Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

‘In any case, he’s lodged a complaint against you, and I need to do something about it, you realise that? The maximum penalty is four years.’

‘Four years?’

‘His jaw is broken in two places and he risks permanently impaired hearing in one ear.’

‘Then he’s still got one left. Whisper to him in his good ear that if he drops the summons then at least this business with his daughter won’t become public knowledge. I know, and you know, and he knows that the only reason he’s taking out this summons is that if he didn’t it would look like there was something in what I accuse him of.’

‘I understand your logic, Roy, but as the sheriff I can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that you’ve incapacitated another man.’

I shrugged. ‘Self-defence. He attacked me with the hammer before I even touched him.’

Olsen gave a short laugh that never reached his eyes. ‘And how are you going to get me to believe that? That a Pentecostalist who’s never been in trouble before attacks Roy Calvin Opgard, a guy known throughout the village as someone who likes nothing better than a punch-up?’

‘By using your head and your eyes.’ I placed my hands flat on the counter.

He stared. ‘And?’

‘I am right-handed. Everyone I’ve ever had a fight with will tell you, I knocked them out with my right. How come there isn’t a scrap of skin on the knuckles of my left, while my right is completely untouched apart from that finger? Explain to Moe how this whole thing is going to look, not just his daughter but the grievous bodily harm, when it emerges that he was the one who attacked me.’

Olsen stroked his moustache intently. Gave a nod. ‘I’ll have a word with him.’

‘Thank you.’

He raised his head and fixed me with his gaze. I saw a flash of anger there. As though with my thank you I was making fun of him. That he wasn’t doing it for my sake but his own. Maybe for Natalie’s and the village’s too, but at any rate, not for me.

‘The snow won’t last long,’ he said.

‘No?’ I said casually.

‘The forecast is for mild weather next week.’

The council meeting started at five o’clock. Before he left, Carl, Shannon and I ate a meal of mountain trout with potatoes, cucumber salad and sour cream which I served in the dining room.

‘You’re a good cook,’ said Shannon as she cleared the table.

‘Thanks, but that’s actually about as simple as it gets,’ I said, listening to the throb of the Cadillac’s engine as it faded away.

We sat in the living room where I served our coffees.

‘The hotel is first up on the agenda,’ I said with a glance at the clock. ‘So he’ll probably be in action pretty soon. We’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope he manages to klare brasene .’

‘Klare brasene ?’ said Shannon.

‘You haven’t heard that phrase? It means overcome the difficulties.’

‘What are braser ?’

‘No idea. Something maritime. Not my scene.’

‘We must have some wine.’ Shannon went out to the kitchen and returned with two glasses and a bottle of sparkling wine that Carl had kept in the fridge to cool.

‘So, Roy, what is your scene?’

‘My scene?’ I said, watching as she opened the bottle. ‘I want my own service station and… well, I guess that’s actually about it.’

‘Wife? Kids?’

‘If that’s what happens then OK.’

‘Why have you never had a girlfriend?’

I shrugged. ‘I guess I just don’t have what it takes.’

‘You mean you don’t think you’re attractive? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘I was sort of half joking, but yes.’

‘Well then, let me tell you that’s not true, Roy. I’m not saying that because I feel sorry for you, but because it’s a fact.’

‘A fact?’ I took the glass she offered me. ‘Aren’t things like that subjective?’

‘Some things are subjective. And the sum attractiveness of a man is probably more in the eye of the woman doing the looking than is the case the other way round.’

‘You think that’s unfair?’

‘The man is maybe freer because less importance is attached to his appearance, but then more importance is attached to his social status. When women complain about being judged on their looks, men ought to complain about the pressures of status.’

‘And if you possess neither beauty nor social status?’

Shannon had kicked off her shoes and drawn her feet up onto the chair. She took a long drink of wine. Seemed to be enjoying herself.

‘Just like beauty, status is measured using differing weights and differing scales,’ she said. ‘A dirt-poor painter who’s a genius might have a whole harem of women. Women are attracted to resourceful men, men who stand out from the crowd. If you possess neither beauty nor status then you have to compensate by having charm, or strength of character, humour or some other quality.’

I laughed. ‘And that’s where I score, is that what you think?’

‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers and thanksafuckingmillion,’ I said and raised my glass. The tiny bubbles fizzed and whispered something to me, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘So with Carl, what was it you fell for? The looks, the status or the charm?’ I said, noticing to my surprise that my glass was almost empty.

‘The insecurity,’ she said. ‘The kindness. That’s where Carl’s beauty lies.’

I raised my right hand to wag a warning index finger but being unable to bend the bandaged middle finger had to use my left instead. ‘You can’t advance that kind of Darwinian theory of reproduction and at the same time claim to be an exception to it. Insecurity and kindness won’t do.’

She smiled and replenished our glasses. ‘You’re right, of course, but that’s what it felt like. I know my rational animal brain must have been looking for someone to father my offspring, but what my scatterbrained humanity saw and fell in love with was this vulnerable beauty of a man.’

I shook my head. ‘Appearance, status or other compensatory qualities?’

‘Let me see,’ said Shannon, holding up her glass to the light from the table lamp. ‘Appearance.’

I said nothing but nodded and thought of Carl and Grete in the woods. The ominous rubbing of her jacket before it tore. There was another sound there too. A squishing sound. Like a cow in a bog. A soft breast. Julie. I forced the thought away.

‘Of course beauty isn’t an absolute quality,’ said Shannon. ‘It’s what we, each of us as individuals, say it is. Beauty is always in a context, it’s in relation to our previous experiences, everything we’ve sensed, learned and put together. People in countries all over the world have a tendency to think their own national anthem just happens to be the best in the world, that their mothers are the best cooks, that the most beautiful girl in town is also the most beautiful on the planet, and so on. The first time you come across music that’s new and strange you won’t like it. That’s to say, if it’s really strange. When people claim to like or even love music that’s completely new to them, it’s because they like the idea of the exotic, it’s stimulating, and what’s more it gives them the feeling of possessing a sensitivity and a cosmic understanding that is superior to their neighbour’s. But what they really like is what they unconsciously recognise. In the course of time that which was once new becomes a part of their experiential basis, and the conditionally learned, the indoctrination into what is lovely and what is beautiful, a part of their aesthetic sense. Early in the twentieth century American films began teaching people all over the world to find beauty in white film stars. And in time black too. Over the last fifty years Asian films have done the same for their stars. Although it’s like music, their beauty has to be something the public recognise, an Asian mustn’t be too Asiatic, but have a similarity to an established idea of beauty, an ideal which is still white. Seen from that perspective, the word sense when used of aesthetics is, at best, imprecise. We are born with vision and hearing, but in aesthetics we all start from a clean sheet. We—’