Death By Water

by Damhaug, Torkil

  She rocked over on her side, got to her feet. The chair was still next to the kitchen cupboard. With one foot she managed to push it over towards the work surface, climbed up on to it. Wriggled upright back first. Turned so that the window latch caught under the handcuffs and then gave a jerk. The latch snapped off. She couldn’t reach as high as the upper latch with her hands. She stretched up, bit round it and snapped like a fish taking bait. Pulled it halfway open. Another bite and it was loose and she flipped it free with her tongue.

  The window was frozen. She pressed her full weight against it, but it didn’t move. She leaned back and butted as hard as she could and it flew open.

  She didn’t feel the coldness of the snow on her bare feet. Not the outhouse, Liss! You’ve got to take the other direction, away from the cabin. She ran from the veranda, part of the way down towards the lake, hid behind a tree, climbed again, up in the direction of the cliff, the wind blew the fresh snow away there, the hill would be firmer underfoot, if she could get up there, she could run. She dragged herself over a snowdrift, fell and couldn’t break her fall. Something ran down into her eyes; she rubbed her face in the snow, darkening it where she rubbed. Sank down and crawled on. Maybe what she was hearing were footsteps in the snow. She lay still without moving, listening into the wind. Then she crawled on, another metre up the slope, then another, rolled up over the edge and on to the top of the cliff.

  He stood leaning against the pine trunk in front of her. Tutted in mock sadness when she tried to get to her feet.

  – Oh Liss. I did try to tell you.

  He bent down to her. An axe in his hand. – You’re not going anywhere without me, he whispered. – Not until I say so.

  8

  SHE WAS SWEPT into the warm doze as though by a tidal wave. That was where she heard the voice. It was no longer Mailin’s. It was her father who had made his way through the snowdrift to tell her something.

  This place is yours, Liss. Yours and Mailin’s.

  But it’s you who owns the cabin.

  He stands by the window looking out.

  From now on, you two are the owners. I have to go away.

  Odd way to say it. Not like when he’s going to Berlin or Amsterdam. Be gone a few weeks and come back home with presents for her.

  He sits on the edge of the bed. Strokes her hair. He doesn’t usually do that. Usually stares at her for a long time with a strange smile. But he never touches her.

  Why do you have to go away?

  He says nothing for a long time. Finally shakes his head slowly.

  You’re the one I’ll miss, Liss. We’re the same, you and I. Nothing anyone can do about it.

  Viljam had lit the paraffin lamp. He had put the axe down on the edge of the fireplace and was standing there reading her notebook. Everything she’d written to Mailin. She couldn’t bear to think about what he had done to her. Only that he had let her grow cold. Liss was cold too, huddled up in a corner of the sofa. She wasn’t angry with him. He’d given her another shot. The good pain was tightly packed around her.

  – Jacket stopped you when you were going to swim out and die, she tried to say. Could feel her voice full of thick sauce. – He saved you.

  Viljam didn’t look up from the notebook, turned over a few pages, seemed engrossed in what she had written.

  – You needed someone to hold you. But he used you.

  Abruptly he tossed the book aside and loomed over her. – Where do you get that from?

  She couldn’t lift her hands to defend herself.

  – Did she send you anything else? Have you got more CDs? If you’ve hidden anything, then …

  It took a few seconds for her to understand what he was talking about.

  – There was only one. The one I told you about when I called.

  He straightened up again.

  – Why didn’t you want anyone to know about Jacket? she groaned. – He was the one who did things to you. You were innocent.

  – You understand fuck-all, so don’t talk about it.

  He laughed. As suddenly, he was serious again.

  – He took a helluva chance letting me come to him. He could have lost everything, ended up in jail, been stoned, ostracised, strung up. Do you understand? He took that chance so that I could be with him. How many are there who care so much that they’ll risk everything just to be with some fucking kid?

  – I understand that, she murmured.

  He picked up the notebook again, sat in the chair by the fireplace and carried on reading.

  She pulled herself up from the sofa, struggled across the floor and into the light from the paraffin lamp. Stood naked in front of him, hands cuffed behind her back so tightly that the pain flashed from her wrists down into her fingertips.

  – You killed someone, he said without looking up.

  First time she’d heard someone else say those words. But as things stood, it meant nothing at all.

  – Everything written there is true, she heard herself reply.

  – And now you’re going to offer to keep your mouth shut if I let you walk out of here.

  The thought hadn’t occurred to her.

  – I can’t let you go, he said. – I came out last time you were here. Had to find out if you knew anything. I could let you go then, but not now. I won’t fool you into believing that. I’ll be honest with you. You’ll never leave here again.

  He tossed the notebook into the fire. – Do you realise that?

  Liss saw the way a tiny flame began to wrap itself around the red plush cover.

  – It wasn’t because of that business with Ylva that I couldn’t let Mailin live, he said tonelessly. – Jo and Jacket swore an oath. Death before anyone else knew about them.

  Alongside the burning notebook Liss saw the remains of a book cover. Sándor Ferenczi, she read. The inside was a roll of flaking ash.

  – Mailin found out about it, she murmured.

  – She never gave up, Viljam interjected. – Kept asking and asking who Jacket was.

  Liss tried to hold on to some of the thoughts that were seeping away into the distance, somewhere far from the room she was in, far from the smoke from the fireplace, from the dust and the cold wooden walls, all the smells that would remain behind after her and Mailin, after her father, who once stood by her bed and said he was going away, after his mother, who had sought refuge here before the world came and brought her in.

  – Mailin realised that Jacket was Berger.

  Viljam looked at her for a few moments. – That’s what happened, he answered.

  – He was going to expose you on Taboo. He was going to break the pact.

  Viljam shook his head. – I was at Berger’s house every day after Mailin … went missing. Finally he realised what had happened to her. He even wanted to talk about that in front of the camera. He was certain he had me where he wanted me. I got him to believe that I would appear on his programme and confess. We sat and planned it together. Shock TV. He looked forward to it like a kid. Pity to have to deprive him of that enjoyment.

  The high she was on was utterly unlike anything Liss had ever experienced before. – You’re fucked up, Viljam, she snuffled. – You’re a fucked-up piece of shit.

  Distantly she realised that this was what he had been waiting for, that she would make him angry. He leapt up, forced her down on to the chair by her hair. At the corner of the fireplace was a coil of rope, he twisted it around her waist, tightened it across her breasts and knotted it behind the back of the chair. He made a noose out of the loose end and put it over her head.

  – You’re no different from any of them, he growled. – Won’t be missing you.

  She started to cough. – Mailin did everything she could to help you, she managed to say. – Mailin looked after you.

  He snorted. – She tricked me into talking. And while I was talking, she sat there stroking me. Stripped me naked. Had me in her office.

  – You’re lying. Mailin would never have done that.

 
; He tightened the rope around her neck. – Maybe your sister wasn’t quite the saint you think she was.

  – But she lived with you, Liss choked. – You were going to get married.

  His eyes widened and darkened. Keep Midsummer’s Day free, she heard somewhere inside herself. It was him, Viljam, who had sent that message from Mailin’s phone.

  She forced herself to say the one thing she knew she mustn’t say:

  – She was going to leave you.

  He gave a jerk on the rope, it cut into the skin of her neck. Then she felt her head growing, the room filling with a reddish smoke.

  – She was supposed to love everything about me, he hissed, – no matter what I’d done. No matter what they’d done to me. But she lied. I have never been able to stand people lying to me. Do you understand? When someone starts to lie, it’s over.

  Suddenly he took the tension off the rope. The air etched its way down into her chest. – Have you understood now? Have you seen enough?

  Patches of red pulsating inside fog. Then they grew paler, and things cleared again. She could see he was holding something in his hand, a needle for a hypodermic syringe. He pulled it out of its sheath. She felt him place the needle against her cheek, make a careful scratch, draw it up in the direction of her right eye.

  – Have you seen enough? he asked again.

  She tried to turn her head to one side. He tightened the noose. The red-flecked fog came whirling back.

  She opened her mouth. – Viljam … Jo.

  It sounded like a prayer, but it didn’t come from her. The voice was dark and hoarse.

  – Now it’s Jo, he howled. – Sweet Jo and all the rest of it.

  He lowered the needle and drove it into her nipple. The pain was even sharper; it travelled on through the breast and released something in her back like the tendrils of a jellyfish spreading and burning through her whole body.

  – You’re a nice boy, Jo. You’re so nice, so nice. There’s nothing you can’t do to me. Not one fucking thing. Because that’s the way you think, you too. You think I don’t know you, Liss Bjerke? You think Mailin didn’t tell me everything worth knowing about you? The rest being rubbish.

  He drew out the needle, moved his hand to her forehead and placed a finger on her eyelid, pulled it up. She was totally awake now, straining as hard as she could to move her head. He grabbed hold of her hair and held her in an iron grip. She felt the cold tip touch against the eyeball. Like an insect landing there with its great sting ready. A couple of pricks, and then a membrane breached. A different pain, this one. It tore her open, and there was nowhere for her to hide. Her eye ran over, the light from the lamp changed colour, things turned black, and from this blackness an arc of rainbow colours spun.

  – I’ll show you the place, she shrieked.

  He bent down close to her face. – What place?

  – Down by the lake.

  He pulled the needle out again; fluid ran down her cheek.

  – Not the other, she pleaded. – Not yet. Not until I’ve shown you the place.

  – The one you wrote about in the notebook? Where you’re going to lie down in the snow and look up through the trees and freeze to death?

  She tried to nod. – It isn’t far away.

  He placed the needle against her eyelid. Then he withdrew it, untied the rope, pulled her up by the hair and shoved her across the floor.

  – Show me, he hissed, grabbing the axe from the fireplace. – Show me the place where you want to die.

  She walked in front of him, barefoot and naked. The wind was blowing straight off Morr Water, stinging against her breasts and thighs. His footsteps in the snow a few metres behind her. You’re afraid, Liss. Mailin’s voice is gone now; it’s her father talking to her. At last you’re afraid. I am afraid. You don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. She put her head back. Through her one eye she could just make out a strip of something grey in the darkness between the trees. That strip is all that’s left. And the sound of the wind. That was what I wanted that time you left, to lie down in the snow, feel the cold wrap itself around me and dissolve me. You’re the one I’ll miss, Liss. We’re the same, you and I.

  She turned to face the tall, slender figure. The face came out of the grey, pressed right up against hers.

  – Can I sit on that rock up there for a moment? Look out across the water. Just a few minutes.

  He grunted. She could no longer feel her feet. The cold had eaten its way up her legs, as far as the knees. She slipped on the icy rock.

  – Help me, she pleaded.

  He climbed up beside her, squatted down, took hold under her arms and lifted her up. For a moment they were standing close to each other. She looked up into his face. The eyes weren’t angry any more. They were filled with something else.

  – Poor Liss, he whispered.

  She dived forward suddenly, butted him with all the strength that was left in her frozen body. He wavered, standing on the edge and flapping with his arms, dropped the axe and tried to hold on to her smooth shoulder. One second, two seconds. Then he tumbled backwards. She heard something hitting the jutting rock, and a splash as he slithered down into the open channel in the ice.

  She slid down the track on her backside, got to her feet. Thought she heard him calling, didn’t turn round. It’s the wind calling. She began scrambling through the deep snow. Not to the cabin. He’ll find you there. She ran past the shed. You will not die, Liss. She crawled along the slope until she found the place where it wasn’t so steep. Snaked her way upwards. The snow kept pulling her down, but she didn’t want to disappear into it any more. It was tougher up on the top. She tried to run, between the trees. Stopped behind a thick spruce. Then she heard footsteps, squatted down below the lowest branch. That whisper in her ear: Liss, you’re not going anywhere without me. She slumped against the trunk, pressing her cheek to the rough bark.

  A little later, a minute maybe, or perhaps ten: she stood up again. Peered out from under the branches. She knew these trees. They showed her the way to go. It was her forest, not his.

  She stumbled over the snowdrift and down on to the road. Wanted to put her feet down beneath her, but they weren’t hers any more. She tried crawling along on her stomach, hands still locked behind her back. She managed a few metres before her whole body shrivelled. She curled into a ball, drew her legs up under her.

  In the distance, the sound of an engine. She turned her head, enough to see the light dancing between the trees. They’ve come to fetch you, Liss. This is where you were going.

  EPILOGUE

  Tuesday 20 January

  JENNIFER PLÅTERUD SWITCHED off the computer, hung her white coat in the cupboard, let herself out into the corridor and locked the door behind her. She had just decided she was going to treat herself to a new pair of boots. She’d seen them on the net at Hatty and Moo. They were made of antelope leather too, but with a bronze buckle that gave them a touch of roughness that suited the mood she was in these days.

  The time was 4.15 The tenth class parent–teacher evening was due to begin at seven, and in Ivar’s opinion it was time she took a turn for once. She had also promised to have dinner ready before that, because both boys had sports practice to go to. Thinking about it, it was actually Ivar’s turn to go to the meeting, and she was annoyed with herself for letting herself be persuaded. She took another glance at her watch and decided to stick to what she had already decided to do. In spite of all her domestic obligations, she headed up towards the main wing of the Riks Hospital and into the large hallway that always reminded her of an aeroplane hangar.

  As she headed up the steps towards the gallery, she thought of Roar Horvath. Earlier that day, she had called him and hinted that she might possibly find herself in the Manglerud area one day soon. But he had other things on his mind and for the third time that week she got a vague response. Why couldn’t he tell it like it was? Did he think she wouldn’t be able to take it? It annoyed her, not having had the chance to show him
how little it bothered her. She’d made a mistake about him. The first time she met him, at the Christmas party, she had got the impression of a man of sanguine disposition. But then who isn’t sanguine at a Christmas party? Now he seemed to her more and more a combination of the phlegmatic and the melancholic, not all that different from Ivar and Norwegian men generally. It wasn’t the first time she had got something so badly wrong, but any re-evaluation of the Hippocratic system was completely out of the question.

  As she walked along the third-floor gallery, faces streamed towards her. Some she recognised, nodded to in passing; most of them were strangers. She would miss him for a few days, she had decided, and then it would be over. That was the usual way of it when things were allowed to rest in peace. She had even got over Sean. At least, it had become possible not to think about him. And this fling with Roar Horvath hadn’t really amounted to anything more than a bit of therapy. For a while it had muted the fear of withering away completely, and now she didn’t need it any longer.

  Following instructions from the reception desk, she knocked on the next-to-last door in the corridor. It was dark inside, and it took a couple of seconds for her to realise that someone was sitting in a chair by the window.

  – Hi, Liss.

  The young woman turned. One eye was hidden behind a large bandage.

  – Hi, she answered tonelessly.

  Jennifer closed the door behind her. – I heard you were still here. Just called in to see how you are.

  Liss switched on a lamp, she looked even thinner than the last time Jennifer had seen her, at her sister’s funeral. She had a Melolin compress around her neck, fastened with tape.

  – Got all I need. They’re looking after me.

  She nodded towards the table, where there was a jug of orange juice and a packet of Marie biscuits. On a plate beside them lay a slice of bread and cheese, untouched.

  – They’re discharging you tomorrow?

  – Think so.