him to listen, to let the notes resonate, and he gets a strong urge to strike them down again so they can lift him up and away from time and space, but his fingers lock, he is unable to lift them, and gradually every note in the chord blends with the others to create a melange of sound that vibrates and cascades. Soon all that is left is chaos which quietly dies away.
Henning retracts his hands with effort. He realises he hasn’t been breathing for a while. Then he closes the lid.
Chapter 18
Monday morning, Henning hangs up his jacket at the office and looks at Iver Gundersen’s face. As always it displays traces of the night before. The bags under his eyes are puffy. His cheeks and chin are unshaven even though some areas show evidence of a razor. His long hair falls like a fringed scarf over his shoulders. The fibres on the elbows of his cord jacket are frayed.
Henning nods quickly in Iver’s direction, thinking he can detect a hint of Nora’s moisturiser across the table. Sodding coconut.
‘Good weekend?’ Iver says, without looking at Henning.
‘It was all right.’
Henning registers a nod, but doesn’t feel the need to reciprocate. He sits down, turns on his computer, puts down his mobile, removes some papers from his desk and types in his username and password. Other journalists start to arrive. Henning hears sleepy grunts, chit-chat, someone laughs. He has no idea how he will be able to concentrate on work today.
He only managed a few hours’ shut-eye before going to the office. His sleep was fitful, and he woke up with a pounding headache that has yet to release its grip on him. However, he managed to do some research last night which he hopes will be useful during the day. The question, simply, is when.
‘Coffee?’
Iver gets up. Henning shakes his head even though he quite fancies a cup. Iver lingers for a moment before he hurries to join the queue, occasionally stealing a glance at the national news section where Henning is sitting. He looks away whenever Henning looks back at him.
Henning remembers how Iver, in the weeks that followed the Henriette Hagerup story, was very happy to accept pats on the back when he didn’t think Henning was watching. But his smug and self-satisfied facade disappeared whenever Henning entered his field of vision. Iver’s eyes took on an unfathomable expression. Gratitude, possibly, mixed with guilt and a kind of shame because Henning knew the real truth. And for that very reason there was also irritation and even resentment. Ever since Iver returned from his holidays, they have only exchanged small talk, but Henning senses that something unspoken hangs in the air between them.
‘The Eagle is in a bad mood today,’ Iver says when he comes back.
‘Who is?’
‘Heidi. She dropped by earlier.’
‘Right.’
The Eagle, Henning thinks. Good nickname. He clicks on the publishing tool and opens some websites.
‘Are you ready for the morning meeting?’ Iver asks as he sits down.
‘I’ve tried and tried, Mrs Blom.’
Iver quickly presses some buttons on his mobile before he puts it down. He stares vacantly into space‚ then he suddenly turns to Henning.
‘Who the hell is Mrs Blom?’
Henning meets Iver’s puzzled face.
‘I keep hearing people talk about her, but I’ve no idea who she is. I doubt that anyone does.’
‘Why — because you don’t?’
‘No,’ Iver says, a little shamefaced. ‘But nowadays people use all these expressions without knowing what they really mean or where they come from. “Once in a blue moon.” “Fit as a fiddle.” “Not on my nelly.” “I’ve tried and tried, Mrs Blom.” I find it really quite irritating.’
Henning looks briefly at Iver before he says, ‘It’s a term intended to express moderation or reservation.’
‘Yes, I get that, obviously. But who is Mrs Blom?’
Again there is silence between the desks.
‘It’s a line from Carousel,’ Henning says, reluctantly.
‘Eh?’
‘It’s a comedy by Alex Brinchmann. There is no mention of a Mrs Blom in the script, but the actor Per Aabel ad-libbed during rehearsals. And it stayed in.’
Iver sips his coffee.
‘That’s all there is to it, seriously?’ he says, sounding incredulous as he turns his mug in his hands.
‘That depends entirely on how you look at it. Do you want me to go through the other expressions?’
Iver stares at Henning for a long time, initially with amazement, until he realises that Henning isn’t joking. Iver looks at his watch.
‘We haven’t got time,’ he says, getting up. ‘The Eagle awaits.’
Chapter 19
Entering the TV2 building in the middle of Karl Johansgate, Oslo’s main street, has always instilled in Thorleif Brenden a feeling of being a part of something important. It has nothing to do with the size of the building; it is the knowledge of all those people working in one place towards a common goal and yet in fierce competition with each other. He feels proud when he nods to the receptionist, when he swipes his staff card through the reader with practised ease and enters the lift, greeting producers, editors, reporters and anyone else there with the same purpose: creating programmes that will enlighten or entertain the people of Norway.
Thorleif remembers his first weeks working for TV2 and how he would look at everyone, surreptitiously, to see if he recognised them. And he did, of course. Everywhere. Glamorous TV personality Dorte Skappel, without make-up and in jeans. Journalist Oddvar Stenstrom, for once not wagging his finger at a hapless guest. News anchor Pal T. Jorgensen, just as well groomed off camera as he is on. Everyone who was anyone was there. And they were all normal people.
Thorleif began his TV2 career in 2000 after nearly five years of studying in the USA, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in film and television and started a master’s in documentary filmmaking which he never completed. He much preferred working to writing even though he has always enjoyed the latter. For a man with his background, getting a foot in the door at TV2 was fairly easy. The corporation always needed freelancers with his skills, and to begin with he worked thirty days every month — even in February, or at least that was how it felt. In the end he had to slow down. It wasn’t a realistic long-term plan, especially after he started seeing Elisabeth. And certainly not once Pal was born.
In 2002, he covered someone’s leave of absence, and he was offered a full-time employment contract the following year. Since then, he has worked for various departments within the corporation to avoid doing the same thing every day. However, he mostly works for the news desk. He has been to Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya and several African countries — places where history is being written. He has helped tell their stories, risking his life on occasion. The trip to Kenya in 2008 was a particularly bad time.
It was just after the election. Several hundred Kikuyu had sought refuge in a church in the town of Eldoret because no one could make up their mind who had won. A furious mob set fire to the church, and between fifty and one hundred people were killed, many of them children. Anyone who tried to escape was hacked to death with machetes.
Thorleif was working on the day it happened, and the international news editor decided that TV2 should cover the situation because it was starting to look like another Rwanda. Accompanied by the seasoned war
