Thomas Enger - Scarred

Remi tightens his fists when he remembers the conversation they had a few days after she had told him about the pregnancy. Though she never said so outright, he realised that Johanne had been whispering in her ear and told her no, you can’t do this, Emilie. Don’t throw your life away. It’s too soon to have kids.

So what are you going to do? You’re not going to marry him, are you?

Johanne had never liked him much even though he had saved her life when she choked on that kebab outside the takeaway. He could see it in her eyes.

He finally got his proof a couple of days ago in the form of the message Johanne had sent to Emilie on Facebook.

Just as well you ended up with Mattis. It could have been much much worse ☺☺☺

A red ride-on tractor is parked on the shingle outside the garage. All Remi can think about is what it would have been like to live in this house, in its warmth. With her and Sebastian. It should have been like this. She said it would be.

The front door opens and a man comes out. A man who shouldn’t be there. He walks down the steps and smiles to himself, he looks so bloody smug, just like Erna Pedersen’s son in the picture the old hag had hanging on her wall.

Then something clouds Remi’s vision. He can’t see that he has started to move, he just feels it, he hears the shingle crunch under his feet. He doesn’t say anything, either; he can just about make out that the garage door glides open and something shiny and expensive appears behind it. He doesn’t feel his hands, his arms or his head, doesn’t feel them make contact, doesn’t hear the punch or the crack. And he doesn’t know what he has done before he realises that his knuckles are red.

‘How the hell did you know that?’ Bjarne asks as he starts to run.

‘Forget it,’ Henning says, trying to keep up. ‘What’s going on?’

The distant between them grows with each step.

‘Where are you going?’

Bjarne turns his head, but increases his speed. Henning tries to follow, but his body protests.

‘Are you going to Jessheim?’ Henning calls out after him, but Bjarne just keeps on running. ‘Can I get a lift? I think I’ve earned it, don’t you?’

Henning stops outside the entrance to the police station’s underground car park and watches Bjarne disappear inside. A few seconds later a car starts up in the darkness below. Tyres squeal. A fan belt complains. Then a grey Volvo estate comes towards Henning at a furious pace and brakes abruptly right by his feet. The window is already down.

Henning looks inside and meets Bjarne’s wide-open eyes.

‘Go on then, get in!’

Emilie looks up from Mattis’s bloodied face and stares at the man who appears right behind him. With a hard push he shoves Mattis into the hallway, follows him and locks the door behind them.

‘Remi?’ she exclaims.

Remi keeps pushing Mattis towards the living room and stares at her with glazed eyes.

‘You,’ he says, pointing at her. ‘Come here.’

Emilie stands rooted to the spot.

‘But—’

‘Come here,’ Remi demands again, louder this time.

From the kitchen they hear the sound of quiet weeping. It grows and becomes increasingly desperate. Emilie sees the look Remi sends her little boy. A look that is seething with rage.

Emilie blocks the door.

‘Please,’ she says. ‘Don’t—’

But Remi interrupts her by raising his index finger, grabbing hold of her and forcing her into the living room. Mattis tries to stop him, but he has never been much of a fighter, nor is he particularly strong and Remi wards off the attack with a punch that hits him in the mouth. Mattis crashes on to the floor.

Sebastian cries even louder.

‘Please,’ Mattis stutters through split lips. ‘Take whatever you want. Only please don’t hurt us.’

Remi says nothing.

‘Just leave us alone. Please,’ Mattis implores him.

Emilie has no idea what is going on. And then there is Remi, who—

Remi’s army jacket. It’s khaki. Remi was the man with the camera outside Sebastian’s nursery the other morning. Her gaze shifts to the wall, to the framed picture. The two footprints in the sand.

Emilie clasps her mouth with both hands while her eyes well up. Remi grabs Mattis and pushes him towards the dining table. In his hands he holds a thick green rope that Emilie recognises from the garage. He orders Mattis to sit down.

Mattis does as he is told and sits on the floor next to a table leg. The sweat pours from his forehead and mingles with blood that stains his bright white shirt. A sob escapes from Emilie’s lips as she sees the madness in Remi’s eyes, a wide-eyed expression that is new to her, as if he has become someone else. She watches him tie single, double and triple knots, criss-crossing the rope and tightening it so hard that Mattis groans. Sebastian is still crying in the kitchen.

‘Get that kid to shut up,’ Remi snarls and wags an angry finger at her. ‘Make him shut up, or I will.’

Emilie sniffles, turns around and goes out into the kitchen. She kneels down to Sebastian, wipes his face, hushes him, says it’ll be all right, it’ll be all right, you just have to be very, very quiet, listen to me everything is going to be all right if you can just be very, very quiet. But it’s no use. Mattis, too, tries to call out words of reassurance to Sebastian from the living room, but to no avail. Sebastian keeps crying, his wailing rises and falls. Emilie looks around for a dummy. Finds none.

‘Where is his room?’ Remi says in a harsh voice as he comes up behind her. He grabs hold of her arm and holds her tight. Emilie tries to wriggle free, but his grip is so hard and so vicious that resistance only causes her more pain.

‘Where is his room?’ Remi says again, now louder.

‘In there,’ Emilie sobs and nods her head in the direction of the hallway.

Remi releases his hold on her.

‘Put him in there, I don’t want to listen to that bloody—’

Emilie picks up Sebastian, puts his head close to her own and strokes his back while she tries to console him. She walks down the hallway, past the door to the bathroom and into Sebastian’s room.

‘You need to be quiet now,’ she says, trying to control herself, but even she can hear that her pleading voice is close to breaking. Be strong , she tells herself, for Sebastian’s sake. It’s up to you to stop him from experiencing even more trauma than he already has .

Fortunately Sebastian seems to calm down at the sight of his things and his bed, the pale blue wallpaper, the action figures, the stuffed toys and Lightning McQueen – they all help to make him breathe more easily and he finally stops wailing and sobbing.

This in turn makes Emilie weep even harder. Her little boy. So small and vulnerable.

‘And you,’ Remi says to her when she comes back out. ‘Stop your bloody crying.’

Emilie nods, even though the tears keep flowing.

‘Close the door.’

Emilie does as she is told. Remi nods in the direction of the living room where Mattis is frantically trying to free himself. Emilie rushes over to him, she tries wiping away some of the blood on him, and doesn’t care that her hands and clothes get wet and sticky.

She turns to Remi, who has followed and stopped right in front of her.

‘What are you doing, Remi, why—’

He wags an angry finger at her.

‘I think you know if you just think about it.’

Emilie stops.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I don’t.’

‘Then you’re a stupid cow.’

Again Emilie tries to understand, but she can feel the effects of not having eaten for two days. Her brain quite simply refuses to work and the frantic thoughts make her dizzy.