by Peter Høeg
He searched for a word, then it came to him. It was old-fashioned, outdated, but nevertheless exactly the right word.
"Respect," he said. "There was always a kind of respect. Even if you and Mother fought. Even when I was very little."
When Maximillian answered his voice was hoarse, like someone with a very bad sore throat.
"We did our best. And usually--usually it wasn't good enough. My fondest memories are of the nights. After we'd taken off our makeup. When we ate together. Outside the trailer. And your mother had baked bread. Can you remember that?"
"We burned our fingers on the crust."
"We were completely happy. Some of those nights."
They were quiet together, for the last time.
"When the plane takes off," said Maximillian, "what will you think about?"
"About you and Mother," said Kasper. "About Stina. About the little girl I tried to find. I didn't find her. And you?"
"About your mother. And you. And Vivian. And then I'll prepare myself, like in the horseback riders' gangway. Just before the curtain goes up, when you have your act ready. The tickets are sold. But still, you have no idea what will happen."
"Neither one of us will hang up first," said Kasper. "We'll hang up simultaneously. Timing, that always meant a lot to both you and me. I'll count to three. And we'll hang up."
He heard the door open behind him. They were coming to get him. Without turning around, he counted slowly and clearly to three. He and his father hung up at the same time.
Kassander entered the cell. Behind him stood two women. White and compassionate, like the figures of light Elisabeth Kübler-Ross writes about. But more attractive. More sexually defined than angels.
They leaned over him. Took the violin from him. Took his pulse. Pulled up his sleeve. Wrapped a blood-pressure cuff on his upper arm. He felt a cold stethoscope against his chest.
One of them was the African. Now wearing a white coat. With her hair in two hundred tiny braids. But it was still her. Her forehead was rounded like an orb. Above a beautiful mocha-colored continent.
"His heart is about to give out," she said. "He won't be flying today. We'll take him back with us. He needs immediate surgery."
Kasper put his hand on his heart. Now he could feel it too. The pain of being rejected by his beloved. Expatriated from his fatherland. Sorrow over the uncertain future. Over the beauty of the "Chaconne."
Kassander blocked their way.
"We have orders directly from the Ministry of Justice," he said.
The African drew herself erect. She was taller than the officer.
"His pulse is thirty-six. Irregular, extremely weak heartbeat. He's very close to throwing in the towel. Either you move, or we'll take you to court. Disciplinary action, dereliction of duty. You'll get at least six years. For gross negligence and manslaughter."
"I'll make a phone call," said Kassander.
There was not much left of his voice.
He made the call from a telephone at the back of the premises. Returned. He walked like a zombie. Laid a form on the counter.
"Twenty-four hours," he said. "He's booked on Iberia's morning flight at seven-twenty. He's a repatriation case. They're under the purview of the ministry."
The African signed. The women took hold of Kasper under his arms and lifted him up. He pulled them close, for reasons of health. And cautiously took the first tentative steps back toward freedom.
PART FIVE
1
They had an ambulance waiting and helped him into it. A frosted glass divider separated them from the front seat; it was pushed to the side. The driver and the woman beside him were wearing white coats too.
The siren started, the ambulance drove across the area reserved for taxis, then across the parking lot, and made a U-turn. The driver's jacket had a high collar, but above it a dozen scars crawled up to the man's head like white flames; it was Franz Fieber.
A police car with flashing lights passed them going in the opposite direction. The women had drawn away from Kasper, and their solicitousness had disappeared. That was what one could expect. Somewhere Saint Gregory writes that one of the reasons many of the desert fathers became celibate was the discover}' that when women had achieved what they wanted, their motherliness disappeared.
They passed Ørestaden. And turned right at the Transport Center exit. The siren got turned off. The ambulance drove across the grass, without slowing down, and came to a stop next to a large Audi ambulance behind a restaurant shut for the evening. The women lifted Kasper into the back of the new ambulance while Franz Fieber swung himself from one front seat to the other, like an ape, without using his crutches. The Audi accelerated and headed out onto the highway, out into the passing lane. The speedometer showed 110 miles an hour; Kasper could hear sirens both in front of them and behind them. Somewhere ahead and above them a helicopter approached.
"They're about to close off all of Amager Island," said Franz Fieber. "What does your fine hearing say?"
"Let us all pray," said Kasper. "For fog. And for an open lane crossing the Zealand Bridge."
The car turned off the highway. Into a wall of fog. The road disappeared. The approaching cars dwindled into twinkling yellow dots. The women stared at him.
"There are two possibilities," said Kasper. "Either I have a direct link to SheAlmighty. Or I heard the fog. And heard that there are no sirens in the direction of the bridge."
He felt his body collapse. Hands supported him as he slumped onto the stretcher. He tried to stay conscious by determining their route by the sound: the incoming planes on Runway 12, a shorter runway--for strong north or south winds--which gave the landings a particular sound and rhythm. The seagulls when the ambulance crossed the bridge. The social realism of outer Valby Outer Frederiksberg's tone of a semipermanent home for the elderly. The special blend of bird sanctuary and traffic hell where the Farum highway cuts through Utterslev moor.
He was in and out of consciousness. They had gotten away and the traffic had thinned out when the ambulance turned onto a gravel road. Without slowing down, they passed a gate that he recognized; it was part of the fence around Rabia Institute. The Audi stopped, reality was tuned down, it faded, and was gone.
2
The world took shape again. He was being pushed on a gurney through the white corridors, past the icons, into an elevator. The African stood beside him holding bags of fluid in her hands; tubes connected to the bags went to his wrist. They had attached him to an IV. He could hear that the woman was afraid, but he wasn't able to hear why.
The door opened, they went down long corridors, up in an elevator, along yet another corridor, into an operating room. Now he could hear why she was afraid. She was afraid he was going to die.
* * *
There were six women around him. Every man's dream, but he could no longer feel his body. Everyone was wearing green surgical gowns; all of them, except the African, were wearing masks.
"We're going to give you a painkiller," she said.
"I'm an artist," he said. "I want to feel my nerves flutter."
His voice had no sound; they didn't hear him. He saw the needle glide into his wrist. The Blue Lady was within earshot. Now he could see her.
"I've come to get paid," he said.
His words made no sound, but she must have heard him anyway. She leaned forward to him and smiled.
"That will be a pleasure," she said.
He lost consciousness again, slowly, like a young girl strolling downtown.
* * *
He came back. Not completely into his body. But near his body. The African was speaking, but not to him.
"I'll check for internal bleeding," she said. "We've got both the bullet path and the blows."
He opened his eyes and watched her work. He would have liked to reassure her. To have said it doesn't really matter whether a person lives or dies.
"Percussing belly and lower abdomen,' she said. "No tension. But pain. Low blood pressu
re and pulse. Hematocrit at stipulated blood percentage. Hemoglobin four to five. We'll do a transfusion."
He wanted to say something. "Absolutely not!" he wanted to say. "I agree with Rudolf Steiner. Blood is eine sehr geistige Flüssigkeit."
No sound came. They began the transfusion; he could hear the unfamiliar blood gurgle in his veins.
"One hundred milligrams Pethidine," said the African. "Ephedrine. I'm trying to keep him conscious, but no success."
She was talking to the Blue Ladv.
"He's out," she said.
He laughed blithely. Within himself. He was about to be freed from the burdensome identification with his body. But hearing is eternal--that's what he was laughing about.
"A small-caliber bullet," said the African, "with low exit speed, fired at close range. A steel bullet, the kind police use to shoot through doors and cars. We'll take X-rays now, ankles, foot joints, skull, wrist. Overview of the abdomen. Columna cenicalis."
Someone placed a lead protection pad over his abdomen and thyroid. On the body that was no longer his.
He found himself in a place that seemed almost timeless. Bodies and physical forms were gone, and all that remained were sounds and the beginnings of sounds. Somewhere, in a distant province, part of him was undergoing surgery.
"Soapy water," said the African. "We'll sew intracutaneously, butterfly and histoacryl for the gashes. We've got the X-rays. The liver, spleen, and kidneys weren't hit. His pulse is still falling. Forceps. He's still bleeding. He has a Colles' fracture. I want a block analgesic in the axilla. Local anesthesia around the break."
They did something with his wrist. It he'd had better connection with his body he would have fainted from the pain.
"Plaster casts," said the African. "Splint for the arm. Circular for the ankle. We'll cut it up; the break is still swelling. His pulse is still falling. Do we have an EKG?"
He had once been a consultant, in the psychoacoustics section of the Sound Quality Research Unit at Alborg University, on how to furnish an operating room; he had advised them to find a sound that combined the somewhat firm spatial tone of a convent with the intimacy of a living room. To give the sick person a sense of both home and religious authority. It was exactly the sound that surrounded him now.
The operating-room sounds got tuned down and sent to the edge of the picture. He fluttered in the wind. A warm, gentle wind. He was just a tonal structure, just an obedient bearer of consciousness. And of love. He heard the African speaking to the Blue Lady. They were far away, behind closed doors, so he wouldn't hear them. Like the time he broke his back. He laughed happily; he had a secret: His hearing had few or no physical limits.
"We're going to lose him," said the African. "The combined pressure on his system. The bullet wound. The violent beating. The broken bones. The skull fracture. The loss of blood. The psychological strain. There's nothing more we can do.''
He half walked, half floated along a beach. He could hear a pulse, very strong and calm--perhaps it was SheAlmighty's pulse, perhaps his own. The doors into the large concert hall were about to open. He stood with the definitive ticket in his hand.
He discovered that the Blue Lady was walking beside him. It was real. He wasn't hallucinating. Somewhere in the physical world she was speaking to Sister Gloria. But still, she was walking here beside him.
Her signal was far-reaching. And at the same time incredibly discreet. Both omnipresent and anonymous. He had never heard anything like it. It encompassed the beach, the sea, and himself. It encompassed the audible universe. With complete respect. "I'm about to go away," he said. "Into the great freedom."
She nodded.
"Free of contracts," he said. "Free from needing to perform. Free of accountants. Of Customs and Tax authorities. Of having to think about money. Of having to take off makeup. Of going to the bathroom. Of having to shave. Free of attraction to, and troubles with, women. Of having to put on clothes. Pay bills. Free of sound pollution, of the world's noise. Free of music. Except perhaps Bach's-- perhaps Bach lasts through death."
She listened. Only very rarely had anyone listened to him that way; it happened maybe once a year. And then it had always been a woman or a child. Those evenings he had performed far better than average.
"Still," he said, "something seems to be missing."
They were standing at the edge of the water. Far away, somewhere inland, he could see his body. Attached to machines which measured an electrical signal that was about to die out.
"Maybe it's KlaraMaria," she said.
"Maybe that's it."
Fie let his hearing expand into a sphere; he heard the quiet girl. The other child too. Fie couldn't determine where the sound came from--all the coordinates were dispersed. But he heard from their breathing that they were asleep. Fie could have stood there listening for a long time, perhaps forever. In his life there had been all too few opportunities to listen to sleeping children.
He heard that in a little while someone would awaken them and hustle them out. Somehow it wasn't in a little while; it was now. He didn't hear in temporal succession--he heard everything at the same time.
He understood what was missing. In order for his life to be complete, a finished performance, so he could leave the ring feeling he had fulfilled his contract. He needed to carry the children out into the night and into safety.
He decided to live.
He began to move back toward his body. The Blue Lady walked beside him.
He did not hear her smile. But he thought he heard a hint of satisfaction. As if this was what she had most deeply desired. That irritated him. It provoked an unwillingness to be manipulated by women. Unfortunately, a man who returns to his body also returns to the basic aspects of his own personality.
"It's a well-known fact," he said, "that someone who is approaching a spiritual breakthrough goes through periods of intense physical pain."
"It's a well-known fact," she said, "that angry cats get ruffled fur."
"I can't leave my fans," he said. "I managed to get one American talk show, for CBS, before being blacklisted. It had twenty million viewers. I can still hear them weeping. And longing for da capo. Moreover, isn't that what you said the saints did? They returned to give joy to the seekers?"
"They had something that would give the seekers joy. Do you?"
For a moment he was shaken. To speak that way. To a listening soul who has left his battered, dying body.
"For one thing," he said, "my modesty will give them joy."
That made her stop short. Fie felt a sense of satisfaction. If one can close the mouth--even if only momentarily--of enlightened Mother Superiors in their nonphysical manifestation, one cannot be completely dead.
3
He returned to a kingdom of pain.
It was everywhere. A numb, paralyzing pain in his stomach and lower abdomen. The dull surgical pain from his brain concussion, constant, throbbing. The hot torment from the swelling around his broken bones. His body's unfamiliarity with the new blood. The pain when the dentist put his loosened teeth back in place. An intensified pain when they began to fix his jaw.
He could remain conscious only for short periods. During these periods he prayed. He had no extra energy for words; he simply leaned in through the loving care around his body and out toward the great loving care beyond, out toward SheAlmighty.
Once in a while he opened his eyes. Sometimes he saw the African. Sometimes the Blue Lady. Then he went out again, toward the sea. But each time he came back.
* * *
Someone gave him something to drink; swallowing burned his throat. He saw the white corridors disappear. A door opened, a heavy soundproof door with rubber flanges. They rolled him through it. He could not turn his head. But he was lying in a hospital bed, and the African raised his upper body very slightly. He saw he was in a convent cell.
It was like coming home. Out in real life, people could set the table for up to twelve with blue fluted china. They had a large hous
e, a chesterfield coat, two stereos, three televisions, eight hundred books they would never read again, forty-eight bottles of red wine saved for their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. And so much junk stuffed away in the basement that they were desperately looking for a bigger house. Whereas every circus performer and ninety-nine out of a hundred artists wanted to avoid everything that could not be packed up and moved in an afternoon. The space around him was like that. His bed, a table, a washbasin, a door that opened to a small balcony facing the lake. That was all.
Except for the electronic devices. On the table was a monitor attached to electrodes on his chest. He could feel several electrodes fastened to his temples.
"KlaraMaria?" he said.
The African shook her head.
"How long have I been here?"
His voice was unrecognizable. She must have understood him anyway.
"Eight days."
"Bring me my clothes," he said. "I've got to get up and leave. I'm the only one who can find her."
"You just relax," she said. "Or we'll strap you down. You should be glad that you're even alive."
She put a clip on his finger; attached to the clip was a cord connected to yet another screen.
"A. pulse oximeter," she said. "Measures oxygen saturation in the blood."
"A telephone?" he whispered.
She shook her head. More electrodes were placed on his chest. "A scope," she said. "Monitors heart functions."
He felt his consciousness fading.
"Gandhi," he said, "continued to sleep beside naked women. After he made a vow of chastity. To test his sexual continence. Would you be interested?"
* * *
The African wrote numbers from the screens. There was another woman in the room. They spoke together. His body hurt all over. He heard his mother. Is there anything wrong with a healthy young man thinking about his mother? Even if he is forty-two. When he has been close to death.
He heard her very clearly. Now he saw her in his mind. He would not have been able to get up from the bed to go to the toilet. They had undoubtedly put a diaper on him. But his childhood memories were unharmed.
