Hell Fire (20 page)

Mass looked at her son. “I know. But I can't face it. It'll be so empty without her. No one waiting for me in the morning.”

“I'll be waiting,” Eddie said.

“But to stand there and watch him give her the injection—I can't even bear to think about it,” she said, distraught. “I just can't do it.”

Eddie made a big decision. Buoyed by his visit to Copenhagen, he felt that he could now do anything, and what's more, he really wanted to help. He liked the fact that his mother needed him.

“I'll take her to the vet,” he said firmly, “so you don't need to. I'll sort everything out. Just call Munthe to say that I'm coming.”

Mass thought about it for a while. “Do you think I'm a coward?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Eddie assured her. “You've never been a coward. You can say goodbye to Shiba here, and then I can carry her out to the car.”

“OK,” she said eventually. “Thank you. Let's do that, then.” Now that the decision had finally been made, she picked up the phone and called Munthe. She explained that Eddie would come with Shiba, that she couldn't face it, and that she would like it done as soon as possible.

“I'll go and buy some smoked sausage,” she said to Eddie afterward. “So that she finishes with something nice.”

“Buy some for me too,” Eddie said. “I'm starving.”

When the day finally came, they were both up early. This was no ordinary day. Mass couldn't bear to look her son in the eye.

Shiba had been given the first appointment of the day because Mass didn't want to wait for too long. She had transferred three thousand kroner to Eddie's account to pay for having the dog put down and cremated. She would go to the vet at some later point to pick up the urn, which she wanted to keep by the wood burner. It was a quarter past seven when Eddie carried the sick dog out to the car, and then it was time for Mass to say goodbye. Eddie gave her plenty of time; he sat patiently at the wheel and waited. For some reason, he was excited to be part of this. He felt that he was on an important mission. But also, Shiba's death meant that he would no longer have to share his mother's attention with anyone.

He drove the eighteen miles into town, parked the car, and got out. He opened the back door and lifted her down. She stood there on shaky legs and looked at him dolefully. “Come on,” he said. “You're not getting out of it.”

She pulled herself across the parking lot to the steps. Then Eddie had to lift her up and carry her into reception, where he put her down on the floor before going to the counter.

“Malthe,” he said. “I'm here to put my dog down.”

“What's your dog's name?”

“Shiba.”

The veterinary nurse nodded. “Mr. Munthe is ready for you,” she said. “He'll be right out.”

Eddie sat down. The only other person there was a young girl, with a basket on the floor in front of her. Maybe it was a cat or a rabbit. “There's always something wrong with pets,” he whispered to the dog. “You're expensive.”

Shiba had closed her eyes. He wondered if she had a sixth sense, if she knew what was about to happen. Generally dogs seemed to understand an awful lot. Humans know that they're going to die, he thought, so dogs must too.

Munthe stopped in front of him. “Good morning, Eddie. So you've come, eh?” he said.

“Mom couldn't face it,” he explained.

“So I understand,” Munthe said. “It's a good thing she's got you.”

Eddie felt pride swelling in his breast. He followed the vet into the room, pulling Shiba behind him for those final steps. Then they put her on a bench that could be raised and lowered.

“I know this is hard for you,” Munthe said in a comforting voice, “but in terms of her health and well-being, it is absolutely the best thing for all three of you.”

“I know,” Eddie replied. “I've told Mom hundreds of times.” He put his hand on the dog's head, trying to catch her eye.

“Would you like some time alone with her?” Munthe asked.

“No,” Eddie said immediately. “Just do it.”

Munthe got some small ampoules and a syringe. Then he put his hand on the dog's neck and explained the procedure to Eddie.

“First I'll give her an injection in the neck skin here. It's an opiate, so it will make her drowsy and calm. Once she's had that, Shiba won't worry about much anymore.”

“Sounds good,” Eddie said, keen to get on with it.

Munthe put the needle into her skin and emptied the syringe. He looked across at Eddie. “We have to wait for fifteen minutes now. She'll fall into a light sleep. So I'll leave the two of you alone now.”

Eddie leaned down over Shiba and thought about what was about to happen. He lifted her paw; it was completely floppy. He pulled her tail as he normally did, but she didn't react. He lifted an eyelid and stared into her black pupil. She was drooling. Then he sat down again and waited for the executioner. He heard a little dog yapping out in reception, possibly a poodle or a Chihuahua; a telephone was ringing furiously but no one answered. There were people sitting out there who needed help with all kinds of things. Maybe their dog had worms or eczema, or a double set of teeth like Shiba had had when she was a puppy. When he got home, he would have to report everything to his mother—exactly what had happened because she would no doubt ask about all the details. After a while, Munthe came back. He got another syringe.

“I inject this one into her front leg,” he explained. “It's intravenous. So it works very fast; it only takes a minute. It paralyzes her brain first, then her breathing. She won't notice anything. She's already out of it.”

Eddie thought about Mass. She would be waiting with her hands in front of her face. She might have cleared the kitchen corner already, put away the two dishes and the old blanket. She might even be vacuuming the floor to get rid of all the dog hairs.

You should have been an Alsatian, he thought; you weren't much good as a guard dog. You just barked no matter who came. The yappy little dog out in the waiting room had stopped yapping and there was a deafening silence.

“When you get home, please tell your mother that everything went well,” Munthe instructed him.

Eddie nodded.

“What about getting a new puppy, Eddie?”

“Mom says no. So it'll be just the two of us, which is OK. You can just do it now,” he added, because he was waiting. He was thinking about his own death. Not that he was going to be given an injection. His mom wouldn't even be there to grieve. No one would grieve. No one would come to his grave with flowers, and his coffin would be carried out of Geirastadir Church by six minions from Securitas. Three handfuls of dry earth over the coffin, and the priest might just sing alone with majesty. The hymn he hated more than anything else. Lead, kindly light, amid th' encircling gloom. Or, as he often thought to himself, help me through the mist.

The hypodermic needle was as thin as a sewing needle. Shiba did not move at all, but Eddie could see that she was breathing. Munthe looked for a vein in her front leg, and then pressed in the contents slowly. There was not even so much as a tremor in her thin body. Eddie watched the dying animal with great intensity.

Once Shiba had been put down, Eddie went to the CC shopping center and had a smoked salmon and scrambled egg sandwich. When he was finished, he went back to the counter and ordered a custard slice and another Coke. For one reason or another, he felt lighthearted. But now he had to prepare himself for going home and decide what to say. Before getting into the car, he wandered around the shopping center, looking at people and things. He was glad that he didn't know anyone, glad that he didn't need to talk. About the weather and other stupid things, such as how he was. Almost everything people said to each other was garbage.

When he pulled up in front of the house, he saw his mother's pale face in the kitchen window. He lifted his hand and waved, but she didn't wave back.

That night, as Eddie lay awake in bed under the picture of the family in Copenhagen, he thought about Kennedy the cat. What if he put down a line of rat poison from Ansgar's mailbox to the house? The cat would no doubt be tempted by the tasty little pink grains. And then, the next morning, all he would have to do is pick him up, put him in a plastic bag, and throw him in the garbage. Eddie knew that rat poison contained strychnine. And strychnine poisoning was a horrible way to die, with internal bleeding and cramps. As always, when he had these fantasies, he felt calm. Like after drinking a cup of hot milk and honey.

AFTER ERNA'S FUNERAL
, Bonnie was given a new client. As she waited outside the door, her body filled with a strange anticipation. A man opened the door and held out his hand, and his handshake was so firm that Bonnie almost whimpered. She entered into a large hallway and took off her coat.

“You can call me Alex,” he said. “No one calls me Alexander.”

“I hope I can be of use,” Bonnie replied. “Just tell me what to do.”

She looked at him with curiosity because he was so different from her other clients. He couldn't be more than twenty-something. He was wearing a black T-shirt, and her first impression was that his upper body was very muscular, especially his upper arms. He must have been training for years. Otherwise, he had fair hair and an earring in one ear. Even though it was only March, he was a healthy color. He rolled his wheelchair into the living room, and she noted that he was obviously financially well off because he had good furniture and an impressive flat screen on the wall. There were large speakers in every corner of the room and a lot of green plants.

“Do you play chess?” Alex asked.

Bonnie had to confess that she didn't.

“I'll teach you,” he said, without hesitation, and rolled over to the table. He got the black and white pieces out of a drawer under the tabletop, and then explained to Bonnie how they could move across the board.

“We're at war,” he said. “You have an army and I have an army, and we're both out to capture each other's king. The point is that you constantly have to think ahead. If you move the knight like this, or this, what space does that leave for my king? Does that make sense?”

She nodded. “I should really use my time on other things,” she said cautiously. “You see, we have to follow regulations. So in terms of what you need, why did you apply for a home health aide?”

“Sod the regulations,” Alex said sharply. “It's me who decides. You take the white pieces, which means you start.”

Bonnie moved a piece. She had no idea what she was getting herself into. She looked around the room, and her eyes stopped at a photograph of Alex and a beautiful girl with red hair. Alex was standing on his own two legs in the picture, no wheelchair to be seen.

“My girlfriend,” he explained. “She comes every day after work. And with a bit of imagination we manage to do most things.”

He smiled at Bonnie and she smiled back. She was always happy when people didn't let each other down, in the way that she'd been let down.

“How did you end up in a wheelchair?” she asked.

“Car accident,” he told her. “Head-on collision with a Polish truck.”

“Oh,” Bonnie said, horrified, as Alex moved his first black piece.

“Whose fault was it?”

“Mine.”

“Were you driving too fast?”

“Eighty-seven.”

He waited for her to make the next move. Bonnie found it hard to concentrate.

“What about the guy in the truck?” she asked. “Was he injured?”

“No,” Alex replied. “Truck drivers are pretty safe. But if he had been injured or killed, I don't know how I would have managed to live with the guilt. He didn't even break a finger. He came to visit me in the hospital. And now, Magnus Carlsen, it's time for you to play.”

Before she left, she was allowed to run the vacuum cleaner over the floors in the adapted, easy-to-care-for apartment. He rolled out into the hall with her to say goodbye.

“What are you doing this evening?” she asked. “Is Elisabeth coming?”

“Yes. We're going to the Apollo gym. We go there every other day. You should start training too,” he said. “It makes you better equipped, you know, for life and things.”

Bonnie shook her head. “Will you babysit for me then?” she said. “I'm a single mother.”

“I think you should get yourself a man,” Alex told her, because he saw that she was beautiful and thought that wouldn't be hard.

“A shame you're taken,” she retorted and opened the door. “I can hardly beat Elisabeth.”

They both laughed. And she knew that her days with Alex would be good days.

That night she had a terrible dream.

She dreamed that Olav came to get Simon, and he wanted to take him out to Gullfaks. The father and son sat close together in the helicopter and the sea below was gray and stormy. She stood on the quay and waved as the helicopter lifted, and then she sank into despondency. And as she stood there watching, it plummeted into the sea, and Simon disappeared forever into the churning water. She woke with a gasp and lay there for a while with a hand on her racing heart. A while later, she went into Simon's room and stood at his bedside for a long time. She stroked him gently on the cheek and then crept back to her room. She often went to bed in the evening with an enormous sense of relief that nothing bad had happened. It could not be taken for granted that they were both healthy and well. She read in the papers every day about catastrophes that had struck other people's lives, and she offered a quiet prayer to God that she and Simon would be spared.

ONE MORNING, MASS AWOKE
with such pain in her back that she was seriously worried. She managed to crawl out of bed and sat down in a chair in the living room. Her wrist was still sore. As soon as she knew the medical center was open, she called and made an appointment. It was urgent, she said; she was in a lot of pain and she needed painkillers. She got an appointment the following day but said nothing to Eddie. She didn't want to worry him.