‘Sixteen hundred,’ Waaler said. ‘Right… now.’
Otto started the timer on the recorder. Tenths of seconds and seconds shot past on the screen. He felt a silent joyful childlike laughter burst in his intestines. This was better than the apple tree. Better than Aud-Rita’s cream buns. Better than when she groaned with a lisp and told him what he should do to her.
Show Time.
Olaug Sivertsen smiled as she opened the door to Beate, as if she had been looking forward to her visit for ages.
‘Oh it’s you again! Come in. You can keep your shoes on. Horrid this heat, isn’t it?’
Olaug Sivertsen went down the hallway ahead of Beate.
‘Don’t worry, froken Sivertsen. It looks as if this case will soon be over.’
‘As long as I’ve got a visitor, you may take your time,’ she laughed and then put her hand over her mouth in alarm: ‘Dear me, what am I saying! After all, the man’s taking people’s lives, isn’t he?’
The grandfather clock in the sitting room struck four as they entered.
‘Tea, my dear?’
‘Please.’
‘Am I allowed to go to the kitchen on my own?’
‘Yes, but if I may come along…’
‘Come on, come on.’
Apart from a new stove and fridge, the kitchen did not seem to have changed much since wartime. Beate found a chair by the large wooden table while Olaug put the kettle on.
‘It smells great in here,’ Beate said.
‘D’you think so?’
‘Yes. I like kitchens that smell like this. To be honest, I prefer being in the kitchen. I’m not so fond of sitting rooms.’
‘Aren’t you?’ Olaug Sivertsen put her head to one side. ‘Do you know what? I don’t think we’re so different, you and me. I’m a kitchen person, too.’
Beate smiled.
‘The sitting room shows how you want to present yourself. But in the kitchen everyone relaxes more. It’s like you’re allowed to be yourself. Did you notice that we relaxed with each other as soon as we came in?’
‘I think you’re absolutely right.’
The two women laughed.
‘D’you know what?’ Olaug said. ‘I’m glad they sent you. I like you. And there’s no need to blush, my dear. I’m just a lonely old lady. Save it for an admirer. Or perhaps you’re married? You’re not? No, well, that’s not the end of the world.’
‘Have you ever been married?’
‘Me?’
She laughed as she set out the cups.
‘No, I was so young when I had Sven that I never had a chance…’
‘You didn’t?’
‘Well, yes, I probably did have a chance or two. But a woman in my situation had such low prestige in those days that the offers you received were generally from men no-one else wanted. It’s not called “finding your match” for nothing.’
‘Just because you were a single mother?’
‘Because Sven was the son of a German, my dear.’
The kettle began to give a low whistle.
‘Ah, I understand,’ Beate said. ‘He must have had a tough time growing up.’
Olaug stared into the air without sensing that the whistling was getting louder.
‘The toughest you can imagine. Just thinking about it can still make me cry. Poor boy.’
‘The water…’
‘There you see. I’m getting senile.’
Olaug lifted the kettle from the stove and poured water into their cups.
‘What does your son do now?’ Beate asked, looking at her watch:
4.15.
‘Import-Export. Various things from the old communist countries.’ Olaug smiled. ‘I don’t know how much money he’s making out of it, but I like the sound of it. “Import-Export.” It’s just nonsense, but I like it.’
‘Anyway, it’s all worked out fine. Despite the tough time he had growing up, I mean.’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t always like that. You’ve probably got him on your records.’
‘There are lots of people on our records. Many who’ve turned out alright, too.’
‘Something happened once when he went to Berlin. I don’t know quite what. He’s never liked talking about what he does, Sven hasn’t. Always so secretive. But I think he might have been visiting his father. And I think it made him feel better about himself. Ernst Schwabe was a dashing man.’
Olaug sighed.
‘But I may be wrong. Anyway, Sven changed.’
‘Oh, how?’
‘He became calmer. Before, he was always chasing things.’
‘Such as what?’
‘Everything. Money. Excitement. Women. He’s like his father, you know. An incurable romantic and ladies’ man. He likes young women, Sven does. And they like him. But I suspect he’s found someone special. He said on the phone that he’s got some news for me. He sounded excited.’
‘He didn’t say what it was?’
‘He wanted to wait until he got here, he said.’
‘Got here?’
‘Yes, he’s coming this evening. He has a meeting first. He’s staying in Oslo until tomorrow, then he’s going back.’
‘To Berlin?’
‘No, no. It’s a long time since Sven lived there. Now he lives in the Czech Republic. Bohemia, he usually calls it, the show-off.’
‘In… er… Bohemia?’
‘Prague.’
Marius Veland stared out of the window of room 406. A girl was lying on a towel on the lawn in front of the student building. She was not unlike the one in 303 whom he had secretly christened Shirley, after Shirley Manson from Garbage. But it wasn’t her. The sun over Oslo fjord had hidden itself behind the clouds. At last the weather had begun to warm up – a heatwave was forecast for the week. Summer in Oslo. Marius Veland was looking forward to it. The alternative had been to go home to Bofjord, the midnight sun and a summer job at the petrol station. To Mother’s meatballs and Father’s endless questions about why he had begun to study Media Studies in Oslo when he had the grades to train to become a civil engineer at NTNU in Trondheim. To Saturdays at the community centre with drunken locals, screaming classmates who had never left their own neighbourhood and thought that those who had were traitors; to the dance band that called itself a ‘blues band’, but always managed to mangle Creedence Clearwater Revival and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
That was not the only reason for him to be in Oslo this summer, though. He had landed the dream job. He was going to listen to records, watch movies and get paid for typing up his opinions on a PC. Over the past two years he had sent his reviews to several of the established papers, without success, but last month he went to So What! where a friend had introduced him to Runar. Runar had told him that he had wound up the clothes business he was running to start Zone , a free paper whose first issue would come out in August, if everything went to plan. The friend had mentioned that Marius liked writing reviews; Runar had said that he liked his shirt and employed him
