Only One Life

by Sara Blaedel

  “So, are you happy with Unit A and Suhr?”

  As she nodded, she reminded him that he too had worked in Unit A once upon a time. “But that was many years ago,” he said. “A long time before Hans Suhr became chief of the homicide division. He and I worked together back near the dawn of time at Station 3, or Bellahøj, as they call it now.”

  Well, she supposed it shouldn’t surprise her that Skipper and Captain Suhr knew each other. They were sort of the same caliber of men even though it was hard to spot a gruff side to Skipper. But maybe that was because she didn’t really know him yet.

  “I’ve been there three and a half years and so far, so good,” she replied, explaining that she was in Henny Heilmann’s group.

  Skipper knew her too, of course, and told Louise a couple of anecdotes, ending with a story about Thomas Toft, who had seniority on the investigation team Louise was currently part of. She laughed out loud when Skipper called him a stubborn terrier who wouldn’t let go once he’d bitten into something, because that was the perfect image.

  After coffee, they split the bill and got up to go check out Holbæk’s night life. Dean and Søren led the way, heading back to the brewpub, where they had live music, and Louise gladly accepted the pints Skipper passed across the table to her each time he returned from a trip to the bar. As she let herself into her hotel room a couple of hours later, she noticed she had gotten a bit tipsier than she had realized, and it didn’t take many minutes from the time she lay down in bed until sleep overcame her.

  16

  CAMILLA WAS LYING IN HER HOTEL ROOM READING THROUGH HER own article in Morgenavisen. They’d been out late the night before, and they had had plenty of beer and wine with their food. That had been nice. Bengtsen had stubbornly denied that he’d let Else down on a Friday night because of Ruth’s special persuasive abilities. He had insisted to Camilla that he was very social as long as the company was right, so she’d taken it as a compliment that he’d chosen her as a tablemate, and she made sure he was aware that in the future she would include him on her list of police sources.

  The paper was featuring her story prominently, with a set of statistics on recent honor killings. She’d hoped all the way up until her deadline that Samra’s mother would show up so she could interview her, but as much as she had hoped for that, she was also very sure that it wouldn’t happen. And it certainly wouldn’t happen now that her boss had thoughtlessly rewritten the headline for the article Camilla had written about the mother’s visit to the women’s shelter. SAMRA’S MOTHER FAILED HER, it now said, and with those words her last chance of an interview disintegrated, Camilla thought angrily.

  Camilla felt rotten about the headline. Something in the pit of her stomach contracted when the words jumped out at her. Plus there was no way she could retract it, since the title promised quite a bit more than the article actually contained. She had carefully described the police report about the father and how Sada had sought help. That was all information she’d gotten from the police. It wasn’t like she’d been poking around to find that out on her own, and nowhere in the article did she suggest that the mother had failed her daughter and that this had cost the girl her life.

  Camilla had spent most of her Friday afternoon trying to find someone who would talk to her about their impressions of Sada al-Abd, both as a mother and a wife. It was hard to get anyone to talk, but she had finally managed to find two other immigrant women who dared to speak to her, and they had been very positive and had told her in their limited Danish how she devoted all her time to her children, especially the two little ones. On the other hand, when Camilla brought up the spousal abuse Samra’s mother had been subjected to, the two women shut down. Either they didn’t know anything about it or, more likely, they dared not get involved in that kind of thing. That was something you kept in the family.

  Camilla quickly skimmed through the rest of the paper, and was lazily lounging around in her hotel bed when the phone in the room rang. She tripped over her suitcase as she darted to answer it. She had packed her things before breakfast and was planning to head back into Copenhagen later that morning.

  “There’s a guest in the lobby who’d really like to speak with you,” the person at the front desk said.

  “Is it Louise Rick?” Camilla asked.

  “It’s a foreign woman who says she needs to speak to you.”

  Camilla felt herself trembling and sensed instinctively that something unpleasant was coming.

  “I’ll be right down,” she said and put on her shoes.

  The woman was sitting in the large dark-brown armchair to the left of the front desk. Her face was hidden behind the same veil Camilla recognized from the day before. Camilla took a deep breath and straightened herself up before walking over and saying hello.

  There was a girl manning the front desk, one she hadn’t seen before, and Camilla noticed that she was watching them with curiosity.

  “Come,” Camilla told Samra’s mother, nodding toward the restaurant. “Let’s find somewhere where we can talk in peace.”

  She said it so loudly that the girl behind the desk quickly looked away.

  Sada al-Abd still hadn’t said a word, but she rose and followed Louise. The restaurant was empty. All the same, Camilla asked the waiter cleaning up after breakfast if there was a place where she and Sada could speak undisturbed. He showed them into something that might have been the hotel’s conference room, although it did not look as if it was used very often. There was a heavy, stuffy odor in the room and a layer of dust over the rectangular rosewood table that filled the room lengthwise.

  When the waiter left, shutting the door behind him, Camilla turned to Sada, ready to take whatever the woman was going to dish out.

  “You mustn’t write things like that,” Sada exclaimed in despair.

  Camilla was completely unprepared for how loud Sada was and pulled back reflexively.

  “How could you do that?” Sada stepped toward her and started crying loudly and shrilly, as if she were pushing out the pain from all the way down in her diaphragm.

  Camilla stepped back farther, now standing silently and watching Sada, until she sensed that the rebukes were over. When she saw Sada collapse into quiet, miserable sobs, Camilla put her arm around her shoulders and led her over to a seating area by the far wall.

  Once Sada was seated, Camilla stepped out into the restaurant and asked the waiter to bring them some tea. Then she sat down across from Samra’s mother and let her cry. When the tea finally arrived after a long wait, the woman was still crying.

  Camilla felt the knot in her stomach again, but didn’t want to admit it was there. Her article had been restrained, but she felt a fierce rage at her boss and the sloppy way he came up with headlines. Besides, it never cost him anything, but that damn well wasn’t the case for her. Here she was, sitting across from the woman they’d maligned who very obviously couldn’t take any more pain.

  Camilla poured tea into two large floral teacups copied from the best of traditional English style and passed one to Sada in the hopes that it would distract her from her crying.

  Sada reluctantly accepted it, avoiding eye contact with Camilla as if she was ashamed of her angry outburst. After she took her first sip, she finally said something: “I have always taken good care of my children.”

  Camilla was about to speak when, after a long pause, Sada continued.

  “Now they’re going to take my children away. But what do you care? You don’t understand,” she said, wringing her hands together.

  Not caring was not Camilla’s problem at the moment. Her boss had sold her out, and it was going to cost him. But she actually did care about Sada too, although she was irritated that the woman hadn’t come to see her until now that the article was already written and printed instead of the day before so they could have talked to each other beforehand. At any rate, Camilla began by defending herself in a way that could easily be interpreted as an attack.

  “No one needs to u
nderstand or accept anyone being abused to the point that they have to go to a women’s shelter,” Camilla said. She knew this might put an end to the woman’s willingness to talk, but on the other hand she felt it was necessary to indicate where she stood.

  But her statement didn’t seem to bother Sada al-Abd. The woman just shook her head. There was obviously something else Camilla didn’t understand.

  “Try to explain to me what led up to your going to the shelter. What I especially want you to explain to me is why you went back to him,” Camilla said.

  “Why should I?” Sada asked. “You’re just going to write whatever you want anyway.”

  Camilla had certainly heard that one many times before.

  “You wrote that I killed my own daughter.” Sada spoke quietly with a determination in her voice. The tears were gone and she seemed almost fearsome.

  “I didn’t write that you killed her,” Camilla exclaimed indignantly, wishing that instead of accusing her, the mother would start talking. “I wrote that you went to a shelter for help and that shortly after that, you went back to your abuser.”

  Camilla took a sip of tea and again asked Samra’s mother to talk about what had happened when she went into hiding with her children.

  Sada drank a little more of her tea and it looked as if she were fighting some kind of battle within herself. Camilla had the sense that the woman across from her really wanted to tell her story, but that she was afraid it might have consequences if she did so.

  “I won’t write anything until you’ve given me permission,” Camilla said. “And I’ll let you read through it before it goes to print.”

  That was really all she could offer Sada, but it seemed to have an effect.

  “My husband got mad at Hamid, our older son,” Sada began. “Hamid didn’t want to hand over some money he’d earned, and that made Ibrahim so mad, he started hitting.”

  Camilla sat on the edge of the sofa, listening. She had brought her bag down with her, and she pulled out a notepad and started taking notes. Sada didn’t seem to notice and kept talking.

  “He was hitting Hamid hard, and I tried to stop him.”

  “You fled with your children because you tried to come between your husband and your son?” Camilla stated in surprise, a little shaken. She knew that Hamid had not gone to the shelter with the other children.

  The woman nodded.

  “If it was your son Ibrahim was mad at, why were you the one who had to flee?”

  “Samra was also yelling at her father and defending her brother. My husband can get very angry. He lashed out with his hands many times and said he would kill the little ones if I got involved again.”

  “And did you?”

  “No, but he hit Samra to show that he meant it.”

  “Didn’t he threaten to kill Hamid?”

  Sada looked directly at Camilla and maintained the eye contact for a long time.

  “He would never kill his eldest son,” she finally said.

  Camilla had her notepad in her lap and sat for a bit, gathering her thoughts. She bent her head back to stop the shivers that were running up and down her spine.

  “So you reported him to the police and you all got out of there?”

  Sada nodded.

  “How could you go back to a man who had threatened to kill your children?” Now she set down the pad, sensing how the room seemed to close in as she asked her question. “Why?”

  Tears began to flow down Sada’s cheeks once more. She cried a little without a sound. “Loneliness,” she finally whispered so softly that Camilla had to lean forward to hear her. “If I had left him, we would have had no one. I might have been okay, but it wouldn’t have worked for the children. Our lives would have been shut out.” “What do you mean?” Camilla asked. “You would have been free.”

  The thin woman shook her head. “Freedom is not the same for me as for you.”

  Camilla sat motionless.

  “I would rather be home with my husband than be free and lonely.”

  Camilla didn’t understand what she meant.

  “Why would you be more lonely when you weren’t with a man who would hit you?” Camilla asked.

  “If you don’t belong anywhere anymore, then you have no one. Then no one will talk to you. You don’t get invited anywhere. The children are not allowed to play with other children, and there’s not even any guarantee you will get to keep your last name. You will be totally alone, an outcast.”

  Camilla was speechless at the way Sada rattled this all off, as if it had come straight from some kind of list of rules.

  “Who says all that?” Camilla asked.

  For the first time a glint came into Sada’s eye that could have been mistaken for a small smile.

  “It’s not something anyone says. That’s just how it is, and how it has always been for those who bring shame to their families.”

  “Yeah, but you darn well can’t avoid things happening in a family that will make waves, and you don’t necessarily have to become an outcast because of it,” Camilla said heatedly. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard of honor and shame before, but this all sounded completely crazy to her ears.

  Sada sat for a moment before responding, as if she were searching for the right words.

  “It’s only in the closest family that honor and shame really mean something. If it’s someone you don’t know, who cares? Then it doesn’t mean anything.”

  Camilla had no idea what Sada was talking about.

  “There can be conflict within a family without it necessarily resulting in any consequences. It’s only once the extended family hears about it that things can get tricky.”

  “You mean if other people start talking about it?”

  Sada nodded. “You don’t want that,” she said. “You don’t want anyone speaking ill of your family.”

  Camilla was with her so far. She urged Sada to explain what kinds of issues could be so important that they would result in abuse or expulsion. Because she did not understand.

  “I can certainly appreciate that some people might feel it was impinging on the family’s honor if one family member did something wrong, but I can’t understand how this would result in such a physically violent outcome,” Camilla said.

  “Danish families also expel people,” Sada said, after pausing a moment to think.

  Camilla was about to protest.

  “Pedophiles, for example,” Sada continued.

  Words failed her, but Camilla understood what Sada was saying and her eyebrows shot up. “That’s not a fair comparison,” Camilla exclaimed in her shock.

  Sada nodded and said that that was precisely the same way one might be excluded from a family unit in her culture. “People who do that are the worst kind of scum. No one wants to be with them and people won’t protect them either,” the slender immigrant woman said.

  Silence prevailed between them, as the thoughts slowly settled into place in Camilla’s head. She regretted promising she wouldn’t write anything without obtaining permission first, because it was pretty easy to see that she wasn’t going to get it in this case. She sensed a peace between them, as if all the air had gone out of a balloon. But she also sensed that a new intimacy was burgeoning between them, which was what made her decide not to even try to pressure the woman for permission to use anything from their conversation.

  “Would your husband have been able to kill your daughter if she had violated the family’s honor?” Camilla took a deep breath once that question was out there. It had been burning away at her since they’d sat down, but she hadn’t even contemplated whether she dared ask it. Now it was done.

  She noted that Sada’s shoulders rose a smidge when she understood what she was being asked, but then slowly fell back into place again as she answered.

  “He might. But our daughter didn’t do anything to violate our family. To the contrary. She was our pride. He took care of her,” she said, taking great pains to emphasize the words, making them unwaverin
g.

  “Are you afraid of him?” Camilla asked.

  Sada looked at Camilla in surprise and then responded with a convincing “No.” Then she continued, “On those occasions when something happened, he had a reason to react. He didn’t have one in this case.”

  This statement made Camilla suspect that Ibrahim had hit Sada more than once. It had happened before, but just hadn’t been reported to the police.

  “I’m not afraid of my husband,” Sada said, “even though he can lose his temper and do dumb things. But I am afraid that they will come and take the little ones away.”

  “Who will?” Camilla asked, her thoughts still on the rest of Sada’s family.

  “The government. I won’t be allowed to keep my children after what you wrote.”

  And with that, they were back where they’d started, but the feeling in Camilla’s stomach was totally different now than the one she’d had when Sada had started scolding her.

  “They’re not going to come take your children away. You’re a good mother. They have no reason to.”

  “They don’t know how it is. They only see what’s in the paper.”

  “Well, I don’t believe that,” Camilla said, but she knew that the other woman wasn’t entirely wrong. Camilla had stoked the fire and possibly set something in motion that she had not understood the repercussions of, but she hadn’t been thinking about her article as something that could have this type of direct consequence. Now she regretted that she hadn’t just written a sentimental piece about a town where some teenagers were grieving the loss of a good classmate.

  Repercussions, Camilla thought, afraid it was a word that was going to follow her for the entire case.

  “I’d really like to write about what you told me today. It might help your case.”

  “No, no.” Sada vigorously shook her little head. “You mustn’t.”

  “I don’t need to say the two of us talked. I can write something about honor and shame, about the loneliness and fear of becoming an outcast, and why it might be necessary to act as you did.”