Blood on Snow

I grabbed my trousers from the chair by the bed and pulled them on. The fabric of one of the legs was stiff with blood and pus. I heaved myself out of bed and dragged my leg behind me across the floor.

Corina didn’t move.

I leaned down over my shoes and felt a wave of nausea, but managed to pull them on. My coat. I had my passport and the tickets to Paris in the inside pocket.

“You won’t get far,” she said.

The keys to the Volvo were in my trouser pocket.

“Your wound has opened up, just look at yourself.”

I opened the door and went out into the stairwell. I got hold of the handrail and heaved myself down using my lower arms, as I thought about the randy little male spider realising that visiting time was over just a bit too late.

By the time I got downstairs my shoe was already sloshing with blood.

I set off towards the car. Police sirens. They had been there the whole time. Like wolves howling in the distance around the snow-covered hills that surrounded Oslo. Rising, falling, sniffing out the scent of blood.

This time the Volvo started at once.

I knew where I was going, but it was as if the streets had lost their shape and direction, becoming gently swaying tentacles of a lion’s mane jellyfish that I had to keep swerving to follow. It was hard to see where you were in this rubber city where nothing wanted to stay as it was. I saw a red light and braked. Tried to get my bearings. I must have nodded off, because I jumped when the lights changed and a car behind blew its horn. I put my foot down. Where was this, was I still in Oslo?

My mum never said anything about my father’s murder. It was as if it had never happened. And that was fine with me. Then one day, four or five years later, when we were sitting at the kitchen table, she suddenly asked: “When do you think he’ll come back?”

“Who?”

“Your father.” She looked through me, past me with unfocused eyes. “He’s been gone a long time. Wonder where he’s been this time?”

“He’s not coming back, Mum.”

“Of course he is. He always comes back.” She raised her glass again. “He’s very fond of me, you know. And you.”

“Mum, you helped me carry him...”

She put the glass down with a bang, spilling some of the gin.

“Oh,” she said without any trace of emotion, fixing her gaze on me. “Anyone who took him from me would have to be a terrible person, don’t you think?”

She wiped the glistening liquid from the table-cloth with one hand, then went on rubbing it, as if she were trying to erase something. I didn’t know what to say. She had put together a story of her own. And I mine. I could hardly start diving into that lake up in Nittedal just to see whose version was more truthful. So I said nothing.

But the knowledge that she could love a man who treated her like that taught me just one thing about love.

No, actually.

It didn’t.

It taught me nothing about love.

We never spoke about my father again after that.

I turned the wheel to follow the road, matching it as closely as I could, but it was as if it was trying to shake me off the whole time, swerving so that I and the car would hit a wall or one of the cars coming in the other direction, disappearing behind me with wailing horns that diminished in strength like an exhausted barrel organ.

I turned off to the right. Found myself in quieter streets. Fewer lights. Less traffic. Darkness was falling. And then it got completely dark.

I must have fainted and driven off the road. Not fast. I had hit my head on the windscreen but there was no damage, either to windscreen or head. And the lamp post that the radiator had buckled around wasn’t even bent. But the engine had stopped. I turned the key in the ignition a few times, but it just complained with ever decreasing enthusiasm. I opened the car door and crawled out. I lay on my knees and elbows like a Muslim praying, with the fresh snow stinging the palms of my hands. I moved my hands together, trying to gather up the powdery snow. But powdery snow is just that. It’s white and beautiful, but difficult to make anything enduring out of. It promises so much, but in the end everything you try to make collapses, crumbling between your fingers. I peered up and looked around to see where I’d driven.

Leaning on the car I got to my feet, then staggered over to the window. I pressed my face to the glass, which was lovely and cool against my burning forehead. The shelves and counters inside were bathed in a flickering half-light. I was too late, the shop was closed. Of course it was, it was the middle of the night. There was even a sign on the door saying they’d closed earlier than usuaclass="underline" “Closing at 17:00 on December 23 for stocktaking.”

Taking stock. Of course. It was the day before Christmas Eve, after all. The end of a year. Perhaps it was time for that.

In the corner, beyond the short train of trolleys, there was a Christmas tree, mean and small. But it still demanded the title — it was a Christmas tree, no matter what.