Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

‘The goat,’ Carl said patiently. ‘That has to stay in the rowing boat both ways, right? Oh, it’s too complicated. Just leave the Cadillac outside the workshop and come back here, and Shannon or I can fetch it later. Thanks for the work, bro. Now come up and have a drink with me.’

I could feel myself clutching the phone so hard that my damaged middle finger was throbbing. Carl had been talking about logistics, the solution to that old fairy-tale riddle about the goat in the rowing boat and the sack of oats. I started breathing again.

‘OK,’ I said.

We ended the call.

I stared at the phone. He had been referring to the logistics, hadn’t he? Of course he had. Maybe we Opgard men didn’t always say everything that was on our minds, but we didn’t talk in riddles.

When I got back to the farm Carl was sitting in the living room and offered me a drink. Shannon had gone to bed. I said I didn’t really feel like a drink, I was tired myself and would be going straight to work as soon as I was back in Kristiansand.

In the bunk bed I tossed and turned in a sleepless dreaming state until seven o’clock and then got up.

It was dark in the kitchen and I jumped when I heard the whispered voice from over by the window. ‘Don’t switch on the light.’

I knew my way blindfold around that kitchen, took a mug from the cupboard and poured coffee from the warm pot. I didn’t see the swelling until I crossed to the window and that side of her face was lit by the snow outside.

‘What happened?’

She shrugged. ‘It was my own fault.’

‘Oh yeah? Did you cross him?’

She sighed. ‘Go home now, Roy, don’t think about it any more.’

‘Home is here,’ I whispered. I lifted my hand and laid it carefully on the swelling. She didn’t stop me. ‘And I can’t stop thinking. I think about you all the time, Shannon. It isn’t possible to stop. We can’t stop. The brakes are gone, they’re past repair.’

I had raised my voice while speaking, and she glanced automatically up at the stovepipe and the hole in the ceiling.

‘And the road we’re on now leads straight over the edge,’ she whispered. ‘You’re right, the brakes don’t work, so we need to take another road, one that doesn’t take us closer to the edge. You need to take another road, Roy.’ She took my hand and pressed it against her lips. ‘Roy, Roy. Get away while there’s still time.’

‘Beloved,’ I said.

‘Don’t say that,’ she said.

‘But it’s true.’

‘I know it is, but it hurts so much to hear it.’

‘Why?’

She made a face, a scowl that abruptly banished all the beauty from her face, and made me want to kiss it, kiss her, I had to.

‘Because I don’t love you, Roy. I want you, yes, but it’s Carl I love.’

‘You’re lying,’ I said.

‘We all lie,’ she said. ‘Even when we think we’re telling the truth. What we call true is just the lie that serves us best. And there are no limits to our ability to believe in necessary lies.’

‘But you know yourself that isn’t true!’

She laid a finger against my lips.

‘It must be true, Roy. So leave now.’

It was still pitch-dark as the Volvo and I passed the county sign.

Three days later I called Stanley and asked if I was still invited on New Year’s Eve.

‘SO PLEASED YOU COULD COME,’ said Stanley, squeezing my hand and giving me a glass containing some sort of yellowy-green slush.

‘Merry Christmas,’ I said.

‘Finally – someone who knows when to say “merry” and when to say “happy”!’ he said with a wink. I followed him into the room where the other guests had already arrived.

It would be going too far to say that Stanley’s house was luxurious, since there were no such houses in Os, with the possible exception of the Willumsens’ and the Aases’. But while the Aas house was furnished with a mixture of peasant common sense and the self-assured discretion of old money, Stanley’s villa was a confusing mix of rococo and modern art.

In the living room, above the calf-legged chairs and round table, hung a large crudely painted picture that resembled the cover of a book with the title Death, What’s in It for Me?

‘Harland Miller,’ said Stanley, who had followed my gaze. ‘Cost me a fortune.’

‘You like it that much?’

‘I think so. But OK, there may have been a touch of mimetic desire involved. I mean, who doesn’t want a Miller?’

‘Mimetic desire?’

‘Sorry. René Girard. Philosopher. He called it that when we automatically desire the same things as people we admire. If your hero falls in love with a woman, your unconscious goal becomes to win that same woman.’

‘I see. Then which one are you actually in love with, the man or the woman?’

‘You tell me.’

I looked around. ‘Dan Krane’s here. I thought he was a regular at Willumsen’s New Year’s Eve party.’

‘Right now he’s got better friends here than there,’ said Stanley. ‘Excuse me, Roy, I need to fix a couple of things in the kitchen.’

I circulated. Twelve familiar faces, twelve familiar names. Simon Nergard, Kurt Olsen. Grete Smitt. I stood there, rocking on my heels like a sailor, and listened to the conversations. Turning the glass in my hand and trying not to look at the clock. They talked about Christmas, the highway, the weather, climate change and the forecast storm that was already drifting the snow outside.

‘Extreme weather,’ someone said.

‘The regular New Year’s Eve storm,’ said another. ‘Just check in the almanac, it comes every five years.’

I stifled a yawn.

Dan Krane stood by the window. It was the first time I had seen the controlled and always correct newspaper man like that. He spoke to no one, just watched us with a curious wildness in his gaze as he downed glass after glass of the strong yellow slush.

I didn’t want to, but I went over to him.

‘And how are you?’ I asked.

He looked at me, seemingly surprised that anyone at all should address him.

‘Good evening, Opgard. Are you familiar with the komodo dragon?’

‘You mean those giant lizards?’

‘Precisely. They’re found on only a couple of small Asian islands, one of them is Komodo. About the size of Os county. And they really aren’t that big, not as big as people believe anyway. They weigh about the same as a grown man. They move slowly, you and I would be able to run from it. So for that reason it has to use ambush, yes, cowardly ambush. But it doesn’t kill you there and then, oh no. It just bites you. Anywhere. Perhaps just an innocent nibble on the leg. And you get away and think you’re saved, right? But the truth is, they injected you with poison. And it’s a weak, slow-acting poison. I’ll return to the subject of why it’s weak, here I’ll mention only that it costs the animal an enormous amount of energy to produce the poison. The stronger the poison, the more energy. The poison of the Komodo dragon prevents the blood from coagulating. So you’ve suddenly become a bleeder, the wound in your leg won’t heal, nor the inner bleeding from the bite either. So no matter where you run to on that little Asiatic island, the Komodo dragon’s long, olfactory tongue picks up the scent of blood and comes slowly waddling after you. The days go by, you grow weaker and weaker. Soon you can’t run any faster than the dragon, and it’s able to give you another bite. And another one. Your whole body is bleeding and bleeding, the blood won’t stop, decilitre by decilitre you’re being emptied. And you can’t get away of course, because you’re trapped on this little island and your scent is everywhere.’