Read Online Before I Burn: A Novel by Gaute Heivoll - Free Book Online
Authors: Gaute Heivoll
Ads: Link
to side. Then he let go.
He was himself again, the good boy she knew so well. She smiled and said: ‘Now you’ll have to let your hair grow.’
The weeks passed. Dag and Ingemann were in the habit of shooting at a target every Saturday morning, just like in the old days, while she was alone in the kitchen baking bread. They fired a round of five shots each, then they got up and walked down the field to study the black circle, Dag first, Ingemann following with his hands in his pockets, and when they returned they ate the hot bread that steamed as Alma sliced it.
It was midsummer. The heat came. It came in waves from the end of the plain towards Breivoll. He turned twenty. The swallows circled high in the sky. In the evenings he drove to Lake Homevannet to go swimming. She didn’t know that he went alone. Or that he swam alone to the underwater rocks about thirty metres from the bathing area.
His hair grew. It wasn’t long before his skull was covered. She was glad to have him back. She felt it in her stomach whenever she looked at him. It wasn’t that. Of course she was glad. She smiled, and she hadn’t done that for quite a while. Yet there was still a gash between her eyes. It wouldn’t go.
He spent the whole of the summer upstairs in his room. He had a radio and an old record player, and music blared out every evening and night. He didn’t tell them anything about his stint by the Russian border, only that he had once seen a wolf. During the initial days she had attempted to be cheerful, and both she and Ingemann had asked questions and prodded him about all sorts of things. But his eyes had seemed to darken at every question, something happened to his face, it stiffened, and a strange, oppressive atmosphere spread around the table. From then on, questions from either of them became rarer and rarer. Then they stopped, neither she nor Ingemann asked anything. It was best to let sleeping dogs lie, and carry on as before. All they had was the story of the wolf. It went as follows:
One night he was sitting alone in the watchtower with the temperature registering minus forty degrees centigrade. Suddenly the animal trotted across the snow; he had been tracking it through his binoculars. Every so often the wolf stopped and listened, then it went on. The snow was crusted, the moon shone and the animal left no paw marks. Then it crossed the border.
That was the story of the wolf; otherwise nothing.
Through the autumn he began to increase the volume of the music. Alma lay awake listening. At times she thought she could hear his voice, singing or talking. For long periods there was total silence. Then the music blasted out and she thought she heard someone laughing.
In October, Alma started cleaning for people, as she had done in years past. By choice, for neighbours, people who lived within walking distance. She didn’t like cycling, she preferred to walk. She walked to Omdal, to Breivoll and to Djupesland. She washed the hall and kitchen floor of the chapel in Brandsvoll, and she cleaned for Agnes and Anders Fjeldsgård in the big, white house by the Solås road.
In December the first snow came. One morning the whole world was white and pure. Alma baked seven kinds of Christmas biscuit, exactly as she used to, and Dag came into the kitchen and was allowed to taste them while they were still warm. Warily, she asked what he had considered doing when Christmas was over. He said that he hadn’t thought that far ahead.
‘But surely you’re going to do something, aren’t you?’ she asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ he answered. ‘I’ll find something.’
‘You could start some course or other, with your school-leaving grades and all that.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’ll see.’
That was the end of the conversation about the future. Christmas came. All three of them were in church on Christmas Eve. They sat among neighbours and acquaintances from the region, all with a singular gleam in their eyes they never usually
He was himself again, the good boy she knew so well. She smiled and said: ‘Now you’ll have to let your hair grow.’
The weeks passed. Dag and Ingemann were in the habit of shooting at a target every Saturday morning, just like in the old days, while she was alone in the kitchen baking bread. They fired a round of five shots each, then they got up and walked down the field to study the black circle, Dag first, Ingemann following with his hands in his pockets, and when they returned they ate the hot bread that steamed as Alma sliced it.
It was midsummer. The heat came. It came in waves from the end of the plain towards Breivoll. He turned twenty. The swallows circled high in the sky. In the evenings he drove to Lake Homevannet to go swimming. She didn’t know that he went alone. Or that he swam alone to the underwater rocks about thirty metres from the bathing area.
His hair grew. It wasn’t long before his skull was covered. She was glad to have him back. She felt it in her stomach whenever she looked at him. It wasn’t that. Of course she was glad. She smiled, and she hadn’t done that for quite a while. Yet there was still a gash between her eyes. It wouldn’t go.
He spent the whole of the summer upstairs in his room. He had a radio and an old record player, and music blared out every evening and night. He didn’t tell them anything about his stint by the Russian border, only that he had once seen a wolf. During the initial days she had attempted to be cheerful, and both she and Ingemann had asked questions and prodded him about all sorts of things. But his eyes had seemed to darken at every question, something happened to his face, it stiffened, and a strange, oppressive atmosphere spread around the table. From then on, questions from either of them became rarer and rarer. Then they stopped, neither she nor Ingemann asked anything. It was best to let sleeping dogs lie, and carry on as before. All they had was the story of the wolf. It went as follows:
One night he was sitting alone in the watchtower with the temperature registering minus forty degrees centigrade. Suddenly the animal trotted across the snow; he had been tracking it through his binoculars. Every so often the wolf stopped and listened, then it went on. The snow was crusted, the moon shone and the animal left no paw marks. Then it crossed the border.
That was the story of the wolf; otherwise nothing.
Through the autumn he began to increase the volume of the music. Alma lay awake listening. At times she thought she could hear his voice, singing or talking. For long periods there was total silence. Then the music blasted out and she thought she heard someone laughing.
In October, Alma started cleaning for people, as she had done in years past. By choice, for neighbours, people who lived within walking distance. She didn’t like cycling, she preferred to walk. She walked to Omdal, to Breivoll and to Djupesland. She washed the hall and kitchen floor of the chapel in Brandsvoll, and she cleaned for Agnes and Anders Fjeldsgård in the big, white house by the Solås road.
In December the first snow came. One morning the whole world was white and pure. Alma baked seven kinds of Christmas biscuit, exactly as she used to, and Dag came into the kitchen and was allowed to taste them while they were still warm. Warily, she asked what he had considered doing when Christmas was over. He said that he hadn’t thought that far ahead.
‘But surely you’re going to do something, aren’t you?’ she asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ he answered. ‘I’ll find something.’
‘You could start some course or other, with your school-leaving grades and all that.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’ll see.’
That was the end of the conversation about the future. Christmas came. All three of them were in church on Christmas Eve. They sat among neighbours and acquaintances from the region, all with a singular gleam in their eyes they never usually
Similar Books
