would tip over into rain.
Hans Haavik met me in the vestibule. He seemed concerned. ‘Not a lot to tell you, Varg. I’m afraid we may have to recommend hospitalisation.’
I nodded. ‘Is Cecilie still here?’
He pointed towards the refectory. ‘They’re sitting in there.’
Some youths passed us in the company of a male care-worker. They scowled at me with suspicion before disappearing into the lounge. I followed Hans into the refectory.
The light inside was garish and sharp. Cecilie and Jan were sitting at the same table as the night before. On the table in front of them there were bowls and pans with the evening meal: boiled potatoes, a mixture of greens, half a head of cauliflower, rissoles and gravy. And a jug of water to wash it all down.
Cecilie was eating. Jan was sitting passively on his chair, his hands on his lap, not a movement.
I went over to them. ‘Hiya, Johnny. How’s it going?’
His eyes glinted, his head quivered warily and, without turning, he looked in my direction. His eyelids trembled, as though in some discreet way he was semaphoring a distress call to the outside world: Help! I’m being kept prisoner! I want to get out…
I glanced at his untouched plate. ‘You have to eat, you know! It’s snowing and when you’ve eaten we can go outside and — have a snowball fight or something like that.’
He moved his lips soundlessly, like a fish on land. I swallowed hard. At once I felt sympathy for this tiny mite who had had such an aberrant start to his life.
I sat at the place set for me. ‘Well, I’m definitely as hungry as a wolf!’ I began to load my plate. Cecilie and Hans watched, like two public officials checking the composition of my diet. ‘I’m going to wolf this down. My first name, Varg, means wolf, you know. So perhaps I ought to say I’m going to varg it down, eh?’
I had his attention now. He looked at me from a closer distance than before.
‘And you… You’re going to jan it down, you are. I’m sure of that. As hungry as a varg and as hungry as a jan — that’s about the same. Don’t you think?’
He nodded.
Cecilie flashed a sudden smile and Hans sent me a nod of acknowledgement.
‘So I think I’ll swap your food around. Watch… back in the pan with this and a hot rissole in its place. There we are. Hot sauce. And then we shovel a potato onto there. Nothing better for small famished vargs and jans than a bit of gravy and potatoes, eh? And what a big boy you are. You definitely don’t have any problems using a knife and a fork, do you. When you’re even bigger you’ll be driving a car, and if you drive a car you’ve got be able to lick the easy things, like eating with your knife and fork…’
With careful movements, he grabbed first the knife, then the fork. Slowly he pushed a bit of potato through the gravy onto the fork and, like a gourmet chef ready to sample, lifted the fork to his mouth, opened up and took the first tiny mouthful.
In silence, he continued to eat. He cut up the rissole into small pieces, and when the first one had been eaten, I put another on his plate. ‘Jan-hungry boys always eat two rissoles,’ I said. ‘Minimum.’
I was almost fainting with hunger myself, so I used the opportunity, while he was eating, to stuff down two or three rissoles. Hans, happy now, took a seat at the neighbouring table and poured himself a cup of coffee from a flask.
Cecilie eyed me across the table with a warm smile. ‘Now we’re almost like a little family, Varg.’
‘Yes, aren’t we.’
She was right. If anyone had peeped through the window they would have seen a peaceful little mini-family, Mum, Dad and small boy — and there was Uncle Hans dropping by — sitting round the meal table at the back-end of the day. None of us said anything, but I was afraid that was how it was at most family meal tables. Conversation had not been that lively when it was Beate, Thomas and I, either. The food was delicious, we ate, and there was more than enough for one sitting.
In the end, he was obviously full. He sat back heavily in his chair and a glow of satisfaction flitted across his face.
‘Pudding?’ Hans asked.
‘What is there?’
‘Prune compote with milk and sugar.’
‘Sounds fantastic, if you ask me. What do you say, Johnny?’
He nodded with a smile on his thin, pressed lips.
‘You heard what Johnny said,’ I said. ‘We would like prune compote!’
It arrived on the table, and everyone ate. Even Hans on the neighbouring table sneaked an extra dish. Unbidden, he topped up Cecilie’s coffee and mine. The family idyll was so perfect that the catastrophe, from all statistical calculations, had to be imminent.
We three adults sat making small talk while Jan finished the whole dish of prune compote as well. Afterwards I asked: ‘And what would you like to do now, Johnny?’
This time he turned his head. He looked me straight in the eye, offended that I had forgotten. ‘You said… a snow ball fight.’
‘So I did! Is that what you fancy?’
He nodded.
‘Can Hans and Cecilie join in, too?’
He shifted his gaze from one to the other and at length he nodded. They smiled gently, happy not to be excluded from the game.
We went outside. It had stopped snowing, but luckily there were enough snowflakes left for us to be able to make a few snowballs, even though they were pretty flimsy and they disintegrated when we tried to throw them.
Nevertheless, we stuck with it for as long as Jan wanted, and he took part in the fight with a passion. When he got his first hit, a snowball that turned to powder on my nose, he laughed out loud, and when we aimed at him but missed, on purpose, he grinned with pleasure.
In the end, the fight flagged of its own accord. As we went back inside, I put my arm round his shoulder and said: ‘That was fun, wasn’t it.’
‘Mm,’ he said with a nod.
‘What would you like to do now?’
He peered up with a start. ‘Wanna go home.’
The door closed behind us, and both Hans and Cecilie held their breath.
I said: ‘I was wondering if Hans had some hot chocolate for us today, Johnny…’
Hans nodded in confirmation.
‘Then we can talk about that while we’re drinking. Agreed?’
He sent me a sceptical look. Then a reluctant nod.
We went back into the refectory and Hans flitted into the kitchen. Cecilie and I sat down with Jan at the same table as before.
I patted him gently on the hand and said: ‘Do you know why you’re here with us, Johnny?’
He shook his head from side to side.
‘You arrived here yesterday, you know…’ As he didn’t react, I added: ‘We came here in my car. You remember that anyway, don’t you?’
He nodded.
‘But do you remember what happened… before that?’
He looked at me with big, shiny eyes.
‘You don’t?’
Again he shook his head, but with more hesitation this time.
‘You don’t remember… that you were alone with… your father? Your dad?’
Again came a few powerful semaphore signals from his eyelids. But he said nothing, just blinked several times.
‘You don’t remember… the accident?’
He shaped his lips. ‘A…’
