Eva's Eye

12

The following day he put Kollberg into the car again and drove to the nursing home where his mother had lived for four years. He parked in the visitors’ car park, gave the dog a quick pep talk, and walked to the main entrance. He always had to psych himself up before he went, needed that extra bit of energy. It was lacking now, but a fortnight had passed since his last visit. He straightened up and nodded to the caretaker who was just coming along with a stepladder on his shoulder, he had a relaxed swing to his walk and a contented smile on his face, the sort of man who loved his job, who lacked nothing in life, and who perhaps never understood what everyone else was making such a fuss about. Extraordinary. There aren’t many expressions like that, Sejer thought, and suddenly caught sight of his own gloomy face in the glass door facing him. I’m not especially happy, he thought suddenly, but then I’ve never been very concerned about it either. He took the stairs to the first floor, nodded briefly to a couple of staff and walked straight to her door. She had a single room. He knocked loudly three times and went in. Inside, he stopped a moment, so that the sounds could register with her, it always took a little time. There, she was turning her head. He smiled and went to her bed, pulled up the chair, and encompassed her thin hand in his.

“Hello, Mom,” he said. Her eyes had become paler and they were very shiny. “It’s only me. Come to see how you’re doing.” He squeezed her hand, but she didn’t squeeze back.

“I was in the vicinity,” he lied.

He felt no sense of guilt. He had to talk about something, and it wasn’t always easy.

“I hope you’ve got all you need here.”

He looked around, as if he were checking.

“I hope they take the time to pop in and sit on your bed now and again — the staff here. They say they do. I hope they’re telling the truth.”

She didn’t reply. She stared at him with her light eyes as if waiting for something more.

“I haven’t brought anything with me. It’s a bit difficult, they tell me flowers aren’t very good for you, and there’s not a lot else to choose from. So I’ve just brought myself. Kollberg’s in the car,” he added.

Her eyes relinquished him and turned toward the window.

“It’s overcast,” he said quickly. “But nice and bright. Not too cold. Hope you’ll be able to lie out on the veranda when summer comes. You always did like to get out as soon as you had the chance, just like me.”

He took her other hand as well, they were lost in his own.

“Your nails are too long,” he said suddenly. “They should be clipped.”

He felt them with his finger, they were thick and yellow.

“It would only take a couple of minutes, I could do it, but I’m a bit clumsy, I’m afraid. Haven’t they got people here who take care of that kind of thing?”

She looked at him again, with her mouth half-open. Her false teeth had been removed, they claimed that they only got in her way. It made her look older than she really was. But her hair was combed and she was clean, the sheets were clean, the room was clean. He gave a small sigh. He looked at her again, searching hard for the least sign of recognition, but found none. She shifted her gaze once more. When at last he got up and went to the door, she was still staring out of the window, as if she’d already forgotten him. Out in the corridor he met one of the nurses. She smiled invitingly at the tall figure, he gave a quick smile back.

“Her nails are too long,” he said quietly. “Would it be possible to do something about that?”

Then he left to struggle with the depression which always came over him after his visits to his mother. These depressions lasted a couple of hours, and then lifted.

Later, he drove out to Engelstad, but first he made a couple of phone calls. A question had arisen in his mind, and the answers he received gave him something to think about. Even people’s tiniest movements create ripples, he thought, just as the fall of a minute pebble could be registered in a totally different place on a totally different shore, a place you hadn’t even dreamt of.

Eva Magnus opened the door, dressed in a voluminous shirt which was covered in black and white paint. A block of wood wrapped in sandpaper was in her hand. He could see from her face that he was expected, and that she’d already made up her mind what she was going to say. It infuriated him.

“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Magnus. It’s been some time.”

She gave a small nod.

“The last time it was Maja Durban — and now it’s Egil Einarsson. Strange, isn’t it?”

His comment caused her to take a deep breath.

“I’ve only got one small question.” He spoke politely, but not diffidently. He was never diffident. He exuded authority and, if he wanted to, could make people a trifle nervous — as he was doing now.

“Yes, I’ve already heard about it,” she said, and retreated a little way into the hall. She shook her long hair back over her shoulder and closed the door behind him. “Jostein phoned. But I’ve got nothing to add. Just that I saw that poor man float in, and that I rang you. At around five in the afternoon. Emma was with me. I can’t remember who I spoke to, if that’s what you’re wondering, but if you’ve neglected to register a call, that isn’t my problem. I did my duty, if you can call it that. I haven’t got anything more to say.”

She’d rattled off her speech. She’d clearly practiced it several times.

“Help me a little with the voice anyway, so I can deal with this neglect of duty. It’s really quite serious if this sort of thing occurs. All incoming calls should be logged. It’s something we really do have to crack down on, if you know what I mean.”

She was standing with her back to him at the door of the living room, and he glimpsed the large black and white paintings that had made such an impression on him the first time. He couldn’t see her face but, like a hedgehog, all her spines were up. She knew he was bluffing, but she couldn’t say so.

“Well, goodness, he had a perfectly normal voice. I didn’t think anything about it.”

“East Norwegian dialect?”

“Er, yes, I mean no, I can’t remember if there was any special dialect, I don’t notice things like that. Anyway, I was a bit stressed, with Emma and everything. And he wasn’t exactly a pleasant sight.”

She went into the living room now, still with her back toward him. He followed.

“Old or young?”

“No idea.”

“In fact, it was a female officer on the desk that afternoon,” he lied.

Eva halted in the living room. “Oh? Then she must have gone to the bathroom or something,” she said quickly. “I spoke to a man, I’m sure of that at least.”

“With a southern dialect?”

“For God’s sake, I don’t know. It was a man, I can’t remember any more. I did phone, and there’s nothing more to say.”

“And — what did he say?”

“Say? Well, not much, but he asked where I was phoning from.”

“And after that?”

“Nothing really.”

“But he asked you to wait at the scene?”

“No. I just explained where it was.”

“What?”

“Yes. And I said it was near the Labor Party headquarters. Where the statue of the log-driver is.”

“And then you both left?”

“Yes, we went and ate. Emma was hungry.”

“My dear Mrs. Magnus,” he said slowly, “are you seriously telling me that you phoned and reported finding a body, and you weren’t even asked to wait there?”

“But for God’s sake, I can’t be answerable for the mistakes your people make when they’re at work! He might have been young and inexperienced for all I know, but it wasn’t my fault!”

“So you thought he sounded young?”

“No, I don’t know, I don’t notice things like that.”

“Artists always notice things like that,” he said briskly. “They’re observant, they take in everything, every detail. Isn’t that right?”

She didn’t answer. Her mouth was pursed into a tight line.

“I’m going to tell you something,” he said quietly. “I don’t believe you.”

“That’s your problem.”

“Shall I tell you why?” he asked.

“I’m not interested.”

“Because,” he went on, lowering his voice even more, “yours was the call that they all dream of getting. On the long, dull afternoon shift. A corpse is discovered. Nothing gets an officer more excited, more involved, than a dead man in the river on a humdrum afternoon, in among the domestic disturbances and the car thefts and all the swearing from the drunks in the holding cells. You see?”

“This one must have been an exception, then.”

“I’ve seen quite a lot of things in the service,” he confessed, and shuddered at the thought, “but never that.”

Now she’d dug right in, just stared at him defiantly.

“Are you working on a picture?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes, of course. That’s how I earn my living, as you know.”

She still hadn’t sat down, and so he couldn’t sit down either.

“It can’t be easy. To make a living from, I mean.”

“No. Like I said before, it isn’t easy. But we manage.”

She was getting impatient, but she didn’t dare hurry him. Nobody did. She waited, tensing her slender shoulders, hoping he would go so that she could breathe freely once again, as freely as she could with all she knew.

“‘Necessity is the mother of invention,’” he said sharply. “You’re unusually punctual paying your bills at the moment. Compared to the time before Ms. Durban died. You were late with everything then. It’s really quite admirable.”

“What on earth do you know about that?”

“I only had to make a phone call. To the council, to the power and phone companies. It’s funny, you know, when you ring from the police, information simply pours out.”

She wavered for a second, made a great effort to pull herself together, and met his gaze. Her eyes flickered like torches in a strong wind.

“Was your daughter in the phone box with you?” he asked mildly.

“No, she waited outside. It was so cramped in there. She takes up quite a lot of room.”

He nodded to himself. She’d turned again, away from him. “But you knew that Durban and Einarsson were acquainted, didn’t you?”

The question was a shot in the dark, and hung there in the room. She opened her mouth to reply, closed it again, and opened it once more, while he waited patiently with his gaze fixed on her golden eyes. He felt like a bully. But she knew something, he had to get it out of her.

She continued to struggle a little with her thoughts, then she mumbled: “I don’t know anything about it.”

“Lies,” he said slowly, “are like sand. Have you ever considered that? The first is just a minute grain, but sooner or later you’ve got to go a bit further and add another to the first, so that they’re growing all the time and getting bigger and bigger. In the end they’re so heavy you can’t bear the weight.”

She was silent. Her eyes filled, and she blinked rapidly a couple of times. And then he smiled. She stared at him a little confused, he was so different when he smiled.

“Aren’t you ever going to paint with colors?”

“Why should I?”

“Because reality isn’t black and white.”

“Well, then it probably isn’t reality I’m painting,” she said sullenly.

“So what is it?”

“I don’t know really. Emotions, perhaps.”

“Aren’t emotions real?”

There was no answer. She stood at the door a long time watching him as he went to the car, as if she wanted to hold him back with her eyes. And really wanted him to turn and come back.

Afterward he drove to his daughter’s house. He reached it just as Matteus had finished his bath. Warm and wet and with a thousand small glittering drops of water in his curly hair. He got into a pair of yellow pajamas and looked just like a chocolate wrapped in gold paper.

He smelt of soap and toothpaste, and the bath water still contained a shark, a crocodile, a whale, and a watermelon-shaped sponge.

“It’s high time,” his daughter said with a smile, and embraced him, slightly embarrassed, because it was so long between visits.

“It’s busy at work. But I’m here now. Don’t make anything extra, I’ll just have a sandwich if you’ve got one, Ingrid. And a coffee. Isn’t Erik at home?”

“He’s playing bridge. I’ve got a pizza in the freezer, and cold beer.”

“And I’ve got the car,” he smiled.

“And I’ve got the number of the taxi,” she parried.

“The way you twist things about!”

“No,” she laughed, “but I’ll twist this!” She pinched his nose.

He seated himself in the living room with Matteus and a gaudy children’s book of dinosaurs. The small, freshly bathed body was so warm in his lap that sweat began to prickle on his scalp. He read a few lines and ran his hand through the coal-black hair; he never ceased to be amazed at how crinkly it was, at how unimaginably small each individual curl was, and the feel of it against his hand. Not soft and silky like Norwegian children’s hair, but coarse, almost like steel wool.

“Grandad going to sleep here?” the boy said hopefully.

“I’ll sleep here if Mom lets me,” he promised, “and I’m going to buy you a Fina suit which you can wear when you’re mending your trike.”

Later he sat on the edge of Matteus’s bed for a while, and his daughter could hear indecipherable mumblings from within. There were growlings and rumblings, probably supposed to be a rendering of some nursery rhyme or other. His musical abilities weren’t much to boast about, but it achieved the desired effect for all that. Soon Matteus had fallen asleep with his mouth half-open, his small teeth shining like chalky-white pearls in his mouth. Sejer sighed, rose, and sat down to eat with his daughter, who’d begun to be seriously grown-up, and who was almost as beautiful as her mother had been, but only almost. He ate slowly and drank beer with the meal, registering all the while that his daughter’s house smelt exactly like his own when Elise was alive. She used the same detergents and the same toiletries, he’d recognized them on the bathroom shelf. She seasoned food in the same way her mother had done. And each time she rose to fetch more beer, he followed her movements clandestinely, and saw that she had the same walk, the same small feet, and the same mannerisms when she spoke and laughed. Long after he’d gone to bed in what they called the guest room, which in reality was a tiny child’s bedroom that they hadn’t yet managed to fill, he lay thinking about it. He felt at home. As if time had stood still. And when he closed his eyes and shut out the strange curtains, everything was almost as it had been long ago. And perhaps, in the morning, it would be Elise who would come to wake him.

Eva Magnus sat shivering in a thin nightie. She wanted to go to bed, but couldn’t seem to leave her chair. It was getting harder and harder to do the things she needed to, as if she felt the whole time that it was a wasted effort. She jumped when the phone rang. The clock told her it must be her father, nobody else phoned this late.

“Yes?” She got into a more comfortable position. She had to treasure the talks with her father, and they could be lengthy.

“Eva Marie Magnus?”

“Yes?”

An unknown voice. She’d never heard it before, at least she didn’t think so. Who would ring so late in the evening, if they didn’t even know her?

There was a small click. He’d hung up. Suddenly she began to tremble violently, she looked fearfully out of the windows and listened. All was quiet.