Anne Holt: Fear Not

‘I’m sure he’s not going to convert after this,’ Adam said quietly.

As early as their second meeting, Lukas had mentioned Erik’s fascination with Catholicism. The young man had actually smiled when he talked about his parents’ trip to Boston the previous autumn. Eva Karin was a delegate attending a world ecumenical congress, and Erik had visited the city’s Catholic churches. What neither Eva Karin nor Lukas knew was that he had gone to confession. He had a theological background, and could pass for a Catholic if he so wished. His conversation with the priest in the confessional was reproduced in detail in the brown leather-bound diary. It had been Erik’s very first confidential discussion about the great lie of his life that was so difficult to bear.

‘Do you think it’s the priest? Is he something to do with The 25’ers?’

Johanne was whispering, even though she had let the children stay over with her parents. They had looked after them while she was with Silje Sørensen, and both children had flatly refused to come home when she eventually turned up to collect them, puffing and panting.

‘Who knows? The priest or someone connected with him. Catholics have a certain… tradition when it comes to taking the law into their own hands, you could say. At any rate, it’s clear Erik never spoke to anyone else about this, and I think it’s out of the question that Eva Karin would have had another confidante apart from Martine. I’ve met Martine. Eva Karin didn’t need anyone else, believe me. A really lovely woman. Very wise. Warm.’

He smiled in the darkness.

‘Anyway, the Americans will clear things up now. It turns out the FBI had quite a lot of information already. They just needed this… key. We’ve given them so much information they think they’ll probably be able to blow the entire organization apart. Back here the investigation is firing on all cylinders. We’ll be mapping the movements of all American citizens over the past few months. We can combine and compare information from all six murders now we know they’re linked. We’ll be-’

‘The picture,’ Johanne interrupted him. ‘The artist’s sketch, that was what led to the breakthrough. For the Americans and for us. Silje told me it took the FBI only nine hours to establish the identity of one of the perpetrators. The driving licence register combined with information about travel between Europe and the States over the past few months was enough to identify the man. That drawing solved the entire case.’

‘True. It’s quite frightening to think how surveillance actually works. This will be grist to the mill for those who want to see more of that kind of thing.’

Adam kissed the top of her head.

‘The picture was important,’ he went on. ‘You’re right there. But it was mostly down to you, sweetheart.’

They both fell silent.

‘Adam…?’

‘Yes.’

‘If they do destroy The 25’ers, sooner or later a new organization will emerge that stands for the same thing. Thinks the same way. Does the same kind of thing.’

‘Yes. I’m sure you’re right.’

‘Here in Norway, too?’

‘In some ways that’s in our hands, I suppose.’

The silence went on for so long that Adam’s breathing fell into a slower, deeper rhythm.

‘Adam…?’

‘I think we should get some sleep now, sweetheart.’

‘Have you never believed in God?’

She could hear that he was smiling.

‘No.’

‘Why not? Not even when Elisabeth and Trine died and-’

He carefully moved his arm and gently pushed her away.

‘I really would like to go to sleep now. And you should do the same.’

The bed bounced as he turned on to his side with his back to her. She shuffled after him, feeling his body like a big, warm wall against her own nakedness. It took him less than a minute to get back to sleep.

‘Adam,’ she whispered, as quietly as she could. ‘Sometimes I believe in God. A little bit, anyway.’

He laughed, but in his sleep.

May 1962

Eva Karin has just turned sixteen, and she has a dress made of pale blue polyester.

Her mother made it, just as she has made every single dress Eva Karin has ever owned. This is the best one of all, and the first with an adult cut – a Jackie Kennedy dress she didn’t even get around to wishing for. She didn’t get around to wishing for anything at all. She didn’t give her birthday a thought.

There has been no room for anything apart from this one huge thing, this terrible thing that has to go away.

When she opened her present she had to pretend she was happy. As if it were possible for her to be happy. Her mother was so overjoyed with the beautiful material and her fine stitching that she didn’t notice how Eva Karin was feeling.

No one can see how Eva Karin is feeling. Except God, if He exists.

She put on the dress when she got up this morning. Her mother was annoyed; she was supposed to save it until 17 May, Norway’s National Day. Eva Karin said she didn’t want to be late for school, and hadn’t got time to change. Her mother gave in. She was also a little proud, Eva Karin could see that. Dark-eyed, black-haired Eva Karin with the ice-blue dress that made her look American.

She had hidden the ballerina pumps in her bag. She changed out of her sensible walking shoes as soon as she was out of sight.

Eva Karin has dressed up to die.

She doesn’t want anyone she knows to find her body. She is heading up to Løvstakken, all the way up; her younger siblings are too little to go up there, and her mother and father never set foot there either.

The air is sharp and clear. It’s chilly, and she pulls the golf jacket more tightly around her. She has to look where she’s going. There are roots and stones on the track, and she doesn’t want her ballerina pumps to get dirty.

Her father doesn’t believe in God.

Eva Karin wants to believe in God.

She has prayed so hard.

She has read His book, which she has to hide in her underwear drawer so that her father won’t find it. Religion is the opium of the people, he frequently growls, and Eva Karin and her siblings are the only children she knows who have not been baptized and confirmed. She has read and searched in the forbidden Bible, but all she finds is condemnation.

God and her father are in agreement on just one thing: people like her have no right to live.

People like her must be spoken about using a particular language. A particular language consisting of looks, gestures and words which actually mean something else, but when they are used about people like her, they acquire a dark meaning that she cannot live with.

She always thought it was only men who were like that.

They exist, she knows they exist, because they are the ones who become the object of those ambiguous words, those looks, those obscene gestures the boys make behind Mr Berstad’s back, making the girls snigger. All except Eva Karin, who blushes.

She stops for a moment. The sun is shining down through the fresh new leaves. The ground looks as if it is covered with shimmering liquid gold. Dense carpets of wood anemones surround the trees, protecting the roots. The birds are singing, and high above the treetops, white fluffy clouds drift by.

She has been going out with Erik for six months now.

Erik is nice. He never touches her. Doesn’t want to kiss and cuddle, doesn’t grope her the way her friends tell her the other boys do. Erik reads books and works hard in school. They drink tea together, and Erik sometimes shows her a few of the poems he has written, which are not particularly good. Eva Karin enjoys Erik’s company. She feels safe. She feels calm when she is with Erik. Not like when she sees Martine.