white arse going hammer and tongs, until it stops and seems to suck in its cheeks and the clod howls: EG KJEM! I’ve come! In Nynorsk.’
Oystein glanced at Harry, but there was no reaction.
‘Christ, Harry, this is great humour. Are you that pissed?’
Kaja sat by the window, deep in thought, taking stock of the town, when a low cough made her turn. It was the head waiter; he had that apologetic it’s-on-the-menu-but-the-kitchen-says-we-don’t-have-it look, and had stooped very low over her, but spoke in such muffled tones that she could still hardly hear him.
‘I regret to say that your company has arrived.’ Then he amended his statement with a blush. ‘I mean, I regret to say we could not admit him. He’s a tad… animated, I’m afraid. And our policy in such-’
‘Fine,’ Kaja said, getting up. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s outside waiting. I’m afraid he bought a drink from the bar on the way in, and he’s got it with him. Perhaps you might be so kind as to bring the glass back in. We could lose our licence for that sort of thing, you know.’
‘Of course, just get me my coat, would you, please?’ said Kaja, hurrying through the restaurant with the waiter nervously tripping along after her.
On emerging, she saw Harry. He was standing, swaying, next to the low wall by the slope where they had stood last time.
She joined him. There was an empty glass on the wall.
‘Doesn’t look like we’re meant to eat at this restaurant,’ she said. ‘Any suggestions?’
He shrugged and took a sip from his hip flask. ‘Bar at the Savoy. If you’re not too hungry.’
She pulled her coat around her more tightly. ‘I’m not that hungry, actually. What about showing me around a bit? This is your stamping ground, and I’ve got a car. You could show me the bunkers where you used to spend your time.’
‘Cold and ugly,’ Harry said. ‘Stink of piss and wet ash.’
‘We could smoke,’ she said. ‘And admire the view. Have you got anything better to do?’
A cruise ship, lit up like a Christmas tree, glided slowly and soundlessly through the dark to the town on the fjord beneath them. They were sitting on wet concrete on top of a bunker, but neither Harry nor Kaja felt the cold creeping into their bodies. Kaja sipped at the hip flask Harry had passed her.
‘Red wine in a hip flask?’ she said.
‘That was all that was left in Dad’s cabinet. Just emergency supplies anyway. Favourite male actor?’
‘Your turn to start,’ she said, taking a longer swig.
‘Robert De Niro.’
She pulled a face. ‘Analyze This? Meet the Fockers?’
‘I swore eternal allegiance after Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter. But, yes, it has been at some cost. What about you?’
‘John Malkovich.’
‘Mm. Good. Why?’
She deliberated. ‘I think it’s the cultivated evil. Not something I like as a human quality, but I love the way he reveals it.’
‘And then he has a feminine mouth.’
‘Is that good?’
‘Yep. All the best actors have feminine mouths. And/or a high-pitched feminine voice. Kevin Spacey, Philip Seymour Hoffman.’ Harry took a cigarette from the pack and offered her one.
‘Only if you light it for me,’ she said. ‘Those boys are not exactly overmasculine.’
‘Mickey Rourke. Woman’s voice. Woman’s mouth. James Woods. Kissable mouth like an obscene rose.’
‘But not a high-pitched voice.’
‘Bleating voice. Sheep. Ewe.’
Kaja laughed and took the lit cigarette. ‘Come on. Macho men in films have deep, hoarse voices. Take Bruce Willis for example.’
‘Yes, take Bruce Willis. Hoarse fits. But deep? Hardly.’ Harry scrunched up his eyes and whispered in falsetto, facing the town: ‘From up here it doesn’t look like you’re in charge of jack shit.’
Kaja burst out laughing; the cigarette shot from her mouth and bounced down the wall and into the thick shrubs sending off sparks.
‘Bad?’
‘Sensationally bad,’ she gasped. ‘Damn, now you’ve made me forget the macho actor with the feminine voice I was going to say.’
Harry rolled his shoulders. ‘You’ll think of it.’
‘Even and I also used to have a place like this,’ Kaja said, taking another cigarette and holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a nail she was going to hammer in. ‘Somewhere for ourselves we thought no one else knew, where we could hide and tell each other secrets.’
‘Feel like telling me about it?’
‘About what?’
‘Your brother. What happened?’
‘He died.’
‘I know. I thought you would tell me the rest.’
‘And what is the rest?’
‘Well, why have you canonised him for example?’
‘Have I?’
‘Haven’t you?’
Her searching gaze lingered on him. ‘Wine,’ she said.
Harry passed her the hip flask and she took a greedy swig.
‘He left a note,’ she said. ‘Even was so sensitive and vulnerable. At times he could be all smiles and laughter, it was like he brought the sunshine when he arrived. If you had any problems, they seemed to evaporate when he appeared, like… erm, like dew in the sun. And in the black periods it was the opposite. Everything went quiet around him, a brooding tragedy seemed to hang in the air and you could hear it in his silence. Music in a minor key. Beautiful and terrible at once, do you understand? And yet, some of the sunshine seemed to have been stored in his eyes, because they continued to laugh. It was eerie.’
She shivered.
‘It was during the summer holidays, a sunny day, the kind only Even could make. We were at our summer house in Tjome, and I had got up and gone straight to the shop to buy strawberries. When I returned breakfast was ready, and Mummy called up to the first floor for Even to come down. But he didn’t answer. We assumed he was sleeping – now and then he had long lie-ins. I went up to fetch something from my room and tapped on his door and called out “strawberries” as I passed. I was still listening for a response when I opened the door to my room. When you go into your own room, you don’t look around, you just look for whatever it is you want, the bedside table where you know your book is, the windowsill or the box of fishing lures. I didn’t see him straight away, only noticed that something about the light was not as it should have been. Then I glanced to the side and at first saw only his bare feet. I knew every centimetre of his feet – he used to pay me a krone to tickle them, he loved that. My first thought was that he was flying, at last he had learned to fly. My gaze continued upwards; he was wearing the pale blue jumper I had knitted for him. He had hung himself from the lamp with an extension cord. He must have waited until I’d gone out, and then come into my room. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t move, my legs were rooted to the floor. So I stood there staring at him, and he was so close, and I called my mother, I did all the things that should have produced a shout, but not a sound would come out of my mouth.’
Kaja bent her head and flicked her cigarette. Took a tremulous breath.
‘I can only remember fragments of the rest. They gave me medicine, to calm me down. When I recovered, three days later, they had already buried him. They said it was just as well I wasn’t there, that the strain might have been too great. I fell ill straight afterwards and was in bed with a fever for long periods over the summer. I’ve always thought it was a bit too hurried, the funeral, as if there were something shameful about the way he had died, don’t you think?’
‘Mm. You said he had written a note?’
