Medusa by Torkil Damhaug Page A

oil was down, in general bad news for those with their money in unit trusts. All the same, as long as there was war and terrorism in the Middle East, prices would stay high. He had some money invested, but not enough to create a dilemma for him. He glanced through the news. Man threatened with a knife in Rosenkranz gate, woman missing in the Nordmarka, electricity prices on the way down after all the rain in the early autumn. He heard someone slipping into the toilet, saw bare feet padding out into the hallway. Marlen popped her head in.
    – You sleepyhead, he chided her as he put the newspaper aside. – It’s the middle of the day.
    She stood there bleary eyed, in a red nightie with a crocodile across the front.
    – You’re always bragging about how early you get up.
    He laughed.
    – You want egg and bread, or muesli?
    She poked out her lip, sat down and gave the question some thought.
    – Egg, she decided.
    He buttered her a slice of bread with a squeeze of caviar, then turned to her and conjured an egg from her ear.
    She pulled a face and stared out of the window, the trees still hidden behind the grey morning mist.
    – Get out the wrong side of the bed today?
    She turned to him with an exasperated sigh.
    – Dad, everyone has the right to be in a bad mood in the morning. For half an hour. At least.
    – Quite agree, he conceded. – That is a human right.
    – Which came first, the chicken or the egg? she asked.
    – The egg?
    – Wrong. Because God doesn’t lay eggs.
     
    Axel peered into Tom’s room and discovered that his son had come home last night after all. He could just make out his shape as he lay under the duvet, his breathing heavy, his face turned towards the wall. There was a close, confined atmosphere there, and the smell of smoke. Axel picked up a shirt that had been tossed over the back of a chair, sniffed at it. He’d seen several of the kids Tom hung out with sitting on the grass behind the centre smoking, but Tom denied that he would ever do anything like that. Axel opened the window, stood a while beside the bed, decided to let the boy sleep on for a while.
    Instead, he let himself into the loft. Been putting off for far too long clearing up all the things that had just been tossed in there. He sorted out the sports gear the kids had grown out of, and the clothes he didn’t use any more. Suits and shirts that he thought were okay himself, but that Bie had condemned as old fashioned and refused to let him wear. Over the years the Salvation Army had done pretty well out of Bie’s aesthetics.
    In the furthest corner of the loft, behind the empty suitcases and the drums full of winter clothing, was an old mahogany cupboard. The key hung from a hook on the ceiling. For the first time in years, he opened it. The two upper drawers contained the few things he had kept after his father’s death. A peaked hat. Military paraphernalia. Two pistols: a Spanish one that had been used in the civil war, and a Luger taken when the Germans were disarmed in the final days before the surrender. There was a box containing letters sent to Torstein Glenne by friends being held in the prison camp at Grini. He’d read them all to Axel. Sometimes to Brede as well, but mostly to Axel, to teach him that freedom has its price . The maps were in the same box.
    On summer evenings, when Colonel Glenne had been sitting long enough in front of the terrace fire with his whisky and his pretzels, he would sometimes allow himself to be persuaded to go up and fetch the maps with all the secret routes inscribed on them. I probably shouldn’t be showing you these, boys , he’d growl, though twenty-five years had passed since the German surrender. I might let slip things I’ve promised on pain of death never to reveal . And then without further ado he would describe the various hiding places along the Swedish border. Here was where they had hidden out after their actions. After they’d blown factories to smithereens, cut vital