Selling one’s soul

Selling one’s soul is the metaphor Simon Kefas uses for the criminal bargain he makes with the Twin and then extends to Ab Lofthus. The phrase describes more than an exchange for money: it gathers Simon’s gambling, shame, heartbreak, and betrayal of his friend into a single account of how he became bound to the Twin’s power.

Simon’s bargain

Simon’s relationship with Helene Lofthus was disrupted by his gambling debts. After Ab Lofthus entered Helene’s life and she moved away with him, Simon was heartbroken; learning that Helene was pregnant deepened his crisis. He gambled recklessly, lost everything, and felt close to ruin. In that state, he sought out the Twin and offered what he called the only thing he had left: his soul.

Simon was among the few people who knew the Twin’s identity and how to contact him. Yet the arrangement depended on concealment: the Twin did not know who Simon and Ab were, and their information reached him by telephone or letter, and later by computer. The bargain therefore joined intimate personal knowledge to deliberate anonymity, allowing Simon to work with the Twin while keeping his own identity hidden.

Bringing Ab into the arrangement

After making his own deal, Simon went to Ab and offered him the same kind of bargain. Ab initially refused and threatened to report Simon to their boss. Simon persuaded him by invoking Ab’s son and arguing that the boy would suffer for his father’s pride and grow up poor. Ab’s vulnerability was not simply a matter of debt; Simon made the consequences for Ab’s family the pressure point of his appeal.

The banking crisis and rising interest rates had left Ab and Helene deeply in debt. They needed quick money to avoid homelessness, and Simon’s offer presented itself as a way out of that immediate danger. The bargain thus spread from Simon to Ab through a convergence of financial desperation and personal manipulation. Simon later described the result as watching Ab be consumed by the arrangement and lose his soul.

Shame and its cost

Simon told Else that speaking about the bargain was difficult. He believed that, deep down, he wanted the shame, degradation, and self-loathing it brought because they numbed his other pain. He understood this attraction as a form of mental self-harm: the bargain did not merely solve an external problem but also supplied a way to punish himself.

Yet Simon identified what he did to Ab as the worst part. He hated Ab for taking from him the only thing he had valued, but he also drew Ab into the same abyss. Simon admitted that seeing Ab suffer made him feel less lonely. That relief depended on another person sharing his ruin, so the bargain’s emotional consequence was not only isolation but a damaging imitation of companionship.

Betrayal and the Twin’s demands

The arrangement could not accommodate both men indefinitely. Simon said that the Twin eventually wanted his mole to rise through the police ranks, at which point there was no longer room for two. This demand connects the personal bargains to a larger criminal purpose: the Twin’s interest in advancing an insider within the police force brought Simon and Ab’s shared involvement to a breaking point.

As Else recounts it, selling one’s soul names a chain of choices rather than a single exchange. Simon’s gambling crisis brought him to the Twin; his need for money and his history with Ab carried the bargain into Ab’s family life; and the Twin’s demand for a rising police mole made their partnership untenable. Simon’s account gives the metaphor its moral weight: he sees the bargain as both an attempt to numb his own pain and an act that made Ab bear its consequences too.