The Heart Keeper Read online

  ‘So, Iselin,’ Else begins, saying my name as though it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. ‘How is the job search going?’

  ‘Well, I’ve sent out quite a few applications in the last few weeks.’

  ‘Have you sent them through our website so we can track your progress?’

  ‘Well, some of them, yeah.’

  ‘You know, job-searching is a full-time job in itself. At least it should be treated as such.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So, how many interviews have you been asked to?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘None?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What kind of jobs have you been applying for, Iselin?’ Her voice is condescending and a little smirk plays on her lips.

  ‘Umm. I applied for a job at the Munch museum. As a part-time receptionist. And for a job at Henie Onstad Art Center – they were looking for a junior tour guide.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I haven’t heard back from either of them.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘I’ve looked at other similar jobs. Jobs that could match my interests and would make it possible to work around my daughter.’

  Else raises an eyebrow. ‘You do realize you can’t afford to be picky?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answer. ‘I’ve applied for jobs in clothes shops, and in cafés, and in old people’s homes—’

  ‘Have you applied to the council?’

  ‘No… What do you mean?’

  ‘They have various jobs for unqualified people like yourself on a day-to-day basis. Litter picking, recovering and replacing broken road signs, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, because what am I supposed to say? That I went to Paris to become an artist, that I had dreams, that I have no skills besides looking after a sick child?

  ‘New rules are coming into effect in the new year. If you do not register with the council as a jobseeker, you will no longer be eligible for jobseeker benefits through NAV. And when you get called in for a job, you have to show up, or they will cut your benefits. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ I’m furious and humiliated now, but determined not to show it. I’m not going to give this mean woman any reaction. ‘I went to art school. In Paris. For a while. It’s on my CV.’

  Else glances briefly at the paper in front of her. ‘Ecole Supérieur de Dessin Jean-Jacques Gareau, is that it?’ She has clearly never read a word of French before and pronounces the words entirely as though she is speaking Norwegian.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Never heard of it. What kind of degree did you get out of it?’

  ‘Well, I would have got a Bachelor of Arts, but I had to leave after just under a year, so…’

  ‘So that doesn’t count for anything then, does it?’ This woman reduces my proudest achievement besides Kaia to nothing with her cruel words. I practice my controlled breathing, the technique I taught myself as a child.

  ‘I did learn a lot during the time I was there. I also speak French fairly well. That might be relevant to possible jobs?’

  ‘I doubt there is much need for a French-speaking illustrator at the council, Miss Berge,’ says the mean-faced bitch, and I have a sudden jolt – a realization that no matter what, I have to get out of this myself. I will find a way to support us without having to come here month after month, begging for the bare minimum to survive.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I say, and stand up.

  ‘Miss Berge, these meetings are mandatory and I will let you know when we are finished here. Now—’

  ‘I said goodbye. I’m not coming back.’

  ‘You know very well that you are legally obliged to meet with NAV monthly to monitor your progress as a jobseeker. I will have no choice but to recommend your benefits be terminated if you do not uphold your commitment.’ I slam the door to Else’s office and walk fast into the darkening afternoon outside.

  *

  It felt good, in that moment, to walk away. But now, as Kaia sleeps fitfully in her alcove and I sit doodling at the kitchen table, my bravado has faded. How will I feed us? And how will I explain to Hanne Vikdal that I won’t be able to pay rent? I have a terrifying vision of having to return to my parents’ farm in Svartberget, with a grandchild whom they have never even met. Our basement flat in Østerås is no fancy home, but compared to where I came from, it’s heaven. What would Kaia make of such a place? And what would my parents do, if we just turned up one day?

  I try to imagine Noa’s reaction if I told her I’m taking Kaia with me and moving back to Nordland, but find I can’t. I consider asking her to lend me some money, just until after Christmas, but again, I just can’t. She’s my younger sister, and while I love her dearly, it hurts that she’s living her dream and making lots of money in Paris while my own life is what it is. It isn’t envy, exactly, it’s just sadness.

  *

  It’s gone one in the morning, but I’m not tired tonight. I feel sharp, and wired. It probably comes from the pressure of somehow working this situation out. I look around the apartment, and feel a rush of gratitude for this home. I am never going back to Svartberget. Never. I am also never going back to NAV. That means I need to make some money fast. My eyes land on the pile of new drawings over by the window. Thirty, by now. I go and sit down on the floor next to them, going through them one by one. They are different from anything I have ever seen, and certainly different from anything else I’d ever drawn before. And they’re good. Could I sell them? Math was never my strongest subject but if I could find a part-time job, say three days a week, and sold five drawings per month, I’d make more money than I’ve had in handouts from NAV. And I’d be free.

  Something shifted in me this morning at Else’s plain little office, watching her stutter her way through my CV, the CV I was once so proud of. I just can’t sit around waiting for a fairy godmother any longer. I need to become the mistress of my own destiny and achieve my dreams on my own terms. I spend a long while taking good shots of the drawings on my Samsung, then I upload the twenty-seven best ones to my Instagram account, and change its name from @iselinberge to @IsbergArt.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Alison

  Karen is clutching a short swath of red wool, and is holding the needles still in place, ready, when I sit down in the chair. I stare at the bird picture on the wall behind her.

  ‘How are things at home now?’ she asks.

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘Well. You know. Not good. Up and down, I guess.’ Karen nods slightly and looks at the yarn pooling in her lap. Her eyebrows are drawn together, like she’s trying to figure something out. ‘We’re going to Mexico the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Mexico?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I haven’t heard you mention that before,’ says Karen, frowning, as though I might be making it up.

  ‘Yes, well, I haven’t thought about it much if I’m honest.’

  ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘I said I haven’t thought about it. I’m sure the sun will be nice.’

  ‘Are you sleeping better?’

  I nod. I do sleep, just not much.

  ‘Eating?’

  I nod again. I do eat. Just not much.

  ‘You seem… You seem less present in these sessions. Are you still taking the Zoloft and the Klonopin?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I’m not. I can’t bear the flatness, the struggle to grasp the simplest of thoughts. I wanted to be clear-headed again, I need to be. I have decided to broach the subject of cell memory gently with Karen; I need to know if I am clinically insane, or if I’m actually onto something.

  ‘I… I have so many strange thoughts,’ I say.

  ‘Strange thoughts?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see her everywhere.’

  ‘You’ve described that previously. It doesn’t seem so strange that you would see her, Alison. The mind can conjure up incredible things—’

  ‘No. No, this is different,’ I say. ‘I see her as she is now. You k
now?’

  ‘What do you mean, exactly?’ I realize that Karen thinks I mean that I see Amalie dead.

  ‘I mean I see her in other people. The people who received her organs. Her heart especially. I always thought of it as her giving new life to someone else, but now I realize that someone else is giving new life to her.’

  ‘I’m… I’m not sure I follow?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about this so much. It seems to me that it would make sense that something of Amalie lingers in the people, or person, who received her organs.’

  ‘That might be a really constructive way of thinking about it, Alison, but…’

  ‘And if something remains of her,’ I continue, ‘even the littlest thing – a transferred mannerism, a fraction of a memory, whatever it is, it means she’s still here. I could find her.’

  After a prolonged pause Karen speaks; her face is calm, but etched with concern. ‘What do you mean when you say you could find her?’

  ‘You know, find whoever received her organs.’ Karen is watching me carefully, waiting for me to continue, but I don’t. I wonder if she has kids, but feel certain she doesn’t – she’s too serene. I imagine she has a cat, and that she lives alone in a small, cozy apartment where she sits knitting in front of Netflix. How could this woman ever understand?

  ‘I’d imagine that would be impossible. It could even be illegal to strike up contact. Alison, I’m not sure I entirely understand, but if what you’re asking is, do I think it is okay to seek out whichever impulses make Amalie feel close to you, then I think you need to decide for yourself whether it is something that contributes to a continued improvement in managing your grief. From what you are describing, it sounds as though it is. But talking about trying to somehow find Amalie through her donor, I feel that that is a very dangerous way to think.’ I focus on keeping my expression neutral and untouched by her words, because this woman knows nothing. Nothing at all. She hasn’t seen what I’ve seen, nor felt what I feel. She hasn’t lost what I have lost.

  ‘Never mind,’ I say, fixing my gaze to my hands held tightly together in my lap.

  ‘Do you remember what we’ve talked about in terms of focus and directing energy when grieving?’ I look at the clock above the door, seventeen minutes left of the session, but I can’t stay, not today; I can’t spend another second trying to explain to Karen the thoughts that consume me – as soon as I opened my mouth, I saw how crazy I sounded to her. The tears flowing from my eyes blur the clock face and I stand up, mouth ‘sorry’ and dash awkwardly for the door like a teenager fleeing math class. Once I’m outside in the corridor I begin to run. I run out of the building, past my car parked outside Peppe’s Pizza, down Cort Adelersgate past throngs of shouting slick-haired teenage boys in pastel Ralph Lauren polo shirts emerging from the gates at Handelsgym, past the furniture shop where we bought Amalie’s first bed, down toward the harbor at Aker Brygge. I need to see the water, to touch it, to know that lowering myself into it is a real option.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Iselin

  I’m woken by Kaia trailing a dry paintbrush down the length of my nose, hovering at my nostril, making me sneeze.

  ‘Hey,’ I say groggily, holding her by her thin wrist. ‘You silly little monkey!’ I pull her down onto the sofa bed, and kiss her cool cheek.

  ‘It’s almost Christmas,’ she says. ‘Can we go buy the tree now?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking we could wait until Aunt Noa gets here.’ I was, in fact, hoping Aunt Noa would offer to pay for it.

  ‘No, I want it to be ready by the time she gets here. A surprise!’

  ‘I don’t know, honey.’ My account is practically empty and it’s Christmas in two days. I have bought Kaia some second-hand toys, but I still need to buy some cheap decorations from the supermarket, and a little gift for Noa.

  ‘Please,’ she says, theatrically fluttering her long black eyelashes.

  ‘Can I at least make a coffee before you start up?’ I say, tickling her little drum-belly and hauling myself out of bed. In the kitchen I stir the instant coffee slowly in the mug, yawn a couple of times and rub my eyes, which feel dry and sore. I was up until almost 3 a.m. working on my Instagram account. Hopefully some of the drawings will have had a few likes by now. I grab my phone and am just taking a sip of coffee as I open the app. I almost choke – sixty-one new followers and 879 new likes. Five direct messages. I scroll through them, and each of them is from someone who wants to buy one of my drawings. I sink onto the floor of the kitchen, my right hand holding the phone shaking hard. I burst into tears.

  ‘Mamma?’ says Kaia, appearing in the doorway, face pale and alarmed. ‘Don’t cry, Mamma,’ she whispers, placing a careful hand on my shuddering shoulder.

  ‘I’m not sad, honey bunny,’ I say. ‘These are happy tears. Now, what do you say we go and buy a beautiful tree? It was a great idea to get it ready as a surprise for Aunt Noa.’

  *

  Noa’s train pulls into the station at five to six. Kaia and I have been waiting a while, jumping up and down on the platform to stay warm. A light drizzle of snow has started to fall, the forecasters have predicted a white Christmas, the first in several years. Noa steps from the carriage, hauling a huge suitcase. She looks tense and exhausted, and tumbles into my arms, Kaia snuggled in between us.

  On the bus back out to Østerås, Kaia chats excitedly about the big surprise we have for Noa at home. I smile, listening to her, and at the thought of her carefully hanging the plastic supermarket baubles on the tree this afternoon, her concentrated face mirrored in each little silvery globe. At home, I’m about to place the key in the lock when a voice calls my name.

  ‘Iselin!’ It’s Hanne from upstairs, clutching a package to her chest like a bird of prey holding a soft baby animal. ‘This came for you today when you were away. I offered to take it in.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say and give her a tight smile. She hovers, as though she expects me to open the parcel right here in front of her. Noa shoots her a quizzical look and Hanne takes her in disdainfully; she’s probably never seen a girl with platinum and purple hair and an eyebrow stud in Østerås before.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ I say in a sarcastic, sing-song voice, wrenching the door open. Kaia, Noa and I rush inside, giggling.

  ‘What a weirdo,’ says Noa before the door is even fully shut.

  ‘Come, hurry,’ says Kaia, tugging at Noa’s arm, pulling her down the corridor toward the living room, leaving lumps of hardened snow from her boots on the newly mopped floor.

  ‘Oh, wow!’ says Noa, clapping her hands and laughing at the sight of Kaia’s huge tree, its tip bent against the ceiling, taking up most of the space in the room. ‘Amazing!’ She and Kaia dance around the tree while I unwrap the parcel Hanne brought.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ I whisper, stopping Kaia and Noa. ‘Look at this!’ It is a copy of Se Her’s big Christmas issue, on sale from tomorrow. Kaia is one of the cover stories, with the shout line Hjertebarnet – the heart-child. There’s a note from the editor, as well as a five-thousand-kroner gift card from Meny, Norway’s most exclusive supermarket, where I have, needless to say, never shopped. Merry Christmas to an exceptional family, reads the note and my eyes blur with tears.

  The three of us slump down into the sofa, close together, and read the article in awed silence.

  *

  Once Kaia is fast asleep, I pour a large glass of Shiraz for Noa and me. She smiles tiredly but takes the glass, and we sit across from each other at the tiny kitchen table.

  ‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ I say, pushing my phone across the table at her. ‘Look at my Instagram.’

  She opens the app and looks at me. ‘What’s @IsbergArt?’

  ‘I’ve done some new drawings. Take a look. I put them on Instagram, and sold five almost immediately.’

  ‘Shit, are you serious?’ Noa scrolls through my feed, eyebrows lifting in surprise, her stud glinting in the sharp overhead light. ‘Issy, these are a
mazing. Wow. They are really something else.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I smile and take the phone back, scrolling quickly. Two more messages from potential buyers.

  ‘This is the kind of stuff that could make a real name for you. You should have a studio space.’

  ‘Steady,’ I say, laughing, ‘I literally started selling, like, yesterday.’

  ‘Do you remember my friend Eline? Her mother’s an artist and she’s gone to Bali for the winter. She has a studio at her apartment in Majorstuen. She might consider subletting it to you.’

  *

  Later, much later, I wake in one of those pockets of the night that are so dark and soundless it feels like being at the bottom of the ocean. Noa sleeps next to me, her breath so slow and even it takes me several moments to pick it out from the silence. When my eyes have adjusted to the dark, I can make out the faint outline of Kaia’s huddled little shape next door and the tall, dense shape of the massive tree outside. I run through the incredible events of the last few days in my mind: the drawings, Kaia in Se Her, the five-thousand-kroner gift card, Noa arriving. My life, in this moment, is good. I smile to myself and whisper, ‘Merry Christmas, Iselin,’ before closing my eyes again.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Alison

  I step from the plane and blink hard at the fierce sun, like an animal caught in the sight block of a rifle. It feels strange that a place exists where the sun could shine like this in December. Sindre carries our hand luggage down the steps, into the humid air smelling faintly of sweet rot and salty sea, and onto a waiting bus. He looks fresh and cheerful, even after twenty hours in transit. He checks his phone and a little smile twitches at the corners of his mouth. Who is he talking to? I realize I don’t care and turn my face to the window as the bus proceeds slowly toward the terminal building. Sun-scorched palm trees sway half-heartedly by the motorway that runs on the other side of the airport fencing.