Punishment aka What Is Mine

THIRTEEN

Something had happened. The room seemed lighter. The oppressive feeling of an old-fashioned sickroom was gone. The metal bed had been pushed against the wall and covered with a bright blanket and lots of colorful cushions. Someone had carried in a wing chair. And in it sat a well-dressed Alvhild Sofienberg with her feet on a footstool. Her slippers were just peeking out from underneath a blanket. Someone had managed to breathe something that resembled life into her gray, wispy hair; a soft curl fell onto her forehead.

“You look so much younger,” exclaimed Johanne Vik. “Alvhild, you look so well, sitting there.”

The window was wide open. Spring had finally come. The National Day celebrations had left behind an early summer feel that had lasted for a couple of days now. The smell of old onions was not noticeable. Instead, Johanne breathed in the smell of damp earth from the garden outside. An old man had raised his hand to his cloth hat as she crossed the yard. A good neighbor, explained Alvhild Sofienberg. Gardening was his hobby. He couldn’t bear seeing the garden going to seed when she was ill. Her smile was softer at the edges now.

“To tell you the truth, I hadn’t expected to see you again,” she said, drily. “You didn’t seem very comfortable when you were here last. But I can understand why. I really wasn’t well. In fact, to be honest, I was very ill.”

She tossed her head, a gesture that she immediately rectified.

“I am still seriously ill. Don’t be fooled. The strange thing is that I feel as if death has been standing over there by the wardrobe, waiting, for several weeks, but now has suddenly gone for a stroll and disappeared. Maybe he’s busy with other people at the moment. I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Coffee?”

“Yes, please. Black. I can get it myself, only…”

Johanne started to get up. Alvhild’s look made her sit down again.

“I’m not dead yet,” she said tersely. “Here.”

She poured some coffee from a thermos on the table beside her and handed the cup to Johanne. The porcelain was beautiful, nearly transparent. The coffee was pretty thin too.

“Sorry about the coffee,” said Alvhild. “It’s my stomach. It’s not up to much. And to what do I owe the honor?”

It was incredible. When Johanne had decided to go and visit the old lady once more, she hadn’t been certain whether she would find her alive.

“I’ve found Aksel Seier,” she said.

“Oh, you have?”

Alvhild Sofienberg lifted her cup to her mouth, as if she wanted to hide her curiosity. The movement irritated Johanne in a way she couldn’t quite explain. “Yes. I haven’t found him bodily, if you know what I mean, but I know where he is. Where he lives. Well, that is to say, it wasn’t actually me who found him, but my… well, Aksel Seier lives in the U.S.”

“The U.S.?”

Alvhild put her cup down again, without having touched the contents.

“How… what is he doing there?”

“I have absolutely no idea!”

Alvhild put her hand to her mouth, as if she was frightened to show her teeth. Johanne sipped the light brown liquid in the blue porcelain.

“At first when I found out, I was surprised that anyone with a record would be given an entry visa to the U.S.,” she continued. “They are incredibly strict about things like that. Then it dawned on me that perhaps the rules were different at the end of the sixties, when he went over. But they weren’t. Aksel Seier is in fact an American citizen.”

“That wasn’t mentioned at all when…”

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t. But that’s not so strange. He was born in the U.S., on a trip his parents made in connection with a short-lived and disastrous attempt to emigrate. He kept his American citizenship, though he was of course Norwegian as well. There was no reason whatsoever to make a point of this during his trial or subsequent appeal. He was presumably only asked in summary if he was Norwegian. And he was. Or rather, is.”

Alvhild Sofienberg was astounded. There was a sudden quiet in the room and Johanne jumped when the door opened and the man in the hat popped his head in.

“That’s it for today,” he grumbled. “What a mess. Don’t know that I’ll be able to train those roses. And the rhododendrons have seen better days, Mrs. Sofienberg. Well, good afternoon.”

He withdrew without waiting for an answer. It was cooler in the room. The open window started to rattle and Alvhild Sofienberg looked as if she was about to fall asleep. Johanne went over to close the window.

“I was thinking about going to see him,” she said lightly.

“Do you think he’d like that? Do you think he’d welcome a visitor? A complete stranger, an academic from the old country?”

“Difficult to say. But it is an interesting case. In terms of my project, it is the clearest, most… To get Aksel Seier to talk would be so important for my research.”

“I see,” said the old lady. “I don’t quite… quite understand what it is exactly you are doing. With your research.”

When Johanne was first contacted by Alvhild Sofienberg through a colleague who knew Alvhild’s daughter personally, she had gotten the impression that the old lady only had a superficial knowledge of what she was doing. Alvhild had never asked, had never shown any interest in the project. She was living on borrowed time and had used her failing energy to get Johanne interested in her case, the story of Aksel Seier. Everything else was superfluous. She would soon be seventy and did not want to waste time showing false interest in other people’s work.

There was fresh color in her cheeks; she didn’t look ill at all and certainly not tired. Johanne pulled her chair closer.

“My starting point is ten murder cases from the period 1950 to 1960,” she said, stirring the thin coffee for no reason. “All the defendants claimed they were innocent. None of them changed their plea while serving their sentences. As far as they were concerned, they were innocent. My aim is not to find out whether they were telling the truth or not, but rather to compare and contrast the fate of these people while they were serving their sentences and in relation to any appeals, retrials, and subsequent releases. In brief, my aim is to establish the extent to which external interest is important to how the legal system deals with such cases. As you know, Fredrik Fasting Torgersen, for example, was…”

Johanne smiled bashfully. Alvhild Sofienberg was an adult when the Torgersen case was heard. Johanne was not even born.

“Sentenced to life for the murder of a young woman. He has persistently pleaded innocent for over forty years. To this day, other people, who initially at least were complete strangers to him, have continued to fight tirelessly for him. Jens Bjørneboe, for example, and…”

Again she blushed and held back.

“But of course, you know all of this,” she said quietly.

Alvhild nodded and smiled. She said nothing.

“I guess I want to try to say something about two things,” continued Johanne. “First, do cases that get a lot of attention have any particular common features? Are they particularly weak, in terms of proof? Or is it the defendant’s-subsequently the convict’s-personality that make the case more interesting to others? What sort of role does media coverage play in terms of the investigation and legal proceedings? In other words, is it purely arbitrary whether a case falls from public view the moment the judgement is made or if it continues to attract interest, year after year?”

She noticed that she had raised her voice.

“Then,” she continued, in a quieter voice, “I want to look at the consequences of a case being kept alive in the public interest. To be cynical and in purely legal terms, Torgersen, for example, has hardly reaped much benefit from all the support he has had. Of course, I understand…”

Johanne noticed the intense interest in Alvhild’s face. It was as if the old woman had galvanized all her energy; her back was straight as a courtier’s, and she barely blinked. Johanne went on:

“Of course, I understand that on a personal, human level, it must be of great importance to know that someone out there actually believes you…”

“At least, if you are innocent,” Alvhild interrupted. “But we don’t know that in Torgersen’s case.”

“Of course; that’s a valid point. In general, I mean. But not in terms of my research. I have to look at the actual consequences of external interest.”

“Fantastic,” said Alvhild to no one in particular. Johanne was not entirely sure what she was referring to.

“Don’t you think it’s strange?” she said thoughtfully, to fill the silence. “I mean, isn’t it peculiar that the Aksel Seier case just died once he’d been sentenced, when several papers were extremely critical of the legal proceedings? Why did they just drop the case? Was it something to do with the man himself? Was there something disagreeable about his personality? Did he refuse to cooperate with journalists who meant him well? Is Aksel Seier really just… a bastard who no one really cared about in the end? I would get a lot out of talking to the man.”

The door opened, quietly.

“Is everything alright?” asked the nurse and continued without waiting for a reply. “You’ve been sitting in that chair for too long now, Mrs. Sofienberg. It’s time for you to lie down again. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask your friend to…”

“I can do that myself, thank you.”

Alvhild pursed her lips again and lifted her hand to stop the white-clad woman.

“Wouldn’t it be wise to write to him first?”

Johanne Vik got up and popped the unused notebook back into her handbag.

“In some situations I choose not to write letters,” she said slowly, putting her bag on her shoulder.

“And those are?”

The nurse had opened the bed covers and was about to roll the monstrous metal construction out onto the floor.

“When I’m afraid of not getting a reply,” said Johanne. “No reply is an answer in itself. Nothing means ‘no.’ I don’t dare risk that. Not from Aksel Seier. I’m flying out on Monday. I…”

The nurse caught her eye.

“Yes, yes,” mumbled Johanne. “I’ll leave now. Maybe I’ll call you, Alvhild. From America. If I have anything to tell, that is. I hope that everything is fine… well, as good as it can be in the meantime.”

Without thinking, she bent over the old lady and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek. Her skin felt dry and cold. Once she was well out of the house, she used her tongue to moisten her lips again. They tasted of nothing; just dry.