Karin Fossum - I Can See in the Dark

I mentioned the moaning from the adjoining cell, but he only gave me a blank look.

‘No moaning persons in here,’ he said. ‘You must’ve dreamt it.’

I mentioned the ventilator on the wall just below the ceiling, and that at times a foul smell had seeped into the cell while I was sleeping. He glanced up at the wall, then shook his great head.

‘The only thing that comes in through that ventilator is fresh air,’ he maintained, and stared sympathetically at me because that was the sort of man he was.

‘I’ll tell you something,’ he said. ‘Many of the people who’ve been here a long time have problems when they finally leave. The world is too large, things happen too quickly, the noise is unbearable, the crowds in the streets are overwhelming. One of our charges finally got prison leave after serving four years. He hadn’t been in town half an hour before he collapsed.’

Once again my life took a new and unexpected turn.

Janson, who worked tirelessly for the inmates, had managed to convince the other staff that I be allowed to work in the kitchen. With Margareth. For a few hours each day. Because I had no family, no friends who came to visit me and no relatives who wrote or phoned.

I had no one.

Other inmates occupied themselves in the workshop, making bookshelves and furniture. Others again used the gym, or studied in the library, trying to better themselves. But I was going to get kitchen work. I imagined that this Margareth must be rather a special person, as she’d chosen to cook for murderers and bank robbers.

Margareth was about the same age as me, and she wasn’t much to look at, at least not at first glance. Perhaps I’m being unkind, but I know beauty when I see it, and sadly, she was no beauty. She had dry, carrot-coloured hair and pointed elf-like ears. Dr Scholl’s on her feet, a faded apron with pockets and an old-fashioned, mauve blouse. The mauve made her own colour seem pale and slightly bluish. She came forward to meet me, her arms folded over her stomach, tight-lipped and with a sharp, appraising eye.

‘Can you use a knife?’ she asked.

‘I’m charged with murder,’ I said and smiled. Trying to be funny. ‘But I’m innocent,’ I added. ‘Just so you know.’

‘That’s what they all say,’ was Margareth’s response. ‘Nobody in here is guilty of anything. I’m not guilty, either,’ she went on, ‘but I have to come here and work myself to the bone just the same. That’s what things have come to.’

She weighed me up from top to toe, as if to see what sort of stuff I was made of. Then she turned and went to the work surface and began tidying. One of her stockings had a ladder in it. I said nothing. One doesn’t insult a woman in that way.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘we might as well make a start. We’re preparing lunch. You can chop fruit and vegetables for the salads. Wash your hands over there, and do it properly, I’m keeping an eye on you. We don’t want any food poisoning here, because when twenty people are ill all at the same time, it’s a nightmare. And I’m speaking from bitter experience.’

I nodded like some mechanical puppet, clenched my teeth and did as I’d been told, while Margareth got out a chopping board and two knives. A small one with a short, pointed blade, and another slightly larger one with a serrated edge. She went to the fridge and took out fruit and greens, sweet peppers, mushrooms and cucumber, lettuce, beetroot, apples, oranges and grapes. She placed them on my work surface, and nodded. Her movements were swift and efficient, she was obviously used to working quickly.

I found myself in an oasis. Of course, there was a lot of steel and plastic, and the ceramic tiles glinted coldly, but after endless weeks alone in that bare cell, the fruit and vegetables crowding my work surface were like a fresh and luxuriant world.

‘Peppers into thin rings,’ Margareth explained, ‘and the cucumber sliced. Just dice the mushrooms. There’s an apron over there on the wall you can wear. I’ll get some salad bowls for you to put it all in. Then we’ll make a dressing of oil and vinegar. We wheel the food out to the common room on trolleys. Off you go, now. Lunch has to be ready by midday.’

I was keen to make a good impression on Margareth. There was no one else in my life, only the prison officers who came and went. De Reuter with his astute glances, and Randers who had brought me down for questioning. I gave my hands a long, thorough wash, rinsed away the soap and dried them with a paper towel from a dispenser on the wall. I tied on the apron and rolled up my sleeves, selected the serrated knife and held it for an instant in my hand, feeling hugely contented with this new facet of prison life, which had so unexpectedly come my way. I studied Margareth out of the corner of my eye. She bustled back and forth in her apron like a busy bee. Her hair really was quite a sight, a carrot-coloured wave, almost like a flame on the top of her head. Her cheeks were pale and thin, and adorned with large freckles. Her eyelashes, carefully darkened with mascara, were surprisingly long.

‘Thinner rings,’ she commanded, as I stood working on a pepper. ‘You’ll have to peel the cucumber. Leaving the skin on makes it taste of grass. Just in case you didn’t know.’

‘I do know,’ I replied.

I felt myself breaking into a smile once more. I almost wanted to begin waltzing around the floor, but I set my jaw and concentrated on looking earnest and industrious. I chopped in deep concentration. My knife was sharp and made easy work of the fruit and vegetables, and I applied myself to it, hungry as I was for variety and appreciation. Margareth stood next to me slicing bread with a machine. After that she made butter balls and formed them into a neat pyramid, over which she sprinkled parsley. It resembled a Christmas tree. I noticed that her hands were large and rough and there was no ring on her finger. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have anyone, although somehow I rather doubted it. She seemed a bit stubborn and unapproachable, not a person who wins over others. But I felt an immediate bond of intimacy with her. It came completely unbidden, as if nature had placed us on the same wavelength, both of us behind these walls, for an unspecified period. We made two large bowls of salad. Sprinkled the dressing over the vegetables and squeezed orange juice over the fruit.

‘Now,’ said Margareth, ‘we’ll put it all on the trolleys. We need some cheese and meat to go on open sandwiches. Can you use an electric carver?’

I nodded. I fetched ham and salami from the fridge, and felt a kind of childish joy because I was standing here next to Margareth in the kitchen. I forgot almost everything else, forgot where I was and why, forgot that my life had fallen apart and that my future was uncertain.

‘Do you know Randers?’ I asked, after a few moments’ silence.

Margareth nodded.

‘Everyone knows Randers,’ she said.

She chewed her thumbnail and nodded once more.

‘He comes in here from time to time pinching food. At first I found him pretty unbearable, but now I’ve got used to him. I suppose we’ve just got to accept that some people live on the sunny side. That they’re lucky and successful in life. But that’s not how my life has been, God knows. Ah, well,’ she concluded, and placed the dish of butter balls on the trolley. Never in all my life had I seen such a perfect pyramid of butter balls.

‘Do the men like that?’ I wanted to know, indicating the dish.

‘Oh, they’re like little kids. They’re so disappointed if the pyramid’s not quite up to standard. Once you’ve started, you can’t get out of it, they’re so used to it. And then, I like a bit of fun myself.’