Before I Burn: A Novel Read online

  ‘No fires at Kjevik, then?’ Ingemann said in jest.

  ‘No fires here, either?’ Dag replied.

  Ingemann shook his head. Alma said nothing. Then he went up to his room to sleep.

  That was how it was. Ten days passed, and nothing happened.

  One night he took a gun with him. It was a saloon rifle. 22LR calibre. He had bought it with his confirmation money and had so far used it only for target practice. In addition, he had bought a telescopic sight, a Hawke. He put the rifle on the rear seat of the car, hidden under some clothes. Then he took it into the office with him. He sat waiting for the last plane of the day. According to the timetable it was due to arrive at 23.34. He was calm, clear-headed, yet tired somehow. He reclined on the much-too-short sofa in the corner, closed his eyes, opened them. He had slept almost all day. Yet still there was this peculiar, stubborn tiredness. He switched on the tiny radio on the window sill and found the right frequency: it was the World Cup in Argentina, Austria versus Sweden. The radio crackled and he had to concentrate to hear what was happening on the pitch. After forty minutes Hans Krankl scored for Austria with a rocket from inside the sixteen-metre box.

  Then the plane appeared, a Braathens from Stavanger.

  He rushed to the window, but it was nearly impossible to fix the plane in the sights. He had to stand searching the night sky for some time. Then he spotted it again. He followed the plane as it came closer and closer. A large illuminated ship. He could almost see the passengers sitting there behind the small windows. As the plane hung sixty or seventy metres above the fjord he pulled the trigger. There was a cold click. Then he lowered the gun. His mouth was dry. He knew he had hit the target.

  VI.

  ON THE MORNING OF Friday, 2 June, it began to rain. It was a light, floating drizzle that hung in the air during the early hours, making the grass at the roadside glisten. Then it cleared up. The wind increased from the north-west and blew everything away. Clouds dissipated, the freshly washed sun shone, the road dried. It was just past nine o’clock.

  On this morning Dag had returned home a bit later than usual. He had been dog-tired and hadn’t uttered a word, just went straight upstairs and to bed. He didn’t even have a bite to eat, nor a cup of coffee or a glass of milk, nothing.

  Ingemann had gone out to the workshop just after eight as usual, and then Alma was left alone in the kitchen. She had switched on the radio, turning it down as low as possible. It was Nitimen with Jan Pande-Rolfsen, the cheery voice of popular entertainment. She wiped the table, then ran the tap in the sink and washed up.

  After Nitimen was finished she went into the hall and stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening. Nothing. She made some fresh coffee, filled the thermos and went to Ingemann’s workshop. Inside, it smelt of oil and diesel and old junk. It was a good smell, it made her feel secure; she liked it even though she was never there for longer than absolutely necessary. She didn’t have much idea of what he got up to, and he never enlightened her. This was his world, she had her own, and that was how it should be. They each had their own world, and then of course they had Dag.

  As soon as Ingemann heard her coming he rose from the steel chair by the workbench where he usually sat if he didn’t have a lot to do or when he was taking a break. He went to the shelf with the screws and nuts and had his back to her as she approached.

  ‘I’ll put the coffee here,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, do that,’ he mumbled.

  She waited for a second, until he turned.

  ‘He’s still asleep,’ she said. It sounded more like a question than a statement.

  Ingemann didn’t answer. A glass partition seemed to slide between them whenever there was any mention of Dag. He bent over a motor that had been almost completely taken apart, then he found the tiny hole where the screw fitted and tightened it. She stood watching him for a moment.

  ‘I think Dag’s ill,’ she announced.

  ‘Ill?’

  ‘He talks to himself.’

  Ingemann straightened up and looked at her.

  ‘Where did you get that idea?’

  ‘I’ve heard him.’

  ‘That can’t be true,’ Ingemann said, returning to the motor.

  ‘It’s true. He talks to himself.’

  ‘Dag is not ill,’ he said softly, his face close to the black engine.

  ‘I’ve tried to speak to him,’ she said. ‘He was on the point of telling me what was wrong.’

  ‘I very much doubt if there’s anything wrong with him,’ Ingemann said, found another screw and tightened it hard. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Dag.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ She pulled her knitted jacket tighter around her and crossed her arms.

  ‘Because he’s my son. I know him.’

  She usually had a quiet cup of coffee on her own in the living room before she prepared a light lunch. She did so on this day too, but she drank the coffee faster than was her wont, even though it was scalding hot. She stared at the black piano, and at the shelf of trophies. Then she put down the cup, found a rag in the kitchen and began to dab at the dust. She wiped the piano, carefully ran the rag over the keys, causing them to tinkle. Went into the hall, stood on the lowest step and listened. She couldn’t seem to rest, and it still wasn’t much past ten o’clock. Making a swift decision, she put the cloth back in the kitchen, dried her hands, straightened her hair in front of the hall mirror, grabbed her cardigan and walked the short distance to Teresa’s.

  It was good to be out in the sun and the wind. Her hair lifted off her forehead, the morning was fresh and clean, and the whole world seemed to brighten. Alma and Teresa used to visit each other now and then. Even though they were very different types they appreciated each other’s company. They chatted about everyday things, Teresa brewed some coffee and if it was sunny they often sat on the front steps. After which they went about their own business. Today was one of those days when they could sit together in the sun, she thought as she got closer, but when she knocked on the door no one answered.

  It was while she was standing on the steps to Teresa’s house that the alarm went off. All of a sudden there it was, like a torrent from the heavens.

  She couldn’t move from the step, she was so chilled and so paralysed and so everything. Dag came charging out of the house, stood in the yard for a few seconds, then sprinted up the hill to the fire station. Minutes later the fire engine lurched onto the road. Sirens. Blue lights. The summer wind in the trees.

  He drove west to Breivoll.

  She stood holding her hands over her ears, unaware that she was doing so.

  Soon afterwards she saw Ingemann walk into the yard alone. He was wearing the dark blue overalls that were black with oil across the chest, and he seemed bewildered. He went to the post where the alarm was, then stood there as it wailed above his head. Alma wanted to shout that he should move away so that he didn’t go stone deaf. He stood there for maybe thirty seconds, then turned and went into the house. He was gone for a few moments, then came back out wearing the fire service uniform, headed straight for the post and deactivated the alarm. This he did with an abrupt, almost savage wrench. Afterwards it was as though the sky had fallen in and everything had gone quiet.

  VII.

  I WAS NINETEEN YEARS OLD, I had moved from home and was finding myself. I was going to study law at the August University in the centre of Oslo, I would be walking across the square where P. A. Munch’s and Schweigaard’s statues stood surveying the scene, staunch and erudite, I would be starting my real life, I would be a student, and I would become an intellectual. Before leaving I visited my grandmother at Heivollen and was given permission to borrow one of my grandfather’s coats; in addition, I had got hold of a pair of glasses, even though strictly speaking I didn’t need them. I would never have dared to walk around in a coat and glasses at home, that would have been quite unthinkable, but in Oslo everything was different. There I could walk around in glasses and Grandad’s old coat without any
one taking any notice. He had hardly ever worn the coat, but it was more than good enough for me. I used to go out alone in the evening and feel a singular contentment spreading through my body. I strolled along Schwensens gate, where I was renting a little bedsit, and continued up towards St Hanshaugen. I stuffed my hands deep into my pockets, which were smooth on the inside and much larger than one would expect. I could feel how well the coat fitted my shoulders, how comfortable I was inside it, indeed, how good life had become after all, how in the end everything had slotted into place. I crossed Ullevålsveien and proceeded along the narrow paths that wound between the tall, bare trees. I crossed the square in front of the gaping, empty outdoor stage, I passed the statue of the four musicians before tackling the last, steep stairs until I was at the top, beside the old fire tower, surveying the town. It lay beneath me glittering in the night air. I saw the dark fjord; above it on one side rose brightly lit, white Holmenkollenbakken, and on the other side of the hill the pink smoke from the incinerator chimney in Økern. I was so far from home, yet it was as though I could hear a voice inside myself, saying: This is your town. This is where you will be. You will live here for many years, and here you will become the person you really are. And, at that moment, wearing Grandad’s coat with my hands thrust deep into the pockets, I could feel very clearly that I was happy.

  One evening the telephone rang.

  ‘Just me,’ Pappa said. That was how all our telephone conversations started. Either he said that or I did. Just me.

  And then it came.

  He had been a bit unwell recently, he began. He had been to the doctor in Nodeland, and they did a few tests. From there he was sent to Kristiansand Hospital to have an X-ray. It transpired his lungs were full of fluid. He had been sent post-haste to the acute admissions unit and taken in a wheelchair to a room where he was laid on his side while a drain was inserted in his back. One lung, then the other, were drained of fluid. As he lay there he had seen for himself how the transparent bags had slowly filled with something resembling blood, only it was lighter in colour and mixed with tiny, white particles. In the end, they had drawn four and a half litres.

  His voice was as always. Even. It was Pappa. Once it was said, he asked me what the weather was like in Oslo that evening. I felt odd, in a kind of daze, and had to go to the window, open the curtain and look out.

  ‘I think it’s snowing,’ I said.

  ‘There’s a starry sky here,’ he answered.

  ‘Mhm,’ I said.

  ‘And it’s cold,’ he added. ‘Cold and starry.’

  That was all. That was the beginning.

  A shadow was found over one kidney, the right-hand one. It was April and the ice had thawed. I had turned twenty. Then he had almost a litre of fluid drained. I couldn’t understand how it had been possible to breathe with litres of water in his lungs, he couldn’t either, and for that matter neither could the doctors. But he had.

  He rang me from his hospital bed. It was evening, but still light. Clear, mild April weather with turbid, almost dirty air.

  ‘Just me,’ he said.

  Then we chatted for perhaps five minutes. A quiet, gentle conversation about next to nothing.

  ‘I suppose you have exams soon?’ he enquired.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Soon.’

  ‘And you’re studying?’ he asked.

  I heard the faint sounds of music in the background. It seemed to be seeping through from the recesses of the receiver. Very faint music.

  ‘What’s the weather like?’ I asked, hearing at once that this was his question, not mine, and even though he was four hundred kilometres or so away, I could feel myself blushing.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, and was as he always was. ‘I can’t get up. There are loads of tubes and things here. And in Oslo?’

  ‘It’s spring here,’ I replied.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I think it’s spring here, too.’

  At the end of April I went home to see my parents. By then he was back at Kleveland, back at the farm. The first thing that struck me on seeing him was that his eyes had grown. He was lying on the sofa under a blanket looking at me with those new eyes of his, and it took me all evening and large parts of the next day to get used to them. It was as though they could see through everything, yet understood nothing of what they saw.

  A few days later I took him for a check-up at Kristiansand Hospital. It was a forty-minute trip, but it felt like longer. We drove through the region, past the school in Lauvslandsmoen which we had both attended, with an interval of thirty years, past the community centre, Kilen, Lake Livannet, which glistened and quivered, though not close to the shore where the water lay still and black. There was an odd, oppressive atmosphere in the car, as if we had both been on long journeys, each in our own way, and had so much to tell one another that we didn’t know where to begin, and so refrained. After a while we were nearing the coast, and to the west of the town we could see across the whole of the seaward approach. The sea was grey, lifeless. No boats. It reminded me of something, but I wasn’t sure what.

  Ashes?

  All the smokers were clustered outside the hospital entrance. Dressed in Adidas and Nike tracksuits, they were, one and all, eaten up by cancer. Yet, they had somehow managed to make their way into the fresh air. They cupped their cigarettes in their hands as though someone might come along and steal them at any moment, and they regarded us with large, frightened eyes. As we went in a gust of wind blew, I smelt the smoke coming from them, and it was then that I realised they all had the same large eyes as Pappa.

  I sat on a chair in the corridor and waited.

  On Pappa’s return I saw something had changed. His face was stiff and odd, as though he had been shouting and screaming, or laughing for several minutes. But he said nothing.

  ‘Everything alright?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Everything’s fine.’

  Then we walked towards the exit. The smokers had gone, but the smell of smoke still hung in the air. Pappa could do with some new clothes, he said, so we drove through the town on our way home. There was an offer on track suits at Dressman, so we went there. I let him wander around on his own and pick out whatever he wanted. I watched him in front of the stand. There was no one else in the shop. He was flicking through the clothes with a determined mien, seeming to know exactly what it was he was after. Then he pulled out a tracksuit. It was red with a white puma in full leap on the breast. That was the one he wanted. It cost only 200 kroner. He went to the counter, paid, smiled at the young girl, and as he turned, his face still split with a smile, I suddenly knew what had happened. I realised Pappa had been crying. Suddenly it was clear to me: the man I had never seen shed a tear had been sitting in front of a doctor he didn’t know, crying.

  It was the day he was told there was nothing else they could do for him.

  VIII.

  HE HAMMERED THE fire engine for all it was worth to Breivoll, to the crossroads where the road divided into three. He jumped on the brakes, did a U-turn and continued down to Lauvslandsmoen. By Jens Slotte’s house he almost veered off the road. He skidded round where the road curved down towards Finsåna but managed to stay on the carriageway. When he came to the school the road divided into three again. He stopped and asked an elderly man the way. The flashing blue lights were on and he had to shout from the window. He waited behind the wheel while he was given painstaking directions. Then he repeated them himself. Afterwards he put on the sirens, drove two hundred metres in the direction of Laudal, bore left onto the road to Finsådal, passed Stubrokka and the road ascending to Lauvsland. He raced on, whizzing past Haugeneset and the concrete elk that has been standing at the edge of the forest and peering out for as long as I can remember. Then he sped onto the flatlands of Moen where Teacher Jon’s house lay all by itself. Two women were walking on the road ahead of him. It was Aasta and her mother, Emma. Emma was hard of hearing, nearly deaf, and she couldn’t hear the sirens. Aasta turned to see a cloud of
dust and smoke approaching at a menacing speed. She just managed to shove her mother into the ditch in time, and seconds later the fire engine screamed past. They had been a hair’s breadth from being mown down, both of them, and stood gawping in the haze of dust and exhaust fumes. The barn in Skogen, which was situated over the municipal border, in Marnardal, started to smoulder after sunrise, it was said, and that didn’t fit the pattern of the previous blazes. The fire engine appeared at a little after eleven o’clock, and by then the building was well and truly alight. Several hundred metres of hose had to be rolled out to a small lake nearby, and while this was being done they had to use the water from the fire engine. The 1,000 litres were pumped out until the tank was empty, after which they had the muddy water from the lake in the pipes, but by then it was already too late. The barn burned to the ground, while the farmhouse was severely damaged. The heat was so intense that the wall caught fire even though it was quite a distance from the burning barn. The external cladding had to be hacked at and cut away with fire axes, the tiles had to be torn off, and then the house was sprayed with water so that everything inside – the porch, the hall and some of the kitchen – was left soaking wet.

  The question afterwards was why the blaze had started in daylight. That was quite new.

  Later, after the fire had been put out, Lensmann Koland made a statement to the newspaper. Only now, after the fourth blaze, had this become a matter for the police. There was no longer any doubt. Koland said the police were sure that the Tønnes’ barn near Leipsland had been deliberately set alight. The same could be asserted with reasonable certainty about the summer storehouse in Haeråsen. And now there was the barn in Skogen. Three fires since 17 May. Four in total. There was good reason to believe they were dealing with an arsonist. It had been confirmed that all four fires had occurred within a radius of ten kilometres from Lauvslandsmoen School. From this, one might conclude that the arsonist lived in the vicinity and was familiar with the area. The police were interested to hear from anyone who had seen anything suspicious by the roadside. A search had been mounted to identify cars which had been on the six-kilometre stretch from Finsådal to Lauvslandsmoen between two o’clock and ten o’clock on Friday morning. Everything was of interest, even those things which at first sight might appear to be of no consequence. Furthermore, people were being warned to keep their eyes peeled and report any suspicious persons. That was all for now. No panic as yet.