I Can See in the Dark

Chapter 34

The court case continued its slow progress, and I went on behaving in an exemplary fashion, despite my serious setback. I still had some of my life before me, it was a question of saving the remnants. But whenever I was back in the prison, and entered Margareth’s kitchen, I was filled with a huge sense of peace. I’d never felt it so clearly before. To think that one human being could affect another so forcefully, she was as life-giving as the sun, she was as soothing as spring water. I tried to hold myself in check, frightened of making a mistake, because I was terrified she’d find an excuse to exclude me from the kitchen if I didn’t behave. And give the job, which I prized so highly, to another prisoner.

‘I suppose you’ve heard the rumours,’ I said. ‘You must have heard people talk about the case, and what’s come out.’

She didn’t look at me as she answered. She was browning onions, and now she asked me to take over.

‘I’ve no desire to know anything about that sort of thing,’ she said in a subdued voice, hurriedly drying her hands on her faded apron. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, I mind my own business. But somehow, rumours usually reach me in the end. Everyone in here has transgressed in some way or other, I’m used to it. There. Now you just finish browning those onions. Eight altogether. Sprinkle a tiny bit of sugar on them,’ she directed, ‘it gives them such a lovely colour. Talking of rumours. Did you know we’ve got a new one in today? Has Janson told you? From the Refugee Reception Centre,’ she said. ‘He’s from Somalia. They say he attacked one of the staff. He’s supposed to be a big bloke. Larger than the Russian, they say, so you can imagine. He arrived in full combat gear, with leather boots and everything, apparently he was quite a sight.’

My thoughts returned to the park near Lake Mester, and the big black man who had so often come and sat in front of the fountain. Again I perceived the hidden pattern. The sense of being a piece of a larger whole, and that there was a purpose, a grand plan. The huge black man. It had to be him, what a strange coincidence. I sliced an onion until my eyes were streaming with tears, sprinkled sugar over it and enjoyed the smell that filled the kitchen.

‘Open the tap and let it run,’ Margareth said, ‘that’ll help.’

I did as she said.

‘Have you got any brothers or sisters?’ I asked. I wanted to chat, and hoped this would be a safe question to open with. Not something she’d regard as forward or tactless.

She dropped some butter in two large frying pans. And I noticed she was hesitating. I couldn’t really see why. Either you’ve got brothers and sisters, or you haven’t.

‘I had a brother,’ she said at last.

‘Is he dead?’ I wanted to know. ‘Sorry. It’s none of my business, I was just being inquisitive. I’m sorry.’

I kept quiet. The butter in the frying pans melted and began to sizzle. It looked as if she were considering, weighing the matter up to herself.

‘Yes, I had a brother. He was sixteen,’ she related. ‘And he was very good at diving. He taught himself, he never had any lessons. His repertoire included a beautiful, perfect swallow dive which he did from the ten-metre board. All his mates would sit along the edge of the pool and watch, and he used to demand five kroner per dive. And like that he managed to earn a bit over the summer.’

She tightened the apron round her waist.

‘But he had another side as well,’ she continued. ‘A dark side. Not many people knew about it, but for long periods he’d get very depressed. But then, when we’d begun to feel seriously worried, his spirits would start rising again, and his mind would lighten. And he went on like this, up and down, for several years. My room was next to his. In the evenings I could hear him playing a lot of gloomy music, and sometimes I’d hear him crying. But I said nothing to the grown-ups. So his life went on like that, a rollercoaster ride. He never had any treatment, and up there in the north there wasn’t much they could offer people like him, anyway.’

She glanced at me and pointed.

‘Take that onion out now, it’s been done for some time.’

I did as she said. I put the onion rings on a plate and started cutting up another. Nice, thin rings, as she’d taught me.

‘But those swallow dives of his were famous,’ she went on. ‘Have you ever seen a perfect swallow dive?’

I lowered my knife and wiped away a tear.

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘but only on television. They are wonderful, you’re right. It’s the best dive.’

‘One day he went to the outdoor bathing complex with a crowd of mates. He’d just turned sixteen. They went in a large group and, as he’d so often done before, my brother asked if they wanted to pay to see a swallow dive. As they usually did. And they said they’d willingly pay for a swallow dive. He’d soon amassed twenty-five kroner. When they got to the pool, he took off his clothes and began to climb the ladder to the ten-metre board. His friends sat on the edge of the pool and waited. They said afterwards that there was a lot of laughing and joking, nudging and chaffing about what was happening. They cheered and fooled about and called up to my brother at the top of the diving boards: “You can’t chicken out now, we’ve paid to see it.”’

Margareth poked at the golden-brown beefburgers in the two frying pans.

‘He walked to the edge of the board,’ she said. ‘And raised his arms. Suddenly everything went quiet, deathly quiet, as one of the boys said afterwards when they spoke of what had happened. It was as though a fear had surfaced in them all, a fear that something awful was about to happen. Something they couldn’t stop. Because they had pushed him to the edge, in a way.’

Margareth straightened her back and put her hands on her hips.

‘He waved to them,’ she continued. ‘Then he fell forward in a beautiful, wide arc. It was September,’ she added. ‘There was no water in the pool.’

She turned the beefburgers one by one. Her movements had become quick and clumsy with the thought of what had happened.

‘So, perhaps he took leave of life in the spectacular way he’d always dreamt of. In front of a paying audience. He struck head first.’

‘He really did have a sense of drama,’ I said cautiously.

‘He did,’ Margareth said. ‘And my life was never the same again. No sounds from the room next door, no music, no crying. I wanted to die, too, because I had the feeling that he was all alone where he’d gone.’

‘How old were you?’

‘I was twelve. And I remember the funeral as if it were yesterday. We weren’t allowed to see him. There was nothing left of his head, it had been smashed to pulp.’

She glanced up quickly.

‘Well, enough of all this depressing talk. The beefburgers are ready, you can put them on the plates. And then empty those frozen peas into that pan of water. What about you? Have you got any brothers and sisters?’

‘No, nothing,’ I said. ‘No parents, no wife, no siblings.’ I held my breath and steadied myself. Margareth’s confidence about her brother had given me courage.

‘But I’ve got you, Margareth,’ I said.

I thought her cheeks turned a little red just at that moment. And that perhaps her eyes looked shiny. But it was probably just wishful thinking. And anyway, it was very hot in the kitchen.