Fireraiser

by Torkil Damhaug

  When Synne had woken up, the string of pain along the side of her head had almost gone and she had unwisely drunk two cups of coffee before taking her shower. Now it was back again.

  – Are you saying you want to write this book?

  – We’d need to work together closely on it, Erika added quickly. – It would be good for us. I know you. You’d be in safe hands.

  – I’ll need to think about it, Synne said curtly, knowing it would never happen.

  As she headed down Grensegata, she recalled something from Elsa Wilkins’ website: The purpose of life is to make the world right, restore it to its original state of order and harmony. Every good deed helps in this. Synne would have liked to continue that thought, follow it somewhere, but it didn’t lead anywhere.

  A car swung out from a driveway in front of her further down the road. As it approached, it suddenly stopped a few metres away from her. A dark blue Audi, she noticed. The driver was looking straight ahead, and for a moment she thought it was her he was looking at. Then it moved off again and passed her. She caught a glimpse of the driver’s face in profile, still staring straight ahead. He reminded her of someone. But it couldn’t be him.

  She found the house she was looking for, a white semi with red frames, and was almost certain that that was where the car had come from. Still confused, she rang the bell.

  After the memorial service, Elsa Wilkins had been in the line of people queuing up to offer words of comfort. She had introduced herself as Adrian’s mother. She was pretty and had kind eyes. She held Synne’s hand for a long time and said she should get in touch if ever there was anything she could do for her. It was then that Synne had enquired where Adrian was. A stupid thing to ask, but Elsa didn’t seem to mind. She told her he had gone back to England to carry on his studies there. The roses she had brought were from them both.

  Now she opened the door and gave Synne a hug. She had hardly changed at all.

  – I’m on the phone to a client at the moment, she explained, and showed Synne into the living room before going upstairs and closing the door.

  I can just about hear her voice. Somewhere out there someone needs advice, needs to get their life on another track. Deep inside I want to believe it’s possible, that there are people who can see threads that are invisible to others.

  She had to wait a few minutes before Elsa Wilkins came down.

  – Sorry to keep you waiting.

  – I saw a car driving along just as I got here, said Synne, even though she had decided not to mention it. – For a moment I thought it might be Adrian.

  Elsa raised her eyebrows and seemed to be blushing. – Funny you should say that.

  She disappeared into the kitchen, came back with a teapot and cups.

  – I had such a vivid dream about Adrian last night, she said as she laid the things out. – You know, one of those dreams you can’t shake off after you wake up, that stay with you all day.

  Synne nodded.

  – Adrian’s been in Iraq for months. He came back to England a few days ago and I’m so relieved. It gets worse every time he goes out there. You know how mums worry. And now you come here and tell me you’ve just seen him.

  She poured a dark brown brew into the cups.

  – Try this. It’s what we call a three-year medicinal tea. It’ll do you good.

  Synne sipped the bitter drink.

  – I just wish you were right, Elsa went on. – I miss him so much I can hardly bear it.

  – I understand. I miss him too. Synne shook her head. – I mean …

  Elsa looked surprised.

  – I’m not quite myself at the moment, said Synne, trying to explain her confusion. – All this with Karsten, it affects me so much. And it starts up so many things.

  Elsa seemed to accept the explanation.

  – And then there’s this friend of mine … she lived in the same corridor as me. Now she’s gone missing. The police have interviewed me. On the train here I was reading the paper and they think she may have been that person burnt to death in a car a few days ago.

  – You mean up in Maridalen?

  – I don’t know any more details. But it feels as though all this happened because I started getting close to Karsten again.

  Synne rubbed her forehead with both hands, studied the wave pattern on the tablecloth. Next to a vase of tulips was a recently started embroidery. There were pins sticking out of it, and the point of a pair of scissors protruding from below it.

  – People round me go missing.

  Elsa nodded. As though the idea was not as unlikely as Synne wanted it to be.

  – And then there’s this Pakistani family. The father’s name is Khalid Chadar. You know him.

  Elsa’s eyes opened wide. – So this book you’re struggling with, she said, – that’s what brought you into contact with them. I think all of this is connected to what you’re writing.

  Synne looked at her in surprise, even though she was the one who had voiced the thought.

  – How is Khalid?

  – He’s very ill, Synne replied. – But he told me you had meant a lot in his life.

  – Khalid’s always used words that are too big for him. Elsa gestured with her hand as though swishing something away. – Tell me more about how you work.

  Synne leaned back in the chair. – I go to see people who had some connection with Karsten, she said. – And then other stories crop up and they all weave together.

  – But you write about things that really happened, not things you’ve made up?

  Synne searched for an answer.

  – Something broke, she offered. – Not just once, but many times. I used to have these attacks, and when I woke up afterwards, there was always something missing. And that night when Karsten disappeared, everything got smashed and the pieces flew all over the place. I struggled to put the world back together again. Writing became the glue. I think that was how I felt.

  – You’re talking as if you no longer feel that way.

  Synne shrugged. – When I write, I can create all the pieces that are missing, shape them in my imagination so that they fit. It’s led me deeper and deeper into a false world.

  Elsa seemed to think about this. – You’ve come here looking for help, she said finally.

  Synne didn’t know if that was true, but couldn’t bring herself to deny it.

  – Everything that upsets you goes back to that evening when Karsten disappeared, Elsa continued. – If you can manage to recall what happened, you can put it behind you and move on.

  – I’ve tried to remember. Nothing helps.

  Elsa put her cup down on the table and stood up. – Maybe the cards can. Let’s go up.

  25

  Kai turned up the gravel driveway. He hadn’t been there since that evening eight years ago. Tufts of grass sprouted from the wheel ruts and the barn was on the verge of collapse, but the main house at least looked to have been painted in the intervening years. The dog pen was still to one side of the house, and when he opened the car door, he was met by a wall of howling and yapping. Four or five dogs were standing up against the fence, trying to outbark each other.

  He crossed the lawn. How Vemund had come to take over from Sæter he had no idea. Since the spring of Karsten’s disappearance he had had no more contact with Sæter. And the following winter the old man hung up for the last time.

  There was no doorbell, so he rapped on the window. More baying, coming from inside this time. After knocking again, he tried the door; it slid open and a black dog appeared. He backed out again, heard a woman’s voice inside, talking to the animal. Moments later, the door opened slightly. The woman standing there had a child in her arms. She was pale and looked tired. Kai had the feeling he’d seen her somewhere before.

  – Have you come to look at the puppies? she yelled. – We’re not taking callers until the weekend.

  Kai had to smile. If there was one thing he hadn’t come for, it was to look at the puppies.

 
; – Is your husband at home?

  She shook her head. The child did the same. It looked like a girl, the spitting image of her mother, with huge eyes. A dummy filled her mouth.

  – What do you want to see him about?

  He bunched his fist, could have smashed her face. Instead he forced a smile.

  – I’m an old friend of Vemund’s. Was just passing and thought I’d drop in and see how he’s doing. He hadn’t called, had everything to gain by arriving unannounced. – I can wait for him. Is he at work?

  She nodded. Suddenly she asked: – Is your name Kai?

  He was startled, controlled himself. – Are you psychic?

  She smiled. The dog in the corridor, which had been emitting a low growling since the conversation began, now started howling again. She put down the child, grabbed the animal by the loose skin around its neck and dragged it away to a door, pushed it into the room and shut the door.

  – Maybe I am psychic, she said as she made her way back across the floor. – Got a good memory anyway.

  Slowly it began to dawn on him where he knew her from, but he couldn’t remember her name.

  – I’m Vera, she said, and then he had her. The granddaughter of Sæter’s sister. She was living with her grandmother back then and hung around at several of the gatherings they had.

  – Hi, Vera, he said and held out his hand.

  She invited him into the kitchen. It was occupied by the beast he had encountered out in the corridor, and a litter of small black creatures about the size of fully grown rats. He had never liked dogs and pushed the bitch out of the way when she started to welcome him by licking him with her drooling tongue. The animal didn’t take the hint but Vera did, and with a surprising show of force she persuaded the bitch to lie down with the pups, which at once swarmed around their mother’s nipples.

  – Do you breed dogs? Kai said, struggling to keep his composure. He had checked Vemund’s tax return on the internet. Eight years ago, the guy had worked at an asphalt plant. They’d been there on training exercises, in the quarry and the surrounding woods. Kai seemed to remember that Vemund had talked about getting back into electronics, but the lad really didn’t seem to have any kind of future as a rocket scientist. It wasn’t easy to understand how he’d come by an income of about eight hundred thousand kroner a year and three million in the bank. Somewhere on the net he came across his name with the word consultant next to it.

  Vera strapped the kid into a chair and gave her a baby bottle, which was immediately thrown to the floor.

  – Fourth litter we’ve raised here, she told him. – Selling them next week. Probably keep one of the bitches.

  She put coffee and biscuits on the table.

  – So you and Vemund teamed up, Kai said, rubbing the palms of his hands up and down his thighs.

  – You could put it like that. Vera nodded towards the kid and the dogs, as though that was the explanation.

  He looked at her. She still had freckles all over her chubby face.

  – See anything of Adrian? she asked suddenly. – Wasn’t he your cousin?

  For the third time she picked up the baby bottle, cleaned off the teat with her hand and shoved it back into the baby’s gaping mouth.

  – Why do you ask?

  She shrugged.

  – Spoke to him as recently as this morning, said Kai, just to keep the conversation going. – He’s got something or other going in Iraq.

  – I knew that, she answered. – Security work.

  He hid how surprised he was. Tried to worm out of her how she knew. She stood up.

  – I’ll call Vemund. He should’ve been here by now.

  He could hear her talking on the phone out in the corridor. Thought he heard his own name mentioned.

  – He’s out in the woods, she informed him when she came back. – But he’s going to pop in. I’ll get some grub ready.

  She bent into the fridge and emerged with a casserole dish covered in cling film.

  – You’re very welcome to eat with us.

  Ten minutes later, a van pulled up outside, a Transporter, Kai could see. Moments later, Vemund appeared in the kitchen doorway. He hadn’t changed much either, still that same look of a sulky teenager, the eyes as red rimmed as ever, like a guy who didn’t sleep well at night. Gone was the wispy hair, all shaved off.

  Kai repeated what he had said to Vera. Not a word about what Sweaty had told him. Not a word about how Vemund had been beaten up by Karsten in the room directly above where they were now sitting. Not a word about Vemund swearing he would kill Karsten the first chance he got. As they ate, Vemund kept glancing over at him, clearly not particularly convinced by Kai’s explanation for his visit, a story he probably found even thinner than the lapskaus stew they were eating.

  After chewing the last piece of bacon and cleaning the bottom of his dish with a crust of bread, Vemund pushed it away and got to his feet.

  – Ring before you come next time, he suggested, and Kai almost burst out laughing at the manifest lack of sincerity in the invitation. – Have to get back. Got a fence down. People wander around in these woods and completely ignore the fact that it’s private land.

  Kai acted as though he could take a hint and went out with him. They walked across the lawn.

  – I take it you realise it’s not just chance that brings me here.

  – Oh really.

  – Adrian says hello, by the way.

  He didn’t know why he said that; it was probably because Vera had mentioned him.

  – Are you trying to tell me Adrian sent you?

  – He said I should call in, he lied.

  Vemund looked to be thinking. – Can’t talk here, he said after a few moments.

  – Why not?

  Vemund nodded in the direction of the house behind them. Kai turned and saw Vera’s face at the kitchen window. At the same moment he sensed a movement behind him. He raised his hand but that was as far as he got before he felt something being pressed into his back, and then a shower of needles sucked into his body and exploded inside his head.

  26

  The window in the upstairs room was wide open. Elsa closed it.

  – It’s important to air the room between every story I work on in here, she said.

  Synne stood in the doorway. Afternoon light entered between the dark red curtains, and the smell of something sweet and burnt mingled with the smells of the spring day outside. Maybe I should have done that. Not let all the stories get mixed up with each other but organised them, aired my inner rooms, got rid of old thoughts.

  Elsa lit a candle. – You’re doing an important job, Synne. Daring to confront the burden you’ve been carrying along with you.

  That sweet, spicy smell got stronger once the wick caught fire. Elsa spread six or seven cards out on the table in the shape of a cross. The cards were larger than normal playing cards. Dark blue on the reverse, with golden stars in different sizes. She turned over the first one. A cup, held up towards the sky by a hand. Columns of water emanating from it.

  – Joy. Joy and love.

  Several more cards were turned over. Synne felt something between confusion and calm. Each image gave rise to a little story that could be related to the other cards. Everything could be woven together into a comprehensible whole. Writing is the same thing, trying to gather up the pieces of something that was once broken. Not being paralysed by doubt about what things are, what they want of me. If trees can’t tell me who I am …

  Elsa turned the final card.

  – The past.

  At first Synne thought it was an image of the sun, but it had The Moon written on it.

  – The Moon turned upside down is a bad card, Elsa informed her. – It means loss. In relation to your past, it’s easy to connect it to Karsten, who disappeared and never came back.

  A stern and closed face was depicted inside the yellow globe in the sky.

  – The worst thing is that you never knew what happened to him. It lies there and
is part of the past, and always will be.

  – Will I never find out what happened?

  Synne heard that she had asked the question in all seriousness. Elsa closed her eyes. Sat like that for a while, apparently in deep concentration, and yet relaxed.

  – The most important thing right now is the asking. Not some answer or other we can work our way towards. You have to ask the question, and then enter it. What do you find in there? What is grief? What is guilt?

  – Ought I to feel guilt? Synne asked in surprise, and knew that this lay at the heart of all her thoughts about Karsten.

  – You alone know that, Synne.

  – But I don’t know what happened that evening. I don’t know where Karsten was, I don’t know where he went, whom he was with. The only thing I see in my imagination is that he was completely alone.

  Again Elsa studied the cross of cards laid out on the deep red tablecloth.

  – I believe he was too.

  It is April, just before Easter. There are no leaves on the trees in the garden. The sun is somewhere above the river but not visible. Elsa sits watching me, waiting. She is so calm, it feels as though she contains everything. If she believes what I’m saying, then it’s possible for me to believe it too.

  – This same card appeared when I did a reading for Karsten, she said.

  She pointed to the one in the centre of the cross. A burning tower, people falling from the top of it.

  – It indicates a profound desire for change. But also something that might be dangerous for you. Tell me the first thing that comes into your head when you see this picture.

  Without thinking, Synne said: – Just recently I’ve been remembering more.

  – What have you remembered?

  – Something about a room. I’m lying on a floor. A basement.

  – Is it cold there?

  – Not in the room, I don’t think. I’m cold inside. And then Karsten comes.

  – Where does he come?

  – Through a door, someone opens it. And then he’s standing in the middle of the floor, shouting.