Free I Can See in the Dark by Karin Fossum Page A

and the weeks passed, the summer grew warmer, light and airy, and this was all the excuse people needed to make them go barmy with joy. They threw off their clothes and went out, beguiled, their belief in life renewed. I frequently sat in the park by Lake Mester. I received Arnfinn, I listened, I filled up his hip flask. I went to work, I plunged hypodermic syringes into mattresses and wrote nursing notes, I discussed things with Dr Fischer and Sister Anna. Can we do anything for Barbro? asked Dr Fischer with a tormented twist of his lips. No, we couldn’t do a damned thing for Barbro. The disease took its course, it spread throughout her body with devastating effect. I went out to the kitchen to see Sali Singh, gave him a friendly pat on the back. He gave no visible reaction to this touch, he was a simple man who lived in his own world. Maybe his mind was away in Delhi, in the slums he’d frequented as a boy. I could imagine Dr Fischer as a young boy too, in shorts and patent leather shoes, and Anna in a blouse and pleated skirt. I’ve got plenty of imagination. I watch them and think my thoughts. Life is a gift, people say. Life is a challenge, a miracle, something God-given.
    I’m not so sure.
    I see so much toil and worry.
    I hear so much moaning and misery.
    Miranda’s thin cheeks had begun to get a bit of colour.
    Old Ebba’s bedspread had come on well; her hands worked rapidly, and the work grew in her lap from day to day. Eddie and Janne were still together. They came at regular intervals, sat there fondling in the usual manner, always with the same greediness and intensity. I knew they spent some of their time at the Dixie Café, sucking Coke through a straw and ruining their teeth. We saw little of the black man now. Perhaps he’d been deported, or sent to another Reception Centre. Maybe he’d found a job and some digs, but I thought it unlikely, I’ve never been much of an optimist. I’d got used to Arnfinn fetching up at my door from time to time, begging for a treat like a child, just a wee drink. And I always let him in. There was something solid about him in spite of everything, something straightforward and solid, yes, something unfeigned and honest and genuine. He always sat right in the corner of the sofa, bent slightly forwards with his elbows on his knees. I told myself that he came for my company, too, it wasn’t only the vodka. He was like a great, good-natured dog, sitting there holding his glass in both hands. And like a dog he had that look, the look that says: don’t be cruel, I can’t take all that much.
    But the day came when I could no longer show such forbearance. My endurance has its limits too, and we breached them together, Arnfinn and I. It was a Friday in the middle of July, 17 July, and I had the day off. Not because it was my birthday, which it was, but because I was due some time in lieu.
    So, it was 17 July. Arnfinn came to my door that day. He stood hesitating on the bottom step, with that mixture of embarrassment and shame I’d seen so often. Stooping forward, with one hand on the banister and imploring eyes. I’d become fond of this grave, sombre man and his simple life, so I was pleased to see him. And I harboured a few pleasant thoughts about the future. The years would pass, Arnfinn would visit, as steadfast as the sun, to get his vodka.
    He sat in the corner of the sofa as always. I fetched the bottle as usual, and immediately the conversation flowed more freely, he warmed to it so much that he sat and purred like a stove. I’ve never been open-handed, but I watered him like a rare plant. In reality, I was teetering on a knife-edge, I just didn’t realise it. When, later in the afternoon, and after a considerable quantity of vodka, which I’d so generously poured for him, he headed to the toilet, it never occurred to me that everything was about to change. That everything would end in disaster, that life would take a grisly twist from now on, his life and my life.