Free Sohlberg and the Gift by Jens Amundsen Page B

impossibly narrower lane of Dragonstien. He had to leave his car at a parking lot on the right because Dragonstien disappeared under a six foot wall of snow. So much for global warming.
     
    Rows of pyramidal four-story buildings beckoned at the top of a small hill. It looked like he’d have to post-hole his way up the plush piles of snow on the hill until he saw a tramped path in the snow.
     
    After getting lost and frozen for more than 25 minutes in the maze of pathways between the buildings Sohlberg finally found the Isaksen ground floor apartment. He knocked and after a few minutes the door opened. A chain jiggled on the door’s security fastener. He shouted his name and showed his badge through a two-inch crack.
     
    “Can I come in?” said Sohlberg with impatience as the door remained chained.
     
    Metal parts moved. The security chain slid off. The door opened and a frigid welcome followed his bone-chilling walk.
     
    “Yes,” said the grandmother reluctantly. “I guess so. Come in.”
     
    The modestly furnished two-bedroom apartment smelled of old age and that smell reminded Sohlberg of his own grandparents. Vague aromas of ointments and medicines hung in the air along with pungent wafts of old-fashioned traditional recipes being slow-cooked in the kitchen. His nose detected fiskesuppe laden with heavy cream. But one sickening smell prevailed above all others: the acrid stench of tobacco which permeated and overpowered everything and everyone.
     
    “Who is it?” said someone in the living room with a voice that sounded like sand blowing on a dune.
     
    Sohlberg watched in disbelief at the living skeleton of Astrid Isaksen’s grandfather. The old man’s oxygen tank stood next to smoldering cigarettes piled high on an overwhelmed ashtray. Open and closed medicine bottles littered the room and pills of all sorts of pedestrian and fantastic sizes and shapes and colors spilled out everywhere. An IV bottle hung above the grandfather. The line dripped milky fluid into his veins. The ailing Isaksen waved his hand and in a mocking tone said:
     
    “Welcome to my empire of pain.”
     
    Not books but vodka and aquavit bottles lined the bookcase and window sills. Sohlberg tried not to stare but the man’s emaciated face and wasted body reminded him of the horrific multiple car pile-up on the highway that warrants a second or third or fourth lookover.
     
    “This one is a cop,” said the surly grandmother by way of introduction. “He’s the one Astrid talked to on Monday. Sit down Inspector . . . if you must.”
     
    Trying as hard as he could Sohlberg could not calculate the ages of the decrepit man and woman. He couldn’t tell if they were in their 60s or 80s. But one thing was obvious and certain: both grandparents had been aged—ravaged—by a life of hard living pickled in tobacco and alcohol. Sohlberg thought it was a miracle that Astrid Isaksen and her healthy peaches-and-cream complexion could survive this den of nicotine and 90-proof grain alcohol.
     
    “Thanks for letting me come visit you. I wanted to talk about—”
     
    “I’m dying,” said the grandfather who spoke in the strange solitary soliloquy of the dying. He seemed to hear conversations from other people who were not in the room or in this dimension.
     
    “I’m sorry to hear that.”
     
    “They never told us at the navy shipyards. Just fix this or that. Or . . . clean this and that. Yes sir! . . . Aye aye captain! . . . No one told us about the asbestos. Just pretty words about serving King and Country. What a fraud.
     
    “Where’s my King now that I need him?
     
    “Where’s my Country when it should’ve protected me from the asbestos?
     
    “Where were my Olav and Harald the Fifths?
     
    “What good are these kings?
     
    “They just want me and other chumps to bow down and stare at them in their pretty uniforms at their parades and their weddings and their funerals. Mind you . . . no royals . . . no majesties will be