Medusa (3 page)

– You’re allowed to take her to the dentist? Just a half-glass for me, please.

Anita filled it three quarters and her own to the top.

– In a fortnight’s time she might be staying the night with me.

– How wonderful, Miriam beamed. Anita felt herself on the verge of tears but controlled herself. – Are you watching
Sleepless in Seattle
?

– I’ve seen it enough times, rasped Anita and turned it off.

– I like that film, said Miriam. – I like films where they get each other in the end. When you already know from the beginning, no matter how hopeless it seems.

Anita was about to make some sarcastic comment about
getting each other
but desisted. Miriam was ten years younger than her. She studied medicine and was terribly bright. There was something about her eyes; she always seemed interested in what Anita was saying, no matter how stupid Anita thought she was being herself. At the same time there was something girlish about her that was reinforced by the slight accent she spoke with, and Anita felt a desire to sit down next to her on the sofa and put her arms around her and hold her tight …

Miriam had had trouble with a difficult relationship, Anita knew that. Someone she was trying to finish with. Someone she felt so sorry for that for a long time she couldn’t do it. That had been several years ago, at least before she moved into the upstairs apartment. Since then there had been no one, Anita was almost certain of that, though she could hardly understand why.

On the windowsill she found an Aretha Franklin CD and put ‘Chain of Fools’ on. She drank half her wine and felt it prickle in her chest. She couldn’t bring herself to ask Miriam what she did about getting someone to sleep with, but it was okay to ask if she missed having a boyfriend.

Miriam sipped at her own wine, put it down and leaned back in the sofa, knees slightly apart.

– Imagine if there’s a certain someone out there who was just meant exactly for you, she answered with a smile, – only he’s married and has a family.

– You’re not thinking of getting involved with an
impossible
,
are you?

That was how Anita referred to anyone in the category of ‘family man’. Not too hard to get hold of, a lot more difficult to digest.

Miriam had to laugh.

– No, I haven’t …

She sat there looking out of the window.

– But what?

Anita realised she was being too intrusive; she mustn’t push Miriam, mustn’t use her up. She mustn’t forget that Miriam was more of a helper than a friend. But she couldn’t contain herself.

– You don’t have to tell me, she said in a slightly hurt tone.

Miriam seemed to change her mind.

– Tomorrow I’m starting at a clinic in Bogstadveien.

– Sounds very exciting, Anita responded, a touch disappointed.

– I’ve met the doctor who’s going to be my supervisor several times already. He gave us some lectures in the summer. I talked to him in the breaks. And after the lectures too.

– That’s what I like to hear. Anita snuffled and wiped a drop of red wine from her lower lip. – And is he the one-and-only
somewhere out there?

Miriam looked up at the ceiling.

– And he’s the one you’ve got as your supervisor? That just has to be
fate
.

– I’ve helped things along as well. I swapped places with another of the students to get into the clinic. But you heard what I said. He’s married and has three children. At least.

Anita burst out laughing. It was a long time since she could remember laughing like that.

– This calls for a celebration.

It was quarter to twelve. She wanted to fetch the latest photos she’d taken of Victoria and show them to Miriam, sit close beside her on the sofa and inhale the smell of her hair as she leafed through the album. She picked up the box of wine and was going to pour more wine but Miriam held a hand over her glass and stood up.

At the front door, Anita put an arm around her and gave her a hug. Miriam’s cheek was almost as soft as Victoria’s, and she felt an almost irresistible urge to put her lips to it and beg her to stay. Miriam extricated herself gently.

Anita stood there watching her as she disappeared up the stairs to her attic apartment. Miriam was an easy person to get to know. But at the same time Anita didn’t know her. She seemed to be always happy, but there was something else there too, as though she was grieving over something. Grief was something Anita knew a lot about. So much so that she could sense it in others, even when it was hidden.

T
HE FIRST FEW
hours on duty were quiet. Axel Glenne treated a few sore throats, stitched a few cuts, lanced a boil. After midnight he made a round of calls. Got an eighty-two year old with pneumonia admitted after an argument with a junior doctor, some kid whose voice had only just broken. A three year old with a rash and a temperature was also admitted. A woman who sat under her kitchen table howling and refusing to come out unless she was given Valium quietened down immediately when he told her she could have it her way.

At two twenty, Axel was sitting in the back of an ambulance that had been called out. He pushed aside the thoughts of what he had been dealing with earlier in the night and tried to piece together the few bits of information he’d been given to form a picture of what awaited him: a car that had left the road, possible serious injuries, perhaps even worse than that … Suddenly the image of his mother appeared, getting up from her chair, shouting angrily into his face, calling him Brede. He closed his eyes, heard his father’s voice:
Brede puts himself on the outside. But you, Axel, you’ll be someone who always pays his dues.
Brede truanted from school when he felt like it. He stole from their father’s wallet. Not just small change, notes. He started a fire in a field that the fire brigade had to come and put out. Axel went along with him part of the way, but pulled out when things started to have consequences. His twin brother got punished. It had no effect on him.

Resistance fighter, war hero, high court judge: the honoured and much-decorated Colonel Glenne had a son who brought shame on his name. Axel’s duty was to redress the balance. Show the world that the problem was not with the family. He soon discovered how easy it was, as though borne forward by invisible hands. His parents, of course, but also teachers, trainers, then later supervisors and examiners, all seemed to share the same assumption: that Axel Glenne should be helped; he was a winner. He hadn’t even had to fight for Bie. He met her at a student party. She was there with her boyfriend but spent the time talking to Axel out in the kitchen. For some reason or other she wanted to interview him for the student newspaper. When he was about to leave, she asked for his address.

The rear wheels of the car were up on the side of the road. One of the rear lights was still working. It struck Axel that it was encouraging to see it in position; perhaps it hadn’t been going that fast. But as soon as the ambulance came to a halt and the scene was illuminated, he saw that the roof was squashed. He jumped out immediately, surgical bag in one hand, torch in the other.

– It must have flipped over.

The ambulance driver, a man named Martin, agreed. Sven, his partner, added: – At least once.

Three or four figures were standing further down the roadside in front of a parked car, its engine still running.

– Are you the people who rang?

– It was me, answered one of them, an elderly man with a woollen hat pulled down over his ears. – We drove past and saw it like that. There’s someone inside. We couldn’t get the door open.

Martin had clambered down into the ditch and was shining his torch into the car.

– One person trapped behind the wheel, he shouted up to Axel.

– Can we get inside without assistance?

Martin tugged at the door handle.

– Try the other one.

Axel jumped down and tried it. The car wasn’t as badly damaged on this side, but the door was locked.

– The front windscreen is more or less gone, he shouted to Martin, and climbed up on to the bonnet. From the engine compartment beneath him came a hissing sound.

– We’ve got to cut the wires.

He shone the beam inside. A figure was slumped over the steering wheel. Axel reached through the shattered windscreen and took hold of the jacket at the shoulder, shook it.

– Can your hear me?

No answer. He smelled alcohol. Not windscreen washer or something from the engine, but liquor.

– Hello, can you hear me?

A faint groan. Axel twisted over to one side and managed to get a finger on the driver’s throat.

– Pulse is normal, he shouted to Martin, who was still on the other side. – About ninety, he added.

– Any chance we can get him out?

– The roof is squashed behind the door, we can’t get in. The fire brigade should be here any minute.

He shone his torch on the figure behind the wheel, a young man, he could tell by the sideburns. He had a cut on the side of the throat that was bleeding, but it wasn’t deep. The smell of alcohol was coming from him.

– He’s breathing easily enough. I don’t want to touch that neck until I have to.

A rumbling sound from the man behind the wheel.

– Are you awake? called Axel. – Can you hear me?

Again the same sound, concluding with a groan.

– I’m a doctor. We’ll soon have you out of there. Were you alone?

The man muttered something.

– We’ll help you, Axel said soothingly. – It’s going to be okay.

Suddenly the driver croaked: – Lise …

– Were you alone in the car? Axel asked again.

– Lise, shouted the man and tried to raise his head from the wheel.

– Stay calm.

– Lise!

Axel climbed off the bonnet. Sven appeared behind him with a pair of wire-cutters.

– I’m thinking we’d better kill that engine.

– Great. He’s almost conscious, but keep a close eye on him. I’ll check to see if there might have been a passenger with him.

– Doesn’t look like it.

Axel scrambled up on to the road. He could hear sirens in the distance.

– Move your car over to the side! he shouted to a woman who had just stopped. – The fire engine needs to get right up here.

He shone his torch across the dry asphalt. Shards of glass, skid marks. The car had been approaching from the north, from Tangen, not from Dal as he had first thought. He trotted up the side of the road, some way past the last car in the backed-up traffic. A lump of rock was sticking out, and when he shone the light on it, he saw that it was covered with glass and streaks of paint.

He followed the other roadside ditch back towards the crashed vehicle. Ten metres on from the stone he found her. She was lying on her back; she looked relaxed. A young girl. The face pale and unmarked. But the eyes were awash with a thick pale red froth. Not until he bent over to feel for a pulse on her throat did he realise that most of the back of her head was missing.

The helicopter arrived ten minutes later, at a quarter to three. They checked his findings with him. The girl had been killed instantaneously. The driver’s thorax was unstable and there was probably internal bleeding. They took him with them. Axel was left standing there, a purse in his hand. It had been found beneath one of the seats. White leather trimmed with fur, two pockets for notes, one for cards. He removed one of the cards, examined it by the interior light of the ambulance. He recognised the name. She was a year older than Tom. Her big sister had been in Daniel’s class. Axel had sat on the PTA with her mother.

He turned to the inspector, handed him the card.

– She’s from round here, he told him. – They live down in Flaskebekk. The mother’s name is Ingrid Brodahl, when you call …

The policeman trudged towards his car. His shoulders were sunken and he had a slight limp in one leg.

– Hang on, Axel called after him. – I’m driving back through Tangen. I’ll talk to them myself.

T
HE BOAT THUDDED
into the quayside and several of the passengers who were already standing up toppled into each other. Axel woke with a start and looked at his watch: 7.25. He waited until the exit queue had thinned out before getting unsteadily to his feet, crossing the deck and stepping on to the quay. In the early hours he’d managed an hour, perhaps an hour and a half of sleep. It might have done him good to walk to the office, but he gave in to exhaustion and got into a taxi. Closed his eyes and at once fell into a light sleep. Images from the night flickered across his mind. The car with its rear end up on the road. The girl lying in the ditch more than fifty metres away. Ringing the bell. The light going on in the hallway. The grimy face in the door opening: Lise’s father. Axel had met him a few times over the years; he was an engineer, he recalled, repaired ship’s engines and was away from home a lot. But today he was home and peering out on to the dark stoop and he still didn’t know what kind of messenger he had opened the door to.

Axel looked up and registered that they were just passing Dronning Park. The driver glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. She had heavy bags under her eyes and wore a perfume that smelled like mould.

– Tough start to the day, she said vaguely, not specifying whether she was referring to her own or her passenger’s day.

He grunted something or other and closed his eyes again to avoid any further encouragement. Another nine hours and his work day would be over. He would make it through. He’d had his own practice for twelve years. It was like playing the piano. Sometimes he had to improvise, but most of it he knew off by heart, no matter how tired he was. He’d lost count of the number of days he’d worked through with no sleep the night before. He could handle it. But on this morning it was something other than tiredness. Lise’s face. Unscathed at first glance, looking almost as though she were sleeping. Like Marlen’s face when he crept in in the dark and bent over her. Then shining the light, seeing the eyes … Her father had sat bent over on the sofa, staring at the table as Axel explained why he had come. Suddenly he jumped to his feet.
Ingrid, should I wake her?
Yes, Axel thought, it would be best to wake her. And directly afterwards the scream from the floor above that rose and swelled and filled the whole house and would not end. Ingrid Brodahl, whom he knew from parent–teacher evenings and had talked about school breakfasts with, and celebrations for National Day on 17 May, came rushing down the stairs in her pyjamas. She was still howling, and at that instant Axel regretted having gone there.