The Caller (9 page)

‘Codface,’ she yelled.

Though it cost him considerable exertion to keep his anger in check, he chose to ignore her. Don’t add fuel to this fire, he thought. Not yet. I’m special. I’m patient. Obviously I’ll get that snotty brat when the time’s right; so help me God, she’ll get what she deserves. He rode to his grandfather’s house and parked the Suzuki. Stopped at the mailbox before going in. The old man sat with his legs on the footstool. The small room was as hot as an oven.

‘Hi, Grandpa,’ he shouted. ‘Here’s your post!’

Henry raised his hand in greeting. His forehead was covered with pearls of sweat. He had tried, in his clumsy way, to shrug out of his knitted cardigan, but without any luck.

‘We’ve got to air this place,’ Johnny said. ‘It’s too hot in here.’

Henry shook his head. ‘The wasps will get in. They’re really poisonous this time of year.’

‘Then we need to find a solution,’ Johnny said. ‘Because you can’t sit in this heat, it’ll make you sluggish. Look, here’s your bank statement. Do you want to go through it?’

He tore the envelope open with his index finger and held out the statement.

There were very few transactions in Henry’s account. His monthly savings had grown over the years into a substantial sum.

‘Nine hundred and seventy-three thousand, Grandpa. Wow, how you’ve saved.’

With squinting eyes, Henry stared at the numbers. Suddenly he looked concerned. ‘It’s all well and good that I can leave some money behind,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid your mother will spend it all on vodka, and that the money wouldn’t benefit you. You can drink an awful lot of vodka for nine hundred thousand kroner.’ He held the statement. A deep furrow ran across his brow. ‘How can we make sure she’s disinherited, Johnny? Have you got any ideas?’

Johnny Beskow thought long and hard. ‘She won’t be disinherited before she croaks,’ he said dejectedly. He folded the statement and put it back in the envelope, pondering. ‘By the way, the little twit shouted at me again today, that Else Meiner. She called me a codface.’

Henry smiled broadly, so that his yellow teeth were visible. ‘Well, have you seen yourself in the mirror lately?’

‘In the mirror? Why?’

‘The question is, do you look like a cod?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Right. So why do you get so upset? If you know it’s not true?’

‘She plays in the Hauger School Band,’ Johnny said.

‘I know. I can hear her trumpet from here. Sometimes she practises at night. I’ve heard both “Bravura” and the “Entry March of the Boyars”. She’s quite good, I’ll have you know.’

‘Do they practise at the school? At Hauger School?’

‘I would imagine so. On Thursdays, I think. I’ve seen her on her bicycle with the trumpet case on her rack, and she’s gone for a few hours. She’s like you. She goes everywhere on that blue bike. There’s something buzzing in here,’ he said. ‘Can you see if it’s a wasp? I know that sound.’

Johnny got up and walked around the steamy living room, examining every nook and cranny, looking under the curtains, lifting the cushions of the sofa. ‘It’s a bluebottle,’ he reported, ‘and it’s as big as a house. I’ll kill it for you. They’re full of disease. I wouldn’t give five kroner for your immune system.’

‘I wouldn’t either,’ Henry said.

Johnny found an old issue of the church bulletin, rolled it into a tube and smacked the bluebottle. When he had taken care of it, he returned to the footstool to read the newspaper. But he skipped the story about the fake obituary, which was well covered across the whole back page. Afterwards, he went to the kitchen and buttered some bread for them. He put sausage and cucumbers on the slices of bread, filled a jug with squash and added ice cubes. Then he sneaked over to open the kitchen window so a little fresh air could find its way inside. They ate in silence.

Henry’s dentures clacked while he chewed. ‘I’ll give you some pocket money,’ he said. ‘So you’ll have petrol.’

‘Thanks, Grandpa.’

‘When you’re older you can move. And live your own life.’

‘Have to get a job first,’ Johnny said.

After a while the old man fell asleep, his mouth agape and his chest littered with breadcrumbs. Johnny rose from the footstool, wandered round the room and looked at the photos on the wall. There were many of himself as a little boy, with short trousers and blond hair, and tiny trainers with red laces. I guess I was an all right kid, he thought, I can’t remember being difficult. Or maybe I was without knowing it. He dug around for good memories, but all that came to him was the sound of doors being slammed. And some images of his mother. She always stood with her back to him, bent over the worktop, always in despair over something. Her steps were hard and decisive, and she banged cupboards and drawers: an eternal storm raging from room to room. Then he examined the picture of his grandmother. She had died young, and he had never known her. But she seemed nice in the picture. Where did all the malice come from? When did it begin to grow? At length he saw a picture of himself sitting on the red moped, his helmet under his arm. In a small cabinet with glass doors his grandfather had several trophies he had won playing bridge. On top of the bookshelf was a mounted grouse that gazed at him with black glass eyes. As a boy he’d often been scared it would swoop down and get him, peck at him with its sharp beak. He returned to the footstool, reached out and took Henry’s hand, squeezing it gently. The old man opened his eyes.

‘Well, what do you know,’ he said. ‘I’m still here. That’s not too bad.’

‘Did you dream?’ Johnny wanted to know.

Henry considered. ‘No, not a thing.’

‘Tell me what it’s like to be old,’ Johnny said.

Henry Beskow gave a dismissive wave with one hand, made a discontented miserable grunt. ‘It’s difficult. It’s like swimming in salt water.’

‘Why are you so allergic to wasps, Grandpa?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just a weakness I have.’

‘How allergic are you? Are we talking about fatally allergic?’

‘Yes. Ha ha. We’re talking about deathly allergic.’

‘But why would you die from it? What happens?’

‘My throat swells up, no matter where the wasps sting me. I can’t breathe. Close the kitchen window before you go,’ he added. ‘I know you opened it. And take a couple of hundred kroner from the jar on the fridge, so you can buy petrol and whatever things you boys need.’

Johnny patted him on his dry, wrinkled cheeks.

He didn’t see Else Meiner when he rode up the street.

Lily Sundelin browsed the newspaper.

She also had her eye on Margrete, who was sitting in a baby bouncer at her feet. Now and then she lifted her foot and carefully gave the bouncer a little nudge; the chubby child smiled with her toothless gums. Karsten, at the table with a crossword puzzle, observed them on the sly. So much has happened, he thought, and Lily is a completely changed person. She has another voice now, another look in her eyes.

A different sensitivity.

Lily looked up at him and pointed to the newspaper. ‘Have you read about the fake obituary?’

Karsten put his pen down and nodded.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ she said.

‘Why should I say anything? You can read about it yourself.’

She folded the newspaper and put it on the table. Her gestures betrayed her irritation. Then she leaned over the bouncer and stroked Margrete’s cheek. ‘It could be the same man. It has to be the same man.’

Karsten Sundelin picked up his pen again and wrote a word in the puzzle. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘No one’s talking about anything else. But talking doesn’t help.’

Once more he was overcome with a strange feeling: a force that rose from deep within and made it hard for him to breathe. As if a new Karsten Sundelin had begun to grow inside him, a Karsten which had lain in slumber and now wanted to escape.

He who doesn’t seek revenge, he thought, sets nothing to rights. It was an old adage. Why do we not live by it any more? Why should the authorities have to avenge them? Why did criminals have so many rights? Why were they entitled to respect and understanding? Had they not acted so unlawfully that these rights should be stripped from them?

‘Something terrible must have happened in his life for him to do these things,’ Lily said.

‘Something happens in everyone’s life,’ Karsten said.

He stood up and went to the bouncer, lifted the child and held her close. He felt her wet mouth at the hollow of his neck, and her scent reached his nostrils. Sometimes he came close to tears because Margrete was a miracle. Margrete was his future, his old age; she was hope and light. She was the last cipher in the code to the vault of his innermost self, and he had finally gained access to the truth about himself.

He had found a warrior.

He returned Margrete carefully to the bouncer and went back to his crossword puzzle.

‘Revenge is sweet,’ Lily said suddenly.

‘That’s what they say,’ Karsten said. ‘I’ve never avenged myself on anyone, but it’s certainly true.’

‘But why sweet?’ she said. ‘Isn’t it a strange thing to say?’

‘It must have something to do with the rush of endorphins you get when you finally do it. Something like that, I don’t know. I don’t really understand it.’ He put his hands behind his head and stretched out his long legs.

Lily could tell he was thinking of something; his green eyes narrowed. Do I love him? she wondered abruptly. The thought ran through her head, and she was quite horrified. I guess I have to love him, it’s just us two. For eternity.

‘When you discipline a dog,’ Karsten said, ‘you do it immediately. The dog steals a meatball from the table, and you smack its snout. You have to do it right away. If the dog’s not punished in the span of three seconds it will never see the connection between the meatball and the hand that strikes.’

‘Why are you talking about dogs?’

He paused. Thought carefully about his words. ‘Our system may be just, but it’s too cumbersome. And what is too cumbersome surely cannot be effective. Some fool commits a crime. After a while he’s arrested and put in jail, and there he awaits his trial for months. Then there’s the trial, and the fool is finally sentenced. But of course he’ll appeal, and if he’s sentenced again, he’ll appeal again. Then he’ll be sentenced again. Then he’ll be given a tag because there are no vacant cells. How is that idiot supposed to see a connection?’ Karsten gesticulated wildly. ‘Put the guy in handcuffs on Monday, sentence him on Tuesday and throw him in his cell on Wednesday. Then he’ll stop stealing meatballs.’

To show how serious he was, he hammered his clenched fist on the table.

‘That doesn’t work,’ Lily said. ‘We don’t live in that kind of ideal society. We’re not dogs either,’ she added with a sideways glance at her husband. She lifted Margrete and put her on her lap. ‘Criminals must have a certain mental capacity, and it’s clear they see a connection. The most important thing is the consequence of their action. Besides, they’ll carry it with them the rest of their lives. It will go on their record. They’ll basically go through life tarnished,’ she said dramatically.

‘Mental capacity?’ Karsten snorted. ‘Do you think the idiot who was in our garden has any mental capacity?’

‘Yes,’ Lily said. ‘I do. Perhaps he’s very intelligent. And that’s the reason I’m so afraid. Precisely because he is so cunning.’

‘But you shouldn’t be afraid,’ Karsten cried out. ‘You should be livid!’

Again he pounded his fist on the table.

Lily closed her eyes. Never in her life had she been livid at anything. She couldn’t summon the feeling. Something could fester inside her, but the minute it rose to the surface it was converted into helpless tears. There was something hopeless about it all, something that attached itself to her whole being; she couldn’t scream and fight, couldn’t get angry as others grew angry when they’d been violated. She just curled into a ball in the corner and licked her wounds. I’m a victim, she thought. I’d go to the slaughterhouse of my own volition, if anyone asked me to.

‘Yes, well,’ she said aloud, ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion. The most important thing is that we’re better people than he is. That we demonstrate the fact by letting the authorities handle it.’

‘But they only go so far.’ He looked at her with narrow eyes. ‘What should we do if they don’t catch him?’

Lily cradled Margrete in her arms. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it,’ she said.

Hannes and Wilma Bosch had lived in Norway for fifteen years, and they had built a large log cabin on the road to Saga. At the front of the house was a porch, and on the porch was a hammock with floral cushions. Little Theo rocked in the hammock. Theodor Bosch had just turned eight. One of his biggest heroes was the Transformer Optimus Prime, a robot which, through some quick hand movements, turned into a truck. The other hero in his life was the explorer Lars Monsen. Theo had Lars Monsen on DVD, on a poster above his bed, on his bookshelf and on the brain. In his room he even had a thick, life-sized cardboard cut-out of Lars Monsen. At the bookshop in Kirkeby he had begged for it, and he had carried it all by himself down the long escalator to the car. That figure of the well-known explorer was the first thing Theo saw when he opened his eyes in the morning. Lars Monsen with the crazy hair and the narrow eyes. At night he dreamed he had the same fishing rod as Lars Monsen, the same tent and same canoe. He dreamed he paddled across the waters and down the stream with a rifle over his shoulder and a knife on his belt. Dreamed he trekked across icy lakes, warmed his hands by a fire and cooked trout over the flames. Tore the fish from the bones with sharp, savage teeth.

But Theo was a thin eight-year-old, and it would be many years before he’d be an adult and could take up the life of the wilderness. Daydreaming, though, he was good at daydreaming. His imagination knew no boundaries, and sometimes it took him to remote and strange places while the rest of him was safe among the hammock’s pillows. He swung and swung. He wore khaki shorts; his knees were round and white, like freshly scrubbed potatoes. His mother, Wilma, prepared a meal in the kitchen. Her body was strong and hefty and seemed infinitely safe. She was as solid as the big oak cabinet in the living room, the wooden bench in the kitchen, the nails in the wall.