The Heart Keeper Read online

  Sometimes, he’d reach for me, a big hand inching up my thigh, and I’d straddle him in his chair, kissing him hard, laughing, the evening stretching out in front of us.

  I sit down in his chair and glance around, trying to decide what’s different. The first thing I notice is that Sindre has removed all the photographs on his desk, as well as the kids’ drawings he’d hung on the wall to the left of the window. Then I see that he has neatly filed all his paperwork and placed it in gray IKEA boxes in the bookshelf, like I’ve been asking him to for years.

  I touch a random key on his iMac and it leaps to life, the screensaver a picture of me I can’t remember seeing before, though I remember when it was taken. I am wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a white lace dress, standing barefoot on a beach, smiling at the man holding the camera – the man I love. My hair is honey blonde and my skin is deep brown and glowing. It was taken in Maui on our honeymoon, eight years ago. I was thirty-six, but look much younger, or maybe I just think that compared with how I look now. I type in the password but it fails, so I try again. Sindre has had the same password for as long as I can remember, but maybe I’m remembering it wrong – my mind keeps pulling these tricks on me. I try again – JuulOliSin40 – but again, it fails. I feel a strange sensation, not quite anger, and not quite fear, but a mixture of both. I don’t know what to do. I leave Sindre’s office and go upstairs to our bedroom. I open all the closets and cupboards and throw anything that isn’t properly hung onto the floor. Finally, at the bottom of the chest of drawers, in a drawer crammed full of electrical converters and old invoices and detachable bra straps and foreign coins, I find my laptop charging cable.

  In the kitchen, I pour myself half a glass of orange juice and then fill it to the brim with vodka while I wait for the computer to start up. I swallow hard as I take in the background picture – me and Amalie sitting close together at a restaurant in the old town of Rhodes, a whitewashed wall with climbing pink roses behind us. I make myself look at it for several seconds before going to Google and typing in ‘cellular memory’ with my badly shaking hands.

  Chapter Twelve

  Iselin

  We leave the house half an hour before the bell sounds at eight thirty even though it’s less than fifteen minutes on foot. Walking is good for Kaia, though she needs to stop frequently. We walk down Lijordveien toward Nadderudveien when an orange forest cat, big as a fox, shoots out from a garden onto the pavement in front of us. It watches us for a moment and then it approaches Kaia, rubbing the side of its body against her trouser leg. Before I have time to react, she drops to her knees and starts stroking the animal. I pull her back up and march her away, but she wails and tries to wrench her arm loose.

  ‘Ow!’ she screams. ‘Let me go!’

  ‘Why can’t you think a little?’ I ask. ‘A cat bite could kill you, Kaia!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes, it could. You need to understand!’

  ‘It was a nice kitty!’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  I feel my face flush hot with anger and begin to walk faster, so fast Kaia almost has to run to keep up. By the time I look at her again, we are approaching the school and her expression is both dejected and fearful. Poor Kaia – it isn’t easy to explain to a seven-year-old all the ways she’s different from other children.

  ‘I love you,’ I say, pushing my face into the soft, warm hollow of her neck as I pull her close in a hug.

  ‘Both sides,’ says Kaia, hugging me on the left side too, in that funny new way of hers. Then she runs off into the throng of children lining up to go inside, braids flying, arms flapping like wings.

  I walk home slowly, the day stretching out in front of me. I wish I knew someone in the neighborhood, someone I might meet for a coffee or a walk. Not that I can spend money on coffee, and I can’t imagine I’d have much in common with the stylish, polished mothers at Kaia’s school. They step from their Range Rovers, swishy hair tossed over a shoulder, clutching the hands of children dressed in Ralph Lauren. Then they drive off, probably to their fancy offices, leaving the kids to be collected by the au pair. How am I supposed to find common ground with people like that?

  The only reason we can afford to live in this area is because we receive government benefits to be within ten kilometers of the hospital, and because we rent the tiny basement of another family’s house. The Vikdal family who own the house live upstairs, and our apartment is really just their basement storage units converted into a little home.

  It’s hard being poor in Norway, where pretty much everyone has so much money. It’s not even an age thing – I see young mothers only a little older than myself, pushing ten-thousand-kroner strollers, sipping fifty-kroner lattes without a care in the world, Gucci bags casually hanging off their arm, and it’s hard to not become consumed by resentfulness and bitterness because I could have been like them, had I made different choices.

  I walk down the paved path to the apartment entrance, and just then, Hanne Vikdal, our landlady, appears at her front door, as though she’d been waiting behind it for me to appear.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, fumbling with the key in my pocket.

  ‘Oh, hi there,’ she says, looking me up and down. ‘Cold today.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You know, I’m not sure it’s a great idea for you and Kaia to walk to school in this cold. If she really is sick, I mean—’

  ‘The doctor says it’s good for her to walk.’

  ‘But in this weather?’ I nod and smile a tight smile at her, slipping the key into the lock. When I push the door open, Hanne angles her head, trying to get a glimpse inside. I stare at her for a moment, then close the door a little harder than I need to. I stand a moment in front of the shut door, unpeeling the gloves from my hands and listening to the unfamiliar silence.

  Sometimes, I’m kind of glad the apartment is as tiny as it is. It still feels strange and almost frightening to be alone at home during the day after having Kaia for constant company for so many years. I walk into the main room and look around: corridor, toilet, shower room, living room where I sleep on the pull-out sofa bed, kitchen with a tiny table, Kaia’s bedroom alcove just off the kitchen. That’s it. I lie down on Kaia’s bed and breathe in the familiar scent of her: the lime-and-honey shower cream we both like, something sweet like cookie dough, and underneath it, something medicinal. I close my eyes, and again I feel bad for how this morning started. I feel weak with regret just replaying it in my mind now. Poor Kaia. It’s only her first month at school, ever. It’s not like she’s had it easy with all of her challenges, and then she got me as a mother on top of it.

  Why can’t you think a little? I’d said. Why can’t I learn to control myself? I’m so tired. I am so, so tired and for a minute, I consider just closing my eyes and napping for a couple of hours, because what exactly am I supposed to do with myself all day now that Kaia has started school? For seven years I have been her full-time carer. I haven’t had more than a handful of days with any kind of time to myself, and now everything has changed.

  I get up because I can’t fall asleep in case the school rings, which I think they probably will – Kaia isn’t used to being away from me, or to being around other children. I sit at the kitchen table; I could draw. Or I could see if my computer will start – NAV has said I have to register as a jobseeker or they’ll cut our benefits. I tried to say that I don’t have any qualifications and that it might be almost impossible to fit a job around caring for Kaia, but the lady across the table just stared at me and said, ‘If you get a job, there are additional benefits for childcare you can apply for.’

  I make a cup of tea and sit on the sofa. A strange noise is coming from upstairs, but then I remember it’s Wednesday and it’s just the Vikdals’ cleaner dragging the Hoover across their polished wooden floorboards. I try the computer, but it won’t start. Sometimes I have to leave it for days, and then suddenly it chooses to work again.

  I decide
to have a shower, and undress in Kaia’s alcove – I’d be visible from the road if I got undressed in the living room, and the bathroom is so small my clothes would get splashed with water if I did it in there. I avoid looking at myself in the mirror opposite because I don’t particularly like what I see. I like my face and my hair, but my legs are too fat and my stomach is criss-crossed with ugly purple stretch marks. My breasts are heavy and look like they belong to someone much older.

  I stand a long while under the hot water. When I’m dried off, I lie down on Kaia’s bed again, just listening to the occasional sound from upstairs. I decide to bake buns – I think I have all the ingredients. She’ll be so pleased when she arrives home from school to the smell of freshly baked buns dusted with cardamom and brushed with egg yolk. I feel energized again, and smile to myself at the thought of my daughter’s little face lighting up.

  *

  It’s early evening when there is a knock on the door. Kaia looks up from where she’s sitting on the floor in front of the TV, an empty plate in front of her. The buns worked. She lit up and licked her lips theatrically when we came home, the apartment’s air sweet and fragrant.

  ‘Who is it?’ says Kaia, her eyes back on the screen.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. I open the door and our landlady is standing there. She’s never come knocking before, though I often feel as though she’s watching me and Kaia as we come and go. She annoyed me this morning, and I feel a flush of irritation at the sight of her.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, but don’t invite her in. She glances past me into the apartment, and I silently curse the helter-skelter heap of shoes in the corridor.

  ‘Hi, Iselin,’ she says, then pauses, most likely waiting for me to ask her inside. It’s a drizzly, cool evening, but my basement entrance is sheltered by upstairs’ terrace and she won’t get wet standing there, so I don’t feel that bad. ‘You were so quick to go inside this morning, but I’ve been meaning to check in with you, to see how everything is going here.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Look… we’ve been hearing a lot of noise of late. At night. Screaming.’

  ‘Kaia’s been having nightmares.’

  ‘Right. Just… It’s a little worrying. Sound carries in this house.’

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve been hearing it. I’m afraid there isn’t anything much I can do about it. I’m hoping it will gradually stop. She’s been through a lot. It could be to do with some of the medication she is taking.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I mean, I hear you guys, too.’ At this, Hanne Vikdal raises an eyebrow. She might think I’m brazen saying that, but her three boys have disturbed us on so many occasions, and now she has the nerve to knock on my door to complain about the nightmares of a little girl with a life-threatening medical condition? ‘Anyway, I will try to keep the noise down so her nightmares don’t disturb you,’ I say.

  ‘I… Well, what I am getting at, is more whether I have cause for concern when a child screams like that night after night.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ I say, closing the door softly and leaving her standing there. I can practically see the stunned expression on her face. I lean against the door and take several deep breaths before going back inside to where Kaia has started building a Lego tower in front of the television. I imagine that bitch upstairs, in her big house with her gleaming Audi outside, reporting back to her husband that the tenant shut the door in her face, and my skin prickles with a sudden chill. Maybe we should move, but where and how? Not like I have any money, and Hanne Vikdal is hardly going to give me a glowing reference. I decide to speak to my caseworker at NAV about it; maybe we could get rehoused for medical reasons – it can’t be good for Kaia to breathe the humid, stale air in this flat.

  I tidy up in the kitchen, scrubbing the baking tray covered in lumpy, hardened bits of dough from the buns, then sit down at the fold-out table. Kaia is concentrating, carefully pressing each Lego piece down onto the one beneath. Her cheeks are pink and her movements are quick and easy. She looks like a healthy child. I close my eyes and fiddle with the crochet tablecloth, my mind racing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alison

  Every cell in the human body holds a person’s complete genetic material. Neuropeptides, the transmitters used by the brain to communicate with the body, exist in all bodily tissue, making cellular memory a possibility, says Google. I type in ‘cellular memory heart transplants’ and Google returns 707,000 hits. Could transplant organs hold the donor’s memories? asks one article. This is already too much. Way too much. I get up and stand a moment by the kitchen window. Outside, everything is still the same. Rainwater streams off the branches of the spruce trees, the sky is dark and close, the city in the valley is entirely hidden by fog. My breath catches, I have to bend forward to fully fill my lungs. I stay there, and tears drop off the tip of my nose; I just want to be switched off, to stop, to have one moment away from my restless mind and my cracked heart.

  I think of Sindre, out in the forest, clutching his rifle, expert eyes trained on an unsuspecting moose. Hooves moving this way and that in the shrubbery, jaw churning, a froth of berry juice and spittle strung from its mouth, soft eyes blinking in the incandescent morning light, sunlight shredded by the dense trees, only seconds left to live. I turn toward the computer and bring my thoughts back to the notion of cellular memory. What if memories, and the essence of a person, are held not only in the brain, or in the soul, but in every single cell of a body? Would those cells then somehow influence or change their recipient in the event of organ donations? I press my face to the window, the cool pane soothing my flushed cheek, and stare out at the bulbous whiteness concealing Oslo beneath it – somewhere out there is a person who received my daughter’s organs. Could it be that they received more than just a life-giving body part?

  *

  Once, my thoughts felt straightforward and were easily discernible from one another. Now, I visualize them as hungry worms squirming in a can: ugly, and jumbled together. It’s almost 2 a.m. and outside the rain has let up, leaving a spent and starless sky. I’ve been here for hours, fixed to the screen, the seconds of the night slowly bleeding away, drinking wine mixed with vodka and cranberry juice in big gulps.

  I’ve read about the woman in New England who began having vivid dreams about a man named Tim L. after her heart transplant. She also experienced intense food cravings for things she’d never liked before, like beer and chicken nuggets, and when she tracked down the donor’s family, they confirmed he was indeed a beer and chicken nugget lover named Tim L. I’ve read about the man who married the widow of his donor and then killed himself in the same way as the donor two years later. I read about the guy who turned into an art prodigy after a heart transplant, apparently thanks to his artist donor. I’ve read about the French actress who reported vivid memories of the car crash in which her heart donor apparently died. Then there was the little girl whose unexplained memories of a brutal murder were so strong and so detailed they led to the arrest of the man who killed her heart donor. All of these people received someone else’s heart. I consider myself a rational person; I don’t know how I could believe in these things, but then, how could I not? I read and read and read, trying to derive some meaning from all the words, and they swim around in my head, bleeding into each other. This concept is so full of possibilities, I can feel myself coming alive again.

  *

  The phone is vibrating in my hand, twitching and bleeping, its insistent electronic tune ringing in my ears. I sit up, disoriented, but as I do the room spins and nausea washes over me, bitter splashes of bile shooting into my mouth. I swallow hard, squint at the bright screen, Sindre’s name flashing. It’s 5.52 a.m. and as I slide the button to take the call, I just know it isn’t Sindre’s voice I will hear, but someone else’s, calling from his phone to tell me something has happened to him.

  I’m right.

  ‘Alison?’ whispers a man.

  ‘Yes?’ Please, please, not Sindre too.
I see him, in the middle of the night, in the forest, not running now, just hanging still, strung by his neck from a black rope looped around a thick, mossy branch, watched by blinking stars and silent, roaming animals. ‘Tell me, goddamn it!’ The man is breathing hard into the phone, and his voice breaks as he speaks.

  ‘Sindre… Sindre has gone berserk.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Iselin

  She eats properly now, merrily chewing her fish cakes and peas and mashed potatoes, her fork stabbing at the next morsel as soon as she’s swallowed the one before. This, too, is new. She used to eat half a piece of bread with Nutella here, a quarter of an apple there. I watch her and smile and she smiles back, little face lit up and animated as she chats on and on about her school day. I listen intently and nod, asking all the right follow-up questions. So, Solveig is nicer than Oda? Why did they fight, did you say? Oh, yeah, Ludvig sounds like a right joker. Kaia accidently drops her fork on the ground and the loud clattering noise it makes almost makes me jump out of my skin. She must sense me tense up because when I look at her again her face is serious.

  ‘Mamma,’ she says, spoon carrying a cluster of peas close to her mouth, ‘can I go to Solveig’s house for a sleepover? She asked me.’

  ‘Oh, honey,’ I say, ‘Maybe at some point. But not just now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you are still in the early phase after surgery. I can’t expect someone else’s parents to look after you in the right way.’