Midnight Sun (10 page)

I told Bobby that if she could stay away from Slottsparken and dope, I'd keep away from the cops, from the Fisherman, from trouble. Because she and Anna wouldn't be able to manage if I ended up behind bars. Like I said, Bobby's parents weren't actually that rich, but were so middle class and conservative that they'd made it very clear that they wanted nothing to do with their hash-smoking, promiscuous hippy daughter, and that she and the child's father would have to fend for themselves, possibly with the help of the state.

Finally the day came when Bobby said she couldn't handle looking after the bloody kid any more. Anna had been crying, her nose bleeding, and she had been running a fever for four days in a row. When I looked down at the bed, the blue light in her eyes had been replaced by blue circles beneath them; she was pale and had strange blue bruises on her knees and elbows. I took her to the doctor's, and three days later came the diagnosis. Acute leukaemia. A one-way ticket to death. The doctors gave her four months. Everyone kept saying that things like that just happened, lightning striking at random, mercilessly, pointlessly.

I flew into a rage, asked questions, made phone calls, checked, went to see specialists, and eventually found out that there was a treatment for leukaemia in Germany. It didn't save everyone, and it cost a fortune, but it gave one thing: hope. Sensibly, the Norwegian state had other things to spend its money on than fragile hope, and Bobby's parents said it was fate, and a matter for the Norwegian health service, they weren't paying for some fantasy cure from Naziland. I did the sums. If I sold five times as much hash, I still wouldn't make enough in time. Even so, I tried, I worked eighteen-hour shifts and pushed like mad for sales, heading down towards the cathedral when the Slottsparken fell silent at night. When I next went to the hospital they asked why no one had been there for the past three days.

‘Hasn't Bobby been here?'

The nurse and doctor shook their heads, said they'd tried calling her, but that her phone seemed to have been cut off.

When I got to Bobby's she was lying in bed and said she was ill, and that it was my fault she couldn't afford to pay the phone bill. I went to the toilet and was about to drop a cigarette butt in the bin when I saw the bloody cotton-wool ball. Further down in the bin I found a syringe. Maybe I'd been half-expecting it to happen; I'd seen more fragile souls than Bobby cross that line.

So what did I do?

I did nothing.

I left Bobby there, tried to convince myself that Anna was better off with the nurses than with either of her parents, and I sold hash and saved up for that bastard miracle cure I forced myself to believe in because the alternative was unbearable, because my fear that the little girl with the blue light in her eyes would die was even stronger than my own fear of death. Because we take comfort where we can find it: in a German medical journal, in a syringe full of heroin, in a shiny new book promising eternal life as long as you subordinate yourself to whatever new saviour they've just come up with. So I sold hash and counted the kroner, and counted the days.

That was the situation when the Fisherman offered me a job.

Two days. The clouds were hanging low, but weren't letting go of any rain. The earth turned, but I didn't see the sun. The hours were, if possible, even more monotonous. I tried to sleep through them, but that turned out to be impossible without Valium.

I was going mad. More mad. Knut had been right.
There's nothing worse than not knowing when the bullet's coming
.

Towards the evening of the second day I'd had enough.

Mattis had said the wedding would carry on for three days.

I washed in the stream. I no longer noticed the midges, they only annoyed me now when they landed on my eyes, in my mouth or on a piece of bread. And my shoulder no longer hurt. It was funny, but when I woke up the day after the funeral the pain was gone. I'd cast my mind back, tried to remember if I'd done anything in particular, but I couldn't think of anything.

After washing I rinsed my shirt, wrung it out and put it on. I hoped it would be passably dry by the time I reached the village. I wondered whether or not I should take the pistol. In the end I decided to leave it, and hid it behind the moss alongside the money belt. I looked at the rifle and box of ammunition. I thought about what Mattis had said. That the only reason no one ever stole anything in KÃ¥sund was that there was nothing worth stealing. There wasn't room for the rifle behind the plank, so I wrapped it in some roofing felt I found under the bunk and hid it beneath four big stones over by the stream.

Then I left.

Even if the wind was gusty, there was something heavy in the air that seemed to press at my temples. As if there was thunder on the way. Maybe the celebrations were already over. The drink finished. The available women taken. But as I got closer I heard the same drums I'd heard two days before. I walked past the church towards the jetty. Followed the sound.

I turned off the road and headed east, up onto a hill. Before me a stony grey desert of a headland stretched out towards a steel-blue sea. At the neck of the headland, immediately below me, lay a flat, well-trodden patch of ground, and that was where they were dancing. A large fire was burning alongside a five- or six-metre-high obelisk-like rock that stuck up from the ground. Around it lay two circles of smaller stones. There wasn't any real symmetry to the stones, no recognisable pattern, but they still looked like the foundations of a building that had never been finished. Or rather a building site that had decayed, been demolished or torched. I walked down towards them.

‘Hello!' yelled a tall, fair-haired youth in a Sámi jacket who was having a piss on the heather at the edge of the clearing. ‘Who are you?'

‘Ulf.'

‘The southerner! Better late than never – welcome!' He shook his cock, scattering drops in all direction, stuffed it back in his trousers and held out his hand. ‘Kornelius, Mattis's second cousin! Oh, yes.'

I was reluctant to take his hand.

‘So that's the cod-liver-oil stone,' I said. ‘Is it a ruined temple?'

‘Transteinen?' Kornelius shook his head. ‘No, Beaive-Vuolab threw it there.'

‘Really? And who's that then?'

‘A pretty strong Sámi. A demigod, maybe. No, quarter! A quarter-god.'

‘Hmm. And why do quarter-gods chuck rocks here?'

‘Why does anyone chuck heavy rocks? To prove that they can, of course!' He laughed. ‘Why didn't you come earlier, Ulf? The party's almost over now.'

‘I got it wrong, I thought the wedding was in the church.'

‘What, with that superstitious lot?' He pulled out a hip flask. ‘Mattis is better at marrying people than those thin-blooded Lutherans.'

‘Really? So which gods is it done in the name of, then?' I peered towards the fires and a long table. A girl in a green dress had stopped dancing and was looking at me curiously. Even from a distance I could tell she had a fine figure.

‘Gods? No gods, he marries them in the name of the Norwegian state.'

‘Is he authorised to do that?'

‘Oh, yes. He's one of three people in the district who are.' Kornelius raised a clenched fist and unfolded his fingers one by one: ‘The priest, the deputy judge, and the ship's captain.'

‘Wow. So Mattis is a ship's captain as well?'

‘Mattis?' Kornelius laughed and took a swig from the hip flask. ‘Does he look like a seagoing Sámi? Have you seen him walk? No, Eliassen senior's the captain, and he can only marry people on board his boats, and no women have ever set foot on one. Oh, yes.'

‘So what do you mean, have I seen Mattis walk?'

‘Only nomadic Sámi are that bow-legged, not seagoing Sámi.'

‘Really?'

‘Fish.' He passed me the hip flask. ‘They don't eat fish inland on the plateau. So they don't get enough iodine. They get soft bones.' He stuck his knees out by way of illustration.

‘And you're . . .'

‘Fake Sámi. My father was from Bergen, but don't tell anyone. Especially not my mother.'

He laughed, and I couldn't help joining in. The drink tasted even worse than the stuff I'd got from Mattis.

‘So what is he, then? A priest?'

‘Almost,' Kornelius said. ‘He went off to Oslo to study theology. But then he lost his faith. So he switched to law. He worked as a deputy judge in Tromsø for three years. Oh, yes.'

‘No offence, Kornelius, but unless I'm badly mistaken, something like eighty per cent of what you've told me is either lies or fantasy.'

He adopted a hurt expression. ‘Hell, no. First Mattis lost his faith in God. Then he lost his faith in the legal system. And now the only thing he believes in is alcohol content, or so he says.' Kornelius laughed loudly and slapped my back so hard that the drink almost came back up again. Which might actually have been a good thing.

‘What sort of hellish brew is that?' I asked, handing him the hip flask.

‘
Reikas
,' he said. ‘Fermented reindeer milk.' He shook his head sadly. ‘But the youth of today only want fizzy drinks and cola. Snow-scooters and hotdogs. Proper spirits, sledges and reindeer meat, all that will soon be gone. We're going to the dogs. Oh, yes.' He took a consoling swig from the flask before screwing the lid on. ‘Ah, here comes Anita.'

I watched the girl in the green dress walk towards us, apparently rather aimlessly, and straightened up automatically.

‘Now, now, Ulf,' Kornelius said in a low voice. ‘Let her do a reading for you, but nothing more.'

‘A reading?'

‘Second sight. She's a real shaman. But you don't want what she wants.'

‘And that is?'

‘You can see that from here.'

‘Hmm. Why not? Is she married? Engaged?'

‘No, but you don't want what she's got.'

‘Got?'

‘Has and spreads.'

I nodded slowly.

He put his hand on my shoulder.

‘But have fun. Kornelius isn't one to gossip.'

He turned towards the girl. ‘Hi, Anita!'

‘Goodbye, Kornelius.'

He laughed and walked off. The girl stopped in front of me, smiling with her mouth closed. Sweaty and still out of breath from dancing. She had two angry red pimples on her forehead, pupils the size of pinpricks, and wild eyes that spoke for themselves. Dope, probably speed.

‘Hi,' I said.

She didn't reply, just inspected me from top to toe.

I shifted my weight.

‘Do you want me?' she asked.

I shook my head.

‘Why not?'

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘You look like a healthy specimen of a man. What's wrong?'

‘I understand that you can tell things like that about people.'

She laughed. ‘Did Kornelius say that? Oh, yes, Anita can see things. And she saw that you were keen enough a few moments ago. What happened, did you get scared?'

‘It's not you, it's me, I've got a touch of syphilis.'

When she laughed, I could see why she smiled without showing her teeth. ‘I've got rubbers.'

‘More than a touch, actually. My cock's fallen off.'

She came a step closer. Put her hand on my crotch. ‘It doesn't feel like it. Come on, I live behind the church.'

I shook my head and took a firm grip of her wrist.

‘Fucking southerners,' she hissed, and snatched her hand away from me. ‘What's so wrong about a quick fuck? We're all going to die soon, didn't you know?'

‘Yeah, I've heard the rumours,' I said, and looked round for a suitable escape route.

‘You don't believe me,' she said. ‘Look at me.
Look
at me, I said!'

I looked at her.

She smiled. ‘Oh, yes, Anita saw right. You've got death in your eyes. Don't turn away! Anita can see you're going to shoot the reflection. Yes, shoot the reflection.'

A small alarm had gone off inside my head. ‘What fucking southerners are you talking about?'

‘You, of course.'

‘Which
other
southerners?'

‘He didn't say what his name was.' She took my hand. ‘But now I've read you, now you can—'

I pulled free. ‘What did he look like?'

‘Wow, you really
are
scared.'

‘What did he look like?'

‘Why's it so important?'

‘Please, Anita.'

‘Okay, okay, take it easy. Thin man. Nazi fringe. Handsome. Had a long nail on his index finger.'

Shit.
The Fisherman always finds what he's looking for. You and I may not know how, but he knows. Always.

I swallowed. ‘When did you see him?'

‘Just before you arrived. He went up into the village, said he was going to talk to someone.'

‘What did he want?'

‘He was looking for some southerner called Jon. Is that you?'

I shook my head. ‘My name's Ulf. What else did he say?'

‘Nothing. He gave me his phone number in case I heard anything, but it was an Oslo number. Why are you going on about it?'

‘I'm just waiting for someone to show up with my shotgun, but it probably isn't him.'

So Johnny Moe was here. And I had left the pistol in the cabin. I'd gone somewhere I wasn't safe, and I hadn't taken the only thing that might make me a bit safer. Because I thought it might be tricky if I met a woman and had to get undressed. And now I had met a woman, and evidently didn't want to get undressed after all. Is there a level
below
idiot? The funny thing was that I was more annoyed than frightened. I should have been more scared. He had come to shoot me. I was hiding here because I wanted to survive, wasn't I? So I'd better get my fucking act together and do a bit of surviving!

‘You live behind the church, you said?'

She brightened up. ‘Yes, it's not far.'