The Whisperer

Chapter 6

Audun appeared one day and was going to work full-time. He did not need any training as he had worked in a building materials warehouse for a couple of years, and was quick, efficient and precise. His thin beard was plaited and dangled under his chin like a piece of rope; he often tugged at it as he moved around. His hair was gathered up into a topknot. When he arrived in the morning, it was tight and shiny like a chestnut, but in the course of a shift it started to slip down towards his neck, slowly loosening and looking more and more like a bird’s nest. He had a cross hanging from his ear. Audun never spoke unless it was necessary, and had learned the same techniques as Ragna when it came to keeping people at arm’s length. He smiled, nodded and carried on.

Ragna felt heavy-headed all day. She was not used to having problems with sleep, and she was so tired that everything was spinning. When the shift was finally over, she walked quickly to the bus stop. The air was raw and a mist was falling with the dusk. The lamp posts and signs looked like they were hovering above the ground. She spotted Audun some way ahead of her, walking hunched over. He did not wait for her, but she was fine with that. She mused about what he was going home to. She could not imagine he had a wife and children, he was only in his twenties. She guessed he lived in a studio flat and spent most of his time outside work on the Internet or listening to music. Black metal or something like that. It was just the two of them in the dusk, the one aware of the other, but each staying behind their own wall. These walls could of course be broken down, but they were following unspoken rules.

Ragna let him get onto the bus first. And as a result he sat down on her seat, the third to the left, and she was not prepared for that. There were lots of empty seats, but he chose hers. He made himself comfortable, leaned in towards the window as she always did. She was so taken aback that she just stood there in the aisle, unable to choose anywhere else. This was a new anxiety in her life. That he intended to take her seat every time. That he might also feel a sense of belonging, a feeling that he was in the perfect place. She sat down in a seat on the other side of the bus, where her body bristled with discomfort. She sat there looking at him. His strange hairdo looked silly. From the back, one might mistake him for a girl, with a long, white neck. She wondered if he let his hair down when he went to bed at night, and what he looked like then. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw there were five other passengers sitting towards the back of the bus, and there were four in front of her. So there were ten of them, including her. Plus the driver, he was the eleventh. They were all going to die. And they all knew it, but you would not know to look at them. Two girls were speaking in hushed voices, heads close together; another was tapping away on a mobile phone. It looked like Audun was listening to music; he certainly had his earphones in, she could see the white wire. Why was death not visible in these fragile bodies, in the autumnpale faces, where had they all hidden it? Death was dark, all-encompassing, a burden, but none of them seemed to be carrying anything. The driver, the eleventh of them, drove the heavy bus through the darkening, misty streets. She could not see his face, and she had not looked at him when she got on. She remembered she had once read something by Edgar Allan Poe, possibly, about an omnibus that took all the passengers to the kingdom of death. Without knowing the final destination, they had all got on and found themselves a seat, only to be slowly and surely transported into another dimension. What if that was the case now? What if the driver, whose back was all they could see, was driving to the last stop from where they would never return?

Once this thought had taken root, she felt connected to the passengers in a completely different way. They shared a destiny that she was now part of. She thought the throb of the engine was deeper than usual, that it was using more power, that the dark outside was becoming denser. She looked at the driver’s broad back and imagined that he had no face. From here, he would race past all the bus stops without stopping. Would not let anyone off or on. If she stood up and went to ask him a question, he would neither look at her nor answer. Their fate was sealed. She would lose her balance, grab hold of one of the bus straps and then hang there dangling as though on the gallows. She cursed Edgar Allan Poe and all the other authors who could trigger such thoughts in her head years after she had read them.

Audun got off at the square. He nodded to her as he passed, which was something. She nodded back. He slipped out of the hissing door and was swallowed by the dark, so young and lithe. Of course he was shy. She felt an affection for him as a result, it was not easy to live like that, constantly having to guard your territory, being forced to be with people without feeling any connection to them, or wanting to have any connection. She put her cheek to the window and played a mind game. She pretended she knew Audun, what his home was like, what he had and did not have, what his dreams were, and his fears. That she could read him like a book just by looking at him, his topknot, his stride, his voice, his expressions. His worn, dark clothes told her what he deemed to be important and less important. But all her assumptions were based on prejudice, in the same way that others went around thinking this and that, judging everyone, throughout their lives perhaps. If we don’t talk to each other and ask, Ragna thought, then we draw our own conclusions, damn and misjudge. But he had sat down in her place. Why just there, when nearly all the other seats were empty? Would she have to be first on the bus, from now on, to lay claim to what she believed was hers? Walther Eriksson popped into her mind. The way he had looked at her, that loaded, knowing look. He had understood everything — who she was, what she wanted, what her dreams were. She had drunk a whole bottle of Peach Canei that night. She had been easy prey.

When the bus stopped at Kirkelina, she went into Irfan’s shop to pick up a few things.

‘The dark is coming,’ he said. ‘You’re not wearing any reflectors.’

He pointed at her black coat.

‘The cars won’t see you. Just look at your neighbour Skiold and his dog, they know how to look after themselves.’

He nodded towards Olaf’s house.

She was surprised and touched by his concern. Did he really care about her well-being, would he be upset if she was mowed down? She had to admit she was lax when it came to things like that, but she explained that she never really walked around at night, just the short distance from the bus stop to her house. Something deep inside resisted using reflectors. It was her wish not to be seen. She put all her shopping into a white carrier bag, thanked him and crossed the road. She glanced up at the Teigens’ house, which was all dark, and then it struck her that it was no longer their house. She stood by the mailbox and hesitated, staring at it for a long time. Did it not look heavier than usual? Could she not hear warning bells? She took a deep breath and opened the lid. There was nothing more than the newspaper in there. She peered quickly over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching. She was exposed now, alone under the street light, visible in the dark. And she remembered that she had stood under another street lamp in the park one evening many years ago, with Walther. He was moving to Stockholm with his family. Before he turned to leave, he put a finger under her chin and tilted her face towards the light.

‘There’s not an ounce of badness in you, little Miss Ragna Riegel.’