The Cold Song (3 page)

They counted steps. When not on their bikes, they counted steps. From Simen’s house to Gunnar’s house, from Gunnar’s house to Christian’s house, from Christian’s house to Simen’s house, from the top of the road, where Jenny Brodal’s house, old and ghostly white, hovered just above the ground, to the bottom of the road where Simen’s parents’ summer cottage lay partly hidden by a worn blue picket fence.

In Christian’s parents’ garden, located just sixty steps from Jenny Brodal’s house and four hundred and fifty-two steps from Simen’s parents’ cottage, there was a shed. In the shed there was an old light blue tin pail with a lid that Christian’s mother had picked up in a secondhand shop some years earlier. The pail was dented; it had sun-bleached, hand-painted pictures of cows and pretty milkmaids on it, and on one side the words:
Milk—nature’s most nearly perfect food
. Christian told Simen and Gunnar how his father had been mad all day
because of that pail, his father couldn’t see the sense in spending two hundred kroner on something so stupid, and then Christian’s mother had gotten twice as mad and said well, if his father had just built that terrace out from their bedroom door (as he’d been promising to do for years) she could have dressed it up with troughs and pots and climbing roses and cushions and throws—and she would put flowers in the pail. They could have had their own little Italian veranda. “What the fuck is an Italian veranda,” Christian’s father had said then.

“I don’t know what an Italian veranda is,” Christian said, and Simen and Gunnar had nodded, meaning they didn’t know either, but they got the idea. They all had parents with stuff going on. The tin pail had been part of Christian’s mother’s great plan. But the terrace, Italian or otherwise, did not get built, not that year and not the year after either, so now the pail was tucked away at the back of the shed, partly hidden behind a broken lawnmower.

“The pail can be our treasure chest,” Christian said.

The point in burying treasure was never to unearth it. Never. You know it’s there. You know where it is. You know how many steps you have to walk to get there or how many minutes it takes on your bike. You know how precious it is and how much you sacrificed when you chose to bury it and never see it again. And you can never speak of it to anyone, ever.

“But,” said Simen, Christian had to come up with something to put
in
the pail too. Christian had to make a
sacrifice.
Simen felt uncomfortable uttering that word—
sacrifice
—it was a stupid word. Something a girl might say, or a woman, not an eleven-year-old boy. Uttering it made him think of Alma, Jenny Brodal’s weird black-haired granddaughter, and how she, a few years earlier, had asked him into her room, told him to bend over, and then proceeded to brush his hair one long stroke after the other, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine strokes, she went on brushing forever, her weird little voice counting every stroke, “so that your hair will shine,” she’d said, “and for this you must make sacrifices.”

So that his hair would
fucking shine
.

“Brush your own hair,” he had said when she wanted to do it again the next day, and she had said no, his hair was way longer than hers and shone more beautifully. And he, stupid little boy, had bent over and let her do it again. Anyway, the pail itself wasn’t a
sacrifice
, Simen said. Hadn’t Christian’s grandmother just given him two hundred and fifty kroner? He ought to offer up at least two hundred of that. Gunnar nodded and made a mumbling sound indicating that he agreed with Simen. But no. Christian didn’t want to give up his money, even though—even though!—the treasure had been his idea and he was the one who had said that their offerings all had to be
valuable, precious, priceless
, yes, he had used all those words, and even though he was the one who said they had to make a
sacrifice
. Simen and Gunnar both felt it wasn’t enough to say that the tin pail itself was his contribution to the treasure. That wasn’t a
sacrifice
. The pail wasn’t a part of the treasure, the pail was the treasure
chest. Only it wasn’t a chest, it was a pail. If the truth be told (and, as Gunnar pointed out, this
was
the moment of truth), Christian didn’t have anything of value
except
the money from his grandmother.

“This is not a game,” Simen said.

“Well, it’s kind of a game,” Christian retorted, knowing already that he had to give up the money. “So okay, take it,” he said.

And when it came to Gunnar there was no doubt what his offering ought to be. On this point Simen and Christian were in complete agreement. Gunnar had to sacrifice his Liverpool F.C. autograph book.

A few months earlier Gunnar had been to Liverpool with his big brother, who was twenty-two. They had spent a whole weekend there, stayed in a hotel, and gone to see a Champions League match between Liverpool and Tottenham.

Gunnar’s big brother wasn’t a real big brother, even though Gunnar was always going on about
my big brother
this and
my big brother
that. Gunnar’s big brother was only a
half brother
, he was Gunnar’s father’s son from an earlier marriage and Gunnar didn’t really see him all that often. Gunnar’s father was a dentist, so was his mother, they had bought a summer house just down the street from Jenny Brodal’s house. Gunnar’s big brother was not really around that much, he was a grown-up and had his own life. Simen and Christian had seen him only once—the previous summer—when Gunnar had pointed him out. But that’s how it was with Gunnar’s family members. Simen and Christian hadn’t actually met any of
them, rather they had been pointed out. See, there’s my big brother drinking beer with his friends and there’s my father going out for a run again, and there’s my mother in her garden,
my father has no idea she’s doing it with weird Alma’s father right under his nose
, and there are our dogs, they are my father’s dogs, really, not like regular family dogs that you hang out with, they either lie very still in the backyard or go running with my father.

Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, and Jamie Carragher were just some of the players who had signed their names in Gunnar’s autograph book. But that was not the autograph book’s most precious feature. Simen knew that. Carefully glued to the last page was a photograph of Gunnar and his big brother outside Anfield Stadium; they were both wearing Liverpool scarves and his big brother was almost six foot six, with broad shoulders and long brown hair falling over his face; Gunnar looked a real daddy longlegs next to him. Under the picture in blue biro were the words:
To the world’s greatest little brother: some people believe soccer is a matter of life and death, you and I know that it is much more important than that
.

Simen knew that Gunnar didn’t want to put the autograph book in the pail. The two hundred kroner from Christian’s grandmother was one thing, Gunnar’s Liverpool autograph book was quite another. Forcing him to part with it was maybe asking too much, thought Simen. Christian’s grandmother gave her grandson money all the time, but Gunnar’s big brother hardly ever (or rather, never, apart
from this once) took Gunnar to Liverpool to see a Champions League match. And how often did you get a chance to collect Steven Gerrard’s, Fernando Torres’s, and Jamie Carragher’s autographs?

Gunnar, who was the skinniest of the three and whose family members were only pointed out and whose mother was doing it with weird Alma’s father, had been close to tears when he promised the other two that he would offer up the autograph book and Simen almost said
Let’s just forget about the whole thing
. But he didn’t.

Instead he said, “I know what I’m putting in the pail.”

He was the only one left and he wanted to show Gunnar and Christian that he too was prepared to make a sacrifice.
Bend over and I’ll make your hair shine
.

Simen’s mother had a small gold chain with a little diamond crucifix on it. His father had given it to her for Christmas two and a half years ago. Simen had gone with him to the jeweler’s to buy it and had almost passed out when he heard how many thousands it cost. It was supposed to be partly from him too and it was supposed to make his mother really happy. He didn’t know if it had worked, paying all those thousands to make his mother happy. His mother was the same after Christmas as she had been before Christmas. Simen had wondered whether to ask his father if it had been worth it. But he didn’t. And now he had this whole other idea.

Every night before his mother went to bed she took off the necklace and put it in a blue bowl in the bathroom. He just had to wait until everyone was asleep—it would be the
easiest thing in the world. No one would suspect him. Simen was not the kind of kid who stole stuff. His mother would be upset, she would turn the whole summer house upside down, searching for her diamond necklace, but she would never suspect him.

Gunnar and Christian stared at each other and then at Simen.

“How much did it cost, exactly?” Christian asked.

“Thousands. Seventeen, maybe.”

“Shut up,” said Christian. “You’re lying.”

“Well, if they’re real diamonds,” Gunnar said, “then it’s possible. Diamonds are very expensive.”

Christian considered this.

“Okay then,” he said, fixing his eyes on Simen. “You get that necklace!”

The following evening they combed the woods, raced their bikes along the narrow, winding woodland tracks under the bright treetops, looking for the perfect spot in which to bury the pail. They rode past the green forest lake where, years and years ago, two little children had drowned. It was Alma from up the road at Mailund, exactly five hundred and sixty-seven steps from Simen’s house, who had told Simen about the drowning in the woods. Alma was a few years older than Simen and had occasionally been paid by his mother to look after him for an hour or two. That was years ago, though. He looked after himself now. But a long time ago, before he even knew Gunnar and Christian. When he was little. Five, six, seven, eight years old. He was eleven now. When Simen grew up and had children he
would never pay girls like Alma to look after them. Under no circumstances would he leave his future children with someone like her, not even for free. She was weird and dark-eyed and treated him like a doll and told stories, some true, some not, and he could never be sure which were which. The story about the children drowning in the green lake was probably true, he thought. Most of it anyway. The boy had drowned while the girl watched, and the mother of the two children had been so stricken with grief that she snatched the girl from her bed and drowned her as well.

“She must have loved the son more than the daughter,” whispered Alma.

Alma and Simen on the edge of the lake, gazing across the sun-warmed water, each clutching a slice of apple cake and a plastic cup of red lemonade. It was Alma’s mother who had packed them a lunch, but Alma didn’t like red lemonade so she tipped it all into the lake. Alma’s mother’s name was Siri. She had a habit of stroking Simen’s hair, saying, “Hi, Simen, how are you today?”

Alma continued, in that whispering voice of hers, to tell her story. “The little boy fell in the water and drowned while his sister just stood there and watched, and when the girl came home without her little brother, her mother didn’t know what to do with herself. She cried and cried and cried, and no one could stay in the house because of all the crying. The girl put her hands over her ears and cried too. But her mother didn’t care. Or maybe she did care, but she didn’t listen. Then one night the mother went very quiet. And then the girl went very quiet too.”

“What happened?” Simen asked. “Did the mother become happy again and stop crying?”

Alma thought for a moment. “No, not exactly,” she said. “The mother took the girl into her big four-poster bed and read and sang to her and tickled the back of her neck and ruffled her hair and said
I love you so much, my little … little …
” Alma searched for a word.

“Little song thrush,” suggested Simen, because that was what his mother called him.

“Little song thrush, yes.
I love you so much, my little song thrush
, the mother told the girl. Then she got out of bed and went to the kitchen and made a big cup of hot cocoa, which was the girl’s favorite.”

Alma turned to Simen. He had been eight years old then—that day when they sat at the edge of the green lake, eating apple cake.

“It’s your mother, isn’t it? It’s your mother who calls you little song thrush,” Alma said.

Simen didn’t answer.

“Why does she call you little song thrush?” Alma asked.

“I don’t know,” said Simen, who was wishing he had kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to tell her anything at all about himself, and certainly not this. He didn’t want to say,
Because every night before Mama kisses me good night and leaves my room she whispers: “What would you like me to sing to you before I go?” And then I whisper back: “I want you to sing ‘Little Song Thrush.’ All the verses!” That’s why Mama calls me little song thrush
.

Alma turned to face the water again and continued with her story: “And once the mother had made the cocoa she poured a sleeping potion into the cup. It was colorless. Tasteless. There are such things, you know—sleeping potions that you can drink without even realizing that you’re drinking them! You never know. It can happen any time. It could happen to you too. Your mother could put a sleeping potion into your cocoa without you knowing.”

“Cut it out,” said Simen.

“You cut it out,” said Alma. “I’m only telling you that it
could
happen. These are the harsh realities of life.”

“Well, cut it out anyway,” Simen said again.

“And once the girl had drunk the cocoa,” Alma went on, “she fell asleep in her mother’s big four-poster bed. Fell into a deep, deep sleep. And the mother put her ear to the girl’s mouth, and when she was sure that she wouldn’t wake up, she picked her up in her arms and carried her through the woods to this lake and threw her in.”

“I don’t believe that,” Simen said.