‘Don’t know, but I’ll find myself something…’ He leaned closer as though to tell me a secret confidence. ‘You know, Varg… all these government regulations, all these laws and rules… it would be bloody great not to take any notice of them for a few years. Tell it as it is. Call a spade a spade and…’ He laughed at his own comment, but it was a low, mirthless laugh.
‘You’re tired and upset now, Hans. You won’t think like this when you get home, I’m sure of that. You can’t exist without what you’ve worked for over so many years. You have to be positive. Think of all those you’ve helped, all of those who send you a Christmas card every year…’
‘Ha! You’ve put your finger on it. Shall I show you how many of the people I’ve helped, as you call it, who send me Christmas cards? Eh?’ He held up his right hand and formed a zero with his thumb and index finger. ‘That’s how many, Varg. That’s how many.’
‘I don’t get many more if that’s any consolation.’
‘Thank you. Bloody great consolation.’
He sat rocking his head. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he resembled a huge teddy bear, an overgrown cuddly toy, one a child who was now well into adulthood had left behind at his institution, abandoned by someone who no longer needed that sort of thing. He was immensely drunk, and I noticed his eyes were beginning to blink.
I slowly got to my feet. ‘I think I’ll move on,’ I said, with a furry tongue.
His eyes floated in my direction. ‘OK. Thank you for keeping me company, Varg. I think I’ll try and have a snooze.’
‘Do that, Hansie. See you tomorrow — or at the next crossroads.’
He waved one arm. ‘G’bye!’ he slurred.
‘Goodbye,’ I replied, still able to express myself in full syllables.
He stood up, not to show me the way out, but to stagger into the toilet. Before I had closed the door behind me, I could hear him vomiting. That didn’t improve my mood.
When I came down to reception, there was a message waiting for me: Ring me when you get in. Grethe.
41
I did more than ring. After exchanging a few words with her, I arranged to drop by, ordered a taxi and went outside into the cold night air. I leaned backwards and stared up at the sky. High above me in the black heavenly vault some pale stars had taken up position for a few fleeting moments, as rare guests to Sunnfjord as the sun I had glimpsed the previous day.
In Hornnes I was forced to concede that my body was not in perfect equilibrium as I pushed on up the steep slope to her house. She had seen me from the window and was standing in the doorway waiting, but I had hardly said anything before, with a glare, she asked me: ‘Tell me, have you been drinking?’
I rolled my head and tried to find something funny to say. But inside it was empty. Empty and dark. Hans Haavik had turned off the light when he left.
I don’t think I won any gold medals that night. I remember quoting Emil Zatopek’s wise words: ‘If you want to win medals, run a hundred metres. If you want to learn about life, run the marathon.’
She replied: ‘If you want to run the marathon you’ll have to be in better shape than this, Varg.’ She had already given up.
The following day arrived with a throbbing head, farewells and departure. She was friendly enough, yet I sensed a sudden distance; or else she was stricken with the same collective feeling of guilt, the same depression that had driven both Hans and me into the dingiest mental back streets the day before.
She drove me to the hotel. After parking outside, she turned to me and said: ‘Are you going home?’
‘Yes. There’s nothing more for me to do here. Not for me. And no one’s paying for my stay now.’
For a second or two I entertained the thought: You could invite me to stay with you perhaps… but either she didn’t have the same thought herself, or she didn’t like it, for all she did was lean forward and kiss me on the cheek and say: ‘Maybe we’ll see each other another time then, Varg…’
I stole into her line of vision, still with my tail between my legs. ‘I hope so, Grethe…’
But it didn’t turn out like that.
In reception I asked after Jens Langeland, but he had gone back to Oslo, I was informed. I tried to ring him at his office, but an answering machine replied. It asked me to ring back during office hours from Monday to Friday. I called directory enquiries and was given his home number. No one answered there, either.
I packed the little luggage I had, settled my account at reception, got into my car and left. On one of the highest bends on Halbrendslia I stopped the car for a moment and sat looking across. From there I could see right up to the furthest end of Angedalen valley. I saw Forde lying in the morning mist between the high mountains. I saw the residential quarter in Hornnes, the huge dockyard beyond the tiny airstrip, the new industrial buildings and businesses. I saw the old white church, sighed and thought to myself: Everything is changing. Nothing stays the same as before. What’s the purpose of it all, of all the things we do? Then I pinched myself and said: ‘No, none of that, now you sound like bloody Hansie Haavik. Pull yourself together, man! There are still things to do…’
I rammed the car into gear and drove to Bergen without stopping anywhere apart from those places nature intended, by the ferries in Lavik and Knarvik.
Two images fought for a place in my head during the drive: Grethe Mellingen who so brazenly gave herself to me a day and a half ago, and Jan Egil who glared at me like a wounded animal as he was led out of the courtroom.
42
After the narrow, restricted space of Forde, Bergen seemed like open countryside. The fjord wound gently through the town towards Askoy and the light rain drizzled on the surrounding mountains forming a veil of glistening silver. I drove straight home, took a long, hot shower, went down to the harbour and bought myself a decent lunch, walked back, lay down for a nap and slept like a log until the next day, which was Sunday.
In the afternoon I strolled down to my office and checked the answering machine. There were the usual sighs and snorts before someone slammed down the receiver, annoyed that I was not sitting and gawking at the telephone, waiting only for them to ring. There was a woman who, in broken Norwegian, had sent a long and partly comprehensible message about a partner who had run off, and she very much wanted me to bring him back to the fold. And there was Marianne Storetvedt who wanted to talk to me. I called her private number, but she was busy with a family meal. We agreed I would go to her office after work the next day.
Then I tried Jens Langeland again. This time he was at home.
‘Veum… I tried to contact you at the hotel, but they couldn’t find you.’
‘No, I was… probably sitting in Hans Haavik’s room drinking.’
He chuckled quietly. ‘Really? Did you take it so badly?’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘No, no. I hadn’t expected anything but an extended period of remand. The big battle will be in court. First of all, I’d very much like you to find out everything you can about this Terje Hammersten and his movements.’
‘That’s just it, I’m afraid I have bad news on that front.’
‘Oh, yes?’
I told him what Hans Haavik had told me about his confrontation with Hammersten in Bergen on Monday morning.
‘At his place? In Bergen?’
‘Yes.
‘That’s a sod.’
‘That was my reaction, too.’
