also liked cartoons and loved Lord of the Rings .”
“People who are as successful as Fiona Helle always have . . .” Adam tried to find the right word.
“Enemies,” Sigmund suggested.
“No. Not necessarily. But people who aren’t friends. There’s always someone who feels overshadowed by people like that. Outshone. And Fiona Helle shone brighter than most. But I still find it hard to believe that some NRK employee with ambitions of hosting a Saturday night show, who might feel that he or she has been wronged, would go to such drastic lengths as to . . .” He nodded at the board, where a poster-sized picture of a bare-breasted, open-legged Fiona Helle screamed at them.
“I think the answer is possibly somewhere in here,” Adam said, pulling out a pile of letters that had been carefully placed in a red folder. “I picked out twenty letters. At random, basically. To get an impression of what kind of people wrote to Fiona Helle.”
Sigmund furrowed his brow in response and picked up the letter that lay on top.
“Dear Fiona,” he read out loud. “I am a 22-year-old girl from Hemnesberget. Three years ago I found out my dad was a sallor from Venezuela. My mom says he was a shit who just left never got in touch again . . .”
Sigmund scratched his ear. “She can’t fucking write,” he muttered before continuing to read:
“When he found out I was dew. But there is a lady here at the Coop says that Juan Maria was a nice man and it was my mom who wanted . . .”
Sigmund inspected his fingertip. A small dirty-yellow lump seemed to fascinate him. He paused for several seconds before wiping it off on his pants.
“Are they all as hopeless as this?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t say it was hopeless,” Adam said. “After all, she’s shown some initiative. Just because she can’t spell and has bad grammar doesn’t mean that she can’t do her own detective work. She actually knows where her father lives. The letter is a plea for On the Move with Fiona to take her quest one step further. The girl is terrified of being rejected and thinks there’s a greater chance that her father will accept her if it’s all on TV.”
“Jesus,” exclaimed Sigmund and picked up another letter.
“That one is of a completely different caliber,” Adam said while his colleague glanced down the page. “An eloquent dentist who’s approaching retirement. He was just a boy during the war and lived on the east side of Oslo. In 1945, he was sent to the country as a weedy, anemic orphan to be fattened up. There he met—”
“Fiona Helle was playing with fire,” Sigmund interrupted, leafing through the other letters. “This is—”
“People’s lives,” Adam said lightly and shrugged his shoulders. “Every single letter that woman received—and believe me, it wasn’t just a couple—told stories of loss and grief. Despair. But she’s also been criticized for it. The usual debate in the end. On the one side, intellectual snobs who patronizingly argued against the exploitation of the ignorant masses. And on the other side, the People”—he drew a capital P with his finger—“who thought that the snobs could just shut up and turn off the TV if they didn’t like what they saw.”
“That’s a fair point,” Sigmund mumbled.
“Both camps had valid points, but as usual the debate didn’t amount to much. Except shouting and screaming and of course even better ratings for the program. In Fiona Helle’s defense, it must be said that the vetting of people who eventually made it onto the show was extremely rigorous. There were three psychologists on the production team, and every guest had to go through a kind of screening. Quite thorough preparations, as far as I’m aware.”
“But what about the ones who didn’t make it, then?”
“Exactly. There are people out there who poured their lives into a letter to Fiona Helle. Many of them had never told their story to anyone before. It must’ve been very painful,
“People who are as successful as Fiona Helle always have . . .” Adam tried to find the right word.
“Enemies,” Sigmund suggested.
“No. Not necessarily. But people who aren’t friends. There’s always someone who feels overshadowed by people like that. Outshone. And Fiona Helle shone brighter than most. But I still find it hard to believe that some NRK employee with ambitions of hosting a Saturday night show, who might feel that he or she has been wronged, would go to such drastic lengths as to . . .” He nodded at the board, where a poster-sized picture of a bare-breasted, open-legged Fiona Helle screamed at them.
“I think the answer is possibly somewhere in here,” Adam said, pulling out a pile of letters that had been carefully placed in a red folder. “I picked out twenty letters. At random, basically. To get an impression of what kind of people wrote to Fiona Helle.”
Sigmund furrowed his brow in response and picked up the letter that lay on top.
“Dear Fiona,” he read out loud. “I am a 22-year-old girl from Hemnesberget. Three years ago I found out my dad was a sallor from Venezuela. My mom says he was a shit who just left never got in touch again . . .”
Sigmund scratched his ear. “She can’t fucking write,” he muttered before continuing to read:
“When he found out I was dew. But there is a lady here at the Coop says that Juan Maria was a nice man and it was my mom who wanted . . .”
Sigmund inspected his fingertip. A small dirty-yellow lump seemed to fascinate him. He paused for several seconds before wiping it off on his pants.
“Are they all as hopeless as this?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t say it was hopeless,” Adam said. “After all, she’s shown some initiative. Just because she can’t spell and has bad grammar doesn’t mean that she can’t do her own detective work. She actually knows where her father lives. The letter is a plea for On the Move with Fiona to take her quest one step further. The girl is terrified of being rejected and thinks there’s a greater chance that her father will accept her if it’s all on TV.”
“Jesus,” exclaimed Sigmund and picked up another letter.
“That one is of a completely different caliber,” Adam said while his colleague glanced down the page. “An eloquent dentist who’s approaching retirement. He was just a boy during the war and lived on the east side of Oslo. In 1945, he was sent to the country as a weedy, anemic orphan to be fattened up. There he met—”
“Fiona Helle was playing with fire,” Sigmund interrupted, leafing through the other letters. “This is—”
“People’s lives,” Adam said lightly and shrugged his shoulders. “Every single letter that woman received—and believe me, it wasn’t just a couple—told stories of loss and grief. Despair. But she’s also been criticized for it. The usual debate in the end. On the one side, intellectual snobs who patronizingly argued against the exploitation of the ignorant masses. And on the other side, the People”—he drew a capital P with his finger—“who thought that the snobs could just shut up and turn off the TV if they didn’t like what they saw.”
“That’s a fair point,” Sigmund mumbled.
“Both camps had valid points, but as usual the debate didn’t amount to much. Except shouting and screaming and of course even better ratings for the program. In Fiona Helle’s defense, it must be said that the vetting of people who eventually made it onto the show was extremely rigorous. There were three psychologists on the production team, and every guest had to go through a kind of screening. Quite thorough preparations, as far as I’m aware.”
“But what about the ones who didn’t make it, then?”
“Exactly. There are people out there who poured their lives into a letter to Fiona Helle. Many of them had never told their story to anyone before. It must’ve been very painful,
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