Punishment aka What Is Mine

SIXTY-NINE

When Johanne met Aksel Seier at the reception desk of the Continental Hotel on the morning of June 9, she barely recognized him. In Harwich Port he had looked like a fisherman and odd job man from a small New England town, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. Now he looked more like a tourist from Florida. His hair had been shaved off and he had nothing to hide behind anymore. His face was somber. He didn’t even smile when he saw her, and didn’t ask her to sit down. It was as if he had no time to lose. He spoke in English when he told her that his son was in the hospital following a serious car accident. It was a matter of hours, he said bluntly. He had to go.

“Do you…” Johanne started, then hesitated, completely thrown by the fact that Aksel Seier had a son, a son who lived in Norway, a son who was now lying in the hospital and was about to die. “Do you want company? Do you want me to come? Keep you company?”

He nodded.

“Yeah. I think so. Thanks.”

It was only when they were in the cab that she put two and two together.

Later, in the days and weeks that followed, when she tried to understand what had happened in the taxi on the way to the hospital where Karsten Åsli lay dying, she was reminded of her old math teacher from secondary school.

For some reason she had chosen science. Maybe because she was good at school, and science was for the smart ones. Johanne had never understood math. Big numbers and mathematical signs were as meaningless to her as hieroglyphs; symbols that remained closed and silent in the face of her persistent efforts to understand. During an exam in her second year, Johanne had what she later thought of as an epiphany. Suddenly the numbers meant something. The equations worked. It was a glimpse into an unknown world, an existence where strict logic ruled. The answers were at the end of a beautiful pattern of symbols and figures. The teacher leaned over her shoulder; he smelled of old people and camphor lozenges. He whispered:

“There you go, Johanne. See! The young lady has seen the light!”

And that’s exactly what it felt like.

Aksel had talked about Karsten. She didn’t react. He told her about Eva. She listened. Then he mentioned their surname, almost in passing, in a subordinate clause as the taxi pulled up in front of the hospital.

There was nothing that could surprise her anymore.

She felt the hairs stand up on her arms. That was all.

Everything fell into place. Karsten Åsli was Aksel’s son.

“There you go, Johanne,” whispered her math teacher and sucked on the lozenge in his mouth.

“The young lady has seen the light.”

There were two plainclothesmen in the corridor, but Aksel Seier barely noticed anything or anyone. Johanne realized that he hadn’t yet been told what his son had done. She made a silent prayer that it could wait until it was all over.

She put her hand on Aksel’s shoulder. He stopped and looked her in the eye.

“I’ve got a story for you,” she said in a low voice. “Yesterday… I found out the truth about Hedvig’s murder. You are innocent.”

“I know that,” he said without emotion, and didn’t even blink.

“I’ll tell you everything,” Johanne continued. “When this…”

She quickly looked over at Karsten Åsli’s room.

“When all this is over. Then I’ll tell you what actually happened.”

Aksel put his hand on the door handle.

“And one more thing,” she said, holding him back. “There’s an old lady. She’s very ill. It’s thanks to her that the truth has eventually come out. Her name is Alvhild Sofienberg. I want you to come with me to meet her. Later, when all this is over. Do you promise me that?”

He gave a slight nod and then went in.

Johanne followed.

Karsten Åsli’s face was bruised and swollen and was barely visible among the bright white sheets, bandages, and gurgling machines that would keep him alive for a few more hours. Aksel sat down on the only chair in the room. Johanne went over to the window. She was not interested in the patient. It was Aksel Seier she looked at when she turned around again, and it was only him she thought of.

You served the sentence for your son, Aksel. You have atoned for your son’s sins. I hope that you’ll be able to see it like that.

Aksel Seier was sitting with his head bent and his hands folded around Karsten’s right hand.

The ceiling was blue. The man in the store claimed that the dark color would make the room seem smaller. He was wrong. Instead the ceiling was lifted; it nearly disappeared. That’s what I wanted myself, when I was little: a dark night sky with stars and a small crescent moon over the window. But Granny chose for me then. Granny and Mom, a boy’s room in yellow and white.

I think someone’s here.

Someone is holding my hand. It’s not Mom. She used to do that, every now and then, when she came into my room at night, when Granny had gone to bed. Mom always said so little. Other children were told stories when they went to bed. I always fell asleep to the sound of my own voice, always. Mom said so little.

Happiness is something I can barely remember, like a light touch in a crowd of strangers, gone before you’ve had a chance to turn around. When the room was finished and it was only two days until Preben was going to come, I was satisfied. Happiness is a childish thing and I am, after all, thirty-four. But naturally I was happy. I was looking forward to it.

The room was ready. There was a little boy sitting on the moon. With blond hair, a fishing rod made from bamboo with string and a float and hook at the end: a star. A drop of gold had dribbled down toward the window, as if the Heavens were melting.

My son was finally going to come.

It hurts.

It hurts everywhere, a great aching without beginning or end.

I think I’m going to die.

I can’t die. On the nineteenth of June I’m going to complete my project. On Preben’s birthday. I lost Preben, but I made up for it by giving the others what they deserved. They betrayed me. Everyone always betrays me.

We agreed that he would be named Joakim. He was going to have my surname. His name was going to be Joakim Åsli and I bought a train. Ellen got angry when I took it to the hospital. She’d expected some jewelry, I think, as if she’d earned a medal. I chuff-chuffed the Märklin locomotive over his face and he actually opened his eyes and smiled. Ellen turned away and said he was just making a face.

I would have been an excellent father. I’ve got it in me.

I’m little, standing on the kitchen table in some winter clothes that someone has sent me. Later I asked Mommy if it was Daddy who wanted to give me a present. She never answered. Even though I was only four, I can remember the stamps, big and foreign; the brown paper was covered in strange stamps and markings. The jacket and pants were blue and light as a feather and I wanted to go out and play in the snow. Granny pulled them off. Someone else got the clothes.

Someone else always gets what is mine.

Ellen and the child just disappeared. She hadn’t even registered me as the father. It took four months before I found out that the boy was named Preben.

I have to finish. I have to live.

Someone is holding my hand. It’s not Mom. It’s a man.

I’ve never had a father. Granny always got a hard look in her eyes when I asked. Mom looked away. In a small town, the fatherless are given a thousand fathers. New names were constantly being whispered in corners at school, wherever people gathered and played. It was unbearable. All I wanted was to know. I didn’t need a father, but I wanted to know. A name was all I needed.

Emilie. She’ll die in the cellar. She’s mine, just like Preben. Grete cried and refused and wanted to go back to her home and family. I was so young then and let her go. I didn’t care about the child. I don’t care about her. It was Preben I wanted.

Emilie can die for all I care.

The other children might also have been mine.

I owned their mothers. But they didn’t understand that.

Someone is holding my hand and there is an angel in the light by the window.