Before I Burn: A Novel (27 page)

I was in Olga Dynestøl’s barn watching the meat being cut up and apportioned in unequal heaps. Some were larger, some smaller. One heap consisted of a single piece of meat and some bits of bone that were nothing but dog food, others were so large that they needed several people to carry them. Then the names were read out and the heaps distributed among those present. The men had tubs and carrier bags and black bin bags, which they filled. Then they left down the barn bridge and disappeared into the darkness. That was how Kasper left, that was how Sigurd left, and John, and all the others whose names I can’t remember. They scooped up the meat and left through the barn door. That was how Pappa and I left. His name was called, and we went over to the heap that was ours. I helped to put the meat into the tub; it was strangely smooth and freezing to touch. There were bloody pieces of meat mixed with knuckles and hollow bones. We painstakingly collected it, filled the tub, Pappa lifted it, and it was very heavy, I could see that. I had to give him a hand as we walked down the slippery barn bridge, then we were in the darkness where the elk heads and the skin and all the bones were dumped. The head of the elk that Pappa had shot was there, too. The eye was still staring at me, but it had lost its gleam. Now it was all black. We continued down to the pickup, and on the way there it felt as if the black eye was following us and it saw who we really were.

Who do we see when we see ourselves?

Three, maybe four, seconds pass.

II.

SOME TIME AFTER PAPPA DIED I visited Grandma, and I told her about the autumn day he shot the elk. We both needed to talk about him, about what we could remember, how he had been, what he had said and done, who he actually was. I talked about the strange feeling of being involved in something neither of us quite understood, but which we still mastered. As I mentioned, Pappa had never shot an elk before, and he never did again. But the one time he did, it was with a single bullet, right through the heart.

When I was finished she sat quite motionless with the diamond in her eye glittering. Then she said:

‘I’ve never heard that before.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘now you know.’

When I was about to go, I said:

‘By the way, I’ve begun to write.’

‘Write?’ she queried.

‘Yes. I’m going to be a writer.’

She went quiet for a moment, then said:

‘You mustn’t ruin your life, even if your father is dead.’

I felt an immense fury bubble up, but I managed to retain a clear head.

‘I am not ruining my life,’ I declared coldly.

‘No one can live from writing,’ she said.

I didn’t answer. I stood there in her chilly hallway at Heivollen thinking she had understood. After all, that was why I had told her. She wrote herself.

‘You’re going to be a lawyer,’ she said in a cheerful tone, as if to put me on the right track.

‘I am not going to be a lawyer,’ I said undeterred, fixing my eyes on her, and at that point I think she realised I was serious.

‘Can you write, then?’ she asked in some confusion.

I took out an envelope and passed it to her. Inside was the text I had written that grey morning in my father’s pickup. I had typed a fair copy and folded the sheet several times. Now she was holding the sheet in her hand as I walked towards the door. She followed me to the front steps and stood there as I started the car and reversed onto the road, and as I was driving away I turned and saw that she still hadn’t gone in.

From that day henceforth she never mentioned the text once, but while tidying the house after she died I found the envelope among all her papers. It was open and the sheet unfolded. She had read it, and perhaps she had understood. But she hadn’t said anything.

Yes, she had understood.

III.

AT FIRST HE DENIED EVERYTHING. He sat on the same chair that Alfred had occupied a few hours earlier and explained in detail how he had tackled fires. The telephone rang. Next was the alarm. Then the fire engine. Pumps, hoses, water, flames, house, all the people congregating, all the faces lit up by an intense glare and somehow losing their features. Or was it the opposite? Were all the features sharpened?
Did he know any of the people?
No. Yes. Maybe. He didn’t have time to check.
Did he know any of those whose houses had been set on fire?
No.
Did he know Olav and Johanna Vatneli?
No.
Anders and Agnes Fjeldsgård?
No. That is, he knew who they were – Alma used to clean their house every fortnight. Besides, Finsland was a small community, everyone knew everyone else.

He was asked why he had joined the fire service. He leaned forwards.
Why?

He told them there had never been a particular point when he had made up his mind to join. It was how it had always been. It had happened naturally. Ingemann had taken him along on the fire engine when he was a small boy. He told them about the two houses he had seen burn down, and how even then he had felt a deep desire to be a firefighter one day. To rescue burning houses from flames. Nevertheless, he told them nothing about the dog. Nothing about the wailing, which was like a sort of singing.
A deep desire?
Yes, he answered. A deep desire.

He was asked about his job at Kjevik.
Why had he applied to work there? Why?
He was a firefighter, wasn’t he, and he needed a job. And then, of course, there were planes landing and taking off as well.
What was it about planes?
He couldn’t say. But he liked planes.
But it was a lonely job, wasn’t it?
Yes, it was.
And he was happy in his work?
Yes.
He liked being alone?
Yes.
Always?
No, not always, of course.
But often?
Yes. He was asked about his military service at the garrison in Porsanger. At this he went rigid for a second, but quickly relaxed again. He was asked why he had returned early. He had been discharged, he answered, sitting forwards in his chair. Drank some coffee from the cup that had been set down in front of him.
And what are your plans for the future?
He shrugged. Time would tell. That was noted down. Next, he was asked about the scars on his forehead. He told them about the accident but nothing about the bang to the head which he later maintained had changed his personality. Then they talked a bit about the football World Cup.
Was he following it?
Yes.
And his favourite team?
He didn’t have one. Everything was noted down. Then he was asked about the fire in Skogen; why did he think it had been started in the morning and not at night? He had no idea. Then there was the fire at Dynestøl. And the two in Vatneli, and Sløgedal’s barn. And the attempt in Solås.
Agnes Fjeldsgård saw the pyromaniac with her own eyes, didn’t she?
Yes, he said.
She said it was a young man. Your age, perhaps?
Yes, he answered. Who could that be?
Who do you think?
A madman, he said.
A madman? How do you mean mad?
Someone who needs help.
Help?
Yes. Someone who needs help.

They took a break after the sun had gone down, and he joined two officers on the steps for a cigarette. It was still nice and warm; the air was sharp and clean after the short but intense downpours earlier in the afternoon. There was almost no traffic on the road, and there wasn’t a soul to be seen. Dag was offered a light by one officer; he leaned forwards, cupped his hand around the flame for a brief instant before inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs and letting it out through his nose as his eyes narrowed. They stood outside for five minutes, maybe longer. No one said much. They smoked. The officers didn’t seem to consider the possibility that he could leg it at any moment and disappear into the dense forest opposite the community centre. They smoked their cigarettes to the end, tossed them down and ground them into the gravel with the tips of their shoes. Then they all went back inside and resumed the interview.

At just after half past seven there was a three-minute item on NRK news from the very south of Norway, the small region of Finsland, which in recent weeks had been beset by an arsonist. Tranquil images flickered across the screen. Viewers saw a peaceful wooded hamlet, the sun was shining, it was summer, there was a burned-out house in Vatneli, there was the house with a cracked window belonging to Anders and Agnes in Solås, and there was Sløgedal’s barn, with Alfred hosing it down.

The whole business was incomprehensible.

At approximately the same time, Bjarne Sløgedal went into hiding behind some bushes opposite his house at Nerbø. He carefully placed his rifle in the heather while he sat down. The rifle was loaded and he had taught himself how to flick off the safety catch. The sun was singeing the tops of the trees in the west, the air was full of insects, buzzing across the sky in all manner of unfathomable patterns. He had brought along a book, and settled down to read while it was still light; however, it was difficult to focus. The situation was too absurd. He, the cantor at Kristiansand Cathedral, trained at Oslo conservatory, the Juilliard School of Music in New York and the conservatory in The Hague, Holland, sitting hidden behind a bush facing his own home with a loaded rifle at his side. He, the man who, some days previously, had opened the International Church Music Festival in Kristiansand Cathedral with no less than Ingrid Bjoner, who sang Pergolesi’s heavenly ‘Stabat Mater’ with her sister to a packed audience, he was sitting here now and listening for God knows what. The evening before he had been in the cathedral, now he was here, in the heather and grass, not knowing what was going to happen. If a stranger appeared down by the house, what would he do? Oh yes, he would fire three shots in the air. Three shots. And what if no one heard them? That possibility hadn’t been discussed. It had been regarded as highly improbable that no one would hear the shots. And, anyway, the pyromaniac would be frightened and take to his heels. That was the plan. And there was a sheen of unreality over everything. It had turned cooler, and he pulled the anorak tighter around him. Every so often he raised his head. Was that a noise? A twig breaking? Someone coming down the road? No. Nothing. He looked down at the remains of the barn. Smoke was no longer rising from the ruins; however, small swarms of mosquitoes and other insects had collected and were dancing feverishly above the wet ash. Occasionally cars slowed and meandered past as the drivers ogled the destruction. No one saw him. No one knew he was sitting there. It was eleven and long past reading light. He had to strain his eyes to distinguish the ruins from the surrounding dark forest. He gingerly raised the rifle and placed it heavily in his lap.

At the same time Pappa was putting me to bed at Kleveland. I slept soundly after the long, hot day; he stood for a moment gazing at my tranquil face, at the closed eyes and the tiny mouth with the lips slightly apart, then he tiptoed out, leaving the door ajar. He whispered to Mamma in the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee, went to the front doorsteps and sat there with the steaming liquid and Grandad’s rifle beside him as he listened to the night.

Later, as the summer darkness well and truly deepened, Olav Vatneli got out of bed in Knut Karlsen’s cellar. He stood for a moment beside Johanna’s bed. He had been sound asleep, dreamless. How long he didn’t know to any degree of accuracy, but he remembered he had been screaming. But now he felt strangely clear-headed and perfectly calm. It was as though he had been far away, in another world, and now he had returned and saw everything through new eyes. He put on his trousers and one of the new shirts. He took the polished shoes, which were still stiff and unfamiliar on his feet, donned the new cardigan, placed the beret on his head and quietly left. He exchanged a few words with the policeman keeping watch outside. Then he continued down the slope to Odd Syvertsen’s house. From there he could see the remains of his house. Walking in these new clothes, he felt like a stranger, someone who had been away for a long time, someone no one knew and who had got lost into the bargain. That was how it felt, that he had got lost or couldn’t remember exactly where his house was, the house where he had lived for the last thirty-five years. He approached quietly and carefully, as if someone were slumbering in the ruins, someone who must not be awoken on any account. He made it to the road, stuffed his hands into his pockets and strolled on. Then he stopped, and there, around twenty metres away, he stood gawping. It was as if he could never have enough of the sight. He looked. And he looked. And he looked. He had said that he was going to see his fire-ravaged house, and that he was going to see it on his own, but he hadn’t imagined that it would be at night. Now here he was, and he felt nothing. He was just empty and strangely clear-headed at the same time. He moved forwards, and the new, stiff shoes crunched in the gravel at every step. Then he stopped again and just looked. It was as if he could see right through everything. And indeed he could. He stood there looking right through the living room, the hall, the staircase and the kitchen. Warily, he walked into the garden, drew near the front steps strewn with charred wooden boards, ash and crushed glass. He sat down. He sat for a long time on the steps outside his house, which was now no more than air. He didn’t have a thought in his head. There was dew on the grass, and mist hung over Lake Livannet, just as on the night of the fire. Then he caught sight of a hazy figure. He knew at once who it was. He rose slowly and deliberately, brushing the ash and glass off the seat of his trousers as the figure came into the garden and approached the stumps that were all that was left of the cherry tree. Olav was standing on the lowest step, but the figure didn’t come any closer. They stood motionless, looking at each other, but neither of them spoke. What could they say? It was about twenty years since they had last seen each other. After two or three minutes the figure blurred, dissolved, and ultimately merged into the night air. Olav tarried on the lowest step, waiting, but nothing happened. In the end he headed for the wood shed, which was almost unscathed. He opened the door and went in. It was cold and damp inside, from all the water that had been sprayed over it. The earthen floor squelched under his shoes, it was completely black and for a second he was in the stomach of a whale. Still, he knew exactly where he was. The bell rang cheerfully as he dragged at the bicycle caught in some junk that had accumulated by the wheels. It came free and he trundled it out. The bike was as good as ever, just a bit rusty and covered with dust, and both tyres were flat. He leaned it against the shed wall, as it so often used to stand when Kåre was sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework, as if ready to whiz down the hill to Kilen. He tried the bell, and it sounded as good and clear as ever it had. Now he would have to come and take it if he needed it, he thought. And the punctured tyres wouldn’t make any difference. For who needed air in tyres who himself was made of air?