Medusa Read Online Free PDF Page B

turned to the evil face in the window. Yes, Solveig, you need help now. And once she’d realised that, she felt calm. It felt so good she had to laugh. The tears ran until she could taste the salt at the corners of her mouth, but she wasn’t crying; she felt the calmness spreading through her chest.
    – Thank you, Lord Jesus, she whispered. – Thank you, Lord, for seeing me. Though I wander upon dark ways.
    She got off at the Storting. Her jacket was left behind on the seat. She wasn’t cold. She wanted to feel light, unencumbered. She stood on the escalator and was raised up into the light. The sky was bright and shining, and from where she was standing, she felt as though the steps would carry her up above the street and over the rooftops.
     
    In Bogstadveien, she stood in front of the clinic door and waited. The tram passed on its way down the road. She stood there a long time before another one came. Solveig, you need help, she told herself again. But it didn’t work any more. There was a surging in her chest, but it wasn’t calm, more like a jolting. She started making her way up towards Majorstua. There’s a fishmonger’s there, Solveig; buy five fish and ask to have them filleted. A man on the other side of the road walked by, looking at her. He looked like Pastor Brandberg at the Pentecostal church. Pastor Brandberg is dead, Solveig. She speeded up. The man on the other side of the road did the same. He was wearing a long leather coat, with his hair pulled back and fastened in a ponytail. Pastor Brandberg had baptised her. She remembered his face as she was pulled up out of the water, his eyes as he blessed her. Pastor Brandberg always helped them. He was the one they took her to the first time she got sick. She crossed the road and stood in front of him.
    – Can you help me? she asked.
    He hurried on without answering, the grey ponytail swaying from side to side on his neck.
    She stopped at the pedestrian crossing, held on to the railings. It had started again, and she wouldn’t be able to stop it. If a car hit her, the driver would feel bad. But not if it was a bus. It was a bus driver’s job to drive around all over town; anything could happen to them. They were protected. The Lord was with bus drivers. They were the instruments of the Lord. Though they wandered upon dark ways. Next time a red bus comes by, you let go, Solveig. She looked up at the sky above Majorstuehuset. The clouds were in sudden motion, pulled apart from each other as though by some mighty hand; the light was unbearably bright. She lowered her gaze. And there, on the steps to the Underground station, enveloped in a blinding white light, stood a man. He had a beard, and his hair was unkempt, his jacket was ragged. The face was turned towards her, and she saw that it was Axel Glenne. And He shall return, though they shall not know Him. – But I know him, she murmured. It’s not going to happen, not yet. Again the calm surged through her chest, swelling inside her until she trembled in pure joy.
    She let go of the railings, turned her back to the bristling stream of cars and started walking back down Bogstadveien.

8
     
    A T 12.15, A XEL G LENNE finished with his last patient before lunch. He made a few notes in the journal, closed it and clicked his computer into hibernation mode.
    – Time we had something to eat, he said to Miriam without looking at her. There hadn’t been a moment’s let-up all morning, and he had barely managed to pass on the odd bit of advice to her in among all the consultations. After what had happened the day before, he felt a bit embarrassed about seeing her today. But she seemed to think it was the most natural thing in the world for the two of them to have sat in her car talking for more than half an hour.
    He let her into the break room before him. It was a tight squeeze, though only Rita and Inger Beate were already sitting there. They squashed themselves in around the circular table. Rita’s niece