Free Broken by Karin Fossum Page B

a peaceful pond. The point I’m making is that as I’m drifting I cannot turn and choose another route. From then on all I can do is describe what I see on my way. That particular landscape, the vegetation, and the people I pass.”
    “So you’re drifting?” he says anxiously. This revelation makes him blink.
    “Yes,” I say. “I’m drifting. But I do have some tools. Because other people have an ability to intervene, to interfere and cause change. Someone might build a dam and divert the river. A waterfall is directed through pipes. Farmers discover the stream and use it to water their fields. So I might end up somewhere completely different from where I had imagined.”
    “Nevertheless, you can choose to give me a happy ending,” he pleads. “You can determine in advance that everything will turn out all right. All this talk of drifting is making me nervous.”
    “There are many things that are hard to accept, Alvar. And true, there are people who are masters of their own destiny. But you’re not one of them. You’re not a proactive person. Neither am I.”
    “But you work several hours every single day,” he objects. “You make things happen. You can dole out love and happiness.”
    “Yes,” I reply, “it’s like blowing on embers in a fire: they flare up instantly. But I am watching you from a distance and I describe what I see. It’s rare for me to act. We are very like each other, you and I. And that’s why it’s possible for me to tell your story. In some ways you live your life through the pictures in the gallery. You live in a fictitious world of people and landscapes. I live my life through all the characters I invent. If it’s any comfort, I do know how you feel.”
    He buries his head in his hands. “No, there’s no comfort in the fact that others feel the same way; it’s no consolation that others are worse off. I watch people as I walk through the town—they drift around Bragernes Square. Drug addicts. Stiff-legged and pale with glassy eyes. I see that they are in pain, but they’re none of my business. The strength I have I need for myself. To live a decent life that no one can find fault with. People come into the gallery every day, they chat to me, but these are brief conversations and then they leave. I have no need to expose myself; I don’t want to get involved with them. I don’t want to know if they are feeling awful. I am probably selfish and it troubles me. Why did you have to mention that rat? Now that image is in my head forever. Now it’s gnawing at me too.”
    “Perhaps it’s a sign of things to come?” I say. “Now try to take it easy. You’re at the front of the line now; it’s finally your turn. You have questions and they will be answered. Consider yourself privileged. I can delete unpleasant things as well. If only you knew what I would give to erase certain chapters from my own life.”
    He gets up from the sofa and paces the room restlessly.
    “Please, may I ask you a question?” he says.
    “Feel free.”
    “When you’re in bed at night, I mean before you fall asleep and everything in the house is quiet, do you think about me then?”
    “Every single night,” I reply. “I follow you with my mind’s eye.”
    “How much do you see?”
    “Everything.”
    “So you’re inside my very home?”
    “Further than that,” I say. “I follow you into your bedroom, and I watch you when you sleep.”
    “And you have your own ideas?”
    “Yes, I have my own ideas. Every day I notice something new. A minor observation that tells me something about who you really are and what is going to happen. For example, I see you turn off the lights in your apartment. You carry your coffee cup to the kitchen, or your glass if you have treated yourself to a sherry, and you rinse it under the tap. Next you go into the bathroom, where you brush your teeth and wash your hands before turning off the light in there as well: you like saving electricity. You continue into