by Peter Høeg
The steam closed in around them, the walls of the room beginning to disappear.
"You and I," said Kasper, "are sitting within this intimacy. There's a special, almost jovial tone when men are naked together. You're free of your wing collar and bow tie and puttees. Free of your public image; clothing is a mask. You're a little bit closer to yourself. With distant happy memories of playing naked on the beach. With lively acoustic souvenirs from the soccer club's locker room. Can you hear it? Do you follow me? I'm reminded of Eckehart: 'Whom did God make love with in order to give birth to so many sounds?' And amid this tonal Eden is the sound of you. Your greed. Your manipulations and criminal offenses. Enough to merit lifetime imprisonment. And behind everything: maltreatment and murder of a child. Your bid. Your blind is the truth about the child. What have I heard wrong?"
"About the child," said Kain, "That was Ernst. Things got out of control. He's paid for it."
Kaspar dealt three cards face-up on the table: the queen of hearts, king of diamonds, and ace of spades.
"You're responsible," said Kasper.
"I've repented. Mother Maria says no sin is so great that it can't be repented."
"What about justice?" said Kasper.
"You're as furious as a one-man army. What about this bid?"
The fan of cards swam before Rasper's eyes.
"And what's made you gentle as a lamb?" he said.
"Meeting the little girl. And Mother Maria. I'm going to sell everything. I'm going to put it all at the Institute's disposal. I've repented. Am sorry for everything. I'm waiting for your bid."
"Help me with the chronology," said Kasper. "In August of last year all twelve children are gathered in Copenhagen. They contact you. You suggest something. Was it that they should cause the earthquakes? Could they make them happen? Can they manipulate the physical world? Or can they only predict what it will do?"
He cast aside the top card and turned the next; it was the two of diamonds.
Rain shrugged his shoulders.
"I work with options. For me there's almost no difference. Between making things happen and knowing they will happen. They
said the earthquakes would occur."
"So you come up with the scheme of buying worthless property. And creating among potential buyers the idea--the true or false idea--that the earthquakes and the cave-ins are over. For that, you need to use the children. What they get in return is that you'll bring them here--is that correct?"
Kain nodded.
"But there must be more," said Kasper.
"I'll help to manage the publicity. And the media. When the children go public with all this."
Rasper shook his head slowly.
"They want to force the world to do something or other. By threatening that they can cause natural disasters. That's vandalism. That's child terrorism. That's criminal children. Is this true? Can they do that?"
Kain shrugged his shoulders.
"And you planned to cooperate in this?" said Kasper.
"I've been converted. I've seen the light."
"Where did the children live while they were here?"
"At the Institute. That was simple. I got an associate to apply to the Institute."
"The blonde," said Kasper. "Irene Papas'?"
Kain nodded.
"The Institute organized transportation. But we picked them up outside the country. In some cases, the parents wouldn't let them go. That's why the reports. Unfortunately, I gave Ernst one of the tasks."
"Why didn't Mother Maria see through you?"
Kain cast aside another card and turned the final one over. It was the ten of spades.
"Saint Symeon the New Theologian," he said, "writes that it's important not to attribute omniscience to a spiritual teacher. Even the greatest ones are human beings."
Kasper found it painful to breathe. Perhaps it was the steam, perhaps it was the bitterness of no longer having a monopoly on citing the Church fathers.
"So you simulated a kidnapping," he said. "Why only two of the children"?"
"That's all we needed. To convince the buyers."
"KlaraMaria sent a postcard to a hydrologist. A woman from the lay order. The card showed a picture of Copenhagen Harbor after the earthquake. Why was it sent?"
Kain's tone changed. An interplay of tics and tension suddenly came and went across his face.
"Those children, they're monsters. Kidnapping them is a punishment in itself. There's no need for legal prosecution. They wanted to prove that they knew about the earthquakes in advance. But they hadn't informed me.
"But my mistakes," said Kain, "are a fantastic starting point for a process of spiritual growth. I want to make a really significant difference. For the women and the children."
"First," said Kasper, "you're going to spend some time in jail. Showdown."
He laid the jack and seven of clubs on the table. Kain stared at the straight. He put his cards on the table. The king of hearts and the five of hearts.
"There's not much pigment in the red color," said Kasper. "A little lighter, a little faster than the black. On the other hand, the face cards are a little heavier. I could hear your cards."
Kain leaned toward him.
"I have a network like an American president. I'm resurrecting the Church. I support the Institute. I'm a tremendous ally."
"I'm the one who rescued the children," said Kasper.
"I have fantastic spiritual potential," said Kain. "Mother Maria has let me understand that. I've just had to take a roundabout path. Many of the great ones had to do that. Milarepa. The tax collector in the Bible. The rich man Jesus met. Paul. But now I genuflect. I make amends. I'm going to go forward like a galloping horse."
"You're going to go to Horsens state prison. I'm the nuns' star."
"I've found the way to humility," said Kain. "Deep humility. I give everything to the Church. To the Institute. I kneel before my
neighbor."
"My humility is global," said Kasper. "I've sacrificed a global career. I wash everyone's feet. I even wash yours."
Kasper struggled to get off the chair and down on his knees. But he was weak, and Kain was headed in the same direction. It was a competition in humility. But the steam blinded them. On their knees in front of each other their heads banged together, inadvertently, but with damaging force nonetheless.
The difficulty for us beginners is that our good intentions have a hard time tolerating situations that are a little more stressful. When it comes right down to it, compassion often proves to be just a thin layer of gold leaf over a somewhat coarser metal. Kain put his hands around Kasper's neck. But Kasper just sat there. When a passionate poker player has settled himself somewhere, it takes a great deal to remove him.
He felt his eyesight and his hearing begin to fail. Kain slowly pressed him back toward the marble slab and the jets from which
scalding-hot steam was hissing.
Kasper was aware of the prayer; it turned to Dismas, the good thief on the cross next to the Savior. Dismas is the patron saint of gamblers and all who serve long prison sentences.
Then he head-butted the man above him.
That threw Kain backward, his body sliding across the thin layer of water on the floor and crashing into the wall. His forehead was wounded, his face covered with blood.
The glass door opened. In the doorway stood the deacon.
"The bathhouse is sacrosanct," he said, "like the church."
He stepped aside; Kasper got to his feet, slowly, unsteadily, then lifted Kain and half dragged, half carried him past the deacon.
The deacon pointed. Kasper placed Kain under a shower and stood under another himself. The deacon turned on a faucet.
The showerheads were not just large, they were as big as mill wheels. And the water that gushed out of them was not only cold, it was meltwater from the Caucasus.
"Cold ablutions," said the old man thoughtfully, "have always been among the deepest spiritual techniques."
&nb
sp; Kasper felt millions of capillaries contract. But the magnanimity of his heart swelled.
"Jealousy increases in proportion to one's closeness to great spiritual leaders," he said to Kain. "At the end, when one is within touching distance, it approaches insanity. I beg your forgiveness."
Kain's gaze was still blurred. Kasper took one of the large towels from a radiator and went toward the businessman.
"Come," he said, "and let Kasper dry your back."
Kain drew back.
"After that," said Kasper, "I'll rub you with moisturizing lotion. And massage your feet."
Kain grabbed a towel from a chair. The bearded men by the pool watched them silently.
Kain tottered backward. Without taking his eyes off Kasper, he wrapped the towel around himself. He staggered through the corridor. Kasper followed close after him.
"The head butt," shouted Kasper, "that I gave you just now. I take it back. I kiss your forehead. I weep over having lost control once again."
Kain managed to open the door to the street. He stumbled down the steps and onto the sidewalk.
Passersby stopped. At the bottom of the stairs was a woman. For a fantastic moment Kasper thought it was Asta Borello. That would have been monumental synchronicity
Then he saw it was a stranger. And in a way that was a relief. When the cosmos dishes out artificial coincidences it's nice not to
have an overdose.
Kain hurried past the woman and began to run along Bred Street. Kasper waved to the spectators. Bowing deeply, he glided backward toward the dressing rooms.
* * *
He walked down the corridor and put on his clothes; on the way out he stood for a moment opposite one of the small rooms. The man in the bathtub was hidden behind a newspaper. Kasper went into the room.
"Pardon me for disturbing you," he said, "but I'm following the sound. I'm driven by a desire to listen one last time to II Destriero Scafusia from Schaffhausen. And to get a glance at your newspaper."
The man lowered the newspaper; it was Weidebühl. Both men looked at the teak chair beside the bathtub; on top of the carefully folded clothing lay the watch.
The lawyer handed over the newspaper. Kasper turned to the numbers from the last Class Lottery drawing on the back page. He took out his lottery ticket and ran his fingers down the numbers in the paper; he found a number that matched his own. His ticket had won. He stood there quietly for a minute, perhaps.
"My lottery ticket has won," he said. "Six million kroner; it's a one-eighth ticket, which means I've won seven hundred fifty thousand. And I must confess that for a brief moment, a few seconds ago, I wasn't filled with gratitude toward the Divine, but with bitterness, because I hadn't gone back to my favorite bailiff, Asta, on Kampmann Street and borrowed a thousand to buy a whole ticket. Do you know what I mean:1"
The lawyer shook his head.
"Greed," said Kasper, "is one of the trickiest obstacles to spiritual progress. But thank God, the next second I felt the prayer within my heart begin, and it's continuing now. I'm praying to Saint Cecilia; I wonder if you know her--she's the patron saint of music."
Kasper heard a movement behind him; the deacon stood in the hallway.
"I apologize for that incident earlier," said Kasper, "but how you can open the door to a fierce baboon like Kain is beyond my understanding."
"If a place or an atmosphere is, in the truest sense, divine," said the deacon, "then it can't be closed to anyone."
The three men looked at one another. Kasper felt he had been mistaken about the Orthodox Church. Perhaps in the end it would
encompass and survive the modern world after all.
"Is that also true of our friend," he said, "Mother Maria, the metropolit of Bagsværd?"
The deacon took some time before replying.
"We're going to be working on that," he said.
Kasper folded the ticket.
"There are some numbers on this piece of paper," he said. "Telephone numbers and others. Also a winning lottery number. I have no use for any of them. Where I'm going."
He stuck the ticket into the breast pocket of the deacon's robe. "A symbolic contribution," he said. "To the work of Christianity in integrating the more difficult women."
* * *
The deacon accompanied him to the door.
"What about a small word of thanks?" said Kasper. "It is, after all, close to a million kroner."
"Saint Pachomius," said the old man, "around the year 307, had a vision from God in which he received some of the monastic rules we still follow. In the vision it was also said that if anyone gives alms to the brothers and sisters, it is the giver who should say thank you."
Kasper and the deacon looked at each other. Then Kasper bowed.
"Thank you," he said. "To you. To the Orthodox Church. And to the Danish Class Lottery."
3
He parked on Nybro Road. Like the last time. But this time he went out to the edge of the lake, where the buildings ended.
He had to walk very slowly. He must have lost over thirty pounds. There was no fat left, not even on his rear end. He had blood effusions just from having sat on the chair while they interrogated him.
He found a spot opposite the little domed church where the view to the convent was blocked by a tree, and managed somehow to struggle over the fence. But afterward he had to lie on the grass for maybe ten minutes before he could continue.
He entered the main building by a side door. The corridors were deserted. Far away he heard a mass. They were singing something by Bach, one of the Easter cantatas, something with "Rejoice, ye hearts."
Behind the music he heard what he was looking for.
He took the elevator to the guest wing. They were staying in the cell that had been his. When he was still a nun.
He knocked, and walked in. Stina and KlaraMaria were sitting on the bed drinking tea. Between them lay a mountain of dolls. He sat down on a chair, the one the Blue Lady had used.
The tone around them was larger than the room; it was arched, like a cathedral. He had heard before that the variation of wave amplitude between parents and children could take that form whenthere was love between them. And when both the woman and the child resembled something from Greek mythology.
He didn't belong in the sound picture. He had no place there. He wasn't qualified. He would never be allowed in. It was too late.
"It's good you came," said the girl. "You're going to read me bedtime stories. And play music afterward. Both the violin and the piano.
Something by that man Bach. Every night."
She edged closer.
"I'm going to sit on your lap. And you're going to hold me. Every night. I'm very affectionate."
She began to hum. "Bona Nox."
He started to sweat under his arms.
"It will take a long time," she said. "A long, long time. Until you've paid me back. For not being there when I was little."
She hit the dolls.
"Two hundred Bratz. They promised me five hundred. They promised!"
She stood up.
"I'm going outside to play."
She paused in front of him. Gently ran her fingertips along his jaw. Like a grown woman.
"She's mine," she said. "My mother. Just mine."
He nodded.
"I don't think you should say anything to her," she said, "that you wouldn't want me to hear."
He nodded again. The force of the girl's personality was unwavering. Like Karajan's. Nobody had been able to contradict Karajan. Not Richter. Not even Ingmar Bergman.
Then she was gone.
* * *
He waited until Stina's individual tone was established. It too was a space. But its form was slightly different from what she had with the child. He had heard that space from the beginning. On the beach. He had wanted to enter it. Wanted wasn't the right word. He had been drawn into it. And afterward had never found the way out. Never wanted to find the way out.
It was an open sp
ace. No furniture to bump into. No traps. No cautiousness. But still. There had been a place he was always forbidden to enter. But now he no longer had anything to lose.
"You were in Horsens prison for two years," he said. "Before I met you. For manslaughter."
He had sat across from all sorts of delinquents. The circus is like that. A world that includes many things. Murder had a particular sound. A sound of something ultimate. It was present in the room now. That's the remarkable thing about words. The mere sound of them activates part of the reality they name.
"It was a lover," she said. "He raped me. It happened when he came after me the second time."
He listened into her system.
"In that case," he said, "rape is a path I will never take."
She got up, went over, and stood behind him.
"I'm glad to hear that," she said. "Damned glad."
Her hand stroked the back of his neck. His relays switched off. His brain switched off. His synapses stopped firing. He was available gratis, waiting to be claimed. He had no defenses against her. Outside, he heard children's laughter.
"How long are they here?" he asked. "The children."
"They're flying home tomorrow. All except KlaraMaria."
"And the idea of their having predicted the earthquake?"
"I had to figure out something. To explain to you the contact between her and me."
Deep, deep within him a warning signal went off. But it was too far away. He felt the warmth of her palms. Almost like live coals. His hearing closed down.
4
He woke up and knew that the woman and the child had left him.
It had been a deep sleep. One haunted with apparitions, like an opium dream. His body ached, his eyelids sticky with the poppy glue of sleep. His hearing scanned the building; they were gone. He staggered into the hallway and opened the cell door. They hadn't slept in the bed. The dolls were gone. Their clothes were gone.
He splashed cold water on his face. The face in the mirror no longer attracted readers of women's magazines. It called for plastic surgery. At the Rigshospital hospice.
He could hear one of the matins. From the church. Filtered through the masonry. Sixty women in ecstasy. While he could barely stand upright.
