Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘But it’ll also damage their reputation if they get publicly shamed for not being child-friendly.’

‘The child doesn’t give a damn if it’s crying in business or economy class.’

‘You’re right, I meant for not being parent-of-small-child-friendly.’ I smiled. ‘The airlines are probably worried it’ll look like a kind of apartheid. Of course, the problem could be solved if anyone crying in the business section was made to sit in the economy section and had to give up their seat to a smiling, easy-going person with a cheap ticket.’

Your laughter was soft and attractive, and this time it got as far as your eyes. It’s easy to think — and I did think — that it’s incomprehensible how anyone could be unfaithful to a woman as beautiful as you, but that’s how it is: it isn’t about external beauty. Nor inner beauty either.

‘What line of work are you in?’ you asked.

‘I’m a psychologist and researcher.’

‘And what are you researching?’

‘People.’

‘Of course. And what are your findings?’

‘That Freud was right.’

‘About what?’

‘That people, with just a few exceptions, are pretty much worthless.’

You laughed. ‘Amen to that, Mr...’

‘Call me Shaun.’

‘Maria. But you don’t really believe that, Shaun, do you?’

‘That with a few exceptions people are worthless? Why shouldn’t I believe that?’

‘You’ve shown that you’re compassionate, and to a genuine misanthropist compassion means nothing.’

‘I see. So why should I lie about it?’

‘For the same reason, because you’re a compassionate person. You play up to me discreetly by claiming to be afraid of flying, same as me. When I tell you I’m being betrayed you comfort me by telling me how the world is full of bad people.’

‘Wow. And I thought I was supposed to be the psychologist here.’

‘See, even your choice of career betrays you. You might as well just admit it, you’re the best proof against your own proposition. You’re a worthwhile person.’

‘I wish that were the case, Maria, but I’m afraid my apparent compassion is merely the result of a bourgeois English upbringing, and that I’m not worth much to anyone other than myself.’

You turned your body a couple of almost imperceptible degrees closer to me. ‘Then it’s your upbringing that gives you worth, Shaun. So what? It’s what you do, not what you think and feel, that gives you value.’

‘I think you’re exaggerating. My upbringing means only that I don’t like to break the rules for what is considered acceptable behaviour, I don’t make any genuine sacrifices. I adapt, and I avoid unpleasantness.’

‘Well, at least as a psychologist you have value.’

‘I’m a disappointment there too, I’m afraid. I’m not intelligent or industrious enough ever to discover a cure for schizophrenia. If the plane went down now all the world would lose would be a rather boring article on confirmation bias in a scientific periodical read by a handful of psychologists, that’s all.’

‘Are you being coy?’

‘Yes, I’m coy too. That’s another of my vices.’

By now you were laughing brightly. ‘Not even your wife and children would miss you if you disappeared?’

‘No,’ I answered abruptly. Since I had the aisle seat I couldn’t just end the conversation by turning to the window and pretending to have spotted something interesting in the dead of the night down there in the Atlantic. To pull the magazine out of the seat pocket in front of me would seem too obvious.

‘Sorry,’ you said quietly.

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘What did you mean when you said you were going to die?’

Our eyes met and for the first time we saw each other. And though this might be with the benefit of hindsight, I think we both caught a glimpse of something that told us, even then, that this was a meeting that just might change everything. Indeed, that had already changed everything. Perhaps you were thinking that too but then were distracted as you leaned over the armrest towards me and noticed how I stiffened.

The scent of your perfume had made me think of her. That it was her smell, that she had come back. So you leaned back in your seat and looked at me.

‘I’m going to kill myself,’ you whispered.

Then you leaned back in your seat and studied me.

I don’t know what my face expressed, but I knew you weren’t lying.

‘How do you propose to do it?’ was all I could think to say.

‘Shall I tell you?’ you asked with an impenetrable, almost amused smile.

I thought about it. Did I want to know?

‘Anyway it’s not really true,’ you said. ‘In the first place, I’m not going to kill myself, I’ve already done it. And in the second place, it’s not me who’s killing myself, it’s them.’

‘Them?’

‘Yes. I signed the agreement about...’ You looked at your watch, a Cartier. I guessed it was a present from this Robert. Before or after he was unfaithful? After. This Melissa wasn’t the first, he’d been unfaithful from the beginning. ‘...four hours ago.’

‘Them?’ I repeated.

‘The suicide agency.’

‘You mean... like in Switzerland? As in, assisted suicide?’

‘Yes, only with more assistance. The difference is that they kill you in such a way that it doesn’t look like suicide.’

‘Really?’

‘You look as if you don’t believe me.’

‘I...oh yes, yes I do. I’m just very surprised.’

‘I can understand that. And this has to be just between us, because there’s a confidentiality clause in the contract, so I’m not actually supposed to talk to anyone about it. It’s just...’ You smiled, at the same time as the tears welled up in your eyes again. ‘...so intolerably lonely. And you are a stranger. And a psychologist. You’re pledged to confidentiality, right?’

I coughed. ‘In regard to patients, yes.’

‘Well then, I’m your patient. I can see you have a vacant appointment right now. What is your fee, doctor?’

‘I’m afraid we can’t do it like that, Maria.’

‘Of course not, that would be against the rules of the profession. But surely you can just listen as a private individual?’

‘You must understand that it presents ethical problems for me as a psychologist if someone with suicidal tendencies confides in me without my doing anything about it.’

‘You don’t understand. It’s too late to do anything about it, I am already dead.’

‘You’re dead?’

‘The contract is non-reversible, I will be killed within three weeks. They explain to you in advance, that once you’ve signed your name to the contract, there is no panic button, that if they allowed that it might create all kinds of legal complications afterwards. You’re sitting next to a corpse, Shaun.’ She laughed, but now her laughter was hard and bitter. ‘Surely you can have a drink with me and listen for a while?’ You raised a long, slender arm to the service button and its sonar ping rang through the darkness of the cabin.

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘But I am not going to give you any advice.’

‘Fine. And you promise not to talk about it later, even after I’m dead?’

‘I promise,’ I said. ‘Although I can’t see what difference it would make to you.’

‘Oh it would. If I break the confidentiality clause in the contract they can sue my estate for a fortune, and that would leave almost nothing for the organisation I’m leaving the money to.’

‘How can I help?’ asked the stewardess who had soundlessly materialised beside us. You leaned across me and ordered gin and tonics for both of us. The neck of your pullover fell forward slightly, and I saw the naked, pale skin and realised that you did not have her smell. Your smell was faintly sweet, aromatic, like petrol. Yes, petrol. And a kind of tree the name of which I could not recall. It was an almost masculine smell.