Death By Water

by Damhaug, Torkil

  – Jomar, this is Catrine, and this is …

  He turned towards Liss. Took her hand. Surprised, she tried to withdraw it, but he kept hold. His eyes were quite slanted and in the light from the lamps on the wall looked greyish.

  – Jomar, he said.

  – Liss, she said as she managed to free her hand.

  His friend’s name was Didier and it turned out that he had just been bought from Cameroon. Suddenly they were aglow with an interest in football, Catrine and Therese. Both of them were suspiciously knowledgeable.

  – Lyn play with a flat four, Catrine volunteered.

  – A flat eleven, Jomar corrected her, translating for Didier, who burst out laughing.

  – Bright girl, he said, and patted her arm.

  – Bien sure, comme une vache, she answered with her most brilliant smile.

  Catrine’s grandmother was Belgian, and when her friend started speaking French it always sounded fluent to Liss. Didier was visibly impressed too and looked like being a pushover. On the other side of the table Therese had attached herself firmly to her fillet steak, describing an invisible but distinct chalk circle around him, territory she was prepared to defend with any and all means necessary. Liss was in the corner of the sofa, on the outside. That was where she wanted to be, partly present, mostly somewhere else.

  16

  JOMAR VINDHEIM’S BMW was parked right outside. He said he would drive; had hardly drunk anything, he assured them. Therese squeezed in beside him. Didier wedged himself into the middle of the back. Every so often he broke off from his conversation in French with Catrine to say something to Liss in Afro-English. He put an arm around each of them and smelled of a perfume Liss had never come across before. She liked the weight of his fist on her shoulder.

  They sped up Trondheims Way, across Carl Berners Place. Jomar was looking for an address in Sinsen. By the time they clambered out of the car, it had started to snow again. Heavy, ragged flakes that hit the ground and melted instantly. They could hear music from an open window. Liss still felt only slightly affected by the drinking.

  They ended up in a large flat on the fifth floor. The music was so loud she didn’t have to talk to anyone, could just glide from one room to the next, note the looks, some indifferent, some interested. Found a seat on a sofa in the darkest of the rooms. Sat and watched people dancing. Someone had a joint. It appeared between her fingers, sweet-smelling, and she took two deep drags before passing it on. It was stronger than usual, she realised at once that it would make her distant. Just then someone put on some rai music, at any rate the kind of stuff Zako used to listen to. His name flashed through her mind. Looking for a way into the locked room. The door behind which he still lay on his back on the sofa. But she didn’t open it, and was pulled on into the music, as thick as cannabis oil. She glanced at Catrine, who had manoeuvred Didier into a corner of the room. Her evening is saved, she thought, closing her eyes and drifting deeper into the music. Shook her head when someone asked her to dance.

  – I won’t take no for an answer, he said.

  Liss opened her eyes. Jomar Vindheim squatted down beside her.

  – I want to dance. With you.

  Again she shook her head. But when he took her by the arm and pulled her up, she didn’t protest. Looked round for Therese but didn’t see her.

  He wasn’t all over her. Led a touch unrhythmically, but she couldn’t be bothered to make things more difficult for him. The room was filled with the voice of the Arabic rai singer; it was slow and heavy with scents. She was in a garden with hanging flowers, a place where no one could reach her.

  – Therese sent me a text before I met you at Mono. Said you were the sister of that …

  She half turned, signalling to him that she didn’t want to talk about it. He laid his hand on her bare shoulder, one finger gliding along her hairline.

  – I must see you again, he said.

  – I like Therese, she replied.

  – Me too. But I must see you again.

  And then Therese was there, Liss pulled herself free and swayed back towards the sofa. There she sank back into the garden she had made. Through avenues of jasmine and poppies she peered out at the dancers. Catrine was now wearing a red Santa hat with a flashing light on the tassel. She was draped round Didier’s neck. His hands had a firm hold around her trim buttocks. A little further away, Therese stood on tiptoes and kissed her fillet steak on the cheek. He looked away. Liss met his gaze and again shook her head.

  After leaving the toilet, she wandered into the inner bedroom. Had an idea what was going on in there. All the traffic traipsing in and out. A guy in a denim jacket, without a hair on his head, sat over a glass table and scattered snow across it.

  – First round is on the house, he yawned.

  He made three lines. A boy who had been sitting beside Liss on the sofa and had given up trying to pick her up took out a brass pipe, snorted a line and handed it to her; he didn’t look a day over seventeen. She bent forward, sniffed it up. She felt it burn from the bridge of her nose all the way to the top of her head. An instant of intense pleasure. An image of the cabin appeared. Lie in the snow among the trees on the marsh, looking up into the black sky.

  – I’ll go back there tomorrow, she said aloud.

  The boy leaned towards her. He was wearing tight-fitting yellow trousers that made her think of portraits of Renaissance princes. But he has no codpiece, she thought, and it made her laugh.

  – Back where? he wanted to know.

  – Never mind, she said.

  – Neverland?

  She nodded.

  – You’re cool. I like you. He put his arm around her, ran a finger down into her neckline. She twisted away, smacked him across the head with a bright smile, glided out into the corridor, headed for the living room, stopped in the doorway.

  The guy who had laid the lines out on the glass table emerged into the hallway behind her. Opened the front door. A man with curly black hair stood there wearing a reefer jacket. She recognised him at once. He had been at Mailin’s office that day, torn a page out of her appointments book. Just then Jomar appeared and said something to him.

  – That’s none of your fucking business, the guy in the reefer jacket growled, and pushed a bag into the dealer’s hand. In return he received an envelope, checked the contents and disappeared again.

  Liss slipped out of the front door, the guy in the reefer jacket was already on the next landing down.

  – Hey, she shouted.

  He didn’t answer, carried on down. She ran after him, caught up with him just by the street door.

  – I’m talking to you, she said, feeling stronger than ever.

  The guy turned towards her with that same evasive look she had seen in the office.

  – What’s the idea, following me about?

  – You know exactly what I mean, she hissed.

  He tried to get out the door, she grabbed hold of his arm.

  – You were at Mailin’s office that day.

  – Oh yeah?

  – You knew she wasn’t there, but still you went there poking about in her stuff.

  He glared at her. – You’ve had too much, bitch.

  – Why did you tear that page out of her appointments book?

  She felt an enormous rage, wanted to lay into him, hit him, bite his throat.

  – What’s your problem, he shouted, and pushed her against the wall. – Stay away from me, you fucking psycho.

  He took hold of her by the throat. She felt faint, the dizziness rising to her head; it could end here, like this … Far away, footsteps on the stairs, running down.

  She collapsed. Someone slapped her on the cheek. Repeated her name, over and over.

  She looked up into Jomar Vindheim’s face. His eyes were filled with anger.

  – Who the hell did this?

  – Never mind, she coughed. – It was my fault.

  She awoke to the smell of sweet water. Aftershave. She was in a man’s
house. Looked round. Alone in a large bed. Felt down. Clothes still on. The room was in darkness, but she could see a strip of light below the drawn blind.

  It wouldn’t be much fun trying to piece together what had happened before she ended up in this bed. She must try to keep to the main details. Not get sidetracked by all the fragmentary flashes of memory that came whirling by: in town with Catrine. Meeting Therese. Fillet steak and the African. The party at Sinsen. The guy who had been at Mailin’s office. She’d gone for him. The fillet steak, whose name was of all things Jomar, had carried her out to his car and put her in the back seat. When he pulled up outside Casualty, she sat up. Refused to go in. So instead he’d taken her back to his place. She hadn’t the strength to protest, but seemed to remember talking away as she lay in his car. About Mailin. About the cabin at Morr Water. About Amsterdam too, probably. Had she mentioned Zako? … She’d passed out as soon as they got into his flat. A recipe for idiocy. Three highs. End up at the home of some unknown male and in no condition to take care of herself … He hadn’t touched her, she could feel it. He had put her in this bed and gone off to sleep somewhere else.

  She got up quietly and came into a room. The TV clock said quarter to eight. One door led to the kitchen, another to a hallway. A third door was ajar. She could hear his deep, even breathing from inside.

  The cold hit her as she opened the front door. She was wearing only Mailin’s thinnest pullover, had left her jacket behind at the place where the party was. She backed inside again. Some outdoor clothing hanging on a stand. Leather Marlboro jacket like this guy Jomar had been strutting about in the night before, two heavy-weather jackets, some suit jackets and a snowsuit. She put on what looked like the older of the heavy-weather jackets. Checked the pockets, emptied out some chewing gum, a few receipts and a packet of condoms, put them on the table by the entrance. Opened the door again and slipped away down the steps.

  17

  Wednesday 24 December

  TORMOD DAHLSTRØM WAS still seeing a patient when she arrived. A woman, judging by the fur coat hanging just inside the door to the waiting room. Liss slumped down in the leather chair and began flipping through Vogue, couldn’t face reading it, not even looking at the pictures. The distant hum of voices could be heard from the office, broken by a long pause. Then a few sentences, then another pause. She picked up Dagbladet’s magazine section. Berger with his mouse’s teeth grinning out at her from the front page. She turned to the interview. He talked about his childhood. A father who was a pastor in the Pentecostal church. How glad he was to have grown up with this clear distinction of black and white, between what was Christ’s and what was the Devil’s.

  The office door opened, and a woman in a dark green outfit emerged. She was quite a bit older than Liss. She held a handkerchief to her nose and took no notice of her, so it was a few seconds before Liss realised that this was a woman who had featured on the front pages of the weeklies for years, even in Amsterdam. The woman unhooked her fur and trudged out without putting it on.

  Dahlstrøm appeared in the doorway.

  – I’d no idea you had patients on Christmas Eve. Sorry if I …

  – It’s fine, he assured her. – I’ve had a cancellation today. He added: – I’m glad to see you.

  To judge by his look, he was sincere, his tone of voice too. Liss looked for a chink in it, something that would reveal the false bottom, but didn’t spot one.

  – As for the woman you just saw leaving here … Dahlstrøm put a finger to his thin lips. – I’m counting on your discretion.

  – Of course, said Liss. – I won’t give another thought to all those thousands I could have got from Seen and Heard.

  – A thick wad, I’ve no doubt, he agreed as he held out a hand towards the even softer leather chair inside his office.

  – Are any more of your patients famous across the whole of Europe?

  – No comment.

  He smiled, and the deep-set eyes seemed to come a little closer. – Because I’ve written books and my ugly mug’s been on TV for years, a lot of celebrities think I’m in a particularly good position to understand their problems.

  His face grew serious again, and the eyes returned to the deep holes from which they looked out on to the world and didn’t miss a thing.

  – How is your mum bearing up?

  Liss shrugged her shoulders. – I haven’t been there for a few days.

  – You’re living with friends?

  – Sort of round and about.

  She was still high after last night’s adventures in town, he must have noticed, but he said nothing. She had a reason for coming here, something she wanted to talk to him about, but suddenly she couldn’t think of anything to say.

  – With each passing day we have to give up another fragment of the hope we’re clinging to, he said suddenly. – Not an hour passes without my thinking about Mailin. I feel sick, Liss, both mentally and physically. It is impossible to imagine that she won’t be back here again, knocking on the door … I always know when it’s her.

  Liss’s energy returned. – If Mailin disappears, then I disappear too, she said.

  Dahlstrøm sat up in his chair. – Disappear?

  She looked at the table, feeling the weight of his gaze.

  – Not literally. I didn’t mean it like that. But without her, I’ll become a different person.

  He seemed to be thinking this over. Then he said: – I think something is bothering you. Not just Mailin’s disappearance.

  She shrank. He noticed everything about her. Suddenly she felt naked. Yet it was still possible to talk to him. Start just where she was sitting. Continue to the party at Sinsen, the guy in the reefer jacket … There was something she had to remember, something she’d seen up in that flat. It slipped away and was gone in a welter of thoughts, everything that had happened since she came back, and before that, Bloemstraat, Zako dead on the sofa, the photo of Mailin … That time in Amsterdam was four years on the run, and before that, running from home, the commune in Schweigaards Street; before that again, living with Mother and Tage, and then the time before Mailin moved out, Mailin the good, Mailin whom Mother was so proud of, the bearer of all hopes, the one who was going to make something of herself. And before that, on the other side, where the memories refused to let her in … Liss, where do you come from?

  She pulled herself together, forced away the need to tell him all this.

  – I just have this feeling that I must look for Mailin, she said. – But there are no places to look … I’ve started writing things down.

  He looked at her with interest. – Like what?

  She hooked a lock of hair and twisted it round her finger. – Thoughts. And questions. What might have happened to her. Where she was when, who she met. Stuff like that.

  – What the police do, he commented.

  – Actually I’ve made notes of something I wanted to ask you about, she said. – About the people she works with down in Welhavens Street. Do you know them?

  – I know Torunn Gabrielsen.

  – Not Pål Øvreby?

  Dahlstrøm ran a hand across the light, downy hair still showing on his head. – I’ve met him a few times. A psychologist who uses unorthodox methods in treating his patients. Why do you ask?

  Liss didn’t know why. Probably because she wanted to hear something that would confirm what she herself thought about him.

  – Torunn Gabrielsen and he live together, don’t they? She seems jealous of the fact that Pål and Mailin were once a couple.

  – I wouldn’t know anything about that, said Dahlstrøm. – But I think Torunn Gabrielsen feels bitter towards Mailin for a quite different reason.

  He seemed to ponder this. – There’s a lot of gossip here, Liss. I don’t usually sit here chattering away about my colleagues, though this is a special situation … I mean, I’m refusing to accept that anyone might have harmed Mailin. That’s the very last possibility we want to entertain, isn’t it? When every other possibilit
y has been ruled out.

  Liss knew exactly what he meant.

  – Mailin and Torunn Gabrielsen sat on the editorial board of The Shoal. You’ve heard of that magazine?

  She’d looked through a few editions Mailin had sent her.

  – I’m sure you know that they also published a book together, he went on. – But at some point things went wrong. Mailin has been working with victims of abuse ever since she was a student. Her work is unusually good, it’s attracting a lot of attention.

  – About the child’s need for tenderness and the adult’s passion?

  Dahlstrøm leaned back in his chair on the other side of the low glass table.

  – Mailin is fascinated by a Hungarian psychoanalyst named Ferenczi. One of Freud’s closest associates, and yet still a controversial figure.

  Liss had seen several books by him in her sister’s office.

  – Ferenczi was convinced that the abuse of children took place on a large scale, and at all levels of society. Freud of course came to believe that most accounts of this were the result of the child’s subconscious and imagination.

  – But what is it about Mailin’s work that provokes the others at The Shoal? Liss interrupted.

  – Mailin is interested in the fact that victims who present in a particular way expose themselves to risk, Dahlstrøm replied. – She wants to show people, women and men, how to look after themselves better, given the world we actually live in. And she has written a lot about how some repeatedly end up in situations that result in them being subjected to abuse. The hidden damage done to them traps them in a recurring pattern of behaviour. Torunn and the others on the board seem to believe that an account like this takes the focus off the perpetrators of the abuse, even to the extent of accusing Mailin of legitimising attacks on women.

  He rubbed his finger over the slight hollow in the bridge of his nose. – A few months ago, Mailin wrote a response in Dagbladet. She criticised the others on the staff of The Shoal for avoiding any consideration of the behaviour of female victims, and in doing so denying them the chance of moving on. She was very crude, very direct, the way Mailin can be if she’s provoked.