, saw them clearly in her mind’s eye and was glad that her brain had stored that important memory. She thought about the empty flat in Landsberger Allee, where Rikard Josef no longer lived. She thought about the young orange thief and the pictures of him she had burnt in the fire. Who was to blame for him stealing, was it anyone’s fault at all, and what was guilt, and what should one do with guilt, could it be washed away or forgiven, was it a coating that would always stick with her?

  After long periods of rest, she got up again and sat by the window, as patient as an old woman who had not
hing to wait for, other than death. There was a steady flow of traffic outside, but no one stopped by her house, only the Agent had stopped and he had not had good intentions. All her life she had watched the world through this window. When she was little, she had had to stand on a stool to see out, but the picture was always the same. Only the colours were different. The street light was still on, so her helpers would be able to find their way to her house. What is the first thing you remember? they would ask. Daddy, she would say. He saw me clearly. He saw everyone else as well, the vultures. The predators. Daddy was always frightened. He died from it, he died from fright. I’m going to die from fright too, and that’s fine, because then I’ll end up in Daddy’s inner pocket, the one next to his heart, and that’s where I want to be. And your mother, do you remember her? She always got up early, long before the rest of us, she had to be ready. Each morning she put up her long hair, she dressed nicely every day, there were so many authorities to deal with. They all came to our door and confronted her with everything we were unable to do, everything we struggled with. Our duties, tax, the bills, which were not always paid. Rikard Josef and his upbringing, Daddy’s illness. They were constantly coming to get Daddy, they took him away without a word. He was not big and strong, he was thin as a fencepost. He did not eat much, there were more important things to do in life. Why did they come to get him? her helpers would ask. Because he knew so much, he had his own vision, an intuitive understanding that the rest of us shut down, because we cannot take it all in – we have to lie, to ourselves and to others, to adapt and survive; the space we operate in cannot be too big and bright, because then we lose control. But Daddy went out and was open to it all – that was why they came to get him. All they could see was a madman wandering out into the road to stop the traffic.

  It was me who found him, she would say. He had hanged himself sitting down, from one of the handles on the cupboard door, all he was wearing was a pair of old underpants. His legs were as black as ink, the blood had sunk and gathered at the bottom. He sat stooped with his chin on his chest, it looked like he was praying, but I know that he didn’t pray. What did you think? they would ask. That he was right. That we were all frightened, deep down, of life, that is. Of every day. Just not the last day, not for what would come after it.