Карин Фоссум - The Whisperer

He’ll get bored of the game, Ragna thought, after a while. Soon I’ll be able to shake off this unease, laugh about it and forget it. It will die down, in the same way that the memory of Walther Eriksson has burned out, and my grief that Rikard Josef has gone to Berlin and doesn’t contact me, other than sending garish cards with ready-printed words. That had also died down. The distance between them had become normal, a habit. That was how her life was now. She reflected on her own cowardice for a moment, it was like a cold shower. Why had she never taken him up on it, demanded an explanation? Had she neglected him, was he perhaps embarrassed about her, or was he just a man who found intimacy and contact difficult? But then what about the hotel, she thought in the next moment. A successful, five-star hotel, with all the guests and staff, he had to deal with them constantly. He would have to talk to them, care about them and serve them. Did I treat him badly? Is there something essential that I didn’t give him? No! Her throat tightened. She felt irritated, she did not want to think about all this again, it was that stupid message making her so sensitive. She reminded herself that intimacy and contact were not something that was automatic in every family. Some people didn’t want it, some people weren’t good at it. Lots of people just upped and left, some even went to the other side of the world. They did not necessarily leave because they were bitter, or because they hated their roots. After all, Rikard Josef sent Christmas and birthday cards, and she sent him cards too, there was still a line of communication. But ringing or sending an email would be crossing a boundary; it would seem confrontational and invasive, she felt. Not that she had his email address, just a mobile number that she never dared to ring. And anyway, he had never accused her of anything, never expressed any kind of anger or hurt, and she certainly was not going to disinherit him for that. I don’t have any claims, she realised, he’s his own boss. Rikard Josef just wanted to live his own life in Hotel Dormero. As the top manager.

She had got into the habit of glancing down to the road whenever she passed the window. Not that she expected to catch the letter writer red-handed, bent over the mailbox, but something had come into her life that made her nervous and agitated. It was like her body was fevered. She could not help it, she kept watching what was going on in a new way, and even the planes overhead were studied carefully. There was a fair amount of traffic along Kirkelina. She heard the sound of the cars, a steady hum, especially in the afternoon. The new articulated buses that were now in use were eighteen metres long and so could not pull into the bus stop and had to stand in the road, causing a jam. She thought about the letter writer again, she thought about him more and more. He had attached himself like a burr. How pathetic, she thought, how sad. A loser, an anonymous coward. Riff-raff. And yet she could not bring herself to tell anyone, not Olaf next door, not her colleagues at work. Every now and then it struck her that he might not be an idiot at all, but a perfectly ordinary man with a wife and children, someone who wanted for nothing in his life. He just had a secret perversion. That frightened her even more. Often when she sat thinking like this, she felt her nails digging into the palms of her hands, her own modest form of anger, which she did not know how to channel, other than back on herself. Going to bed at night was a good thing. Another day without threats. She would often stand for a long time by the open bedroom window to cool down, as her cheeks were so warm. She must not fuel this flame, not at any price.

But one evening she sat down to write to her son in Berlin, all the same. Just a short letter, nothing much. He might wonder why she had written, after all, she had never done it before, and it was not Christmas or his birthday; she was not selling the house or moving, and she was not seriously ill, nor was she getting married. It was of course connected to the message, it made her behave differently, think differently. She took care to keep a light tone. The short greeting must not make him worried or signal something new, or in any way come across as a demand that he respond immediately. But she felt impelled to say hello, to remind him that she was sitting there all alone in the old house where he had grown up. And that he was still part of her daily life, in her thoughts, he must never think otherwise. But she wanted to create a space for herself in his life too, it was never too late and it was important, they were both still young. In her mind, as she sat there writing as beautifully as she could, she was standing in the lobby of the Hotel Dormero, where she had never been before. In December, the staff would decorate a tree with lovely twinkling lights, for the enjoyment of all who stepped inside. She was sure that it was her son who oversaw this. That he decided where the tree should stand, and how it should be decorated. She could just picture him, standing there directing the staff in a firm voice, pointing, dressed in an elegant, dark suit. He might even have a gold badge with ‘Director’ written on it. Or ‘Manager’. Suddenly, she was not sure of her son’s title.

Dear Rikard Josef ,

Just sending a quick hello from the cold North. Christmas is approaching and I’m sure you have more than enough to do at the hotel. We are already putting Santa Clauses and angels made in China and Taiwan on the shelves, and Christmas songs play on a loop from morning to night. The grown-ups are stressed, but Rikard, you should see the children, with their red cheeks and sparkling eyes. Thinking of you at this busy time .

She signed the letter ‘Mum’ and the image of him disappeared. She felt that she had crossed a line. She was afraid he would feel guilty. Perhaps she should wait and send it nearer to Christmas.

But she put a stamp on the envelope all the same and left it on the sideboard in the hall. It was a thin, shiny white envelope that would brighten the bottom of his mailbox on Landsberger Allee when he put his hand in to fish it out. He would turn it over and see the Norwegian stamp. There was no mention of the death threat she had received. Not a word.

‘Things that I had accepted long ago, suddenly became an issue again,’ Ragna whispered. ‘Like Rikard Josef. The fact that we were not a part of each other’s lives and I had never dared ask him for an explanation. That he had just left, betrayed me in a way. That I had lost my voice, and never went out. Other people with bigger disabilities were out all the time, with their sticks or in their wheelchairs. Everything was suddenly so painfully clear. Someone had seen me in the crowd, despite me doing everything I could to be invisible.’

She smiled apologetically after each confession. She was keen to explain herself, but also sorry to burden Sejer, to take up his time and space, even though that was unavoidable as she was being questioned.

‘You must have looked for answers,’ Sejer said. ‘Did you go to bed at night relieved that you had received no more threats? Perhaps you expected nothing more to happen. Did you ever think there was something you could do?’

She put her hand to the scar on her neck. Presumably she could feel it under her fingertips like a thick thread.

‘I thought about going out into town,’ she admitted. ‘Walking around the streets. Making myself visible. Going into shops and cafes, sitting on a bench by the market square, feeding the pigeons. I considered going to the cinema in the evening, or walking along the river. Making sure I was visible to everyone all the time. As if to say to him: come and get me.’

‘But you didn’t do it?’