Third no return address. I cannot answer. He wants no answer. What does he want?
Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband
‘Funder! Funder, Funder, Funder,’ I repeated to myself. I was so worked up that I pressed the wrong keys. The text disappeared. What did it say? When the train arrived, I hesitated but eventually decided to board. I found a window seat, dumped my jacket and went out into the vestibule with my phone. I realized I didn’t have Funder’s number and I couldn’t call the emergency services because there was no emergency. What did the text say? I tried to remain calm and methodical. I clicked on my inbox. There was only one message and it was from Halland. I pressed the OPEN key. Where are you? it said. ‘No, please, please, please,’ I repeated, shaking my head vigorously. ‘That’s not funny. That’s not funny!’ Soldiers came through the carriage and one of them asked if I was all right. He had such a kind voice I could hardly bear it. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Yes, I mean.’ He scrutinized me for a moment. I nodded. ‘Everything’s fine,’ I said, repeating the words after the soldiers carried on through the carriage. Everything’s fine.
The conductor came through and asked for the ticket. I fumbled with my bag, then with my purse and my phone. ‘Is the reception especially poor around here?’ I asked. ‘I need to make a call, but I can’t get a signal!’
‘It’s always weak around here,’ she replied.
‘But I need to make a call!’ I repeated, my voice rising.
‘Is something wrong?’
I bit my tongue. This shouldn’t have happened. Shaking my head, I peered into my bag so the conductor wouldn’t see my face. I tasted blood in my mouth.
My jacket still lay on my seat when I got back. A man sitting on the aisle seat was reading a fat crime novel. He got up laboriously while I waited impatiently, fidgeting as if in a hurry. Across the table from us sat two women and our legs had to find space to settle. I took out my newspaper, all the while gripping my phone. I had finished the quick crossword on the outward journey. Now I began to read. We were still burdened with the same omniscient, incompetent government. There were still forgotten wars in Africa. We continued to wage war on terrorism: everyone was under surveillance; everything had to be dragged out into the light; soon there would be no secrets any more. I hadn’t paid attention to the newspapers’ take on my own story and found myself gazing at Halland’s picture for a while before I recognized him.
Keeping my eye on the signal bars on my phone, I read about Peter Olsen. Apparently the police had spoken to him and concluded that he could not have shot Halland. He had an alibi. He had spent the night at his sister’s in Kalvehave. He had driven home only after breakfast; Halland was already dead by then. The police were running tests on Olsen’s hunting rifle. I looked out of the window. The sun was still shining, but the light seemed odd; perhaps because of the tinted glass. Poppies appeared in the yellow sky. Maybe I was looking at a poppy field? During my childhood lots of poppies used to grow in fields and on building sites. Then they disappeared for years. Now they had returned.
The train came to a stop. The passengers glanced at each other in annoyance. They raised their eyebrows and sighed.
‘Are we running late?’ I asked the man next to me.
‘They just said we’ll be moving in a minute.’
I looked at my phone again. Pressed the number for directory enquiries. No connection. I felt a hot flash and shifted uneasily in my seat. Why did I get hot flashes now?
‘Do you want to get out?’ the man asked.
I shook my head, gasping a bit, then closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing.
‘The same thing happened the last time I took the train,’ he said. ‘Stuck for two hours we were. What a palaver. Can’t open the windows or doors … the recycled air is awful.’
Were they really unable to open the doors? Another hot flash. I couldn’t breathe any longer. Can one forget how to breathe? I wanted to get out. I thought I said so, but the man didn’t seem to have heard me. Who had Halland’s phone? I could play along and reply as though he were still alive. The loudspeaker crackled. We would be sitting here indefinitely, they couldn’t find the fault. The man looked at his watch.
‘I’ll miss my bus,’ he said.
‘And I need to make a call,’ I said, barely breathing. My mouth was parched.
‘That time last winter, all we could do was sit and wait. No information at all, then all the lights went out. Pitch black it was. We all had to walk back along the tracks to Vejle.’
‘So they can open the doors,’ I said, breathing more easily at the thought.
‘Only in emergencies. Highly dangerous business sending folk out onto the tracks.’
I rested my cheek against the windowpane and relished the brief chill, pressing my face hard against the glass, moving my lips across it. Could I taste anything? The glass tasted of metal. Soft, soft, dark.
Soft, dark.
I mustn’t make the taste sound luscious. I was frightened, really frightened. I have tried to come to terms with my physical self since I was born, just as I assume everyone else has with greater or lesser success. Anyway, you get to know your physical self and every now and then even gain a fleeting sense of pleasure from some part of your body. I had had my ups and downs. But this feeling was new. Perhaps I had never been frightened before. Of course I had felt fear when Halland was lying there. But then I didn’t think anything much because I didn’t know what was happening. Now my body expressed what I felt and I had no say in the matter. A paranoid itch between the shoulder blades on a bathing jetty was nothing compared to this. I fainted. Or rather, I had a blackout; I think that’s what they would call it. A second or two, perhaps, maybe more. I slumped against the man in the aisle seat. He nudged me; his moustache nearly touched my face.
‘I want to get out,’ I said.
‘They won’t let you.’
‘I want to get out. I really must make that call. It’s urgent.’
‘You’ve got claustrophobia. I’m having trouble breathing myself.’
‘I want to get out!’ Sitting up, I swivelled my head gingerly, then tried to stand up. The man remained seated. As I stepped over his legs, I straddled him for a moment before he grabbed me. ‘Let go!’ I said. Everyone stared. I wanted to sit down again and be quiet and ordinary, but too late.
Suddenly we jerked into motion. I banged my chin against the man’s head. His breath smelt of eggs. I found my feet, then lost my balance and fell towards the aisle. My phone chimed again as the floor reared up. I stayed on the floor and opened the message. It was from Halland: Where are you? I rang his number, still on the floor, breathing heavily. The phone rang. I imagined him in the car, perhaps in the narrow bed with Pernille, staring up at the poster of Martin Guerre that hung like an altarpiece above his head, in the living room at home, at the window with his binoculars. No answer.