Карин Фоссум - The Whisperer

She opened the packet of serviettes, felt the soft paper, and considered her options. What could she make with these? She ran quickly through the steps that she had learned as a girl, and then started to fold a swan with beautiful tail feathers. She had not forgotten how to do it, the folds were in her fingers. Despite the soft paper, the magnificent bird with its long neck stayed upright. She folded another one, identical to the first. Put them down in front of the gravestone, facing each other like two lovers, because they had loved each other, for better and for worse, though often it had been for worse. No, not worse, it had just been difficult. What is it about us? She felt miserable. Why can’t we cope? What is the point of that? She kneeled in the snow for a long time looking at the swans, they were proud and beautiful, just like her parents. The wind would catch them soon, and the snow, maybe even the same night. They would be blown away and chased from grave to grave until one of the workers noticed them and picked them up because he thought they were rubbish, just some wet paper, not a declaration of love. She stayed there for a long time. She burned the image into her mind, until she was sure she could recall it whenever she needed it.

By then she was stiff and cold. She managed to stand up and was about to leave when a gust of wind raced through the graveyard, lifting up one of the swans. It flew a couple of metres and she ran after it, but just as she was about pick it up, there was another gust of wind, which was stronger than the first. She felt desperate as she watched the bird disappear between the gravestones, into the dark where there was no spotlight. She went over to look. She checked behind each grave, went to the right, then the left, further and further into the graveyard. It could not just disappear like that! She continued to search, walked in the other direction, towards the front of the church, even though that was not the way the bird had flown. No one saw her as she wandered around bare-legged, no one would understand her desperation, it was just a serviette. Then she suddenly found it, it had settled next to one of the rubbish bins by the wall. Relieved, she took it back and placed it in front of the grave again, listened to the wind, which had dropped. When she came out onto the slippery path down to the square, she lost her balance and fell forward, and her right knee hit the paving with force. Tears sprang to her eyes as the pain shot to her head and she let out a despairing howl, which no one heard. For a moment she lay there and tried to move her leg. Maybe she had broken her kneecap, maybe she would never make it down to the square, and if she was not able to do that, she would freeze to death. No one would come to the church until morning. She scrabbled around for her bag, got hold of it and pulled it to her, then managed to get up, and gingerly put some weight on her right leg to see if it would hold her. It was extremely painful, but she hobbled slowly down towards the bus stop, dragging her leg behind her. All she wanted now was to get home and sit down in the chair in front of the stove. Maybe someone had been to her house and sorted everything out, given that the door was open. While she stood waiting, she put all her weight on the left leg. The injured one throbbed and ached intensely and she was afraid that she would not be able to get onto the bus as the steps were so steep. When it finally came and the doors slid open, she grabbed hold of the handrail and used all her strength to haul herself up. Once she was sitting in the warmth and light of the bus, she pulled up her coat to look at her knee. It was very red and much bigger than the left one.

She was surprised when she opened the unlocked door and went into her house, limping in the heavy wellies. She thought it strange that no one had come, that she was back in the same incomprehensible situation. This was her own little world; the others were all elsewhere. But she was happy. She thought of the swans as good work. Her mother had taught her a lot about duty, dignity, patience and humility. Her father had taught her many other things, but his was a wisdom she could not put a name to. It was all about being in the moment, opening your senses. Taking each second as it comes, not fighting it. She was in the moment now. Her bare legs were blue with cold and her knee was red and swollen, but she was still in one piece. Her bones were rattling, she could hear that, but she managed to cross the room. There was not even an ember in the wood burner now, just soot on the glass. She stood in the kitchen doorway to check the tarpaulin. There was no noticeable change in the shape, but she thought that the fabric was vibrating with life. Perhaps the warmth in the Agent’s body had been transferred to the tarpaulin, where it had woken to life thousands of microorganisms. Maybe, given time, they would eat him up. In her mind, she set fire to it all. Bennet with his long nails and prophecies of death. It occurred to her that the tarpaulin might not burn as it was synthetic, and would probably just melt into his cheap suit, and deposit chemicals on his pale skin. They would have to bury him in it, a hard, synthetic shell that could not be removed.

She put some wood in the burner. It was dark outside, and there was no traffic on the road. She thought about the night ahead, and the day that would follow, Monday. Because it was Monday tomorrow, wasn’t it, or had she got confused? She thought she had an early shift. Gunnhild would phone as soon as they opened, if she did not show up.

I feel so heavy, Ragna thought, my joints feel loose, and my knee hurts. There’s a great stone inside me, I’m cold and I haven’t eaten and I don’t know why all this has happened. I just know that it started a long time ago. I can’t wander around in the aisles at Europris with the pricing machine in this state. It was not the bones in themselves, she realised, it was the ligaments that held them in place that were about to snap. I’ll come apart at the seams like a ragdoll. The fire was soon burning merrily and she felt warm and peaceful. She saw some white letters on the TV screen. She had forgotten to turn it off before she went out. There was no picture any more, just a message that appeared when the television had been left on for too long.

NO SIGNAL.

She turned it off, and then on again, and got the picture back. It was good to watch the news, to see how everyone else was living their lives. The seven billion people beneath the veil that she would soon be cut off from for a long time. From now on, she had to live each minute in her own head. As if she had not always done that anyway.

She spent the night on the sofa. The pain in her knee kept her awake, but she was all right with that, she wanted to be awake when they came to the house. With the daylight came a message from Gunnhild, asking if everything was all right.

Ragna thought about the Agent in the kitchen. She did not want Gunnhild to come to the house. Someone else had to come, a man, several men, people who would not lose their heads, who would act according to set procedures, who had been into similar kitchens before. She sent a message back to say that she had all she needed, that she just wanted to rest. But after a while she got up all the same, dragged her sore leg behind her. And sat down to wait. She had pulled the chair over to the window, so she could see them as soon as they came. Every now and then she cried a little when she thought about what lay ahead, all that she would have to explain, without a voice. At other times she was overwhelmed by exhaustion and dragged herself back to the sofa, and when it started to get dark, and still no one had come, she went to bed. She wanted it to be Tuesday, because she was sure they would come then. She ate nothing and drank nothing, she was so weak it was almost like being intoxicated. She rose and sank, hovered and floated, there was a rushing in her ears. She thought about the two serviette swans, saw them clearly in her mind’s eye and was glad that her brain had stored that important memory. She thought about the empty flat in Landsberger Allee, where Rikard Josef no longer lived. She thought about the young orange thief and the pictures of him she had burnt in the fire. Who was to blame for him stealing, was it anyone’s fault at all, and what was guilt, and what should one do with guilt, could it be washed away or forgiven, was it a coating that would always stick with her?