Norwegian by Night

by Derek B. Miller

But something caught Sheldon’s eye. It was also about twenty past two in the afternoon, and Mabel was starting to get supper organised as Sheldon was polishing all the black shoes in the house.

  The something that caught his eye was a wristwatch on Saul’s wrist, which was not the wrist it was supposed to be on. Thinking back on it now, as Sheldon turns the corner into the living room of the summer house to see his granddaughter, he can’t remember what kind of watch it was. Which is strange, really, because he had made such a fuss over it.

  ‘Hey. Where are you going?’ he had asked Saul.

  Saul practically skidded to a halt and launched into such a rapid slew of words Sheldon knew that whatever he was saying had to be true, and he immediately regretted asking because, really, what difference did it make?

  Interrupting him, he held up his hand and said, ‘Yeah, yeah. OK. What are you wearing on your wrist?’

  Saul looked down as though it were a trick question of some kind.

  ‘A watch.’

  ‘My watch.’

  ‘Well, yeah. So what? I wear it all the time.’

  ‘But you still have to ask.’

  ‘I wear it all the time! I always ask and you always say “Yes.” Can I go now?’

  ‘Not so fast. Asking is important. Every night after dinner, I ask your mother if I have to do the dishes. She always says “Yes”, but I still ask.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s the same thing.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just isn’t. Can I go now?’

  Saul. My son. Outwitted me at age twelve. But he failed to do it when it mattered most.

  Sheldon steps into the living room.

  They are waiting for him. Two men — the one he failed to kill, and the one in the white Mercedes. Sheldon looks at their shoes.

  ‘My men have you surrounded. Give up. Let the girl and the child go. Maybe you’ll live.’

  Enver studies his face intensely. Sheldon can feel him trying to penetrate his own stare. He is trying to make a connection beneath the layers of fabric and brush and bravado. And as close as Sheldon is to success in his charade, the one quality he cannot mask is his age.

  He is, underneath it all, an old man.

  ‘I recognise you,’ says Enver.

  ‘And I’ve recognised you since before you were even born.’

  It is only then that Rhea believes her ears, and only her ears. Though he is standing directly in front of her, she had not recognised him by sight. And she wouldn’t have, had he stood there in a bathrobe and slippers with his mug, because it is impossible for him to be here. To exist here, in this world, at this moment.

  ‘Papa?’

  ‘Rhea,’ he says.

  Lars is not here, and Sheldon fears he must be dead.

  The boy — physically unharmed — stands in the corner. He is, as ever, too traumatised to speak.

  ‘Papa!’ she yells.

  Enver is going to leave with the boy now. And before he does, he is going to kill the old man.

  Sheldon stumbles backwards a step as Enver advances. Sheldon drops the rifle and raises the knife for one last attack. He wants to plant the blade in Enver’s throat, but he lacks the strength. The arbitrary laws of time have taken away his last defences.

  With valour, he lunges for Enver’s chest. But he misses.

  Enver’s strike is hard and experienced. It cuts Sheldon down the left carotid artery in his throat and across the chest.

  Sheldon’s right hand grasps his throat, and he staggers backwards into the kitchen and against the table.

  The task done, Enver grabs the boy — who screams now — and takes him under his arm and out through the back door. The boy’s screams are deafening, and Enver shouts at him in Albanian to shut up. To quit the yelling. To knock it off or he’ll smack him. But the boy will not stop.

  He does not stop when Enver drags him to the quad runner at the back of the house that is waiting to take them to Sweden.

  He does not stop screaming when he catches a glimpse of a man in a black uniform holding a small black rifle.

  And he does not stop screaming when he sees Lars Bjørnsson emerge like a ghost from behind a mighty beech with a compound bow, and release a carbon-composite arrow directly into the heart of the monster.

  Sheldon cannot be certain of what he sees or hears next any more.

  Life — whatever this life may be — is draining from him. It may be that Rhea leapt to her feet and shoved the man that Sheldon failed to shoot into a window and somehow, as she did this, his chest exploded as though silent bullets had penetrated his thorax from outside the window.

  It may be that she ran to him and held him up, pulling him to the front door, calling him, ‘Papa, Papa.’

  It may be that together they fell, out the front door, their bodies tumbling down to the cool ground, his blood flowing to the earth.

  It was certain, though, that the light around him was radiant and wonderful.

  A woman appears. She is in uniform and has a kind face. A nurse, he presumes. He sees men in dark outfits scurrying around him. Perhaps they are hospital orderlies. This nurse is smiling at him. It is the warm and loving smile of someone with good news.

  Mabel must have given birth. It must all be over now.

  Sheldon reaches up his hand and touches Sigrid gently on the cheek.

  ‘My son. Is he OK? Is he well?’

  ‘Your boy is fine, Mr Horowitz. He is just fine.’

  Acknowledgements

  This book was written in 2008 in Geneva, Oslo, and Fornalutx. The ending came to me in the moments before my son, Julian, was born that April.

  I am not sure how much of this book was written by me and how much was written by Sheldon himself. So I extend, here, my thanks to him for all his assistance. Which isn’t to say he was easy to work with …

  I lifted the definitions of ‘snarf’ and ‘twerp’ from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1977 interview with The Paris Review. I suspect he’d be delighted.

  The lighthouse at Palmi-do at Inchon, Korea, was built in 1903. In 2006 it was made obsolete and replaced by a modern one. But the diminutive eight-metre tower still stands in the shadow of its big brother.

  Unusually, this book was first published in Norway in 2011, in Norwegian, despite it having been written in English. The story has undergone additional revisions since then. I consider the English-language publication definitive.

  In 2012, sixty-seven years after the end of World War II, the Norwegian government formally apologised to the Jewish population for its actions during the occupation.

  My special thanks to Henry Rosenbloom and Lauren Wein for their editorial assistance.

  Deepest thanks of all to my wife, Camilla, who makes everything possible and gives it meaning. And to my daughter, Clara, you are already an inspiration.