The Whisperer

Chapter 11

‘What about the luxury hotel then?’ Gunnhild asked. ‘How’s the director?’

Ragna jumped, because she was unprepared. Gunnhild had never asked so directly before, not like that, with beady eyes. Maybe she suspected something was up.

‘He was never actually the director,’ Ragna mumbled, and blushed furiously. ‘I misunderstood. I think he’s a manager. General manager.’

Gunnhild looked at her earnestly.

‘Well, he’s still the boss,’ she said.

Ragna nodded.

‘Yes, he’s the boss.’

There was a brief pause, but Ragna could tell that Gunnhild was after something.

‘Do celebrities ever stay there? At the hotel?’

Again, she had to stammer out an answer, a whispered lie. The humiliation — the fact that her letter had been returned, that she now did not even know where her son was — made her feel uncomfortable. Her cheeks were burning. She tried to extend time. But then the lie fell out of her mouth before she could stop it.

‘Angela Merkel,’ she whispered.

‘Has Merkel stayed there? With her bodyguards and all?’

Ragna looked the other way. She was in the middle of unpacking a box of small rubber animals, and tried to concentrate on what she was doing, but stopped with a black-and-white cow in her hand. When she squeezed it, it made an angry squeaking noise.

‘Ah, so that’s your answer, eh?’ Gunnhild laughed.

‘Yes, bodyguards and all,’ Ragna swiftly replied. ‘I don’t think she moves even one metre without them. Can you imagine what that must be like?’ she added. ‘To have someone there all the time?’

‘Did they sit outside her room at night? Do you think they had a gun?’

Ragna squeezed the rubber cow again. She managed to stop the conversation in her usual way, with a little nod. But she could not look her colleague in the eye. When she held the cow up to her nose, it smelt sweet, like chewing gum.

‘Why don’t we go there sometime?’ Gunnhild suggested eagerly. ‘We could have a long weekend in Berlin. From Thursday to Sunday. I’m sure Rikard can get us a room at a discount. Don’t you think he’d do that for us? He’s the general manager. I’ve never been to Berlin.’

Ragna felt winded.

‘There’s not much to do in Berlin,’ she objected. ‘Only old museums.’

Gunnhild shook her head. She knew better.

‘Not much to do? There are more shops than in London. And loads of good restaurants and fantastic galleries and posh hotels. Lots of the old Stasi prisons are open to the public now as well.’

‘Prisons?’ Ragna shook her head. ‘Wandering around old prisons can’t be much fun.’

‘But it would be!’ Gunnhild exclaimed. ‘Imagine seeing a prison from the inside. We never get a chance here. You could at least ask. He might like to have visitors from Norway.’

Gunnhild scrutinised her with inquisitive eyes.

‘He’s very busy,’ Ragna muttered. ‘Practically never has a day off.’

She pulled the key to the staff toilet out of her pocket, and hurried through the shop out into the storeroom, leaving the rest of the cows in the box. Her heart was pounding, with shame and anger. She was embarrassed because she felt she had been caught out, and angry because she had been forced to lie. And she was irritated because she felt that Gunnhild had backed her into a corner on purpose. As though she had suddenly decided to find out the truth, as if she had the right to know. She wanted Ragna to know that she was not stupid and was not going to be fooled any more.

As Ragna entered the small room with the awful anti-bacterial blue light that always made her look like a corpse, she turned her head to avoid the mirror and slipped into the cubicle. She sat down on the toilet seat and dried a solitary tear. It was worse than standing in the corner. This was where people came to do their business, and she had nowhere else to go. She was as good as down the sewers, and there were no doubt hordes of fat rats living down there in the pipes. She shed a few more tears, clutching the key to the toilet so hard that it cut through the skin in the palm of her hand. She was nothing more than a pathetic liar, an evasive coward. Standing there talking about Angela Merkel just to save face, giving Gunnhild what she wanted to hear, quickly, without thinking. What would she say next time Gunnhild brought it up? What kind of excuse could she give then? The truth was out of the question. The fact that she no longer knew where her son was, that he had moved without telling her, maybe even changed jobs. If only he would send a letter! If only she could say to Gunnhild that they would actually have to go to Johannesburg instead, because that was where he was now, at the Intercontinental. And they could take a picture together beside the stuffed lion in the lobby, or out by the pool. She sat there for as long as she dared. Not too long, because then Gunnhild might start to wonder and come and find her. She cried until she had no more tears, balled her fists and despaired at herself, more than anything, and how pathetic she was, but also fate, which had first taken her son, and then her voice.

When she came back out into the shop, she could not see Gunnhild anywhere. Instead she bumped into Audun who was struggling with a big box of Casio watches. Every watch had to be hung on a rotating display stand by the till. Ragna noticed that he admired the watches before he put them on the stand. He stood with a watch in his hand. He was still just as quiet, even though he had been working there for several weeks now.

‘Life must have been much simpler before,’ he said pensively. ‘Before people had clocks and watches. They got up when the sun came up, and they went to bed when it got dark. When they were hungry, they ate.’

‘Would you rather live like that?’ Ragna asked.

‘To be honest, yes.’

He spoke without looking at her. He put the watch on the stand, bent down over the cardboard box and took out another. Every watch came in a nice white box that was lined with velvet.

‘There are so many of us now,’ Ragna said. ‘We need a way to structure our days.’

‘There are lots of ants in an anthill too,’ he replied, ‘and everything works perfectly well, even though there’s no clock on the wall. Everyone knows what they have to do. Everyone knows their place.’

‘So you would rather be an ant then?’

‘Basically, yes.’

‘But you’ve never been inside an anthill,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe it’s completely chaotic, maybe they kill each other too. When someone takes their place.’

He granted her a brief smile, which did not happen often, but still did not look her in the eye. It was definitely a breakthrough though, the fact that he had opened up and passed a few comments, and he had not done that with anyone else, so he must trust her. Even though he had stolen her seat on the bus. And he longed for another era. She felt chosen, because he had confided in her, and she was not used to being chosen.

‘I don’t think things were much better before,’ she whispered.

‘But I do,’ he replied, just as quietly.

Her thoughts soon turned back to Gunnhild’s suggestion of a weekend in Berlin, and what she should say the next time she brought it up. Towards the end of her shift, Ragna resolutely walked over to the card stand by the till. What if she sent another note to her son’s usual address, just to make sure that he really had moved and was somewhere else? If this was also returned, then she definitely had a problem. But she was not going to give up that easily — after all, did she not live in an orderly world? With clocks and calendars and a postal service? As well as German efficiency? She studied the cards, one by one. Most of them were of kittens and puppies, printed with ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘Thank You’, and the others were the kind with wise words on the front. Not that it mattered. The purpose was to double-check. She picked a card of a pony. She was going to give the post office in Berlin a second chance.

When she got home, there were no anonymous letters in the mailbox. Not the next day either, nor in the weeks that followed. She wondered how much time she should let pass before she might possibly be able to see it as a closed chapter in her life, before she could take out the local paper without having to look over her shoulder, before she could walk the forty-eight steps up to the house without counting. But she could not stop. She had become one big counting machine. Everything was ticking and whirring and striking inside her.

She crossed the road and went into Irfan’s shop, stood there chatting by the counter for a while. Because from where she was standing, she could see straight over to her house, with the lights on in all the windows. In other words, Irfan could see both her house and her mailbox when he was at work. She had picked up a couple of small things that she put down by the till. He had made a very simple leaflet of his special offers, and there was a pile lying there.

‘There’s so much paper in my mailbox these days,’ she commented, watching him carefully all the while. ‘Brochures and adverts and special offers. It’s never been this bad before. And it’s all junk mail. I just put it straight in the fire.’

She tried to see if there was anything in his eyes, if he was being evasive. Or something that resembled guilt. Or triumph. If he was the one creeping up and down Kirkelina in the dark, handing out threats. Or if he had seen a stranger with his hand in her mailbox.

He punched in the product codes as swiftly as he always did.

‘Soon Christmas,’ he said. ‘Lots of adverts. It’s up to you to take it here. You can read in the shop and then throw it away over there.’

He pointed to a rubbish bin by the door.

She picked up a brochure to be kind, and asked him to pop it in the bag.

‘Do you normally celebrate Christmas?’ she wanted to know.

‘No Christmas tree. But we have four kids and they want presents. They learn about it at school.’

He rolled his eyes.

‘But no Santa Claus?’ Ragna whispered, and smiled.

‘We have our own things from Turkey,’ he said.

‘Do you have a special meal?’

‘Oh yes. I make the food.’

‘Not your wife?’

‘No, I’m a cook.’

‘You mean a trained chef? From Turkey?’

‘Yes. But I can’t get that sort of work here. I tried from the start, I’ve been trying for years.’

There was a sting in his voice, a bitter undercurrent.

Ragna paid and took the bag that he held out to her.

‘Maybe you should change your name?’ she suggested.

‘I’ve thought about it,’ he admitted. ‘Then I might at least get an interview. No one wants to employ someone called Baris.’

‘Have the Sois been in to shop yet?’ she asked. ‘The new people from Thailand? The ones that have moved into the Teigens’ house.’

‘Been in here a lot.’

‘I heard that they’re going to open a restaurant, maybe you should talk to them?’ she suggested. ‘But perhaps you can’t make Thai food.’

‘I make everything,’ he said. ‘I’m just not being given the chance.’

Ragna wanted to comfort him. She was ashamed of her fellow countrymen. She stood there by the counter, trying to think of something to say.

‘Well, your shop is wonderful,’ she whispered. ‘A lot of people really appreciate it.’

‘If so many people like it, why have I not made more money?’ he replied.

He spoke without looking at her, just like Audun. Their conversation had brought up a lot of frustration, and she was sorry.

‘If I had been a brain surgeon,’ he said sharply, ‘I still wouldn’t have got a job. A brain surgeon doesn’t look like me, and the Norwegian authorities would question my qualifications. But if they did let me go to the operating table, I would use my scalpel well, believe me. On Norwegian brains.’

He tapped his temple with his finger.

She looked at him, horrified, and could not think of an answer. There was a deep resentment there that she had not seen before, like a slumbering volcano, she thought, and she tried to visualise his anger and what would happen if he erupted. She tightened her hold on the carrier bag and left, hurrying across the road. There was suddenly something strange about Irfan. He had not looked at her in the shop, but when she turned her back, she felt his eyes burning into her.

The card of a pony had been sent to Berlin. She had written the name and address in big, clear letters, so they could not be misread. Gunnhild’s suggestion of a trip to Berlin had made her nervous, and she worried that it might come up again in the conversation. But at the same time, she was touched. No one else would have given her an invitation like that, an opportunity to experience something together, just the two of them. It was the sort of thing women did sometimes, when they had friends. She could suggest an alternative, Copenhagen or Stockholm or London, anything to avoid more questions about her son. Gunnhild could talk for her in noisy restaurants and shops. She could order the food and sort out anything else. She prepared some answers, memorised them until she knew them word for word, until she was certain they would sound spontaneous and unforced, if Gunnhild continued to push her about Berlin.

And still no more messages in the mailbox. So she had been a random victim, after all, and now he had gone elsewhere. He was prowling up and down some other road, hunched up in the dark, somewhere else. His short messages had unnerved others, made more and more people feel unsafe. She was sure that he only targeted women, those who lived alone. It probably gave him an extra thrill. She sat in front of the computer for a long time that evening. YouTube was her window to the world, there were lots of things that made her laugh, amazed her and terrified her. Funny films of people and animals, or surprising things, and things she did not understand — like the short video called ‘The Jumper’ where a man commits suicide by jumping from the roof of a tower block. She could no longer remember how she found it, or what she was looking for, only that it was suddenly there, lasted sixty seconds and took her breath away. The jumper was filmed from below, at street level, with a handheld camera, and the cameraman followed what happened moment by moment. The man paced back and forth to begin with, then positioned himself at the edge of the roof. A taut figure, dressed in black. He stood there for a few seconds, frozen like a statue, before spreading out his arms like wings. The camera zoomed in, but his face was not clear, only his body, and what he was wearing. There were no street sounds, no cars, no shouts. Then the black figure fell slowly forward in an elegant arc, crashing to the ground with terrific speed. There was a sickening, hard sound as he hit the pavement, like a heavy animal carcass. He landed on his front with one arm underneath him, the other out to the side. Blood immediately started to pour from his ears and mouth. Then there was the sound of running feet and shallow breathing. It was the cameraman running forward, to get a close-up. The lifeless body, face down. The blood. And silence, again, for a long time. Suddenly she saw a faint movement. First a hand, then an arm. Then the figure moved his head as well, very carefully to begin with, and with great effort, but he eventually managed to lift it, let it sink down, then lifted it again. And somehow, she had no idea how, he managed to get up onto his knees, and push himself up, slowly, until he was on his feet, staring straight into the camera. With a piercing look that Ragna had never experienced the like of before, as though, in some uncanny way, he knew everything that was worth knowing about her and the world and the people who live in it. Why they were in this world and where they would go after, as though he had just returned from the dead. Then he turned away from the camera, and walked calmly down the pavement, before disappearing round a corner.

The first time Ragna watched ‘The Jumper’, it had taken a while before she realised the film was manipulated. She was not always quick on the uptake. No one jumped from a ten-storey tower block and then stood up and walked away. Someone had had fun with the camera, someone who knew about film techniques, perhaps students from film school. And they had uploaded the result onto YouTube. She could not even begin to understand how they had done it, she knew nothing about that sort of thing. But she was hugely impressed, disconcerted almost, because it struck her how easy it was to fool people, to manipulate them, to get them to believe something, a belief that might make them do something political, for example. It was impossible to see where they had made cuts. Everything seemed to happen in one take. She studied the video again, her face close to the screen, with narrow, focused eyes. And once again she was fascinated. She thought that perhaps if she watched it lots of times she would discover the secret. Find the exact place where the film had been cut. Be certain that the figure falling from the roof was a heavy, black-clad doll. When she had had enough, she turned off the computer and looked down to the road. The light was still on in Irfan’s shop. Maybe he was sitting there looking at the light in her windows as well, as he stewed over the Norwegians and their lack of openness. Or perhaps he was dreaming about a top chef job with good pay. Perhaps his books did not balance and he could not face telling his family — he might still have parents in Turkey and he was supporting them, they were dependent on him. She thought about honour and shame and fury. They might drive a person to do anything.

Ragna Riegel was sleeping.

With her face turned towards the open window that let in the cool November air. The thousands of thoughts she had had in the day that had not developed into decisions or actions, or plans for the next day, or notes in a letter, exploded like shooting stars in her brain. Her dreams were full of flickering images that made no sense, and these then filled her with fear and unease, and very occasionally joy. Of course Rikard Josef had not deserted her. She still had him on her arm, he was warm and smelt sweet, like the goat’s milk soap they sold at Europris, and when she squeezed the black-and-white rubber cow, he laughed happily. But suddenly the Stasi were standing at the foot of her bed accusing her of betrayal, saying she had been weak and not taken her responsibility seriously. They had come to get her and put her in a museum. And then Irfan appeared in the doorway and he was raging, standing there in a bloody doctor’s coat with a scalpel in his hand. He wanted her to think differently about things. Get into her mind. Cut important connections, so she could no longer understand what was going on, to prevent her thoughts from linking up to become realisations and conclusions. She rose and fell through all the different layers, was light as a feather and huge as a whale, a stone one moment or a bubble the next, and she could talk again, she could scream and everyone heard her, and cowered in fear.