The Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg

by Peter Høeg

  She did not move. He stood there in just his boxer shorts. A sense of sacrilege began to sneak up on him.

  "You must be absolutely crazy," she said.

  He relaxed completely, as before a high-stakes bluff in poker. He adjusted to a feminine perspective. Prepared to lose everything if necessary.

  "The folks in there," he said, "the police, they haven't met the people who took KlaraMaria. I have. This isn't Mr. and Mrs. Solid Citizen. This is the wicked king and the wicked queen. The children aren't on their way back. They're on their way to disappearing."

  She stared at him. Then she lifted her hands and unbuttoned the first button.

  "Turn around," she said. "And close your eyes."

  He turned around and leaned his forehead against the fragrant wood of the confessional.

  He focused his hearing on her nakedness, on her skin. He didn't have to see it to drown himself in it. That was one of the redeeming aspects of hearing like his. You could stand in front of the women's locker room at an indoor swimming pool and feel as if you were with the women inside.

  "Put your hands on your ears," she said. "Otherwise this whole thing is called off."

  He put his hands on his ears.

  She touched his shoulder; he turned around. She was wearing his clothes. But she looked like herself more than ever. The jacket, shirt, and trousers emphasized her femininity. There are people whose being shines through every disguise.

  He put on her blouse, then the blue smock, and tucked his hair under the nun's headdress. He caught a reflection of himself in the window facing the yard.

  "Sunglasses?" he said.

  She took a pair of sunglasses and a small mirror from a handbag on the floor.

  If he'd had twenty minutes and a makeup kit he could have done something with his face. Now there was nothing to do but hide it. He found a handkerchief in her bag, put on the sunglasses, then unfolded the handkerchief and held it up to his face as if he wanted to hide that he was crying.

  He put on her sandals; she wore the same size as he. He had always been fascinated by her feet: large, strong, flat, the toes spread out like a fan; he could hear how much she had run around barefoot as a child, around Skagen on herringbone parquet floors, on rolling lawns and private beaches. He cast a sidelong look at the crutches. Then they started walking.

  In spite of the pain, he delved deep into his femininity. Felt the ovaries. Settled into the heaviness of a female gait, the elasticity of the stride, the slight roll of the hips. Stina opened the door. They were out in the courtyard. The wind hit them.

  "This is grotesque," she said.

  "You're very convincing," he said. "Totally mannish. My suitcase is inside the door. Carry it in both your arms. Walk as if it's heavy. Men and women walk the same way when they carry something heavy. Lift the suitcase so it partially hides your face. Get into the backseat without speaking to them."

  "It won't work."

  "It's doomed to succeed. This is an archetype with good fortune. As in Fidelio. She searches for her lover in the Underworld. Disguised as a man. When the lovers get close to each other in earnest, they're forced to explore the other sex in themselves. At the end of that journey they find a great love."

  "At the end of this journey you'll find I never see you again."

  "Get away from them somehow. Convince the African and Franz Fieber. They're my loyal supporters. Take a vehicle, the three of you. And pick me up at Rigshospital. In an hour."

  The Blue Lady must have waited for them. By the pond. Behind the bushes. Listening to the water. Now they faced her.

  She looked at them. For the first time he heard her lose her equilibrium and experience a real shock. But the silence returned almost immediately.

  She did not want to shout. She wanted to turn around, cross the courtyard, and call for Moerk without losing her composure. The moment she turned around Kasper would have had the handkerchief around the lower part of her face. It would have been yet another step toward a breakdown in ethics: violence against an older woman and the head of a convent. But it would have been necessary.

  She looked past Kasper and directly at Stina. At her men's clothing and pageboy hairdo.

  "Kasper Krone," she said to Stina. "There are two officers waiting for you in the hall. Stina, just go out to the gate. A government car is parked there, and they've promised to drive you into Copenhagen. May God go with you both."

  6

  Two cars were parked outside the entrance, a police car and a Renault. There were two officers waiting by the patrol car. He walked toward the Renault. Hunched over against the wind. Out stepped the two monks.

  He heard a twofold reaction when they saw him. An amalgam of surprise and sympathy because of the handkerchief and the weeping. And the quivering of awakened instincts that a woman like him would arouse in two men if they weren't castrates or angels.

  They held the door for him, and he got into the backseat. Stina came out of the building; she had pulled the jacket over her head. Moerk was right behind her, the Blue Lady beside her. The abbess spoke to the officers.

  "I asked him to cover his head," she said. "He must be protected in case the press turns up. We don't want to risk having anyone recognize him."

  The Renault, with Rasper inside, started up and drove out of the driveway.

  * * *

  He sank down into the seat, down into exhaustion. Exhaustion often waits for us in an automobile. He remembered the sweetness of falling asleep in the Vanguard as a child, the feeling of Helene Krone's bare arm against his cheek. He wished she could have been here beside him now. Is it shameful to miss your mother when you're forty-two and walking a tightrope stretched across a nervous breakdown? He had sand in his joints. His body had used coffee, had used Armagnac, had used a little organic chemistry to stay awake.

  He had none of these things now. A prayer began instead. Prayer is a paper ship of wakefulness on the stream of worldly weariness.

  He could give up. He could reveal his identity. Be driven to Audebo. Give in to sleep. Wait for them to take care of his case. They would do what they had promised. He could be back in the Circus Building by November. With Benneweis at the Circus Arena in Bellahøj by the beginning of April.

  He heard Maximillian's voice. It came to him across thirty years. As fresh as if time were simply an acoustic filter we put up to avoid facing the fact that all sounds are always present everywhere. It was tinged with an accent from having grown up in Tønder.

  "I promised that if I had a child who fell asleep in the carriage, I would always carry the child inside."

  Lyngby Road ended; they crossed Vibenshus Circle.

  He addressed the two backs in front of him, speaking into the handkerchief in a voice choked with tears.

  "We make eternal vows," he said. "When we become nuns. Total obedience. No possessions. No sexuality. The latter is the worst. That's why I'm crying. Just imagine being in my situation. A woman in her early thirties. Filled with an appetite for life."

  The two backs stiffened, as if the spinal fluid had begun to coagulate.

  "People outside don't understand us. You know the vulgar stories about nuns and sailors. They aren't true. What a nun actually dreams about when she's lying with her head on a bed of nails and her hands on top of the quilt is two handsome policemen."

  Their sound was fading, as with people who are about to faint. For a moment their connection to normal reality was impaired.

  "Take a left here," said Kasper.

  They made a left turn, down Blegdam Road.

  "In here," he said.

  The car turned in toward the main entrance at Rigshospital.

  "Stop here."

  They stopped.

  "I'll run into the shop in the lobby," he said, "and get two bottles of Bacardi. And a package of condoms."

  He got out of the car. Hunched his body against the strong wind. Heard the Renault pull away from the curb behind him. Heard it sneak away. The driving was jerky and une
ven.

  7

  The heavy drapes were closed, the shades down; the only light in the room came from the flat screen of a computer and from a night lamp beside the bed. Maximillian Krone's face looked like a leather mask; it looked like the Grauballe man preserved over the centuries. His eyes were closed. Behind the irregular breathing Kasper heard the weary heart. One foot stuck out from the quilt; the ankle was covered with stasis eczema.

  The sick man opened his eyes.

  "The transactions were recorded on Hestemølle Street ten minutes ago. That means they're officially registered. The auction has taken place."

  Maximillian fumbled for the gold eyeglasses on the bedside table. His arm and hand were thin and wrinkled, like a bird claw. He put on his glasses and looked at Kasper. Looked at the nun's habit.

  "I'm glad," he said, "that here at my deathbed you're showing your best side."

  "I just escaped from the police."

  "That's what I mean by your best side."

  Kasper could barely understand the words; the voice was a mere fragment.

  "I have friends with offices that face the harbor," whispered Maximillian. "I telephoned them. They can hear I'm speaking from the grave. And they almost shit their pants. 'I'm calling to wish you Merry Christmas,' I say. 'Because I'll no longer be on the premises to do it then. And I'm also calling because you must cancel your board meetings and stand at the window with a pair of binoculars and look over at Tippen. At Konon. They say something is happening on the roof.'"

  The door opened. Stina entered, still wearing men's clothing. Behind her were the African and Franz Fieber. The sick man hadn't heard them arrive.

  Kasper took out the taxi voucher. He dialed Moerk's number.

  "Yes?"

  "Something is happening on the roof," said Kasper. "At Konon."

  "How would you know that? In Audebo, with no contact to the outside world."

  "I've sprung a Houdini. I'm in Copenhagen. Close to everything."

  Kasper heard the other man's breathing, stressful E-minor, wracked with sorrow and anxiety.

  "I've been taken off the case," said Moerk. "The minister himself has taken charge. One more false step and I'll be forcefully retired. I wouldn't do so much as admit that I've taken this call."

  "A police helicopter. Just twelve officers. It's the lives of two children."

  "Go to Audebo. Enjoy the tranquillity. Plan the next escapade. Listen to Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. Or go to hell."

  The line went dead. Stina crossed the room.

  She embraced the sick man. Ran her fingers gently over the leathery skin. Maximillian's face began to glow faintly, unnaturally. As if a corpse were being awakened from the dead. Kasper had heard of it before. How sometimes daughters-in-law can build bridges over the Philippine Trench between fathers and sons.

  "I always felt there was mutual understanding between us," whispered Maximillian. "In the pain. Of being fatefully connected with that borderline transvestite over there. But when I see you now in his recycled clothing, then I start to wonder, by God."

  Kasper opened the brocade drapes. Rolled up the shades. At first the light was blinding. He looked out across North Harbor. Tippen was hidden behind the container port and the office buildings.

  "I'll get a weapon," he said. "I'll force my way in. From the street. In some new way. There's never been a barrier I couldn't break through. I promised her."

  He heard the compassion of the others. His father. Stina. The Blue Lady. He looked around. The abbess was not in the room. She must be somewhere inside him. Perhaps in his heart. It wasn't her voice he heard, but her opinion. That he had exhausted his energy. He would not survive the attempt.

  Maximillian picked up a cell phone. His voice was too weak for them to hear what he was saying. They went closer.

  "They telephoned," said Maximillian. "My lodge brothers from Holmen, that is. The Konon people are trying to land a helicopter on the roof. Even though the wind speed is forty-five miles per hour."

  "How much time do we have?"

  It was Stina who asked. He didn't understand why.

  "One hour."

  It was Franz Fieber who spoke.

  "They can't land in this weather. But the wind is about to decrease. In an hour it will be okay."

  "We can be inside in an hour," said Stina.

  Kasper stared at her. Shook his head.

  "You trusted me once," she said. "You can do it again."

  Something in him gave up. Or leaped. Like a spring in a mechanical toy. Within him, a prayer began. To the feminine spirit. The Virgin Mary. Mary Magdalene.

  "All right," he said.

  She turned on her heel.

  In front of Kasper, Maximillian was getting out of bed.

  It was like looking straight into the grave. He was as skinny as a survivor of Auschwitz. Probably even less than a hundred pounds. Biological processes no longer drove him. It was his will, and a nonphysical enthusiasm.

  "I'm going along," he said.

  Kasper raised an arm to stop his father. Sister Gloria walked over to the sick man. Took his arm.

  "Among my people," she said, "the Luo, we take at least one representative of wise old age when going to war."

  "But do you choose someone with advanced Alzheimer's?" said Kasper.

  They walked past him. Kasper shuffled after them. He took the hospital robe from the chair. Wrapped it around his father.

  8

  The convent's ambulance stood in the parking lot facing Fælled Park, next to the Patient Hotel. Now, for the first time, Kasper saw that it was identical to the Rigshospital ambulances, except for the Dagmar Crosses on the sides. Franz Fieber sat at the wheel.

  Rasper's suitcase lay on the stretcher. Stina opened it. Rasper's things were no longer inside; there were several sets of thin blue coveralls, folded. Long thin gloves, folded.

  Stina distributed the clothing. They put on the coveralls without asking any questions. Rasper too. Maximillian needed to take off his robe to get into his; he stood there for a moment in his underpants. Rasper had to look away.

  Stina distributed headlamps, little plastic LED capsules that fastened around the head with an elastic band. Stina lighted hers. Even in daylight it filled the ambulance with a sharp blue glow.

  She moved aside. The African took hold of a ring in the floor and pulled. A five-foot-square hatch swung open. Rasper looked down onto a shape he recognized, a meander pattern. The ambulance had stopped directly above a manhole cover.

  Stina handed the African a long steel hook. She held a matching tool herself. The hooks fit into two holes on the massive iron plate. The women hoisted the cover into the vehicle and tossed it aside as if it were a piece of Tupperware.

  Cold air from below filled the ambulance. Beneath the manhole cover a shaft descended into the darkness. A ladder was welded firmly to one side of the shaft.

  Stina lowered herself into the hole and disappeared, as if by magic. Rasper looked down. She had grabbed the rungs of the ladder and was already ten feet below.

  "Rasper is next," she said.

  He could hear his confidence in her. It had never really been in question. Actually, he had always known that she was precisely the one whom he would dare to follow straight into the Underworld. The problem had been to get permission.

  Nevertheless, he made the sign of the cross on his chest. Just a small one. Nothing extraordinary. He fine-tuned his prayer. Then he climbed down after her. It was colder than he had expected.

  The African came next. She carried Maximillian in her left arm, effortlessly, like a rag doll. The two fluid bags attached to him with tubes and needles were firmly clasped under her arm.

  * * *

  The ladder ended on a narrow landing. Franz Fieber was the last one down. When they were all gathered, Stina turned around. The light from their headlamps revealed the surroundings.

  The first thing Kasper noticed was the stench. It surpassed anything he had experienced aboveg
round, even in the circus. The next thing he saw was the beauty of the scene. It canceled out the stench in a way.

  They were standing in a gigantic tunnel, the cross section of an oval. Along the bottom flowed a black, clayish river.

  Stina sensed their silent prayers.

  "It's a sewer line," she said. "Dug out by hand. At the end of the eighteen hundreds. Thirteen feet high, twenty feet wide. Concrete bottom. Brick sides. The tubes are small PVC sewer pipes."

  Kasper saw them now, bundles of plastic tubes hung along the walls.

  "A spillway structure," said Stina. "For the one time every ten years that the system backs up and the sewer overflows. The surplus runs directly into the Sound. The other main conduit goes from Nørrebro under Frederiksberg and the railroad yard, and flows into the old Teglværk clay pit."

  She started walking, and they followed her slowly. In the darkness outside the beam of his headlamp Kasper saw small pearlshaped lights, like a multitude of stars just above the surface of thewater. He directed his lamp toward the galaxy, and saw the rats. There weren't hundreds of them, but thousands of them. On the cables, on the narrow path on the other side of the river, at the edge of the water. For the first time in his life he was aware of the creatures' elegance; he heard it, heard their agility, their broad intelligence, their ability to adapt. He recalled an experiment when he was a consultant for the Acoustics Institute at Danish Technical University; it had been carried out at the agricultural college's experimental station in Tåstrup. They had tested the effect of music on domestic animals. He suggested Handel for the cows. Large square barns of music. Saint-Saéns for the pigs. Somebody included rats in the experiment. The rats had loved Bach--Kasper could tell that. He heard it in their happiness. Bach's piano concertos had doubled the rats' fertility.

  "I've always liked them."

  Stina stood behind him.

  "When I became chief engineer in my department, they put on a party. I was so young. And the first woman to hold that position. That morning I'd found two baby rats that had drowned in one of the system's depth pumps. I wore them for the party. As earrings. They hung by their tails. Swinging around my neck."