by Peter Høeg
The boat driver looked at him uneasily when he went by; the man had the complexion of a freshly cooked beet, into which two turquoises had been set as eyes. Kasper pointed to his uniform jacket; the man nodded.
The figure was just a minute ahead of him when he reached the work shed that had been cobbled together against a structure that must be part of what was left of the Royal Theater. The stairs made no sound under him. The door was not locked; he went in.
Inside, the atmosphere was dripping wet. The air was hot, damp, and impenetrable, like a steam bath. A splashing sound swallowed his footsteps. Swallowed the little click when he locked the door behind him. The Divine is partial to saunas. There was a steam bath in Gurdjieff 's chateau, Le Prieuré. Three saunas in the Vallemo cloister in Sweden. A Russian bathhouse connected with Nevsky Church on Bred Street. Sweat huts for the shamans.
He saw light through the steam. At the end of the hall a coverall was stripped off.
The figure in front of him walked backward. It was a woman. Without turning around she took a towel and walked into the shower room. He followed her slowly.
The room had six shower heads. Hot water flowed from all of them. The steam was so thick that his neck was perspiring. At first he couldn't see her. Then she walked backward out of the shower. She lathered herself up, using a long curved brush with a wooden handle. Methodically. Gradually she dissolved in a thin layer of bubbles. She went back into the steam, dissolved completely, and disappeared. He didn't move. The water was turned off. A vent drew out the steam. The room was empty.
He felt a touch like a caress. From behind him, a towel was wrapped around his ankles. Then his legs were pulled out from under him.
He managed to get his hands up to his face. Nevertheless, it was a hard fall. Only with difficulty was he able to sit up.
"Did you get lost?"
She had the heavy curved brush in her hand.
Then she recognized him. She took a step backward, as if she'd been struck. Water ran down her face from her wet hair; for a brief moment she looked as if she were drowning. Then she regained control.
"I need to talk with you," he said.
"That's out of the question."
There was a knock on the door.
"Journalists," he said. "It's me they're after."
She grew paler than she was before.
"What's your telephone number?" he said. "Your address?"
"It's over. It's completely over."
"I'm a new person. Reborn. Everything is changed."
She bared her teeth. Like an animal. The situation was about to get out of hand.
"I'll throw myself into the arms of the press," he said. "I'll tell them everything. My wild longing. How I defied the armed guard. The bloodhounds. The electric fences. In order to give you a brief, vital message. How you threw me out. Called in the executioners. We'll be on the front page."
Her eyes were filled with wonder.
"You would do that," she said. "You would actually do that."
"Half an hour. Just half an hour."
She found a carpentry pencil in her coveralls. He handed her the lottery ticket. Her hand shook slightly as she wrote.
There was loud knocking at the door. She wrapped a towel around herself. Walked ahead of him through the shower room, opened a door he hadn't seen. They came out into a narrow hallway where yet another door opened to what once had been Tordenskjold Street. Behind them, a door was unlocked.
She had carefully avoided even brushing against him. Now she placed the carpenter pencil's point against his cheek like a switchblade knife.
"A half hour," she whispered. "And after that, I'll never see you again."
16
There is a dangerous black hole of two freezing hours between the last bus at night and the first one in the morning. He didn't fall into it; he had caught the last bus. He had walked around the grounds in a large arc and now stood by the thick row of poplar trees. Every living thing leaves an echo. He hadn't heard anything. There were two hours until the deportation order went into effect. He should have eaten and slept; he didn't do either. He got out his training outfit and changed clothes.
In the ring he turned on Richter and the music lamp on the piano. He began with the balancing exercises. He had done them every morning for thirty years, hardly missing a day. First the tenacious, liturgically based vertical movements of classic barre training. Then long, gliding legato series around the edge of the ring. Finally, he would put on his performance shoes. Made for him. Size seventeen. Large without being presumptuous.
Balance and prayer are self-confrontational. Behind the muscular and spiritual exertion there must be a point of effortless calm. At that point you meet yourself.
The prayer began spontaneously, in sync with his heartbeat at first. Soon it would break away from that. He felt grateful. He was alive. He had a body. He had Richter's recording of Wohltemperiertes. He had two more hours. And best of all, he had a telephone number. A door partly open. Leading to her.
And somewhere he still had an audience. "The public is half of my personality," Grock once said. Fie spread out his arms toward the spectators' seats. He loved them all. Even now when they were not there.
But they were there. The space wasn't empty.
Most circus rings have dry acoustics because of the poisonous combination of sand on the floor and a tent overhead. A musical clown's great, depressing mission in life is to try to liven up a circus ring. But not this ring. The walls were veneer panels with space behind them; they absorbed the deep tones, which gave many horizontal reflections. In this space he could always orient himself like a bat, and now too.
He turned off Richter, walked backward over to the post with all the electric switches, and turned on the lights.
There were two. The man with the hearing aid, who sat as if he had never left his seat by the fire exit. The other man, tall and blond, came rushing down the center aisle with outstretched hand.
"This is an honor. I saw you for the first time when I was a boy. I've followed you ever since."
Kasper stepped to one side and leaned against the piano. To get it between them and him.
"We're here on pleasant business," said the blond man. "We represent the board of a nonprofit organization. It awards grants to artists. The board has awarded you a grant of twenty-five thousand kroner."
Kasper's hands found the piano cover. Over thirty pounds of Brazilian rosewood with a brass edge that was as sharp as the blade of an old-fashioned bread cutter.
A bundle of one-thousand-kroner bills appeared on the piano.
"What organization?"
"The board wants to remain anonymous. Will you please sign a receipt?"
A piece of paper was placed in the light, on top of the bills. It did not have a letterhead. Kasper put on his glasses. He lifted the paper so he could read it and at the same time keep an eye on both men.
It was a "Declaration of Trust and Confidence." Stating that when he taught KlaraMaria in April she was fine and healthy, with no sign of physical molestation.
"Do you have an address?" he asked. "So I can send you tickets to the premiere?"
The blond man shook his head.
Rasper's hands found the piano keys. Coaxed a choral arrangement of Jesu bleibet meine Freude out of the piano. One had to admire Bach for his sense of reality. For the way he had composed and performed without forgetting that he also had to make a living from his music. There had been a balance. All his talents stretched to the utmost. And at his very core, a point of absolute repose. A point which knows that no matter what is happening now, we'll have enough to eat tomorrow too.
But anyway. The chorale flowed through his fingers. One couldn't commit perjury to that music. One could only express declarations of love.
"I practice numerology," he said. "Quantum numerology. I never sign anything on odd-numbered dates."
The blond man smiled.
"Maybe fifteen thousand are missing."
"Maybe."
An additional stack of bills was laid on the piano.
"That didn't help," said Kasper.
The smile in front of him grew thinner. The man with the hearing aid had risen.
Without moving anything but his fingers, Kasper unhinged the cover. Rested it against the music rack.
"You can keep the money anyway," said the blond man. The two men began walking toward the exit. Kasper balanced
the cover on the piano keys. Followed the men.
They had entered through the door facing the railroad--the chain lock had been cut with a bolt cutter and lay in the grass, Outside stood a BMW. Long, low, royal blue. Like the color the sky had now become.
Kasper held the car door for them. They got in. The man with the hearing aid hadn't taken his eyes off Kasper's face.
"He's staring at me," said Kasper.
"You have a well-known face--something Ernst appreciates. And a smooth face. That no one has ever harmed."
The car door slammed. The window was rolled down. "What we're buying," said the blond man, "is an end to the telephone calls. To the Institute and elsewhere."
Harlequin can absorb an endless series of humiliations. He who is without pride is invulnerable. Harlequin was an ideal. But still far off.
"I'm thinking of buying a share in Johnny Reimar's Smurf show," said Kasper. "Using the grant money. I'll need stuffing. For the Smurf dolls. You guys could go right onstage. Give me a call. When you need a job."
The window rolled up, the car drove away. Kasper bowed low in respect.
It was the least one could do. It's what Bach would have done. For forty thousand kroner.
17
His legs were trembling as he walked back to the ring. He had his hand on the door when he heard the car, a Ford Granada station wagon.
He went inside, turned off the CD player, gathered up the money, turned out the lights, and locked the door.
There was no chance of reaching the trailer; he ran into the stable, grabbed his bedding, climbed up the ladder to the loft, tumbled into it. He pulled up the ladder and shut the trapdoor.
The loft stretched the length of the building. Aside from a narrow passage along the space under the eaves, it was covered from one sloping wall to the other with piles of folded canvas that, together with steel and wooden reinforcements, would make two medium=size tents. Just above the floor on the gable wall was a row of stable windows, from which he could see the trailer.
There were six men plus Daffy, all in civilian clothes. Moerk, the two monks from Immigration, and three technicians with thick black attache cases. One of them carried four light stands.
They knocked, but they knew he wasn't there. Kasper saw Daffy protest. The watchman was wearing a camel-hair coat Kasper hadn't seen before, a coat suitable for the head of an advertising agency. They opened the door with a pick gun; Daffy must have refused to give them the key. He squeezed in behind the technicians, but after a moment was led out.
Kasper made a bed on a pile of canvas. Tucked himself into his duvet.
The monks came out and sat down on the bench by the trailer. The technicians hooked up electricity for the lights from another box. Kasper set the alarm on his watch. Took out his cell phone. And the ticket Stina had written on. Dialed her number.
She answered immediately. She hadn't been able to get to sleep. Yet her voice gave no indication of fatigue.
He looked over at the trailer. They had turned on the lamps inside. Light filtered through the shutters, white and gleaming.
"Could we meet at your place?" he said. "I've got workmen here."
"It has to be a public place. There have to be other people."
He gave her a name, Copenhagen Dolce Vita, and the address.
"Is it an ordinary place?"
"Like a coffee shop."
"Eight o'clock," she said.
Then she hung up.
Kasper dialed the number on the taxi voucher. A hundred feet away Moerk came out of the trailer with a telephone to his ear.
"Tell me about Kain," said Kasper.
At first there was no reply.
"What will I get in return?" asked the official.
"Something about the girl."
In the silence Kasper heard the other man calculating how the cards had been dealt.
"Since 2006, Europol has assessed crime in Europe. A common pattern now is that international crime is no longer hierarchical. It's organized into cells; one cell doesn't know the others. But the threads have to come together somewhere. Kain is a place like that. And now, what about the girl?"
"She came to see me the day before yesterday. Accompanied by two adults. Said she'd been kidnapped. They arrived and drove away in a stolen Volvo. I haven't seen her since."
Out the window Kasper saw Moerk signal one of the monks.
Kasper knew they would try to trace the call now. He broke the connection.
* * *
He leaned against the canvas behind him. It would have been safer to hide in a crowd of people. But he didn't have strength for that. He had to sleep. He closed his eyes. Prayed his evening prayer. The words were "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben," the music was Bach's cantata BWV 147, Kasper's favorite among the Leipzig cantatas. On this escape chute he slid down toward sleep.
As he fell asleep, KlaraMaria sat there. Just as she had the second time he saw her.
PART TWO
1
It had been night, the dark night of the soul. C. F. Rich Road was empty and deserted. Behind drawn curtains untroubled parents and red-cheeked children were asleep, his public, unaware that out here in the cold, Kasper Krone walked his via dolorosa, freezing, with no money for a taxi after having lost in poker for the first time in ten years.
Poker was Rasper's game, and had always been. Poker had depth and complexity like Bach's music; a sure bet and a rhythmically played hand lasted about as long as one of his small choral arrangements. Bach would have been a great poker player, if he hadn't been so busy. More than fifteen hundred works, many of them under constant revision up until his death.
Kasper had played in all the major capitals, but for him poker belonged in the Frederiksberg section of Copenhagen on C. F. Rich Road. Where the doorman wasn't a foreign legionnaire and serial killer, but a former boxer with fists like sugar beets. Where there was mutual familiarity, as in a community-garden club. And concentration, like musicians auditioning for the Radio Symphony Orchestra, each man and woman bent over his or her sheet music.
But tonight he had lost, even the Saab at the end; when he handed over the car keys he'd felt like he was turned to stone. He hadn't had enough humility to borrow money for a taxi. As the bus drove through the woods, he went through the night's games in his mind; he found no mistakes--he could not understand it.
When he crossed Strand Road he saw there was light in the trailer. He approached in a half circle; the light flickered like a fire. As he was getting out the lead pipe he identified the sound. It was E-flat major, happy, playful, uninhibited, like the first movement of Trio Sonata in E-Flat Major. He put the pipe back in place and walked in.
KlaraMaria stood with her back to him. She must have been lighting the stove, and then come to a standstill before the undulating world of the live coals. The light of the small flames flickered over her face; she did not turn around.
"You found me," she said. "Tell me how you did it."
"I drew a circle," he said.
* * *
He had awakened in the trailer the morning after their first meeting, after she had disappeared by Bagsværd Lake.
He had slept only a couple of hours. He took out one of the four-centimeter-scale maps. Stina's compass. Using as the center the spot where he let the little girl off, he had drawn a circle with a radius of three miles. Maybe she had been driven away in a car. But she had been ready to walk--he could tell that.
No ordinary child walks three miles at two a.m. from somewhere on the outskirts of Bagsværd whe
n the temperature is around freezing. She had not been an ordinary child.
The circle enclosed Bagsværd, Lyngby some of Vangede, a corner of Gentofte, the southern part of Virum, Fure Lake, and Hareskovby, some of Gladsaxe. It was seven in the morning; he took out his violin and played the beginning of Beethoven's Opus 131. It begins in darkness as a fugue, but then climbs upward and into Paradise. When the sky grew light and office hours had begun, he picked up the telephone.
He had planned to call the Ministry for Social Affairs, but with the receiver in his hand, before dialing the number, he could suddenly hear how he would sound to an outsider. A middle-aged single man is looking for little girls, without being able to explain why, even to himself. He held a weak hand and had tough opponents. He put down the receiver and took two copies of his last CD, the solo partitas and sonatas, recorded in St. Mary's Church outside Lübeck. Then he got into his car and drove to Grøndal Parkway. To Circus Blaff. To Sonja.
* * *
Sonja had started at the bottom. Kasper had met her when they were very young, in the Sans Souci variety theater in Kolding and then the Damhus Inn owned by the Stefansen dynasty. From the very beginning, he could hear that she was driven by something. Her system had a sound like a motor that can't stop and just keeps running until it burns out, the sound by which life's desperadoes recognize each other. Her desperation was directed toward wealth. She had left the ring, studied economics, and then returned to the circus. The building on Grøndal Parkway had three floors, four hundred employees, administration offices for four circuses, several music halls and theaters, a booking agency, an advertising company that had followed in the footsteps of Erik Stockmarr, the famed circus poster artist of the fifties, when nobody else could. And an accounting office. She owned all of it.
She was a little older than he. A little taller, a little heavier. She had three children. A splendid husband, deep and vigorous and in C-major, like Mozart's last symphony. And besides the husband, lovers too.
