‘When will she be back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then perhaps we two can talk? This is Helga Bøe I’m talking to, isn’t it?’
Another silence. ‘It is. Come in, then.’
The intercom buzzed as if someone was desperately trying to get out. But it was only me trying to get in.
Before I closed the door I looked back. A leaden-grey winter dusk had settled over the town, as immense as the hull of a ship in dock, with rust-coloured minium stripes along its bow to the west.
The intercom voice met me in a doorway on the first floor. It belonged to a well-built woman with short blonde hair, shaved at the neck like a man’s haircut from the fifties. She was in her late thirties, dressed in a turquoise jumper and jeans, and stood with her hands down by her sides, examining me as if I were a fly in her herbal tea.
‘I hope you weren’t thinking of bothering her. She’s been through a tough patch,’ she started before I was halfway up the stairs.
‘No, I wasn’t,’ I said on my way up. ‘I haven’t seen her for twenty-five years.’
She eyed me sceptically. ‘And your name was…?’
I was beside her now. I politely proffered a hand. ‘Veum. Varg Veum. Rebecca and I are … were childhood friends.’
She passed me a limp hand. ‘My name’s Helga. I can’t remember her ever mentioning you.’
‘No? I suppose that’s not surprising. It’s been twenty-five years … How do you two know each other?’
‘We studied together. We met when she left home. I offered her a roof over her head until she found something else.’ She nodded to the flat. ‘I have an old guest room behind the kitchen. I used to rent that room myself, actually. But later the whole flat became free and I had the chance to buy it.’
‘What do you do for a living?’
‘I’m in social security. But let’s not stand here chatting. You’d better come in,’ she said without a smile.
From the small hall I could make out a blue kitchen through a doorway. Helga Bøe opened a door to the left and led me into a sitting room.
It was a normal, furnished room without any great character, apart from the abundant selection of books and shelving, two large, naïve-style portraits of women in ink and a dejected-looking rubber plant that looked as if its best years were behind it. Lamps low down on the walls enveloped the room in an artificial twilight, which spread the pleasant ambience of an afternoon doze.
The furniture was functional, seventies style – white wood and upholstery, like an arts-and-crafts exhibition.
‘I assume she’s not expecting you?’ Helga Bøe said.
‘I fear this might come as quite a surprise to her.’
‘I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing by letting you in.’
‘If not, I would’ve waited for her outside.’
She sent me a hostile glower. ‘She hasn’t had it easy, as I said.’
I thought: Her family hasn’t had it easy, either. Aloud, I said: ‘What does she do for a living?’
‘She temps at a lower secondary school.’ She looked at her watch. ‘She’ll probably be here any minute. If you can excuse me for a moment … I was making lunch. You’ve got something to read there.’ She indicated a low coffee table, turned and went out. But she left the door open behind her.
I looked at the reading material. They were international journals published by a variety of women’s organisations.
I flicked through them. The typeface was crude and, in a way, masculine. The illustrations consisted of black-and-white photographs or even blacker and whiter woodcuts. There were reports from crisis centres about why men raped, about sisterly solidarity and environmental conservation work. I thumbed through. At the back of one magazine there were several pages of dating ads, women searching for women and adverts for various technical devices that made male participation in women’s lives superfluous. I was already beginning to feel like that anyway.
Then someone unlocked the door to the flat. I put down the magazine.
I heard talking outside: Helga Bøe’s sergeant-major voice and another one, higher-pitched.
‘Who?’ I heard the high-pitched voice say.
‘Veum. Varg Veum or something like that,’ Helga Bøe answered.
‘Varg?!’
I got up from the chair and she appeared in the doorway.
23
‘Varg?’ she whispered, her head tilted to one side.
Amazement was written all over her face: half-open mouth, eyes agog, a hand stroking hair from her forehead with a mannerism I recognised from the other end of the years that separated us.
She stepped into the room. Helga behind her, partly obscured by the door frame, but as forbidding as a low cloud and ready to unleash a few swift kicks to the groin if required.
‘Yes, it is me, Rebecca,’ I said trying to make my voice sound as steady as possible. I proffered both hands.
She came closer, took my hands and stood at arm’s length, gazing at me.
In the muted lighting, she seemed no different from when she was nineteen. Her hair fell to her shoulders with the same grace, her face had the same soft features, her mouth the same sullen expression that made her smile all the more appealing when she flashed it.
She was wearing a plain, cerise poplin coat and narrow, brown suede boots. Her coat fell open and beneath it I could see a light-brown skirt and a beige jumper.
However, when I studied her more closely I saw a few wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and some barely visible lines at the edge of her mouth that had not been there in 1961. In her dark-blonde hair there were some streaks of a lighter blonde that hadn’t been there before either and were undoubtedly there now as camouflage. Her eyes were not quite the same. They were more knowing than they had been. They had seen more, both good and bad.
But she was Rebecca. And her body was as slim and girlish as it had always been. Wearing a ribbon in her hair, a skirt held up by braces and a round-necked blouse, she could still have been sitting with me in the gallery of the parish hall as her father preached; in my worn jeans, sewn with English leather, denim shirt and grey windcheater, I could still have been crouching next to her; and we could still have been listening to the voices of her father’s congregation singing: ‘Promises are eternal.’
Behind her, Helga had discreetly withdrawn. Rebecca held my hands tighter and I looked down. Her hands were as slender and white as before, but covered with almost invisible gossamer that would one day become wrinkles on ageing skin.
‘What are you doing here, Varg? I hardly recognised you.’
‘I recognised you at once.’
She smiled sadly. ‘Why … after so many years?’
I didn’t answer.
‘How did you find out where I’m staying?’
I shrugged. Then I said with a heavy heart: ‘Actually I’ve come on behalf of Jakob.’
The moment was over. She let go of my hands as if they were toxic and took two demonstrative steps backwards, away from me. ‘I should’ve guessed.’
I shook my head. ‘He just wants to know that you’re OK, Rebecca. He just wanted to be sure…’
She said coldly: ‘OK. Give him this message: Rebecca’s fine. She’s never been better. Not for many, many years.’
‘But don’t you miss your children?’
She looked past me. ‘They might be better off with him. Perhaps he’s better suited to taking care of them than I am.’
I watched her, unable to let go of her with my eyes. ‘I don’t believe that, Rebecca.’ I looked around. ‘Shall we sit down? Let’s have a chat after all these years.’
Her face softened and she beamed me a smile. ‘Perhaps it would’ve been better after all if…’
I waited. ‘If what?’
‘No,’ she said with a casualness I could hardly believe. ‘Nothing.’ She went over to a chair and sat down without taking off her coat.
I sat where I’d been earlier.
‘We met at Jan Petter’s funeral the other day,’ I said quickly.
She nodded. ‘Yes, I read about it in the paper.’
‘And now … now he wants to know you’re alright.’
‘So you said. But I’m not sure I believe that. I’ve talked to him and the children, on the phone, and he knows I’m fine. The thing is he can’t stop hoping I’ll return. But this time – and you can tell him this, Varg – this time I won’t be returning. This time it’s the end.’
‘This time…’
She cast a sidelong glance at me. ‘Yes. He’s told you, hasn’t he?’ She leaned forward. ‘I’ve become quite a naughty girl since we last met, Varg.’
‘Have you?’
‘Yes.’
My gaze fell on the women’s journals on the table between us. Then I said cautiously: ‘Jakob mentioned something about … Johnny Solheim.’
Her eyes darkened and her voice became several degrees colder. ‘Oh, yes?’
‘Do you know what’s happened to him?’
‘To Johnny? No.’
‘Haven’t you seen the papers today?’
‘No.’
‘He’s dead. Johnny was killed some time between Saturday night and Sunday morning.’
‘K-killed, but how?’
‘Stabbed to death in the street.’
She shook her head as if to rid herself of an unwanted image. ‘Stabbed … I … I haven’t seen Johnny since, since 1982.’
I waited. In the hope that she would say more. But she didn’t. Her gaze was miles and miles away.
‘In 1982,’ I said. ‘He’d just got married, hadn’t he? To Bente?’
She didn’t answer, just shrugged.
‘I still remember Anita,’ I continued. ‘And their two girls – what were their names again?’
‘Ruth … and Sissel,’ she said sullenly.
‘When did that marriage finish?’
‘In 1975.’
‘In 1975? The same year that The Harpers split up for good?’
She nodded.
I leaned forward. ‘What were you doing in 1975, Rebecca?’
‘Me?’ She ran her fingers through her thick hair. ‘In 1975 I’d just started to attend some lectures again. We had Petter in 1972 and we didn’t have Grete until 1979, so in those few years I was trying to finish my studies.’
‘Do you know anything about what happened?’
‘Who to? Anita and Johnny? I suppose they’d just got sick of fighting all the time.’
‘And to The Harpers?’
She looked at me wearily. ‘The same, I reckon. They’d been together for close on twenty years. It was time to pack it in.’
‘But Johnny kept going?’
‘Yes, I suppose he did.’
‘So you haven’t seen him this time round?’
‘No, Varg,’ she said tartly. ‘I have not seen him.’ Then she changed her tone. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to since we last met? How do you make a living?’
‘Hm. A living? It’s almost too stupid to say.’
‘Mhm.’
‘Well, I’m a kind of private … investigator.’ I hastened to add: ‘But I’m a trained social worker with years in child welfare.’
‘Private investigator? Can you live off that?’
‘So long as you have an organised life and loans you can cover, just about.’
She looked at my right hand. ‘Family?’
‘I did have one once. But that went by the by as well.’
‘Children?’
‘A son. Thomas. He’s fifteen now. Soon be a grown-up.’
She smiled sadly. ‘Maria’s sixteen. That’s how much time has passed. Do you remember, Varg, when we were fifteen or sixteen?’
I nodded. ‘Very well. And recently I’ve been remembering those days a lot.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean since I’ve met Jakob after so many years. Those days have come back so strongly that I feel as if I’m going around with some sort of mental hangover – one foot in the past and one in the present.’
I tried to probe her eyes, but she looked away. ‘I see. But all of that’s a long time ago, isn’t it, Varg?’
‘Yes, it is.’
Helga appeared in the doorway. ‘Food’s ready, Rebecca. I’m afraid I hadn’t counted…’
I held up both hands. ‘I’m on my way.’
Helga smiled with satisfaction and went back to the kitchen.
Rebecca and I sat looking at each other for a moment. Then she quickly leaned forward and stroked my hand. ‘Nice to see you again, Varg. Perhaps … perhaps we could meet another day?’
I nodded. ‘That would be nice. Shall I contact you?’
‘You’ll find me here most probably.’
I searched for a business card. ‘And you’ll find me here if you want me.’
I stood up. For a few seconds she looked up at me. Then she stood up too.
There was about half a metre between us, two bodies attracted and repelled at the same time, surrounded by a magnetic field of memories. I looked at her lips and wondered if she was thinking the same as me. Then I warily tore myself away and made for the door. ‘See you.’
‘See you, Varg,’ Rebecca said from the room behind me.
Helga met me in the hall and accompanied me out as if to make absolutely sure that I had left.
24
I drove home and had a light lunch. Sometime later I went for a run in Fjellveien, from Munkebotn to Bellevuebakken and back home. After a shower I took out my old photograph album. I flicked from page to page and only stopped when I came to a picture of Rebecca. There weren’t many of her. The snap on the steps in front of our house was the only one from our early years. From our time at school there were a few random snaps on class trips, one of the classroom and finally a picture with everyone posing as if we were practising for Madame Tussaud’s.
She had changed too, of course. In a 1959 photo, the unruly hair of her childhood was replaced by a modest haystack with feather-light wisps of hair falling down her long, white neck, but later the haystack was fork-lifted into a barn, so when we left school in 1961 she had straight hair cascading over her shoulders and a fringe that reached right down into her eyes.
There were no more photographs of her. I leafed through the rest of the album, but until 1969 any photos were thin on the ground. Then it was high season again for a few years – marriage and childbirth, christening and birthdays – which all stopped when Beate and I separated in 1973. Later I stopped taking photographs completely. The only ones I had glued in were of Thomas with Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year written on them.
I slept badly that night. I kept waking up with questions I had no answers to, questions I hadn’t asked myself for many years.
The following day I decided to find out a little more about The Harpers before going to see Jakob with the message from Rebecca.
I popped into the newspaper building in which I felt most at home and asked to speak to Arild Sletten. The receptionist rang to find out if he was free, received an affirmative answer and pointed me in the right direction.
As I passed a half-open door a glance in my direction brought me to a halt, drew me backwards and inside. Laila Mongstad sat watching me with a beaming smile, large glasses and big, curly hair.
‘Hi, Varg.’ She got up, came over to me and gave me a morning hug that hoisted my flag. ‘Long time, no see,’ she said in her attractive north Hordland dialect, pulled a little chair over from the corner and asked if I had time to sit and chat.
‘A few minutes,’ I answered. ‘I’ve got an appointment elsewhere in your establishment.’
She always had a smile on her face. Laila Mongstad had a large, warm heart that made her one of Bergen’s top social-affairs reporters. I had known her off and on from the time
I worked in child welfare. She was ten years older than me, but at a certain point in our lives our paths had crossed in a way that had left its mark. It was at a largish party where I, through acquaintances of acquaintances, had been allocated a corner seat at the furthest long table. I had later ensconced myself at the bar, and some time after midnight, more drunk than was good for me, I had found myself face to face with Laila Mongstad, and that beaming smile had drawn me to her like a free parking spot during the morning rush hour. I had groped for her name: ‘You’re S-Si-Sissel … no. Si-Si …’ And she had smiled: ‘No, that’s not my name.’ Mongstad! Bull’s eye, it was Laila Mongstad. And her smile had grown even bigger, her eyes had shone like the sun, and she’d had a scent of late-summer honeysuckle. Later we had stood very, very close, a cup of coffee in one hand and a drink in the other, unable to embrace, and we had kissed with great care, and even later we had set down the cup and the drink and our kisses became bolder and freer, and her neck swayed with passion, against the backdrop of the night, before darkness fell, the stars sprinkled dust over the town and we went our separate ways, without going the full distance.
We met regularly after that, and she always burned in my loins like a low sun, but although five years had passed since our first kiss, we had never managed to quench the thirst the sun always produced in us when we met.
‘Who are you going to see?’ she asked.
‘Arild Sletten.’
She looked at me in surprise. ‘Have you become a rock ‘n’ roll fan in your later youth, Varg?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m working on a case that involves an old rock band. ‘And you?’
‘I still prefer the Bergen Philharmonic.’
‘Now, I meant. What job are you working on at the moment?’
She pondered. ‘What might be of most interest to you is a collective for former junkies on the Lindås peninsula. Some idealists have done a decent job. I’m going up there in a few days to do a splash on it.’ Now she was serious.
‘Sounds great.’ I got up. ‘Sorry, Laila, but Sletten’s waiting for me, so … I’ll pop by on my way out, OK?’
‘If I’m here.’ She looked a little disconcerted for a moment. Then she flashed her big smile again. ‘Anyway, it was lovely to see you, Varg. Come back soon…’ She gave me another hug before I said my goodbyes and made my way to Sletten’s office.
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