In the Darkness (18 page)

‘Jostein and I did.’

‘Yes, to begin with perhaps. But how was it after ten years?’

Eva blushed.

‘Or,’ Maja continued, ‘do you think we girls ought to kind of save ourselves up for the love of our lives, that sort of thing? Do you believe in the love of your life, Eva?’

‘Of course not.’ She drank some Coke. ‘Have any of them fallen in love with you?’

‘Oh yes. Especially the young ones. I think it’s really sweet, and I make a bit of an extra effort for them. Last spring for example quite a young man came along, he had a really fantastic name, he was of Spanish and French extraction. Jean Lucas Cordoba. Have you ever heard anything with such a ring to it? Just imagine being called that,’ she said pensively. ‘Almost worth marrying just for the name, isn’t it? And then there was Gøran of course, I’ll never forget him. He was a virgin, so I had to give him some guidance about certain things. Afterwards
he
was very moved and grateful. It’s not easy being a virgin when you’re twenty-five and a police officer to boot. It must have needed a huge amount of courage to come here.’

Eva had finished her sandwich. She emptied her glass and brushed the hair away from her face. ‘Do you talk about anything?’

‘We exchange a few words. They’re the same clichés every time, roughly what I think they want to hear. They really aren’t very demanding, Eva, you’ll soon find that out.’

She put down the bottle.

‘It’s now ten to seven, and the first one is due at eight. He’s been here before, he’s actually rather a surly type, but he’ll be finished quickly. I’ll attend to him and say that there are two of us who’ll share the clients. And that we’re in the same line of business. Then they’ll know what to expect, and you’ll get the same kind of customers as me.’

‘I wish I could hide in the wardrobe and watch you secretly,’ Eva sighed. ‘See how you go about it. The most difficult thing is finding something to say.’

‘There’s not much room in the wardrobe. You’d see better through a door that was slightly ajar.’

‘What?’

‘Well, you couldn’t exactly stand at the foot of the bed, but you could watch from the other room. We’ll turn off the light and open the door a fraction, then you can sit in there and look in. Then you’ll get some idea. You know me, I’ve never been shy.’

‘God, I could do with a drink, I’m all shaky.’

Maja made a pistol with two fingers and shot her in the forehead. ‘Don’t even think about it! Stimulants on
the
job are forbidden. That’s when things start to go wrong, Eva. But afterwards we’ll go to Hannah’s and eat. I promise you one thing: when you start earning money you really begin to get a taste for it. Whenever I want something, I just put my hand into a bowl and lift out a wad of notes. I’ve got money all over the place, in drawers and cupboards, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, crammed into boots and shoes, I hardly know where it all is any more.’

Eva had turned pale. ‘Surely you haven’t got two million floating around the flat, have you?’

‘No, no. Only what I need for pocket money. The bulk of it is hidden away in the holiday cabin.’

‘The holiday cabin?’

‘Dad’s cabin. He died some time ago, so it’s my cabin now. You went there once, don’t you remember, a gang of us girls went on a trip? Up on the Hardanger Plateau?’

‘Your father’s dead?’

‘Yes, four years ago. I dare say you can guess what got him in the end.’

Eva politely refrained from replying. ‘Just imagine if someone broke in.’

‘It’s well hidden. No one would think of looking there. And paper money is fairly flat, it doesn’t take up much room. I can’t exactly put it in the bank.’

‘Money isn’t everything,’ Eva said knowingly. ‘Perhaps you’ll die before you can enjoy it.’

‘Perhaps you’ll die before you’ve even lived,’ Maja countered. ‘But if I do happen to die all of a sudden, you are hereby nominated as my sole heir. I’d like you to have the money.’

‘Well, thanks. I think I need a shower,’ Eva said. ‘I’m sweating with fear.’

‘Go straight ahead. I’ll get out your dress. Has anyone told you that you look lovely in black?’

‘Thanks.’

‘It wasn’t a compliment. I just meant that you always seem to be wearing black!’

‘Oh,’ Eva said bashfully. ‘No, not that I can remember. Jostein couldn’t bear it.’

‘I can’t quite see what you’ve got against colours.’

‘They’re – distracting in a way.’

‘Distracting from what?’

‘From what’s really important.’

‘And that is …?’

‘All the other things.’

Maja sighed and cleared away the glasses and plates. ‘Artists certainly aren’t easy people.’

‘No,’ Eva giggled, ‘but somebody’s got to take the trouble to emphasise the depths of existence. So that the rest of you have a surface to skate over.’

She went into the room that was to be hers and undressed. She heard Maja humming next door and the sound of clothes-hangers clicking. Maja’s room was green, with plenty of gold, and it made Eva think about her own black and white home; there was a world of difference between them.

The shower cabinet was tiny and had a large mirror as its back wall. It reflected her tall body, and she thought it looked strange, as if she’d already relinquished her proprietorial rights. Steam clouded the mirror. For an instant she looked young and sleek, with a pink tinge from the flowery curtain, then she vanished entirely.

‘I mustn’t think,’ she said to herself. ‘Just do what Maja tells me.’

She finished, dried herself and walked out into the room again, which seemed cool by comparison. Maja entered with something red over her arm, a dressing gown. Eva put it on.

‘Great. It’s just what you needed. Get yourself some red clothes, you look like a woman when you dress in red, rather than a beanpole. Can you do anything about your hair?’

‘No.’

‘OK. Then there’s just one little thing I need to show you. Lie down on the bed, Eva.’

‘What?’

‘Just do as I say, lie down on the bed.’

Eva hesitated, but then went to the bed and lay down in the middle of it.

‘No, out to the side, the right side, otherwise you’re lying on the join.’

Eva pulled herself over to the edge.

‘Move your right hand towards the floor.’

‘What?’

‘Drop your arm over the edge. And then on the side of the bed, can you feel something hard underneath the bedspread?’

‘Yes.’

‘Slip your hand under and pull it loose, it’s taped into position.’

Eva fumbled under the fringe of the counterpane, she felt something long and smooth fastened to the bedside. She gripped it and pulled. It was a knife.

‘You see that knife, Eva? It’s a Hunter, from Brusletto. If you think it looks nasty, that’s the whole point. It’s to engender fear and respect. If anyone should try any funny business. If you slide your hand down and bring it up
again
holding that knife, while he’s sitting there with a bare bum and all his equipment out, I think he’ll calm down pretty quickly.’

‘But – you said nothing like that ever happens.’ Eva was stammering. She was beginning to feel unwell.

‘No,’ she said evasively, ‘just a few pathetic try-ons.’ She bent down by the side of the bed and replaced the knife. Eva couldn’t see her face. ‘But occasionally someone gets above themselves. I don’t know everyone equally well. And then, men are so much stronger than us.’ She fiddled with the tape. ‘In fact I forget it’s there. But I’d remember quickly enough if anything should happen, I can promise you that.’ She raised herself again. The old smile was back in place. ‘I may be frivolous, but I’m not unprepared. Come here, you need a bit of lipstick.’

Eva hesitated for a moment, then crossed the thick carpet in her bare feet. This is a different world, she thought, with its own rules. Afterwards, when I get home again, everything will be as it was before. Two worlds, with a wall between them.

Chapter 20

SHE SAT STOCK-STILL
on a footstool behind the door. The room lay in darkness and no one could spot her from outside. Through the crack in the door she could see Maja’s bed, she could make out the bedside table and the lamp with its big shade, decorated with a pink flamingo. Otherwise the room was dim. She was waiting for the two short rings of the doorbell, it was the agreed signal. It was five to eight. The building was situated in a quiet street, there wasn’t a sound outside, only the subdued music from the stereo system. She was playing Joe Cocker. Hoarser every year, thought Eva. There was the sound of a car, it stopped in the street right under their windows. She looked at the clock again, it was showing three minutes to and her heart began to thump harder. A car door slammed. Then there was the dull thud of the door downstairs shutting. A sudden impulse made her get up and go to the window. She found herself looking down at a white car. It was parked by the pavement. A sporty model, she thought, peering through the opening in the curtains. She had a sharp eye for detail. This was an Opel, quite nice, but not a new model. It seemed familiar. Jostein had driven one like it when they’d met all those years ago. She
crept
back, seated herself on the stool and placed her hands in her lap. The doorbell sounded the signal of two rings. Maja rose and walked across the room, suddenly she turned and gave a thumbs-up. Then she went out and opened the door. Eva tried to breathe calmly. There was so much material in the room, she felt everything constricting. A man entered. She couldn’t see him clearly, but he seemed to be in his thirties, a stocky man with thin, fair hair. It was long at the neck, he’d gathered it into a sad little ponytail with a rubber band. His denim trousers were a bad fit because of his beer belly. It was her greatest aversion, men who couldn’t wear trousers properly because of their stomachs. Jostein was the same, but he was Jostein and that was different. The man yanked off his jacket and threw it nonchalantly on the bed, as if he were in his own home. Eva didn’t like it, it seemed brazen. Then he reached into his back pocket and fished out a note which he also threw on the bed. She heard Maja’s voice, but she was speaking so softly that Eva had to listen hard to make out what she said. Carefully, she bent forward so that her ear was as close to the opening as possible.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ she heard. ‘Come!’

Her voice was as soft as silk. I couldn’t speak like that, Eva thought despairingly. The man suddenly moved in close and Maja seemed tiny even though he wasn’t especially tall. There wasn’t much light in the room, but she saw him open Maja’s green dressing gown and pull it off her shoulders. It fell and lay in a heap on the floor. Eva stared hard at Maja’s round, white body, and at the man, but she couldn’t make out his expression. The music murmured pleasantly in the background and Maja went to the bed now; she lay down slowly on her back with
her
arms out to the side. The man followed. He wore a checked shirt which he suddenly wrenched out of the waist of his trousers. He’d done his paying, now he could lay claim to the goods he’d bought, and he did. He knelt next to her and began to fumble with his belt. Eva could see Maja’s black panties and her chubby thighs. They weren’t speaking at all now, both moved with accustomed slowness, they’d done this many times, they had a fixed routine. Then he went straight to it, opened his belt completely and Eva heard his zip as he pulled it down. The bed creaked slightly as he got into position. Maja remained motionless, as did Eva, she saw through the gap that he was pulling his trousers down his thighs, then he took hold of Maja’s panties and pulled them off. She helped by lifting her bottom languidly. Then she opened her legs. Just then something changed in him. He began to pant hard, he straddled Maja and pushed her legs even further apart. Then he dived in. Maja had turned her face to the side. She could only make out the man’s stringy hair and his white bottom working rapidly up and down at an ever increasing tempo. Shortly after, he raised himself, straightening his arms and tilting his head back. He gave a long, drawn-out, throaty groan, then he subsided. It had taken maybe a minute. Just as he collapsed with his chin on the mattress, his hand slid over the edge. He fumbled along the side of the bed for a handhold, and there was a small thud. It made him lean over and look down, Eva saw that he was scrabbling for something on the carpet. Maja had turned her head, her dark eyebrows lifted as he suddenly raised himself once more. In his hand he held the knife. It flashed in the light of the flamingo lamp. He stared at it in amazement, and then at Maja who was trying to sit up. Eva put a hand
to
her mouth and stifled a gasp. There was total silence in the room for several seconds. Joe Cocker had just finished ‘Up Where We Belong’ and was now pausing before his next number. The scene she beheld through the crack in the door made her blood freeze in her veins, and she found it hard to breathe. Maja, still naked and lying on the bed, her eyes watchful, the man on top of her, with his trousers about his knees and the sharp knife in his hand.

‘What the fuck is this?’ His voice was suspicious. He was staring at Maja, but she was as soft and mild as she had been when he arrived. She was a professional.

‘Just a little protection for a lone woman. Lots of strange people come here.’

‘Oh, really?’ thought Eva.

‘Oh, really?’ he said. ‘So that’s what you think of us? You weren’t planning to stick this in me by any chance?’

‘It’s more you that’s stuck something into me,’ she laughed huskily.

He was kneeling as before, still with the knife in his hand, and didn’t budge. ‘I’ve heard of prostitutes who fleece people like this.’ He looked at the knife, turned it in his hand, looked down at the naked body and chalk-white skin, as if he were enjoying it.

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘I’ve already been paid. Now I think you ought to put it down. I don’t like you pointing that knife at me.’

‘And I don’t like finding knives in the bed when I come here on honest business. You women are as treacherous as hell!’

He was beginning to work himself up. Eva bit her lip and had almost stopped breathing. Maja tried to rise, but he pushed her down.