‘Get the hell out of here, you and your racket,’ the man growled. ‘We’re trying to enjoy our meal in peace and quiet.’

He waved a hand towards the cliff face, where a whole group of people sat around a red blanket. Anton couldn’t understand how he had managed to miss them when he and Gunnar came down the slope. His only explanation was that they hadn’t been there then. But now he saw they were in the middle of their meal, and had even brought their best china with them. The blanket was as loaded with delicacies as the table at home was when his mother was in the mood for entertaining.

The pack on Anton’s back shook as they jogged in silence further down the valley. Once they were out of sight of the group of people, they looked at each other and burst out laughing.

‘Shit! That was a surprise!’ Gunnar gasped. ‘I thought it was the cops at first.’

Anton slipped the pack from his shoulders and dropped breathlessly to the ground.

‘Who has a picnic when it’s this cold,’ he puffed through his laughter.

He felt a sense of relief. At first he had thought the man had to be a policeman, or a county sheriff or something, because he was wearing a coat with two rows of silver buttons and his voice was imperious, as if he owned the valley.

‘It looked like they were drinking out of little trophy cups,’ Gunnar laughed. ‘What a weirdo! This tourist boom just gets crazier all the time. They’re really taking the piss if they’re taking tourists out for that kind of weirdness.’

‘It must be some kind of a role-playing club,’ Anton said. ‘No tourists dress like that.’

May 2017

28

‘Please, let me out.’

Sonja stood with the keys in her hand and looked at the man in the cage. The smell coming off him was so strong she could hardly breathe, but at least he was no longer shivering and sweating. He grasped the bars with both hands and wept. Sonja knew from experience that having spent days in there, he would have trouble standing upright when she finally released him. She had sometimes wondered whether she ought to replace the cage with one that was taller and more suitable for humans, but that would probably make imprisonment less effective. And anyway, everyone knew about the tiger that had once lived in the cage and what its role had been, which meant that it carried a certain notoriety, and evoked a certain fear.

She drew the tablets from her trouser pocket and handed them to him.

‘Take these, Thorgeir. When they’ve started to work and you’ve calmed down, I’ll come and let you out,’ she said.

He snatched the pills and gulped them down with a mouthful of water from the bottle at his side.