Read Online I Can See in the Dark by Karin Fossum - Free Book Online Page A

heavy, stooped body, and for an instant I felt contempt, that he couldn’t lift himself out of his state and make something of himself, contribute something to society. But then, deep down, I had a liking for him, with his quiet, modest demeanour. There was something honest and decent about his simple existence that I valued. And, after all, I’d already begun tapping those reserves of goodwill. For a while we sat there in silence. I could see that he was struggling with his thoughts, that he was trying to put them into words, that he actually had something he wanted to say. His eyes wandered over to the Advent Star in the window, and it brought a wan smile to his solemn face.
    Then his eyes settled on the cupboard once more, in the hope that I might have a bottle, and I saw the yearning like a light in those dark eyes. But he bit it back, clinging to the last shred of his dignity: he wanted me to do the offering. I would, too. Soon, once he’d sat there and stewed for a bit.
    ‘I want to tell you something,’ he began, fixing me with his gaze. ‘Just so you know how things really stand. I’ll tell you about something that happened a very long time ago. To a small boy. Who I know a bit about. That is, if you want to hear it.’
    ‘I want to hear,’ I said. ‘Fire away.’
    I sat still and listened attentively, noticing all the while how his eyes constantly darted towards the cupboard.
    ‘He was about six years old,’ Arnfinn began. ‘Well, five or six, knee-high, you know, with skinny legs. He was in bed asleep one summer night, with the window open. He slept alone. He had no brothers or sisters, so it was just him. Before he went to sleep he heard the trees outside, there was a bit of a breeze, you know what I mean, rustling in the treetops, the way that tends to make us sleepy. He was lying with his back to the window and he couldn’t hear anything except the trees. At last his eyes closed. Well, don’t ask me if he dreamt, because I don’t know. All I know is that the big house was completely quiet. And that his mother was sleeping in the room next door.’
    Arnfinn paused. He thought for a moment and scratched his chin.
    ‘In the middle of the night he awoke with a terrified scream.’
    ‘Why?’ I wanted to know. ‘What had happened?’
    ‘He screamed,’ Arnfinn repeated. ‘It reverberated through the house. And his mother was up in an instant, running to his room. Switched on the light. Stood staring at him as he lay beneath the duvet. And you know, he was as white as the sheets he lay in. “What’s the matter?” his mother asked. “Why did you scream? My God, you made me jump!”
    ‘The boy pointed to the foot of the bed. “There’s a snake under the duvet,” he said. Or rather, I should say he whispered it, because she could only just hear what he said. But she almost collapsed with relief. She was expecting something different, you see. This was something she understood. And then she assumed the look the boy knew so well, the sympathetic look, you know. And it was quite a resigned look too, because he had a lively imagination. Perhaps she thought, kids are kids, and they do say funny things. “You’re having a nightmare,” she said. “Now, wake up!” She patted him consolingly on the cheek. Then she pulled the duvet off him.’
    Arnfinn wrung his hands so hard in his lap that his finger joints cracked.
    ‘She pulled the duvet off,’ he said. ‘And there between the boy’s thin legs lay a huge snake.’
    Then he stopped again and nodded.
    ‘A huge snake,’ he repeated.
    ‘You’re joking,’ I interjected.
    ‘I never joke,’ said Arnfinn. ‘What would I do that for? It was a snake and it was enormous. Not one of those little ones. It was enormous. It had twisted itself into a great coil. It was black, with a sort of yellowish-grey, speckled pattern, thick as a grown man’s arm, and as long as a wet week. His mother could make out its head between the boy’s knees, its