Only the Dead (16 page)

Only now do I wonder who he is. He must have family, just as I do. People who will miss him. And he must have a name, which they will say when they talk about the fact that he has disappeared. The name that his mother must have used to call him when he was a boy, just as my mother called for me. But now they can shout all they like. I set my foot against his hip and push, but his body is heavy and I am so weak. At first he doesn’t budge. Then I manage to move the middle of his body a few inches. I try again, but I have no more strength left and can’t even stay on my feet. I sit down beside him. He’s lying at the very edge. One arm is hanging down toward the water. It wouldn’t take much to send him into the current, but even that is too much for me. As I sit there like that, he slips out all on his own. One arm sketches an arc toward the black river, then his body hits the water with a loud splash. Slowly he drifts toward the edge of the ice. I fought him like a lion, and won. He’s the one lying there with his face in the cold, dark water while I sit here, alive, and watch. His head rams into the ice. His body blocks the current like a log. The water ripples around him. I hear a faint gurgling sound. The current is stronger than I thought. Now the body turns until it’s stretched out full length along the edge of the ice. The sound of the water gets louder. He rolls over. For a moment the moon shines on his face, which is covered with a few strands of wet hair. Then he disappears beneath the ice. All is quiet once again. The desolate lake, and shining down on it the moon.

Vidar Sundstøl
is the acclaimed Norwegian author of seven novels, including the Minnesota Trilogy, written after he and his wife lived for two years on the North Shore of Lake Superior.
The Land of Dreams
(Minnesota, 2013), the first novel in the trilogy, was awarded the Riverton Prize for best Norwegian crime novel of 2008 and was nominated for the Glass Key for best Scandinavian crime novel of the year.
The Land of Dreams
was ranked by
Dagbladet
as one of the top twenty-five Norwegian crime novels, and the Minnesota Trilogy has been translated into seven languages.

Tiina Nunnally
is an award-winning translator of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish literature. Her many translations include Sigrid Undset’s first book,
Marta Oulie: A Novel of Betrayal
(Minnesota, 2014). Her translation of Undset’s
Kristin Lavransdatter III: The Cross
won the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize. She was appointed Knight of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit for her efforts on behalf of Norwegian literature in the United States.