Free Broken by Karin Fossum Page A

after very well, but there was no way he was going there. He wanted to stay in his home. He was going to die in his own bedroom even if he did end up needing home care. He could not imagine it any other way.
    There, he had reached the gallery. He entered the code and disabled the alarm, opened the door, and went inside. All the paintings hung there. They were like old friends to him. Selling a painting was always an ambiguous experience. It meant it disappeared and he would never see it again. Paintings he had been studying for several months could suddenly be snatched away. But then a joyful event followed that never failed to lift his spirits. Ole Krantz would hang a new one. Today the waterfall was leaving and Alvar would miss its roaring water torrents.

Chapter 6
    “I ’M STARTING TO FEEL a little worried,” Alvar says, stopping in the middle of the floor. “I didn’t mean to disturb you—you know it’s not in my nature—but as I said, I’m worried. I have trouble sleeping. I can’t handle that. Suddenly I’m lying in my bed overcome with panic.”
    His voice is troubled.
    I am sitting in front of the computer. My fingers skate quickly across the keyboard. There are times it becomes flexible like a ribbon in my hands and I can bend and twist the language any way I please. Alvar comes up behind me, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.
    “Are you really going to burden me with your sleeping problems and anxiety?” I turn around and give him a somewhat patronizing look.
    “Everyone struggles with anxiety,” I say. “Can you feel how it eats away at you? In here, behind your ribs?” I tap my chest with my finger. “A cowardly rat sits in here gnawing its way through your ribs. It hurts.”
    “But I’m a decent man,” he says. “I always keep my affairs in order.”
    I turn off the computer, then turn around in my chair and look at him again. “Yes, that’s true. At the same time, you’re all alone. It’s dangerous to go through life without someone you can lean on. In certain circumstances it might well prove to be extremely dangerous for you.”
    “In certain circumstances,” he echoes, “that you are about to put me in?”
    I get up from my desk and go to my armchair, sit down, and light up a cigarette.
    “What will be will be,” I say to him over my shoulder. He follows me. He stands with his hands folded. It is gray outside the windows. Heavy and wet, no hint of wind or movement.
    “That rat,” I continue, “that gnaws at us all, it never feels satisfied. We constantly seek relief in every way possible. And on rare occasions it allows us a brief respite. Do you know what it’s like when everything suddenly falls into place, when that feeling floods your body? It’s like taking off from a great height. We float through the air and everything around us is warm. For a few brief seconds we think how great life can be. You’ll have such moments too, I promise you.”
    He sits down on the sofa, on the edge as usual.
    “Are people supposed to settle for a few brief moments of happiness?” he asks, dismayed.
    “That’s a good question. It’s up to each and every one of us to decide. The majority spend most of their day looking for some kind of relief. A cigarette, a bottle of red wine. A Cipralex, going for a run. I won’t deprive you of sleep, Alvar, I promise you. But you have come to my house. I have seen you close up, and some events are inevitable. At this point in the story I’m no longer free; there is a clear structure and I have to work within it.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says. “You can use your imagination. It may not be boundless, but you have artistic license.”
    “Think of my imagination as a lake with a thousand outlets,” I say. “Rivers, streams, and waterfalls. I flounder in this lake while I look around for an outlet. If I drift in a certain direction, then I am swept along by the current. It may carry me toward a waterfall or toward