Reptile Memoirs E-Book

Silje Ulstein

• Herausgeber: Grove Press UK
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Dark, disturbing and deliciously twisty, Reptile Memoirs is a biting and brilliant exploration of the cold-bloodedness of humanity - perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, Jo Nesbø and Tana French. What readers are saying about Reptile Memoirs 'Truly unusual and terrifying' 'Dark, heart-wrenching and creepy' 'Graphic' 'Dark, challenging and unforgettable' 'Chilling' 'Not for the faint hearted' 'Unique, dark and disturbing, gripping and very, very clever' Liv has a lot of secrets. Late one night, in the aftermath of a party in the apartment she shares with two friends in Ålesund, she sees a python on a TV nature show and becomes obsessed with the idea of buying a snake as a pet. Soon Nero, a baby Burmese python, becomes the apartment's fourth roommate. As Liv bonds with Nero, she is struck by a desire that surprises her with its intensity. Finally she is safe. Thirteen years later, in the nearby town of Kristiansund, Mariam Lind goes on a shopping trip with her eleven-year-old daughter, Iben. Following an argument Mariam storms off, expecting her young daughter to make her own way home . . . but she never does. Detective Roe Olsvik, new to the Kristiansund police department, is assigned to the case of Iben's disappearance. As he interrogates Mariam, he instantly suspects her - but there is much more to this case and these characters than their outer appearances would suggest. A biting and constantly shifting tale of family secrets, rebirth and the legacy of trauma, Reptile Memoirs is a brilliant exploration of the cold-bloodedness of humanity.

Leseprobe

Silje Ulstein has a masters degree in literature from the University of Oslo and studied creative writing at the Bergen Writing Academy. Her debut novel Reptile Memoirs was a bestseller in Norway. She lives in Oslo.

Alison McCullough is a Norwegian to English translator and writer. She was awarded a National Centre for Writing Emerging Translator Mentorship in 2017. She lives in Stavanger, Norway.

First published in the United States of America in 2022 by Grove Atlantic

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Grove Press UK, an imprint of Grove Atlantic

Originally published in Norway in 2020 as Krypdyrmemoarer by Aschehoug Forlag

Copyright © Silje Ulstein, 2020

English translation © Alison McCullough, 2021

The moral right of Silje Ulstein and Alison McCullough to be identified as the author and translator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

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A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA.

Hardback ISBN 978 1 61185 650 7

Export trade paperback ISBN 978 1 61185 440 4

E-book ISBN 978 1 61185 884 6

Printed in Great Britain

Grove Press UK

Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London

WC1N 3JZ

www.groveatlantic.com

I is another.

—Arthur Rimbaud

PART ONE

Liv

Ålesund

Wednesday, 16 July 2003

That first time, his body was a paradox. Like living granite, or silken sandpaper. He was hard and soft at the same time. Coarse and smooth. Heavy and light. The first thing that struck me was how warm he was. As if I had believed his body would be cold both inside and out. As if I hadn’t wanted to believe that he was alive. Only later would I learn that he didn’t give off any heat of his own, only absorbed what was around him.

He lay in my arms, barely a metre long and still just a little baby. He lifted his head, supporting himself against my arm and turning his shining eyes in my direction. Perhaps he was trying to understand what I was. Whether I was prey or a potential enemy. His split tongue vibrated lightly in the air, and he moved slowly up along my chest, towards my throat. Once there, he stopped, half of him suspended in the air, his stony dead eyes on mine. I looked straight into his narrow pupils, into a gaze that was completely steady, free of any impulse to blink. He seemed to be seeking some kind of connection, despite the impossibility of communication between us.

There was something ethereal about him. This ability to hold such a large portion of his body in the air without the slightest effort, or so it seemed. As if he had no need for contact with anything earthly and could have simply remained in constant weightlessness had he so wished. Just the thought of having such bodily control seemed impossible—it made me feel weightless, light-headed. I lifted my arm, and he hung down from it as if from a branch, moving searchingly towards my face.

“He likes you,” said the woman with the American r’s and l’s, bringing me back to the cold attic room that housed all kinds of species in cages that lined the walls. There seemed to be a propensity for laughter in the woman’s voice. “Do you like him? It seems so.”

Like. The word was insufficient. Something I might have said about a cool jacket. This was something else entirely.

“Can I hold him?”

“When can I hold him?”

Ingvar and Egil looked on from either side of me. I had almost forgotten that they were standing there. Despite the fact that Ingvar was a couple of years older than Egil—and although Ingvar had a beard and long dark hair like mine, while Egil was wearing a white shirt, his hair slicked back and blond—right now they seemed like twins in their early teens. For them, the word like made sense. The two of them “liked” the snake in the way that they liked bands and beers and anything else that might briefly preoccupy them. What was it that I felt? Maternal affection? Love? A connection that crossed the differences between species. When I looked down at that tiny face, so far removed from my own, I thought it looked back at me with trust, even understanding.

It wasn’t long since the idea had come to us. The living room had been heavy with smoke at five o’clock in the morning in Ålesund’s coolest basement apartment, where the red lava lamp stood spewing up its globs 24/7. We were the small group that remained of what had previously been a living room full of people. Close to calling it a night, but not quite ready to do so. The mood was subdued, the air sweet with smoke, and Ingvar sat in the armchair playing classic rock tunes on his guitar. Even Egil, who had spent the entire evening pumping the living room full of 50 Cent and OutKast, had rolled down his shirtsleeves and settled on the rug with his arm around a girl who was probably in some of his classes at the Norwegian Business School. I was high on the atmosphere and one of Ingvar’s strong joints, had withdrawn into myself. I lay on the sofa, concentrating on the ceiling, which was undulating, up and down, up and down, as if it were breathing. Having found the rhythm in it, I had intended to lie there until I fell asleep, but then out of nowhere a guy appeared. He had been outside and came wandering back into the apartment. He must have been an acquaintance of Ingvar’s or Egil’s, I didn’t care which. Later I couldn’t remember his face, only that he sat on the floor beside my head and wanted to talk to me, but I was too busy watching the ceiling breathe. After repeated attempts at getting my attention, he went and sat with the others instead.

I slept, or became one with the ceiling and ceased to exist, but soon enough I was back. It was Ingvar’s exclamation that woke me. The girl Egil had been hitting on was half hidden behind his back, her hands over her eyes. Egil himself sat with his eyes glued to the TV. On the screen a man was standing in the jungle, half submerged in a muddy puddle and pulling something from the water. It was a snake with gleaming brown and black scales, as thick as an alligator but much longer. The snake got bigger and bigger as the man drew it out of the water. Its skin was brown, black and yellow. A huge python. The man called out as he pulled forth an ever fatter, ever rounder coil. “This is a big snake!” he cried. “The head, there’s the head!” An Australian accent and quick movements. At that moment the snake opened its jaws and lunged at its captor, furious. The man backed away, giving a stifled cry, the snake following after him.

I swallowed. Heard Egil’s nervous laughter and curses as if from somewhere far away. My heartbeat seemed to drown out everything, filling the room with the sound of my blood. My cheeks turned hot, my hands clammy. I didn’t usually feel such an intimate connection to my body—not like this. There was something about the coiled snake’s soft movements, the muscle power that must be hidden beneath the sleek scales. I felt drawn to the screen, where the man had taken a camera from his pocket and positioned himself to take a photograph of the enormous animal. Right then, the snake and I yawned, almost in unison. We stretched our necks, displaying a long and flexible oral cavity with tiny teeth that almost merged into one. A wet soft palate, a tongue that waved in the air. Then we struck. The room erupted in unanimous fear and fervour as we sank our teeth into a thick, hairy arm.

“I thought I was going to die,” the Australian man said. “I thought it had me.” He sat in a deck chair, a tent in the background. “It would have killed me, had it not got its lower jaw stuck on my trousers. I never would have had a chance against it otherwise.” The clip of the snake biting the man was shown over and over, in rapid succession. The soft pink mouth darted forward, darted forward, several times at speed and then again in slow motion. I saw how the snake bit, how a pale-pink tooth snagged on the fabric of the man’s trousers before finally breaking free. The thought of that tooth, how it would feel against my fingertips. I closed my mouth. Swallowed.

“I know where you can get one of those.” It was the new guy who spoke—the one who had come in from somewhere outside. “Not as big as that one, obviously, but I know where you can buy smaller ones like it—babies.”

When I think back, try to remember what the guy looked like, I recall only a head without features, free of eyes, nose or mouth. But I remember that the room fell silent for a moment. Egil turned his head and flashed me a huge smile. I tried to mimic it, but struggled to overcome the intensity of emotion I was feeling. I was afraid they would notice how fast I was breathing, how I was swallowing saliva, how my cheeks burned. I nodded, slowly. Egil turned to Ingvar, who had a similar smile on his face. He nodded, too. And so, wordlessly, we decided. We would get ourselves a snake.

The evening came to life again, the room filling with laughter and voices. The new guy held up a glinting silver digital camera and snapped some group photos of us. Me, Ingvar, Egil, the girl, the guy, and in the background the TV screen featuring the frozen image of a six-metre-long python.

The new member of our family was a metre-long tiger python. Still just a baby. But I was already lost in this tiny creature. Had the feeling of being suspended in midair above an abyss—an astonishingly pleasant sensation. Before I passed him on, I lifted him to my face and whispered, “You’re coming home with me.”

It must have been a figment of my imagination, but I thought I saw him nod.

Mariam

Kristiansund

Friday, 18 August 2017

“Mamma, can I get a magazine?”

Iben holds up a pastel-coloured comic book covered in glitter. The character on the cover is supposed to be a sexy zombie with shimmering lipstick, pouting with overly large lips. As a rule, only Tor takes Iben along to the store—I like to get the shopping done on my own. But today is mine and Iben’s “just us” day. It was my suggestion. School starts on Monday, and I wanted to be the one to take our sixth grader out to buy new clothes and school supplies. Wanted to set aside time for the two of us, in the hope that we’d become closer again. Our relationship has become more difficult as she’s got older. Distant, somehow.

We’ve been at the Storkaia shopping centre for almost three hours. I let Iben choose herself an outfit, and she picked out a pair of skinny jeans, a lace top with a button at the neck, which suits her, and pink shoes and a matching hoodie that she put on straightaway. We stood before the mirrors of the clothing stores, taking pictures and messing around. We even found a yellow sweater in her size that looks like the cashmere jumper I have on today, and we sent Tor a photo of us. Iben is so like me when I was her age. It sometimes hurts to see it, how alike we are, but today it’s been sort of nice. After we finished our shopping, we sat in a café and ate ice cream. I asked her safe questions, and she answered them. We talked about horses for a while. She has a friend who’s taking riding lessons and is eager to join her. I promised to speak to Tor about it, but she smiled as if I’d already given her my permission.

Iben is a beautiful eleven-year-old, with locks of fair hair that fall down into her eyes, a narrow nose and thin lips. The absurd figure on the zombie comic book she’s holding up to me provides a garish contrast. Iben puts on a face intended to charm. It probably works on Tor—who lets his softhearted nature guide him far too much—but this is a poor tactic to try on me. It makes me feel duped. For eleven years I’ve looked after her, made sure she wouldn’t come to any harm—wouldn’t fall off the sofa, get food stuck in her throat or swallow any Lego bricks. I’ve comforted her when she has cried, when she’s been ill. She doesn’t appreciate any of that. Gifts, and permission to do things—that’s all she cares about.

I take the magazine from her hands. For a few seconds she looks at me, a light still shining in her dark eyes, and seconds pass in which she still has hope of getting, getting, getting. I flick through the magazine. More conceited zombie girls gazing from the pages with big, made-up eyes. They do everyday activities, go to school and put on makeup. The people behind the magazine know how to take advantage of the way young girls’ eyes twinkle at the sight of all that glitters.

“What can you learn from this?”

Iben looks down. Scrapes the floor with her new shoes.

“Iben. What can you learn from this?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“It looks to me as if there’s nothing at all to be learned from this. Why do you want it?”

She continues to look down at the floor, half shrugs the one shoulder in response.

“Their hips are narrower than their necks,” I say.

I set the magazine back in her hands. Stand behind her and open it to the first page.

“Look at this. No story. Almost no text, and the text that is there is nothing but jabbering prattle. The only thing this magazine offers is ugly pictures of half-dead girls in makeup. Why do you want this, Iben?”

She shakes her head. Tries to move, but I restrain her. Turn to the next page.

“Look at this.” I turn the page again. “Do you see? Ten pages, and still no story. It isn’t about anything—it’s about nothing at all.”

I can hear the strictness in my voice, but I can’t let my daughter continue to fall for something so tasteless. Next time, she’ll know better. She tries to twist away, but I hold her in place with my elbows. She looks down at her new shoes, lets go of the magazine so that only I’m holding it—along with her now-limp hand. She whimpers, tries to pull her hand away. I’ve gone too far.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just think you shouldn’t read things that are going to make you dumber. Find something better, and I’ll buy it for you.”

Iben snatches the magazine from me. Ducks her head and walks with quick steps, disappearing off behind the shelves. Then my mobile rings. I rummage around in my handbag and find Iben’s phone first—she’s asked me to look after it because her pockets aren’t big enough. I dig around some more and find my own. It’s one of the accountants—he’s probably looking to arrange a meeting about employing more personal assistants. OptiHealth, my health-care company, won a major contract in June—there was a photo of us in the Tidens Krav newspaper. We were pictured with marzipan cake and sparkling wine, and after spending the summer planning, we’re now ready to start delivering. But today my daughter is more important than my role as the company’s CEO—I’ve promised myself that. I put the phone on silent and let it ring on.

Iben isn’t at the magazine racks when I reach them. I pick up another comic book that seems better, along with a book of crossword puzzles. Stand there for a moment, looking at the magazine with the heavily made-up zombie girls. We can talk about it this evening.

Iben isn’t at the checkout, either. Not by the shelves of sweets, and not outside the store. I take the items from my shopping trolley and load them onto the checkout’s conveyor belt. Take out my mobile to call her, but then realise that I have her phone. I think she’s too young for a shoulder bag, but I’m clearly going to have to buy one for her soon. At the till, I pay and try to ask the boy sitting there whether he’s seen an eleven-year-old girl, but I may as well have asked the till itself. I pack my items into carrier bags, roll my shopping trolley through the exit and stop between two stores, glancing left and right. When I still can’t see any sign of her I start to shove the trolley hard in front of me, taking long strides out along the pavement, aware that my patience is wearing thin. I grit my teeth as I force the shopping trolley up the hill to the multistorey car park.

She isn’t at the parking meter; nor is she waiting beside the car. I turn, looking about me in all directions, but there are only a few cars to be seen, and no little girls. This is probably the point at which I’m supposed to start running around hysterically—call on the security guards and have a message read over the shopping centre’s PA system, in fear that someone has taken her. That’s what she wants. But she will not punish me—I refuse to be part of her game. I begin to load the groceries into the car, throwing in the carrier bags ever more aggressively. The eggs have probably been crushed in their carton, and I hope they’re on top of the magazine I chose for Iben. I thrust the empty shopping trolley against the wall with a crash; it topples over and lies there, wheels spinning, as I get into the car. The hem of my four-thousand-kroner coat gets caught in the door, its fabric ripping as I pull it towards me. I start the car. Iben is such a fast runner that she’ll likely be home in ten minutes. I refuse to follow her. I’ll soon be out on the road. If I want, I can simply keep driving. Put family life behind me and never come back.

Liv

Ålesund

Saturday, 23 August 2003

He had his hood pulled up over his head and was walking hunched over, with his characteristic gait. I recognised his sweater from a distance, its grey and green stripes, worn thin after years of washing. We came close enough that I could see the sweater was spotted with flecks from the light rain. Then he lifted his head, and I met his ice-blue gaze, the smile that was almost expressionless in his pimpled face. As ever, he had a pouch of snus tucked under his upper lip. It was almost possible to believe that he had always looked like this. He must be twenty-eight by now.

Patrick waved, and nausea surged through my body. I spun around, looking down and making a sharp turn into the doorway of the first and best store—the jewellers—but I regretted it as soon as I was through the doors. This was no escape route—it was a dead end. I walked over to a wall of cabinets containing gold jewellery and heard the jingle of the bell as he came in after me.

The bright memories came first. Our laughter as he swung me around and around in the living room until we both crash-landed on the floor. The way he would put slices of ham and cheese on his face to make me laugh. Memories from the time before I started school, before the woman who called herself my mother began to disappear for months at a time. It was as if those memories were wrapped in cotton wool, as if my head turned to cotton just thinking of them.

After the bright memories came the glimpses of everyday life. Patrick, who never woke up on time. The clock radio that buzzed and served up a dry newsreader voice into the darkness of the windowless room. It buzzed until Patrick pulled its plug from the socket. I would stand there tugging at him until he got up, or until he told me to go to hell. Then I would spread butter on a slice of bread, drink a glass of chocolate milk and walk to school. When I came home in the afternoon he might be lying on the sofa, or he might be out, or he might be standing in the kitchen making toasted cheese sandwiches for us. The days drifted into each other, an entire life made up of things we did or didn’t do together. The breath from his nose when he tickled me, the TV that was almost always on, glasses of congealed milk and bowls of leftover porridge on the counter. The blobs of toothpaste he would leave in the sink, which I would smear across the porcelain with my finger. Everyday life gradually became less the three of us and more just us two.

The darkest memories came last.

By this point Patrick had moved so close to me where I was standing before the cabinets of gold jewellery that I could smell him. These memories, I couldn’t bear. I wanted him to leave so I would be spared having to think of them. I stared at the gold jewellery—things I could never afford. The only piece I wore was a gold-plated key on a chain around my neck. I saw its reflection there in the glass case, and I saw Patrick, who at that moment reached out a hand and touched it with his fingertip.

“Have you become a latchkey kid, Sara?”

A shock flashed through my body. I shrugged him off.

“Oh, Sara,” he said.

I held my breath for several seconds, trying to keep the nausea at bay.

“My name is Liv,” I said. “And I don’t know you.”

Roe

Kristiansund

Friday, 18 August 2017

The clock on the computer screen is approaching twelve. I check it around every four minutes, occasionally glancing out of the window where the Sundbåten ferry is returning to the harbour. The wind blows tiny raindrops against the pane. When I first came here, I thought the window facing the sea would be something that gave me pleasure. Now all it does is remind me that Kristiansund is just as depressing as Ålesund, only with a better view from the office.

I’ve long since finished the interview with the girl who claims she was raped while asleep—I’m just giving her testimony a final look-over. Of course I could have eaten lunch with the others, could have joined them for a piece of the Dane’s latest “apology cake.” When I was new on the force, I used to like these gatherings over cakes. I even pretended to love them when I went for the job interview in Kristiansund—anything to get out of Ålesund. But apology cakes aren’t the same when you have a desk job and are no longer in the field. You just become the person who eats and never bakes—who hears the stories and analyses them but never experiences them personally. Some of the old guys who are no longer in the field bake cakes to share regardless, but that’s just idiotic.

It isn’t just that I’m no longer out in the field. After all that’s happened, I can hardly stand to be around people anymore. And when police officers eat cake together, they ask questions. They want to dig around in you, know everything that’s going on inside your head. I don’t intend to share a bloody thing, I have no intention of revealing a single detail they have no need to know. They think picking up a junkie off the street is tough, that it’s a tragedy if nothing comes of their attempts at flirting. I can’t talk to these people about what it’s like to have lost everything meaningful, without ever having realised just how important it all was. Or what it’s like to be sixty years old, with every year that passes just another year wedged between Kiddo and me. It’s too late for me. In the past lies an ever more distant memory of the people I didn’t value while I still had them; in the future, only death awaits. But I can’t say this to my colleagues. So I remain the grumpy old man who sits there in silence, eating their cake. I won’t let them force me into being that guy.

My stomach rumbles, but I intend to wait until there are as few people as possible in the cafeteria before I go for lunch. To kill time, I play the video from the interview with the girl again. She sits with her head bowed as she speaks, her hands in her lap. Her hair hides her face from the camera. “I knew him, from before,” she says. “From school and stuff. He had never, like, made a pass at me—there wasn’t anything between us. That night, at the party at his place, he tried it on, but he wasn’t pushy or anything.” My own voice chimes in after a clearing of my throat: “Now, you say ‘he tried it on’—what did he do?” Silence. Then: “He wanted to talk about things. Private things. Then he wanted to kiss me, but I pulled away. I said I wasn’t interested, and then he gave up. Afterwards everything seemed fine. He’s the kind of guy you feel safe around. I wasn’t afraid to lie down next to him and go to sleep.” The girl begins to cry. I watch myself hold out the box of tissues. “Tell me what happened next,” I say. “I slept,” she says. “I didn’t wake up until he’d started. He . . . did stuff to me, while I was asleep—” My own voice interrupts again. “I know this is difficult,” I say, “but you have to try to be as specific and detailed as possible. When you say he ‘did stuff,’ can you tell me what you mean by those words?”

I remember how I felt on those first occasions when a young girl cried like this in front of me. How incensed I became at the perpetrator, or perpetrators. At times, I had more to give those girls than I had to give my own daughter. They needed me more, too, with all they’d been through. Now the empathy stops at the halfway mark. I can no longer bear to feel that emotion—I’m afraid I’ll see red and then lose it.

I stop the video in the middle of the statement. Look for a moment at the young girl’s bowed head. Remember Kiddo running up the street towards the house where we lived as a family. She was always so happy to see me. All at once my heart starts to pound in my chest. I shake off the memories and close the video.

I walk towards the stream of police officers who are on their way back to their desks in the operations centre. Soon many of them will be gone—the operations centre is being moved to Ålesund in a few weeks. Everything disappears from Kristiansund. There’s only me swimming against the current.

On my way up the stairs I stop to tie my shoelaces. Listen to the police station’s hum of voices, like a swarm of bees. I know that I can’t stand much more of this, but I can’t fucking stand any of the alternatives, either. I straighten my spine and decide to jog up the rest of the stairs, even though nobody can see me, running past the wax dummies dressed in old police uniforms. The worst thing is that I used to wear one of these myself back in the early eighties, when I was new to the force and wore a neat police cap atop my thick mane of hair. Engaged to be married and full of anticipation for all that lay ahead. All of that would go up in smoke.

Birte walks out of the cafeteria, a bottle of sparkling water in her hand. Her face is so densely covered in freckles that she looks like a map; her customary red plait hangs down over the epaulette of her uniform. She raises her hand in greeting as I pass. People greet each other far too much here—it’s exhausting. Once I’m through the door, I hear a shriek, followed by piercing laughter behind me. I turn and see that the Dane has dressed up as a mannequin, in a wig and an old uniform. The tall man is doubled over with laughter. Birte has to sit down on the steps and dry her eyes, she’s laughing so much. I know it’s stupid of me, but I can’t help but think that the Dane was standing there as I passed by just a few seconds ago. That he waited, stock-still, as I walked past so he could jump out and scare someone other than me.

There are still a few small groups of people sitting in the cafeteria, the ones who take long lunch breaks. None of the food looks especially appetising, but I decide to go for a chicken salad. Pick up a newspaper and make a beeline for one of the tables by the window. The football coach Magne Hoseth is on the front page of Tidens Krav today—he wants to help Kristiansund retain their position in Norway’s premier league. I flick through the paper’s pages to find the interview. Don’t really give a toss about how Kristiansund FC are doing in the football league, but at least the article will be about something other than the business sector or hospitals. Wrong. Even Hoseth has an opinion on the planned regional hospital that has already cost taxpayers 450 million kroner to try to figure out. It’s a week since Kristiansund lost the appeal in the hospital court case. The hospital will instead be built in Molde.

Plucking up my courage, I stab a piece of chicken with my fork. I’ve just managed to open my mouth over it when from the corner of my eye I see someone coming towards me.

“Well hello there, stranger!”

Åsmund is wearing a greyish-brown sweater that matches his white hair in a way that is far too clichéd. He doesn’t get that I’d prefer not to be seen with him. That his presence calls attention to the silver strands on my own head. There’s nothing to do but brace myself for Åsmund’s inevitable stories of school visits and concerned conversations with the town’s youth.

“How’s it going, Åsmund?”

He sighs and sets down his tray on the table.

“You know, the longer I work here, the more convinced I become that there’s simply no hope for the next generation.”

“At least you don’t have to deal with the sexual assault cases. Give me a drunken brawl or a break-in any day—the sexual assault cases are the ones that really get you.”

One of the most difficult things to accept about Åsmund is that we actually get along pretty well. It’s depressing.

“I’ve heard that you’re pretty skilled at handling those cases, Roe. I was talking to a couple of guys over a slice of cake earlier. They say you’re a capable interviewer.”

I’m surprised that they’ve been talking about me, but I suspect Åsmund isn’t telling the whole story—that there was a but in there somewhere.

Åsmund starts relating a story about some young boy of thirteen he’s been trying to help. I quickly zone out. Look down at my salad and consider whether I should bother taking another bite. Fill up my fork and look at the pale meat, the dressing the colour of mustard.

“Roe!”

Birte is calling me from the door. Her freckled face is serious this time.

“Meeting. Team room.”

I can see it in Birte’s bearing, how she suddenly seems ten years older—I can smell a big case from miles away. That’s what I need right now, for something to happen. I wasn’t hungry anyway. I get up, taking my lunch and newspaper with me, and walk over to the rubbish bin. Throw both items into it with both hands, the plastic lid giving out a loud crack.

We hurry down the stairs to the third floor. But in front of the door to the team room, Birte stops. She holds out an arm, wanting me to go in first. I turn my head and see that Åsmund has followed us—he’s standing on the stairs and looking in our direction. As I reach for the door handle, I suddenly feel unwell.

The room is half dark and full of people sitting in silence, all looking at me. Then there’s a bang, and the air is filled with raining confetti. On the wall a sign that says ROE—60 TODAY! lights up, and in chorus the room erupts into a rendition of the birthday song. They sing, bow, curtsy and turn around, just as the song’s lyrics dictate. I should have known. Of course the bastards intend to rub it in.

Liv

Ålesund

Thursday, 28 August 2003

“Oh no, no-no-no, no, no, no!”

The car on the TV screen spun off the road, straight into a concrete wall, and was flipped over onto its back. Egil swore, flinging the controller at the pedestal with an angel figurine on it that stood in the centre of Ingvar’s room.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ingvar smirked, giving his long dark hair a flick as he swerved his car neatly across the finish line. “You have way too much of a temper.”

“But Egil’s dad will happily buy us a new Xbox if this one gets broken,” I said. “You let it out, Egil.”

“Oh shut your mouth,” Egil answered.

The mocking, the bickering—under all this was only good feeling. This was one of the things I liked best about these guys—that we could yell at each other without it being taken the wrong way. You don’t talk like that to someone you don’t like, not in that tone. We each knew that the others could take it, and that they wouldn’t go too far. Nobody misunderstood, nobody fell out, and it gave us all a chance to let off some steam.

Egil flopped down on the bed beside me and straightened the beige Lacoste shirt he was wearing. It was slim fit, of course—he hadn’t spent all those hours at the gym for nothing. Egil was irritatingly well proportioned in everything from the breadth of his shoulders to his jawline and cheekbones to his nose, forehead and eyebrows, which met in the middle. He was the kind of guy many girls convinced themselves they wanted, because they thought that was what everybody else wanted, too. Girls who looked like images from a glossy magazine thought they were looking for an image from a glossy magazine—and Egil used this for all it was worth. Only I knew that in Egil’s case, there was actually a good guy underneath it all.

I lifted my arm—Nero hung down from it, his scaly body seeking to return to the heater below the window—and Egil took the snake from me. I sat down on the floor next to Ingvar and grabbed the controller. Ingvar started the game again, and the vehicles lined up for the race, my white Jaguar and Ingvar’s black Lamborghini next to two other fancy cars. The intoxicating sound of four motors filled the room. Some women in short grey skirts came up and prepared us for the start signal. Then we were off. Full throttle through dark streets. I was so overeager that I cornered with my entire body. I turned the car too hard, so its back end bumped into the crash barrier—no high score for me. Ingvar was soon in pole position, sailing elegantly across the asphalt, taking a long jump from the crest of a hill and making a controlled landing into the next turn. I was too concerned with what he was doing, and so crashed into a Vauxhall with red stripes along its sides—we lost control, both of us. Egil laughed loudly in his usual taunting way, seeming to have forgotten that he was in my position just a few minutes earlier. I regained control of the car and swerved around the Vauxhall into a perfect turn, only to find that I was now going the wrong way. I was soon at the back of the race again. I sighed, pulled carefully over to the roadside verge, and parked the car.

“I think it’s obvious what you’re doing all day, Ingvar, when you’re supposed to be writing music,” I said.

Ingvar raised an index finger as the words NEW HIGH SCORE appeared on the screen.

“You’re just jealous,” Ingvar said. “Because I’m so good.”

“Good at not having a life,” retorted Egil.

Ingvar drove on without saying a word. I went and sat on the bed beside Egil while Ingvar carried on, driving alone in the lead, scoring points.

“You’ll be here for the party on Saturday, right?” Egil said.

He tried to get Nero to lie like a cat in the crook of his arm, but the snake didn’t seem to understand. Instead he sank, pulled by gravity down onto the bed, resting his head on his coiled body. Nero was calm by nature. It was rare that he moved at all—he could lie in almost the same position for hours at a time, saving his energy until the next opportunity to hunt presented itself.

“I don’t have any money,” I said. “Or any leftover booze.”

Egil let out an exasperated breath.

“You always scrounge your drinks off me.”

“And anyway, I’m not really up for it.”

Egil looked at me.

“I actually just want to spend the weekend doing my course reading,” I said. “Seriously. Go to bed early and stuff, spend all Sunday reading instead of lying in bed hungover and hating myself.”

Egil raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sure one party isn’t going to stop you from becoming a nurse. Come on, it won’t be like last time, it’ll be cool.”

Egil probably remembered more than I did about the things I’d rattled off at some point in the early hours between last Saturday and Sunday. I’d vowed never to tell them about Patrick, but bumping into him in town that day had had such a strong effect on me.

“You’ll be up for it as soon as you start drinking,” Egil said.

That’s what I’d thought, too, when I’d come back here that day and started to get ready to go out partying. Mostly I just wanted to bury myself under the duvet and ride out the anxiety that was flowing through me. But instead I’d decided to make it the best night ever—told myself that it would be fun just as soon as I started drinking. It wasn’t. I couldn’t even remember what I’d said, only that I had said far too much. I didn’t even know that Ingvar already knew Patrick.

Egil stared at me, giving me a dejected look. He was waiting for an answer and seemed to have no intention of accepting a no. I sighed.

“Just kidding. Of course I’m coming.”

I extended my index finger and touched one of the narrow stripes of pale scales on Nero’s head, right at the top of his neck. If you looked at his head from above, the pattern looked like an arrow, a stroke of white at the very back and a dark arrow tip that pointed towards the snout and jaws. I had spent so much time staring at this head, this wondrous signpost, in recent months.

“He’s so beautiful,” I said. “I just can’t get over it.”

“Jeez,” said Egil. “Way to make a guy feel good.”

“I mean it—just look at that body.”

He had shed his skin a week earlier. I’d been able to watch the entire process, from when his body had taken on a greyish cast—his black eyes included—until he scratched himself against the bedposts to pull off the brittle grey-white membrane. The new scales that were revealed shone in vivid colours, polished and gleaming. People once thought that snakes were immortal. They saw them being reborn from their own skin, again and again. His skin was now hanging from the ceiling light in my room. I wanted to keep every rebirth, remember all the snakes he had been.

“Can’t we bring the snake out at the party?” Egil asked, fluttering his eyelashes.

I looked at him.

“Just at the after party, then?”

I shook my head.

“It’s not as if there are policemen on the guest list or anything—just cool people. If he gets scared, we’ll put him away again. It’ll be fine.”

“Until he bites somebody and she calls her mummy.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him. Warn everybody not to startle him.”

“Egil. We’re done talking about this.”

“It’s not just your snake. Ingvar—what do you think?”

Ingvar had turned off the Xbox and was now putting on a CD. Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone—his favourite album. Slow guitar riffs filled the room as Ingvar slumped down onto the bed on the other side of me. He was wearing a band T-shirt that was so faded it was no longer possible to see what the image on it depicted. He had a book in his hand.

“Shall I tell you what I was thinking about earlier today?” Ingvar said, holding up the book.

“Alice in Wonderland?” I said. “Children’s books, Ingvar? I thought you only read Russian novels the size of bricks.”

“It’s a classic. Who do you think we’d all be if we were characters from Alice in Wonderland?”

Egil laughed. “I certainly know who you’d be, Ingvar. You’d be the caterpillar that sits on a mushroom, smoking all the time.”

Ingvar threw his arms wide.

“All the time? It happens once a week at most!”

“For some of us that’s pretty often,” Egil answered. “And who knows what you get up to when the rest of us are out at lectures.”

“That’s a lie—and anyway, it’s medicinal,” Ingvar said.

Ingvar had epilepsy. He rarely had seizures, but he was always on guard against them, and he rarely drank alcohol. We had agreed that if he was ever home alone and called one of us but couldn’t say anything, then we should assume he’d had a seizure and go to him straightaway. Luckily so far, he’d only ever had seizures while someone was with him.

Egil grinned. “It hasn’t been proved that cannabis helps epilepsy sufferers, Ingvar, so don’t try to make excuses for your drug use.”

“Egil’s easy, too,” I said. “He’s the Mad Hatter. One never-ending, meaningless party—that’s your life, isn’t it, Egil?”

“Well, you’re fucking rude,” Egil said. “And anyway, you’re way crazier than me when you drink. Who’s Liv then, Ingvar? Is she the cat?”

“She could be the Cheshire Cat.” Ingvar raised an index finger. “Or I could have gone for Alice, too. But there’s an even better option. Liv is the Queen of Hearts.”

“Because I’m the boss of you two?”

“Well, that—and you’re the party queen. But the Queen of Hearts is the most important character in the whole book. She makes the story dangerous—there’s no story without her.”

“I don’t get it. You think I’m dangerous?”

“I don’t get it either, Ingvar,” Egil said.

“But think about it. Who was it that dragged us out for a midnight swim in February? Who climbed up Sukkertoppen in the pitch-dark with a gang of drunken fools? Who crawled through a bush and into a fancy garden to steal that thing?”

Ingvar pointed to the angel figurine standing atop the pedestal—one of those fat, babylike cherubs that you saw everywhere, but discoloured by green stains and seagull shit, it looked far from cute. I had named it Beelzebub.

“I remember when the light came on in the first-floor windows,” said Egil. “You ran like fuck with that angel.”

“Exactly,” said Ingvar. “How many nights would we remember if Liv hadn’t been there to liven them up? Without her, there wouldn’t be much that was memorable. Just an eternal absurd tea party.”

I shook my head. “For a guy who smokes all the time, Ingvar, you’re actually really fucking smart.”

“I don’t smoke all the time!”

“Liv is the one who’s going to end up in prison,” said Egil. “I’d put money on it.”

“Just wait and see how wrong you are,” I said, laughing.

“So then it’s decided,” Egil said. “Ingvar’s persuaded you. Nero can come to the party?”

“Actually, I agree with Liv,” said Ingvar. “The snake will end up biting someone, or maybe even trying to choke them. I want no part of it.”

Then my phone rang. The number on the screen wasn’t one I had stored in my contacts.

“Hello?” Her smoker’s voice was rasping.

“Yes, you called me?” I said, getting up. I walked out into the hallway, past the walls covered in embroidered decorations from our landlady’s youth, towards the bathroom. Thought I caught a whiff of a scent, a strong spray of perfume.

“Sara? Is that you?” She sounded emotional. I flipped down the toilet seat, imagining the face of a middle-aged woman floating at the bottom of the bowl. Pulled down my jeans and underwear and sat down.

“It’s Liv,” I said, and peed.

She fell silent as I pressed the telephone hard against my neck, studying the sea of various dust-covered soaps, aftershaves, razors and other male beauty products, along with the washing powder, hair bands, some nail clippings, a tennis sock. I generally kept my own things in my room unless I was taking a shower.

“It’s Mamma.”

I heard the sound of her breath as she drew smoke down into her lungs, a darkness. I wiped, flushed. The toilet half filled and sucked the paper down into the drain. I washed my hands under piping-hot water. The woman on the phone said, “Hello? I heard Patrick ran into you in town last weekend.” Her voice cracked. I dried my hands. Imagined how they would feel if they were covered in scales. My skin was such a thin layer, so delicate.

“I’m so sorry about that, Sara.”

Her lies forced their way through—it felt as if they were working to loosen something within me. I looked at myself in the mirror, my face pale in the harsh light. I tugged on the gold chain I was wearing around my neck, bringing the gold-plated key out from under my sweater and fiddling with it, stroking the small teeth at its end with my fingertips. I cleared my throat, which put a stop to her torrent of words—a relief.

“You’ve got the wrong number,” I said. “This is Liv. Not Sara.”

“Are you doing well, honey?”

“You don’t understand,” I said, louder. “I don’t know you.” I closed my fist around the key and tried to shut out the smell, the voice.

“Surely we can find our way back to each other again?”

I hung up. Her voice remained in the room as a vibration. I left the phone on the sink and went back to the bedroom. Egil and Ingvar looked at me.

“So many wrong numbers these days,” I said. I took hold of Nero and held him up in front of me. Studied the deep hollows in his snout, which he used to observe the infrared rays in the room. He could “see” our body heat. I wondered what that looked like.

Nero parted his tiny jaws and hissed. Egil and Ingvar shuddered, but I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t think he would do anything to me. Instead, I tried to listen. Wanted to open my mind and understand his language. Could I make out a word, deep inside there? If I simply looked past everything that sounded like an s or an h, ignored my human alphabet, I might be able to discern what he wanted to say. He had no lips, so if he tried to make an m, how would it sound? If he tried to make a t with his forked tongue, a g without vocal cords? His words could never be like human words, so he would have to use his own. Subtle nuances of h and s. If I listened closely enough, I would understand.

Did I dream about it that night? That I saw myself as a burning flame, ablaze in the bed, and heard my own voice whispering? Or was it his? I don’t remember what he said.

“We should try feeding him live mice,” I said to Ingvar and Egil. “Don’t you think that must be better for them—more natural?”

Mariam

Kristiansund

Friday, 18 August 2017

The windshield is full of tiny dead flies. I turn the wipers on, squashing them into reddish-brown streaks that arc across the glass. I drive. The road lies behind me as more of it appears up ahead, an eternal ribboning movement. On the dashboard is a pile of bills, because I’m an eternal self-contradiction—I run a regime of tidiness in my home that I’m unable to follow myself. I spray the windshield with wiper fluid. Continue to drive. I could keep going until I reach Trondheim and stay there tonight, drive on in the morning. Make it a fair distance before Tor becomes so unsettled that he reports me missing. A phone starts to vibrate again, mine or Iben’s. He’s calling constantly. Probably thinks that his young wife has gone off to visit some lover or other, and now he’s afraid our happy facade is about to collapse. That politician Tor Lind and his trophy wife—of whom everyone has such a good impression—are about to part ways.

The ringing stops. I follow the turns that twist their way through the still summer-green landscape. The fjord occasionally disappears behind houses or trees, but it’s still there, pursuing me. The cool water is on the hunt, lying in wait for the right moment to pounce. I’m so tired of mountains and fjords. Would probably be just as tired of jungles and savannas, if that was what surrounded me. I don’t know much about the world out there, other than that it feels as if my heart is trapped here. It isn’t enough to cast a glance at the horizon and see the water disappearing into the distance, I want to disappear myself.

On the ferry I stay in the car and close my eyes. One of the phones starts to ring again, then the other. The sound of the vibration is more muffled, as if it’s tightly wrapped in something. I don’t know why he continues to call when no one answers. I take a few bites of the baguette I bought at a petrol station. It tastes vacuum-packed, and reminds me that everything is perishable. I put the sandwich down on the seat next to me; sit there staring straight ahead in the closed mouth of the ferry as I wait for its jaws to open and show me another world.

The landscape changes as I drive deeper into Sør-Trøndelag. Less fjord, more forest. A rock face appears on my left-hand side, a perpendicular wall that bears obvious signs of blasting, to clear the way for people. In my bag one of the phones buzzes again. I increase my speed, feeling the power in the turns, how I’m ripped along by the car’s muscle.

I think about what it would mean to simply take off, to leave for good. Feel the impossibility of it. It wouldn’t just involve leaving the company I’ve spent years building up, or my house, my husband, my life. Am I to demand that Iben come and live with me—become a single mother? In many ways she’s more his child than mine—I could never take her from him. It’s more that I want to remove myself from them. I weigh heavily on them, dragging them down. They’d be better off without me.

Another fjord peeks forth through the landscape. I slam on the brakes, pull over onto the shoulder. Turn off the ignition and sit there with my hands in my lap. There are women who leave their children. Nobody understands them, how they could do something like that. But even if the longing to vanish like dust in the wind remains, that too now seems impossible. When I think about disappearing completely and never being able to see my child again, it hurts. In my mind’s eye I see how Iben pushes her hair behind an ear as she sits and reads, and this awakens a warmth in me, tiny bubbles in my blood. She is, in spite of everything, my child.

I get out of the car. Lock it, even though there’s not a soul in sight, and cross the road to continue down the sloped bank to the fjord. It’s quiet here, nothing but the occasional crow nearby. I bend down and stick my hand into the water. It’s cold against my fingers. I look around. A car drives past, is gone in a flash. I pull off my expensive work shoes. Lift my skirt and grab hold of my tights, pull them down. Leave them lying on the ground like a dead skin. I step out into the water. It stings my toes, my ankles. I haven’t been swimming this far north in years—it’s Tor who takes Iben swimming, on the rare occasions when the sun is just about out and the wind warm enough that he can be bothered to put on his swim shorts. I had forgotten that there’s something good about the stabbing sensation of feeling your feet go numb in cold water. I lift my skirt, walk out until the water almost wets my underwear. Stand that way for a moment, looking out across the calm water.

I so wish to be timeless, placeless, free from the meaningless laws of physics. It isn’t the house, the town or my family that traps me—it’s my body. I wonder how long it would take for somebody to find me, were I to disappear completely into this dark water. But I’m not brave enough, don’t mean it enough. There’s something that stops me, some insistent force.

I turn and start to walk back up the slope, my underwear and skirt wet because I move too quickly; the cold stings, and now I’m probably going to get a urinary tract infection. I return to the shore, sit down on the grass and look out across the water. My freshly laundered skirt is flecked with wet earth, but it doesn’t matter.

It’s as if an old memory floats up and lies there, bobbing on the water’s surface. A bubble that refuses to burst. I can’t run away like this. It won’t do any good. The thing will stay with me, regardless.

I get up and walk back to the car, shoes and tights in my hand. The asphalt is unfamiliar underfoot, and small stones gnaw their way into the soles of my feet. I brush them away, get into the driver’s seat. Take my phone from my bag and wait until it’s finished vibrating yet again. I’m being unfair to him. Know that I’m much more than a trophy wife to him. I don’t want to listen to any of the countless voicemails. I turn off the phone, then do the same with Iben’s. Then I start the drive home.

I sit in the car for a while with the engine switched off, looking up at my house. It stands there in all its banality. The curtains in the windows I selected precisely so that they would stand out as little as possible. The coniferous hedge has been cut exactly as coniferous hedges should be cut; the gates are freshly painted, the garden furniture new and clean. Nobody who walks past this house will see the slightest trace of decline. It’s on the inside that we’re collecting dust and rotting away.

I have a mental fantasy that tends to calm me whenever my emotions get the upper hand, and which has often helped me fall asleep. I start by emptying the entire house of furniture, clothes, toys and all the myriad things we’ve filled it with over the years. See a van driving it all away. Then I take a bucket of water, a scrubbing brush, a cloth and some strong cleaning products. I start at the innermost end of Iben’s room, working my way out the door and continuing with mine and Tor’s. I spend a long time scrubbing and cleaning the bathroom upstairs, where we most often shower. When I’m done up there, I wash my way down the stairs and continue with the living room, kitchen, bathroom and toilet on the ground floor, as well as the large room we only use to store old clutter. Finally, I scour the hall until it’s gleaming and white, the way it was when we moved in. A freshly polished chandelier, clean white carpet treads on each step. I wash my way all the way out onto the front step, where I stand, alone, before a closed door that no longer bears any trace of us. Not the tiniest bacterium, not a single strand of hair. It’s a laborious ritual, which I can drag out infinitely. It always brings me a sense of calm.

I slowly open the car door and then sit there, staring straight ahead as if I’m waiting for something. Perhaps for something to fall from the sky and make my life different. Rain falls into the car, but I’m already wet.

When I finally get out of the car, I crane my neck to look into the living room window. It doesn’t look as if the TV is on. Regardless, it’s so late that she’s probably gone to bed, and Tor is probably relieved not to have to listen to the sound of the TV for a while. He’d prefer it if we only ever watched the news. Anything for you, dear daughter, he often says to Iben, touching her fair-haired head as she sits in front of the screen. He’s always been a good father to her. Reasonable, and patient, too. That patience is like a warm embrace that protects his little flock.

It’s actually strange that he’s called me so many times today. He’s never called me like that on the occasions I’ve taken a little trip by myself before. Not even the time I spent the night at a campsite before driving home again in the morning. All his prior experience dictated that I’d be back again. He knew that all he needed to do was be his usual, patient self—and wait. What’s different this time?