The Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg

by Peter Høeg

  "We're just accompanying her," said the woman. "We need to get the family's permission first."

  The girl's face was empty. Kasper stepped away from the car, and it rolled out into the sea.

  He stuck his hand into his pocket to find something to write on. He found the playing card. He took his fountain pen and wrote down the license plate number. While he could still remember it. From the time one reaches forty, short-term memory slowly declines.

  He felt the cold from below. It suddenly dawned on him that he was barefoot. The sawdust of the ring still stuck to the soles of his feet.

  5

  The trailer was parked behind the ring, by a row of electrical boxes and water connections. He turned on a light and sat down on the sofa. What the little girl had given him was a sheet of paper folded many times and pressed into a small, hard packet. He unfolded it very slowly. It was a post office receipt. She had drawn and written on the back of it.

  The page looked like a child's version of a pirate map. There was a drawing of a house, flanked on each side with what looked like a toolshed; under the house she had written "hospital." Below the drawing were three words: "Lona Midwife." And "Kain." That was all. He turned the piece of paper over and read the receipt. The sender was the girl herself--she had written only her first name, Klara-Maria. He couldn't read the name of the addressee at first because his brain stopped functioning. He closed his eyes and sat for a while with his face in his hands. Then he read the name.

  He stood up. From among the music scores in the bookcase he took a small bound copy of Bach's Klavierbüchlein and opened it. Inside was not the Klavierbüchlein but a passport; between its last two pages was a slip of paper with a series of telephone numbers written on it.

  He carried the phone over to the coffee table and dialed the top number.

  "Rabia Institute."

  It was a young voice he hadn't heard before.

  "This is the municipal health officer," he said. "May I speak to the deputy director?"

  A minute went by. Then a body approached the telephone.

  "Yes?"

  It was an appetizing voice. A year ago he had met the woman to whom it belonged. A nibble could have cost him his upper and lower teeth. But not now. Her voice was hoarse and practically lifeless with sorrow.

  He hung up. He had heard only the one word, but that was enough. It was the voice of someone who has lost a child.

  He dialed the next number.

  "The International School."

  "This is Kasper Krone," he said, "leader of the Free Birds Troop. I have a message for one of my little girl scouts, KlaraMaria. Our patrol meeting has been changed."

  The voice cleared its throat, tried to collect itself. Tried, despite the shock, to remember what someone had instructed it to say.

  "She's in Jutland for a few days. Visiting some of her family. May I give her a message when she comes back? Is there a telephone number?"

  "Just a scout greeting," he said. "From the Ballerup Division."

  He leaned back on the sofa. And stayed like that. Until everything returned to normal. Except the tight, cold, little ball of anxiety in the pit of his stomach.

  6

  Ever since the mid-1700s, when James Stuart, the "Old Pretender," went to the guillotine in Paris and then picked up his severed head and left the Circus Medrano ring to apocalyptic applause, nobody had been able to take death onstage. It was the hardest thing to do. Kasper had tried for twenty years without success; he felt powerless, and now too.

  He crossed Blegdam Road and took one of the side entrances facing Fælled Park. Rigshospital was like the gray backstage of a circus in the Underworld: the muffling effect of the white curtains, the patients' seminakedness, the uniformed employees. The hierarchies. The character roles. The quantity of polished steel. The sound of an invisible machine nearby. The taste of adrenaline in one's saliva. The sense of being at the edge.

  He stepped out of the elevator. With the playing card in hand he made his way through the white labyrinth of bed units, found

  the right room, and opened the door.

  Out in the hall there had been fluorescent lighting and smoking was prohibited. In the room he now entered, antique English Bestlites lamps swam in a cloud of tobacco smoke. On a low bed set in a wide cherrywood frame a man sat cross-legged, surrounded by silk pillows, smoking a cigarette. Unfiltered, but monogrammed in gold.

  "I have to be in court in half an hour," he said. "Come in and say hello to Vivian the Terrible."

  The woman was in her mid-sixties and wore a doctor's white coat. Her skin was pale, almost transparent, and quite thin; he could hear her blood through it, blood and life. She held out her hand; it was warm, dry, and firm. She was in A-flat major. Under other circumstances he could have listened to her for hours.

  "It's only five months since you were here last," said the sick man.

  "I hope this isn't inconvenient for you."

  "I've been performing down south."

  "You haven't been advertised since Monte Carlo. You haven't been out of the country."

  Kasper sat down in an easy chair. There were Karzamra carpets on the floor, shelves filled with books, a pianette, Richard Mortensen's circus paintings on the walls, a television large enough to be the box for the trick where the woman gets sawed in half.

  "I look better than you expected, don't I?"

  Kasper looked at his father. Maximillian Krone had lost at least thirty pounds. His glasses looked too big for him. The pillows weren't for the sake of comfort--they were to hold him upright.

  "I've had a nice visitor. From the Ministry of Justice. Looked like an undertaker. Wanted your address. I told him to go to hell. He insisted they've got a tax case against you. And something worse in Spain. He said WVVF has blacklisted you. Is that true?"

  The sick man gave him a questioning look.

  "You were never very reliable. But you're not the suicidal type either."

  He had some papers in his hand.

  "Rigshospital has laboratories and annexes in the inner city," his father went on. "I'm a consultant on their insurance matters. That's why I can vegetate in this pantomime of A Thousand and One Nights. While Vivian's patients bleed to death in the hallways. I filched a list of the experts the state and county have summoned."

  There were five sheets of paper, perhaps two hundred names, Danish and foreign, companies and individuals. One was underlined.

  Kasper read it, handed back the paper. He stood up, and let his hands glide over the room's props. The Brazilian rosewood bookcases, the lamps' chrome plating. The white-lacquered frames around the large canvases.

  "It must be her," said Maximillian.

  New curtains had been hung, like stage curtains. Kasper gathered the heavy brocade between his fingers.

  "What is Department H?" he asked.

  A delicate tone of anxiety began to sing somewhere in the room, as if a tuning fork had been struck.

  "It doesn't exist--it's a rumor. Where did you hear about it? It was supposedly established in the nineties. Grew out of collaboration among the Serious Economic Crime office, the police's mobile patrol unit, the Financial Supervision Authority, the Customs and Tax Administration. The local tax authorities and the Danish Competition Authority. Along with the board of supervisors at the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. After major companies were drained. The goal was to counteract new ways of making illegal profits. People say they discovered something. Something big. Which they didn't make public. Something that made them set up a special office. I don't believe a damn word of it. And in any case, they wouldn't be mixed up in a small-time con man's boring tax case. Where did you hear about it?"

  Serious illness begins outside the physical. Kasper had noticed this before, sometimes months before the illness broke through. The same was true of Maximillian. There was a change; an unfamiliar element had been added to his tonal picture.

  "What about child abuse? How hard is one allowed to hit?"

&nbs
p; "Law number three eighty-seven of June fourteenth, 1995, amended in 1997. 'The child shall be treated with respect for its person, and must not be subjected to physical punishment or other offensive treatment.' In practice this means you can certainly lead them with a firm grip. But no karate chop. Are you expecting a child?"

  "There's a student."

  "A new little Footit?"

  The English clown Tudor Hall, alias Footit, was the first to make serious money by taking a child, his three-year-old son, into the ring with him.

  Kasper stood up.

  "How much is it?" asked Maximillian. "How much do you owe? Actually, I know. The undertaker told me. It's forty million kroner. I'll pay it. I'll sell all the crap. I can raise forty million. I'll get my license back. I'll go to court for you. With my IV stand and all. I'll make them back down."

  Kasper shook his head.

  Maximillian's hand fell on the papers.

  "They'll throw you in jail! They'll deport you! You won't be able to meet her!"

  He pressed himself up on the bed. Like a gymnast preparing to do a handstand on the parallel bars.

  "A bad heart," he said hoarsely. "Not a good thing for a clown. Pisses on the helping hand. Burns the opportunity. After she's been out of range of any damage from you for years."

  He turned toward the woman.

  "When he dies--and his turn will come too--he'll have wheels put under his coffin. So he can pole himself out of the chapel and into the crematorium. And won't have to ask anyone for help."

  His anger was monumental, as it always had been. But the physical underpinning was gone. The sick man began to cough, deeply, dangerously.

  The doctor let him finish coughing and then carefully lifted his upper body. Kasper put the playing card on the edge of the bed.

  "If," he said, "you still know someone who can get into the main motor-vehicle registration files. Then you could find the address. That goes with this license plate number."

  Maximillian had closed his eyes. Kasper started toward the door.

  "We saw the broadcast from Monte Carlo," said the sick man. "Both the award presentation and your performance."

  Kasper stopped. Maximillian reached backward. Took the woman's hand. The skin around, his eyes had become smooth, like a graciosa in the Spanish theater.

  "We wished the show would never end. It was like when I was a child. It's the only thing that must never end. Love. And great performances."

  Father and son looked straight at each other. There were no masks. The sick man held out for a few seconds, then it became too much.

  He put his hands up to his hair. It was red, bristly as a badger's. He lifted it off. It was a wig. Underneath he was as bald as a watermelon.

  "Disappointed, eh? Had it made after the chemo. From my own hair. Hats off! To a great artist!"

  Kasper walked back to the bed. Took hold of the large bald head and drew it close to him. He listened into the tragedy that thickly surrounds most people. The sound of all that could have been, but never will be.

  Maximillian had stiffened at Rasper's touch. After a moment he pulled himself free.

  "Enough," he said. "I feel like Lazarus. The dogs lick me. When will I see you again? In six months?"

  The doctor held the door for Rasper.

  "The little girl," Maximillian said from the bed. "The student. Wasn't that the real reason you came? Wasn't it?"

  The door shut behind Rasper; the doctor stood beside him. "I'll drive you home," she said.

  7

  The most successful white-face clowns Kasper had seen had based their effect on having their partner play up to them from below. Selfreliant authority is very rare. The woman in front of him had it. It radiated from her. Cleared corridors and opened doors.

  She wanted to do something for him, but couldn't express it. She sat behind the wheel in the underground garage without moving, and waited for the words. They didn't come.

  The vehicle was as long as a railroad car. Kasper loved how rich people sniffed their way to each other. It was like Romeo and Juliet. Even in the heat of passion and love at first sight, in the upper righthand corner there was always a space set aside for balancing the account.

  He handed her the girl's map. She decoded it immediately, without asking any questions.

  "There are thirteen county hospitals and sanatoriums," she said. "Køge, Gentofte, Herlev, Glostrup, Hvidovre, Rigshospital, Frederiksberg, Amager, Roskilde, Hillerød, plus the smaller ones in Hørsholm, Helsingør, and Frederikssund. None of them are by the water. None of the private hospitals are either."

  "Clinics?"

  "North of Copenhagen and south of Avedøre Holme, all together perhaps a hundred health centers and special clinics. How old was the person who drew this?"

  "Ten years old."

  She pointed at what he had interpreted as outbuildings.

  "They could be wings of the building. Children first start to understand perspective when they're about eight. That would make th building too big to be a private office. It doesn't look like anyplace I know."

  She started the car.

  "How many midwives in Copenhagen?"

  "Perhaps fifteen hundred."

  "How many are named Lona?"

  "They're registered with the Midwives Association. I can find out for you."

  "Within an hour?"

  She nodded.

  They drove to the other side of the lakes, down Gother Street. He listened to her; she didn't know where she was going. She pulled over to the side, blinded by something or other. She sat fumbling with the steering wheel. He got out of the car in order to give her time and peace. They were parked by a barricade.

  The barrier was made of watertight plywood, like a fence around a building site; it blocked off part of the road and a row of houses facing Gammel Mønt Street. Some fifty yards ahead it was interrupted by a glass booth, a gate, and two attendants in overalls.

  He walked over to the booth; a woman in a civil-defense uniform sat behind the speaker.

  "May I deliver a note to someone I know?" he asked. "Close family. A matter of life and death."

  She shook her head.

  "We have seven hundred journalists swarming around here. From all over the world."

  "A telephone call?"

  She shook her head. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the top name on a board with a list of salvage companies, relief organizations, and entrepreneurs.

  "I'm the son of the senior Mr. Hannemann," he said. "He's just become an honorary member of the Søllerød Golf Club. The lifelong dream of an old man."

  "He won't be able to appreciate it," she said. "He died in the eighties."

  Kasper caught sight of his own face in the window. It was as white as a full makeup job. The woman's eyes grew worried.

  "Shall I call a taxi for you?"

  Her sympathy went to his blood like a shot of glucose. He wanted to sit on her lap and tell her everything. He nodded toward the car.

  "My chauffeur and personal physician are waiting."

  "Did you have another name besides Hannemann?"

  "Stina Claussen. Engineer."

  "Dark-haired?"

  He nodded.

  "Something to do with water?"

  "She's made of water."

  She looked at a printout lying in front of her.

  "She has a pickup agreement. With the taxi companies. That's a special arrangement for the VIPs. It means she lives at a hotel. The Three Falcons or the Royal. If word gets out that you got this from me, I'll be fired."

  He drew a deep breath.

  "Angels," he said, "can't be dismissed."

  * * *

  He got into the car beside the doctor. She was sitting in the same position as when he left her.

  "He's going to die now," she said.

  He had known that was what she wanted to say. For him personally it wasn't a problem. He had reconciled himself to death long ago. Padre Pio once said that, seen from a slightly la
rger perspective, we all lie at death's door. The only difference is that some lie a littlecloser than others.

  So it wasn't that something happened to him; it was the surroundings that changed. One moment the city was a picture postcard with no reflections, the next moment the car sailed through a world of destruction where all sound had died.

  "He looked well."

  "Prednisone. A chemical veneer."

  "Does he know it himself?"

  They had passed the zoological garden and Solbjerg cemetery. He didn't know how they had reached Roskilde Road.

  "As a rule there's a part of oneself that knows. And a larger part that doesn't want to know."

  She turned toward Glostrup, took the ring road, turned off, and drove through the industrial section, parked behind the market square. She started to cry. Quietly, but unrestrained. She pointed to the glove compartment--he handed her a packet of tissues.

  He had been mistaken about the money. Her sorrow came from somewhere deep down, farther down than the safe deposit box with securities in it.

  She blew her nose.

  "Tell me something about him," she said. "From when you were little."

  He listened out over his childhood; he heard the sound of potatoes.

  "I was ten years old--we lived in Skodsborg. They were always nomads, even after he began to earn money. They never furnished more than one room each, plus my room, like in the trailers. All the other rooms were closed off to save heat. They moved once a year. Skodsborg was the record--we lived there almost four. They had three places to escape to there, the Sound, the Coastal Railway, and Strand. Road. I started to juggle there. I practiced with potatoes. I put quilts and blankets on the floor, but it still vibrated when I didn't grab correctly. One day he must have heard that, because suddenly he stood in the doorway."

  Kasper closed his eyes and saw the scene before him.

  "It was the early seventies, there was no real poverty anymore, but he had experienced it. As a boy he had been hungry--he sold carnations and sang in the streets. He never got over it, just like theartists who were in concentration camps during the war; it never goes away. So he left the circus; he saw only one way out: a higher education and a secure income. And now he stood in the doorway. My schoolbooks lay on the table--they hadn't been opened. He looked at me. It's more than thirty years ago. He could have sent me to the Herlufsholm boarding school, he could have sent me to learn to be a paint dealer, he could have wiped the floor with me. But he just stood there in the doorway, absolutely still. And then I could sense what was going on in him. We could both sense it. He understood that sometimes the longing is greater than you are. And if you choke it, you'll be destroyed. Finally he backed away without saying anything, and very quietly shut the door. We never spoke of it. But he never again came into my room without knocking."