nod, but he had no idea if it obeyed.
11
The Illusion
I’ M WATCHING THE FIRST VIDEO . W HEN I TAKE IT FRAME BY frame I can see the spurt of flame. Particles of powder which as yet have not been converted into pure energy, like a glowing swarm of asteroids following the large comet into the atmosphere to burn up while the comet continues serenely on its course. And there is nothing anyone can do because this is the course that was predestined millions of years ago, before mankind, before emotions, before hatred and mercy were born. The bullet enters the head, truncates mental activity and revokes dreams. In the core of the cranium the last thought, a neural impulse from the pain centre, is shattered. It is a last contradictory SOS to itself before everything is silenced. I click onto the second video title. I stare out of the window while the computer grinds away scouring the Internet night. There are stars in the sky and I think that each of them is proof of the ineluctability of fate. They make no sense; they are elevated above the human need for logic and context. And that is why, I think, they are so beautiful.
Then the second video is ready. I click on PLAY. Play a play. It is like a travelling theatre which stages the same performance, but in a different place. The same dialogues and actions, the same costumes, thesame scenery. Only the extras have changed. And the final scene. There was no tragedy this evening.
I am pleased with myself. I have found the nucleus of the character I play – the cold professional adversary who knows exactly what he wants and kills if he has to. No one tries to drag out the time; no one dares after Bogstadveien. And that is why I am God for the two minutes, the one hundred and twenty seconds I have allowed myself. The illusion works. The thick clothes under the boiler suit, the double insoles, the coloured contact lenses and the rehearsed movements.
I log off and the room goes dark. All that reaches me from outside is the distant rumble of the town. I met the Prince today. An odd person. He gives me the ambivalent feeling of being a Pluvianus aegyptius, the little bird which lives by cleaning the crocodile’s mouth. He told me everything was under control, that the Robberies Unit had not found any clues. He got his share and I got the Jew-gun he had promised me.
Perhaps I ought to be happy, but nothing can ever make me whole again.
Afterwards I rang Police HQ from a public telephone box, but they didn’t want to divulge anything unless I said I was family. They told me it was suicide; that Anna had shot herself. The case was closed. I only just managed to put the receiver down before I started laughing.
Part II
12
Freitod
‘A LBERT C AMUS SAID THAT FREITOD , SUICIDE, WAS THE ONE truly serious problem philosophy had,’ said Aune, sticking his nose up towards the grey sky above Bogstadveien. ‘Because the decision about whether life was worth living or not was the answer to philosophy’s fundamental question. Everything else – whether or not the world had three dimensions or the mind nine or twelve categories – comes later.’
‘Mm,’ Harry said.
‘Many of my colleagues have undertaken research into why people commit suicide. Do you know what they found the most common cause was?’
‘That was the sort of thing I was hoping you could answer.’ Harry had to slalom between people on the narrow pavement to keep up with the tubby psychologist.
‘That they didn’t want to live any longer,’ Aune said.
‘Sounds like someone deserves a Nobel Prize.’ Harry had rung Aune the evening before and arranged to pick him up at his office in Sporveisgata at nine. They passed the branch of Nordea Bank and Harry noticed that the green skip was still outside the 7-Eleven on the other side of the street.
‘We often forget that the decision to commit suicide tends to be taken by rationally thinking, sane people who no longer consider that life has anything to offer,’ Aune
11
The Illusion
I’ M WATCHING THE FIRST VIDEO . W HEN I TAKE IT FRAME BY frame I can see the spurt of flame. Particles of powder which as yet have not been converted into pure energy, like a glowing swarm of asteroids following the large comet into the atmosphere to burn up while the comet continues serenely on its course. And there is nothing anyone can do because this is the course that was predestined millions of years ago, before mankind, before emotions, before hatred and mercy were born. The bullet enters the head, truncates mental activity and revokes dreams. In the core of the cranium the last thought, a neural impulse from the pain centre, is shattered. It is a last contradictory SOS to itself before everything is silenced. I click onto the second video title. I stare out of the window while the computer grinds away scouring the Internet night. There are stars in the sky and I think that each of them is proof of the ineluctability of fate. They make no sense; they are elevated above the human need for logic and context. And that is why, I think, they are so beautiful.
Then the second video is ready. I click on PLAY. Play a play. It is like a travelling theatre which stages the same performance, but in a different place. The same dialogues and actions, the same costumes, thesame scenery. Only the extras have changed. And the final scene. There was no tragedy this evening.
I am pleased with myself. I have found the nucleus of the character I play – the cold professional adversary who knows exactly what he wants and kills if he has to. No one tries to drag out the time; no one dares after Bogstadveien. And that is why I am God for the two minutes, the one hundred and twenty seconds I have allowed myself. The illusion works. The thick clothes under the boiler suit, the double insoles, the coloured contact lenses and the rehearsed movements.
I log off and the room goes dark. All that reaches me from outside is the distant rumble of the town. I met the Prince today. An odd person. He gives me the ambivalent feeling of being a Pluvianus aegyptius, the little bird which lives by cleaning the crocodile’s mouth. He told me everything was under control, that the Robberies Unit had not found any clues. He got his share and I got the Jew-gun he had promised me.
Perhaps I ought to be happy, but nothing can ever make me whole again.
Afterwards I rang Police HQ from a public telephone box, but they didn’t want to divulge anything unless I said I was family. They told me it was suicide; that Anna had shot herself. The case was closed. I only just managed to put the receiver down before I started laughing.
Part II
12
Freitod
‘A LBERT C AMUS SAID THAT FREITOD , SUICIDE, WAS THE ONE truly serious problem philosophy had,’ said Aune, sticking his nose up towards the grey sky above Bogstadveien. ‘Because the decision about whether life was worth living or not was the answer to philosophy’s fundamental question. Everything else – whether or not the world had three dimensions or the mind nine or twelve categories – comes later.’
‘Mm,’ Harry said.
‘Many of my colleagues have undertaken research into why people commit suicide. Do you know what they found the most common cause was?’
‘That was the sort of thing I was hoping you could answer.’ Harry had to slalom between people on the narrow pavement to keep up with the tubby psychologist.
‘That they didn’t want to live any longer,’ Aune said.
‘Sounds like someone deserves a Nobel Prize.’ Harry had rung Aune the evening before and arranged to pick him up at his office in Sporveisgata at nine. They passed the branch of Nordea Bank and Harry noticed that the green skip was still outside the 7-Eleven on the other side of the street.
‘We often forget that the decision to commit suicide tends to be taken by rationally thinking, sane people who no longer consider that life has anything to offer,’ Aune
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