Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

‘So how does this end?’ I asked.

Dan Krane stopped and stared at me. He looked offended. Perhaps he interpreted the question as a desire to get his lecture over with.

‘Venomous creatures that live in small places from which prey, for practical or other reasons, cannot escape, don’t need to produce precious, quick-acting poison. They can practise this form of evil slow torture. It’s evolution in practice. Or am I wrong, Opgard?’

Opgard didn’t have much to say. I realised, of course, that he was talking about a human version of the venomous animal; but did he mean the enforcer? Or Willumsen? Or somebody else?

‘According to the forecast the wind is going to drop during the night,’ I said.

Krane rolled his eyes, turned away, stared out of the window.

Not until we were seated at table did the conversation turn to the subject of the hotel. Of the twelve sitting there, eight were involved in the project.

‘Anyway, I hope the building’s securely moored,’ said Simon, with a glance towards the large picture window that was creaking as the wind gusted.

‘Oh it is,’ a voice said with great certainty. ‘My cabin’ll blow away before that hotel does, and that cabin’s been standing for fifty years.’

I couldn’t contain myself any longer and looked at my watch.

In our village there was a traditional gathering in the square just before midnight. There were no speeches, no countdowns or other formalities, it was just an opportunity for people to come together, wait for the rockets and then – in an atmosphere of carnival chaos and social anarchy – use the big community embrace at midnight to press bodies and cheeks against the person or persons who would, in the remaining nine thousand hours of the year, otherwise be off-limits. Even the New Year party at Willumsen’s would break up so that guests could mingle with the hoi polloi.

Somebody said something about it being a boom time for the village.

‘The credit must go to Carl Opgard,’ Dan Krane interrupted. People were used to hearing him speak in a slightly nasal, quiet voice. Now his voice sounded hard, and angry. ‘Or blame. All depending.’

‘Depending on what?’ someone asked.

‘Oh yes, that revivalist speech on capitalism he gave up at Årtun, that got everyone dancing round the golden calf. Which, by the way, should be the name of the hotel. The Golden Calf Spa. Although…’ Krane’s wild gaze spun round the table. ‘Actually Os Spa is pretty appropriate anyway. Ospa is the Polish word for smallpox, the sickness that wiped out whole villages as late as the twentieth century.’

I heard Grete laugh. Krane’s words were maybe what people were used to hearing from him – intelligent, witty – but delivered now with an aggression and chill that silenced the table.

Registering the mood, Stanley raised his glass with a smile. ‘Very amusing, Dan. But you’re exaggerating, aren’t you?’

‘Am I?’ Dan Krane smiled coldly and fixed his gaze on a spot on the wall somewhere above our heads. ‘This business where everyone and anyone can invest without having the money for it is an exact replica of what happened in the crash of October 1929. Those bankers jumping from the tops of skyscrapers along Wall Street – that was just the tip of the iceberg. The real tragedy involved the little people, the millions of small investors who trusted the stockbrokers when they talked in tongues about an everlasting boom and borrowed way over their heads to buy shares.’

‘OK,’ said Stanley. ‘But take a look around, there’s optimism everywhere. To be blunt, I don’t exactly see any big warning signals.’

‘But that is precisely the nature of a crash,’ said Krane, his voice getting louder and louder. ‘You see nothing until suddenly you see everything. The unsinkable Titanic sank seventeen years earlier, but people learned nothing. As late as September 1929 the stock exchange was at its highest ever. People think the wisdom of the majority is unimpeachable. That the market is right, and when everyone wants to buy, buy, of course no one cries wolf. We’re gregarious animals, who delude ourselves that it’s safer in the flock, in the crowd…’

‘And so it is too,’ I said quietly. But a silence descended so quickly that even though I didn’t raise my eyes from my plate, I knew everyone was looking at me.

‘That’s why fish form shoals and sheep flocks. That’s why we form limited companies and consortiums. Because it really is safer to operate as a flock. Not a hundred per cent safe, a whale could come along at any moment and swallow up the whole shoal, but safer . That’s where evolution has tried and failed us.’

I lifted a loaded fork of gravlax to my face and chewed away, feeling those staring eyes on me. It was as though a deaf-mute had suddenly spoken.

‘Let’s drink to that!’ cried Stanley, and when I finally looked up, I saw everyone with glasses raised in my direction. I tried to smile and raised my own, though it was empty. Quite empty.

Port was served after the dessert and I sat on the sofa opposite the Harland Miller painting.

Someone sat next to me. It was Grete. She had a straw in her glass of port. ‘Death,’ she said. ‘What’s in it for me?’ she added in English.

‘Are you just reading, or are you asking?’

‘Both,’ said Grete, looking around. Everybody else was engaged in conversation.

‘You shouldn’t have said no,’ she said.

‘To what?’ I asked, though I knew what she was referring to, I was just hoping I could get her to understand by pretending not to understand that she would drop the subject.

‘I had to do it alone,’ she said.

I stared at her in disbelief. ‘You mean that you’ve…’

She nodded gravely.

‘You’ve been gossiping about Carl and Mari?’

‘I have been spreading information. ’

‘You’re lying!’ It just slipped out, and I glanced round quickly to make sure no one else had heard my outburst.

‘Oh yeah?’ Grete smiled sardonically. ‘Why do you think Dan Krane’s here and Mari isn’t? Or to be more precise, why do you think they aren’t both at Willumsen’s like they usually are? Babysitting? Yes, that’s probably what they want people to think. When I told Dan he thanked me. He made me promise not to tell anyone else. That was the initial reaction, see? On the outside they act like nothing has happened. But on the inside, believe you me, the split is complete.’

My heart was pounding and I could feel the sweat that had broken out under my tight-fitting shirt. ‘And Shannon, have you gossiped to her too?’

‘This isn’t gossip, Roy. It’s information I think everyone has a right to if their partner is unfaithful. I told her at a dinner at Rita Willumsen’s. She thanked me too. You see?’

‘When was this?’

‘When? Let me see. We’d stopped ice-bathing, so it must have been in the spring.’

My brain was working feverishly. The spring. Shannon had travelled to Toronto in the early summer, stayed away for some time. Come back. Contacted me. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. I was so angry the hand holding the glass had started to shake. I felt like I wanted to empty the port all over Grete’s fucking perm, see if it worked like white spirit when I pushed her face down into the candles standing on a plate next to us. I clenched my teeth.

‘Must have been a disappointment for you then that Carl and Shannon are still together.’

Grete shrugged. ‘They’re obviously unhappy, and that’s always a comfort.’

‘If they’re unhappy, why are they together? They don’t even have children.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Grete. ‘The hotel is their child. That’s going to be her masterpiece, and that makes Shannon dependent on him. In order to get something you want, you’re dependent on someone you hate – sound familiar?’