Medusa by Torkil Damhaug Read Free Book Online Page A

years is like the long-legged old herons that stand sadly by a marshy swamp without fish.
    A movement across his neck, like a breath of wind. He turned, feeling unease at having invaded someone else’s life, whoever it might be that was living here. He put the book back where he’d found it, climbed back up the hillock and ran on as hard as he could along the track, felt the warmth creeping back into his body.
    Not until he had unlocked his bike and was wheeling it back down to the path did he notice that the rear tyre was flat. He checked the valve. It seemed in order. He got out the pump. When he squeezed the tyre a couple of minutes later, it was still flat.
     
    Approaching Ullevålseter, he saw a woman coming towards him, striding energetically along with walking poles in each hand. There was something familiar about the little figure and the determined face, and Axel greeted her as she passed.
    She stopped.
    – Is that you? she said.
    He tried to remember where he’d seen her before.
    – So you’re out keeping fit? She looked at the bicycle. – And you’ve had a puncture.
    He recognised the voice. Must have spoken to her on the phone.
    – Looks like it, he agreed.
    – Sorry I can’t help you, she said.
    – No, why would you be carrying a puncture repair kit around with you?
    She laughed.
    – Ask at Ullevålseter, maybe they have something there.
    He was about to move on.
    – Actually, I was going to ring you, she said. – Funny meeting you of all people. A referral you sent in the other day. An elderly man with problems after a back operation.
    The physiotherapist. She was the physiotherapist at the clinic in Majorstua. Any moment now and he’d recall her name. Bie used to go to her.
    – I doubt if I can help him much when he’s in such pain. But we can talk about it later.
    He didn’t protest. Rain had begun drizzling from the low cloud, and soon it would be dark. It wasn’t every woman who would head off into the forest in the dark, he thought. Bie didn’t like walking in the forest alone even in daylight.
    – Safe journey home, she chirruped, furrowing her brow sympathetically as she pointed with her stick at the punctured tyre.

10
     
Friday 28 September
     
    T HE EVENING HAD turned cold, but Axel remained sitting on the terrace with the living-room door ajar behind him. He’d made a fire and put on a pullover. It was now past eleven and he had just gone in to Marlen, who had woken up and called for him. She’d been dreaming that the dead twin had been following her. Before going to bed, she’d come out to see him on the terrace. They’d sat for a while looking at the night sky together, and Axel had told her about the Ethiopian queen Cassiopeia. When she refused to go to bed until he told her one more story, he’d shown her the Twins, Castor and Pollux. He’d told her how strong and brave they were. No one could best Castor when it came to riding and taming horses, nor Pollux in a bare-fist fight. But most of all they were famed for being true to each other. They loved each other more than any other brothers loved, and nothing could part them. Nothing except death. Because the sad thing was that Pollux was the son of the god Zeus and immortal, while Castor was the son of an earthly king. But weren’t they twins? Marlen protested. They couldn’t have different fathers, could they? In the world of fairy tales such things are possible, Axel smiled. When Castor was killed in a fight, he had to go to the underworld. Pollux begged Zeus to make him mortal too, so that he too could go down to the kingdom of the dead and be with his beloved brother. But not even Zeus could arrange that. If you’re immortal, you’re immortal. Then he had an idea, and he fixed things so that the brothers could be together after all. Every other day Pollux could go to the realm of the dead and meet his twin brother, and the other days they could be together up in the sky.
    Axel had told the boys the same story,