disconsolate look that she flinched, and there was nothing soothing in his reply:
“I love you.”
It sounded like a farewell and she kissed him. But he shook himself free and asked where the bodyguards were. She took a moment before answering. They had two terraces, and the guards were sitting out on the western one, facing the water. They would have to change and accompany him if he was going on a run, and as usual they would struggle to keep up. Sometimes he would run back and forth a bit so as not to exhaust them.
“On the west terrace,” she said, and he hesitated.
He seemed to want to say something. His chest heaved. His shoulders were unnaturally tense, and there were red patches on his throat which she had never seen before.
“What is it?” she said.
“I tried to write you a letter. But I couldn’t.”
“Why on earth would you write me a letter? I’m standing right here.”
“But I…”
“But you?”
She was about to break down, but vowed not to give in before he had told her exactly what was going on. She took hold of his hands and looked into his eyes. But then the worst thing imaginable happened.
He tore himself loose, said “I’m sorry,” and then ran off, not towards the bodyguards but instead across the terrace which faced the forest. In no time at all he was out of sight, so she screamed for her life. When the guards rushed in she was distraught.
“He’s run away from me, he’s run away from me.”
CHAPTER 16
August 26
Forsell ran so fast that his temples were pounding and his mind was filled with the clamour of an entire life. But there was nothing remotely uplifting about it—not even the happiest moments. He tried to think about Becka and their sons. All he could picture was the disappointment and shame in their eyes, and when he heard birdsong in the far distance, as if from another world, he could make no sense of it. How could anyone be singing? How could they want to live?
His whole existence was black and hopeless. Yet he had no idea what he wanted to do. In town, he would have thrown himself in front of a long-distance truck or a tunnelbana train. Here there was only the sea and, although he felt it beckoning, he knew that he was far too good a swimmer, and that amid his despair there was an untameable will to live which he was not certain he could suppress.
So he kept on running, not in his usual way but as if he were trying to run from life itself. It was incomprehensible that it had come to this. He had thought he could cope with anything. He had thought he was as strong as a bear. But he had made a mistake and been drawn into something he knew he could not live with. At first, he had really wanted to hit back, to fight. But they had him. They knew they had him, and here he now was. Birds flew up all around, and further on a startled roe deer leaped into the trees. Nima, Nima. That it should be him of all people. There was no logic in it.
He had loved Nima, although that was of course the wrong word, but still…there had been a bond between them, an alliance. Nima had been the first to pick up on the fact that Johannes was stealing into Rebecka’s tent at night at Base Camp, and it had upset him. His Everest goddess was offended by sex on her sacred slopes.
“Makes mountain very angry,” he said, and in the end Johannes could not help pulling his leg. Even though everybody warned him—That man can’t handle a joke!—Nima had taken it well and laughed, and the fact that Rebecka and Johannes were both single no doubt helped.
Grankin and Engelman’s case was more problematic because both were married to other people. It was difficult in all sorts of ways, and he remembered Luna, wonderful brave Luna, who sometimes came up with fresh bread, goat’s cheese and yak butter in the mornings, and he recalled his decision to help them, yes, that was probably where it all began. Johannes gave them money—as if paying off a debt that he did not yet know he had.
He kept on running and was drawn inexorably towards the water. Once on the beach he pulled off his shoes and socks and his running shirt and waded into the