Grace by Linn Ullmann

to turn around, and even the most simple movement was terribly painful, not worth the effort. So he lay where he was, eyes wide-open. He tried to think of Mai but found no escape there. So he faced the fact that Alice was sitting on his bed, looking the same as ever.
    “You haven’t changed, Alice.”
    She looked him up and down. “I can’t say the same of you, Johan. You look awful.”
    “It’s always a pleasure to hear your voice. I’ve missed you.”
    “I haven’t missed you.”
    “No. No, I didn’t really think you would. Who are you nagging now, Alice? The Almighty, perhaps?”
    She made no reply.
    Johan went on. “Our son’s going to be a father. Did you know that?”
    “I knew.”
    “High time, if you ask me. He’s over forty.”
    “He’s forty-three.”
    Johan took her in: her hands, her fingers with their bitten nails, her horsey face. Of all the ghosts who might have visited his bedside, why her? Why not his old friend, the late lamented Ole Torjussen? Why not someone famous—Joe Louis, for example; maybe Strindberg?
    She interrupted his musings, whispering, “Are you leaving him anything, Johan?”
    “What the hell?”
    She inspected her nails. “No need to get upset. I just want to be sure the money will go to Andreas. I don’t want money that was, strictly speaking,
mine
going to your new wife. I inherited it. It was
my
father’s money.”
    “It’s in the bank, Alice. I haven’t touched it.”
    “One hundred fifty thousand kroner, plus twenty years’ interest?”
    “Something like that, yes.”
    “That’s a lot of money.”
    “It will all go to Andreas. I promise.”
    “I don’t trust you.”
    “You never did.”
    “And with good reason.”
    Johan groaned. “Alice, you’re no longer with us!” He propped himself up on his elbows and screamed, “You’re no longer with us! You’ve been dead for twenty-five years! Surely you didn’t come all the way from your world to mine to argue about money! Even
you
aren’t that petty!”
    She said, “You are, for all intents and purposes, in
my
world now, Johan.”
    “Go away!”
    She pouted. “Poor little Johan.”
    He mimicked her voice. “Poor little Johan! Poor little Johan!” Tears welled up and he hurled a pillow at the wall. “Go away, I said! Go away! Leave me alone!”
    “Johan, my darling. No need to make a scene.” She peered at him, leaned closer, and whispered, “What’s that you’ve got on your cheek, a boil? Looks pretty gruesome. As if there were two of you.”
    “Why can’t you leave me alone?”
    “Do you remember saying that if I went to heaven you’d rather go to hell? So we wouldn’t have to spend eternity together?”
    Johan nodded. “Did you get to heaven?” he asked.
    “It isn’t anything like that,” Alice said. “No heaven, no hell. Just death, or something worse.”
    Johan hummed:
    Maybe death he lies a-lurking ahint some ragged coral reef—
He may be hard, but he is fair, so sing hey, sing ho.
    The man behind the screen coughed. No one else was in the room. Where was Mai? Why didn’t Mai come? What time was it? Johan was about to turn over and say something to the coughing man, but then he heard Alice’s voice again: ranting, grating, whining, droning on and on.
    “Why did you push me into the water, Johan? You knew I couldn’t swim.” Alice fixed him with her gimlet eye. “Why?”
    Johan pondered the question. At last he said, “I don’t know. It just seemed like the thing to do. You were standing on the edge of the dock, and it struck me that you had to go in.”
    By midmorning, when Mai arrived, Johan felt better. He was sitting up, having finally managed to catch some sleep around daybreak.
    She wore a dress he hadn’t seen before: tight across the bosom and waist, flaring out from the hips. A lovely red dress, although possibly a little on the young side for her. She was over fifty, after all.
    “New dress, Mai?”
    “No,” she said, settling herself on his bed. She