Darkness outside, now. Silence.
He woke up and realised that he was cold.
The house rested heavily on its foundation, it was as if everything had ground to a halt. He imagined a machine which had suddenly been switched off and the steady hum he was used to had ceased.
He had been asleep for more than two hours.
With a jolt he jumped out of his chair, a half-strangled groan coming from his throat. He glanced over at the sofa where she lay motionless. Her eyes were half open. It seemed as though she was semi-rigid, her immobility was terrifying. He could not hear her breathing, there was something missing in the room. An absence. Her ice-blue eyes were vacant, covered, it seemed, by a film of frost. The cat had moved and was now lying in a corner of the room. Alvar rushed out into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. Now she was out of sight, he could convince himself it had all been a bad dream, a nightmare, he thought with his back to the door. He stayed there for a long time. Then he sneaked over to the mirror, and clung on to the sink. He blinked repeatedly, no, he was not dreaming, this was real, something dreadful had happened. No, he had to be mistaken. She'll wake up now, he thought, running back out again, she'll wake up if I shake her and call her name. But I don't know what her name is. He tiptoed over to the sofa. But shaking her was pointless, there was no life left in her frail body, no heartbeat, no pulse, no warmth. November, he suddenly realised. It's the month of November and it's an evil month.
He started pacing the flat with rasping breath, he went from room to room, he wrung his hands so hard his knuckles cracked, he saw that her face had contorted into an ugly grimace. Her jaws had locked, her eyes were raw and dry. Every now and then he would peek over at the sofa; he was waiting for her to wake up, he was waiting for his old life to return, the life he had always taken for granted. She continued to lie there. He went back to the bathroom and washed his face with cold water, his eyes were bloodshot. He came back out and she was still lying there. He went to the kitchen and poured himself a sherry with trembling hands, stood in the doorway, drinking it, she continued to lie there. She was a stranger now who had staggered into his home and then lay down to die on his sofa, that was what had happened, was it not? Death had turned her into a stranger and she was no longer any of his concern. But he had opened the door, he had gone down to Bragernes Square and bought the pills, put them in front of her, fetched water for her and sat there watching her as she swallowed them. His actions throughout the past year, his well-meaning and apparently good intentions, piled up in front of him and turned into a mountain of guilt. He, Alvar Eide, had displayed a degree of negligence which had led her right to her death. He started to sink onto the floor; he could never hold his head up high again, not after this. Imagine that this was how his life would end, tainted by guilt and shame and horror; why had he not been able to see where it was all leading? He lay prostrate on the floor digging, clawing his fingers into the parquet, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. And they gathered themselves and turned into a sly plan, which almost took his breath away, the ultimate proof that he had never been a good person. He realised that she had been right all the time, all he knew was pretence and cowardice, he had never been a hero. Merely spineless. Defensive, pathetic. And the vile plan which was slowly taking shape was all he had to cling to, it made his body obey, it made his heart beat at a normal rate.
I've got to get rid of her, he thought, I've got to carry her out of the house, I can't have her here, what will people say, what will they think? Will they put me away for this, will I be branded a criminal? I'll never be able to look anyone in the eye. I can't manage anything at all after this, he thought, why was I not tougher with her? If I'd been tough, she would have been alive now. Perhaps. He groaned in despair, his distress roared like a waterfall in his ears. What am I going to tell the police? I can't go to the police, it struck him, I can't tell them what has happened, they'll blame me. It was I who financed her addiction, I drove her to her death. It's all my fault. There is no God, there is no forgiveness. I was only trying to help her, I couldn't bear to see her in such pain, because I'm weak, I'm full of flaws and shame. Time will pass, he thought feverishly, time will pass, soon I'll be in another moment, an even worse one because she is still lying there with her gaping mouth and blind eyes. Why did she pick me? Can you tell from a distance that I'm a pushover; does it show in my pathetic eyes, am I betrayed by my nervous hands? Thoughts rained through his head like a shower of arrows. He concentrated on his plan. He put his palms on the floor and attempted to push himself up, but they were too weak. Blood rushed to his head, his pulse beat in his ears. A thought occurred to him, a wretched idea. He would put a blanket over her and cover her up. He pushed off again and stood up laboriously. Reluctantly he went over to the sofa, got hold of the blanket and arranged it so it covered her head and her body. But it offered him no relief, the contours of her thin body were still visible. Again he went over to the window. He stared out at the town, saw cars crawling through the streets, and the lights, yellow, red, green, people were heading home, it was rush hour. He stood there holding on to the trivial activities outside as the plan continued to grow in his head, slowly, from deep inside him: no one knows anything. No one can see into my living room, can see that there is a dead body on my sofa. Or that I'm responsible. That it is I, Alvar Eide, who pushed her into the abyss. I'll wait until night-time, he thought, then I'll carry her outside. I'll leave her somewhere, so she'll be found, and people can think what they like. I need to tidy my living room, I can't have things like that lying around.
A faint hope grew in him, a simple, cynical thought.
Perhaps I'll get away with it. After all, so many of them die, they call it an overdose, she's clearly one of them. She's been seen on Bragernes Square, the police will probably recognise her. They wouldn't make a big deal of it. I need to wait until later in the evening. When everyone has gone home. When will everyone be asleep? Between three and five in the morning. That's when I'll carry her outside and put her in the back of the car, I'll drive out into the woods with her, I'll cover her with the blanket. I never asked for this awful business to happen, I was just trying to help her. He forced himself to snap out of it and went to his bedroom where he lay down fully dressed on his bed. Turned over onto his side and pulled up his knees. He closed his eyes, but they opened again. He kept looking at the lamp on his bedside table, a cold glass dome.
He fell into a perplexing dream.
It was difficult to breathe.
He was crawling around on an ice-cold surface, on all fours, like a wounded animal, and the air was dense and raw, it was like inhaling thick porridge down his lungs. At the same time he sensed a cool breeze further ahead, a freezing draught from a hole in the ice. He struggled to find his way, fighting to breathe the whole time, it was like a lead weight on his chest, he had to use every muscle in his upper body to make his lungs open and take in air, every breath was a struggle. His hair and his cheeks were damp, and he worked out that he was in a thick fog, which was approaching from all sides, it surrounded him, made him invisible to the rest of the world. Still he crawled on, centimetre by centimetre, the cold breeze grew stronger and he thought he heard a faint murmur, a grinding sound, but he did not recognise the sound and it was too dark to see anything. Then his hand reached out into thin air. He stopped and froze, waved his hands in front of him in terror, there was nothing, he had reached the edge and a fierce, freezing cold wind hit from the void.
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