The Writing on the Wall

Twenty-seven

THE EAST SIDE OF NORDNES is not exactly the warmest place you can spend a Monday evening in what is already a chilly February.

A handful of demonstrators had gathered on Sunnhordlandskes Quay and were huddled close together, as if guarding their banner, but probably just trying to keep warm.

They viewed us with suspicion to begin with. But when they saw we were walking hand-in-hand, and as there were also a few people I was on nodding terms with from my Child Welfare days, they became friendlier and admitted us to the circle.

The banners they were carrying bore such obvious slogans as: NO TO PORN! RECLAIM THE NIGHT!, END SEX AND BODY TRADE – ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! and PORN = THEORY – RAPE = PRACTICE.

A couple of girls with spiky punk hair and rings in their noses and various other places were holding banners with the much more eye-catching slogan, FREE BLOWJOBS!, which no one appeared to take offence at.

There were very few men. I counted three besides myself. One of them looked a bit like a hired bodyguard. The other two looked as if they’d been tamed in the early seventies and were only allowed out alone on very special occasions.

The women covered the whole spectrum. Some would not have had so much as a finger laid on them even if they’d turned up stark naked at a Hell’s Angels midnight mass in deepest Norway. Others would have been lucky to get away from a morning meeting of the Priests’ Association without being groped. The ages ranged from secondary school kids to grandmothers. Yet all of them stood out by their burning commitment to the cause of their sex, with an absence of make-up bordering on self-effacement.

In the cold north wind they shook clenched fists at the occasional cars driving down C Sundts Street, heart of the red light district, that Monday evening, chanting ‘No to whoremongers! No to the sale of women’s bodies! No to whoremongers! No to the sale of women’s bodies!’

Evy Berge turned out to be a large woman, an inch or two taller than me, with broad, almost Slavic features and short-cropped fair hair. She was in her late thirties, and the look she directed at me was steely blue, with a hint of violet.

‘Laila Mongstad suggested I should contact you. I’ve tried to get hold of you all day.’

‘We’re terribly short-staffed in our department. There’s never a break.’ She nodded at Karin as though they were fellow conspirators. ‘The lot of women’s professions, right?’

Karin nodded. ‘You can say that again.’

‘I know you can. Just take a look around you! Who’s under ever-growing pressure with ever-shrinking budgets? Nurses, teachers, postal workers -’

‘The police,’ I interjected.

‘OK, but that’s the only one! And who do you think it is who spends Monday evenings driving about in cars rounding up prostitutes?’

‘Nurses, teachers and postal workers?!’ I said.

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Karin started to say.

‘Directors…’

‘It’s just the way he -’

‘Shop managers and heads of departments…’

‘- talks.’

‘Chief surgeons and politicians. Male…’

I nodded. ‘I know.’

‘In other words, the power apparatus! The people who occupy positions of power in society at large also have to be in a position of power when they buy sex too. They have to feel secure and feel they’re on top, literally, so they won’t be challenged just where they feel most vulnerable, if you get my drift.’

‘You speak with exemplary clarity. No room for misunderstanding there. That’s exactly why I need to talk to you.’

She glanced round. ‘Here? Now?’

‘There’s not much going on, is there? It’ll pass the time.’

‘OK, I suppose so.’ She shrugged her shoulders, and we went a few yards away from the others, like a little breakaway group of three who perhaps didn’t do it for nothing, after all.

‘What is it you’re after, actually?’

‘To come straight to the point: I’ve worked in Child Welfare, and I’ve also been a private investigator for nearly twenty years now. So I have a fair idea of the traditional profile of prostitution in this city. But I’ve just been working on a case that has updated it again… The girl who was found murdered up on Fanafjell…’

She nodded. ‘I see.’

‘So I’m trying to find out whether there are any new elements in this business, new places where people meet and violins are not exactly playing, yet somebody rakes in money from it. For example, I’ve come across a place called Jimmy’s…’

‘The amusement arcade?’

‘Yes. And Laila Mongstad is looking into it as the basis of a major newspaper report.’

She smiled. ‘Great! Brilliant!’ She lowered her voice. ‘Of course, we don’t find out much ourselves on our own. But people contact us, some of the prostitutes themselves, actually.’

‘So, what’s the market like at the moment?’

‘Well, you obviously know why we’re out here this particular evening, don’t you?’

I nodded. ‘It’s common knowledge. The street prostitution of the fifties that has now moved over here from Strandkaien. The girls from Ole Bulls Plass who have now moved over here.’

‘Up to a point, yes. What’s new, of course, is the recruitment from among drug addicts, often really young girls, operating in completely new places. The area round the central station, for instance, and sometimes in the middle of Torgalmenningen Square, in summer at least.’

‘The school holidays?’

‘A tough time for a lot of kids.’

A van with a large company name emblazoned on the side drove slowly past the group, whose numbers had now swelled to about thirty. The driver leaned over and aggressively gave us two fingers.

The voices rose in a slow, ragged chant: ‘Kerb crawlers! Kerb crawlers!’

He put his foot down, sending out a cloud of exhaust fumes from his rusty rear end, screeched his back tyres and vanished in the direction of the next block without so much as a backward glance.

‘That’s the crudest form of prostitution, of course – and the most visible one. Folk who take an hour longer to get home from work, or just “pop out for a little drive” while the kids watch Children’s TV.’

‘As early as that?’ asked Karin, surprised.

‘Oh yes. Business is brisk on the girlie market at that time in the evening, dear,’ said Evy Berge. ‘A quick drive out to Tollbodkaien and the car parks round there, the quick relief of a hand-job,’ she made a few telling gestures ‘or…’ she raised her hand to her mouth, ‘maybe even a quick one in the back seat, if they really want to push the boat out.’ She pulled a disgusted face as she looked at me. ‘Men!’

‘Not all of them,’ I said.

‘Course not, sweetheart. Not all of them!’

Karin looked as though she was about to say something, but I beat her to it. ‘OK, but the girls who are hired in other places often end up in a hotel room, right?’

She looked suddenly tired. Then she held her hand out and, in the teacherly style that was no doubt typical of her, counted on her fingers. ‘There are the following main types of prostitution in

this city. One: The sort that goes on out here. Two: The sort that operates through contact ads in newspapers, magazines and Internet chat rooms. For example: Shapely blonde, 24, seeks well-to-do gentleman for morning meeting. Complete discretion required and guaranteed. They’re girls who live alone, have beautifully furnished flats and finance their studies or leisure activities by prostitution. These are the ones who appear in newspaper interviews where they claim they have a professional attitude towards what they do, that they do it of their own free will and have no scruples about it. They are, as they see themselves, the good Samaritans of other people’s love lives, and are going to retire early too.’

‘Perhaps they’re just that.’

‘And perhaps we live in a depraved society! A society in which everything is for sale, including love.’

‘We’re talking about what some people call the oldest profession in the world, aren’t we?’

‘Men are older, if you ask me, and a rotten bunch they are too!’

‘Yes, I suppose so, if you’re a fundamentalist as regards the story of creation.’

She overlooked this observation and continued with her list. ‘Three: Hotel prostitution. This is the hardest one to stamp out. Who can tell the difference between acquaintanceships that are really struck up on the dance floor or in a hotel bar and those that are just part of supply and demand? Who can really control what goes on in hotel rooms at night without resorting to closed circuit TV in every corner?’

‘No, that’s true.’

And lastly, four: What shall we call it? Institutionalised prostitution – the one that’s concealed behind other forms of economic activity. The much-discussed massage parlours, of which there are some examples here too. They change addresses about once every six months, but it’s the same people who run them, and the same people who’re behind them, putting up the money. I can give you the addresses of at least two regular brothels in town.’

‘But what about the pimps in all this? This is something the police could deal with.’

She looked at Karin as she replied. ‘I can guarantee that, in nearly all cases, men are behind it or at least are pulling the strings. The girls in this district all have their so-called protectors. And if they haven’t, they soon get one. If not, they’re hounded out. Simple as that.’ After a short pause she added: ‘The worst thing is that they almost all need it. Some of their clients are real swine, and in that case it can pay to have somebody nearby to call on for help.’

‘Oh my God!’ said Karin with feeling.

‘Some of the ones who operate from hotels also have their – backers. Sometimes just the owners of the hotels.’

I raised my hand. ‘Oh? Anyone who’s making a name for himself on that score just now?’

‘Remember the Week End Hotel?’

‘The one now called Pastel.’

‘It had been quite decent for a few years under the new owners. But last year the hotel was sold again, and now… Now it’s back to its old ways again. All that’s new is the name – and the bartender.’

‘The bartender?’

‘One of our taxi driver contacts tells us that a popular phone number at the moment is a direct line to the bar at the Pastel. You just have to remember to ask for Robert.’

‘Robert, I’ll remember that! You can count on it…’

Suddenly everything fell silent round us. Evy Berge looked up. She sniffed the air with her nostrils like an animal trying to catch the scent. ‘Talk of cockroaches, and they crawl out from under your boots! There’s just the sort I mean.’

I followed her eyes. Karin immediately took a few steps back, and I felt her hand grip my arm.

Two chaps came shuffling across the street. One of them had his hair in kiss curls I’d hardly seen since the fifties. The white shirt, the pale blue jeans and the black shoes protruding from beneath the long black wool overcoat placed him firmly in the same decade. He was heavy and powerfully built, not the type that spends the whole morning exercising at the fitness centre so he can beat the hell out of you: rather the type who lifts his belly up and drops it on your head, which is just as effective. The other seemed older in a way. He was smaller and walked more stiffly, with a slight limp as though he had once injured himself. His face was slightly podgy and he had a white goatee. His blue knitted cap was pulled well down, and the collar of his check lumber jacket turned up as though he didn’t really want to be seen.

The demonstrators closed ranks, their faces showing anxiety, irritation and sheer anger. The largest man in the group had moved to the front, seconded by one of the trusties and a couple of new arrivals who looked like students. Evy Berge shouldered her way to the front too.

I was following in her wake when Karin held me back. ‘Hang on, Varg, it might be…’

‘I’ve been out on a February evening before, love.’

‘Just wait and see what happens.’

‘OK.’

The big chap in the winter overcoat spoke with a surprisingly educated Bergen accent, as if he’d been conceived under a rhododendron bush in Kalfaret, the city’s poshest district. ‘May I ask if you have police authorisation for this demonstration?’

Evy Berge took a letter from her pocket and waved it under his nose. ‘Stamped and signed! See here!’

His eyes flashed with anger as he looked at her. ‘And how long were you lot planning on keeping us residents awake?’

‘Keeping us awake. Get him!’ piped up a voice from somewhere a good way back in the group, setting off a ripple of ironic laughter through the others.

‘We’ve got permission to carry on till midnight,’ said Evy Berge.

‘Why don’t you just go home and watch a porn film?’ called out one of the girls who claimed to give free blowjobs.

The man stood on his toes and looked over the heads of the people at the front. ‘Who said that?’

The girl stood on tiptoe herself. ‘Me.’

He glanced from her to her banner. ‘Is that an offer?’

‘Just come here, and I’ll bite it right off!’

He started to push his way towards the back. ‘Come here you little cuntlicker, I’ll show you…’

The man who looked like a hired bodyguard barred his way. ‘Let’s just take it easy, now.’

‘And what the fuck are you? A eunuch?’

‘An off-duty bailiff, if it’s all the same to you.’

The two men stood there glowering at each other. They were the same size and looked as though both knew a thing or two. I was itching to give somebody a piece of my mind too. Karin gripped my arm even more tightly.

The man with the blue knitted cap said: ‘Come on, Bernhard. You heard what the guy said. It’s not worth it. They’ll be off by midnight.’

I stood there listening. That voice…

I craned my neck to try and get a better look at his face, but there were too many heads in the way. I felt my scrotum shrinking, one of the last instinctive reactions we still have, and a sure sign of danger in the air. It surely couldn’t be…

‘OK then! Cocksucker!’ he hissed at the great bailiff. ‘You’ll be getting a free session for this, I suppose?’

The bailiff followed him out into the street, but Evy Berge set off hot on his heels and stopped him. ‘Don’t rise to the bait! We’ve made our point.’ She raised her yoke. ‘We’ll be back! Bet your bottom dollar on it!’

‘Leave my arse out of it!’ he shouted to them from the other side of the street.

The man in the lumber jacket didn’t even turn round but led the way, making for the corner leading to Holbergsalmenningen. I stood there peering at the way he walked. Once upon a time twenty years ago…

‘Oh, my God!’ I said to myself.

‘Hm,’ said Karin, pulling even closer. ‘Think we can go now?’

I glanced round. The group was already breaking up. ‘Looks as though the show’s over for tonight.’

Evy Berge came over to us. ‘Sometimes we’ve actually had to call the police ourselves. But tonight it went off OK, luckily. Quite a good demonstration, eh, Veum?’

I nodded. ‘Thanks a lot.’

‘Come on!’ said Karin. ‘I’m freezing…’

Later on, in bed at Fløenbakken, when she’d warmed up again, she lifted her head from my chest, looked deep into my eyes and said: ‘I can’t help thinking of Siren, when I – hear stuff like that.’

I put my arms more tightly round her and gave her a gentle squeeze.

‘I just can’t imagine what it must feel like to – do it for money…’

‘I can assure you that the girls who sell themselves like that don’t feel too good about it either. I’ve met plenty of them in all the years I’ve been doing this job.’

‘And so young…’

‘Boys too, unfortunately. But they’re still a minority. After all, there are fewer gays than heteros when all the chromosomes are finally totted up.’

‘But what drives them to it, Varg?’

‘Money, quite simply. Many of them to pay for a habit, but others just to buy the right clothes, for example, to keep up with the rest of their girlfriends. And the radical feminists who took part in the demonstration down there are wrong when they say that it’s all the men’s fault. Prostitution’s about power above all. You can afford to buy power over another person for a limited period of time. Even the feeblest man finds there’s someone who’s even punier than him. Why do you think so many of these girls are eventually raped and abused in their own milieu? Whores are pariahs, Karin; they always have been.’

‘And one of them was my sister. I’ve just never been able to get my head round it! We had the same mother and father, we came from the same background, had the same upbringing… What was it that made her end up like that, while I…?’

‘Who knows? Brothers and sisters are different, aren’t they? The genes are not equally divided. But, above all, I think it’s a matter of who you go around with, what your friends are like in the years when you’re finally staking out the course your life is going to follow. Siren was unlucky in that way, you know that better than I do, whereas you…’

She laid her head back on my chest and mumbled: ‘If only we’d known that it was going to turn out like this when we were small, would we have done things any different? Would we have been able to stop what happened? Would we, Varg?’

I couldn’t give her the right answer. Nobody could.

It was a restless night. When I eventually dropped off to sleep I drifted straight into a horrible dream. In a hotel room looking out onto doomsday I met the man in the lumber jacket again. Now he pulled off his knitted woollen cap and showed me his face. Only there was no face, just a bare skull, as though it was death itself that was on tour in the provinces and had at last found a grateful listener.

I woke bathed in sweat, unable to drop off to sleep again.