Before I Burn: A Novel Read online

  Then he turned.

  It was as though he, too, had always known that she was there. That they had gone up there together. That she had been standing behind him in the dark garden. That she had been sitting at his bedside and crying as he slept. He had always known. For two, perhaps three, seconds their eyes locked. He did nothing, said nothing, just looked at her with his hands hanging limply by his sides. She didn’t do anything either. She saw his shadow, long and alive, stretching almost to her feet. His shadow was also full of a desire to free itself, become at one with the darkness and leave him standing alone. The wind from the fire was so strong that it made his shirt flap. A firestorm was building, it seemed to have been waiting in the barn for all these years and had now finally been let loose. Everything was being let loose. And she crumpled. And in a way this was good. In a brief glimpse she saw him catch fire, first his shirt, then his hair, then all of him. He went up in a blaze and stood before her, on fire, without turning a hair. She heard the sound of tiles cracking and falling to the ground like heavy, lifeless birds. A swarm of sparks tore itself away from the rest of the flames and soared at great velocity into the sky, which was completely lit up now. A high, singing tone arose from somewhere in the barn. She had never heard anything similar; it was a lament that was reminiscent of a song, or a song that sounded like a lament. She saw that he was smiling, and she was the only person in the world who could receive this smile. Then she turned and walked the short distance home.

  I.

  THE FIRST ICE ON LAKE LIVANNET. Suddenly one morning it is there. Sunrise: 9.22. The black water glistens. Later that morning a lighter channel stretches from the middle almost to the shore. Birds land. Seen from afar, they are entirely black, virtually impossible to tell apart; they approach the open water with caution, perch for a moment, irresolute, the boundary isn’t clear, then it cracks beneath them.

  The same afternoon I let myself into Finsland Church.

  Inside the door I was in total darkness, I had to grope my way forwards, eventually finding a door handle, and then I was in the hall, which was light, and there was the priest’s office at one end. At the other was the door that led into the church. The door was low and creaked as I opened it. I entered the church directly behind the altarpiece. There was something written, quite high up, which was illegible. I stepped forwards, stood by the altar railing and looked down the nave. It was a bit smaller than I remembered it, yet more or less the same. It was quite cold inside. I had been advised to come just after a service or a funeral because the heat lingered for a long time afterwards. I made my way down the central aisle on the soft carpet, and when I reached the door I turned and went back. Then I sat down on one of the pews. I recognised the dry creak I first heard when I was a baby, and the same smell of wood and age and grief. I tarried awhile. I saw the hole in the vaulted ceiling where the old stovepipe had exited. I looked up at the four beams forming a square under the high roof, and remembered my fantasy that all the dead were sitting there, dangling their legs while listening to the priest. That was just after Grandad had died, so I had a need for him to be there still. For him to be sitting up there, dangling his legs. Also during the prayer.

  I sat there for about ten minutes. Then I got up, walked down the aisle and into the vestibule. The stairs to the church tower were on the left. There was a solitary light bulb glowing on the first landing, but the higher I ascended the darker it was. The staircase tapered, at the end it was like a steep ladder. At last I was at the top. The black bell hung above me in the darkness, black and heavy. I tapped my knuckle on it. The sound was the same. Deep, while bright and free. I recognised it from all the times I had heard it chime. From the time Grandma died, and Pappa, and Grandad, and from the June day and the nine strokes while I lay in Mamma’s lap with her little finger in my mouth.

  I climbed down from the tower and went up to the balcony where the organ was. It was hard to believe that the old organ still existed, but it did, it was still on the right by the north wall. I sat down at it. Placed my feet on the pedals, pressed a key. Nothing. I pulled a little peg labelled Viola dulce. A reedy sound was emitted, as though it was being released through a crack, and crumbled at once. I tried a peg labelled Vox celeste. It was silent. Sitting there, I thought about Teresa, attempted to recall something she had taught me, but at that moment it felt like a very long time ago. I couldn’t remember anything except that now and then her hand would grasp my forefinger and middle finger and place them on the right keys. She had sat on this exact spot and played when Pappa was christened, and at the confirmation when Kåre first entered, straight after Holme, and later when they left to start their long lives. And she had sat on this exact spot when I was christened twenty years later, 4 June 1978, when Finsland was ablaze. I tried the peg marked Vox humana. It was a low, trembling note that grew and became firm and strong for as long as I kept my foot on the pedal.

  Eventually I went downstairs and proceeded slowly up the central aisle. My footsteps were inaudible. I walked to the end and sat in the first row, on the left, precisely where I sat at my father’s funeral. I closed my eyes, and after a while I seemed to hear the sound of people in the rows behind me. I heard them coming in, heard them walking on the soft carpet, opening the small, creaking doors to the pews, carefully taking a seat, thumbing through the hymn book and looking up. I sat there listening to the whole church slowly filling. I thought of the evening in Mantua when they had all gathered to hear me. Now they were here, I knew it was them, they were trying to be quiet, but I heard them nonetheless. I sat without moving at the very front, and they sat without moving behind me. I waited for a few minutes. It was good to sit like that, just waiting, waiting for nothing, and it felt as though those behind me were thinking the same. I let it go on for a few more seconds. Three. Two. One.

  Then I turned.

  II.

  I CAME TO AS DAY BROKE. People were stirring, many were already standing by the exit with their shopping bags, and as I squinted into the strong, milky light I saw the ferry was docking in Hirtshals. I saw the harbour district with its rusty fishing smacks almost frozen in the water, and I saw one lonesome forklift truck on its way along the wharves with its fork raised unnaturally high. I made an attempt to get off the bench on which I had slept, but my head ached as if possessed, so I remained where I was until the last person had left and I was alone again in the corridor. Then I staggered to my feet and followed the carpeted steps below deck. I got into Pappa’s freezing car, and as I closed the door, fastened the seat belt and drove towards the light, gradually what I had done came back to me. It was only when I emerged into the murky morning light that I tasted the blood in my mouth. I cast a glance in the mirror and saw I had dried blood on my lips and down my chin. My tongue was sore and swollen, and the insides of my cheeks were covered with little cuts from the glass. It felt as if I couldn’t talk, but that didn’t matter because I had absolutely no intention of talking to anyone. I drove around the quay area and finally turned right, into a street called Havnegade, followed it for a while, then bore left and drove along a road with netting extended above it and at last found a car park not too far from the sea, and not too far from a pub, Hirtshals Kro. I sat in the car holding my pounding head in my hands. Again I tried to unravel the last twelve hours, from the time I left Pappa at the rest home in Nodeland until boarding the ferry and finally climbing over the railing and hanging over the seething sea. Of the subsequent period until I woke on the bench in the corridor I remembered nothing. I have no idea what happened. Did someone come across me outside in the darkness, or did something inside tell me that was enough, pack it in now, pull yourself together, climb back over that railing and get yourself into the warmth?

  I don’t know.

  I must have stayed in the deserted car park for more than an hour until I felt capable of walking erect. Then I opened the car door, wrapped my jacket tightly around me and walked down to the quay. The weather was dank and cold, the mist hung, greyish
-silver, over the sea, and by the quay the water was as still and shiny as oil. I wandered around in the sea breeze until my head felt a little clearer. Then I went into Hirtshals Kro and ordered a cup of coffee. The publican did a double take when he saw me; standing in the cramped toilet a minute later, I realised why. My eyes were red and swollen and animal-like, while the blood had run down my neck and dried in long gashes. I washed with meticulous care. There was a dried-up, cracked piece of soap on the sink, I did my best to create some foam, then scrubbed my whole face even though it hurt. Afterwards, sitting with a steaming cup in front of me, I could hardly drink, for the sores in my mouth opened up immediately, making the coffee taste of rust. I sat alone in a corner while what I assumed were three local alcoholics sat in the bar, each nursing a glass of frothy beer.

  The rest of the morning in Hirtshals passed in a grey, languid haze. I gradually recovered on my way to the ferry terminal and bought a ticket for the next crossing. Once that was done, I got into my car and searched the glove compartment. The only paper there was a pile of lottery coupons Pappa hadn’t got round to filling in, but that was good enough for me. There were several pens as well. Fortunately, one of them worked, and sitting in the grey, utterly deserted car park in Hirtshals I wrote:

  The sky is opening. Cows are standing at the edge of the forest, gazing towards the house. The clouds are in rapid motion. I look out at the wind. I am sitting by an open window and watch the wind shaking the heavy boughs of the old ash tree. I am writing. Clouds, boughs, a hand writing.

  On the very margin.

  The scent of sweet soil reaches my face. The cows retreat into the forest. A black procession into the blackness. One by one. Gone. One by one. I am cold. A loose windowpane rattles in the loft. From the lake come dancing white bodies and heavenly music.

  I read through what I had written, improving and correcting here and there, but the text remained largely as it had been. It occupied space on the back of five lottery coupons that Pappa never managed to fill in. It was the first time I had read through anything I had written without feeling ashamed. It was a slightly unreal, airy feeling. Unreal yet wonderful. I went for another wander around the quays with my head still feeling like a tender, pounding turnip. Everything was still grey and languid, the water in the harbour as thick and smooth as before, rubbish floated against the sides of boats as before, and out at sea the mist hung as soft and silvery-grey as before. Yet something had happened. I walked, thinking about what I had written. About what was now appended to lottery coupons, and which I would read through as soon as I returned to the pickup. I walked and saw all the grey around me as the sea air and diesel fumes tore at my nostrils, yet something had changed. And it could be seen on my face. If someone came over to ask me what the time was, they would notice it, I imagined, glittering like a diamond in one eye.

  At three o’clock I got back into the pickup, started the engine and drove down to the ferry terminal. I queued at the head of the line, waiting for the ferry to arrive, and tried to write a bit more. I read through what I already had, and then attempted to add a few more lines. The ferry came into view an hour later, and by then I must have scribbled over ten coupons. Once on board I found myself a place on my own, and there I laid out all the coupons in front of me and read through them all. I felt the roar of the engines as the ferry set off, but I was too engrossed to look up and out of the window, I was too engrossed to see the grey town disappear in the matt silver mist. I was somewhere else entirely. I sat bent over the papers, reading, adding, rewriting. However, I was only satisfied with the first text I’d written. It stood apart, it had some of my native countryside residing in it, while the other bits were more run of the mill.

  As the crossing continued I stared out of the discoloured window. I felt totally drained, but was unable to sleep; I just sat there, letting the vibrations of the boat ripple through me. My head was on the mend – it was as if my skull had been opened and my brain reinstalled – and when I drank coffee it no longer tasted of rust. Seeing the lights of Randesund glide past I felt almost as before. I was in my pickup even before the ferry had docked. The bow gate opened, and I saw the harbour lights and the smoke from the ferry being swept across town. I put the pickup into first, I was as before, but I had become someone else, and no one saw that as I drove out of the boat into the autumn evening and all the way home.

  The following night, at a little after four, my father died. The last thing he said was: Mm, that’s heaven. Just as Grandma had noted down. That was after the last dose of morphine, while he was smoking his last cigarette and ash was fluttering down on the sheet. The last thing I did was to lie to him, and I didn’t even have time to tell him I had become a writer.

  III.

  IN FAEDRELANDSVENNEN ON Monday, 5 June, the whole of the first and last pages are devoted to the three most recent fires, and the failed attempt at the house of Anders and Agnes Fjeldsgård.

  Headline: Finsland, Region In Panic.

  There are two photographs on the front page. One shows Johanna sitting in Knut Karlsen’s cellar. She is wearing a dressing gown and staring into the middle distance with her head resting on her hands. She has already given up. The second photograph shows her almost burned-out house. In the foreground are the contours of five people. I don’t recognise any of them.

  The back page shows the wrecked motorbike on its side, right behind the car with which it collided. The picture was taken as the ambulance was leaving the scene of the accident. Dag isn’t there. Nor Pappa.

  On the last page there is also a picture of two police officers taking shots of the steps down from Anders and Agnes Fjeldsgård’s house. It is still dark. One is holding a torch while the other is leaning over with an outmoded camera, the kind you see in old films with a large dish-shaped flash lamp on top.

  At the bottom of the page Lensmann Koland is pictured in conversation with Anders Fjeldsgård and police officer Tellef Uldal. It was Uldal who had brought the Alsatian. The dog had set off down the Maessel road but came back after a few minutes. Next, he let it loose outside Anders and Agnes’s house. It had wandered around the steps sniffing the matches on the ground. Then it had run down the steps, across the road and into the darkness towards Lake Bordvannet. It had been gone a long time and then began to bark somewhere by Duehei, on the eastern side of the lake. There was a clear and distinct echo. The dog barked, and another dog answered. Then it was back, no further developments.

  Later, the Alsatian was released outside the barn belonging to cathedral organist Sløgedal. This was while the barn was still burning, and the flames were reflected in the animal’s small eyes. It was clearly confused at that point, and ran first in one direction, then in another. It sniffed the barn wall, the fruit trees, continued down the road to the fire station, sniffed around the building, then tore off towards Alma and Ingemann’s house. It sprinted around the garden whimpering and whining, before returning. This was when all hands were required at the pump to save the organist’s property; water was being directed at the west wall and roof, and men stood spraying while Sløgedal’s barn wailed and finally collapsed and the flames billowed across the sea. The dog sat by the fire engine, pawing one wheel and whimpering.

  In the photograph Lensmann Koland appears tired and bewildered. In the interview he says it is all very complicated. There are no leads. The sum of their knowledge is that the culprit is most likely a young man. The distance between the fires is barely ten kilometres. Petrol is used. A car with extinguished headlamps has been observed. Apart from that, nothing. It all seems so desperate. The pyromaniac seems to be taking huge risks. The last three fires were started while the police were stopping all the traffic in the area, and while almost everyone was awake or on watch. Apparently this man really wants to get caught.

  It is very complicated, yet simple.

  Two KRIPOS detectives were on their way from Oslo that morning, but they weren’t installed at Brandsvoll Community Centre until around two o’clock in t
he afternoon. By then the sky had clouded over, and a vast tarpaulin was nailed over the entrance to Anders and Agnes’s house in case of rain. The hall reeked of petrol, and there were fragments of glass everywhere. Anders and Agnes stood in the background watching, him with his hands thrust firmly into his pockets, her with her arms crossed. Under the circumstances they were quite composed. For some hours they became strangers in their own house. No one, themselves included, was allowed to touch or move anything. Several journalists came. Everyone wanted to speak to Agnes, the woman who had actually seen the pyromaniac. She had been standing a few metres away, with only the window separating them. She had caught a glimpse of the face in the light from the match, the one that was presumed to be match number two. Two matches had been found on the steps. One had flared up briefly before going out, the other had burned down to about halfway and snapped in the middle. They must have been struck consecutively. And tossed towards the hole in the window, one after the other. Both had missed, hit the glass and fallen outside.