The Happiest People in the World (17 page)

L
ocs was sitting in her house, drinking coffee, listening to the sand scratch and brush on the roof, when she got the latest e-mail from Søren.

Thursday, October 7, 2011, 12:05 a.m.

From: undisclosed sender

To: undisclosed recipient

Subject: Re: Broomeville

You write, “I hope you know what you're doing.” I do not know what I'm doing. But then again, neither do you.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, Locs thought and then typed, and then after that she typed several other words and then tried to send the e-mail. But the Internet was down again. It didn't work more often than it did. Why is this happening to me? she wondered. But that was a rhetorical question.

She turned off her laptop computer, then turned it on again. Locs thought of it as her computer, but in fact she had stolen it from a café in Roskilde. She thought of this house in Skagen as hers, too, even though she was just squatting in it. Her Internet connection: she was poaching from one of the other houses nestled in one of the other dunes. Her Toyota: she had not stolen it, and she had not stolen the credit card she'd used to pay for it, but she'd acquired the credit card using a fake passport and a bank account that didn't exist but looked real enough on the application. This was the credit card with the PIN Locs had been told she didn't need; Locs had never had to deal with PINs when she was a secret agent. This was what they didn't tell you about the fantastic life of a secret agent: that it rendered you surprisingly feeble for ordinary life when you were no longer a secret agent. Or as ordinary as a life could be when lived in secrecy and in constant fear of being discovered and assassinated by your former fellow secret agents. Anyway, after Søren agreed to do what Locs wanted him to do, and after she gave him instructions about how he should do it, she drove him to Copenhagen, where she then used her PIN to get a cash advance, used some of the cash to get Søren a fake passport, used her credit card to buy Søren a plane ticket to New York, and then gave him the rest of the cash before leaving him at the airport. Then she got back into her car, feeling very good about herself, very accomplished. That's done, she thought; now I can go anywhere. And yet she was surprised to find herself heading north, back to Skagen, and surprised again to find herself thinking of Skagen as home. I'm going home, she thought. It felt good to think that.

But then Locs tried to use her credit card to get over the toll bridge at Vejle. She put the credit card into the slot, and it shot back out at her in what seemed like an especially emphatic way. A word popped up on the screen. It was amazing how the word
rejected
was so similar in so many different languages. There was a line of cars behind her now, and people were beeping at her. You know you're in a bad way when you make even Danes impatient. It was probably the first time many of them had used their horns. She'd turned the credit card over and blew on the strip, the last desperate act of someone who doesn't want to believe her credit card has been canceled. Rejected again. Locs had ended up digging around in her pockets for kroner and then dropping the coins into the basket just like all the other sad people whose lives hadn't worked out the way they'd wanted and who asked themselves pathetic rhetorical questions like, Why is this happening to me?

But at least she had a home to squat in, a home that someone had abandoned, true enough, but clearly it had been abandoned by a rich person, or a formerly rich person, and in any case it was a definite improvement over the places she'd lived in over the past two years, two years of living in secret and squalor after seven years of living in secret and comfort. At least she had this house. At least she'd gotten Søren to Broomeville. At least he would kill the cartoonist and then she would never have to think of him, or Broomeville, or anyone in it, ever again. She'd been feeling good, and clean, and new, at home in her skin and in Skagen, and in the world, and in fact, she had started typing a letter to Matty telling him these things before she'd started getting all these screwy e-mails from Søren. The computer was fully booted up now, but the Internet still wasn't up, so Locs opened the letter and continued working on it.

Dear Matty,

Your brother Lawrence is a CIA agent. You don't know that because you're too stupid to know that. Although not necessarily more stupid than your stupid brother, who goes by the stupid nickname Capo. He insists he was given the nickname during his time infiltrating the Cosa Nostra in Calabria, but probably he just gave the nickname to himself. Anyway, he's a CIA agent. Doc and Crystal are CIA agents, too. They all used to be active spies. Now they recruit future active spies. Meaning, they recruit your students—not the smartest ones, just the ones most in need of being recruited, the ones most in need of a home. Like me.

You'll notice I addressed this letter to Matty, not Matthew. Because you'll never be a Matthew. I know that now. I'll never be a Locs, either. I'm a Lorraine. Lorraine is not a lovelorn spy. Lorraine lives in a rich person's house on the North Sea. Lorraine does not miss Locs at all. Because if Locs were in this house, she'd be thinking ridiculous thoughts. She'd be thinking not of how happy she was in this house, in between these dunes, next to this blue-black sea. No, she'd be thinking of you and of how much happier she'd be if only you were in this house with her, and since she, Locs, would know that you'd be happier if Kurt were with you, too, then she'd be thinking of Kurt, also, in his room, with his posters on the wall, his dirty socks all over the place. Socks? Posters? Locs was too stupid to live; Lorraine is glad she's dead. Lorraine is better off without her, and without you, too, and once Søren has killed that cartoonist, she'll be absolutely perfect. Although maybe it's possible that Søren won't kill that cartoonist, and that's another reason that Lorraine doesn't miss Locs: because deep down, Locs knew that Søren would fail, and if he failed, which she knew he would, then she would have to go back to Broomeville and take care of it herself. But Lorraine is not going to do that. For one thing, Lorraine is suffering from a little credit card problem, a little cash flow issue, and if she wanted to come back to Broomeville, then she would have to steal a credit card to pay for the plane ticket, etc. And she does not want to do that. Locs was the one who stole credit cards. Lorraine is going to be the one who is going to stay in Denmark, the home of the happiest people in the world, and be happy, and that is basically why I'm writing you, to tell you that I'm never coming back to Broomeville, not to be with you, not to kill the cartoonist, not for any reason, because it's beautiful here, and I have a home, and I'm happy, even if the Internet connection is pretty spotty.

Just then her computer beeped. The Internet was back on, and she had another message from Søren.

One more thing. Why did you not tell me that Mr. Larsen is about to marry the school principal's former wife? Is it possible you didn't know that, either? Is it possible that you were too stupid to know that?

Marry? Former wife? Lorraine thought. Oh, Matthew! Locs thought. And because she was once again Locs, and once again in love, she did not think, You idiot, it's a trap! and she would not think this until it was way too late. Anyway, Locs was just about to start trolling the Web for its large supply of illegal available credit in order to buy herself a plane ticket from Copenhagen to New York when there was a knock on her door. Locs actually went to answer it. Because she was not thinking like a spy, a spy on the run squatting in someone else's house in someone else's country, a human being who never, ever should answer a knocked-on door. No, Locs was thinking, Oh, someone is at the door! She was thinking
,
Matthew, oh, Matthew! And then she went ahead and opened the door like it was her door to her house in her country, and like Matthew would be on the other side of it. She even greeted Matthew in that musical way she'd heard Danes greet each other: “Hi, hi,” she said. And only then did she notice who was standing in the doorway. It was not Matthew, of course, of course, although it was a man, a hollowed-out, clean-shaven, light-dark-skinned old man, a man who was wearing Western clothes—jeans, sneakers, a waterproof blue jacket with the collar up—and who was pointing a gun at Locs. When Locs saw the gun, and when she saw who was pointing it, she felt her eyes go wide. The man probably recognized the look. It had very little to do with the gun. The look was the look white Danes sometimes had when strange nonwhite Danes who were also probably Muslims knocked on their door. But Locs was not a Dane, and this man was not a stranger. Locs knew exactly who he was.

“Your son burned down the cartoonist's house,” Locs blurted out, and to her surprise, Faruk Korkmaz responded, “I know. And yet he did not have sufficient faith in my confidence to share with me that information.” He looked at Locs to see whether she'd understood—his English was the kind of very formal, somewhat mush-mouthed, contractionless English spoken in novels by characters who are not speaking English even though their novels are written in English—and when she nodded that she had understood, Mr. Korkmaz added, “How do you think that makes a father feel?”

“WHERE DID YOU GET
your gun?” Locs asked him. This wasn't merely a time-buying technique. She was genuinely, professionally curious. In her two weeks in Denmark, she'd tried—tried and failed—to buy a gun, by either legal or illegal means. Never before in any other country had she been unable to acquire a firearm. It was the most frustrating thing ever.

“How is that of your concern?” Søren's father asked. Locs was now sitting on a kitchen chair; he was standing in the middle of the kitchen, gun still pointed at her. Locs didn't recognize the handgun model, but it didn't look especially heavy. But even so, Søren's father was holding it with both hands and struggling to do even that. Locs knew from reading Søren's file that his father was in his early sixties; a decade earlier he'd had heart surgery. Then, he'd been way overweight; now, he looked underweight and hunched over, like someone had carved out some important part of the middle of him. When he breathed, his nose whistled. Locs doubted that he'd ever held a gun before, let alone fired one. Which is not to say he would not fire this one now.

“Professionally curious,” Locs said. “That's all.”

“Where is Søren?”

“Well, it's complicated.”

“Where is my son?”

“Søren has gotten himself in some bad trouble.”

“And so have you.”

“Fair enough,” Locs said, and then she thought, If this old man kills me, then I will never hear Matthew say those stupid words again. Meanwhile, Mr. Korkmaz was looking at Locs, obviously in need of some translation.

“What is fair enough?”

“It's an expression.” Locs saw Mr. Korkmaz lower his gun a little. Nothing is more fatiguing than not knowing what someone else is talking about. Keep talking, she told herself. “It's Matthew's expression,” she said, and she watched the gun lower a little bit more, and then she knew, or thought, that everything was going to be just fine after all. “Matthew is the man in America who hired the cartoonist.”

“The cartoonist remains alive?” Søren's father said.

“Not if Søren has anything to do with it,” Locs said, and then she watched as Mr. Korkmaz's mind caught up with her meaning.

“Oh no,” Søren's father said. He lowered his gun almost all the way to his waist and then quickly raised it again. “How do you know everything of this?”

“I just do,” Locs said, and Mr. Korkmaz took a step forward, his gun raised and pointed at her again. “I was a spy. But then I stopped being one. I came here to tell Søren that he didn't kill the cartoonist after all. He must have felt such guilt,” Locs said, trying to make her face sympathetic, wondering how one does that, what that looks like, not really knowing, trying anyway. “I just didn't want him to feel guilty anymore.”

“That terrible man,” Mr. Korkmaz said, and at first Locs thought he was talking about his son. “That awful drawing.” He was quiet for a minute, possibly picturing Jens Baedrup's cartoon. Then he said, “And what became Søren's response?”

“He didn't believe me.”

“Of course. Because you had already lied to him.”

“Well, not me personally,” Locs said, and then she watched Mr. Korkmaz's hands go fidgety on the gun. “But yes. And so to prove that I was telling the truth, I told him, ‘Jens Baedrup is now calling himself Henry Larsen. He's a guidance counselor in Broomeville, New York.' ”

“A guidance counselor?”

“Exactly,” Locs said. “I thought that would be the end of it.”

“The end of it?” Mr. Korkmaz said.

“I tried to stop him,” said Locs. “But your son is . . .” And here she tried to find just the right word to counter any correct sense Mr. Korkmaz might have that she was lying.

“. . . Quite stubborn,” Mr. Korkmaz said, world-wearily, as though he was all too familiar with his son's stubbornness. Locs wondered whether Søren had inherited the stubbornness from his father. She could see Mr. Korkmaz wondering that, too. His face went slack and sad. It is a terrible thing to have a son, to worry that you are the source of all his worst qualities, to have to scramble to find other plausible sources. “Søren's mother died when he was young,” Søren's father said. “Such a death does very terrible things to a boy, as it did to Søren.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You will tell me where I can locate Broomeville, New York.”

“I'll do better than that,” Locs said. “I will take you there.”

Mr. Korkmaz seemed to consider this. He studied Locs's face. How can I trust you? he seemed to be asking. But that, they both knew, was a rhetorical question.

“You don't know these people,” Locs said. “They'll eat you alive.”