Hakan Nesser - The Inspector and Silence

BM:

Everybody’s having a great time.

VV:

Everybody?

BM:

Why are you asking? Obviously somebody might get a bit sad now and again. Is that so odd?

CH:

I know everybody thinks it’s great here. What we are doing and learning is important.

VV:

Can you tell me a bit about the three basic principles, prayer, purity and self-denial?

CH:

Those are the basic principles, sort of. That’s what everything is based on.

VV:

What is meant by purity?

CH:

You have to be pure when you meet your God, but I think BM:

You don’t understand all this. If you’re not a member of the church, you shouldn’t start asking lots of questions.

VV:

Do you have to be naked in order to be pure?

CH:

Yes… No.

BM:

No, you don’t have to be, and anyway it’s nothing to do with you.

VV:

Do you have visitors?

BM:

No, it’s not good to have visitors when we’re busy learning.

VV:

But you phone home now and then, I suppose?

CH:

We don’t phone, because BM:

We write letters. That’s just as good.

VV:

So you’re not allowed to use the telephone?

CH:

I suppose we might be, but we don’t.

VV:

What’s the name of the girl who was only here at the beginning?

CH:

Eh? What do you mean by that?

BM:

I think you should stop being so rude. You are accusing us of lots of things you have no idea about. It’s cowardly of you to attack us like this.

VV:

Why don’t you have any boys in your church?

BM:

Of course we have boys in the Pure Life, but not at this camp. They have one of their own. I don’t think we want to talk to you any more now.

[Five seconds of silence. The sound of chairs scraping.]

VV:

All right. Let’s leave it at that. Run away and wash your souls, and tell that Yellinek to look up Isaiah 55:8.

BM:

Eh?

VV:

There’s a book called the Bible. I thought you were familiar with it.

CH:

Isaiah?

VV:

Yes, 55:8. So, off with you now, and wash yourselves clean!

He stopped the tape and slumped back onto the pillows. Lay there motionless for several minutes, searching for a way of putting into words the emotions careering around inside him.

Or a metaphor at least.

But there was nothing. Nothing occurred to him, and no thoughts crystallized in his brain. Only the word ‘impotence’, which was beginning to feel like an old acquaintance by this time. A disconsolate, ancient relative determined not to die, but who refused to be cast out – perhaps because of the very relationship.

He sighed. Noted that the bottles of beer were unfortunately empty and stood up. Went over to the window and looked out over the lake, where the last canoeists of the day were mooring at the jetties. It was a few minutes after half past nine, and shades of blue were busy transforming the evening light into mellow summer darkness.

A July night, Van Veeteren thought. ‘A summer night’s no time for sleep’, or something along those lines – who had written that?

No matter, the thought had merit. A little evening stroll and a glass of white wine seemed to be in order. To help him shake off the thought of that old acquaintance, if nothing else.

And to help him make up his mind to leave here. There was no longer any substantial reason for him to continue this putative investigation. The debt he owed Malijsen could surely be considered paid – no matter how you calculated it – and it was hard to see any rational reason for launching more attacks on the Waldingen camp. No matter how hard one might try to find one.

Mind you, perhaps old Borkmann had a point when he used to claim that: Reason has an elder sister, never forget that. She’s called Intuition.

She finally found the body long after the sun had set. Darkness had begun to spread through the pine trees, and for one confused moment she wondered if it wasn’t just an illusion after all. A bizarre mirage, this sudden sight of a girl’s white skin gleaming at her through the brushwood – perhaps it would disappear the moment it occurred to her to close her eyes.

But she didn’t close her eyes. The inner voice that had led her here would not allow her to close her eyes. She would have to act, to undertake the incomprehensible task it had given her.

There was no arguing, she must do it.

Where did it come from, this voice that drove her? She didn’t know, but presumably it was the only source of strength available to her in the nightmare she was experiencing. The only thing that kept her going, and made her take these measures and steps – it must be something based inside herself nevertheless; a side of her that she had never in her life needed to make use of, but it had now kicked in and made sure that whatever had to be done really was in fact done. A sort of reserve, she thought, an unknown well from which she could scoop out water, but over which – at some point in the distant future, may God please ensure that she soon got there! – she must place a heavy lid of forgetfulness. Plant the grass of time upon it: I am the grass; I cover all, as the poet said – why on earth should she think of poetry now? – so that neither she herself nor any other person could suspect what she had used its water for. Or even that it had been there.

In the distant future.

The well. Her strength. The inner voice.

It was very dark now. She must have been standing there, staring at the incomprehensible, for an incredibly long time, even if she hadn’t been aware of it. She switched on her torch for a moment, but realized that light would do her no favours in these circumstances, and switched it off again. Pushed some twigs aside and pulled out the whole of the thin, naked body. Bowed down on one knee and took hold of it under its back and under its knees; was briefly surprised by the stiffness in the muscles and joints, and was reminded fleetingly of the body of a little foal when she had been present at a failed birth many years ago.

The body was not heavy, below forty kilograms for sure, and she was able to carry it with little difficulty. She hesitated for a moment, wondering about various alternatives, but eventually came to a place where she could hear that inner voice once more. Carefully – as if displaying some kind of perverted respect no matter what the circumstances – she placed the body in a half-sitting position against the trunk of an aspen tree: an enormous aspen with a whole sky of whispering leaves – and began to cover it over with what she could find in the way of branches and twigs and last year’s husks.

Not to hide it, of course. Merely to shield it a little in the name of dignity and propriety.

When she had finished it was so dark that she couldn’t see the result of her work, but for the sake of respect and reverence, she stood there for a while, head bowed and hands clasped.

Perhaps she said a prayer. Perhaps it was merely a jumble of words passing through her mind.

Then she suddenly felt a white-hot flash of terror. She retraced her steps rapidly and collected the spade from where she had left it. Continued on to the road, and hurried away as fast as her legs would carry her.

‘Intuition?’ said Przebuda, and smiled over the rim of his wine glass. ‘Surely you’re not telling me that you are troubled by doubts as far as intuition is concerned? Myself, I rely upon it without question, I simply think it’s a talent that has skipped a few stages – in the chain of cause and effect, that is. Or gives the impression of having skipped them. It’s a bit more advanced, but there’s no essential difference. We have it, but we don’t understand how we are in a position to have it. I mean, we absorb enormous amounts of information every second… Everything is stored away, but only a tiny portion of that gets as far as our active consciousness. The rest stays there, sending out its signals – usually in vain, simply because we are so unreceptive. Let’s face it, we’re only human after all.’