Карин Фоссум - The Whisperer

She closed her eyes. Her heartbeat was calm and light, because her heart did not know what to do, and carried on with its job of keeping her alive, without judgement. The boy had stolen an orange. Did that mean that the mother had failed, she wondered, or did it mean that in some faraway land that she knew nothing about, a juicy orange was such an irresistible temptation for a poor boy that he could not stop himself? Would they chop off his hands, did he live in a country where they did things like that? She lay for a long time thinking about the picture. In her imagination, she was the woman and Rikard Josef was the boy. He had once, when he was eleven, stolen a big hunting knife from a sports shop, but the staff caught him red-handed. She had had to go and collect him and apologise on his behalf. She remembered the shame. She had had to promise the shop assistants that she would give him a serious talking-to, and she tried to recall what she had said. That he must never do that again, that he was not that kind of boy and she was not that kind of mother. And when she asked him why he had stolen it, he said that it was a good knife. I wanted it. Did the Agent know that? Was the picture a sign? The topic of the month was parenting and criminality.

She changed position several times before she finally settled and fell asleep. She dreamt that she was walking through an exotic market in a foreign country, buying fruit. And it was Irfan who owned all the stalls. Irfan stood there in a long white tunic, and she stopped and talked to him for a long time, she had a voice, and it was bright and clear as a bell, and Irfan clapped his hands in delight. He gave her a basket for the fruit and she picked out all the things that tempted her, plums and apricots and dates and other treats. She paid for an extra orange, the one her son had stolen, and put the coins in Irfan’s hand.

She did not know how long she had slept, curled up in the dark room. Maybe one hour, maybe four, time stands still when you sleep. But she thought it was still Sunday, and through the gap in the curtains she could see that it was still light. There was not a sound in the house, she could hear no traffic on the road, where was everyone, had everything stopped? She got up and walked slowly to the bathroom, as though there was something wrong with her legs. Not even Walther Eriksson would have been able to find anything alluring about the face that stared back at her from the mirror, not even with the best camera in the world. She thought her eyes looked darker, like the eyes of the woman at the market, the mother of the orange thief, a mother who had perhaps not fulfilled her duties as a good parent. She had not managed either, she realised, as Rikard Josef had just vanished. She looked around for some clothes but could not find anything other than an old nightgown that had been thrown on the floor. It had thin straps and a lace trim around the neck. She pulled it on over her head and went into the kitchen where the Agent was lying. She gasped when she saw the tarpaulin, as she was sure it had slipped. While she was asleep he had moved again, the mound was a different shape. This time he had without a doubt moved his arms and legs in an attempt to get across the floor, perhaps even to stand up. She went over to him, bent down and listened to see if he was breathing. She kicked his body gently, then again, and a third time, with no result. The initial gentle nudge with her foot became hard kicks, she had to be certain. He was down and she kicked him all the same, as people have always done. She was no different from anyone else, no better, and it was easier than when someone was standing.

She needed to put some more clothes on, she felt that it was cold. And she should put some wood in the burner. The woodpile under the window at the back of the house was no longer protected from the wind and weather, as the tarpaulin was in front of her on the floor. She looked up at the clock and discovered that she had been asleep for hours. Her hand-knitted cardigan was hanging on the back of the chair by the computer, she put it on, wrapped it tight around her and turned on the television. She switched to the news channel, sat on the edge of her chair and stared at the flickering screen. Perhaps they knew already. Maybe Agent Bennet had been reported missing. Could she stab someone with a knife without anyone noticing, could she cut a string forever, not just the thin thread of a conversation, but an entire physical entity, without any consequences? No, she could not. There were cameras everywhere on the street, maybe even in her own house, someone would have noticed something. She looked around and saw the two smoke alarms on the ceiling. They looked like beautiful UFOs, plate-shaped with a small mesh that looked like a window. They might have tricked her and installed a camera there instead; that was what society had become, everyone was being monitored. She noticed a small flashing red light in both of them, which she had not seen before. This made the UFOs even more alive, somehow, as if they were inhabited. She remembered there was also a detector installed in the kitchen, and if that was actually a camera, then the whole thing had been filmed. She went out and stood under the detector; the red light was flashing. That could be a sign that someone was sitting in the control room up there at this very moment watching her on a screen. Little Ragna Riegel in her nightgown and cardigan. She raised her hand and waved. Looked down at the green tarpaulin, smiled at the camera again, waved and pointed, waved and pointed. Then she pushed her bare feet down into a pair of boots and went round to the back of the house to get some wood.

The logs were covered in a fine film of frost, in beautiful tiny crystals. If she was going to do all that she had to, she at least needed some warmth, and perhaps also some food. And she did not want to greet people in her nightgown, even if it did have a lovely lace trim, and everything had to be in order when they came. As she knew they would, several of them. Or would they? Had she not already asked them for help several times, and yet no one had come? She got angry again. She stacked as much wood as she could balance on her arms and went back in, put it in the burner. When the fire was blazing, she sat down on the floor and stared into the flames. Her cheeks got even hotter, and her shoulders and chest. What need was there for anything else when you had a fire? The flickering tongues transported her elsewhere, they crackled and danced, became a living being that she had to keep alive. As long as the fire burned, time stood still. For a while she looked at one log, then at another. The glittering snow crystals had long since melted and evaporated, the living room was as hot as a baker’s oven, she had to take the woolly cardigan off. She did not want to hear another sound from Bennet now, but snuck out to the kitchen to make sure, tiptoeing closer. She thought once again that the green nylon fabric had changed shape — now the mound was spread out over the floor like some great, formless single-celled organism, an enormous amoeba. Her father had explained this to her when she was little, that this happened to all of life. And it would happen to her, she too would take on another form. She would die and then she would come back as something else.

‘As what though?’ she had asked. With her small hand in his big one.

‘A small animal, maybe,’ her father had replied.

‘Oh!’ she had exclaimed. ‘Can I choose which animal?’

‘I’m sure you can,’ he had said.

She had squeezed his hand and said that she hoped she would be a small squirrel, and he said that he could picture that squirrel perfectly. Quick and bright, with a shiny coat, just like her. He winked at her, and she asked if it took a long time to change shape, and come back again. Oh yes, he thought, it took a long time. It takes a thousand years. But the trees will still be here, so you can play in them and hunt for nuts.