The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘You know I can’t be absolutely certain.’
‘OK, sober then.’
‘No, never.’
‘So what does that make you think of me? Being here now?’
‘Is this a trick question?’
‘I mean it seriously, Harry.’
‘I know. I just don’t know if I feel like answering it.’
‘Then you can’t have any more of the cigarette.’
‘Mm. Alright. I think you believe you want me, but you wish you wanted him.’
The words hung over them as if imprinted in the darkness.
‘You’re so bloody detached,’ Rakel erupted, handing Harry the cigarette and crossing her arms.
‘Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about it?’ Harry suggested.
‘But I have to talk about it! Don’t you see? Otherwise I’ll go out of my mind. My God, I’m already
out of my mind, being here, now ’ She pulled the duvet up to her chin.
Harry turned and slid over to her. Already before he had touched her she had closed her eyes, tipped
back her head and from between her parted lips he could hear her breathing accelerate. And he
thought: how does she do it? From shame to sexual abandon in a flash? How can she be so
detached?
‘Do you think ’ he said, seeing her open her eyes and stare at the ceiling in surprise and frustration
at the caresses that hadn’t materialised, ‘a bad conscience makes us wanton? That we’re unfaithful
not in spite of the shame but because of it?’
She blinked a couple of times.
‘There’s something in that,’ she said at length. ‘But it’s not everything. Not this time.’
‘This time?’
‘Yes.’
‘I asked you once and at that time you said –’
‘I was lying,’ she said. ‘I’ve been unfaithful before.’
‘Mm.’
They lay in silence listening to the distant drone of the afternoon rush hour in Pilestredet. She had
come to him straight from work; he knew Rakel and Oleg’s routines, and knew she would have to