Fireraiser

by Torkil Damhaug

  He dried himself, picked up his mobile, read the messages again, first the one he had sent, then her answer. Then he deleted them. Regretted it instantly. He tried to imagine a flowchart. The alternatives were to call her, or not to call her. Each choice pointed to a new box in which new choices led in different directions, more and more boxes.

  The sound of classical music came from the living room, so that must mean his father was home. He took a quick look into the kitchen. Synne was sitting at the table reading a book. A half-eaten slice of bread with salami and a ton of butter lay on her plate. For a while he had tried to get her to eat something else, vary things more, but he’d had to give up. She refused to go anywhere near fruit and vegetables; she wouldn’t even touch jam.

  – There’s a fire up at Vollen, he told her. – The nursery school.

  – You think I’m deaf?

  He didn’t think that, just wanted to see how she would react. For the past week she had hardly talked about anything but the horses that were burnt to death.

  She carried on reading. At any moment she could disappear into a book and stay there. And then it was impossible to reach her until she decided to return to this world. Sometimes he envied her this ability.

  – Someone just called for you, she said without looking up from her book.

  – Well who?

  – No idea.

  – Boy or girl?

  – A grown-up. I think he said he was your teacher.

  – You think?

  He suspected she had a tendency to lie. Just like now, she would suddenly say that someone or other had rung and asked for him but couldn’t tell him who it was. The first time he believed her, but not the fourth or fifth time. And there were other things too, always little fibs it was hard to catch her out on. He wondered sometimes whether this was why she didn’t have any friends. As far as he could tell, she was always at home when she wasn’t at school or the stables. Very occasionally a girl from her class would come round, a girl who was adopted and was also an outsider. Sometimes even he had to make an effort to understand what was going on when he was in the middle of a group of people. He had an idea his father’s genes were to blame. But in Synne’s case it had to be more than genes. He couldn’t understand it all, but it upset him that she was like that.

  As evening fell, he sat at his desk without switching on the light. Looked down towards the runway and the wide river running beyond it, a pale light reflected in its waters. The house had fallen silent. The clock in the living room struck ten thirty. He tried to call Jasmeen, planned to say something about the maths test they were going to have, because right now the only thing he was capable of talking about was trigonometry.

  She didn’t answer, so he sent a text. A reply came back immediately: Can’t talk now. Call you later.

  He lay awake in his bed. A plane approaching. Sounded as if it was flying right over the roof. As the sound of it faded, his mobile on the floor began to ring. He turned over, grabbed it.

  – Sorry it’s so late, she said. – Were you sleeping?

  – Yes.

  She gave a low chuckle. – We had visitors. I couldn’t get out of it.

  No asking why he had called. Only that lowered voice, as though they were intimates. As though that touching earlier in the day had been a binding agreement. He tried to imagine her lying in bed, wrapped up in a duvet; he was on the point of asking her what she was wearing.

  – Have you gone to bed? he asked instead.

  She confirmed that she had.

  – Do you have a room of your own?

  – Yes, she whispered. – Because I’m a girl, I get to have my own room.

  That was why she had called. Because I’m a girl. Still not a word about trigonometry.

  Suddenly she yelled something or other, and he understood she wasn’t addressing him. A few seconds passed; he couldn’t take the phone away from his ear.

  – Is your name Karsten? he heard suddenly. It was a man’s voice, or a boy about his own age.

  – Sorry, got the wrong number.

  – No you didn’t. What do you want?

  All he wanted to do was hang up.

  – Nothing really. He pulled himself together. – It’s about our trigonometry homework.

  – This is the last time you call this number, said the voice at the other end. Karsten had long ago realised whose voice it was.

  10

  He pushed the barbells up towards the ceiling, held for a moment, lowered them slowly. After the fifteenth time his arms began to burn. He should manage another ten. The burning turned into a pain that penetrated every fibre of his muscles. He didn’t know how he managed the last lift; his arms wouldn’t obey him, but still the bar went up. He managed to park it in the cradle, got to his feet, picked up the towel that had been spread beneath him on the bench, stood by the apparatus and shook the blood back into his dead arms. A gang of Pakis had come in while he was working out. He’d seen them before; they’d started hanging out there. Like a pack of jackals, he thought, talking noisily in that language of theirs, with a few words in broken Norwegian chucked in. They invaded the room, took control of it. The way they did wherever they went. They did what they liked and no one tried to stop them. He felt a sudden fury, an urge to tell them to speak Norwegian or shut up, provoke them into attacking him so he could smash a few faces.

  He rubbed his knuckles over his scalp. The Pakis exchanged looks, passed some remark or other, maybe about the weights he’d been lifting. None of them could have managed even half as much, and that thought made him turn his back and get out of there. He left the weights still on the barbell, so they would have to start by taking them off before they could begin their bench presses.

  Out in the main hall he did a quick survey. It was still quite early in the evening. A couple of kids on the biceps curl machine. A guy in an Adidas suit who’d tried to sell him some roid of dubious origin. At the table over by the soft drinks machine the woman in the dark red workout pants. She was sitting reading a newspaper. The thought that she was going with a policeman still excited him.

  He pulled a Bonaqua from the machine, sat down on the other side of the table. She didn’t look up. There were several newspapers lying about. He’d trawled the net that morning. None of the big papers had bothered with the fire. He’d gone down to the postbox and fetched Romerikes Blad for Elsa. They had the story in there, and in one of the pictures he could just make out himself, with his back turned. Now he turned to the same page in the newspaper on the table: Nursery school burned down. It felt even better reading the story with other people around. The biggest picture took up nearly half a page. He sat there looking at the fire breathing sparks up into the evening sky.

  – Nasty business, he said to no one in particular, not expecting any response, but the woman in the dark red tights looked at him with the same half-smile as last time.

  – That fire?

  He nodded.

  – Good job it was at night, she said. – Imagine if the children had still been there.

  He waited for her to say more. Had absolutely no objection to sitting there and talking about what had happened, be someone on the outside looking at it from a distance together with this woman. But she contented herself with a shake of the head.

  – Don’t even want to think about it, he lied. Because he had thought about exactly that. Not just as he waited outside the fire station for the engines to emerge, or as he wandered around the scene of the fire filming, gliding in and out of the crowd of curious onlookers whose safe daily routines had been broken, who had been drawn to the catastrophe. Afterwards too he’d thought about the children. He’d sat up most of the night at his computer, transferring images and videos, going through the sequence of events. Was trying to stick to the facts of what had actually happened, but what could have happened kept breaking through and wouldn’t leave him alone. The thought of being in there with them, saying farewell to them and then locking them in, standing outside and watch
ing them through the window. They flocked together in mindless panic, just like the horses had done, squeezing themselves into the furthest corner as the flames licked closer and their faces opened. They didn’t scream with their mouths as their clothes caught fire; they screamed with their whole bodies. But in the morning, when he’d returned to the scene of the fire, he felt filled with a peace he had not experienced in a long time. The thought of the children no longer moved him; the fire had purified it, removing every trace of what was exciting and alarming.

  – They think someone started it, she said.

  He glanced over at her, that hooked nose in the narrow face, the breasts beneath the clinging outfit.

  – I can’t see any mention of that here.

  She leant across the table, the smell of perfume mingling with sweat, and it occurred to him that this combination was better than each one of them individually would have been.

  – I know someone in the police who’s working on the case, she revealed. – And the person covering it for the newspaper.

  One of the first things he had noticed was the name of the journalist who had written the story about the fire. It was none other than the guy who lived in the house in Erleveien. Unless he had a namesake, someone else called Dan-Levi Jakobsen who worked on the same newspaper. Now he had to make an effort not to laugh out loud.

  – And the police think it was started deliberately? he said, as evenly as he could. – Who on earth would do something like that?

  – There’s a lot of weirdos out there, she said with a nod in the direction of the window and the mid-morning light.

  He dried his neck with the towel, had to be careful not to show too much interest in the fire. – Do you work with children? he asked, changing the subject.

  Her eyebrows shot up, two lines drawn with a thin pencil. – Not bad. That’s what we call male intuition. She laughed and added: – I wouldn’t last more than an hour in a nursery. I’m an estate agent.

  He brought his lips together in a smile. Behind everything assigned to chance all sorts of forces were in operation. Somehow or other they had caused her to sit there and wait for him to join her.

  – My name is Monica. She looked up and met his gaze. – With a c, she added.

  He nodded, as though this c instead of a k was important for him too. Just then his phone rang. He took it out, looked at the display.

  – I have to take this, he explained as he stood up.

  His body was steaming when he got outside. The vapour was light grey and mingled with the cold sunlight before evaporating.

  – Got a date? Elsa asked. He listened to the inside of her voice for some sign of whether she was happy or angry. She wanted something, otherwise she wouldn’t have rung.

  – I’m working out, he explained. – Studio Q, he added, because he liked the thought of her knowing where he was.

  – Good, she said. – Can you pop into the shopping centre and get a couple of things for me?

  It was the least he could do. He peered in through the window as he repeated what it was she wanted him to buy. Red wine in a box, rocket salad, feta cheese. The woman –Monica with a c – got up from her chair. If she left now, he thought, he would leave her alone. But if she stayed until he came back, he would follow her home. She cast a glance in his direction, looked as if she was thinking something over. Then she sat down again in the chair where he’d been sitting, continued flipping through the newspaper. The sweat from those dark red tights would blend with his on the back of the chair.

  – And another thing, said Elsa, and he noticed the tiny little shadow that crept into her voice. – Have you seen what’s happened to the fence?

  He swore silently, had forgotten to mention it to her. Now it was as if she’d caught him red handed.

  – Sorry, he began, and heard the breath escaping from between her compressed lips, a sign that she was on the verge of being annoyed. He promised he would fix it without delay, and the darkness in her voice went away.

  Monica lived in a flat near the square. A top-floor terraced flat, modern interior. She obviously wanted him to see all the rooms, as though he was at a viewing. But suddenly he realised she wanted him to choose the spot: the kitchen with the black tiles, the living room in which daylight reflected back off the parquet floor, or the dim sleeping room that faced in towards the courtyard.

  He decided on the bedroom. It was the greyness of the light that attracted him. He pulled her down on to the edge of the bed, put his hand up under the short skirt, tugged her knickers down. She was ready and didn’t need any foreplay, or else everything that had happened since she sat down to wait for him in her sweaty tights by the drinks machine had been foreplay enough. With his other hand he opened his flies, pulled down his trousers and boxer shorts, lay across her, excited about how she would react as he entered her, because that was the closest he could get to excitement in all of this. She lay there with her eyes open, bit her lip, no exaggerated noise, no deep moaning. He liked that.

  She was narrow, he noticed, he had to wriggle a bit to get in. First she lay quite still, face stiffened to a mask, teeth pressing so hard against her lip that a tiny drop of blood appeared below it. He put more force into it, almost like adding an extra weight to the barbells, pressed down hard, and at last a whimper escaped her mouth. He screwed in deeper, saw from her face that that was exactly the way she liked it. She tried to squeeze her legs together, as though to stop him getting in any deeper, but he grabbed her thighs, pulled them apart and carried on. She opened her eyes and looked at him. He put his lips against her shoulder to get away from that look, let his mouth glide across the skin that smelled of soap and luckily no nauseating scent of deodorant, bit her nipple. She came twice, with a few minutes between each time. Then he let himself come too, not because he had to, but because she expected it. And as it poured into her, she whispered something or other in his ear, and that whispering reminded him that he must remember to call in at the building supplies store after he’d been to the shopping centre.

  Usually he didn’t stay, but this time he made an exception. She made coffee and put some pieces of chocolate on a blue plate.

  – Party, she said with an apologetic smile. The smile was different now; it had lost that practised stiffness he had noticed at Studio Q.

  – We deserve it, he agreed, – after all that exercise.

  She laughed shortly. Maybe she blushed, or was it redness that lingered after the events in the bedroom?

  – You’re not the type that talks about himself, she said as she sat down next to him on the sofa. She was still naked, but he didn’t want to sit on what was obviously a very expensive piece of leather furniture without his boxers on.

  – I was in the army, he said, to avert further personal questions. – How come you know that journalist?

  She gave him a quizzical look. – You mean the one who wrote about the fire?

  – You said you knew him.

  She wrinkled her brow, as though she couldn’t understand why they should want to talk about that.

  – Met him on a trip to the cabin a couple of weeks ago. Him and his wife. They’re Pentecostals.

  He acted surprised. – Cool.

  – Weird people. What are you supposed to talk about with people like that?

  – Talk in tongues, maybe.

  She laughed again, a quick, bright laugh, picked up another piece of chocolate, broke it in half and pushed it in between her thin lips, quickly, as though she was doing something illegal. Her hand landed on his thigh; a finger slid up under his boxers.

  – In a hurry, Mister Soldier?

  He glanced at the clock and drank the rest of his coffee. There were several things he had to do. The thought of going home to Elsa without the things he’d promised to bring annoyed him. Without replying, he snatched the other half of the chocolate from her, put it in his mouth and pushed her down on the sofa; he took her with her face pressed up against the cold leather, feeling no desire, not even hers
, even though more and more sounds came, some of them resembling words he had no interest in hearing.

  The bathroom cupboard was full of make-up and lotions. But at the back of the top shelf he found the medications. Valium and sleeping tablets and something he couldn’t identify. There were a few capsules loose in a bag. He recognised them. Not that he was surprised. He knew of other women who used roids. Not to build up muscle tissue but to get rid of fat. And to have more energy, or quite simply because they liked feeling horny all the time.

  He was about to flush the toilet when he heard a door closing. To be on the safe side he locked himself in. Directly afterwards he heard her voice from the living room, saying something about showering. He heard the rumble of a male voice in response. He pressed his ear against the door, picked up snatches: it sounded as though the man had forgotten something. He imagined it was the police guy with the ridiculous moustache. He heard the sound of boots clacking across the parquet, in the direction of the bedroom, returning a few moments later, approaching. He waited for the doorknob to turn. He decided that if it did, he would unlock the door and be standing there stark naked.

  – I give up, he heard from outside; the voice sounded exasperated rather than threatening, and no one touched the doorknob. Again the sound of footsteps, retreating this time, then Monica saying something or other and then the front door opening and closing.

  He let himself out. She was standing in the middle of the room wearing nothing but a top and a G-string, panting like a deer that had just got away from the hunters and their hounds.

  – I thought I was going to die, she groaned.

  – Was it the cops? he joked.

  – You could well say that.

  – And you were scared he was going to handcuff you?

  She squatted down, pushed her hands in below the sofa, pulled out a bundle.