The Snowman

by Jo Nesbø

HARRY WAS SITTING on a bar stool in Palace Grill reading the signs on the walls, the good-natured reminders to bar clientele not to ask for credit, not to shoot the pianist and to be good or be gone.

It was almost frightening how someone you have been intimate with can fade and vanish. Or perhaps that was why; you had been so close to each other that afterwards, when you no longer were, it seemed unreal, like a dream you soon forget because it had happened only in your head.

Evil is not a thing, it cannot take possession of you. It’s the opposite; it’s a void, an absence of goodness. The only thing you can be frightened of here is yourself.

‘Our generation has turned itself into servants and secretaries of our children.

‘Do what boxers do, sway with the punches. Don’t resist. If any of what happens at work gets to you, just let it. You won’t be able to shut it out in the long term anyway. Take it bit by bit, release it like a dam, don’t let it collect until the wall develops cracks.’

Harry had read that the word deadline originated from the battlefields of the American Civil War when, for lack of anything material to lock prisoners behind, they were gathered together and a line was drawn around them in the dirt. Which became known as the dead line, and anyone who strayed beyond it was shot.

We’re capable of understanding that someone has to drop an atomic bomb on a town of innocent civilians, but not that others have to cut up prostitutes who spread disease and moral depravity in the slums of London. Hence we call the former realism and the latter madness.

‘And what’s your unhappiness down to, Harry?’ The words came out before he had time to think. ‘Loving someone who loves me.’

‘The more aged I become, the more I tend to the view that evil is evil, mental illness or no. We’re all more or less disposed to evil actions, but our disposition cannot exonerate us. For heaven’s sake, we’re all sick with personality disorders. And it’s our actions which define how sick we are.