The Last Pilgrim Read Online Free PDF Page A

young girl across the room.
    “You’ve got to unwind a little,” he repeated and smiled, exposing his perfect white teeth.
    A plate was set down in front of Holt with a thud. Finally.
    “Later,” said Nordenstam, “you and I are going to have some fun , aren’t we?” He began to laugh. Holt couldn’t help joining in. He knew exactly what Nordenstam meant by have some fun .
    “I’m going to take you to a hell of a place that’ll make you forget all about these interrogation games, all right?”
    Holt had already forgotten, at least he thought he had. He cut into his meat almost brutally, knowing that he hadn’t had a decent meal in days, not to mention enough sleep.
    “Tonight we’re going to live a little!” said Nordenstam.
    Holt nodded and thought, Yes, tonight I’m going to live it up. If only to disprove what his own wife had told him just a few days before: “It would’ve been best if they’d caught you too.” Just as she had the first time she’d told him she’d lost him.
    He had said yes again. That it was probably for the best. She had stood there holding the girl in her arms, a child he hadn’t managed to develop any feelings for. He wasn’t even glad that he’d survived and could be a father to her.
    “The only thing that will make you happy,” she’d said, clutching their daughter even tighter as if the child belonged to her alone, “is to follow the others, the dead, all the way home.”
    He had walked away without a word. There was nothing left to say.
    Kaj Holt put down the silverware on the damask tablecloth and surveyed the room as though for the first time: the crowd, the smiling faces, the cigarette smoke beneath the ceiling, the singer’s white tuxedo, the behind of a young woman on her way across the restaurant to the ladies’ room, the gazes that followed her, the ripple of the magenta fabric over her buttocks.
    “Håkan . . . I don’t want to live any longer,” he said bluntly.
    In a daze, he saw himself at Jørstadmoen. When he’d stood out on the steps after the interrogation and filled his lungs with fresh air, he was no longer sure whether it had even happened. Whether he had really held Peter Waldhorst’s head in his hands and screamed at him. Screamed that it couldn’t be true. That it was all lies.
    “Don’t say that,” said Nordenstam.
    Then, a split second later, a familiar face popped up at the periphery of Holt’s vision. He turned around. Yes, he thought, it’s definitely him. Across the restaurant, at a corner table by the band, sat the civilian from Jørstadmoen. He sat there alone with that childish face of his, looking as if he’d been waiting all afternoon for Holt to look his way.
    What was he doing here?
    Who was he?
    Their eyes met. A couple crossing the room broke their contact for a moment. When they had passed, the civilian gave him a friendly smile and a curt nod, and raised his glass in a toast.
    “Kaj, what is it?” said Nordenstam, gripping Holt’s arm once more.
    “Nothing,” he whispered.
    “Something’s wrong,” said Nordenstam.
    “Do you know who that is?” Holt asked. A group of people walking past them momentarily cut off the view of the table where the civilian sat. They stopped and talked to one of the waiters, then continued on their way.
    Nordenstam turned in the direction Holt had indicated.
    “I’ve seen that man before,” said Holt. “Yesterday at Jørstadmoen. But . . . before that too.”
    Nordenstam turned back to Holt and frowned.
    “What man, Kaj? I don’t understand.”
    Holt glanced back at the table over in the corner. He blinked. His pulse seemed to stop.
    The table was empty.
    It was obvious that no one had been sitting there. The tablecloth was fresh and the utensils hadn’t been moved. A waiter was showing a party of four to that table.
    “But—” Holt sprang up from his chair, knocking over his glass, which rolled off the table and smashed on the floor.
    The restaurant fell silent.