Blood on Snow (3 page)

W
hen I stand behind you in the underground, I always wait until our carriage goes over a join in the rails before saying anything. Maybe it's a set of points where the track divides. Either way, somewhere deep underground where metal rattles and clatters against metal, a sound that reminds me of something, something to do with words, things falling into place, something to do with fate. The train lurches, and anyone who isn't a regular passenger momentarily loses their balance and has to reach out for support, anything that can help them stay upright. The change of tracks makes enough noise to drown out anything I might want to say.
I whisper whatever I want to whisper. Right at that point when no one else can hear me. You wouldn't be able to hear me anyway. Only I can hear me.

What do I say?

I don't know. Just things that come into my head. Things. I don't know where they've come from, or if I really mean them. Well, maybe I do, there and then. Because you're beautiful, you too, as I stand there in the crowd right behind you, looking at just the bun in your hair and imagining the rest.

But I can't imagine that you're anything but dark-haired, because you are. You're not fair like Corina. Your lips aren't so full of blood that I want to bite them. There's no music in the sway of your back and the curve of your breasts. You've only been there until now because there hasn't been anyone else. You filled a vacuum that I never used to know existed.

You asked me back to yours for dinner that time, just after I'd got you out of trouble. I assumed it was as a thank-you. You wrote the invitation on a note and gave it to me. I said yes. I
was going to write that down, but you smiled to let me know that you understood.

I never came.

Why not?

If I knew the answer to things like that…

I am me, and you are you? Maybe that was it.

Or was it even simpler? Like the fact that you're deaf and dumb and walk with a limp. I've got more than enough handicaps of my own. Like I said, I'm good for nothing apart from one thing. And what the hell would we have said to each other? You would doubtless have suggested that we write things down for each other, and I—as I've said—am dyslexic. And if I haven't said it before, I'm saying it now.

And you can probably imagine, Maria, that a man doesn't get that fucking turned on by you laughing loudly and shrilly in that way deaf people do because he's managed to write “What lovely eyes you've got” with four separate spelling mistakes.

Whatever. I didn't go. That's all there was to it.

Daniel Hoffmann wanted to know why it was taking so long to get the job done.

I
asked him if he agreed that I should take care not to leave any evidence that could be traced back to either of us before I got going. He agreed.

So I carried on watching the apartment.

Over the following days the young guy visited her every day at exactly the same time, three o'clock, right after it had got dark again. Came in, hung his coat up, hit her. It was the same every time. At first she would hold her arms up in front of her. I could see from her mouth and neck muscles that she was shouting at him, begging him to stop. But he didn't stop. Not until the tears were streaming down her cheeks. Then—and only then—would he pull her dress off. Every time a new dress. Then he would take her on the chaise longue. And it was obvious he had the upper hand. I suppose she must have been hopelessly in love with him. The way Maria was in love with her junkie boyfriend. Some women don't know what's best for them, they just leak love without demanding anything in return. It's almost as if the very lack of any reciprocation just makes them worse. I suppose they're hoping they'll be rewarded one day, poor things. Hopeful, hope
less infatuation. Someone ought to tell them that isn't how the world works.

But I don't think Corina was in love. She didn't seem interested in him like that. Okay, so she would caress him after they made love, and follow him to the door when he was about to leave, three-quarters of an hour after he arrived, and hold on to him in a slightly affected way, presumably whispering sweet nothings. But she seemed almost relieved once he had gone. And I like to think I know what love looks like. So why would she—the young wife of the city's leading purveyor of ecstasy—be willing to risk everything for a tawdry affair with a man who hit her?

It was the evening of the fourth day when it dawned on me. And my first thought after that was how strange it was that it had taken me so long to work it out. Her lover had something on her. Something he could take to Daniel Hoffmann if she didn't do as he wanted.

When I woke up on the fifth day I had made up my mind. I wanted to test the short cut to the place we didn't know about.

I
t was snowing gently.

When the guy arrived at three o'clock he had brought something for her. Something in a little box. I couldn't see what it was, only that she lit up for a moment. She lit up the night darkness outside the large living-room window. She looked surprised. I was surprised myself. But I promised myself that the smile she had shown him, she'd let
me
have that. I just had to do this properly.

When he left, just after four—he stayed a bit longer than usual—I was standing ready in the shadows on the other side of the street.

I watched him disappear into the darkness
and looked up. She was standing in front of the living-room window, like she was onstage, and held up her hand and studied something in it, I couldn't see what. Then she suddenly raised her eyes and stared at the shadows where I was standing. I knew she couldn't possibly have seen me, but still…That penetrating, searching look. Suddenly there was something scared, desperate, almost pleading in her face. “An awareness that fate can't be forced,” as the book said, God knows which one. I squeezed the pistol in my coat pocket.

I waited until she had pulled back from the window, then stepped out of the shadows. I quickly crossed the street. On the pavement I could see his boot-prints in the fine dusting of fresh snow. I hurried after him.

I caught sight of his back as I went round the next corner.

Obviously I had thought through a number of possibilities.

He might have a car parked somewhere. In which case it would probably be somewhere in one of the back streets in Frogner. Deserted,
poorly lit. Perfect. Or he might be going somewhere—a bar, a restaurant. In that case I could wait. I had all the time in the world. I
liked
waiting. I liked the time between making the decision and carrying it out. They were the only minutes, hours, days of my admittedly short life when I
was
someone. I was someone's destiny.

He might be going to take a bus or taxi. The advantage of that would be that we would end up a bit further away from Corina.

He was heading towards the underground station by the National Theatre.

There was hardly anyone about, so I moved closer.

He went down onto one of the westbound platforms. So he was from the west side of the city. Not somewhere I'd spent much time. Too much money, too little use for it, as my dad used to say. I've no idea what he meant by that.

It wasn't the line that Maria usually took, although they shared the track for the first few stations.

I sat in the seat behind him. We were in the tunnel, but there was no longer any difference
between that and the night outside. I knew that we would soon reach the place. There would be a rattling of metal and the train would do that little lurch.

I toyed with the idea of putting the mouth of the pistol against the back of the seat and pulling the trigger as we passed that point.

And as we did that—passed it—I realised for the first time what it reminded me of. Metal against metal. A feeling of order, of things falling into place. Of destiny. It was the sound of my work, of the movable parts of a weapon—pin and hammer, bolt and recoil.

We were the only passengers who got off at Vinderen. I followed him. The snow crunched. I took care to match my steps to his, so he couldn't hear me. Detached villas on either side of us, but we were still so alone that we might as well have been on the moon.

I walked right up to him, and, as he half-turned, perhaps to see if it was one of his neighbours, I shot him in the base of the spine. He collapsed beside a fence and I turned him over with my foot. He stared at me with glassy eyes
and for a moment I thought he was already dead. But then he moved his lips.

I could have shot him through the heart, in the neck or head. Why had I shot him in the back first? Was there something I wanted to ask him? Maybe, but I'd forgotten what now. Or it didn't feel important. He didn't look anything special close up. I shot him in the face. A hyena with a bloodstained snout.

I noticed a boy's head sticking up over the fence. He had lumps of snow on his mittens and hat. Maybe he'd been trying to make a snowman. It's not easy when the snow's so powdery. Everything keeps falling apart, crumbling between your fingers.

“Is he dead?” the boy asked, looking down at the corpse. Maybe it seems odd to call someone a corpse just a few seconds after the person in question has died, but that's the way I've always looked at it.

“Was he your dad?” I asked.

The boy shook his head.

I don't know why I thought that. Why I got the idea that just because the boy seemed so calm
it must have been his father lying there dead. Well, I do know, actually. That's how I would have reacted.

“He lives there,” the boy said, pointing with one mitten as he sucked at the snow on the other, not taking his eyes off the dead body.

“I won't come back and get you,” I said. “But forget what I look like. Okay?”

“Okay.” His cheeks were tensing and relaxing around the snow-covered mitten, like a baby sucking a nipple.

I turned and walked back the same way I had come. I wiped the handle of the pistol and dropped it in one of the drains on which the thin snow hadn't managed to settle. It would be found, but by the police rather than some careless kids. I never travelled by underground, bus or taxi after I'd fixed someone, that was forbidden. Normal, brisk walking, and if you saw a police car heading your way, you turned round and walked towards the scene of the crime. I had almost got as far as Majorstua before I heard any sirens.

I
t was just a week or so ago. As usual I was waiting, hidden by the rubbish bins in the car park behind the supermarket after closing time. I heard the soft click as a door opened and then slammed shut again. It was easy to recognise Maria's footsteps from her limp. I waited a bit longer, then set off in the same direction. The way I see it, I'm not
following
her. Obviously she's the one who decides where we go, and that day we weren't going straight to the underground. We went via a florist's, then up to the cemetery by Aker Church. There was no one else there, and I waited outside so she wouldn't see me. When she came out again she no longer had the bouquet
of yellow flowers. She carried on towards Kirkeveien, in the direction of the station, while I went into the cemetery. I found the flowers on a fresh but already frozen grave. The headstone was nice and shiny. A familiar, French-sounding name. There he was, her junkie. I hadn't realised he was dead. Evidently not many other people had either. There was no date of death, just a month, October, and the year. I thought they always guessed at a date if they weren't sure. So it didn't look so lonely. Less lonely, lying here among the crowd in a snow-covered cemetery.

Now, as I walked home, I thought about the fact that I could stop following her. She was safe. I hoped she felt that she was safe. I hoped that he, her junkie, had stood behind her on the train and whispered: “I won't come back and get you. But forget what I look like.” Yes, that's what I hoped. I'm not going to follow you any more, Maria. Your life starts now.

I stopped by the phone box on Bogstadveien.

My life started then as well, with that phone
call. I needed to be released from Daniel Hoffmann. That was the start. The rest was more uncertain.

“Fixed,” I said.

“Good,” he said.

“Not her, sir. Him.”

“Sorry?”

“I fixed the so-called lover.” On the phone we always say “fixed.” As a precaution in case we're overheard or being bugged. “You won't see him again, sir. And they weren't really lovers. He was forcing her. I'm convinced she didn't love him, sir.”

I had spoken quickly, more quickly than I usually do, and a long pause followed. I could hear Daniel Hoffmann breathing heavily through his nose. Snorting, really.

“You…you killed Benjamin?”

I already knew I should never have called.

“You…you killed my only…son?”

My brain registered and interpreted the sound waves, translated them into words which it then began to analyse. Son. Was that possible? A thought began to form. The way the lover had
kicked his shoes off. As if he'd been there many times before. As if he used to live there.

I hung up.

Corina Hoffmann stared at me in horror. She was wearing a different dress and her hair wasn't yet dry. It was quarter past five and—as on previous occasions—she had showered off all traces of the dead man before her husband came home.

I had just told her that I had been ordered to kill her.

She tried to slam the door shut, but I was too fast.

I got my foot inside and forced the door open. She stumbled backwards, into the light of the living room. She grabbed at the long chair. Like an actress onstage, making use of the props.

“I'm begging you…” she began, holding one arm out in front of her. I saw something sparkle. A big ring with a stone in it. I hadn't seen it before.

I took a step closer.

She started screaming loudly. Grabbed a table lamp and threw herself at me. I was so surprised by the attack that I only just managed to duck and avoid her wild swing. The force and momentum made her lose her balance and I caught hold of her. I felt her damp skin against the palms of my hands, and the heavy smell. I wondered what she had used in the shower. Unless it was her own smell? I held her tight, feeling her rapid breathing. Dear God, I wanted to take her, there and then. But no, I wasn't like him. I wasn't like them.

“I'm not here to kill you, Corina,” I whispered into her hair. I inhaled her. It was like smoking opium—I felt myself going numb at the same time as all my senses quivered. “Daniel knows you had a lover. Benjamin. He's dead now.”

“Is…is Benjamin dead?”

“Yes. And if you're here when Daniel gets home, he'll kill you too. You have to come with me, Corina.”

She blinked at me in confusion. “Where to?”

It was a surprising question. I'd been expecting “Why?”, “Who are you?” or “You're lying!”
But maybe she instinctively realised that I was telling the truth, that it was urgent, maybe that was why she got straight to the point. Unless she was just so confused and resigned that she blurted out the first thing that came into her head.

“To the room beyond the room,” I said.