The Redbreast(128)

send her down to the breakfast lounge.

There was a light knock at the door. He stood up,

took a last look at the exclusive bedspread of

yellow and gold, sensed a tiny rush of fear, which

he instantly brushed aside, and covered the four

strides to the door. He inspected himself in the hall

mirror, slid his tongue across his white front teeth,

moistened a finger and ran it along his eyebrows

and opened the door.

She was leaning against the wall with her coat

unbuttoned. She was wearing a red woollen dress

underneath. He had asked her to wear something

red. Her eyelids were heavy and she gave him a

wry smirk. Brandhaug was surprised – he had

never seen her looking like this before. She must

have been drinking or taking some kind of pills –

her eyes studied him apathetically and he hardly

recognised her voice when she mumbled something

incoherent about almost not finding the place. He

took her arm but she wriggled free, so he guided

her into the room with his hand against the small of

her back. She slumped down on to the sofa.

‘A drink?’ he asked.

‘Yes, please,’ she said, her speech slurred. ‘Or

would you rather I stripped off immediately?’

Brandhaug poured her a glass without answering.

He knew what she was playing at. But if she

thought she could ruin his pleasure by assuming the

role of soiled goods, she was mistaken. Alright, he

might have preferred it if she had chosen the role

his conquests in the Foreign Department went for –

the innocent girl falling for her boss’s irresistible

charm and his self-assured masculine sensuality.

But the most important thing was that she

succumbed to his desires. He was too old to

believe in humanity’s romantic motives. The only

thing that separated them was what they were both

after: power, career or custody of a son.

It had never bothered him that women were

dazzled by his position as head. After all, he was

too. He was Bernt Brandhaug, the Under Secretary

of State at the Foreign Office. For Christ’s sake, he

had spent all his life becoming the Under

Secretary. If Rakel wanted to dope herself up and

present herself as a whore, that didn’t change the

facts.

‘I apologise, but I have to have you,’ he said,

dropping two ice cubes in her drink. ‘When you get

to know me, you’ll understand all this better. But

let me give you a kind of first lesson anyhow, an

idea of what makes me tick.’

He passed her the glass.

‘Some men crawl through life with their noses to

the ground and are content with the scraps. The rest

of us rise up on two legs, walk to the table and take

our rightful places. We are in the minority because

our lifestyle demands of us that occasionally we

have to be brutal, and this brutality requires

strength. We have to extricate ourselves from our

social democratic, egalitarian upbringing. If it is a

choice between that and crawling, I prefer to break

with a short-sighted moralism which is not capable

of placing individual actions in context. And it’s

my belief that, deep down, you will come to

respect me for that.’

She didn’t answer; she just knocked back the

drink.

‘Hole didn’t pose any threat for you,’ she said.

‘He and I are only good friends.’

‘I think you’re lying,’ he said, reluctantly filling

the glass she proffered.‘And I have to have you to

myself. Don’t misunderstand me. When I made it a

condition that you immediately broke all contact

with Hole, it had less to do with jealousy and more

to do with a principle of purity. Nevertheless, a

few weeks in Sweden, or wherever it is Meirik

sent him, will do him no harm.’

Brandhaug chuckled.

‘Why are you looking at me like that, Rakel? It is

not as if I were King David and Hole ...what was

his name again, the one King David made the

generals send to the front lines?’

‘Uriah,’ she mumbled.

‘Exactly. He died, didn’t he?’

‘Otherwise it wouldn’t have been much of a

story,’ she said into her glass.

‘Fine. But nobody is going to die here. And if I’m

not much mistaken, King David and Bathsheba

lived quite happily ever after, didn’t they?’

Brandhaug took a seat beside her on the sofa and

raised her chin with his finger.

‘Tell me, Rakel, how come you know so many

Bible stories?’

‘A good upbringing,’ she said, tearing herself

away and pulling her dress over her head.

He swallowed as he gazed at her. She was

attractive. She was wearing white underwear. He

had specifically asked her to wear white

underwear. It brought out the golden glow of her