1222

5

Time was passing noticeably slowly. Perhaps it was because I felt hungry all the time. We had barely finished a huge lunch before I felt the pull in my midriff that had me looking around for something to put in my mouth. When I didn’t find anything I leaned over to Adrian and tucked a hundred kroner note into his hand.

‘Will you go to the kiosk for me, please? Get some snacks. Crisps or peanuts. And half a litre of cola.’

‘I’m not your fucking errand boy. And you eat a hell of a lot, I have to say. That can’t be good. You’ll end up looking like a…’

He wasn’t sure what I’d end up looking like. I can understand that. I have a certain amount of self-awareness. I look younger than I am, and I weigh sixty-four kilos. Slightly less than I should, since my height is 172 centimetres. If I’m measured while I’m lying flat out on the floor, that is. Which I never do, but my height was written down in my passport at the time when I was able to stand. Getting fat isn’t a problem, but I often feel hungry. Almost all the time. A psychologist who was once forced on me ages ago got a little bit too hung up on that particular point.

‘Are you a good boy or are you not a good boy?’

Adrian was actually good-looking when he smiled.

‘I’m a very good boy,’ he laughed.

He was a mystery in many ways, was Adrian Droopyjeans. When he tucked the note in his pocket and set off, Veronica stood up and followed him. I still hadn’t heard her say a word. She moved surprisingly silently. Since there was no longer any trace of snow or dampness on the floor, most people had started going around in their stockinged feet. The woolly socks she had borrowed from Adrian looked very strange with the Nemi-inspired clothes. She reminded me of a slinking black cat with bright red paws. And she had a magnetic attraction when it came to dogs – they always came up to her wagging their tails, no matter how deeply asleep they appeared to be when she walked by.

Cracks had appeared in the windows facing out towards Finsevann during the course of the morning. Only in the outer panes, to be fair, and Berit Tverre had dismissed the whole thing as a normal sign of wear and tear when one cracked; a silent flash of shattered glass. When the rest of the pane followed, she shrugged her shoulders and reminded us that there were two layers left. Nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing.

The strange thing was that people believed her.

The dramatic events of the morning had once again altered the atmosphere. While the previous evening had been relaxed and the new day had begun with a sullen nervousness, it now seemed as if most people had succumbed to silent resignation.

We were simply waiting.

We were waiting as best we could, for the storm to abate, for help to come. We were waiting to go home. In the meantime, there wasn’t much we could do. Since we were all travellers, there was plenty of reading material to swap with each other. There was a pile of well-read paperbacks on the long table. And there was a relatively well-stocked bookshelf down in the hobby room. Several people had taken the opportunity to buy books from the hotel, despite the fact that the selection was severely limited. One was about Roald Amundsen and one was about the history of Finse. Also on offer was a not particularly tempting coffee table book about the Bergen railway.

That was it.

The gang of poker players had put away their cards, but not in order to read. They were sitting at the longest table in St Paal’s Bar. All wearing earpieces, with their mp3 players on cords around their necks. Some were humming quietly and morosely along. I felt a rising antipathy towards the leader of the gang, a broad-shouldered lad in his twenties with a pink handkerchief tied around his head. The others called him Mikkel. His hair was presumably blond, but was dark with grease and hair gel. His eyes were blue, almost powerful. His face would have been attractive but for the mouth, which was set in an expression of spoilt discontent. The rest of the group behaved like puppies around him. So far I hadn’t seen Mikkel fetch his own beer once. He had also won a fortune off the others at poker. I would bet that same fortune on the fact that he was cheating, and the others knew it. Without doing a single bloody thing to put him in his place.

I looked away from him.

Beyond the cracked glass in the window, the air had taken on a strange colour.

It was too light, somehow.

Up to now the whiteness had actually been grey. The daylight was filtered through heavy clouds and vast amounts of falling snow. Finse 1222 had been surrounded by a muted light that was almost semi-darkness. Something was different now. Above the lashing wind and the violently swirling snow, the cloud cover must have broken. At least, I couldn’t come up with any other explanation for the dazzling whiteness that made it even more difficult to see out. Perhaps it was a good sign. Perhaps the weather was beginning to change. I pushed that optimistic idea aside as a series of thuds, bangs and thumps from the eastern wall made people look up anxiously from their books and old newspapers.

Roar Hanson came padding towards me. He hesitated and was about to turn away when I gave him an encouraging smile.

‘Am I disturbing you?’ he asked softly.

‘Not at all,’ I said, nodding towards an empty chair. ‘You might even be able to help me with something I’ve been wondering about.’

‘What’s that?’ he asked, without returning my smile.

He seemed just as despairing as he had been earlier. He kept on rubbing his shoulder. It had been dislocated in the accident, and it seemed as if it were still causing him considerable pain. His eyes were damp, but without tears. There was something white at the corners of his mouth, and I wished he would lick it off. His hair, thin with the hint of a comb-over, looked unwashed, and when he sat down I caught an acrid smell of sweat that had nothing to do with physical activity.

‘Are you feeling stressed?’ I asked, regretting the question immediately.

‘What was it you were wondering about?’ he mumbled.

‘Well. These dogs…’

I pointed at the setter, sleeping peacefully on the floor next to its owner, who was sitting in the Millibar with a cup of hot chocolate. Nobody had seen any sign of the Portuguese water dog since it got red hot coffee on its nose.

‘Where do they go to the toilet? They can’t get outside, and I assume they have to pee from time to time?’

‘I’ve made them a toilet in the cellar.’

Berit Tverre placed a hand on my shoulder. I hadn’t heard her coming. She smiled and went on: ‘We’ve got lots of strange rooms in this hotel, and I’ve covered the floor in one of them with old newspapers. One of the staff rooms, actually. We empty it and wash the floor four times a day.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the service here!’

Roar Hanson made a move to get up. I gave Berit Tverre a look, hoping she knew me well enough to interpret it correctly.

‘See you later,’ she said, hurrying away.

‘Sit for a while,’ I said pleasantly to Roar Hanson.

He adjusted his position slightly on the chair. I wheeled my chair a little closer and leaned forward.

‘This business with Cato Hammer,’ I said quietly. ‘I can understand that you’re upset. He was your friend, or so I’ve heard. And -’

‘I don’t believe what they said about the brain haemorrhage,’ he whispered.

I tried to catch his eye, but he refused to meet my gaze. Instead he kept looking back over his bad shoulder, as if he were afraid somebody might touch it.

‘Why not?’

‘I think he was murdered.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Was he murdered?’

‘What makes you think Cato Hammer was murdered?’

‘Because no one can run away from his sins. Not for all eternity.’

Oh God. I swallowed and tried to sound neutral.

‘But we’re all sinners, aren’t we?’ I ventured.

‘In God’s eyes, yes.’

‘And now God has taken Cato home.’

I really am terrible at this kind of thing. I might have blushed. I haven’t set foot in a church since I was forced to go to a christening almost ten years ago. But I had to make an attempt to get the man to talk, and to prevent myself from laughing at all costs. Roar Hanson was showing all the signs of an imminent breakdown.

‘Nonsense,’ he said, looking me in the eye for the first time. ‘A ridiculous thing to say. God doesn’t take anyone.’

I know I blushed this time. I had to try and get onto safer ground, talking about something I was more comfortable with than this.

‘So what kind of sins was Cato guilty of? A crime of some kind?’

‘Greed and betrayal.’

Like most of us, I thought. But this time I kept quiet.

‘And the betrayal was worst of all,’ said Roar Hanson. ‘You can make amends for greed. There can be no forgiveness for betrayal.’

I thought everything could be forgiven. Just shows how wrong you can be.

‘Crisps,’ said Adrian, dropping the bag on my lap. ‘And Coke. There you go. Veronica and I are going to see if the table tennis table is any good.’

The young woman was waiting for him a few metres away.

I took the bottle of cola.

Later I would try to recreate the moment that followed. I was so busy making sure I didn’t drop the packet of crisps on the floor, and so annoyed that the boy had chosen paprika flavour that I was a bit late in looking up, and didn’t entirely grasp what was happening.

‘Wash your hands daily,’ said Roar Hanson.

He was always so quiet that I had to look at him in order to pick up everything he said. However, when Adrian yelled back, it was impossible not to hear:

‘Fuck you!’

The boy turned on his heel and disappeared.

‘What was that all about?’ I asked.

‘No idea,’ said Roar Hanson, getting to his feet. ‘I have to go.’

‘Where are you off to?’ I asked in an attempt to prolong the conversation.

He didn’t turn around. His back looked somehow narrower than it had done earlier as he walked towards the stairs and I lost sight of him.

I didn’t understand him at all. On the one hand he sought contact. On the other, he communicated in cryptic sentences and left me as soon as he had come out with a couple of them. Why he should be reminding Adrian about hand hygiene was completely beyond me. What I really wanted was to say sod the bloody priest; I found his appearance repellent, and he was obviously mentally unstable.

Which was a serious problem.

I didn’t think this group of people would be able to cope if one of us broke down. After the episode when most had been overcome by panic and far too many had proved they were not exactly reliable in a crisis, Geir, Berit and I had realized that the most important thing over the next few hours was to keep the atmosphere as low-key as possible. God knows what would happen if Roar Hanson really lost it and starting hurling accusations of murder around.

‘Adrian,’ I said sharply, trying to beckon him over.

He was sitting on the stairs leading down to the side wing with his right trouser leg rolled up. The bandage around his knee was soaked in blood. I had no idea he had been injured in the crash. His trousers were so scruffy I thought the tear across the knee had been done on purpose.

‘I think it needs changing,’ he said gloomily, pulling a face. ‘It’s worse now than it was yesterday. Am I going to get gangrene or something?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Come over here for a minute.’

He got up reluctantly, limping demonstratively as he took the three or four steps towards me.

‘Ouch. Fuck.’

‘It’s not too bad,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you say anything yesterday when I asked you if you were hurt? Here. Take these.’

I popped two painkillers out of the pack I had in a side pocket of my wheelchair.

‘What’s going on with you and Roar Hanson?’

‘That pig? With all that white gunk around his gob?’

Adrian pushed the tablets into his mouth and washed them down with cola.

‘Roar Hanson,’ I said again.

‘He’s a bastard. He was after Veronica last night. Twice.’

‘Says who?’ I asked.

‘Veronica, of course! I saw him too. He was all over her. Creepy!’

‘Perhaps he just wanted to talk. Be nice. He is a priest, after all, and Veronica doesn’t exactly seem like the most popular -’

‘Oh, don’t start! Veronica knows loads of people! Celebs, I mean. She hangs out with the kind of people you can only imagine – in your wildest dreams! And she’s a black belt, second grade Tae Kwondo, and she teaches people you just wouldn’t believe.’

‘Right. Absolutely. But what made you so angry just now?’

‘That’s got fuck all to do with you.’

‘Adrian…’

‘Shit. I thought you were different.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

He pulled his cap down even lower over his face.

‘For what?’

‘For not saying anything. About what we discussed this morning. About… you know. I decided to trust you, and I’m glad I wasn’t wrong.’

The boy hesitated. I had gone for a cheap trick, but Adrian wasn’t exactly surrounded by people who trusted him, and I had to use what I could. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before he finally began:

‘He said… That dickhead said…’

Something was going on over by the reception desk.

‘He’s been shot!’ shouted a girl’s voice. ‘That priest, he can’t have had a brain haemorrhage. He’s been shot in the head!’

Adrian swung around in the direction of the noise. I tried to raise my upper body from the chair by supporting myself on the armrests, but I still couldn’t see who was shouting. The first thing that struck me was that I was witnessing a diametrically opposed reaction to the explosion of panic this morning. This was more like an implosion. People were heading into the reception area. Nobody said anything. I tried to move forward.

‘It’s true,’ sobbed the voice. ‘I was just having a look around, that’s all. I was just… There’s a big hole in his face and he…’

It was the handball girl in the red tracksuit.

‘There, there. It’s all right.’

A male voice was attempting to console her.

‘Is this true? Have you been lying to us?’

There was no mistaking Kari Thue’s voice. I changed my mind and rolled back. The people who had been in the side wing up to now were on their way up to us. They were moving slowly and hesitantly, as if they didn’t really want to believe the story that was travelling from mouth to mouth, and which eventually made everyone hurry along. Mikkel, wearing his pink handkerchief, was pushing his way through to the reception desk. I could see Adrian out of the corner of my eye. He had climbed up onto the table where the flasks of coffee had just been refilled for the fourth time since lunch. For some reason he had taken off his cap, but he quickly put it back on again.

‘Liars!’ yelled Kari Thue. I couldn’t see who she was talking to, but assumed Berit Tverre was her target. ‘Isn’t it obvious that we all have the right to know that we’re trapped here with a… murderer!’

It was as if someone had turned a gigantic volume control up to the highest level. People were pouring endlessly from the stairs and from the wing where the staff had started to lay the tables for lunch. They crowded into the reception area, talking over one another. Everybody was moving in towards the same spot: a terrified fourteen-year-old girl dressed in red, whose youthful curiosity had led her to trip over Cato Hammer’s earthly remains.

Geir Rugholmen shot out of the kitchen. He stopped, took a deep breath, and was obviously searching for someone with his gaze. It turned out to be me. He stared at me for several seconds before silently forming these words with his lips:

‘What do we do now?’

You could have made a better job of hiding the corpse, I thought. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t actually know where it was. Later I would learn that they had put the dead priest in the delivery area outside the kitchen, just inside the uninsulated door keeping the storm at bay. It was minus ten in there, I was told, so from a preservation point of view it was absolutely fine. However, if the intention had been to keep the murder a secret, they could have come up with something better. Nor was I completely sure what the chef thought about having a corpse lying in the area where he received fresh produce and equipment on a daily basis. Presumably he had no idea it was there.

‘What do we do now?’ Geir mimed again.

I was unable to come up with an answer.

‘The only sensible course of action is to split up,’ shouted Kari I Thue. ‘I have the right to decide for myself who I can trust. Who I choose to be snowed in with. At any rate, we ought to form two separate groups.’

I couldn’t believe my ears. Or eyes. I must have looked like an idiot sitting there, right in the corner by the kitchen with a coffee cup on a rustic cupboard beside me, open-mouthed with astonishment as more and more people gathered around Kari Thue at the other end of the room. The girl in red had already been forgotten. She had done her bit, and I couldn’t see her anywhere. I hoped one of the adults had gone with her to her room. Thank goodness nobody even glanced in my direction. For the first time since the accident I considered asking Geir to help me get away. To a room where I could be by myself. With a key in the lock enabling me to keep everyone else at a distance until the storm was over and I could make my way home to Krusesgate without needing to exchange a single word with anyone. That might well be worth the humiliation of being carried.

But Geir was busy with an entirely different matter.

The long table had been elevated to a kind of speaker’s platform following the train crash. Kari Thue was standing on its broad surface talking loudly and quickly, with much gesticulation, while Berit Tverre tried in vain to get her to come down. Geir was pushing his way through the crowd to help out.

‘Since we have access to two buildings,’ yelled Kari Thue, ‘I would suggest that one group takes whatever food and drink they need over to the apartment wing, while the other group remains here. The train carriage linking the two buildings can easily be blocked off at each end. And guarded, of course. I would like to volunteer to serve on a committee responsible for dividing everyone into two groups. This committee should consist of… three members. You…’

She pointed at the knitting woman, who clutched her work tightly and looked as if it was all she could do not to break down completely.

‘And you…’

The finger curled over and beckoned the businessman I thought I recognized, but whose name I couldn’t recall.

‘I suggest that the three of us spend the next hour coming up with a split that most people will be happy with. As far as I understand it…’

At this point her voice shot up to a falsetto. Berit had grabbed hold of Kari Thue’s forearm and was determinedly trying to pull her off the table. Kari Thue jerked her arm violently upwards. Berit let go and would have fallen, but for the press of people behind her.

‘Get down from there!’ shouted Berit. ‘At once! I’m the one who…’

The rest of the sentence was lost in the racket, and I could no longer see her. So far about fifty people had gathered in the lobby. There were still approximately three times as many scattered around the two buildings, and more and more were steadily arriving. Mikkel, the lout from St Paal’s Bar, had brought his gang along and stationed them behind the crowd, where they were amusing themselves by shoving everybody forwards. They seemed totally uninterested in what was going on, except as an opportunity for some entertainment. A few started shouting out that they agreed with Kari Thue. Others tried to help Berit. The man from South Africa had climbed up on the window ledge and was standing with one foot on the table, earnestly pleading with Kari Thue to calm down. I was picking up only odd words in broken Norwegian, but it was enough for me to understand that the man was seriously concerned. Moreover, he was the only one of us who was still as neatly and correctly dressed as when the accident happened; he was wearing a grey suit with a narrow stripe, a shirt that was still clean, and a deep red silk tie, perfectly knotted. It didn’t help much. Kari Thue flung her arm out at him, but missed. She was still talking non-stop.

‘We’re dealing with a brutal murder here! We’re much safer if we split up! I have the right to choose who I -’

Geir had climbed up onto the opposite end of the table. He ran towards her, bent his head just a hair’s breadth from the lamps suspended from the ceiling, and without a second’s hesitation he flung his arms around the skinny woman and locked her down. Her little rucksack was crushed between his stomach and her back, but Geir didn’t even seem to notice.

‘Calm down. And shut your mouth!’

In order to stress the seriousness of his words, he gave her an extra squeeze and lifted her bodily off the table.

‘Do you understand?’ he yelled, before whispering something in her ear. I have no idea what he said, but it worked.

Kari Thue collapsed like a rag doll in his arms. Carefully he made sure her feet were touching the surface of the table before he slowly let go. She didn’t lash out. She didn’t scream. And neither did anyone else. Even Mikkel’s gang moved back imperceptibly, as if they had realized with sudden embarrassment that they could have hurt someone.

‘Get down,’ I said loudly. ‘Get down from the table and we will decide what we are going to do.’

Suddenly I was looking into fifty faces, all of whom seemed more surprised that I had said something than if I had got to my feet and walked. To tell the truth, I was equally surprised myself.

‘First of all, Berit Tverre is the person in charge here,’ I said. ‘And secondly, there is no reason whatsoever to split into two groups.’

Since I had actually opened my mouth, I should have said something less obvious. My voice sounded strange. It was a long time since I had had any reason to speak loudly. On the other hand, what was actually being said didn’t seem to be the most important thing; it was the way it was said that mattered. Kari Thue allowed herself to be helped down from the table. Geir was already down. People slowly started moving closer to me. I held up my hands and they stopped like obedient dogs. Only Kari Thue, Geir and Berit pushed through the wall of people who were now standing four metres away from me. The South African was the only one who no longer wanted to be involved. He marched angrily towards the stairs and disappeared. I also noticed the Kurd on the fringe of the group, a little distance away from the rest. He was the only one who had already stopped looking at me. Instead he was examining a stuffed raven in a glass case on the reception desk. He was staring into the shiny eyes, apparently uninterested in anything apart from the black bird. The woman in the headscarf, whom I had assumed to be his wife, was standing next to him. Until now she had seemed unusually reserved, a shy creature who shunned any attempt at contact from other people. Now she was looking straight at me. Her eyes were large and green with brown flecks. It struck me that I hadn’t really looked at her before. The headscarf drew attention away from everything else. Which was no doubt the intention. Her face was broad without appearing masculine, extremely and surprisingly open, with symmetrical features and an expression around her mouth that I could not interpret.

‘Carry on,’ whispered Geir; I hadn’t even noticed that he had come right up to me.

‘Who the hell gave you the right to decide?’

Mikkel got there before me. Even when he smiled he looked discontented. He was standing next to Kari Thue with his arms folded. His head was tipped back in order to underline my status as a cripple.

‘I’m not making any decisions,’ I said. ‘Berit Tverre is the person who will make decisions.’

‘And who decided that?’

I have to admit that I do have a number of prejudices.

In the past I thought it was worth trying to do something about them. In recent years I’ve stopped bothering. I’ve given in, so to speak. Since I spend most of my time at home, I don’t really see the point in wasting my energy on trying to be a better person. It’s probably too late, anyway. I’m rapidly approaching fifty. In three years I will pass the meridian, and I prefer to expend my energy on other things, rather than dealing with rich daddy’s boys from Bærum who suffer from an excess of self-confidence. He must have been fifteen years younger than Kari Thue, yet he was allowing himself to be devoured by her eyes, while she was clearly having to restrain herself from touching him.

‘I have decided,’ I said. ‘And so has everybody else whose intelligence is more or less intact. We are Berit Tverre’s guests. Start acting that way.’

‘We live in a democracy,’ Kari Thue said in her loud, grating voice. ‘A democracy that does not cease to exist simply because we are cut off. If the majority of people here agree with me that it would be safer to -’

‘You’re never going to find that out,’ said Berit, walking into the middle of the floor. ‘Because there isn’t going to be a vote. Hanne Wilhelmsen is absolutely right. You are my guests. I make the decisions. And right now my decision is -’

The crash that interrupted her came from a different world.

As time went by we had all more or less grown accustomed to the roar of the storm outside, the thuds and blows against the walls and the intense whining of the wind as it swept around the hotel and its outbuildings. It was as if the howl of the storm had become a carpet of sound that we recognized, just like the lapping of waves on the coast or the constant rush of the waterfall at some old mill.

This was something completely different.

At first I thought it was a massive explosion. My ears were singing and the walls shook. Powerful vibrations in the floor made my wheelchair move. The sound of clinking glass came from the Millibar. The setter, which was the only dog I could see at the time, leapt up with a high-pitched howl before flattening itself against the rough floorboards. It was as if it thought the ceiling was about to come down. It wasn’t the only one. People sought shelter underneath the table. A few ran towards the side wing, which might have been a wise move; the deafening crash came from the opposite side of the lobby. Geir and Berit were running against the tide of people, and had already reached the stairs. I lost sight of them as Mikkel and his gang rushed past me and down to St Paal’s Bar. Only Kari Thue remained completely motionless. She was sobbing, with her face in her hands. Her shoulders were narrow and so bony that they almost sliced through the thin fabric of her blouse. She was expecting to die, and in a different situation I might have felt sorry for her.

Right now I had neither the time nor the opportunity to do so.

The terrible noise was still going on. The first crash was followed by a piercing, high-pitched noise interspersed with a series of short bangs and thuds that were much worse than anything the storm had come up with in almost twenty-four hours. Even the sound of screaming people searching for refuge wherever they could find it was drowned out by the noise that couldn’t possibly be an explosion.

Explosions are brief. They pass.

This went on and on.

And the temperature was dropping.

I didn’t notice it at first. Only when I had gained some kind of overview and noticed who was running where, and where people were trying to hide, did I realize how cold it had become.

It was getting even colder, and it was happening fast.

The sound of whatever it was that couldn’t be an explosion was dying away. Instead it was as if the howling of the storm had moved indoors. A biting wind swept across the floor, picked up a chocolate bar wrapper and carried it off towards the kitchen in a wild dance.

Suddenly Adrian was standing in front of me. He was holding Veronica by the hand. They looked like a big sister dragging her little brother along. Her face was pale and expressionless, but she slowly let go of his hand and put her arm around the weeping boy’s shoulders. He sobbed:

‘Are we going to die, Hanne?’

I wished I could give him an answer. I had no idea what had happened, or what lay before us. Despite the noise I could hear my own heart pounding beneath my breastbone. I felt sick with fear. But something was happening. I no longer felt incapable of doing anything. The adrenalin, which continued to course through my body with every bang and gust of wind, had sharpened my senses instead of leaving them dulled. I was noticing everything. I had noticed everything. Now, several months later, when I close my eyes to recapture the events of those seconds and minutes at Finse 1222, it’s like watching a film in slow motion. I can recall every detail. But at that precise moment, there and then, as my teeth began to chatter with shock and cold, there was actually only one detail that was worth noting.

When the racket started and total chaos ensued, the Kurd opened his grey-brown jacket and reached for a gun he was carrying in a shoulder holster. With lightning speed he dropped down behind the pillar by the reception desk in the firing position – one knee on the floor, the other foot in front. Shocking in itself. However, the biggest surprise, and something that I couldn’t understand at all, possibly as a result of my own prejudices, was that the Kurdish woman did the same thing. In contrast to the man she took her gun out of its holster and aimed it at an imaginary foe by the stairs. Her loose, shapeless dress was obviously specially made, and did not hinder her from drawing her gun or moving at lightning speed. Only when the cold from the stairs reached her and it was clear that nothing else appeared to be threatening us did she slip the revolver back in its holster.

During the minutes that followed I was able to establish that no one apart from me had noticed this peculiar behaviour. At first this struck me as rather strange. However, on closer consideration it seemed logical; everybody had either been on the move, or had sought protection in a reflex action with their faces covered. The two Kurds hadn’t seen me, and quickly reverted to their roles as the over-protective immigrant and his terrified, weeping wife.

I decided to leave it at that for the time being.

Perhaps they weren’t Kurds at all.

Perhaps they weren’t even married.