‘Open the tap and let it run,’ Margareth said, ‘that’ll help.’
I did as she said.
‘Have you got any brothers or sisters?’ I asked. I wanted to chat, and hoped this would be a safe question to open with. Not something she’d regard as forward or tactless.
She dropped some butter in two large frying pans. And I noticed she was hesitating. I couldn’t really see why. Either you’ve got brothers and sisters, or you haven’t.
‘I had a brother,’ she said at last.
‘Is he dead?’ I wanted to know. ‘Sorry. It’s none of my business, I was just being inquisitive. I’m sorry.’
I kept quiet. The butter in the frying pans melted and began to sizzle. It looked as if she were considering, weighing the matter up to herself.
‘Yes, I had a brother. He was sixteen,’ she related. ‘And he was very good at diving. He taught himself, he never had any lessons. His repertoire included a beautiful, perfect swallow dive which he did from the ten-metre board. All his mates would sit along the edge of the pool and watch, and he used to demand five kroner per dive. And like that he managed to earn a bit over the summer.’
She tightened the apron round her waist.
‘But he had another side as well,’ she continued. ‘A dark side. Not many people knew about it, but for long periods he’d get very depressed. But then, when we’d begun to feel seriously worried, his spirits would start rising again, and his mind would lighten. And he went on like this, up and down, for several years. My room was next to his. In the evenings I could hear him playing a lot of gloomy music, and sometimes I’d hear him crying. But I said nothing to the grown-ups. So his life went on like that, a rollercoaster ride. He never had any treatment, and up there in the north there wasn’t much they could offer people like him, anyway.’
She glanced at me and pointed.
‘Take that onion out now, it’s been done for some time.’
I did as she said. I put the onion rings on a plate and started cutting up another. Nice, thin rings, as she’d taught me.
‘But those swallow dives of his were famous,’ she went on. ‘Have you ever seen a perfect swallow dive?’
I lowered my knife and wiped away a tear.
‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘but only on television. They are wonderful, you’re right. It’s the best dive.’
‘One day he went to the outdoor bathing complex with a crowd of mates. He’d just turned sixteen. They went in a large group and, as he’d so often done before, my brother asked if they wanted to pay to see a swallow dive. As they usually did. And they said they’d willingly pay for a swallow dive. He’d soon amassed twenty-five kroner. When they got to the pool, he took off his clothes and began to climb the ladder to the ten-metre board. His friends sat on the edge of the pool and waited. They said afterwards that there was a lot of laughing and joking, nudging and chaffing about what was happening. They cheered and fooled about and called up to my brother at the top of the diving boards: “You can’t chicken out now, we’ve paid to see it.”’
Margareth poked at the golden-brown beefburgers in the two frying pans.
‘He walked to the edge of the board,’ she said. ‘And raised his arms. Suddenly everything went quiet, deathly quiet, as one of the boys said afterwards when they spoke of what had happened. It was as though a fear had surfaced in them all, a fear that something awful was about to happen. Something they couldn’t stop. Because they had pushed him to the edge, in a way.’
Margareth straightened her back and put her hands on her hips.
‘He waved to them,’ she continued. ‘Then he fell forward in a beautiful, wide arc. It was September,’ she added. ‘There was no water in the pool.’
She turned the beefburgers one by one. Her movements had become quick and clumsy with the thought of what had happened.
‘So, perhaps he took leave of life in the spectacular way he’d always dreamt of. In front of a paying audience. He struck head first.’
‘He really did have a sense of drama,’ I said cautiously.
‘He did,’ Margareth said. ‘And my life was never the same again. No sounds from the room next door, no music, no crying. I wanted to die, too, because I had the feeling that he was all alone where he’d gone.’
‘How old were you?’
‘I was twelve. And I remember the funeral as if it were yesterday. We weren’t allowed to see him. There was nothing left of his head, it had been smashed to pulp.’
She glanced up quickly.
‘Well, enough of all this depressing talk. The beefburgers are ready, you can put them on the plates. And then empty those frozen peas into that pan of water. What about you? Have you got any brothers and sisters?’
‘No, nothing,’ I said. ‘No parents, no wife, no siblings.’ I held my breath and steadied myself. Margareth’s confidence about her brother had given me courage.
‘But I’ve got you, Margareth,’ I said.
I thought her cheeks turned a little red just at that moment. And that perhaps her eyes looked shiny. But it was probably just wishful thinking. And anyway, it was very hot in the kitchen.
Chapter 35
I hardly slept a wink that momentous night before judgement was due. The judges would rise and give their verdict, either I was the one who’d pressed the pillow over Nelly’s wan face, or there was room for reasonable doubt. Of which I was to have the benefit, naturally, those were the rules. It was a long and exhausting night. The smell of putrefaction in my cell was intense, time after time I rose and stood there not knowing what to do, looking around for Arnfinn, and imagining I could hear his hoarse breathing in the nocturnal stillness. Close to panic, I searched my bedclothes for maggots, shook my pillow and duvet and brushed my hand feverishly over my sheets. I checked the ventilator up on the wall, convinced that the smell was coming from there. And I thought I could see a cloudy gas seeping into the room, it settled like a veil around the bed, thick as porridge, filling my nose and head. I couldn’t sleep. I lay as if in state, stiff as a board, with my arms at my sides, steadfast and immobile.
Around midnight a storm blew up. At first there was just the occasional gust, then it rapidly increased in force. The wind howled round the corners of the big prison building, and after an hour the rain set in with an ominous rush. Its drumming rose and fell, as it beat against the walls and windowpanes. I lay on my bed and listened in dismay; the wildness of the elements was so great that night that I imagined it must have some special meaning. A portend of things to come, the verdict, and the disapproval, people turning away in disgust, with cold, reproachful looks. Cut off from society once and for all. A reject yet again, a rotten individual. But morning came and the furious wind had abated at last. Immediately I began to think of Margareth and my new life. I told Janson about the foul smell, but he couldn’t understand it. He said that no one else had complained, and that I was probably just worn out. In that state we can imagine the weirdest things.
I dressed according to de Reuter’s instructions, looking very decent and respectable, and Janson accompanied me through the corridors to the back of the court. De Reuter was sitting there with his briefcase on his knees. He seemed bright and alert, not in the least dejected, as if anticipating victory, and that made me nervous.
‘Feeling nervous?’ he asked affably.
‘Yes.’