The Cold Song Read Free Page B

veranda is,” Christian said, and Simen and Gunnar had nodded, meaning they didn’t know either, but they got the idea. They all had parents with stuff going on. The tin pail had been part of Christian’s mother’s great plan. But the terrace, Italian or otherwise, did not get built, not that year and not the year after either, so now the pail was tucked away at the back of the shed, partly hidden behind a broken lawnmower.
    “The pail can be our treasure chest,” Christian said.
    The point in burying treasure was never to unearth it. Never. You know it’s there. You know where it is. You know how many steps you have to walk to get there or how many minutes it takes on your bike. You know how precious it is and how much you sacrificed when you chose to bury it and never see it again. And you can never speak of it to anyone, ever.
    “But,” said Simen, Christian had to come up with something to put
in
the pail too. Christian had to make a
sacrifice.
Simen felt uncomfortable uttering that word—
sacrifice
—it was a stupid word. Something a girl might say, or a woman, not an eleven-year-old boy. Uttering it made him think of Alma, Jenny Brodal’s weird black-haired granddaughter, and how she, a few years earlier, had asked him into her room, told him to bend over, and then proceeded to brush his hair one long stroke after the other, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine strokes, she went on brushing forever, her weird little voice counting every stroke, “so that your hair will shine,” she’d said, “and for this you must make sacrifices.”
    So that his hair would
fucking shine
.
    “Brush your own hair,” he had said when she wanted to do it again the next day, and she had said no, his hair was way longer than hers and shone more beautifully. And he, stupid little boy, had bent over and let her do it again. Anyway, the pail itself wasn’t a
sacrifice
, Simen said. Hadn’t Christian’s grandmother just given him two hundred and fifty kroner? He ought to offer up at least two hundred of that. Gunnar nodded and made a mumbling sound indicating that he agreed with Simen. But no. Christian didn’t want to give up his money, even though—even though!—the treasure had been his idea and he was the one who had said that their offerings all had to be
valuable, precious, priceless
, yes, he had used all those words, and even though he was the one who said they had to make a
sacrifice
. Simen and Gunnar both felt it wasn’t enough to say that the tin pail itself was his contribution to the treasure. That wasn’t a
sacrifice
. The pail wasn’t a part of the treasure, the pail was the treasurechest. Only it wasn’t a chest, it was a pail. If the truth be told (and, as Gunnar pointed out, this
was
the moment of truth), Christian didn’t have anything of value
except
the money from his grandmother.
    “This is not a game,” Simen said.
    “Well, it’s kind of a game,” Christian retorted, knowing already that he had to give up the money. “So okay, take it,” he said.
    And when it came to Gunnar there was no doubt what his offering ought to be. On this point Simen and Christian were in complete agreement. Gunnar had to sacrifice his Liverpool F.C. autograph book.
    A few months earlier Gunnar had been to Liverpool with his big brother, who was twenty-two. They had spent a whole weekend there, stayed in a hotel, and gone to see a Champions League match between Liverpool and Tottenham.
    Gunnar’s big brother wasn’t a real big brother, even though Gunnar was always going on about
my big brother
this and
my big brother
that. Gunnar’s big brother was only a
half brother
, he was Gunnar’s father’s son from an earlier marriage and Gunnar didn’t really see him all that often. Gunnar’s father was a dentist, so was his mother, they had bought a summer house just down the street from Jenny Brodal’s house. Gunnar’s big brother was not really around that much, he was a grown-up and had his