Fireraiser

by Torkil Damhaug

  He lit all three devices, glided away round the house. He had a key, didn’t know if it would still fit after eight years, but the woman hadn’t locked the door. He let himself in without making a sound, made his way up the stairs that were so familiar to him. Nameplates hung on several of the doors now, but he avoided relating to any names. A girl was living in his room. He could smell it even though she hadn’t yet started using deodorant and perfume, and he realised at once that it was the girl he had met that time, the little one who was so thirsty and who thought the stranger had come to give her a drink.

  How lightly children breathe, he thought as he stood beside the bed. You can only hear a tiny bit of it, where it ends and lets go. He stood there listening to it, because all sounds and smells had a final meaning now, and they were pointing to one thing only.

  He prised the cupboard door open. Mostly children’s clothes in there, felt like frocks and blouses, and small shoes arranged on the floor. He removed the plank covering the hidden room, switched on his torch and in the cone of light saw again what he had once scratched there. There was something else there too, written in pen and in another hand; maybe that thirsty girl who was asleep right behind him. I shall not burn.

  Three minutes had passed since the woman left the house. He had very little time left. He pulled out the other bottle, sprayed the surfaces in the secret room, the clothes in the cupboard. Some dripped on to his hands, some on to his face. He had to laugh. The cleansing fluid burnt his eyes; he rubbed it into his cheeks, into his hair.

  – Are you an angel too?

  He jumped. Stuck his head out, looked up at the girl standing there in a white nightdress.

  – What is that smell in here?

  He took out his lighter. – Go away. Get out of here. Get out of the house.

  – I can’t go anywhere. It’s dark.

  – Yes, he said, – it’s dark.

  It was fifteen minutes before Solveig rang back. She sounded out of breath.

  – Kai Hammer did go to the nursery school.

  – He did? Dan-Levi added Vollen to his solar diagram.

  – He was a strange child, Solveig continued. – They were worried about him. But there wasn’t really much they could do. His adoptive parents didn’t want anyone else getting involved. Quite an unusual story. Kai was actually the son of Gunnhild Hammer’s younger sister.

  Dan-Levi was on his feet. – He’s Elsa’s son?

  – Do you know her?

  He was too agitated to answer.

  – She had a child as a teenager, said Solveig. – The father was apparently a Pakistani who lived on the farm for a while. It was all hushed up.

  Dan-Levi bent over his diagram. With an unsteady hand he added another ray. Khalid Chadar, sweet shop.

  – Are you still there?

  He confirmed that he was as he walked around the office and came back to his desk again.

  – Solveig, I’m going to have to hang up now.

  – There’s something else.

  He was suddenly unsure whether he wanted to hear anything else.

  – I know someone who knows someone who knows someone, Solveig began. – It ended with me calling her. She worked at Furutunet in the early nineties.

  He knew what was coming.

  – One summer, fires broke out on a number of occasions. They were pretty sure which of the kids was capable of something like that, but they could never prove it. He was removed from the home shortly afterwards. His biological mother, Gunnhild’s sister, was back in the country and said she would have him.

  After he’d hung up, Dan-Levi sat there studying the diagram, reading the last thing he had added to it. A thought took possession of him. If it was not Karsten who had dropped the ignition device back then, it must have been someone else. Kai Hammer grew up in our house, he wrote, then folded the sheet of paper and put it in his pocket. The time was now five past eleven. He called Roar’s number, got no reply. Doubted whether his friend had gone to bed that early. Sent a text. I know who started the fires. And who killed Karsten?

  He was on the way out to his car when the phone rang. He grabbed it, but it wasn’t Roar.

  – This is your neighbour.

  Which neighbour? he was on the point of asking.

  – Listen, I’m on the road outside. Sara’s going crazy … an ambulance is on its way.

  – Ambulance? he shouted.

  – A fire engine too, just coming round the bend.

  Dan-Levi could hear the distant sound of sirens, and a few moments later heard them on the phone.

  – I didn’t see you here, that’s why I’m calling. Your house is on fire.

  He didn’t notice that he was tugging at the car door handle. It was locked. He fiddled with his keys, jumped in, started the engine, backed into a lamp post, still with the phone held to his ear.

  – The kids, he managed to say. – Sara.

  – Not quite sure what’s going on, said the neighbour. – I think it’s best you get over here.

  He raced down Fetveien. There was a queue at the traffic lights, and he sat there revving the engine with the clutch in. Finally he let go, laid over on to the other side of the road and sped across on red. He’d tossed the phone down. The neighbour was still talking away on it.

  He’d been on emergency call-outs before, in the days when his job was writing about accidents. He’d covered several fires. Now the photos he’d taken came flickering back to him. He was unable to keep them out, and he howled at the car in front that had braked and was now standing still in the middle of the road.

  Erleveien was cordoned off. A policewoman in a high-visibility jacket waved for him to go back.

  – I live there, he shouted through the window.

  – I understand, she said, – but you can’t come past, your car will block the way for the rescue services.

  For a moment he considered just putting his foot hard down and driving through the tape, but at the last moment he wrenched the gearstick into reverse and backed up on to the pavement.

  – This road is closed, the policewoman said again, but he ran past her and kept running. There was a smell of open fire and burnt pitch. He saw the house. Smoke leaking from it, but not much. Then a thin flame leaping up the rear of the house, a yellow gash across the dark grey sky.

  Two huge fire engines were positioned across the road, forming a new barrier. There was a group of people in the garden on the other side.

  – Dan!

  Sara came running up, clung to him, her whole body shaking, unable to speak.

  – The children?

  One of the neighbours came across.

  – The children? he repeated.

  – Ruben’s at a friend’s house, said the neighbour.

  – The girls?

  – The two youngest are at our house.

  Suddenly Dan-Levi shouted out: – Rakel?

  He looked down into Sara’s eyes. She shook her head.

  – We’ve told the firefighters there’s one missing, the neighbour said.

  – Missing? Dan-Levi screamed. – Have they been inside and looked for her?

  He turned towards the house. Black smoke was rolling out of the living-room windows.

  – They’ll probably go in as soon as possible.

  It took three seconds for the meaning of the words to sink in. Then the thought hit.

  – I know where she is, he shouted to Sara.

  She stared at him as though what he said had not got through to her. Dan-Levi broke away, ran across the road.

  A loud voice behind him: – Hey, you, get the hell away from there.

  The hell away, Dan-Levi repeated, get the hell away. The words echoed round his head as he bounded up the steps. The front door was ajar; he swung it wide open.

  There was hardly any smoke in the entry. He took a deep breath, opened the door to the hallway. A wall of blackness met him; he felt as if his eyes were boiling. He shut them tight, pulled off his jacket, pressed it again
st his face, threw himself to the ground and began crawling into the blackness.

  Maybe two metres over to the staircase. Something was happening to his hair; it felt like it was melting. He forced himself not to breathe, hauled himself up on to the first step. There were fourteen to the top. He counted them. At four, he had to stop. Tried to call out to her, but it wasn’t possible to open his mouth. A foaming sound in his ears, something running inside them, and then the pain. Rakel, he thought, and brought her face into his mind. That frightened little face as she lay in the dark, the tiny ears, the little voice. He made it to the topmost step, could no longer think. Right, he kept telling himself, second door. He wriggled his way in, and the wall of smoke seemed to be even denser, the floor so hot he couldn’t touch it.

  With all the strength he still had left, he kicked himself forward off the wall, reached the corner of the cupboard. Something had wedged itself beneath the door, a shoe. He pulled and pulled at it. It was stuck to a leg and didn’t move. Now he had to open his mouth to the blackness. Rakel, he breathed as his whole chest filled with acrid froth.

  30

  Synne woke from her reverie, realised she was still standing by the window, looking up at the sky above the roof of the block opposite. She registered the sounds from the adjoining rooms, heard her neighbour’s TV. The late evening news was beginning. It was just after eleven; she had been standing there miles away for over half an hour.

  She slumped down in front of the machine again, sat there resting her forehead in her hands watching the screen saver go through its cycle, the wave patterns that dissolved, re-formed, dissolved again. She had tried four or five times to write about the evening Karsten disappeared. If she tried again, she would have to start writing about herself in the third person.

  She was at Tamara’s house, supposed to be sleeping over but changed her mind. Suddenly she had to leave.

  Who did you call, Synne?

  You know who it was.

  Synne pulls on her jacket. It’s pale blue. Her boots have laces with two buckles at the top.

  It’s windy out. The kind of spring wind she loves to feel in her face, in her hair, the kind she lies and listens to in the evening when she’s falling asleep, a wind that sings in a low voice and wraps itself around her.

  Where are you going, Synne?

  You know where I’m going.

  Something missing here. She rides away, but can’t see herself doing so. Remembers the wind, the drizzle in the air just moistening her face, a patch of snow in a wayside ditch. Can’t get any further than that.

  Karsten comes through the door.

  What’s she doing here? he shouts. What is Synne doing here?

  He’s not shouting at her but at the man bending over her.

  Synne is lying on the floor. Why has she taken her clothes off?

  You know why she has.

  She sat there looking through what she had written. Felt far away. The pain in her head had increased as the day went by; she couldn’t seem to shake it. It stung at a point on the outside of her ear and moved backwards in waves. She should go to bed. Take some paracetamol.

  She closed the document she had been working on, put it in the Karsten folder. Next to it was another document. How Karsten died. A title like that would never have occurred to her. She leaned forward, touched the screen with her index finger as though to see if it was something that could be wiped away. Her phone rang; she fumbled it out of her pocket. It was her father. She couldn’t talk to him now but had to take it.

  – Synne, he said, and in just the short sound of her name she could hear that something was terribly wrong. Even though he kept his voice low, it sounded as if he was shouting. – There’s a fire.

  – At your house? she shouted back.

  – No, no. I can see it from the living-room window. Loads of people out there, fire engines. The whole house is in flames.

  For an instant, before the pain resumed its free flow, her head cleared.

  – I’m coming, she said, and realised that was what he wanted. That he was afraid and that he had no one else but her.

  – Take a taxi, he said indistinctly. – I’ll pay.

  As they swung on to Fetveien, she heard the sirens.

  – Apparently there’s a fire over in Kjeller, the taxi driver said.

  – Really? she muttered, crushing a torn paper handkerchief between her fingers.

  Cars were queuing at Vestenga.

  – Drop me off here, she said.

  Smoke flowed across the sky like a black river, darker than darkness. She headed nervously up the hill. The entrance to Erleveien was closed off by a police car. People were swarming round it.

  – You can’t come in here. A uniformed woman blocked her way.

  – My father lives up there. He’s alone.

  – You’ll have to take another route.

  She stepped up to the copse, took the path down between the gardens on the far side, and suddenly found herself looking directly down on to the burning roof. Sparks were shooting up into the green-grey night, as though someone with enormous lungs was lying inside the house, breathing. Only now did it finally dawn on her which house it was: it was where Dan-Levi and Sara and their four children lived. She stopped at the end of a fence. People were standing in their gardens, staring. Some in small groups, some alone.

  – Did everyone get out? she asked someone, a woman in a tracksuit.

  She shook her head. – They think there’s someone in there.

  A man in a leather jacket turned suddenly and looked at her. – Do you know them?

  She couldn’t answer, staggered back along the fence, back along the path between the houses. Couldn’t stand to see any more, couldn’t stand to leave. The pain streaming through her head grew worse; it was draining away all her strength.

  Mustn’t disappear now, she thought.

  – Are you OK?

  She had sat down in the wet grass and a man was bending over her. In the dark she couldn’t see him properly, got the impression it might have been the person who’d spoken to her a couple of minutes earlier.

  – I know you, she said indistinctly, but that wasn’t what she meant to say; it was Dan-Levi she knew, and for some reason or other this man needed to know that.

  – Maybe so, he said. He took her hand and helped her up. She held on to the sleeve of his leather jacket, afraid to let go.

  – You aren’t well.

  Pain flashed into the grey darkness like the beams from a lighthouse. She raised her face and tried to look into his eyes. – I’m Synne. Karsten’s sister.

  Part of her realised how crazy this must sound. But he nodded. – I’ll help you. You need a doctor.

  She was still holding on tight to the sleeve of his jacket. Now he put his arm around her, steadied her as they walked down the hill. I have to get home, she said, but neither of them could hear it.

  He took her to the Statoil petrol station, opened the door of a dark blue car. This is the same car, she thought, but she had nowhere to catch the thought, nowhere to put it, and it disappeared again. He helped her into the front seat, got in behind the wheel, didn’t start the engine, didn’t ask where she was going. She laid her head back and closed her eyes.

  – I know the people who own that house, she said after a while. She pressed her hands against the pounding in her head, as though it would break apart if she didn’t hold it together. – I know you too, I know your voice.

  She thought he nodded, had to see him, reached out a hand and switched on the interior light.

  She had imagined so many pictures, but he was unlike any of those she remembered. The hair thinner. The facial features sharper, the nose more crooked. She noticed all of this in the first glance. It was the eyes she recognised; they were unchanged, dark, almost black. But they were not smiling at her as she had always imagined they would be.

  – Synne, he said, and she suddenly had the idea that she was asleep, she had to wake up, get out of there.


  Suddenly she realised he was holding her hand.

  – Adrian, she managed to say, and with that their names were once more bound together. Synne, Adrian.

  – You came back, she heard herself say.

  He flashed a quick smile at her, and that caused new images to float up, and a rain of thoughts that flew in all directions.

  – Something I had to sort out. I’m not staying long.

  – How long?

  – I’m leaving tonight. Would have left already except I saw there was a fire.

  – Where are you going?

  – Gothenburg. And then flying on from there. He squeezed her hand. – I hear you published a book.

  – Just some poems, she stammered.

  He smiled again, broader this time. – That’s how I remember you. You never believed that what you said or thought was of any importance.

  – I was thirteen. Why did you want to meet me?

  A wrinkle appeared in his brow.

  – I was thirteen, she repeated, and at that moment she realised that she was about to tell him everything she remembered, and everything she still hadn’t yet managed to remember.

  – I was at Tamara’s. I called, you asked me to come round to your place.

  He looked out through the windscreen, up at the Statoil sign shining above them. Close by, a siren started up, an ambulance, it flashed by, but the sound didn’t fade, it carried on inside her head.

  – You were a special girl, he said. – Different from all the others. You still are.

  He leaned over to her, stroked her cheek. The smell of him was everywhere, the smell of leather, of his skin. I’m thirteen years old, she thought suddenly. Even if this kills me, it’s what I want.