The Caller

Chapter 20

Henry was asleep when he entered the room.

In the frayed chair, with his legs on the footstool. He slept soundlessly and with an open mouth. A few worn teeth were visible in his pale gums. Johnny sat down. Proud of what he’d done, he sincerely believed he was remarkable. Not that he thought he was worth much — no more than a louse, or a centipede, or some other nasty creature that crawled around in the damp dark under a rock: he had no more goals or reasons to live, had no more answers, no greater right to life. He didn’t feel significant or vital, and there was nothing meaningful in his life. He felt disconnected, like when you pull up a weed that can never again take root. Indifferent to life and death, to what happened, to what people might think, he could do as he pleased. What it would lead to didn’t concern him, and it didn’t bother him to think of the consequences. But he felt a bond to the old man asleep in the chair.

Where will I go when you are gone? he thought. Who will I visit? Who will I help? This is the only place where I can think clearly. Here, in this hot, stuffy lounge, on the old footstool. I’ll make a sandwich for you, and then I’ll swat a fly. I’ll fetch the post, and then we’ll chat for a while.

‘Grandpa?’ he whispered.

Henry blinked. ‘I knew you were here,’ he mumbled. ‘You come as silently as a cat, but I notice at once.’

Johnny moved closer. ‘Has your carer been here?’ he wanted to know. ‘The woman from Thailand?’

The old man raised a claw-like hand and wiped a droplet of snot from his nose. The hand, with its crooked fingers, resembled those primitive weapons Johnny had seen in films, a wooden club with spikes hammered into it.

‘Mai Sinok. Her name is Mai Sinok, and she was here at eight this morning. She brought a pot of cabbage soup, and four nectarines. I’ve eaten it all up, Johnny, there’s nothing left for you.’ He opened his pale, watery eyes.

‘Grandpa, how are you feeling today? You’re not getting worse, are you?’

The old man considered this question. He regarded his frail body from head to toe. ‘I’m not getting worse,’ he said. ‘But I’m not getting better, either. I have water in my lungs, you know, and arthritis in every body part and a failing heart. What do you know, it rhymes. Did you catch that, Johnny?’

Johnny put a hand on his grandfather’s arm. ‘You’ll live until you’re ninety,’ he assured him. ‘In twenty years I’ll be sitting here, and you’ll be like a gnarled tree that I can hang my helmet on.’

The old man grunted, apparently a laugh.

‘Tell me what it’s like,’ Johnny said. ‘To be old. I mean, when the body is as worn out as yours. You hardly ever eat. Just sit here sleeping. Hardly ever talk to anyone, just me and Mai Sinok.’

‘You mean I’m near the edge of my grave.’ He stroked his hair away from his forehead. The room’s heat made him sluggish and drowsy. ‘You too are on the edge of the grave. Perhaps we’re all on the edge of the grave.’

‘I’m just seventeen,’ Johnny said. ‘I’ve got a full life ahead of me.’

‘That’s what we like to believe. Otherwise life would be impossible.’

‘Tell me what it’s like,’ Johnny repeated. ‘Can you feel death getting closer? Can you feel your heart and everything else work more slowly? What’s it like to live in slow motion?’

‘Oh, it’s all right. It’s like bobbing in the surf, against the shore and out, against the shore and out. From morning to evening. You’ve just got to let yourself go.’

‘You’re lying,’ Johnny said. ‘Bobbing in the surf, you say.’

Again the old man grunted a laugh. With his spiked club-hands he made a slight wave, gave Johnny a clumsy caress. ‘I’m feeling quite well, lad.’

‘But I want to know what it feels like,’ Johnny insisted. ‘Is the light different? Or the sound?’

Henry sighed. ‘I see the same things as you. Every person lives his life on the edge. The view is the same. To say anything else would be a lie.’ Then he added: ‘Where have you been today? What have you been up to?’

Johnny made himself comfortable on the footstool. In spite of his modest weight, the plastic cover and the nails holding it together cracked.

‘Not much. I went to a cafe. I ate a vanilla pastry and perused the newspaper.’

Clearly they’ll get me, he thought.

Sooner or later. That’s all right. While I wait for them to get me, I’ll have fun. I like this game, I always win. But if I were to meet my match, then that would be all right. I won’t sulk and complain. It was fun while it lasted, and I’ve made my presence known.

He stayed with Henry for several hours. They read the newspaper and discussed this and that, but for long stretches of time they just sat in comfortable silence. Close to each other in the hot room. When he finally got up to leave, he caught sight of Else Meiner through the window, and when he was in the garden, she also caught sight of him. She straddled her blue Nakamura bicycle, and it appeared to be fixed. The tyres were brand new. He started the moped and put on his helmet, then slipped on to the road. She waited. Her face was one big grin. He thought about something his grandfather had once said. That a person who teases you was often a person who, deep down, was attracted to you, possibly even in love. So he studied Else Meiner extra carefully. The little girl’s pointy face with the large front teeth. Was she in love with him? Deep down? He continued on the road slowly. This time he didn’t look away, down at the handlebars or up at the sky. He stared directly at her. She didn’t flinch. He had never really looked at that smile, he realised, and it was actually a bright and cheery smile. She knows I was the one who slashed her tyres, he thought, that’s what she’s trying to say. That’s why she’s not shouting at me like she normally does, because we’re even now. We’re finally even! He gunned the throttle and raced ahead, across the road. As he passed her, she raised her middle finger.

‘Frogface,’ she called out.

Her laughter crackled like ice cubes rolling across a table.

He was so furious that the heat rose in his cheeks.

‘Stupid little girl,’ he shouted. ‘You’ll get it! Tonight!’

He remembered it was Thursday. That meant the band would practise at the Hauger School gymnasium, and Else Meiner would blow her trumpet until her cheeks puffed out. I’ll use the army knife, he thought.

I’ll puncture both your lungs.

Then there will be no more sounds from your trumpet.

Later he got to thinking about the Hauger School Band. That Else Meiner would leave on her bicycle, her instrument stowed in a little case over the back wheel. With others she would sit in the gymnasium for two hours, blowing her trumpet. Or an hour and a half. He didn’t know how long band practice would last, but he planned to watch through the window. Before he left, he scavenged in his chest of drawers — looking for a little surprise for Else Meiner. He didn’t want to be unprepared. Then he slipped his hand into Butch’s cage and patted him gently on the back.

‘No country for old men,’ he whispered.

He went outside.

It was late summer, and all the vegetation had begun to dry up. There was no colour or freshness, none of nature’s optimism, none of its strength. It was as if someone, a spirit or a giant, had swept through the entire Askeland housing estate and left its considerable mark. Don’t you rise again. It’s getting cold now, and dark. Johnny Beskow looked at each house as he passed, as was his routine. You could buy heroin at Askeland; twice he’d been stopped and offered some. No thanks, he’d said with a superior smile. He put enormous stock in being clear-headed, and he was agile and fast and sharp. The addicts who hung around Askeland reminded him of sleepwalkers.

He stopped when he neared Hauger School, hitting the brakes and quickly surveying the area. The bike shed was crammed with bicycles. A few cars sat in the car park. A rope slapped against the flagpole like a whip. He heard a drum, drumsticks pounding steadily against the tight skin, in an even, definite rhythm. He knew that it was the bass drum, the heartbeat of the march. The band had already started, with percussion and horns. A piccolo whined shrilly above all else. Because he didn’t want Else Meiner to hear him, he pushed the moped the final stretch towards the bike shed; you never knew with her, she was awfully sharp. When the moped was parked, he plodded about in the playground, glancing around. Hopscotch patterns, both flyer and niner variations, were painted directly on the black asphalt. Though he didn’t have a marker, he couldn’t resist the urge to hop through the patterns. I don’t weigh much, he thought, as he hopped, and I’m limber. I’m one hell of a jumping troll. His light gymnastics made his heart race; blood raced through his thin body.

He sized up the playground. Straight ahead, behind a red-and-white metal barrier, he saw a bike path; he’d walked that way many times before he’d got his moped. Narrow and paved, it was called the Love Trail. Else Meiner had also come that way, he was quite certain, for she lived at Bjørnstad. And when she went home to Rolandsgata, after band practice, she would again ride that trail. On the blue Nakamura bicycle. At any rate, this is what he was counting on to carry out his vengeance, which he’d plotted so carefully over the past few hateful hours of the afternoon. Energised by these thoughts, he began walking with urgent steps towards the barrier. It would be easy to push the moped past it. He could wait for her there on the trail, hidden behind some bushes — because he noticed they were thick, good hiding places. Now his heart was beating even faster. He was filled with this honey-sweet thing called revenge. For a while he stood near the barrier and considered, glanced right to left, studied the dry, dense vegetation. Then he walked back to the school building. Sneaked down to the basement window and peeked into the gymnasium. The conductor was standing in the middle of the room energetically waving the white baton, his entire body pushing the band forward in the march: pointed elbows, a bend in the knees, eager jerks with his bearded chin. On the left side of the gym were the woodwind players. One of the clarinets had a squeak to it. The percussionists were in the back. And there, in the front right, sat the brass players, Else Meiner and her trumpet among them. Her cheeks were puffed out, exactly as he’d imagined. But she could really play; she was the only one who played pure notes, the only one who kept the rhythm.

Johnny sank to the asphalt, his back against the brick wall by the window, while the band worked its way through a number of marches. Mostly it was the bass drum that interested him. The drumsticks beat with precision and tenacity, keeping the others in rhythm, getting them back on track, so to speak, because it was undeniable they were playing too fast. With regular intervals they stopped, and there followed a sharp rapping sound — the conductor smacking his baton against his music stand. It meant that he wanted to make a change. When the band had played for an hour, it suddenly grew quiet in the gym. Johnny peered cautiously through the window, and he realised it was break time. They had put their instruments aside, and they were on the way up. The boys would probably smoke on the sly, and the girls would probably hop through the flyer and niner, maybe chew some gum while they had the chance. He scrambled from the asphalt and rushed behind the corner of the school building, where he watched them pile out. Else Meiner was wearing jeans and a light blue jacket, and she was wearing it backwards — the buttons, he noticed, were on her back. Miss Contrary, then. But he already knew that — that she was bold and different. She ganged up with two other girls; it looked as though they shared some sweets. The girls’ voices rose through the air, clear as a bell. He squeezed against the wall and kept them under surveillance, made a note of their gestures, the interaction between them. The Meiner girl was the leader, the one the others listened to.

The break lasted fifteen minutes. At once they ran back into the building, and the playground was empty. When he saw they had returned to their seats in the gymnasium, among the wall bars and gym mats, he slipped into the ground-floor corridor. He continued to hear Else Meiner’s trumpet. On the wall to the right was a noticeboard, and he walked over to see what it said. One notice told him, as he’d long known, that Hauger School Band practised every Thursday at six. But there were other activities during the week in the old, dilapidated school building. Aerobics for beginners and advanced, children’s playtime on Tuesdays, chess club each Wednesday at seven, football on Mondays, and a course on cooking and needlecraft. What a crazy lot of things people do, Johnny Beskow thought. For a few minutes he wandered the corridor. Slurped a little water from the fountain against the wall, looked at some pictures. Searched for Else Meiner, and finally found her in a photo from some kind of theatre production, The Living Forest. Dressed like a pine, she wore green flannel, but the pointy chin gave her away.

Suddenly a man in a green nylon jacket walked through a door.

‘Are you looking for someone?’

It was the caretaker. Johnny ran off without responding, shoved the doors open and scurried across the playground as fast as lightning. He got his moped from the bike shed, pushed it past the metal barrier and continued on to the paved path. He stopped to recover and catch his breath. The band would be practising until eight. They would chat for a bit when it was over, putting their instruments in their cases, walking upstairs and out of the building, getting on their bikes and riding away. A quarter past, he thought, that’s when she’ll come this way. On the blue bicycle. As he looked around for a good hiding place, he walked slowly along the Love Trail. There would have to be enough bushes to hide both him and his moped. And when the deed was carried out, he would have to find cover until she had gone. As he walked he was struck by a stupid thought which flushed his cheeks up to his hairline and down to his throat, made him so despondent he had to pause. He leaned over his moped, blushing from the heat and his embarrassment.

What were the chances that Else Meiner would actually take this path at all? She could easily choose the main road. There was more traffic, but it was shorter. And besides, what was the chance that she would be cycling all alone? Weren’t there at least thirty people in this bloody band? Maybe four or five of them would ride together. His doubts lasted more than a minute. He couldn’t move. What if people saw how miserable he was? Then he forced himself to snap out of it, straightened his shoulders and raised his head. I’m fast, he thought, they’ll probably be too surprised to move, the whole lot of them. They don’t know me, either. He pushed the moped further. After a while the path forked in two. An offshoot veered left and, he thought, south towards Kirkeby. Some of them will split off here, and only two or three will cycle on. And maybe there’s another fork. There was, a few minutes ahead. This offshoot went to the right, towards Sandberg. Here another will probably split off. So he imagined only two girls left. I can handle two girls. Soon he saw, to the left, a dense thicket. He pulled the moped off the path, hid it in the undergrowth and squatted down to wait for Else Meiner.

The undergrowth was full of nettles and bracken.

In his hand he held the army knife.

She chose the Love Trail.

She was alone.

She hummed and sang one of the songs playing constantly on the radio. He could never remember what it was called, but it irritated him. The blue bicycle sparkled. Her father had probably bought it, Johnny thought, and made sure she had new tyres. Someone who has a father has a place to go when things fall apart. Crawling slowly from the undergrowth, he slid on his belly along the hill, like a reptile. The plan was to rush forward, leap up and jump her from behind. Making use of the element of surprise was important, as was the shock he was sure would paralyse her with fear. And he was lucky. She rode slowly, rolling calmly on her soft rubber tyres. Singing and humming. He unsheathed his army knife and pulled out the longest blade, then began counting down. In his excitement he had also begun to tremble; the trembling made him angry, and his anger made him calm again.

Unable to wait any longer, he rose and, with great force, plunged forward. Leapt for the bicycle and clawed until he got hold of the bike rack and the trumpet case fell to the path with a crash. Confused, she set her feet on the ground, her small body twitching. Just as she tried to turn, startled, he wrapped an arm around her throat and yanked. Her neck was as slender as the stem of a cherry, the blue-green veins like fine threads. Then she sank backwards, and the bicycle fell to the ground. Johnny lost his balance and went down; blood pulsed through his body in hard spurts. They lay writhing on the hill, and in the heat of battle he was struck with wonder. She didn’t scream, and wasn’t paralysed with fear. She began to thrash around, and with such force that it sapped his strength. Only his left arm was free, for in his right he held the knife. She kicked like a donkey. She wriggled, twisting like a worm. Then, with powerful jaws, she sunk her teeth into his forearm. The pain brought tears to his eyes, and for a few seconds he nearly lost his grip. She took this moment to turn her head and look him in the eye. Through the holes in the gorilla mask he saw the little face and its scattered freckles. He couldn’t turn back now, couldn’t hesitate, because now, finally, he had to get Else Meiner, this nemesis who poisoned his existence, this troll who always crept from her cave when he rode past. Humiliate her once and for all.

So he clenched his teeth, pressed her down on the path, straddled her narrow back, grabbed hold of the fiery red hair and raised his knife. With one swift movement he sliced off her plait. Just as you cut a rope. He put the plait in his pocket and gasped for breath, but he maintained his grip — to make it known that, if he wanted to, he could also cut her throat if she didn’t behave. Finally she lay completely still. He drove his knee into her lower back, clutched her hair, tugged it forcefully more than once, and gave her a final warning shove before running back into the undergrowth. Ran in a zigzag into the woods and squatted down, hid in the bracken watching as she collected herself. She seemed a little off-kilter, stumbling a few steps to the side, her cheeks pale. But she managed to get her bicycle upright and her trumpet in place on the rack. Then she ran her hand across the back of her head, feeling for the plait. Lying in the bushes, Johnny hardly dared breathe. He had stung himself on some nettles, been scratched by some thistles and been bitten on his arm by Else Meiner. But he held his breath. This was just a warning, he thought. Next time, I’ll cut off your ears.