The school corridors had a peculiar silence when lessons were taking place, as if they were resting between the bursts of frantic activity that occurred whenever there was a break. Like the periodical cicadas that swarm around Lake Michigan precisely every seventeen years. She had been invited to the next swarm by an uncle over there who said you just had to experience it, both the intense music of billions of insects, and the taste. The cicadas were apparently related to prawns and other shellfish, and he had told her during a meal of prawns on his visit to Norway that they could be eaten the same way: hold the hard shell tightly, remove the feet and head, and pull out the soft, protein-rich parts. It didn’t sound particularly appetising, though, and she never took invitations from Americans seriously, especially when they were—if she had calculated correctly—for 2024.
“I’ll wait here,” the policeman said, stopping outside the girls’ bathroom.
She walked in. Empty. She went into the last of the eight cubicles.
She pulled down her trousers and underwear, sat down on the toilet, leaned forward, then pushed the door to lock it. She discovered that it wouldn’t close properly. She looked up.
There was a hand sticking between the door and the frame, four large fingers, one of them with a ring in the shape of a snake. And in the palm of the hand she could see one edge of a hole that went right through.
Dagny just managed to take a deep breath before the door was thrown open and Finne’s hand shot forward, grabbing her by the throat. He held the snake-like knife up in front of her face, and his voice whispered right next to her ear:
“So, Dagny? Morning sickness? Stomach ache? Weak bladder? Tender breasts?”
Dagny closed her eyes.
“We can soon find out,” Finne said, then slipped down onto his knees in front of her and, putting the knife into a sheath inside his jacket without taking his hand from her throat, pulled something that looked like a pen from his pocket and stuck it between her thighs. Dagny waited for it to touch her, penetrate her, but it didn’t happen.
“Be a good girl and pee for Daddy, will you?”
Dagny swallowed.
“What’s wrong? That is what you came in here for, isn’t it?”
Dagny wanted to do as he said, but it was as if all her bodily functions had frozen, she didn’t even know if she’d be able to scream if he loosened his grip.
“If you don’t pee before I count to three, I’ll stick the knife in you, then into the idiot standing out in the corridor.” His whispered voice made every word, every syllable, sound like an obscenity. She tried. She really did try.
“One,” Finne whispered. “Two. Three…There, that’s right! Clever girl…”
She heard the trickle hit the porcelain, then the water.
Finne pulled the hand holding the pen towards him and put it on the floor. He wiped his hand on the toilet roll hanging from the wall.
“In two minutes we’ll know if we’re pregnant,” he said. “Isn’t that wonderful, darling? Pens like this, they didn’t exist, we couldn’t even dream of things like this the last time I was free. And just imagine all the wonderful things the future is going to bring. Is it any wonder that we want to bring a child into this world?”
Dagny closed her eyes. Two minutes. Then what?
She heard voices outside. A short conversation before the door opened, running steps, a girl whose teacher had allowed her to go to the toilet went into the cubicle closest to the corridor, finished, washed her hands and ran out again.
Finne let out a deep sigh as he stared at the pen. “I’m looking for a plus on here, Dagny, but I’m afraid it shows a minus. Which means…”
He stood up in front of her, started to undo his trousers with his free hand. Dagny jerked her head back and pulled free of his other hand.
“I’ve got my period,” she said.
Finne looked down at her. His face was in shadow. And casting a shadow. His whole being cast a shadow, like a bird of prey circling in front of the sun. He pulled the knife from its sheath again. She heard the door creak, then the policeman’s voice:
“Everything OK, Dagny?”
Finne pointed at her with the knife as if it were a magic wand that forced her to do whatever he wanted.
“Just coming,” she said, without taking her eyes off Finne’s.
She stood up, pulled up her pants and trousers, standing so close to him that she breathed in the smell of sweat and something else, something rank and nauseating. Sickness. Pain.
“I’ll be back,” he said, holding the door open for her.
Dagny didn’t run, but walked quickly past the other cubicles, past the washbasins, out into the corridor. She let the door close behind her. “He’s in there.”
