Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘And then you’ll travel to another universe and try to get Miriam there?’

He nodded.

The food arrived.

Peter picked up the sharp steak knife, but then just looked down at his ham without touching it. ‘I really hope you get her, Martin. And I regret that I almost killed you.’ He put a note down on the table with his free hand. ‘Now I need to disappear. Good luck, my friend.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘What do you do after a bull run?’

‘You sleep.’

‘Then I’ll sleep.’ He moved the knife to his left hand, stood up, took hold of my right. ‘One more thing: don’t wake me. Stay away from the room at least until after dark, OK?’

He squeezed my hand, let go of it, weaved his way out past the other guests and was gone.

‘Hey!’ I wanted to run after him, but a big, loud-mouthed American drunk wearing a panama hat was in my way. And when I finally reached the street Peter was nowhere in sight.

When in doubt, go left. That was my father’s motto and I followed it. I ran, bumping into people, calling out Peter’s name. I passed the market square where they dived from the statue in the evening, not stopping until I reached the alcove by the statue of San Fermín.

Peter was gone.

I was so out of breath I had to support myself against the wall. That mean bastard. Regret, he’d said. He didn’t say he was sorry, he just regretted he had almost killed me.

The phone vibrated again. I took it out, hoping it was Peter. A foreign number. Two SMSs.

Do you really love me?

And: Really, really?

‘Hola, Mister Famous!’

I looked up from the phone and saw my two Spanish girlfriends from the village, arm in arm. The blonde came up and kissed me on both cheeks.

‘You must have been very afraid,’ she said. ‘And so lucky!’

‘Sorry?’

‘When you were saved from the bull.’

‘Oh... You were there?’

‘No, no. You are on TV. You are famous, Martin!’

The girls laughed at what must have been the astonished look on my face before dragging me back to the bar I had just left. There, on the wall-mounted TV screen, highlights from the day’s bull run were being shown.

‘I didn’t even know they were filming it,’ I said.

‘Officially, running in front of the bulls is illegal, but it is of course understood that the police look the other way. But the national TV will broadcast the run. Welcome to Spain!’ They laughed until the tears ran down their cheeks and poured from their own sangria bottle into the bar’s glasses without the bartender seeming to object. I, meanwhile, was staring at the screen and watching myself run, with Peter in his sunglasses and cap right behind me. Suddenly I stumbled, but there were so many others in the line of fire it was impossible to see what it was that had tripped me. The camera was on the bull and I was no longer in view. Up until the point at which the bull stopped. And then I saw it: two men clambering up onto the top of the barricade behind the bull. One of them was Peter, still wearing the sunglasses and cap. And he jumped over to the other side and disappeared!

The camera followed what the bull was looking at: me. And then a person who had been standing pressed up against the wall of the house right where I had landed, and who now stepped forward, grabbed round my leg with both hands and — as the bull charged towards me, horns lowered as though in search of something — swept the ground with me, and swung me round in an elegant semicircle, much as a matador swings the cape at such a sharp angle the charging bull hasn’t time to alter course.

It was Peter. The other Peter. No, the third Peter. One who was even older than Peter the second. As I watched the distracted bull moving away and Peter the third and I disappear out of the picture I realised something. The reason Peter the third had said he regretted — the way you use that word when you’re apologising on behalf of others — was because Peter the second, absolutely and completely and with no regrets at all, had tried to kill me. Peter the third had not come to win Miriam but to save me.

I swallowed.

The bartender gave me an enquiring look.

‘Brandy,’ I said.

‘Where are you?’ asked Miriam.

‘At a party out in the country,’ I said, peering up at the sky. But the sun had just set and it was still too early for stars. I had made my excuses and left the market square where a local dance band was now playing. Stopped beside an olive tree with the houses and the distant hubbub behind me, and in front of me vines stretching in rows all the way to the mountains. And there in the dusk I had called her.

‘Are you drunk?’

‘A little,’ I said. ‘Have you spoken to Peter?’

‘He called Mamma, the crafty thing. She took the call, and because I was sitting right beside her she handed it to me. She doesn’t know anything. All she knows is she wants him for a son-in-law.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He knew I’d met you in San Sebastián. Asked if we’d had a good time. Said he’d lost sight of you during the bull run and that you still hadn’t returned to the hotel. I started to get worried when you didn’t answer my text messages. That’s why I called you.’

‘I noticed that.’

‘Why didn’t you ring back earlier?’

‘It’s been a... a hectic day. I’ll tell you about it later, I’ve got people waiting for me.’

‘Oh yeah? That’s what Peter said.’

‘What did Peter say?’

‘That you’d definitely end up at a party with some chicas. So I guess he was right...’

Her tone of voice, half amused and half rebuking, made me smile.

‘Are you a bit jealous?’ I said.

‘Don’t be stupid, Martin.’

‘Say you’re a bit jealous. Just to make me feel good about myself.’

‘You are drunk.’

‘Say it. Please.’

In the ensuing silence I listened. The song of the cicadas had ceased with the setting of the sun. Either that or they were singing the way they do where I come from: at such a high frequency the human ear can’t pick it up. I thought about it, about vibrations, about all the things going on around us that we neither see, nor hear, or even know about.

‘I’m a tiny bit jealous. Just for you.’ I closed my eyes. A warmth — maybe it was happiness — washed through me.

‘I’ll come back to San Sebastián again early tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Breakfast?’

‘A good breakfast?’

‘I’ll call you when I’m on the bus or the train.’

‘OK.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘And you?’

No answer. She’d hung up. But I said it anyway.

‘I do. Really, really.’

I had just put the phone back in my pocket when it rang again.

‘Yes?’ I answered, still smiling, but instead of Miriam it was a different female voice:

‘Mister Daas? This is Imma Aluariz with the San Sebastián police. Where are you right now?’

My tongue felt dry, and I only just managed to resist the impulse to end the call at once.

‘I’m in Pamplona,’ I said. Vague enough, and not exactly a lie.

‘Me too,’ said Aluariz. ‘We need to talk to you.’

‘About what?’

‘You know about what.’

‘Am I... a suspect or something?’

‘Where exactly can we find you, Mister Daas?’

Two policemen — one in plain clothes, the other in uniform — led me from the car, past two other police cars in the direction of the house where Peter and I had rented rooms. The one in uniform lifted up the crime-scene tape, and we walked through the gate and then into the house. Instead of my own room they took me to Peter’s. They stopped me in the doorway. There were a number of people inside, two wearing white from head to foot. The bed was hidden by a short, stocky figure standing at the end of it.