Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘Well, my dear Father. If it’s any comfort, that actually hurt quite a lot.’ Ken looks at his watch. ‘Comfort for the last few remaining minutes of your life.’

With a great effort the father lifts his head.

‘Why, Ken? In God’s name, why?’

Ken sits down beside his father and puts an arm around his shoulder.

‘Why? Why d’you think? Same reason I’ve been going around with that rifle just waiting for a situation to arise in which I could blame a hunting accident, a stray shot or whatever you call it. Money, Father. Money.’

Emerson’s head droops down again. ‘So that was why you came? For your inheritance?’

With his free hand Ken slaps his father on the back. A throbbing pain has now started spreading in the area around the bite and the needle marks in the other arm.

‘I read a depressing article about the age wave in the Guardian. You know the life expectancy of middle-class men between fifty and fifty-five who haven’t yet had a heart attack or got cancer? Ninety-two. I’ve got a few creditors who aren’t willing to wait that long, Father. But I think it will ease their minds considerably when I return as the sole heir and with your death certificate in my hand.’

‘You could have just asked for the money.’

‘A million pounds? Even I’m not that cheeky, Father.’

Ken gives a loud laugh. Instantly his laughter is answered from the other side of the river where a pack of grey-brown hyenas have arrived and are observing them with curiosity. Ken shivers.

‘Where did they come from?’

‘They can smell it,’ says Emerson.

‘Smell? Surely you haven’t begun to smell already.’

‘Death. They recognise the smell of it. I’ve seen it before.’

‘Well. They’re ugly, they’re stupid and they’re on the other side of the river. I hate them.’

‘That’s because they’re morally superior to us.’

Ken looks on in surprise as his father continues:

‘No freedom of choice, no morality, you’re probably thinking. But if freedom of choice means being able to force your nature, and morality is to will it, then why are we so unhappy?’

Emerson Abbott raises his head again and smiles sadly.

‘Well, it’s because we fool ourselves into thinking we could have done things differently. We think having souls gives us the ability to act in ways that are not just designed to benefit ourselves. But we can’t. And the proof is that we are here, we still exist. We eat our fathers and sons when we must, not from hate but out of love of life. And yet we think we’ll burn in hell for it. And maybe we will. That’s why the cobra which chooses to eat its own young is morally superior to us. It doesn’t feel a moment’s shame, because there is no sin, just the consuming will to live. Understand? You are your only redeemer. And redemption comes only when you do what you have to do to survive.’

Ken’s on the point of replying when a sudden pain in his chest causes him to lose his breath.

‘Something wrong?’ asks the father.

‘I...’

‘You have a pain in your chest,’ said his father. Suddenly his voice is normal again. ‘That’s how it starts.’

‘Starts? What...’

‘The Egyptian cobra. You do remember how we went through this?’

‘But...’

‘Nerve poison. First, burning pains around the site of the bite that gradually spread to the rest of the body. The skin around the bite becomes discoloured, the arms and legs swell up, and then comes a feeling of drowsiness. And then, towards the end: accelerating heart rate, discharges from the mouth and eyes, paralysis at the back of the throat making it difficult to speak or breathe before the advent of the final stage: the nerve poison paralyses the heart and lungs and you die. It can take hours and is extremely painful.’

‘Father!’

‘You sound surprised, son. Weren’t you paying attention in class?’

‘But you... you seem... better.’

‘No, you can’t have been paying attention,’ says the father with a thoughtful look on his face. ‘Or you would have noticed the difference between an Egyptian cobra and an African rock python.’

‘African... rock python?’

‘Aggressive and unpleasant, but not poisonous.’ His father sits up and rolls his neck. ‘You’re right, I’m absolutely fine. But how are you? Do you notice how your throat is beginning to constrict, son? In a little while the cramps will come, and that really isn’t something to look forward to.’

‘But we...’

‘Were bitten by the same snake. Mysterious, isn’t it? Maybe what you took is a little different from what’s in me.’

Ken’s mind clouds over. He looks at the empty test tube on the ground, tries to get up but his legs won’t carry him. His armpits have started aching.

‘If you’d been paying attention in class you would have checked the cork on the test tube before injecting yourself, Ken.’

Red, thought Ken. Red cork. He’s injected poison into his own arm.

‘But there were no other test tubes for the Egyptian cobra, I checked them all. None with a blue cork, no antidote...’

His father shrugs. Ken gasps for air. The buzzing of insects has become a steady pressure against his eardrums.

‘You knew it all along. You knew... why... I came.’

‘No, I didn’t know. But I’m not stupid so I didn’t completely exclude it either. And of course, I would have stopped you had you tried to inject me with it.’

Ken can’t feel the tears coursing down his cheeks.

‘Father... drive me back now. Time is...’

But his father seems not to have heard him. He is on his feet now and peering across to the other side of the river.

‘Adolf says they’re good swimmers, though I’ve never seen it myself.’

Ken slides down and remains lying on his back, staring up at the sky. The sun is still high above the trees on the hilltop, but he knows that come seven o’clock it will be as though someone cuts an invisible thread, and the sun will tumble in free fall below the horizon and within fifteen minutes all will be pitch-black. The white bird screeches again. It flaps its wings and two seconds later Ken sees it crossing his field of vision. It’s so beautiful.

‘Time to be getting back,’ says his father. ‘Adolf will have dinner ready soon.’

Ken hears his father pick up the bag with the serum inside and then hears him move away. For a few seconds there is silence. Then he hears splashing sounds from the water. Ken Abbott knows he hasn’t a chance.

‘You can feel your eyelids getting heavy,’ I said.

The pocket-watch — maker unknown but weighted by sufficient gold to keep it swaying steadily for some time — had been in the family’s possession since 1870.

‘You are feeling tired. Close your eyes.’

The silence was complete. The street-facing windows were triple-glazed, so that not even the chiming from the mighty bells of the Duomo di Milano penetrated. It was so quiet that the absence of ticking was noticeable. The hands were splayed out on each side from the moment the watch breathed its last. Now the mute object was minus the function a watch is meant for.

‘When you wake up you will not remember that you were gravid or that you’ve had an abortion. The child never existed.’

I felt suddenly on the verge of tears. When I lost my own child I also lost what we psychologists call my affective control, meaning that I could whimper and blubber over the slightest thing that reminded me of it. I pulled myself together and continued: ‘It will seem to you as though you came here to be cured of a nicotine addiction.’

Ten minutes later I carefully woke Fru Karlsson from her trance.