Punishment aka What Is Mine

FORTY-EIGHT

Kristiane woke up on Friday morning with a temperature. Or rather, she didn’t wake up. When Johanne was woken up by Jack at ten past eight, the child was still sleeping, with an open mouth and sour breath. Her cheeks were red and her forehead was warm.

“Sore,” she mumbled when Johanne woke her. “Thirsty tummy.”

It was actually a good thing for Johanne to stay home. She threw on an old sweat suit and called work to let them know. Then she called her mother.

“Kristiane’s not well, Mom. We can’t come over this evening.”

“What a shame! That really is a shame. I managed to find some super gravlax; your father knows… Would you like me to come and watch her?”

“No, that’s not necessary. Actually…”

Johanne needed a day at home. She could clean the apartment before the weekend. She could repair the chair in the kitchen, the one that had given way under Adam’s weight. Kristiane was a remarkable child. She slept herself back to health, literally. The last time she had the flu, she’d slept more or less continuously for four days, until she suddenly got up at two one night and declared:

“Better. Daisy fresh.”

Johanne could finally try that hair treatment Lina had given her. She could lie in the bath in peace. But there were a couple of things she had to do before the weekend.

“Could you come a bit later? Around… two?”

“Of course I can, dear. Kristiane is so easy when she’s sick. I’ll take my embroidery and a video I got from your sister the other day, an old film she thought I would like. Steel Magnolias with Shirley MacLaine…”

“Mom, I’ve got loads of videos here.”

“Yes, but you’ve got such… strange taste!”

Johanne shut her eyes.

“I do not have strange taste at all! There are films by…”

“Yes, yes, dear. You do have slightly unusual taste. Just admit it. Have you cut your hair yet? Your sister looks so lovely; she’s just been to that new, hot hairdresser in Prinsensgate, what’s his name…”

Her mother giggled.

“He’s a bit… they so often are, these hairdressers. But my goodness Maria looked wonderful.”

“I’m sure. So see you around two then?”

“Two o’clock on the dot. Shall I buy supper for the three of us?”

“No, thank you. I’ve got vegetable soup in the freezer. It’s the only thing I can get Kristiane to eat when she’s sick. There’s enough for all of us.”

“Good. See you later.”

“See you.”

The bathwater was just a couple of degrees too hot. Johanne leaned her head against the plastic pillow and inhaled the steam in deep breaths. Lemon and chamomile from an expensive glass bottle that Isak had brought back from France. He still always bought her presents when he was abroad. Johanne wasn’t quite sure why, but it was nice. He had good taste and lots of money.

“I’ve got good taste too,” she grumbled.

There were three worn-out towels hanging on the hooks. One had a big picture of Tiger Boy and the other two had been washed to a light pink.

“New towels,” she said to herself. “Today.”

Her friends envied her her mother. Lina loved her. She’s so kind, said the other girls. She would do anything for you. And she’s always so with it. Reads and goes to the theater, and the way she dresses!

Her mother was kind. Too kind. Her mother was a general of good causes, friend to prisoners, honorary member of the Norwegian Women’s Public Health Association, nimble-fingered and unable to communicate directly. Maybe that was the result of never having worked outside the home. Her life had been her husband and children and volunteer work; an endless number of unpaid positions and commissions that required a consistently friendly attitude to everyone and everything. Her mother was a born diplomat. She was as good as unable to formulate a sentence where the content was what she actually wanted to say. Your father is worried about you meant I’m worried sick. Marie looks fabulous at the moment was her mother’s way of telling Johanne that she looked like something the cat dragged in. When her mother arrived with a pile of women’s magazines, Johanne knew that they would be about new fashion trends and twenty ways to find a man.

“You work so hard,” said her mother, and patted her arm.

And then Johanne knew that her mother didn’t find jeans, sweatshirts, and four-year-old glasses particularly flattering.

Lina’s hair treatment was actually very pleasant. Her scalp tingled and Johanne could actually feel her tired hair sucking in the nourishment under the plastic cap. The water had made her skin red. Jack was asleep and she heard nothing from Kristiane’s room. She had left the doors open, just in case.

The book about Asbjørn Revheim was about to fall into the water. She saved it just in time, and moved the coffee cup from the edge of the tub to the floor.

The first chapter was about Revheim’s death. Johanne thought that it was a strange way to start a biography. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to read about his passing, so she flicked through the pages. Chapter two was about his childhood in Lillestrøm. The book fell into the water. Quick as a flash she pulled it out again. Some of the pages had stuck together. It took some time before she found her place again.

There.

Asbjørn Revheim had changed his name in defiance when he was a teenager. The biographer spent one and a half pages discussing how incredible it was that in 1953, his parents had allowed the teenager to reject his family name. But then his parents weren’t any old parents.

Asbjørn Revheim was born Kongsbakken. His mother and father were Unni and Astor Kongsbakken; she was a well-known tapestry weaver and he was a famous, not to say notorious, public prosecutor.

The water was tepid now. She nearly forgot to rinse her hair. When her mother arrived at two, Johanne barely had time to tell her that Kristiane needed to have half an aspirin dissolved in warm Coke in an hour and that the child could drink what she wanted.

“Back about five,” she said. “You can put Jack out on his leash in the garden. And thank you, Mom!”

She completely forgot to explain why there was a biography drying on a string between two dining room chairs.

Alvhild was worse. The smell of onions had returned. The old lady was in bed and the nurse instructed Johanne not to stay long.

“I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour,” she threatened.

“Hi,” said Johanne. “It’s me, Johanne.”

Alvhild struggled to open her eyes. Johanne pulled up a chair and carefully laid her hand on the old lady’s hand. It was cold and dry.

“Johanne,” repeated Alvhild. “I’ve been waiting for you. Do tell.”

She gave a dry cough and tried to turn away. Her pillow was too deep and her head seemed to be stuck and she stared at the ceiling. Johanne took a paper tissue from a box on the bedside table and dried around her mouth.

“Do you want some water?”

“No. I want to hear what you found out when you went to Lillestrøm.”

“Are you sure… I can come again tomorrow… You’re too tired now, Alvhild.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

She coughed painfully again.

“Tell me,” ordered Alvhild.

And Johanne told her. For a while she was unsure whether Alvhild was actually awake. But then a smile forced its way onto the old lady’s lips; Johanne should just carry on.

“And then today,” she said finally. “Today I discovered that Astor Kongsbakken is Asbjørn Revheim’s father.”

“I knew that,” whispered Alvhild.

“You knew that?”

“Yes. Kongsbakken was an imposing character. He had a very high standing in legal circles in the fifties and early sixties. There was a lot of whispering about how embarrassing it must be for him to have a son who wrote books like that. He… But I didn’t know that Revheim had anything to do with the Seier case.”

“I’m not entirely certain that he does.”

Alvhild struggled with the pillow. She wanted to sit up. Her hand fumbled to find the small box that regulated the bed.

“Are you sure that’s good for you?” asked Johanne, and gently pushed a green button.

Alvhild nodded weakly and nodded again when she was satisfied. Pearls of sweat appeared on her forehead.

“When Fever Chill was published in…”

“1961,” said Johanne. She had read most of the biography.

“Yes, that sounds right. There was a terrible to-do. Not just because of the pornographic content, but perhaps even more because of the bitter attacks on the Church. It must have been the same year that Astor Kongsbakken stepped down as public prosecutor and joined the Ministry as an adviser. He…”

Alvhild gasped for breath.

“… water in my lungs,” she smiled weakly. “Just wait a little bit.”

The nurse had come back.

“Now I’m being serious,” she said. Her large bosom jumped in time with the words. “This is not good for Alvhild.”

“Astor Kongsbakken,” wheezed Alvhild with great effort, “was a good friend of the director general. The one who asked me to…”

“Go,” said the nurse, and pointed to the door; she prepared an injection with practiced movements.

“I’m going,” said Johanne. “I’m going now.”

“They were friends from university,” whispered Alvhild. “Come back again, Johanne.”

“Yes,” said Johanne. “I’ll come back when you’re better.”

The look the nurse gave her said that she might as well wait till Hell froze.

When Johanne got home, it smelled clean. Kristiane was still sleeping. The living room had been aired and the curtains taken down. Even the bookcase had been organized: books that had been piled on top of each other in a rush were now put back in their rightful places. The massive heap of old newspapers by the front door had disappeared. So had Jack.

“A walk will do your father good,” said her mother. “It hasn’t been long since they left. The curtains desperately needed a wash. And here…”

She handed her the Asbjørn Revheim biography. It looked as if it had been read front to back and was well worn, but it was still hanging together and was dry.

“I used the hair dryer,” said her mother and smiled. “It was actually quite fun to see if I could save it. And…”

She tilted her head almost imperceptibly and raised an eyebrow.

“A man came here. A certain Adam Stubo. He was delivering a T-shirt. It was obviously yours because it had ‘VIK’ written on the back. Had he borrowed it from you? Who is he? I think he could at least have washed it.”