The Heart Keeper Page 14

  ‘I fell down!’ says Kaia, standing closely beside me.

  ‘Oh, no,’ I say. Why doesn’t Iselin call the child away, tell her not to disturb us?

  ‘Kaia, I’m going to have a chat with Alison here for a little while now, okay?’ Iselin smiles uncertainly at me, she must have sensed a strange atmosphere between me and her daughter. ‘I’ll be with you again in a moment.’

  ‘I’m going to stay here and draw,’ says Kaia, turning away from us and pulling a little chair up to the easel. Iselin and I walk around the big room, and she points to the various drawings, most of them variations of the same themes: anatomical hearts, some birds, occasional calligraphy.

  ‘They’re beautiful,’ I say, trying to keep my voice steady and composed. In my head I’m counting the minutes back since I left the house: one hundred and fifty-two.

  ‘Are you a teacher?’ asks Kaia, suddenly.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m a journalist.’ I expect her to ask me to explain what a journalist is, but she doesn’t, she just nods, then returns to the drawing in front of her. Iselin and I talk for a while about the sudden thaw after the fierce cold of the past couple of weeks.

  ‘I’m going to be a teacher when I grow up,’ says Kaia, eyes not leaving the drawing. I don’t know if I want to bolt from the room and never return, or if I want to draw out these moments in Kaia’s presence; my heart is beating fast, then very slow, then fast again, and my mind is both fuzzy and chaotic at once, thoughts darting about. Iselin hands me a steaming mug of hibiscus tea, which I don’t recall being offered, and we stand in the middle of the floor, surrounded by her drawings, the child silent and focused in the corner. We talk about Kaia’s school, which is just down the road from their home and apparently very nice. We stop talking for several long moments, Kaia’s pen scratching at the silence.

  ‘I’ve got a new heart,’ says Kaia suddenly, and as our eyes meet, that current passes between us again, so strong it strikes me mute. My mouth is open, but not a sound emerges.

  ‘Kaia,’ says Iselin. ‘Not now, sweetie, okay?’

  ‘It’s true,’ she continues, her eyes still locked on mine, and I smile weakly at her, unable to say a single word. ‘Someone else had to die for me to get it. Or I would have died. I’d be dead by now, the doctor said it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper, hibiscus steam rising up into my nostrils, those cool blue eyes fixing me to the spot. I could speak up now and stop this charade. I could tell Kaia that that someone was my little girl, that I don’t have her anymore, that the only thing that remains of her, of everything that she was, is the strong, sweet heart inside Kaia’s own chest.

  Iselin says something to me, but I can’t quite grasp the words, so I just listen to the murmur of her voice, my eyes still on Kaia. She has stopped drawing and is holding a chunky oat cookie her mother has just handed to her. Her fingers are thin and so pale they are almost translucent, the tips covered in sticky crumbs. She looks back up at me, unguardedly, and in the end, it’s me who looks away, toward the window, where there is nothing to look at but the bare branches of a tree covered in a skin of ice. Do you have any further questions? I hear the girl’s mother say, her words drifting past me like the thin snowflakes which have started falling outside.

  I want to speak, now; I want to ask the little girl what she likes, what toys she plays with, who her friends are, whether strawberries might be her favorite food, but I know my voice would emerge as a frightening croak. I look at Kaia again, but my eyes won’t stay with her because everything about her is wrong – she’s short and very thin, unlike Amalie who looked older than her, aged five. There is something particularly unselfconscious about her; she chews with her mouth open, oats churning visibly around and around, slick with spit. Her feet are shuffling back and forth like she can’t keep them still, and she fidgets with the buttons on her blouse with fast, restless fingers. Suddenly one pops open, exposing the top of a thick, fleshy scar reaching all the way up to her collarbone. I feel overcome with a sudden wild hatred for this girl, and the idea of Amalie’s heart beating inside her seems deeply repulsive. It’s not her heart. It’s Amalie’s heart. My heart.

  The ugly stab of hatred suddenly fades into a kind of tenderness as I watch the girl try to open a box of charcoal pencils, her tiny fingers stumbling on the cardboard flap, and I find myself walking over to her to help her. And then something happens. Kaia turns to look at me again and in her expression a kind of brilliant glow appears as our eyes meet. I feel drawn to her in the breathtaking way I was drawn to the first man I loved, immediately and eternally, a feeling only surpassed by the way my breath was sucked clean from my lungs the first time Amalie opened her eyes and looked into mine, my heart pummeled to pulp.

  ‘I’d better get going,’ I say. ‘I’d love to buy two. Similar to that one, and that one. With the calligraphy quote on the one with the girl.’

  ‘Perfect,’ says Iselin. ‘I can have them with you in around a week if that works?’

  ‘That would be fantastic,’ I say.

  ‘Do you want to buy my drawing, too?’ asks Kaia, a mischievous look in her eyes. I walk over to her and squat down next to her.

  ‘I would love to buy your drawing, too. Why don’t you finish it and when I come back for your mom’s drawings I’ll pay you with a big box of chocolates. Deal?’ Kaia laughs, exposing round little teeth, her nose scrunching up sweetly. I commit her face to memory; I won’t see her again. Coming here was a very bad lapse in judgment, and I got more than I’d bargained for, in actually meeting Kaia. Kaia Berge, the heart keeper. I suddenly feel distraught at the thought of never seeing her again; something unmistakable has passed between us. Kaia’s proximity is irresistible; I want to grab her and hold her tight, smoothing her hair down, kissing her pale, dry cheeks, pressing my head to her chest. It’s Kaia who reaches for my hand.

  ‘Do you have a little girl?’ she says, voice clear and neutral. I look at Iselin, who shakes her head almost imperceptibly, eyes soft, apologetic.

  ‘Kaia… Remember we’ve talked about which questions we can and cannot ask people we don’t know?’

  ‘No,’ I whisper, the biggest betrayal of all my life.

  Kaia seems to consider this, eyebrows scrunched tightly together. ‘Is your child a boy?’

  ‘No, I… I don’t have a child,’ I say. ‘Well, actually I have a stepson.’

  ‘Let Alison leave now, sweetie,’ says Iselin, her eyes imploring her daughter, and then the two of them walk me back through the apartment to the entrance, Kaia’s wan little face serious and thoughtful.

  ‘Bye,’ says Kaia, and steps forward to hug me. Iselin and I exchange another smile.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I say, and step into the communal hallway. I remain a while outside the closed door, just breathing and clenching and unclenching my hand.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Iselin

  I can’t sleep, so I’m working. Kaia has already been up three times, unsettled and crying, voice hoarse, complaining about the cut on her forehead hurting. I’m feeling somewhat anxious tonight, as though I’m no longer held in by skin and bone, like I could just melt away into anywhere, anytime. My thoughts keep returning to Alison Miller-Juul. I liked Alison; there was something so fragile and jittery about her that I almost asked her if she was okay, if she wanted to talk about it or whatever – sometimes it does help to talk to a stranger. I started working on her drawings almost as soon as she left; it felt like a challenge to land a commissioned job. I’m almost done with the first one, a copy of the one I did a while back of a little girl’s outline with an oversized anatomical heart inside it. Alison wanted the Hearts are wild creatures quote with it, and I’m about to start the calligraphy when Noa walks in. Her hair is plastered to her skull when she takes her wooly hat off, and her pale cheeks are rosy from the cold.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, tossing her jacket onto the chair opposite mine but misses so it slithers to the floor.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, gently pressin
g my pen down in the first line of the letter ‘H’. ‘How was the gig?’

  ‘It was crazy. Really buzzing.’ Noa pours herself a glass of red wine from the open carton, then leans over my shoulder to look at Alison Miller-Juul’s drawing. ‘Wow.’

  ‘Like it?’

  ‘It’s amazing. Are you doing the Hearts are wild creatures quote?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘It needs a bird,’ says a thin voice. Kaia is standing in the doorway, face serious, running her index finger absentmindedly around the outline of the cut on her forehead.

  ‘A bird?’ I draw my daughter close, kissing her cheek.

  ‘Yeah. A little bird here.’ Kaia points to the upper left corner of the picture, just below where I’ve just outlined the ‘H’.

  ‘Why don’t you add the bird, baby, if you’re sure?’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, and hand her a soft charcoal pencil. Kaia sits on my lap and meticulously draws a scraggly black bird with a hooked beak and tiny little dot eyes.

  ‘See? It needed a bird.’

  ‘You were right, Kaia. Now, come on, you,’ I say when she’s finished. ‘It’s the middle of the night and you have school tomorrow.’

  ‘Can you tell me a story?’

  ‘I already did, hours ago when you went to bed.’

  ‘Auntie Noa, can you tell me a story?’

  ‘Go on then, monkey,’ says Noa, and Kaia clambers from my knee and into Noa’s arms, who carries her like a damsel in distress to the alcove, then pretend-flings her in slow motion onto the bed.

  ‘Tell me about when you and Mamma lived in Paris and then I arrived in Mamma’s tummy!’ Noa glances up at me, and I shake my head slowly. I don’t want my thoughts to go there, back to that place that still feels like a gash in my heart, so many years later. Thinking about Paris, and the beginnings of Kaia, and how my life came to be as it is, is nothing but self-torture, like plucking at a scab to make it bleed again.

  *

  The next morning is beautiful and clear, and though I didn’t get much sleep, I feel light and energetic. I’ve finished Alison’s drawings sooner than I thought, and send her a message. I stand leaning against the kitchen sink, sipping my coffee and listening to the sounds of Kaia and Noa getting ready together in the bathroom. My phone pings in my pocket and it is Alison’s response.

  ‘Hey, Noa, I know it’s your last night in Oslo, but would you be able to stay here with Kaia for a couple of hours tonight?’ I ask as we leave the house, squinting in the bright morning sun. Before Noa has a chance to answer, we are interrupted by a shrill voice from upstairs.

  ‘Miss Berge!’ says Hanne Vikdal, standing on the terrace above my entranceway, looking down at us, her face pinched and stern.

  ‘Yes,’ I say warily, taking a couple of steps away so I don’t have to look straight up into her nostrils.

  ‘I must say I’m a little concerned,’ she says. I glance at Noa, who is standing with her arms crossed, raising one eyebrow. I’m so glad she’s here.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Well. As you know, it isn’t just one thing. But I will say, last night has really given me reason to believe I am absolutely right to feel concerned.’

  ‘Last night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Umm. We were just here.’

  ‘My husband was out late, Miss Berge. He returned home at around one thirty in the morning. Your blinds were up and he happened to glance toward your flat as he came toward the house, and he was frankly shocked to see a small, sick child drawing at the kitchen table. Literally in the middle of the night. From what I understood, you two were drinking.’ The air is still and stunned between us after her tirade, but then a sound breaks it. It’s the sound of Noa laughing loudly.

  ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ she says, theatrically holding her hands to her stomach. ‘How dare you?’ Hanne Vikdal’s mouth drops open. Kaia’s, too. I take Kaia’s hand and start to walk away.

  ‘Hey,’ says Hanne Vikdal. ‘Hey! Kaia, which school do you go to?’

  ‘Don’t answer,’ I say, pulling Kaia away.

  ‘How dare you?’ Noa asks again, but Hanne Vikdal turns around and goes back inside, slamming the door shut behind her.

  ‘Noa… I’m not sure that was a great idea,’ I say, my eyes on the brown slushy snow melting at my feet in the sharp sunlight. ‘She is our landlady.’

  ‘She’s a bitch. Seriously, Issy, you need to get out of here.’ Noa takes Kaia’s hand and stoops down to kiss her pale cheek, but Kaia turns away, little face startled and sad.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Alison

  This isn’t quite sleep. I could open my eyes if I wanted to, but I don’t.

  I keep them closed; I can feel where my eyelids are fused together, and I think they must have been closed for a long while, but still, I can see. I see my mother standing by the lake we sometimes went to, wearing a wild orange minidress, throwing chunks of bread to some large birds on the water, but when I manage to focus this strange gaze on them, I realize that they are vultures.

  Amalie plays at the piano, her tiny fingers picking randomly at the keys, and had she been anybody else, I would have been annoyed by the scattered, jarring tones. But she’s so beautiful. I don’t have to open my eyes to see her, sitting there. I don’t need to reach out to feel the feathery softness of her hair. I have tried to count how many different ways she took my breath away, still does, just by having existed, and this is the only unmeasurable thing I have managed to find in the whole world. She starts up again, stabbing hard and insistently on one key, and I am pulled out from this state of suspension.

  I wake on the sofa, and that same sound is ringing out in the empty house. My hands are stiff and frozen, and the room is pitch dark. For several long moments, I can’t tell whether the sound is real or trapped inside my head. I can’t immediately recall where everyone is. I look at the clock on the TV: it’s only 6.40 p.m., but it feels like the middle of the night. The afternoon begins to come back to me: Sindre’s lips pressed hard against mine, my hand stroking the stubble on his jaw, the way he made me look him in the eye before he got out of the car. Be careful, Ali, he said. Then he was walking away, disappearing into the revolving door to the terminal, merging with other travelers. He’ll be in Geneva for five days, and though I find the empty house and the four blank days ahead unsettling, it’s a relief to have some time away from my husband. There was a time when, if I had suspected Sindre of even the slightest indiscretion, I would have gone wild with jealousy and anger, but now, whatever he is doing in Geneva and who he’s doing it with – I just don’t care.

  The sound starts up again, unmistakable this time – the doorbell. I move toward the hallway without switching on any lights; I want to see who it is without the person outside knowing someone is at home. Oliver is at Monica’s, but if, for whatever reason, he’s come here to pick something up, he has keys and won’t be using the doorbell. One of my friends? I don’t have many here in Norway, or anywhere at all, anymore. Fifteen years of traveling the world tends to displace the friends you had, especially when you make little effort at staying in touch.

  Especially when you lose your daughter and no one knows what to say to you. My friends message me and say that they are praying for Amalie and for me, and when I don’t respond, they seem to assume I want to be left alone. I don’t. I wish they knew how to talk to me, that they knew that all I want is to talk about her; I want to rebuild her from my memories – I want to talk about how much I miss kissing her fingertips while she slept, how she used to swallow chewing gum and pretend she hadn’t, how she used to mutter ‘Oh boy’ under her breath, making Oliver laugh, how she’d arrange peas in a circle on a plate before eating them one by one; I want to tell people about the time she first roller-skated, in Venice beach, or the way she used to smile into her hot chocolate at our cabin in Norefjell, the mountain sun painting streaks of gold on her hair. These are the things I want to tal
k about, because that is where Amalie is now; in each minute snippet of memory, in every episode brought back into the light.

  My heart surges and I place a hand inside my sweatshirt to calm it, then I peer out from the narrow window on the far side of the dining room, which overlooks the raised porch. A woman, wrapped snugly in a huge navy down jacket, face turned away from my direction, holding a large cylindrical object. An ungloved hand emerging from her pocket, fingers pressing against the doorbell again, exposing a tattoo on the underside of her wrist. I remember that tattoo. Iselin. My heart lurches in my chest and I press my face harder against the window, trying to see if Kaia could be standing concealed behind her mother. I just can’t stop thinking about her; it’s as though her face is etched on my retina. Iselin seems to be alone and turns slightly to look up at the windows upstairs. I could stay where I am and, surely, eventually she’d go away. What could she possibly want?

  A thought occurs to me, or a vague memory, rather: did I invite her here? I quickly pull out my phone and reread my messages, and there, clear as day, sent today at 9.30 a.m, just after I dropped Sindre off at Gardermoen, before I went home and started drinking.

  Hi Iselin, so excited the drawings are done! Do you want to pop round for a glass of wine tonight if you’re free – it occurred to me that I have a couple of contacts who might be of interest re your illustrations. That way you could see where the drawings will hang, too. Let me know, Alison xo

  I slip my phone back in my pocket and lean my head on the doorframe. Fuck. What the hell was I thinking? The stale taste of alcohol lingers in my mouth and I pop a piece of chewing gum from my jacket pocket in my mouth before switching the light in the hallway on and opening the door.

  ‘Hi. Oh my God, come inside, it’s so cold,’ I say, pulling Iselin into the hallway. ‘So glad you could make it! Where’s Kaia?’ Iselin looks around the hallway, smiling nervously.