Love and Other Lies

by Ben McPherson

  “Am I bleeding?” I said.

  “From your cheek. And your lip. And from the top of your head.”

  Twice I put Franklin to bed. Twice he lay silent, staring upward. As I left the room he began to cry despairingly: long rasping sobs, disturbingly adult.

  “You can’t blame him,” said Vee.

  “No,” I said. “You can’t.”

  I was afraid of what the police would say: that I should have kept us out of the public eye, that I had drawn attention to my wife and my children. But when Mikkel Hansen arrived he was nothing but kind and helpful. He interviewed Vee and me together. Franklin sat on my knee, anxiously gripping my thumbs, determined not to be left alone.

  Hansen asked only one question that I could not answer. “Mr. Curtis, where is your wife?”

  But as I tried to find something that worked, Vee answered. “She’s out a lot these days. Drinking and such. With friends. Only she turns her phone off so my dad can’t track her.”

  Hansen looked at me. I nodded. I could think of nothing to add that was not a lie.

  “Perhaps we should write that your wife could not be reached, Mr. Curtis?”

  I could see what he was thinking, though he tried to disguise it: the cuckold and the wife-errant.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll put a uniformed officer at the entrance to your apartment,” he said.

  “We need two,” said Vee.

  “Vee,” I said. “Please.”

  “Dad, she came in through the back.” She turned to him. “The officer at the front should sit in the kitchen. That way they cover both entrances.”

  “All right,” said Mikkel Hansen. He looked at his watch. “I’ll make a few calls.”

  It was half past four. I gave him a key. I closed the blinds on the front of the house, double-locked the front door.

  Franklin, Vee, and I lay on the double bed in my bedroom, arms entangled. Vee kept getting up to peer through the window blind; it was only when the uniformed officer appeared on the grass below that she wrapped herself tightly around Franklin and seemed to fall into the deepest sleep.

  Elsa returned an hour later. She was red-eyed and sour-breathed, her fists clenching and unclenching, her breathing ragged. She had spent the night pacing the shore, she told me later, had come home ready to lay her cards on the table. But she could taste, she said, the tension in the apartment. She knew at once that something very serious was wrong. What cards? I should have said. What do you want to confess, Elsa?

  I was so strung out I didn’t ask.

  We stood in silence in Franklin’s room, where some admirer of the Andersens had stood above our baby’s crib, spraying protect in red letters a meter high.

  Whether or not there was a connection between Bror and the Andersens—and surely there could be no doubt now—we had come to the attention of their admirers. People for whom children were simply a strategic tool in the planning of the coming war. They wanted us to know they could reach any of us.

  There was a worse thought, which I kept from Elsa, though surely she must have thought it too: What if the plan had been to take our baby son?

  Edvard called, offering a place to stay. A cabin farther down the fjord; a place where no one would find us; two hours’ drive. We packed, Vee, Elsa, and I, nodding to each other as we passed in the hallway or the living room, touching each other’s hands, standing cheek to cheek for a moment, then moving on. We needed time to fit dead bolts and cameras in the apartment. I needed time to speak to Elsa. Vee and Franklin needed peace.

  Tvist offered to send a uniformed officer with us to the cabin. We said no, but we did ask him to place officers at the top and bottom of the road as we left, to make sure that we were not seen. I drove, while Elsa sat facing backward, watching out of the rear window. No one followed us. We were certain of it.

  We arrived when the sun was still high above the fjord, bought shellfish from a trawler down by the harbor wall, rowed out in a tired wooden boat to an island halfway across the sound. And later, while our children slept, Elsa and I drank cold martinis and ate grilled flounder and crab from a fire that we made on the stone beach in front of the cabin.

  When I asked Elsa what she had meant about putting her cards on the table she smiled and said she didn’t want to speak about herself, not tonight, that it was all too raw, that she was frightened she would cry and never stop. And there was such sadness in my wife’s smile that I smiled too, and held her in my arms, and we sat for an age, watching the embers of the fire, listening to each other breathe.

  Then we talked long into the night about our daughter Licia Curtis, who was not on Garden Island that day, and about Bror, who was.

  When she fell asleep I went to her handbag, and in its reinforced side pocket I found her pistol.

  I get it, Elsa, I thought. I understand that you would want this.

  I stood for the longest time, looking out across the fjord toward the mainland. The Glock felt comfortable in my hand. Lighter than I expected. Balanced. I returned to the cabin. I wondered whether I should wipe my prints from the gun, but I had done nothing wrong, so I simply put it back in Elsa’s bag.

  Forty-Three

  I put my son in a harness on my back and walked the coastal path. Set out with my daughter in a tiny boat to catch fish from the fjord. Watched my wife across the flames as we grilled mackerel on a fire of driftwood gathered on the shore. I needed to feel the weight of the sky and the sea as they darkened, and reddened, and lightened again.

  But more than that, I needed closure.

  At five the next morning I took the gun from my wife’s gray handbag. I rowed across the sound, pulled the rowboat up onto the rocky beach beside the harbor. I walked into the center of the village, all white clapboard houses standing on piles driven into the rock.

  I was no longer a journalist. No longer a satirist. What, then? I stared at the screen of my phone, wondering what I was planning.

  I drove, windows down, tasting the coming storm.

  The heat haze simmered above the cornfields. Birds perched on power lines. Clouds rolled in. The evening roads were empty and straight, the air electric. My thoughts were full of murder. That man, who had taken my daughter and done with her—what? What had Bror done to Licia, that she had betrayed so many children? How had he turned her mind?

  Make him confess.

  On the passenger seat my phone rang. I looked across. Tvist. I picked it up in my right hand, swiped my thumb across the screen, brought it up to my ear. “Yeah?”

  “Cal, the Andersens wish to return to Garden Island. They say they have extra information they wish to impart. Some of that information concerns Licia. They wish to have the families present.”

  “Oh please. That has to be against pretty much every law going.”

  “Exceptional circumstances,” he said. “I have a free hand.”

  “You didn’t say no?”

  “It’s been formalized by the court.”

  I laughed. “This country . . .”

  “Maybe it won’t yield any useful operation intelligence—”

  “You think?”

  “But it could.”

  I laughed again. “Those men want to extract every last fucking ounce of outraged emotion from us. And you’re giving them that platform. So my reaction to what you’ve just said is fuck them. And fuck the court. I’m sorry. This is a parody of justice. I can’t take part, Tvist.”

  “Your wife has already said yes; also on Viktoria’s behalf.”

  “Then my wife and I will talk.”

  “She tells me you are not at the cabin. Perhaps you would like to come in to see me?”

  “Have you arrested Bror?”

  “Soon.”

  “Then no,” I said. “But let’s talk when you do.”

  At the first wooden sign I reversed up the track a few meters, parked the car at the side.

  I looked at the farmhouse. I could hear the barking of the dogs. I could see
no movement beyond gray clothes drying on a line. A woodpecker swooped between the ash trees that lined the path. I drove an arc across the dried grass of the field, turning so the car faced away from the farm—in case I needed to run. I took the gun from the glove box, held it in my hand for a time, enjoying its comforting weight. Then I carefully replaced it and got out of the car.

  I was no killer.

  The gravel was loud beneath my shoes. Crickets jumped before me as I walked the path toward the farmhouse. It was windless here, the sun beating down, though on the cornfields you could see the shadows of clouds rolling in from the fjord.

  How perfectly Scandinavian it all looked. The split beechwood, stacked neatly in rows; the wild strawberry plants in the meadow, studded with tiny red fruits; the dizzy drone of insects on the wing. Swallows dipped and dived through the orchards. Past the house, near the horizon, a single fighter jet, then another, skirting the shoreline far beyond. A phalanx of white doves took flight, circled the yard, began to settle again in the pear trees.

  The front door stood open. If there was anyone in the house, they could hear me. But all was still. No faces in the upstairs window.

  I stopped five meters from the house. “Bror,” I said, and again, louder, “Bror!”

  Nothing. I approached. That sign:

  You are entering a place of contemplation

  No, I thought. Whatever this place was, it was not that.

  My footsteps echoed off the polished stone floors. Every door was open. Here, just beyond the staircase, was a living room, decked out as a classroom. The paneled walls were painted white. Four benches, placed in a row, and a lectern at the front. Above the lectern an image: an eagle carrying off a lamb. No desks on which to write, and in the bookcases no books. No evidence of what anyone here believed. Not a place of learning. A place of indoctrination.

  The kitchen had been emptied. The refrigerator stood open, light off. Above the sink a tap dripped. I crossed the floor, turned off the tap.

  I made my way toward the staircase.

  “Hello?”

  The house breathed. Wood shifted against wood, beam against beam.

  I began to climb the stairs, quietly, aware of my own breath. Six steps, then a landing, then seven steps up to the next floor. Hung by the landing window was a needlepoint square. A nun dressed all in white holding a small tapestry on which were the words:

  Be simple

  Be pure

  Be true to the faith

  Be mindful

  Be kind

  Be true to the race

  A child’s rhyme, designed to bypass rational thought. Licia had cut the last three words from the print on her wall, hiding from us their murderous intent.

  On the floor above were three bedrooms of roughly equal size, and a large windowless bathroom. There were toothpaste spatters by the sink and on the gray-painted floor, but the room was clean and free of dust.

  In the first bedroom were four single beds, stripped down, arranged at the corners of the room. Two spartan white cupboards gave the only storage space. The second bedroom was arranged identically. Four single beds, stripped down; two plain cupboards. On the gunmetal bedframe was a small green label with the letters rs inked on. I checked the next bed frame. jt. I found Licia’s bed in the first of the rooms. lc, the ink of the letters fading slightly. So she had been living here. Bror had lied about that too.

  I sat on the bed, tried to feel Licia’s presence, but felt only a sadness: That this had in some way been better than life with us. That Bror had made her feel exceptional when we could not.

  My little girl. Did we do you some quiet violence, and not know it? Did we make you feel that good enough wasn’t good enough? When, Licia, you were everything to me . . .

  I checked both cupboards. I ran my hands along the undersides of the shelves, pulled out the drawers, and stacked them by the door. I turned the cupboards on their sides, though I was sure that there was nothing on top of them. I checked the gaps around the skirting boards, began pushing at the floor planks in the hope that one of them would give.

  She had erased herself from our lives. There was nothing left of Alicia Curtis.

  Out in the courtyard I felt the whipcrack and roar of thunder. The air smelled metallic; I could taste it on the side of my tongue.

  I walked across the dried mud to the red-painted barn. Nothing here. No sign of life. I pushed open the great wooden doors, stood looking in. The archaeology of the farm: the broken machinery and the abandoned coal store, the carriages and the winter sleighs: all dead now, their time long past. Enamel flaked from a large white tub that had once fed cattle. Hay stood in neat bales, aged and yellowed. Gasoline stood in rusting red cans.

  In a corner was a gun rack. Four shotguns and a small-bore rifle, recently cleaned. Not comforting, but nor was it evidence of intent. This had once been a working farm. In the drawer beneath I found rifle bullets, and in the drawer beside that, pellets, gunpowder, and shot. Nothing that spoke of the massacre on Garden Island.

  Still the barking of the dogs. They could feel me on their territory.

  I drew the barn door closed behind me, walked slowly toward the dogs. The dry mud was marked with rain now, the first spots from the coming downpour. The barking rose to a frenzy. They could see me. You could feel their movement through the slats, see the height of them, hear the chains that bound them as they dragged across the concrete floor.

  I drew the door gently outward. Inside I could see three looming shapes, black in the gray-black gloom. I stood for a while, letting my eyes adjust.

  To my left was a light switch. I reached out, ready to withdraw my hand at the slightest change in the dogs, but the panting continued. I flipped up the switch. Three pairs of keen yellow eyes; three powerful chests. Their coats were dry, the kennel dusty. A low, guttural, breathy sound. Tendons tight, bodies crouched in readiness. Look down, I remembered. Look to the side.

  “Hey,” I said softly. “Hey, dogs.”

  Bror had left them with water. They had long since knocked over the stainless steel dish, were growing desperate in the afternoon heat. I crouched down and they cowered away from me. As I reached for the dish the animal beside me licked its chops. A dry rasping sound.

  I froze, but there was no malice in her.

  “It’s okay, girl,” I said. “It’s all right.”

  There was a sink in the far corner. They watched as I got to my feet.

  I had put the dogs between the exit and me. Stupid, perhaps, but I had committed myself. I inched forward across the floor. The dogs turned to face me.

  The water in the pipes was hot. I guessed that it ran through a surface pipe in the yard. I stood, facing the dogs, my finger under the tap, trying not to look them in the eye.

  They were beautiful, though. Magnificent, really. Higher at the shoulder than at the hip, with heavy, muscular chests and long, slender legs. Doberman crosses, and fighting fit. Two dogs and a bitch, every nerve aquiver.

  The water was cooling now. I filled the dish, holding it in two hands.

  The dogs began to pace, their chains tangling each other.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Shh.”

  They had their eyes on my hands. I stepped into the middle of the floor, placed the dish down.

  All three dogs stared at me, as if waiting for a signal. I took a step back. Still they did not move.

  “Come on,” I said. “Drink.”

  The bitch approached first. She sniffed at the bowl, then began to lap, paws splayed. The larger male looked at me, then at the bitch, then pushed in beside her. Then the smaller male bent down and began to drink too.

  When I had filled the bowl three times the dogs began to relax. I looked around, found a packet of kibble on a high shelf, poured it out onto the floor. The bitch and the smaller male ate hungrily. The larger male simply stared at me. I knelt down, held out the back of my hand. He sniffed it, then sneezed a surprised sneeze. He turned around twice on the floor, then lay down.
When the others had eaten their fill, they joined him.

  Soon all three dogs were asleep.

  I noticed now what I should have noticed before: in the far wall was another metal door. I opened the door. This room beyond was walled in concrete, not wood. Along one wall was a workbench, scrupulously clean.

  Nothing in any of the drawers. Nothing in the cupboards. Everything was stripped clean, washed down. But there were taps here, and porcelain sinks, and gas burners. And in the far wall, yet another metal door, which I had to bend to enter. How confident Bror had been that I would not dare open it when he encouraged me to visit his dogs. How certain he had been of my limits.

  It was warm in this little room. The air smelled of burnt feathers and lighter fluid. Something worse too. Some memory of the air in town after the bomb, as Vee and I tried to make our way home.

  In the far corner was a pit dug into the mud floor, filled with sand. I stepped forward. The heat intensified.

  I thought at first that Bror had been burning banknotes. There were scraps here, charred at the edges: thin papery sheets, baled together with wire. I reached out, then realized the edges of the bale were smoldering. The charcoal he had used glowed dully. I kicked the bail out of the pit and on to the floor. There was writing on the edge: printed lettering in red and blue.

  I returned to the kennel room. The dogs were sleeping peacefully now, snoring quietly to themselves. I took their metal dish, filled it with water, returned to the fire pit. I doused the bale on the floor, then went to refill the dish.

  The fire-damaged paper was fragile, especially now that it was wet, but I managed to free the outer sheet. It was dark in here. Too dark to read the tiny print. I walked past the sleeping dogs, stood blinking in the harsh summer light.

  It was part of a thick paper sack, heavily charred. I squinted at the print. Phosphate-based fertilizer. Product of the People’s Republic of China. The basic ingredient of so many terrorist bombs.

  I called Tvist, asked him to come as soon as he could. Then I set about finding tools so I could split the chains and free the dogs.