The helicopter stopped, abruptly, staring down. An empty frame. Nothing but yellowed grass, cut diagonally by the path. Then Paul Andersen stepped into the shot at the right of the frame, moving toward the steps in the rock. He looked up at the helicopter. This time he did not raise his weapon. Instead he stopped; he looked left across the frame, down the path toward the steps.
A moment of nothing; of waiting. Then the man in the torn T-shirt stumbled into the shot, left of frame. He stood, as if dazed, facing Paul Andersen. I looked about the courtroom, trying to locate the man’s family. If they were here, I could not see them.
On the screen Paul Andersen raised his pistol. He fired. The man in the torn T-shirt stopped. Paul Andersen fired again.
Two silent shots.
Around us people gasped.
The man in the torn T-shirt, crumpling, his body folding in on itself.
The camera held steady. The short man looked up toward the helicopter. He did not raise his weapon. He walked toward the dead man. He paused at the man’s side, then continued out of frame toward the steps that led down to the fjord.
The helicopter veered off toward the mainland, leaving the children to their fate.
We marked the end of the first trial week with pizza. Elsa and I sat up drinking beer on the sofa, watching bad films on Netflix.
At one Elsa fell asleep. I covered her in a blanket, went to check on the children. I found Vee at her computer, fingers hovering above the keyboard, the shower block on her screen. She looked up. I frowned. Vee mock-frowned back. “Why aren’t you drinking beer, Dad?”
“Why aren’t you asleep, Vee?”
“Because . . . So, I took this picture of the footage in the courtroom. It’s a little hazy. But look.”
She squinted at the picture on her laptop, then adjusted it, tilting it so the top and bottom of the courtroom TV screen were roughly horizontal. She cropped it so all you could see was the image on the screen. The roof of the shower block, too red, against too-yellow dried grass above and below.
She double-clicked on a file. Pavel’s helicopter footage opened, crisp and clean. Vee pulled the computer window down so that you could see the image of the roof, began scrolling till she found what she was looking for. The shower block.
She scanned backward, found the men as they were about to enter, clicked the image backward and forward until she was satisfied. “There.”
I looked from the blurred image to the crisp image and back.
“Dad, it’s the exact same frame.”
“Okay. What am I looking for?”
“They resized it for the court, Dad.”
I squinted. “I mean, maybe.”
“No, Dad, they really did.”
She adjusted both windows so they were exactly the same height, placed them side by side. Then she turned to look at me.
“Look at the grass.”
“I’m looking at the grass.”
“At the sides.”
She was right. The courtroom version cut off the side of the image. Everything was larger. The grass and the steps were missing.
“Why do you think they enlarged the picture for the trial?” she said.
“I’m guessing there’s some simple technical reason.”
“And what if they were disguising something? This matters, Dad. It should matter to you.”
“Vee,” I said, “we’re all exhausted. Please go to bed.”
I was up at six, showering, when I heard the scream. So very loud it was. So piercing, and so very close. I heard Elsa spring from our bedroom past Franklin and into the kitchen.
I pulled a towel around me, was there seconds behind her.
Elsa frozen by the sink, her eyes searching for the source.
Another scream.
She nodded toward Vee’s room, and we were off, Elsa in front of me.
Vee’s voice: “Get the FUCK away from me and out of my room!”
Elsa threw open the door. There was Vee, sitting upright in bed. And there, tall and angular in her simple gray dress, was our lost daughter Licia.
Thirty-Five
“Hello,” said Licia as she turned toward me.
I heard myself speak her name.
“FUCK!” shouted Vee. “LICIA? REALLY?”
Only Elsa was silent. She stood there, her mouth open, gulping air.
I could feel the adrenaline coursing through me. “Licia,” I said. “Oh, my Licia.”
“Licia,” said Vee, calmer now. “Licia, Licia, Licia.”
“Alicia May Curtis,” said Elsa. “My God. How?”
“Yeah,” said Vee. “Actually, what the fuck?”
“My window was unlocked,” said Licia simply, as if that were an explanation.
She had grown her blond hair. It hung in a simple plait halfway down her back. She was taller too. More like her mother than ever, though her clothes were formal. A plain gray smock. A gray skirt, unpleated. White socks. Around her waist a small gray cloth bag hung on a simple belt.
I laughed. “I knew it. Elsa, didn’t I say she was alive?”
Licia smiled the most beautiful smile.
Elation spread through me. “Didn’t I tell you?” I looked at Elsa. “Didn’t I promise you she would come back?”
“I don’t think you ever did.” Elsa was dabbing at her eyes with the base of her palms. “But that’s okay. Oh, Licia, honey . . .”
“Fuck,” said Vee again, quieter now. “Licia.”
“You can stop cursing. I’m here.” An odd little formal smile.
I could feel the smile on my own face, a true smile, a smile over which I had no control. It was an alien feeling after all this time. Almost an ache.
“Oh, fuck, Licia,” said Vee. “We all thought you were . . .”
“I’m home,” said Licia. “There really is no need to swear.”
“Where have you been?” said Vee.
Licia sat on the bed. “I’m home.”
Vee threw her arms around her sister, crying and laughing.
I could see the weight beginning to lift from Elsa’s shoulders. I felt that same weight begin to lift from mine as Licia sat there, all angular and long.
“Licia?” I said.
“Dad,” said Licia. She was on her feet again, stepping toward me, and I was crying and laughing too, and brushing a stray hair from her eyes. She smiled—the most heartbreaking of smiles—and I threw my arms around her, lifted her from the floor.
“Jesus,” I said. “You must have grown four inches.”
“I guess. Again, no need to blaspheme.”
I set Licia carefully down on the floor. “You’re taller than your mother.” I turned to look at Elsa. “I think.”
Elsa was not laughing. She sent me a look that I could not read.
“What happened?” I said. “Licia, what happened to you?”
Licia turned to face Elsa. “Hello, Mum.”
“Dad asked you a question.” Vee was looking at her sister. Her eyes narrowed. “What did happen to you?”
“Hello, Mum,” said Licia again. “I’ve come home.” She stepped toward Elsa.
Elsa reached out, took Licia’s hands in hers. Halfway to embracing they stopped, the air between them electric. Elsa’s eyes sparked and flashed. I saw the tears that welled there, after all those months of strangulated fear, the long, hard battle against despair.
“Oh, Licia,” said Elsa. “Licia, my sweetest child, where have you been?”
“Safe with friends.”
Elsa drew away slightly, searching Licia’s eyes.
“What friends? What happened, Licia?”
“Yeah, what kind of friends stop you from coming home?” said Vee. “Do you have any idea what it’s been like here?”
“And I do want to talk about that,” said Licia, still looking at her mother. “And why I really couldn’t contact you. Only please don’t ask me. Not yet.”
“Why not?” said Vee.
Licia turned to her. “I’ve been saf
e,” she said.
“What, like safe as in chained-to-a-pipe safe, or safe as in I-fell-in-love-with-my-captor safe?”
“Very, very safe.” But she stammered as she spoke the words.
“Don’t worry,” said Vee. “Not an actual real question.”
Licia laughed, relieved.
Vee smiled. “You hungry?” she said.
“So hungry!”
Vee disappeared from the room.
“So,” said Elsa, “where have you been, Licia?”
I said, “Who were you with?”
“What did they do to you?” said Elsa.
“It’s the same questions again,” said Licia. “Why are you asking me all the same questions?”
“Because we all thought you were dead.” Vee was back, standing in the doorframe, eyes blazing.
“Vee,” I said, “go get your sister some food.”
“Sure,” said Vee. She began to turn. “Although . . .” She stopped. “I mean, at the start Dad and I both thought you were coming back. Mum never did, though . . .”
Licia looked stricken.
“Vee,” I said.
“All right,” said Vee, and headed for the kitchen.
Licia turned to Elsa. “There’s so much I want to tell you, Mum, and I really promise I will. But this is . . . it’s a lot . . .”
I could hear Vee in the kitchen, rummaging in drawers and cupboards, opening the fridge.
Elsa was clasping Licia’s hand, trying hard not to cry. “The holes in your ears closed up,” she said very quietly. “Did you stop wearing earrings?”
Licia seemed to hesitate. Her smile seemed to break; it faded from her face. There was something constrained about her gaze, something apprehensive and lost. Her right hand broke free from her mother’s. Her thumb brushed her right ear, then her nose, then her left ear. An involuntary gesture, strangely nervy. She seemed to catch herself doing it; her smile returned; she took both her mother’s hands in hers.
“Were you safe, at least?” said Elsa.
“I said that, Mum. Always. They took good care of me.”
Vee returned, carrying a glass of orange juice and a plate stacked with cold pizza.
“Man,” said Vee, “the police are going to freak when they see you. Those guys are completely convinced you are dead.”
Licia stared at her sister. She gave a half smile. “I didn’t eat pizza for a year. Can you believe that?”
“I can fetch you some toast instead. Or anything. What do you want?”
“No,” said Licia. “Cold pizza is perfect. This is all perfect.” And her smile could have lit up a room.
And so Vee sat, watching Licia eat her cold pizza, and Licia smiled at Vee, and Vee smiled back, and I began to wonder if perhaps we could be a happy family once more. And Elsa led me into our bedroom and I very quietly shut the door, and we argued in hushed whispers about when to take our daughter to the police. I was certain that now was the time. But Elsa could see, she said, that our daughter was in the most fragile state, and she convinced me to wait a few hours. “If she left us again, Cal, how would we ever find her?”
Thirty-Six
At seven Licia fell asleep on the living room sofa, her arms folded across her chest. Elsa tucked her in with a light quilt, though the day was already hot.
At seven-thirty Franklin padded out of his crib and into the living room. He took one look at his sister and screamed.
“Hey, buddy,” I said. “It’s your sister Licia. She’s home, Franklin.”
“Banda,” said Franklin, pointing at a small scrape on Licia’s hand, eyes wide. “Banda.”
Vee fetched a Band-Aid, which she opened and handed to Franklin. Franklin reached out and half stuck the Band-Aid to Licia’s hand. He smiled. “Banda banda.” Licia did not stir.
I carried Franklin’s high chair through from the kitchen. We threw open the windows and the door to the terrace so we could watch Licia as we ate. Elsa, Vee, and I drank coffee, seated on the edge of the planter, while in his high chair Franklin sucked a smoothie from a plastic pouch. From time to time we would catch each other’s eye, and we would all grin.
“So, Dad,” said Vee. “Aliens or Christians?”
I frowned, not sure what she meant.
Vee mock-frowned. “Which one abducted her?”
“Oh,” I said.
“Christians, right, Mum?”
I looked at Elsa. “I’m not sure your mum’s ready to joke about this yet, Vee.”
Elsa smiled. “I’m going with militant atheists.”
“Okay,” said Vee. She walked back into the living room, sat down beside her sister, unhooked the cloth belt from her sister’s waist.
“Vee,” said Elsa, “no.”
Vee looked at her mother. She opened the bag, tipped it onto the sofa. A few coins, and a simple gray cell phone like the ones Edvard had given us. She picked it up, turned it over in her hand, tapped a number into it, trying to unlock it.
“Vee,” said Elsa, “put it down.”
Vee scooped up the money and the cell phone and replaced them in the bag. “Also, clearly not abducted, or why would they just let her go like this? Seriously, where do the police think she’s been?”
Elsa shot me an anxious look, which Vee intercepted.
“You didn’t contact them?”
Elsa said, “We need to involve her. She needs to feel she’s an agent in her own life.”
“So, when she wakes up?” said Vee.
Elsa said, “Sure,” and the tone of her voice was easy, but for a moment her expression was anything but.
Throughout it all Licia slept, hands folded across her chest. It was dark inside the living room, but Licia was lit by a single beam of sunlight that passed from her feet up her body as we sat, glancing at her and smiling. When the beam reached her hands, her fingers seemed to feel its warmth, began to clench and unclench, then stretch upward until her palms and her fingertips were pressed together.
“She looks like one of those stone saints.” Vee laughed. “Like she’s praying. Or giving thanks. Or something.”
“Yes,” said Elsa. “She really does.”
The euphoria of it was a kind of madness.
Vee was looking at me, expectant. Elsa too. Vee raised an eyebrow.
I said, “What is it, Vee?”
“You really didn’t hear that?”
I looked at Elsa.
Elsa smiled. “The doorbell.”
“Oh.”
On my way to the front door I paused at the bathroom. I checked my reflection in the mirror. How relaxed my face seemed; how at ease with the world. Such a strange, unfamiliar feeling. For the first time in a year I felt no trace of anger, or pain, or fear.
This time I heard the doorbell.
I stepped into the hall. I buzzed the entrance door open without checking. When I heard footsteps in the passageway I opened the front door.
Pavel.
The look in his eyes could have cut stone.
“You do not know,” he said, “what you have unleashed.”
Behind me, in the living room, I heard Vee and Elsa talking easily, their voices full of light and air. I stepped out into the passageway, pulled the door to behind me.
“You did not tell me you would use my footage for this,” he said. “You are happy in your revenge against the police.”
“No.”
“It is not a question.”
I stared at him. He was more disheveled than ever, though his black shirt was neatly ironed and his shoes freshly polished. He said, “I see through your window you are happy now. In your revenge.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
I looked at him. Had he really been watching us from outside?
His phone chirruped. He took it from his pocket, checked the lock screen, and put it back. He waited until I was looking him in the eye. Then he said, “Since your broadcast I have received threats on my life. Because everybody googles Polish helicopter pilots wh
o live in Norway and they find Pavel Lisowski. And eighty-seven of these people contact me to say they will kill me. This is a lot, no? Maybe eighty of these threats are not credible. These are from people who are angry that I did not share what I knew. People a bit like you, only without your good manners.”
“Wait,” I said. “Slow down. It was never—”
“Never your intention?” he said.
“No.”
“Maybe you think I am being paranoid about these threats? Maybe you think I am a coward? And maybe you are right. Maybe even eighty-five death threats are not credible. But two of them are. I think actually more than two. These Andersen men have a lot of admirers.”
“Why are you standing here? Why aren’t you telling this to the police?”
He laughed. It sounded wild and hysterical, bouncing off the tiled walls of the stairwell. He stopped laughing. “You will say, Cal, that you are only telling the truth. But we know—we both know—that you are doing so much more than that.”
He began to walk away from me.
“Pavel,” I said. “You need to tell the police.”
“You think I will trust the police?” he said without turning. “You think perhaps they are good enough for me, but not for you? No, I am going to run away and hide from these people. Like the coward you think I am.”
“I don’t think you are a coward. You did the right thing.”
He laughed again: that same angry, hysterical laughter. Then he stopped laughing and turned, walked back to where I was standing. He brought his face very close to mine.
“To sacrifice me, this is not for you a big sacrifice, I think. But do not sacrifice your family in your quest for truth, Cal Curtis.”
“He made his choice,” said Elsa, when I told her. “He knew that giving Vee the footage could have consequences.”
“Do we need to worry?” I said.
She looked at me as if I were insane. “Cal,” she said, “you cannot allow Pavel Lisowki’s state of mind to become your state of mind.”
Love and Other Lies Page 26
