‘The next day Walla went to the fire. His eyes gleamed and he seemed almost excited as he asked who wanted to accompany him to collect rubber. “We have rubber,” they said, surprised to note Walla’s good mood. “You can have some of ours.” “I want fresh rubber,” he said. He laughed at their startled faces and said: “Join me and I’ll show you what I’m going to use it for.” Curious, they joined him, and after they had collected the rubber, he led them to the valley with the huge rocks. There he built a platform in the highest tree and told the others to retreat to the valley entrance. With his best friend, he climbed the tree, and from there they shouted Bubbur’s name as the echoes rang through the valley and the sun rose in the sky.
‘Then it appeared – an enormous yellow-and-brown head swinging to and fro, searching for the source of the sound. Around it a teeming mass of small yellow-and-brown snakes, obviously hatched from the eggs Moora had seen. Walla and his friend kneaded the rubber into small balls. When Bubbur saw them in the tree it opened its jaws, flicked out its tongue and stretched up for them. The sun was now at its zenith and Bubbur’s red-and-white jaws glistened. As Bubbur launched its attack Walla hurled the largest ball of rubber down the snake’s open mouth and instinctively it sank its fangs into it.
‘Bubbur rolled around on the ground but was unable to get rid of the rubber stuck in its mouth. Walla and his friend managed to perform the same trick with the smaller snakes, and soon they were rendered harmless with their jaws sealed. Then Walla called the other men, and they showed no mercy, all the snakes were killed. After all, Bubbur had killed the tribe’s most beautiful daughter, and Bubbur’s progeny would one day grow up to be as big as their mother. From that day forward the feared yellow-and-brown Bubbur snake has been a rarity in Australia. But our fear of it has made it longer and fatter for every year that has passed.’
Andrew drained the last of his gin and tonic.
‘And the moral is?’ Birgitta asked.
‘Love is a greater mystery than death. And you have to watch out for snakes.’
Andrew paid for the drinks, gave Harry a pat of encouragement and left.
MOORA
14
A Dressing Gown
HE OPENED HIS eyes. The city outside his window droned and growled as it woke up, and the curtain waved lazily at him. He lay looking at an absurdity hanging on the wall on the other side of the spacious room – a picture of the Swedish royal couple. The Queen with her calm, secure smile and the King looking like someone was holding a knife to his back. Harry knew how he felt – he had himself been persuaded to play the title role in The Frog Prince at primary school.
From somewhere came the sound of running water, and Harry rolled over onto the other side of the bed to smell her pillow. A jellyfish tentacle – or was it a long, red hair? – lay on the sheet. He was reminded of a headline on Dagbladet’s sports page: ERLAND JOHNSEN, MOSS FC – FAMOUS FOR HIS RED HAIR AND LONG BALLS.
He considered how he felt. Light. As light as a feather, in fact. So light he was afraid the fluttering curtains would lift him out of bed and whistle him through the window where he would float over Sydney in the rush hour and discover that he wasn’t wearing any clothes. He concluded that the lightness was due to draining himself of various bodily fluids in the night with such a vengeance that he must have lost several kilos in weight.
‘Harry Hole, Oslo Police Station – famous for his weird ideas and empty balls,’ he muttered.
‘Pardon?’ came a voice in Swedish.
Birgitta was standing in the room in an unusually hideous dressing gown with a white towel wrapped around her head like a turban.
‘Oh, good morning, thou ancient, thou free and mountainous North, thou quiet, thou joyful beauty! I greet thee. I was just looking at the picture of the rebel king on the wall over there. Do you think he would rather have been a farmer digging the soil? That’s how it seems.’
She studied the picture. ‘We can’t all find the right niche in life. What about you then?’ She plonked herself down on the bed beside him.
‘A serious question for so early in the morning. Before I answer, I demand you remove that dressing gown. Without wishing to appear in any way negative, I think, as a spontaneous reaction, your dressing gown qualifies for inclusion in my top ten “Ugliest-garment-I’ve-ever-seen” list.’
Birgitta laughed. ‘I call it the passion killer. It performs a useful function when pig-headed strangers become too brash.’
‘Have you checked to see if that colour has a name? Perhaps you’re sitting on some unknown tint, a kind of undiscovered gap on the palette somewhere between green and brown?’