Medusa by Torkil Damhaug Read Free Book Online Page B

but neither of them had had nightmares afterwards. Before Marlen could get back to sleep, he had to drive the dead twin away. He tucked the duvet tightly around her into a cocoon, and assured her that nobody could get at her now. On top of that, Mikk the mountain lion and Geiki the goat were standing guard around the bed. It all worked, and he heard no more from her.
    Before returning to his chair on the terrace Axel had popped downstairs to have a few words with Tom. He stopped outside the door and listened to the reedy voice within. He felt as though he knew the song now, even though he’d only heard it in snatches. When Marlen was going to sleep, Tom had to turn off his amplifier, and his voice sounded even more frail against the almost inaudible chords from the guitar.
    Axel had gone back upstairs without knocking. Taken the bottle of cognac and a glass out into the dark with him. Moments later Tom appeared in the doorway asking if he could spend the night at his friend Findus’s house, the lad he was going to start a band with. Axel reluctantly agreed. It was better than him sitting on his own in his bedroom all evening. After dinner he’d been on the point of suggesting they might do something together, but he’d waited too long and then it was too late. Daniel was getting to be more and more like a friend the older he got, he thought. Axel could talk about most things with him, and recognised himself in much of what his elder son said. And Marlen could always make him laugh with her strange notions. But there was something about Tom that made him hesitate to approach too close. He didn’t know what it was, only that it made him feel shy and clumsy.
    He poured himself a glass and sat there inhaling the scent of the golden liquid. He’d bought the bottle on the plane back from Cyprus. They’d spent their Easter holiday there, the last holiday before Daniel moved away from home. Axel had dreaded it. And the sharp white sun and the turquoise sea had heightened his feeling of tristesse. The bus driver who drove them out to the airport was called Andreas. Axel had conversed with him during one of the outings they’d gone on. They were both about the same age. The driver had small eyes and a nose that had been broken and grown back crooked. He watched Bie as she climbed aboard in the short white frock that clung to her thighs and was almost translucent, and Marlen, Tom and Daniel as they followed her into the bus. As Axel passed him, bringing up the rear, he exclaimed: You must be a very happy man . He laughed, exposing brown gums. And when Axel sat down in the back of the bus, and Bie pinched his thigh and whispered in his ear that she fancied him, and he put his arm around her and looked at the desolate yellow land gliding by outside, he thought: I must be a very happy man.
    The fire had gone out. He poured himself another glass, studied the dying embers as they slowly paled. He thought: I will go up to Miriam’s. I’ll sit there in her attic apartment in Rodeløkka. Sit there and not do anything but drink the coffee she makes, and talk to her.
     
    He was on his way to the bathroom when he heard a car down in the driveway. He looked out and saw a taxi at the gate. The time was 2.15. Sound of the door being unlocked, Bie’s bunch of keys chinking against the glass top of the chest of drawers.
    He undressed and stood in his boxers, glanced at himself in the mirror. He still looked like he kept himself in shape, though the line down to the ridge of the hips had acquired a tiny undulation. A few moments later she came into the bathroom and stood behind him.
    – Are you still up?
    He looked at her in the mirror.
    – Unless I’m sleepwalking.
    Her hair was unkempt and her eyes were bleary, though the make-up hadn’t run. She was wearing a dark green tight-fitting satin dress, with shoulder straps and a plunging neckline. There was a hint of green in her eyeshadow too. When she was made up like that, accentuating