I leaned over to Jakob and shouted: ‘Which circle of hell are we in?’

‘One of the lowest, I fear.’

‘See anyone we know?’

He shook his head. ‘Only faces.’

‘No bodies?’

‘Only duplicates.’117

I leaned back and sipped the lukewarm fizz. But it didn’t release any arias in my brain.

So we sat there, as conspicuous as the wallpaper. Partners swapped, the music changed from light hysteria to dark sludge, the bar slowly emptied and the room became more and more crowded, and no one noticed us. No one asked us to dance, no one came over to chat us up and no one asked us to stamp their cards. In the end I had to get up to be sure I hadn’t become invisible.

There was no such thing as a safe passage. I met obstacles, ravines and deep crevices, mounds of flesh and mind-numbing stenches wherever I turned. Fingers stroked my shoulders, a fingernail scratched my neck, for an instant a hand of unknown origin held my crotch, and fizzy water and stronger drinks splashed over my jacket and shirt. When finally I returned to my starting point, I was at least sure of one thing: I wasn’t invisible. And another: all you had to do here was go out and help yourself. There was something for every taste – plus a bit more.

Jakob motioned towards the door. ‘Now the musicians are coming in after their gigs.’

I followed his eyes and my heart began to beat below my belt. Across the floor of dancing bodies, chattering mouths and practised hands, of dresses or lack of same, of varied hair styles and tie disasters, I stared like an X-ray machine straight into the golden-brown eyes of Bella Bruflåt. As if in a dream, she opened her mouth, ran her tongue infinitely slowly over her lips, sent me a sultry smile and began to hack her way through to me as if using a machete.

‘What now?’ I heard Jakob say behind me, from a great distance, as I began to push through the crowd towards her like a man possessed.118

Semi-conscious, I glimpsed another face in the doorway over one of her shoulders. It was Stig Madsen – the ubiquitous Stig, a Stig with brooding agitation written across his face and eyes pointing in the same direction as mine, the only difference being that he saw only her neck, which for that matter might have been exciting enough.

Then we met. She was clad in leather, reddish-brown, a kind of boiler suit with a zip from her neck down to between her legs, a tight belt around her waist, tight-fitting in the right places, loose in the others.

She wrapped her arms around my neck, squeezed up against me, looked into my face and asked: ‘Haven’t we met before?’

‘Yes, but it must’ve been in Babylon,’ I said.

‘Oh – not more recently?’

‘It must’ve been last night then, in your dressing room with Johnny Solheim.’