“Frederik! You’re going to end up in jail and will never get another job if our meeting with Bernard goes down in flames.”
“But what’s all this about Bernard not wanting my case, and then you call him up and he takes it on anyway?”
“Frederik, stop! You’re perseverating!”
That gets him to shut up. He sits there grumbling, staring at the airbag panel in front of him.
• • •
Bernard’s office is situated in an old half-timbered building on Great King Street. The reception area is small, but modernly furnished and bright. I’ve been here a couple of times and know that all the rooms are like this.
Before we kissed at the apartment viewing, Bernard often alluded to his first year after the car accident, a watershed year when he had to figure out how to deal with everything being different. Till then he’d had a brilliant career in one of Copenhagen’s largest law firms, but if his eight-year-old boys were to have a healthy parent in their everyday lives, and if Lærke were to have the support he wanted to give her, he had to sacrifice his future with the firm.
For a while he tried using a nursing aide and an au pair to help him balance his work and home life. He also got permission to cut back on his hours at the firm, though otherwise he would have soon made partner. But it couldn’t be avoided; he had to make a choice. He chose to quit and join forces with an old classmate to start a small firm that would bring in a lot less money. During law school the friend, Alex, had kept to the periphery of parties and student life; for a few months each year he’d be away paragliding or visiting tropical islands no one had heard of. Yet even though most students seldom saw him, Alex made an impression, for he did surprisingly well whenever he finally showed up for exams with his long sun-bleached hair.
Now Alex lives with four kids and wife number two in Amager, where they share a large rambling house with another family. He still has lots of friends in Africa, and he spends long hours each week doing pro bono work for a fair-trade organization.
As I understand it, they became the subject of intense speculation by old acquaintances when they started the firm seven years ago. Hadn’t the industrious Bernard always been Alex’s opposite? Or were they, beneath the surface, really cut from the same cloth? Some lawyers maintained that they’d always thought Bernard and Alex ought to start something together.
It’s the end of the working day when we arrive, and both the receptionist and secretary have gone home, so Bernard comes out and lets us in.
He shakes hands with Frederik, and afterward with me. Everything in his expression and body language is polite and serious. I wish I could look so composed, but I doubt I do.
Frederik looks at him, then back at me, and then again at Bernard.
Perhaps he sees something that surprises him—but if so, he doesn’t know how to process it. It’s still a novelty for him to be interested in other people at all, or to think of them as having lives when he doesn’t see them.
Bernard leads us down a short hallway to a conference room with expensive but bland furnishings, where he starts reading through the psychiatric report.
The room grows quiet. I can still feel the way his hand clasped mine a short while ago. A large hand, a dry hand—a bit like Frederik’s, but younger and warmer. I can also feel my buttocks and thighs against the seat of this skinny little Arne Jacobsen chair. Hand, ass, the hand between my legs; the lingering sense-memory of him inside me. Almost as if he’s still there, and I let out a small gasp that he must be able to hear. A brief twitch crosses his face, but he doesn’t lift his eyes from the report.
I wonder what Lærke’s doing now. I can’t stop myself from imagining her at the handicapped center. No doubt she’s sitting with a group of other disabled people at some round table where they’re weaving baskets or painting with watercolors, while she waits to be picked up by her amazing husband whom she’s too brain-damaged to appreciate.
I see them come home from the center in their white Volvo station wagon—Bernard opening the door for her, getting out the wheelchair or the crutches, helping her over to the magnificent yard that slopes down toward the woods. There they sit, contemplating the mild summer evening. It’s true that I don’t know her that well, so in my fantasy she says the same thing as when I visited them: We like it a great deal. She smiles sweetly and beautifully beneath her large hat. Language is so rich.
And I see how Bernard was standing last night in the orange light with his pants down. His large erect cock; the feeling that every cell of my body is excited and alert.
“The Medico-Legal Council finds that even though you were somewhat impaired mentally at the time of the crime, it shouldn’t have been abnormally difficult for you to resist selfish impulses.” Bernard gazes intensely into Frederik’s eyes, as if I weren’t here. “That’s because before you had the tumor, you were unusually intelligent, structured, and focused in your thinking.”
That might be the only thing that gives Bernard away—the fact that he isn’t sufficiently attentive to me. After all, I am the wife of the accused.
He’s kind to Frederik, and he’s always been—also back when Frederik was much sicker than he is now. Bernard’s shirt lies a little taut across his shoulders; I know how it feels to squeeze those shoulders tight.
“There have evidently been some problems in using the Iowa Gambling Task diagnostically,” he continues. “In brief, people with orbitofrontal damage are not the only ones who exhibit the irrational behavior that the test detects. There are also many healthy people who make precisely the same mistakes when they sit before the stacks of cards. They too will gamble all their money away, flouting common sense—and the strategy they expressly state they should be using. And that certainly doesn’t exempt them from punishment.”
Frederik asks, “But then what can we do?”
“Louise was correct in saying that there isn’t any higher court to appeal the ruling to. But the ruling is not a verdict. It’s perfectly acceptable for us to contact the Medico-Legal Council and argue that they’ve overlooked something in their report. But that only makes sense if we can point them to facts that they haven’t been aware of.”
“I’ve told them everything.”
“If for instance your secretary were to declare that your personality underwent a dramatic change—or if others who’ve worked closely with you for a long time were to say so.”
“But they’re all at Saxtorph. They work for Laust.”
I break in. “Are you suggesting that we try to get employees from the school to speak up in defiance of the new administration?”
“Yes.”
He looks at me only very briefly before turning his attention back to Frederik. “If the truth is on our side and you did undergo a transformation in the period leading up to the crime, it may be that some of your former staff members will acknowledge it.”
In the moment he finally met my gaze, I saw how capable he is of shutting me out of his life. How he’s a noble person who puts his sick wife before anything else.
We do not flirt. I do not try at all to be charming, and he doesn’t try to look good in front of me either. That’s it. It’s over.
“Is there anyone you worked closely with, who you think we could interview?” he asks Frederik.
“There were three secretaries in the office. If we’re going to ask any of them, we should begin with Trine.”
• • •
No longer can any of us—Niklas, Thorkild, Vibeke, and me—avoid understanding what’s happened. Niklas is always out with Emilie and his friends, while the rest of us lie around in our beds or in front of the TV, sprawling like mournful dogs anywhere there’s a little warmth and space.
Since the auction house has taken my most expensive prints and pieces of furniture, I move around our home bumping repeatedly into big patches of empty space—places where there used to be something I was fond of, where now it’s utterly bare. In a way this feels more real. Frederik’s soul has disappeared, and now everyone
can finally see what we’ve known for so long: that the contents of our lives have been torn away.
But we need to get hold of at least a couch and a dining table and chairs, so on Sunday afternoon Frederik and I drive the trailer over to Thorkild and Vibeke’s to get some surplus furniture from their basement.
In the old days, Vibeke would have baked a nice cake for our visit, but she’s been lying sick in bed this past week. In the old days, I would have then baked a cake to take along, but I don’t feel up to it either, so I buy one at the bakery.
When we sit down to afternoon tea, Vibeke sets out my cake with one she bought. Hers is much more expensive.
“But you knew that I would buy a cake,” I say.
“Yes, but I fell for this one, it looked so tempting. So we have two.”
Fortunately, my inhibitory mechanism is robust enough that I can behave as if nothing’s wrong. But is this the way it’s going to be now? Am I going to be humiliated the rest of my life just because her son ruined me and not her? We’ve only been in their house five minutes, and already I feel the need for a few moments to myself.
“I’m just going to run down to the basement and look at the dining table,” I say.
Seconds later I’m halfway out of the living room, but in the doorway I hear Frederik behind me. “Shouldn’t we all go down there together?”
I curse his obliterated capacity for empathy as they all troop down behind me.
Easy now. Easy. Easy.
I’m playing tennis, the balls on the clay court, the low sun. I want to enter my daydream. I’m sitting in the hanging sofa, it’s evening and we’ve come from the neighbor’s garden party. We’re happy, me and Healthy Frederik. That’s key. It’s Healthy Frederik I want to be alone with. We go on a walk around the lake. And it’s Healthy Frederik.
But the fantasies no longer open up for me. They don’t invite me in—not with Frederik beside me in the hanging sofa, not with Bernard.
In one of the basement rooms, Thorkild and Vibeke have piled up all their old junk. Someplace in the very back are buried a dining table and chairs.
“It’s great that you can use them,” Vibeke says to Frederik. “It’s a good thing we saved them. They aren’t anything special, but it’s the first table your father and I owned as a couple.”
Was I crazy when I accepted this offer? It must be possible to borrow furniture somewhere else. I sure as hell don’t want their furniture in my house after all. It’ll be torture.
The table is hidden behind so much clutter as to be invisible. Frederik brings out some chairs that stand right behind the door. Then he grabs hold of two large moving boxes that also go into the hall, then two suitcases and a food mixer.
Vibeke says, “Stop, stop. We were just going to come down here to look. The tea’s hot upstairs.”
There’s a restless energy in Frederik’s eyes. “But aren’t we going to look at the table? That’s what we came down here for.”
He starts struggling with an armchair. Then a freezer chest.
“Come, we’re going upstairs,” Vibeke says. “Frederik, come along.”
He doesn’t answer, just continues to heave on the freezer.
“Now, Frederik. Come upstairs!”
But he doesn’t join us, and so I have to sit alone with Thorkild and Vibeke.
“Your cake looks delicious,” Vibeke says after we’ve sat down.
“Not as delicious as yours,” I say. “Anyone can see that.”
None of us believes in Bernard’s plan for saving Frederik. Prison awaits, and then the dole. The only one who puts any stock in the plan is Frederik. Then again, it’s impossible to know what’s really what in his inner mire of depression and antidepressants, lack of empathy and ill-timed elation.
My gaze drifts out of the dining room and into the living room, where two of the walls are covered with dark wooden shelves. I’ve paged through some of Thorkild’s books on past visits, when I was trying to disappear from these rooms. A large part of them are history books, with a focus on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Denmark. Despite a brilliant career as an educator, Thorkild sometimes upbraids himself for not pursuing a university career as a historian.
“Wouldn’t you like to try this other cake too?” Vibeke has the cake knife in hand, ready to put a slice of her cake on my plate.
“No thanks, I’m not that keen on raspberry these days.”
Again silence, broken only by the faint sounds of Frederik pottering about in the basement. He and I haven’t left home on this Sunday outing; we’ve brought the mood of our home with us.
Thorkild’s spoon clinks against his plate. His voice is breezy. “You know who your best friends are by the fact that you can be silent together.”
Vibeke doesn’t give up. “I could cut the raspberries off—”
“No!” I say it with too much emphasis, I know.
Then Frederik’s back, and he places on the table a book, on the history of European philosophy. “I found this.”
Vibeke’s already putting food on his plate. “I’m sure you can eat two big pieces.”
Frederik looks at his father and says, “Mia leaves neurophilosophy articles lying around at home, spread out everywhere. So I need something to read as a bit of an antidote.”
“I leave things lying around? Am I the one who makes such a mess? How many times have I had to take your speaker boards and—” I stop mid-sentence, despite my fury; it all seems so pointless.
But Frederik continues unabated. “She’s convinced that new brain research is going to invalidate twenty-five hundred years of philosophy. But the question of free will was the same back then as it is today. Nothing’s new. Nothing at all in twenty-five hundred years.”
Thorkild reaches for the book and grips it firmly, regarding it with fondness.
“If you’re interested, I’ve got some others you can borrow as well. How on earth did it end up in the basement? It really shouldn’t be down there.” He gently strokes the dust jacket, and it occurs to me that I’ve never seen him touch Vibeke that way. He leafs through it and leans over, suddenly engrossed.
Vibeke sets Frederik’s plate before him. “Well, what do you think, Frederik? Do human beings have free will?”
“It’s a complicated question. For the time being, my only thought is that one should try not to say anything stupid.”
Thorkild nods approvingly. It would be impossible to articulate his creed more precisely.
They are like three peas in a pod. The Halling family tone of voice, the conventional, frosty self-righteousness, the cultivated hostility that they’ve thrown in my face for twenty years.
What am I doing here? Why in the world have I agreed to be present at their family’s private party?
Frederik eats quickly and then heads back to the basement. The rest of us follow, and we see that he’s dug all the way through to my in-laws’ first dining table and chairs.
“I remembered this furniture being somewhat different,” I say. “I don’t think we can use it after all. But thank you so much for the offer.”
“Do take it,” Thorkild insists. “Then you can keep it until you find something better.”
And Frederik’s too ill to twig anything at all. He’s got his hands on his hips, just like his father. “Yes, we could keep it till we find something else.”
We go back upstairs with three philosophy books that Thorkild found for Frederik in the storeroom, including one by a contemporary Spanish philosopher. Then we sit down in the living room. I’m aching to get out of here.
Thorkild says, “Speaking of Spanish, Vibeke and I were wondering if there was something we could do for Niklas.”
I didn’t see that coming!
Niklas got Ds in both written and oral Spanish, but all his other grades have been good. When Frederik was a boy, Vibeke and Thorkild coached him to a top GPA; now that their son has failed so utterly, Niklas is evidently supposed to be their next golden boy. And that means accusing me of being
unable to raise my own son.
Vibeke says, “Maybe Niklas could use a little peace and quiet, what with the moving and all. Maybe it’d be good for him to live someplace else for a few days.”
I fly out of my chair. “Stop it now! How many attacks do I have to sit here and listen to before the two of you will let it rest?”
Vibeke looks frightened again. “Is it because of the cake?” she mumbles. “I was wondering if it was wrong of me to buy it, but then—”
“It’s not because of the cake, God damn it! Can’t you ever listen to what I say?”
I’m on my way out the door. “And Frederik! Couldn’t you for once in your life stand up for me when your mother runs me down?”
My cell phone rings. I glance at the display and find myself saying, “It’s Bernard.”
Everyone grows quiet. As if that’s what we’ve been waiting for all along. As if what we thought were life-or-death struggles were just minor distractions till we heard from Bernard again.
My fingers fumble with the button.
“Hello, Bernard.”
I can hear a faint wind, and his voice in the distance. “Do you have a few minutes?”
“Yes.”
No one moves. The others are seated; I’m standing up.
“Can you talk right now?”
“Yes.”
“I’m in Aumessas with Lærke.”
“You’re in France?”
Surprise in the others’ faces.
“Yes.”
“But we just saw you at the office.”
“After you left, I canceled all my appointments. Lærke and I have gone to Aumessas for four days.”
“Is it your anniversary?”
“No.”
He sounds so serious, so different from how he’s sounded to me before. I have the sense that something terrible’s happened.
“Is it Lærke?”
Frederik and my in-laws are still staring at me. But they’re far away now. An old faded photo I quickly flip past in the pile.
Again his grave voice.
“It’s not going so well down here. Not as well as it usually does … It made a deep impression on me, seeing you again at our meeting.”
You Disappear: A Novel Page 23
