The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

it.’
‘All I want,’ he said, getting up and standing at the end of the bed with his erect penis swaying in
the air, ‘. is to find out when it’s time to die.’
The newly qualified Dr Mathias Lund-Helgesen was a popular man in the Neurology Department of
Bergen’s Haukeland Hospital. Both colleagues and patients described him as a competent,
thoughtful person and, not least, a good listener. The latter was a great help as he often received
patients with a variety of syndromes, generally inherited and often without much prospect of a cure,
only some relief. And when on rare occasions they saw patients suffering from the dreadful
condition of scleroderma they were always referred to the friendly young doctor who was beginning
to consider specialising in immunology. It was early autumn when Laila Aasen and her husband
came to him with their daughter. The daughter’s joints had stiffened and she was in pain; Mathias’s
first thought was that it could be Bekhterev’s disease. Both Laila Aasen and her husband confirmed
that there had been rheumatic illnesses on their side of the family, so Mathias took blood samples
from them as well as from the daughter.
When the results came back Mathias was sitting at his desk and had to read them three times. And
the same nasty and black and wonderful feeling surged to the surface again. The tests were
negative. Both in the medical sense, Bekhterev’s disease could be eliminated as a cause of the
afflictions, and in the more familiar sense, Herr Aasen could be eliminated as the girl’s father. And
Mathias knew he didn’t know. But she knew; Laila Aasen knew. He had seen her face twitch when
he asked for blood samples from all three of them. Was she still screwing the other man? What did
he look like? Did he live in a detached house with a big front lawn? What secret flaws did he have?
And how and when would the daughter find out that all her life she had been deceived by this lying
whore?
Mathias looked down and realised he had knocked over his glass of water. A large wet stain was
spreading across his crotch, and he felt the cold spread to his stomach and up towards his head.
He phoned Laila Aasen and informed her of the result. The medical result. She thanked him,
audibly relieved, and they rang off. Mathias stared at the telephone for a long time. God, how he
hated her. That night he lay unable to sleep on the narrow mattress in his bedsit where he had stayed
after studying. He tried to read, but the letters danced in front of his eyes. He tried masturbating,
which as a rule made him tired enough to sleep afterwards, but he couldn’t concentrate. He stuck a
needle in the big toe that had gone completely white again, just to see if he had any sensation. In the
end he huddled up under the duvet and cried until daybreak painted the night sky grey.
Mathias was also responsible for more general neurological cases and one of them was an officer
from Bergen Police Station. After the examination, the middle-aged policeman stood up and
dressed. The combination of body odour and boozy breath was numbing.
‘Well?’ growled the policeman as if Mathias were one of his subordinates.
‘First stages of neuropathy,’ Mathias replied. ‘The nerves under your feet are damaged. There is
reduced sensation.’
‘Do you think that’s why I’ve started walking like a bloody dipso?’
‘Are you a dipso, Rafto?’
The policeman stopped buttoning up his shirt and a flush rose up his neck, like mercury up a