Free Medusa by Torkil Damhaug

beforehand.
    Father Raymond had known her for the six years she had lived in Oslo. Even since her first visit to him he had had a soft spot for her, but in a way he felt this was permissible. The weakness was a reminder, an opening back to the man he had once been; in sacrificing the passion that had dominated him formerly, he had rediscovered it at a new level, one where it was ruled not by compulsion but by joy.
    – I’ll never forget how you helped me that other time, she said suddenly. – It was those conversations with you that gave me the strength to break away from that relationship. It would have destroyed me.
    – All I did was pull a few loose ends together for you, he demurred. He didn’t want to dwell on this; what she had come to talk to him about now was more important. And, he had to admit to himself, his curiosity was piqued.
    – And how far has this relationship gone?
    – I haven’t been with him in that sense. He kissed me. Then he left.
    Father Raymond leaned in towards her.
    – There are two questions I want you to consider before you leave here. In the first place, what does he want from you?
    When she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer, he asked her to tell him what she knew about the man. Afterwards he summarised her reply.
    – The picture you paint is of an attractive man, sympathetic and capable, one who does a lot for others. He was a wife and children, and a twin brother whom he hasn’t seen for many years. You still haven’t answered my question, Miriam, but don’t forget it. My second question is the more important: What do you want from him?
    – I want to be with him, she answered without a moment’s hesitation. – In every conceivable way.
    Father Raymond lowered his gaze. She went on:
    – Only my thoughts tell me it’s wrong. Everything else in me wants it. I’ll lose everything and be left with nothing. And when I think about it, it’s a relief. But he’ll never leave his family for my sake. He isn’t like that.
    – Are you sure that isn’t precisely why you want to be with him? Because he is not free to imprison you? Might this be an attempt to gain control of something painful, Miriam?
    She looked as though she was thinking over the question but could find no answer. He knew the grief she had been carrying since she was a little girl. But now he was approaching the limits of what he could understand. I know people better than I know men and women, he thought once again.
    – I do know something about what you’ve been through, Miriam. Don’t exclude the possibility that I can help you this time too.
    The question she was wrestling with had an unambiguous answer. She knew what the right thing to do was, and she had not come to him to hear him say it. He thought he saw in her something of what he himself had once struggled with. And yet she was better equipped to deal with the world than he had been. Or was he judging her wrongly? The way she connected so strongly with others, and connected others so strongly to herself, was that really all to the good? He thought he could see her so clearly. But maybe the shadow was deeper than he realised. Was there something there he didn’t want to know about? He had met people who carried around with them a chasm of grief, seen how it trapped and held them like a passion. And how, perhaps even without wanting to, they could turn others into prisoners along with them.
    He made her promise to come back. It was all he could do. He could see clearly now how afraid she was. The last thing he wanted to do was turn her away by seeming prejudiced, he thought as he accompanied her back through the church.
    As he stood at the altar and watched her walking down the central aisle, he remembered what it was he had dreamt about her last night. He turned at once and went back into the sacristy.

14
     
Tuesday 2 October
     
    A XEL ATE LUNCH in his office and tried to work. He had a pile of documents to get through. A couple of social security