The Caller

Chapter 7

Lily Sundelin pushed Margrete in the pram, and Karsten walked quietly beside them. She held on to the pram, and he held on to her arm; they couldn’t get any closer to each other. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was burning the backs of their heads. Margrete wore a dress with red-and-white stripes, and looked like a little lollipop.

They left the Bjerketun housing estate and walked to the main road. Stopped as a car sped past.

‘Do you know what occurred to me today?’ Lily said. ‘Right when I got up? It hit me like a bolt of lightning.’

‘What?’ He squeezed her arm.

‘Her smock,’ she said. ‘It was gone. The pink smock.’ She leaned forward and patted Margrete’s cheek.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. For some reason he took the smock with him. Don’t you think that’s a bit twisted? I mean, who steals a smock? I don’t understand it.’

Karsten didn’t have an answer. She saw him purse his lips. The incident had changed him, and while she partly liked the change, this sudden rage frightened her. His voice was coarse now; she noticed it whenever he answered the telephone. He was always on guard, always on the offensive, in case something should happen. She had never seen this side of him, and she wanted him to let it go; they had to go on with their lives. Yet she was also touched, because he’d risen up and tried to protect them. He had never been so big and broad as now, his voice never so gruff.

‘Do you think he’s keeping an eye on us?’ she asked.

Karsten looked around the road, and at the houses. ‘No, don’t be silly. It’s possible he thinks about us, proud of what he’s done. Maybe he’s planning new attacks. Move on to the shoulder, Lily, a car’s coming. Christ, the way he drives.’

They stood still as the car sped past.

‘Schillinger,’ Karsten said.

‘Who?’

‘Bjørn Schillinger. You know, the man with the huskies. He lives on Sagatoppen. Did you see his car, the Land Cruiser? When we trade in our Honda, we’ll exchange it for a Land Cruiser.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s bigger and more powerful, tougher. Eight cylinders. Two hundred and eighty-six horsepower. How far do you want to walk? It’s really hot, and Margrete is as red as a boiled lobster.’

Lily considered. The child was sleeping, and she herself had good shoes.

‘We’ll walk to Saga,’ she said. ‘We’ll turn round on the bridge.’

They reached the bridge twenty minutes later.

Just then a bus whizzed by, and they had to move closer to the railing. Lily’s dress fanned around her legs. Because of the rushing water, she held on tightly to the pram, a reflex. She bent over the railing and stared down. The water was rust-brown, with yellow foam. On a shelf of rock she saw the remains of a bonfire; an empty beer can clacked against the rock wall. Karsten put an arm around her shoulder, and she leaned into his broad chest.

‘There’s a lot of power down there,’ he said. ‘Listen. It hums like a motor. In the old days, people got by with the sun and the water. Now we’re destroying the earth.’

‘Is that why you want a Land Cruiser?’ Lily teased.

He grunted something unintelligible in response, and Lily grew serious again. She noticed that his chest heaved and sank, and she had a strange feeling. After what had happened, she was vulnerable in a new way. She couldn’t get over it, couldn’t forget what had been done to her Margrete. Something horrible had spotted them, had pointed at them with a quivering finger, and shattered everything. It had something to do with the light, perhaps even with the rhythm of life; everything was out of sync. She looked at the round, smooth rocks at the bottom of the river. Then she saw something that looked like a tyre.

She squeezed Karsten’s arm. ‘Is that a tricycle?’ she said, distraught.

Karsten strained to see. He saw something red. A handlebar of some kind. A tyre. Black rubber. ‘The tyre is too big for that.’

‘A pram?’ she said anxiously. ‘Good God. Is it a pram, Karsten?’

Karsten Sundelin leaned over the railing. The thing in the water was something he’d seen many times before, but he didn’t know how it had ended up in the river. Look at that,’ he said. ‘It’s a Zimmer frame.’

‘A Zimmer frame? How did it get in the water?’

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we’re going home.’

‘You don’t think there’s a person down there?’ Has someone fallen off the bridge?’

‘No, of course not. Have you lost your mind?’

He turned the pram round and began walking home, now taking long strides. Lily hurried after him. Margrete awoke and looked up at them with her dark blue eyes. Then she began to whimper. Lily couldn’t bear the whimpering; it hurt her like salt in an open wound. Quickly she patted Margrete’s cheeks with her hand.

‘There’s always something at the bottom of that river,’ Karsten said. ‘Bicycles. Shopping trolleys. Someone probably nicked it from a driveway, and just threw it in the water. People do all sorts of odd things to amuse themselves.’