Aksel Seier was amazed at how at home he felt in the small room where Eva lived. The walls were a warm yellow color, and even though the bed was metal and it said Oslo City Council on the bedclothes, it was still Eva’s room. He recognized a couple of things from the efficiency apartment in Brugata, where she’d cleaned the wound on the back of his head with iodine that night in 1965. The pale blue porcelain angel with open wings and remnants of gold paint that she’d been given for her confirmation. He remembered it as soon as his fingers stroked the cool figurine. The painting of Hovedøya at sunset that he’d given her. It was hanging above the bed, the colors paler than when he had put down fifteen kroner on the counter in a secondhand shop and taken the picture with him, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
Eva had also faded.
But she was still his Eva.
Her hand was old and destroyed by illness. It was as if her face had been worn out, its expression frozen in a relentless grimace. Her body was now just a motionless shell around the woman that Aksel Seier still loved. He didn’t say much. It took some time for Eva to tell him the story. She had to rest every now and then. Aksel kept quiet and listened.
He felt at home in the room.
“He changed so much,” said Eva quietly. “Everything went to pieces. He didn’t have enough money to pursue the case. If he used what was left of the inheritance from Mother, he would have nowhere to live. And then he certainly wouldn’t stand a chance. It killed him, Aksel. He hasn’t even been to see me for the past few months.”
Everything would be okay, Aksel soothed her. He had taken out his credit cards. Platinum, he explained, holding the shiny piece of plastic up to her eyes. These cards were only given to the wealthy. He was wealthy. He would straighten everything out.
Everything would be okay, now that Aksel had finally come.
“I could have come earlier.”
She just hadn’t asked him to. Aksel knew that; it wasn’t possible to come to Norway before Eva wanted him to. Even though she hadn’t really invited him now, there was a plea for help in what she wrote. The letter came in May, not in July like it should have. It was a desperate letter, and he had answered her by leaving everything behind and coming home.
Aksel drank some juice from a large glass that was standing on the bedside table. It tasted fresh. It tasted of Norway, black currant syrup and water. The real thing. Norwegian juice. He dried his mouth and smiled.
Aksel heard something and half turned around. Fear blasted through his body. He let go of Eva’s hand and balled his fist without being aware of it. The policeman with the keys and watery eyes, the one who wanted Aksel to admit to something he had not done and who had haunted him in his dreams had worn a different uniform. More old-fashioned, perhaps. This man had a loose jacket and a black and white checkered band around his trouser legs. But he was a policeman. Aksel saw that immediately and looked out the window.
“Eva Åsli?” asked the man, coming nearer.
Eva whispered that she was. The man cleared his throat and came even closer to the bed. Aksel caught the smell of leather and car oil from his jacket.
“I’m sorry to tell you that your son has been in a serious accident. Karsten Åsli. He is your son, isn’t he?”
Aksel got up and straightened his back.
“Karsten Åsli is our son,” he said slowly. “Eva’s and my son.”