He Who Fears The Wolf

CHAPTER 2

Both the first and the second bloom of youth had long since passed, and she was much too heavy, but for a few unprejudiced souls she was definitely still a looker. Tall and plump and full-breasted, with a grey braid that hung like a thick iron rope down her back. She had a round face with good colouring, cheeks like red roses, and her eyes had retained their flashing brightness even though she was old.

She went through her living room and kitchen and opened the door to the courtyard. She lifted her face to the sun, squinting, and stood on the steps for a moment, in her checked apron and wooden clogs. She wore brown, knee-high stockings, not because it was cold but because she thought women of her age shouldn't show too much flesh, and even though no-one ever came to her house except for the grocer once a week, there was always Our Lord and His eternally present gaze. For better or worse, to put it bluntly, because although she was a believer, she did send Him angry thoughts sometimes, and she never asked for His forgiveness. It was the invasion of dandelions that she was looking at now. The whole yard was full of them. They seemed to spread like a rash, polluting the entire garden, which she tended so carefully. Twice each summer she would root out the weeds with a hoe, hacking at one plant after the other with furious blows. She liked to work, but once in a while she would complain, just to remind her blessed husband what kind of mess he had left her in by falling dead at the wheel of his tractor, the result of a clot the size of a grain of rice in an artery. That her tough and solid husband, a mountain of muscles, could be felled in such a way was beyond her understanding, even though the doctor had tried to explain it. She found it as impossible to believe as the fact that a plane could fly, or that she could ring her sister Helga in Hammerfest way up north and hear her plaintive voice so clearly.

She had better start before it got too hot. She found the hoe and carried it out to the yard. Shaded her eyes with her hand and scanned the area to plan her route. Decided to start near the steps and work her way in a fan formation past the well and over to the shed. In the hall she found a bucket and rake. She established a swift rhythm, hacking steadily at the weeds until she was tired, giving each plant two or three chops, then slowing the tempo, filling the bucket and emptying it on the compost heap behind the house. Ashes to ashes, she thought, giving the bottom of the bucket a hard thump. Then she went back to hacking. Her wide behind pointed towards the sky and swayed in time with the rhythm of her hoe. The red and green checks of her apron fluttered gently in the sun. Her brow was damp with sweat, and her braid kept swinging forward over her shoulder. She usually wore it pinned up, coiled around like a shiny snake, but not until after morning chores.

She liked the sound she made, hacking through the grass. The hoe was as sharp as an axe; she had sharpened it herself. Now and then she hit a stone, and winced at the thought of the shiny blade with its razor-thin edge. The weeds lay like fallen soldiers on a battlefield as she worked her way forward. She didn't sing or hum. She had enough to do just carrying out her task, and besides, the Creator might end up thinking that life was going too well, and for Halldis that would be an exaggeration. In her mind she set the table. Home-baked bread and her own brown whey cheese made from goat's milk.

She straightened up. Several birds shrieked high above the trees, and she thought she heard a swishing sound and then something falling through the leaves. Then silence. She paused for a while and stared, stealing a few moments of rest and letting her eyes glide over the woods, where she knew every single tree. In the familiar pattern of black trunks she thought she saw something dark. Something that had not been there before. An irregularity.

She narrowed her eyes and stared intently, but since it didn't move, she dismissed it as illusion. Her eyes stopped on the well. The grass around the pump was tall and untidy; maybe she should cut it later. She bent to the work again, this time with her back to her front door. The sun was getting hot, even though it was early. Her wide backside was baking in the sun, and the sweat tickled as it ran down the inside of her thighs. This was Halldis Horn's life. Solving one problem, then another, as they appeared, without grumbling. She was the type of person who never questioned the Creation or the meaning of life. That wasn't proper. And besides, she was afraid of what the answer might be. She kept on hacking, making her bottom shake. Up the slope, hiding behind a tree, watching, stood Errki.

The woman fascinated him. Like heavy spruce trees, she grew out of the earth. Behind her he could hear her sound, a lonely, majestic trombone. For a long time he stood and devoured her with his eyes: her round shoulders, the fluttering dress. He had seen her before. This was someone who lived alone, he knew that. Someone who seldom spoke and listened only to the wind, or the screeching of the magpies. He took a couple of steps, making a few twigs crack. The sound of the hoe grew sharper. He fixed his eyes on her hands, thick fingers and wrists. The force of the blade as it sliced through the grass was fearsome and had nothing feminine about it. As he moved, without a sound now, he could tell that the woman gradually became aware of something alive approaching her. People who live alone develop an acute awareness of their surroundings. Her rhythm changed, becoming first slower, then faster, as if to deny that something was about to happen. She stopped and straightened up. Suddenly she caught sight of him. Her body stiffened. She stood as taut as a bow, her chest heaving. A cord of fear trembled between them. Her hands wrapped tighter around the hoe. Her eyes immediately widened, then turned narrow and hard. There was not much she was afraid of in the world, but just at that instant she felt uneasy.

He came to an abrupt halt, wanting her to keep on working. The only thing he wanted was to watch her as she carried out the simple task, to observe her rhythm and her wriggling backside. But Halldis was alarmed. Errki recognised all the sharp signals she was sending out and stopped short, his fists clenched, incapable of moving. Her gaze struck him like a rain of arrows.

The sun continued to climb, relentlessly blazing down on man and beast and the crackling dry forest. Community police officer Robert Gurvin sat alone, lost in thought. He opened a button on his shirt and blew at his chest. Sweat trickled down his neck. He tried to push back a lock of hair from his forehead, but it refused to stay put. He gave up and tried instead to slow his heart rate by focusing his thoughts. He had heard that old Indians could do this, but all the concentrating just made him sweat more.

Someone was shuffling outside. The door opened and a fat boy of about twelve entered hesitantly in. He stopped in the middle of the room, panting hard. In one hand he held a grey container that resembled a suitcase, though it had rather an odd shape. Maybe it contained a musical instrument, like a lyre. Although the boy didn't look much like a lyre player, Gurvin thought. He studied him closely. The boy was astonishingly fat. His arms and legs stuck out from his body as if someone had pumped him full of helium and he was about to take off. His hair was brown, thin and greasy, plastered to his skull in thin strips. He was barefoot and dressed in pale cut-off jeans and a dirty T-shirt. His mouth was agape with excitement.

"Yes?"

Officer Gurvin shoved his papers aside. He didn't have much to do that day, and he enjoyed having visitors. Right now he couldn't get enough of the incredible sight standing before him.

"Can I help you, son?"

The boy took a step forward. He was still panting; it was clear that he had something he needed to get off his chest in a hurry. It was presumably something along the lines of a stolen bicycle. His eyes were glittering, and he was shaking so much that Gurvin couldn't help but think of a warm soufflé in the oven, just before it caves in.

"Halldis Horn is dead!"

His voice teetered somewhere between the bright sounds of a child and the darker tones of the man he would become. He started low but when he came to the word "dead" his voice rose to a falsetto.

Gurvin was no longer smiling. He looked at the creature in front of him in amazement, not sure that he had heard him correctly. He blinked and pressed a hand to the back of his neck.

"What did you say?"

"Halldis is dead. She's lying on her front steps!"

He looked like a brave soldier who had come back to camp alone to report on the terrible loss of his whole platoon. Shaken to his soul, but with a sort of acquired dignity all the same. Standing before his commander, he had completed his mission.

"Sit down, young man!" said Gurvin with authority, nodding towards a chair. The boy stayed where he was.

"You mean the woman who has the small farm up in Finnemarka?"

"Yes."

"Have you come straight from there?"

"I was walking past. She's lying on the steps."

"Are you sure that she's dead?"

"Yes."

Gurvin frowned. This heat could have an effect on anyone.

"Did you examine her?"

The boy looked at him in disbelief, as if the mere thought made him feel like fainting. He shook his head. The movement caused his heavy body to ripple.

"You didn't touch her at all?"

"No."

"How can you be so sure that she's dead?"

"I'm sure," he panted.

Gurvin took a pen out of his shirt pocket and made a note.

"Could I have your name?"

"Snellingen. Kannick Snellingen."

The officer blinked. The name was just as peculiar as the boy, but it suited him. He wrote it down on a pad, not letting his face show what he thought of the parents' choice of name.

"So you were baptised Kannick? It's not a nickname? Short for Karl Henrik, for example?"

"No, it's Kannick. Spelled with a 'c-k'."

Gurvin wrote the name down with a flourish.

"You'll have to forgive me for my surprise," he said politely. "It's an unusual name. Age?"

"Twelve."

"So you say that Halldis Horn is dead?"

The boy nodded, still breathing hard and shifting his bare feet unhappily. He had set his container on the floor beside him. It was covered with stickers. Gurvin noticed a heart and an apple and a couple of names.

"You're not trying to pull my leg, are you?"

"No!"

"In any case, I think I'll give her a call, just to see if she answers," Gurvin said.

"Go ahead and call. Nobody's going to answer!"

"Sit down in the meantime," Gurvin said. For the second time he nodded at the chair, but the boy remained standing. It struck Gurvin that he might not be able to stand up again if he set his rump down. He found the number in the phone book under the name Thorvald Horn. It rang and rang. Halldis was an old woman but still quite quick on her feet. Just to be sure he waited for a long time. The weather was magnificent. Maybe she was out in the garden. The boy kept his eyes fixed on him, licking his lips. Gurvin could see that the boy's forehead was whiter than his cheeks because his wispy shock of hair shaded it from the sun. His T-shirt was a little too short and some of his huge belly bulged over his shorts.

"Now that I've told you," he said, out of breath, "can I go?"

"No, I'm afraid not," said the officer as he put down the phone. "No-one is answering. I need to know what time you were at her farm. I'll have to write up a report. This could be important."

"Important? But she's dead!"

"I need an approximate time," Gurvin said gently.

"I don't have a watch. And I don't know how long it takes to get here from her farm."

"Would you say about 30 minutes?"

"I ran almost all the way."

"Then we'll say 25."

Officer Gurvin looked at his watch and made another note on his pad. He couldn't imagine that so fat a boy could move at any great speed, especially carrying something. He picked up the receiver and tried Halldis's number again. He let it ring for a long time before he put down the phone. He was pleased. This was a break in his routine, and he needed it.

"Can I go home now?"

"Let me write down your home number."

The boy began to squeak in a shrill voice. His double chin quivered on his plump face, and his lower lip trembled. The officer began to feel sorry for him. It began to look as if something had happened.

"Shall I call your mother?" he asked gently. "Can she come and pick you up?"

Kannick sniffled. "I live at Guttebakken."

This piece of information made the officer look at him with new interest. A film seemed to slide over his eyes, and Kannick instantly saw how the adult had put him into a new file labelled "unreliable".

"Is that so?"

Gurvin took his time cracking the knuckles of each finger, one by one.

"Should I call them and ask someone to come and get you?"

"They don't have enough staff. Margunn is the only one on duty."

The boy shifted his feet again and kept on sniffling.

The officer softened his tone. "Halldis Horn was old," he said. "Old people die. That's how life is. You've never seen a dead person before, have

"I just saw one!"

Gurvin smiled. "Usually they pass away in their sleep, sitting in a rocking chair, for instance. There's nothing to be afraid of. No reason for you to lie awake at night thinking about it. Promise me that?"

"There was someone up there," the boy blurted out.

"Up at the farm?"

"Errki Johrma."

He whispered the name like a swear word.

Gurvin looked at him in surprise.

"He was standing behind a tree, by the shed, but I saw him clearly. And then he took off into the woods."

"Errki Johrma? That can't be right." Gurvin shook his head. "He's in the asylum – has been for months."

"In that case, he's escaped."

"I can easily check on that," said the officer calmly, but he bit his lip. "Did you talk to him?"

"Are you crazy!"

"I'll look into it. But first I have to check on Halldis."

He let the news of Errki sink in. He wasn't superstitious, but he began to understand why some people were. Errki Johrma sneaking around in the woods nearby, and Halldis dead. Or at least unconscious. He felt as though he'd heard this before. A story that was repeating itself.

Something occurred to him. "Why are you dragging that case around with you? You don't have orchestra practice in the middle of the woods, do you?"

"No," the boy replied, planting one foot on either side of the case, as if he were afraid it would be confiscated. "It's just a few things that I always take with me. I like to walk in the woods."

The officer gave him a penetrating look. The boy was apparently defiant, but underneath lay fear, as if someone had frightened him to the bone. Gurvin called Guttebakken – the home for boys with behavioural problems – and talked to the superintendent. Succinctly he explained the situation.

"Halldis Horn? Dead on her front steps?"

The voice grew strident with doubt and concern. "It's impossible for me to say whether he's lying," the woman said. "They all lie when it suits them, but in between there might be a scrap of truth. At any rate, he's already deceived me once today, since he obviously took the bow with him, knowing perfectly well he's only supposed to use it with adult supervision."

"The bow?"

Gurvin didn't understand.

"Doesn't he have a case with him?"

The officer cast a glance at the boy and at what lay between his feet.

"Yes, he does."

Kannick understood what they were discussing, and pressed his fat legs closer together.

"It's a fibreglass bow with nine arrows. He roams in the woods, shooting crows."

She didn't sound angry, more worried. Gurvin made another call, this time to the psychiatric ward where Errki Johrma was committed. Or should have been, since it turned out that he had in fact escaped. He tried to play down the episode. The rumours about Errki were already bad enough. He didn't mention Halldis.

Kannick was growing more and more uneasy. He glanced at the door. What had really happened? Gurvin wondered. He hadn't hit her with one of those arrows had he, for God's sake?

"Well, at least Halldis died on a beautiful day," he said, giving the boy an encouraging look. "And she was old, after all. That's the way we all dream of dying. Those of us who are no longer spring chickens."

Kannick Snellingen didn't reply. He shook his head and stood there motionless with the case between his legs. Grown-ups always thought they knew everything. But Officer Gurvin would soon think otherwise.