When the Devil Holds the Candle (5 page)

"Slowly. We're strangers here, we're looking for something."

"Looking for what?"

Andreas shook his head in disbelief.

"We're going to stop someone and ask for directions."

"Who?"

"Whoever turns up," Andreas said, with a groan. His friend's simplemindedness was unbearable.

"What a shitload of trouble it is to live in a society that charges forty kroner for a pint. If we want to have any fun tonight, we're going to need at least a thousand," Zipp said.

The sea poured in over the shore, grayish green, foaming, and ice-cold. They came to an old dilapidated clubhouse. Outside it, pieces of broken patio furniture had been piled into a heap, a Midsummer bonfire that would never be lit. The summer had been very dry. They turned into the parking lot and surveyed the area and saw a figure in the distance, plodding along the shoreline. Andreas opened the glove compartment and took out a cap, pulled it down over his forehead and tucked his curls underneath. Zipp grinned when he read the words on the blue fabric.

"'Holy Riders. On the Road for Jesus.' Shit, you're bad, Andreas!"

A strong wind was blowing. Andreas stuck one foot outside the car.

"A woman," he said. "With a stroller. Excellent."

"Why?"

"Women get so helpless when they're pushing a stroller." He turned to look at Zipp. "Just think what's inside."

"What exactly are you planning to do?"

Zipp was nervous. He couldn't very well object; they were friends, they did everything together. But he often thought that one day they would cross one boundary too many. Andreas had his knife in his belt, under his shirt.

"First we have to see if she's got a handbag with her. If she lives nearby, she's probably left it at home. Otherwise, women always carry a handbag."

They waited as the figure slowly came closer. She was pushing the stroller along the beach, and the wheels were sinking into the soft sand. She was very tall, and wore a scarf around her head and a light-colored coat that flapped in the wind.

"She must be six foot six tall!" said Zipp, who was five foot seven himself.

"Doesn't matter. Girls don't have much in the way of muscles."

The woman caught sight of the car. She leaned down to pat what lay inside the stroller. They could see part of a blue quilt. Andreas strained to see more.

"There's her handbag," he whispered. "It's on top of the blanket. That's great!"

"Why?"

"It's more difficult when they carry their bags over their shoulders." He sat for a moment, squinting under the visor of his cap, going over his plan of attack. It wasn't a time for threats or violence, but for pure cunning.

"You stay here. Keep the engine running. Find something in the glove compartment. Pretend that you're sitting here looking at a map or something. I'll get out and ask for directions to somewhere. The football field. I'll snatch the handbag and hightail it back."

"She'll get our registration number!"

"They usually don't. They get too damned scared."

Andreas got out and approached the woman. She took stock of him and slowed her pace, with an uneasy glance at the car.

Women are strange,
Andreas thought.
It's as if they can smell that something is up. Or maybe they just look at things in a different way from men. Because they have more enemies, maybe that's it. To be a woman and have to be on guard all the time, what a fucking strain that must be!
She had actually started in the direction of the parking lot, but then she would have to pass the car. Suddenly she turned the stroller around and set off in the opposite direction. The maneuver was pitifully obvious; he wondered what had inspired it. Maybe it was the foaming sea, blocking her path on one side, or maybe the child, the responsibility for someone other than herself. Or the fact that they were male: a sudden fear. Besides, the wind was fierce and the waves were slamming hard against the shore. No one would hear her if she yelled. Andreas stopped, shook his head, and stared after her. She turned around, wary. He reacted fast and made a helpless gesture with his hands. The light was white and harsh, making his face shine. She started up a path that rose steeply along a ridge above the sea—possibly a way out. Zipp sat in the car and waited, following Andreas with his eyes. Andreas followed the woman. She quickened her pace, but when she heard his voice behind her, she turned around again. In spite of everything, most people find it difficult to ignore someone who is calling out in a friendly manner. And surely he couldn't be dangerous or anything like that! What a ridiculous idea! She had merely taken precautions, withdrawn from a potential danger. The baby in the stroller had shown her so clearly how dangerous the world could be. She hardly slept at night; when she fell asleep, the child was erased from her consciousness, and she couldn't allow that to happen.

"Excuse me!"

Andreas called out in a paper-thin voice. The yellow shirt flapped around his slender midriff. His right hand held the shirt down over his knife. He looked like a very tall kid of confirmation age. Zipp, still in the car, saw the woman stop at last. It didn't seem right to choose her, not a woman with a little baby. There was something about the way that she was clutching the handle of the stroller that frightened him. He sensed desperation in those white hands, tight around the handle—not because of the handbag, but because of the little bundle under the blue blanket. He realized that something might go wrong, that she was unpredictable because of the baby. He put on the brake and got out; he did this even though he had been told to stay in the car.

Andreas, now almost level with the woman, stopped a short distance away, so as not to seem threatening. He had an air about him that was hard to resist. Zipp could see in her eyes that she had read what it said on his cap, that she had noticed the little white cross and the words underneath. Her shoulders relaxed. She even ran her hand over her scarf, almost coquet-tishly, and looked at Andreas with a smile. Andreas opened his mouth and said something. The woman replied and started pointing, past the parking lot and up toward the road. Zipp stared at the stroller and caught sight of the handbag. A nylon bag, black and red. Andreas moved a few steps nearer, looking the other way, backing up toward the handbag. Zipp kept walking.

Then Andreas noticed him, and for a moment he looked confused. They were high up on the path now. There was no beach below, just a bare slope descending to the water, ending in piles of sharp rocks. Andreas made his move. He leaned over and grabbed the handbag, then ran hell-for-leather back toward the car. The woman screamed. In desperation she tried to make sense of the new situation, the fact that they had duped her, after all, just when she had decided that they were decent boys with good intentions. Something took hold of her, a violent rage, or maybe it was a sense of impotence. She kicked on the brake of the stroller out of pure reflex, and started running.

"Get in the car!" Andreas shouted.

But Zipp stood stock-still. They came running toward him, but he didn't move because he could see the stroller starting to roll down the slope toward the water. She hadn't set the brake properly! Paralyzed, he watched the little blue plush stroller tip over the edge. He screamed as he ran like crazy and almost collided with Andreas. But the woman stopped in her tracks; she had finally realized what was happening. She whirled around and saw Zipp leap over the edge and vanish. And then she gave a piercing shriek and started to run. Andreas stopped where he was and stared in astonishment. The handbag slipped out of his hands. In the distance he heard the roar of the waves, a sound of heavy swells that almost knocked him over. He heard several faint screams before Zipp's blond head appeared over the edge. His face was red with agitation.

"Run, for God's sake, run!"

"What about the baby!" shouted Andreas. He grabbed the handbag and ran after Zipp.

"The stroller ran into a stone and tipped over! The baby fell out! Oh, fucking hell!"

They threw themselves into the car and tore out of the lot, their tires screeching. Neither of them dared to look back. But they could still hear the roar of the waves, a loud thundering that rose and fell.

"Shit! The baby was screaming its head off!"

"Calm down, it went fine."

"Fine? That baby could have drowned!"

"He didn't drown!"

"But he definitely hurt himself. Shit, you should have heard him screaming!"

"It would have been worse if he hadn't."

"Jesus Christ."

"Cut out the Jesus crap!"

The Golf roared along the road, sending up a shower of gravel and careening wildly. An ugly grinding sound came from the gearbox. Andreas had to hold on to the door handle. He ripped off his cap and stuffed it into his pocket. His curls came tumbling out.

"She saw both of us. She saw the car. Do you have the handbag?"

Zipp was stammering.

"Do you think I'm an amateur?"

"We'll have the police at the door by tonight."

"No, we won't. She's too preoccupied with the baby. She'll forget about everything else."

"Are you out of your mind?" shrieked Zipp, as he struggled to hold the steering wheel in his trembling hands.

"I know what women are like. She'll be thanking God because the baby survived and she'll realize how unimportant the money is. Mothers have a whole new set of values in life. So shut up and drive!"

He bent over the bag and rummaged inside it. Pulled out a baby bottle.

"The milk's warm," he said in surprise. After that he took out a pacifier, a mosquito net for the stroller and finally a wallet. He tore it open. "Her name's Gina," he said.

"Is there any money?" asked Zipp in confusion.

"A few hundred-kroner notes. Four. Shit, Zipp, let me tell you, I'm a genius of cunning and strength! According to the Tyrell Corporation. Nexus 6 fighting model!"

***

My mother was not really a mother, but, rather, a kind of corrective entity. That's why I'm still a well-behaved girl. I say "Yes, please" and "No, thank you." I have a firm handshake. Look people in the eye. Remember names. Remember little things, what people like and don't like; I notice how attractively they blush. I'm not so dangerous. I take good care of myself, I don't lack for anything. It's no sacrifice. A person can argue his way through life and insist on having his own way or on someone else having theirs, and live a life of pain. Why should I do that? Nothing is important to me, or nothing is important enough. I don't mind standing at the end of the line; I'm a patient person. If others are in a hurry, I let them go ahead of me. It amuses me. I laugh at them when they're not looking. Laugh at their life-or-death expressions. It's only on bad days that I cry. But I don't have many bad days—or I didn't.

Sometimes I do cry, almost astonished at the crack that opens without warning. When I look at pictures from poor countries: children with flies on their lips and toothless old people, skin and bone, with scabs and sores, who have no water; they look at me reproachfully. Maybe part of the blame is mine. Somebody is to blame. But I've never done anything about it.

I'm glad that Henry disappeared. I saw it coming. I saw his expression when I got undressed at night—not disgust, just a terrible embarrassment, and I didn't help him. That wasn't my job. Henry was supposed to help me. That's what the doctor said: Let your husband help you. But he couldn't do it. It's easier to live alone. And this way he won't have to deal with everything that happens. That's good. My son, Ingemar, never mentions his name. I tell him that he doesn't have to, only that he has to try to understand. He doesn't love me; I realize that. He doesn't hate me either, I've never thought that he did, but the only life I know I've dumped on to his shoulders. He's a decent person, too. Works for the Pricing Commission. He doesn't owe any money and he doesn't drink. I don't know exactly what he does at his job—maybe he decides what things should cost.
Everybody complains about the price of everything, and everybody's salary is too low. "Let's go on strike!" they all shout. "We're not going to stand for it anymore, we've been passed over, we're not appreciated, the others have something, why shouldn't we!" No one ever grows up these days. Everywhere I go I see whining children. Runi, for example: she whines a lot.

Once in a while I wish that Ingemar would come over and we could go into town together. Arm in arm, Irma Funder walking along the street with her grown-up son. He's not tall or handsome, but he's quite nice-looking. He gets his heavy face from me, and it suits him. He's extremely serious, the kind of person who has thought things through. It's true that he doesn't have any great ambitions, but he fulfills his obligations and he never complains. Walking through town with Ingemar: We'd go to a café. He would pay, carry our tray to a table, and pull out a chair for me. But he never comes. It's been a long time since he came to see me. If I suggested it—How about the two of us going into town?—he would look at me in surprise. But now I'm happy, as long as he stays away.

The house is old. Henry said it was built on clay, that it was just a matter of time, or enough rain, before it would pull loose and slide away, slip unhindered down the slope and crash into Number Fifteen. He was always so worried, Henry. I love this house. I know every nook and cranny, the contents of every drawer, each step on the stairs when I leave for work. Used to leave for work. Everything is mine, and old and familiar and always the same. Ingemar once sat here at the table—that was a long time ago—and got it into his head that the house should be painted. Red, he said. It's white now, with green trim. I would get so scared every time I stepped through the gate. Scared that something huge and red would loom up, that I'd stand there screaming. I'm telling you these snippets of my life because it's important to me that you see I'm clear-headed, that I remember
things, that I'm not crazy. Of course people will judge me. But I prefer to be my own judge. There is no excuse for what I did, nor would I want to offer any. But there is an explanation. Andreas was just a boy. I didn't want him dead. What am I saying? I certainly did want him dead, in that one evil moment. I stood there and thought: Now I'm going to kill him, I have to do it! Was I all alone with that thought? In that horrific moment when I destroyed him, I remember a strange light in the room. Where did it come from? Have you ever seen it?