by Peter Høeg
In the middle of the room is what looks like a large bubble of clear plastic. I sense the surprise of Laban and the twins, but I’m familiar with the construction from dozens of meetings with Andrea Fink. The monstrosity is standard inventory in all American embassies, from where, in the way of global community and increasing understanding between peoples, it has spread to laboratories throughout the world. It’s a security chamber made of Plexiglas, coated so as to reflect electromagnetism and mounted on a block that eliminates 99.9 per cent of all acoustic transmission from within the chamber. It’s a capsule for those wishing to conduct conversations without anyone else listening in.
Hegn’s assistant opens its door, and we step inside and seat ourselves at her request. The bubble contains chairs by Hans Wegner, a conference table, three computers and near-silent air conditioning.
This time Hegn doesn’t suggest the twins go for a walk. Maybe he’s lost all hope of it helping. Maybe he doesn’t want them to churn up the fairways. Or maybe we’ve simply reached a point where it’s too late to protect women and children.
‘I’ve spoken to Baumgarten,’ I say. ‘He told me about the final meetings. They were seeing the end of the world. Nothing was written down.’
He stays silent.
‘They were speculating in gold. I don’t know when they started, maybe not until somewhere near the end. But you lost your grip on them. You got them round the Folketing, only then they got away. So now you know, Thorkild. And now we’re staying put, here in Denmark. I’m going to resume my work in the department. We’ll find a good school for the kids. You’re going to replace our flattened Passat. Life’s going to go on as if nothing ever happened. Apart from one little detail: we’ll need protection. A man posted outside the house in a car. He’ll drive the kids to school for the first few months. A bit like our friend Oskar. Who killed them, Thorkild? It wasn’t you, by any chance, was it?’
He grips the edge of the table. His assistant bears down on him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Her most important function becomes clear. It’s not taking down dictation on his lap. It’s stopping him before he gets himself worked up.
She succeeds. He exhales deeply.
‘I’m the one who takes care of the housekeeping in our family,’ I tell him. ‘It’s given me a keen eye for financial anomalies. For instance, I’ve been wondering how you were able to raise what it must have cost you to become the king of Kronholm, complete with helicopter and private jet.’
She squeezes his arm tightly. By some superhuman effort he restrains himself. But he’s foaming at the mouth.
‘I’ve put it all down in writing, of course, Thorkild. Deposited everything with a solicitor. It’ll all be sent to the press in the event of anything untoward happening to us. The guy who tried to kill me and Harald. Was that one of your people? Someone you couldn’t control any more? The processes of democracy have always been lengthy. But bypassing them is a risky business. Look at what happened to us in India. Is that what happened to you, Thorkild? Is the load about to tip?’
I stand up. For all his rage I sense a degree of self-restraint. Not that it puts me at ease. It’s as if he’s got something in reserve.
Laban clears his throat.
‘One last thing before we go. Might the good people of Kronholm, this marvellous place, be interested in commissioning a piece of music, by any chance? Something tasteful: a choral work, for instance? Or perhaps something more extravagant, for the grand opening? I’ve got an idea based on the sound of a golf club striking a ball for that perfect drive down the fairway. Combined with the rush of the sea inside a shell. The cry of gulls.’
It takes guts to produce your order book when on the brink of extinction. But it’s no surprise to me. I’ve seen Laban haggling to offload stock goods onto the board of the university during the banquet when they awarded him their music prize.
Thorkild Hegn stares blankly.
‘I’ll suggest it at the next board meeting.’
‘I’ll do you a good price.’
Hegn nods. Laban and the twins get to their feet.
38
WE’RE BACK IN the green speedboat, on our way to Copenhagen. Laban and I are sitting next to each other.
‘Hegn,’ he says, ‘Baumgarten, Kirsten Klaussen. All more than seventy years old. And Magrethe Spliid. And Kornelius.’
‘Andrea Fink once said to me that the greatest threat to democracy comes from people not letting go of their power until it’s too late.’
I nod towards the quay. Laban and the twins stare ahead. At first they can’t see what I’m getting at. Then they notice all the anonymous cars that don’t fit in.
To begin with, the area seems deserted. But the second we step ashore they’re everywhere, women as well as men. Some possess that discreetly irremovable air reserved for plain-clothes police. They congregate silently around us. A van is backed along the quay towards us, the kind used by security firms for transporting valuables. The rear doors are flung open.
There’s a man standing right behind me. Whereas the others exude anonymous authority, he seems almost flamboyant, even though he is dressed in grey. Clearly he’s not the police. And at that instant I realise there are two forces present: the state as represented by the arm of the law, and something else.
‘I want to speak to a solicitor,’ I say.
And then he kicks me.
It’s the kind of kick a footballer might employ from range when driving a low volley towards goal. His foot strikes me hard in the seat of the pants, the sheer force propelling me into the open van. My face hits the floor, but I don’t feel a thing. My vision is clear, but my body is without feeling, nervous system numbed.
Laban lands next to me and remains on his back staring up at the roof, unable to move.
I manage to clamber onto all fours and turn my head.
The man in grey has lifted Thit and Harald into the air. He’s got them by the neck and holds them outstretched in front of him, one in each hand. Their feet dangle, thirty centimetres off the ground.
Harald weighs at least seventy kilos, Thit probably around fifty-five. And the man isn’t even big. But still he’s able to lift them up without exerting himself. His face brightens, as if out of interest.
Harald tries to kick him. The man responds immediately, slamming Harald’s face against the van door. He stares into Harald’s eyes, as if searching for something he might find there. Then I realise what it is. He’s looking for fear. The way a bee looks for nectar.
For a moment his attention has been diverted from Thit. She writhes and wriggles, squirming enough to somehow sink her teeth into his hand, the flesh between his index finger and thumb.
He turns his head and studies her. Looks at his hand. She bites down hard and draws blood. It doesn’t trickle, it squirts and splatters her face.
Yet the man shows no sign of pain, only intense curiosity. He drops Harald to the ground and moves his free hand to Thit’s throat. I feel certain he’s going to kill her. And I can’t move. I can’t do anything about it.
I notice his shoes: moccasins of grey leather. The guy who operated the excavator.
And then four men converge on him. They’re only just able to release her, though he doesn’t seem to resist in any way. All he does is stand there facing her.
I realise he killed Magrethe Spliid.
Thit and Harald are lifted into the van. The doors slam shut and we pull away. I stay lying down, unable to move my legs. But still I manage to produce a paper handkerchief from my pocket and hand it to Thit. Slowly and deliberately, she wipes his blood from her face.
They drive us to Evighedsvej. They help us to our feet and take us inside. They have to carry me. The house has been ransacked. The windows are covered with plastic sheeting, floodlighting units have been rigged up and the place gone over in meticulous detail. They worked from the outside in, towards our desks and offices, dismantling everything as they went. The sockets have been removed from the walls; the extract
or in the kitchen has been taken apart, its various parts laid out on the floor. The sofa cushions have been slashed open and their insides shredded with the sharpest of instruments: not even a wayward piece of fluff has found its way onto the rug. Everything has been done with surgical precision.
When they got to the gas cooker they found what I’d hidden away: the report and the list of names, concealed behind the protective plate that covers the convection oven’s fan motor.
Seated at the round table is Oskar, and behind him stands Thorkild Hegn’s assistant. She must have come by helicopter. She hands us each an aluminium suitcase, slightly larger than cabin-size. I glance around in search of the man in grey, but can’t see him anywhere.
‘You’ve got fifteen minutes to get your stuff together.’
‘Oskar,’ I say, ‘I’ve got copies of all documents deposited for safekeeping with my solicitor. You’ll be on the front page of every newspaper in the morning.’
He looks at me dolefully.
‘You’ve been under surveillance round the clock. You haven’t been to any solicitor. You wouldn’t be able to afford one, anyway. It costs five thousand kroner just to send a solicitor a Christmas card.’
‘I took care of it over the Internet.’
He places a hand on my laptop on the table in front of him. ‘We’ve been monitoring your online activity ever since we brought you back from India.’
‘What’s going to happen?’
He turns away without answering. I’m led into my private space by two women who watch as I pack. They take away my mobile phone and my spare computer. They want the crowbar too.
‘It’s my lucky charm,’ I tell them.
They let me keep it.
Only one of the women is from the police. Which makes it easy enough for me to deduce that we’re still dealing with two groups of people here. Moreover, there’s some kind of polarity between them.
We’re taken out to the van. The doors are opened. At that moment, a voice calls out:
‘Susan!’
It’s Dorthea. Our guards stiffen.
‘Are you off again so soon? Thanks ever so much for the presents. Where is it this time?’
She tips her head to the side and peers at me. We didn’t give them any presents. She’s trying to tell us something.
The woman at my side tightens her grip on my arm.
‘Just a little getaway,’ I say.
‘How nice! And so many friends to go with you! Have a lovely time now, won’t you?’
She spreads out her arms and hugs me. Her fingers wriggle to untuck my shirt. I feel something cold and flat against the small of my back. It slips down over my buttocks and lodges itself in my underwear. Then comes a cable. No verification is necessary, I know right away it’s a mobile phone and a charger.
‘Don’t forget to write!’
She blows a finger kiss to Thit and Harald and retreats.
PART TWO
1
WE ARE DRIVEN for an hour and a half along the motorway before taking an exit, continuing on for another thirty minutes, then turning off onto an unmade road and stopping at what presumably is some kind of gateway. Words are exchanged. We drive on another fifteen minutes, until the road peters out into what feels more like a rutted track, and then the van stops and the rear door is opened, our blindfolds removed.
In front of us in the moonlight is a small black-timbered house next to a dilapidated barn. Both buildings are set on an inlet. A small jetty extends into the water, and on the opposite shore the contours of a castle ruin can be picked out, at which point the inlet opens out towards the sea.
The man who has accompanied us opens the house up. The place is freezing and comprises four small bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. I turn the tap and nothing happens. The mains are frozen. The man produces a fan heater and directs hot air onto the plastic pipes. I get a fire going in the wood burner.
‘Where are we?’
He says nothing.
Laban and the twins have found duvets and linen. The man points through the window to a narrow track.
‘Follow the track for a kilometre and you’ll come to a farm. Pick up and order provisions there.’
He gets back in the van and drives off into the night, leaving us on our own.
We each find a room and sleep as if comatose. When we wake up, the ground is covered with snow.
We spend four months in the house.
On the first morning we go down the track together to pick up our provisions. After one kilometre we come to the farm. The main house and the farm buildings form a quadrangle. Outside the quadrangle is an extensive complex of industrial greenhouses. Some have tinted glass, others are illuminated by grow lights. In the closest of the greenhouses I see subtropical plants, citrus trees and flowers, absurdly colourful against the backdrop of snow. Ripe oranges hang from one of the trees. In another greenhouse, under grow lights, I see low palms bulging with barrel-like bunches of green bananas.
A man approaches. It’s Oskar. He’s wearing a suit of green overalls like a surgeon, his hair covered by a hygienic cap, and what looks like a surgical mask dangles around his neck. He leads us into a utility room where there are fridges and crates of milk. He hands us forms on which to make out our orders.
As we turn to leave, I glimpse an adjoining room: a plant physiology lab, white-tiled, with microscopes, petri dishes, grow cabinets, a million test tubes, chemicals. A window affords a peek into another space, where trays containing hundreds of plants, all seemingly tropical or subtropical, are set out on low stainless-steel tables. The tiles are dripping with condensation.
The next day most of the pain has gone from my body. I put on my coat, hat and gloves and stride out in a westerly direction. I walk for an hour and a half without seeing anything but forest and open fields. I’m about to give up when I see a tall barbed-wire fence ahead. Before I get to it, a man appears. He’s wearing hunting gear and asks if he can help me. His voice is friendly but firm. He suggests I stick to the paths, for the sake of the wildlife.
The next day I march south. After an hour, I see the fence up ahead. A minute later, the hunter’s twin appears out of nowhere.
Two days later I head north, past the greenhouses and the plant lab, through deep snow. I cross two asphalted roads with no traffic on them. After three-quarters of an hour, I reach the fence and another guard.
The week after, when I arrive to pick up provisions, Oskar is suddenly standing in the doorway behind me. I didn’t hear him come in.
‘Susan, I understand you’ve been checking the perimeter.’
I say nothing. I carry on putting the groceries in my backpack.
‘As it stands, you’re guests here, under our protection. It’s for your own safety while our investigations are ongoing. Once they’re concluded you can go home.’
He steps up close.
‘But one wrong move and we’ll find a container for you, with four bunk beds, a chemical toilet and eighty square metres of exercise yard surrounded by electric fencing.’
To pass the time I bake bread. I order yeast and cultivate a sourdough starter, thereby turning my attention to one of the twenty-first century’s great unsolved scientific puzzles: how to balance out the elastic protein chains of the culture and the low pH value of the lactic acid that dissolves them.
Harald asks to order books, but they won’t let him. Instead, he stumbles upon a stack of Reader’s Digest issues in the attic. They go back fifty years. Thit discovers they keep horses at the farm, perhaps for the fertiliser. She’s allowed to borrow a dappled gelding and a chestnut alpha mare along with a saddle, and from then on she’s off on her own for much of the day.
Laban builds musical instruments in the disused barn, from steel wire and wooden crates. Perplexed, I watch my family settle down as if having accepted things the way they are.
It gets colder. The frost of winter grips the landscape, the inlet freezes over, and beyond it the sea. One night I wa
it until the others are asleep, make myself a packed lunch and fill a plastic bottle with water. I write them a farewell note and strike out over the ice. After an hour I reach the frozen sea. I carry on another 300 metres before encountering open water. I follow the edge of the ice northwards, passing the farmhouse on my left. After another hour and a half, two men appear in front of me.
I don’t bother to make conversation. I turn round and go back. Three hours later I’m asleep in my bed. The next morning, when I tell Laban and the twins what I did in the night, they stare at me as if I’m speaking a different language.
Temperatures drop further still. One morning the ground is covered by ten centimetres of powdery snow, weightless as fog and offering as little resistance: the walk to the farm feels like walking on feathers.
When I get there, Oskar’s nowhere to be found. I look in the windows of the lab, but the place is empty. I go round the side of the building, to the first of the greenhouses, and all of a sudden I’m less than fifty centimetres away from him. He’s sitting in a chair on the other side of the glass, his back turned, unable to see me.
In front of him, hanging over him, is a peach tree, its fruit as yet unripe, a branch drooped to the ground under the weight of some black-red mass the shape and size of an American football. Beneath this mass, between his knees, is an open beehive. The football is a swarm of bees, thousands upon thousands, crawling on top of one another, small and drowsy-seeming with black and red stripes, a species I’ve never seen before. Perhaps they’re tropical. The greenhouse is illuminated by grow lights. A film of moisture coats the panes.
The bees must have swarmed in an artificial summer. The thermometer outside our wooden house said minus fourteen degrees Celsius when I went out.
In his left hand Oskar holds a tiny box, a few cubic centimetres in volume at most, made from a kind of netting. Cautiously, he inserts his right hand into the swarm, then his arm, almost to the elbow. After a few moments, he pulls out. Between his thumb and index finger he holds a bee, more than twice the size of the others: the queen. He places her inside the box, then carefully puts the box inside his mouth and leans towards the swarm.
