Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘I don’t know if the guy in Pamplona is any friend of mine,’ I said. ‘But I do know that I love you.’

‘That’s what I call respecting the girl in the morning,’ she muttered, and turned her back on me again.

Once outside I discovered I hadn’t enough cash for a taxi, but at least, as I ran to the bus station, my body built up enough warmth to dry off my clothes, which had been damp and ice-cold when I put them on in the dark.

There was a strange atmosphere on the bus to Pamplona. The passengers fell into three categories. In the first were those who were gearing themselves and their pals up for the bull run, shouting to each other from their seats, laughing loudly to hide their nervousness, punching one another on the shoulder and already on the sangria and the brandy. Then there were those who slept or else tried to. The third group was me, the guy on his own who sat looking out across the landscape, thinking. Who tried to understand and make sense of it all, and each time had to give up and start again. Finally the thinking was interrupted by a phone call from Peter, which I couldn’t take, otherwise he would have known I was sitting on a bus. There was still over an hour until we arrived, and that wouldn’t fit in with the story about it being a local bus.

I didn’t call back until we reached the outskirts of Pamplona.

‘And here was me thinking you’d overslept,’ he said.

‘No way. Meet at Jake’s in fifteen?’

‘I’m there already. See you.’

I pushed the phone down into my pocket. Had there been something in his voice? Something not quite right, some sign that he knew? I had no idea. Had it been Peter I would have known. But the man I had just spoken to was a stranger. I felt as though my brain were about to explode.

Jake’s was so crowded I literally had to force a way between all the men — and the few women — wearing red and white. Peter — or the man calling himself Peter — was seated at the bar. He must have started early. He was wearing a cap and a large pair of sunglasses I hadn’t seen before.

‘Enjoy,’ he said, pointing at a full glass of brandy.

I hesitated. Then I picked up the glass and drank it in one.

‘Scared?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

He nodded at the newspaper on the counter. ‘The bulls today are from the Galavanez farm. People say the bulls from there are real killers.’

‘They do?’

‘What they probably don’t know is that they’re the ones who are going to get killed. This afternoon.’

‘I guess it’s better not to know,’ I said.

‘Yes.’ He looked at me. I looked at him. It was easy to see now. When he’d emerged from the bathroom in San Sebastián and said he’d thrown up, I’d thought the reason he’d lost his tan and looked older was that he was ill. Where had he come from? Which time? Which place?

‘The hour is late,’ he said without looking at his watch. ‘Let’s go.’

We stood in the same place as we had done the day before. That was the plan, that as far as possible the second time should be a replica of the first. Sticking to as many of the variables as possible, as Peter had described it. So that we could focus on the experience itself, not just spend the time processing everything that was new and unknown. Experiencing the same thing, but in a different way. Was that what this Peter had done over the last two days? In the universe he came from, had he and I — or the self I was in that other universe — stood in this same place waiting for the bulls? Of course, things had started to change from the moment he entered this universe, the sequence of events had stopped running in parallel. But how much had he changed? And how much did he want to change? It was unbearable.

Next to us a boy began sobbing convulsively. I recognised him as one of the noisy Americans from the bus. No, it was unbearable and I turned to Peter intending to tell him that I knew who he was — or more accurately, who he wasn’t — when a sound told us that the bulls had been released.

My mouth went dry. I hunched over in a sort of starting position. I don’t know why the runners didn’t spread themselves out more evenly along the route, because actually one place seemed as good as any other. Instead we were gathered in groups. Maybe the idea is that there’s safety in numbers.

‘I’ll run directly behind you,’ said Peter. ‘Between you and the bulls.’

The noise and the shouting got closer, and I seemed to smell panic and blood in the air, the same way the rain on the street the day before had pushed the air in front of it, causing the trees to sway and rustle out a forewarning. A couple of the tourists broke from our crowd and started to run, like those drips falling from the guttering outside the room during the night.

And then there they were. Rounding the corner. One of the bulls slipped on the cobblestones, fell onto his side but rose to his feet again. A body lay in the road where the bull had landed. A shaven-headed man in white ran directly in front of the lead bull, seeming to be steering it with the rolled-up newspaper he held in his hand, using it now to strike the bull on the forehead and now to keep his balance. The swarm around us began to move and I wanted to run, but somebody held me back by my jacket.

‘Wait,’ said Peter calmly behind me.

My mouth was so dry I couldn’t respond.

‘Now,’ he said.

I ran. A little to the left of the middle of the street, as on the previous day. Concentrating on what was in front of me. Not falling. Everything else was beyond my control. Just feeling my way forward. But there was nothing there, white fear blanked out everything else. And then the legs went from under me. A clear and obvious trip. That was all I had time to think before I hit the cobblestones.

I knew I should lie still. But I also knew there was half a ton of bull directly behind us, so I rolled sideways to the left. A shadow crossed over me, something big, like a ship blotting out the sun. Then it had passed and looking up I saw the narrow black buttocks of the enormous creature.

It stopped. And turned.

Suddenly everything around me went quiet, so quiet that the solitary scream — maybe it was a girl up on the barricade who saw what was about to happen — chilled me to the bone.

The bull looked at me. The eyes were dead, expressed nothing other than that it saw me. He snorted. Scraped his front hoof against the cobblestones and lowered his horns. I didn’t move. But that tactic was no longer the right one. I had been seen. Separated out from the crowd. That black train of muscle flexed and then exploded in my direction. I was as good as dead. I closed my eyes.

Someone grabbed hold of my foot and started pulling, sweeping me round as my chin bounced and scraped against the stones. The back of my head hit something, for a moment everything went black, and then I opened my eyes again. I had hit the wall of a house. Peter was standing above me, still holding on to my foot. A few metres away from us the man with the shaven head and the newspaper was dancing round the bull, busily distracting it with the aid of another man, also carrying a rolled-up newspaper. Peter positioned himself between the bull and me. A cow passed, and the bull seemed to lose interest and chugged off after her. The rest of the group, five bulls and cows, passed us directly afterwards, but ignored us. In truth they seemed tired of the whole business and just wanted to get away and find somewhere quiet and peaceful.

I sat up with my back against the wall of the house, and Peter squatted down beside me. I breathed. In, then out. And then again. In, then out. Let my pulse gradually slow down as I saw the street emptying as people made their way towards the stadium.