‘Well, that’s why I’m ringing. Now, you’re not to… you must promise not to be…’
Johanne could feel the skin between her shoulder blades contracting.
‘What?’ she said when he hesitated.
‘Well… I’m at Sandvika Storsenter. I wanted to exchange some Christmas presents and so… Kristiane and I… The problem is… It won’t help at all if you get angry.’
Johanne tried to swallow.
‘What’s happened to Kristiane?’ she said, forcing herself to sound calm.
From the living room she could hear Ragnhild throwing the dice over and over again.
‘She’s disappeared. Well, not disappeared. But I… I can’t find her. I was just going to-’
‘You’ve lost Kristiane? In Sandvika Storsenter?’
She could see the vast shopping centre in her mind’s eye; it was the biggest in Scandinavia, with three floors, more than a hundred shops and so many exits that the very thought made her dizzy. She leaned on the kitchen worktop for support.
‘Just calm down, Johanne. I’ve spoken to the management and they’re looking for her. Have you any idea how many kids get lost in here every day? Loads! She’ll be wandering around on her own in some shop. I’m only ringing to ask if there are any shops in here that she’s particularly fond of…’
‘For fuck’s sake, you’ve lost my child!’ Johanne yelled, without giving Ragnhild a thought. The girl started to cry, and Johanne tried to console her from a distance while she carried on talking.
‘She’s our child,’ said Isak at the other end. ‘And she isn’t-’
‘It’s all right, Ragnhild. Mummy was just a little bit worried. Hang on a minute and I’ll be there.’
The child was inconsolable. She howled and threw the dice on the floor.
‘I don’t want to be lost, Mummy!’
‘Try that teddy bear shop,’ Johanne hissed down the phone. ‘The one where you can make your own bear. It’s at the end of the walkway leading from the old part of the centre to the new part.
‘Mummy, Mummy! Who’s lost me?’
‘Hush, sweetheart. Mummy will be there in a minute. Nobody has lost you, you know that. I’m coming!’
The last comment was snapped furiously down the phone: ‘Keep your mobile on. I can be there in twenty minutes. Call me straight away if anything happens.’
Johanne ended the call, shoved the phone in her back pocket, ran into the living room, scooped up her youngest daughter and comforted her as best she could, while racing through the apartment towards the stairs leading to the outside door.
‘Nobody’s going to lose you, you know that. There’s nothing to be upset about. Mummy’s here now.’
‘Why did you say somebody had lost me?’
Ragnhild was snuffling, but at least she had calmed down slightly.
‘You misunderstood, sweetheart. That kind of thing happens.’
She slowed down as she reached the staircase, and walked calmly.
‘We’re going for a little drive. To Sandvika Storsenter.’
‘Storvik Sandsenter,’ said Ragnhild, smiling through her tears.
‘That’s right.’
‘What are you going to buy me?’
‘I’m not going to buy you anything, sweetheart. We’re just going to… we’re just going to pick up Kristiane.’
‘Kristiane’s coming back tomorrow,’ the child protested. ‘Tonight you and me are going to watch a film with popcorn on the sofa, on our own.’
‘Put your boots on. Quickly, please.’
Her heart was fluttering. She gasped for breath and pulled on her jacket as she forced herself to smile.
‘We’ll take your jacket with us. Off we go.’
‘I want my hat! And gloves! It’s cold outside, Mummy!’
‘Right, there you go,’ said Johanne, grabbing something that was lying on the shelf. ‘You can put them on in the car.’
Without even locking the outside door she grabbed her daughter’s hand and ran down the steps and across the gravel to the car, which fortunately was parked just in front of the building.
‘You’re hurting me,’ Ragnhild protested. ‘Mummy, you’re squeezing my hand too hard!’
Johanne felt dizzy. She recognized the fear from the very first time she held Kristiane in her arms. Perfect, said the midwife. Healthy and beautiful, said Isak. But Johanne knew better. She looked down at her daughter, just thirty minutes old, so silent and with something in her that was blowing her to pieces.
‘Jump in,’ she said just a little too sharply, opening the back door. ‘I’ll fasten your belt.’
Her mobile rang. At first she couldn’t remember where she had put it, and started patting her jacket pockets.
‘Your bottom’s ringing,’ said Ragnhild, clambering into the car.
‘Yes, yes,’ Johanne said breathlessly into her phone when she had managed to get it out of her back pocket.
‘I’ve found her,’ Isak said from a long way off. ‘She was in the teddy bear shop, just as you thought, and she’s absolutely fine. A man was looking after her, and they were actually standing chatting to each other when I got there.’
Johanne leaned against the car, trying to slow her breathing. An immense feeling of relief that Kristiane was safe was overshadowed all too quickly by what Isak had said.
‘What man?’
‘What man? I ring up to tell you that Kristiane is perfectly safe, just as I thought, and you start going on about-’
‘Are you aware that shopping centres are an absolute El Dorado for paedophiles?’
Her words turned to grey clouds of vapour in the ice-cold air.
‘Mummy, aren’t you going to fasten my belt?’
‘Just a minute, sweetheart. What kind of-?’
‘No, Johanne, that’s enough! I’m not having this!’
Isak Aanonsen rarely became angry.
Even when Johanne got up from the sofa late one night an eternity ago and explained that she didn’t think their marriage could be saved, and that she’d already obtained the necessary forms to draw a line under it, Isak had tried to be positive. He just sat there for a while, alone in the living room, as Johanne went to bed in tears. An hour later he had knocked on the bedroom door, having already accepted the fact that they were no longer each other’s most intimate confidant. Kristiane was the most important person in all this, he said. Kristiane would always be the most important thing for both of them, and he really wanted them to agree on the practical arrangements regarding their daughter before they tried to sleep. By the time dawn broke they had come to an agreement. Since then he had loyally adhered to it. And she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times over the years he had shown even the slightest hint of irritation.
But now he was furious.
‘This is just hysteria! The man who was talking to Kristiane was a perfectly ordinary guy who had obviously noticed what kind of… what kind of child she is. He was very kind, and Kristiane smiled and waved to him as we left. She’s standing here now and…’
Johanne could hear Kristiane’s usual dam-di-rum-ram in the background. She started to cry. Silently, so that she wouldn’t upset Ragnhild any more than she already had.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered into the phone. ‘I’m sorry, Isak. I mean it. I was just really, really scared.’
‘I think we both were,’ he said after a moment’s hesitation, his voice back to normal. ‘But everything’s worked out fine. I assume you’d prefer it if I brought her straight home today? What do you think?’
‘Thank you. Thank you so much, Isak. It would be wonderful to have her back home.’
‘I’ll make up my time with her another weekend or something.’
‘Perhaps you could stay as well,’ Johanne heard herself saying.
‘Stay over with you? Great!’
In her mind’s eye she could see a glint in those dark blue eyes that narrowed to slits in his always unshaven face when he smiled that crooked, sweet smile that she had once been so in love with.