The Seventh Child (31 page)

To his astonishment,
he’d
gotten a completely different response than the one provided by the former assistant chief of police: “Yes, that surprised me too,” Magna said. “But I got the impression from Gurli that a close friend had recommended the neighborhood to her. And that
she’d
received some assistance.”

“So you weren’t the one who found the place for her?”

“Of course not!” Magna laughed gutturally. “We only took care of the little ones, Orla, my dear. We can’t take care of the adults as well. They have to take care of themselves!”

He’d
never been able to understand the play he was part of. But fear resided in him for as long as he could remember, finding expression in his fingers, shoulders, and facial muscles.
He’d
heard his own sniffling become more and more pronounced, and he worried about the nicknames it might trigger within the ministry.

From Glee Court
he’d
tried to call Magna, but she no longer answered the phone. Then
he’d
dialed Kongslund’s number, but Susanne Ingemann had been quite explicit that Marie Ladegaard did not want to be disturbed—and that she herself had no idea what was happening. “How am I supposed to know about your past, the lot of you? I didn’t get here until 1984,”
she’d
said, her voice vibrating slightly. He could tell that she, too, was scared and was lying.

“I’ve tried to set up a meeting with Marie Ladegaard,” Malle said, as though
he’d
read Orla’s thoughts. “She doesn’t seem particularly eager, but I’ll just have to go up there unannounced. It’s not as though she ever goes anywhere.”

Orla put his glasses on the desk, reducing the former assistant chief of police to a blurry silhouette. He feared his old childhood ally—whose investigative instincts had never waned—would sense the treason
he’d
committed only a few hours earlier.
He’d
broken all trust and every boundary. Orla Berntsen had never thought of himself as courageous. But maybe, when push came to shove, temporary insanity was the most important ally of any traitor.

He feared that sedition was detectable in his voice: that the madness that had made him call Severin and tell him everything clung to him.

The moment Orla presented his name, he sensed the fear in the attorney’s voice. It wasn’t a call Søren Severin Nielsen felt comfortable with, to put it mildly.

But at least
he’d
finally picked up the phone. And despite their longtime enmity, he had agreed to a meeting.

Of course they couldn’t meet in Severin’s office—Orla’s face was far too infamous from the stream of glowing news stories about expelled refugees on Channel DK for that. If anyone spotted the official who had single-handedly designed the administration’s staunch immigration policy at one of the few meeting places in the city for despondent refugees, there’d be no reasonable explanation, and Severin’s credibility would be forever compromised.

Meeting at Severin’s apartment near Dosseringen in Copenhagen was also out of the question, since refugees and their allies tended to show up unannounced, as did journalists seeking a quick human interest story for an otherwise boring Monday paper. Orla therefore chose the neighborhood they both knew so well, and since Severin’s adoptive parents still lived there, they ended up meeting in Orla’s red row house on Glee Court.

Severin predictably arrived a half hour late—ruddy from stress, thin-haired, and smelling faintly of the beers
he’d
drowned his usual sorrows in after work. Two or three depending on how many asylum cases
he’d
lost during the day. Orla held out his hand, but his former friend pretended not to see it, mumbling a barely audible “hello” instead. Both were awkward men, and they walked almost sideways into the house, without looking at one another. They sat on the sofa where, seven years earlier, Orla’s dead mother had lain. It was early in the evening and the sun’s last rays pierced the half-closed blinds. Small white porcelain figurines stood in the windowsill: angels with wings and farm women in white bonnets.

“Did you also get one of those letters?” Orla finally said, breaking the silence.

Severin nodded, placing his letter on the tiled table.

Hesitantly, they edged closer together to study the paper and, surprisingly, Orla felt no discomfort at their physical proximity, which he generally avoided with the aid of large, polished conference tables. Apart from a few formal handshakes, he had barely touched another human being since he impregnated Lucilla.

“The contents are exactly the same,” Severin said. His eyes were as bloodshot as his face, a direct consequence of his knowledge that no rescue team would appear to ensure him and his clients a better world. “The form, the socks
…
the photograph from Kongslund.”

Orla went to the kitchen and opened a bottle of white wine. He put the glasses down on the table. “I don’t understand what it means, Severin. Or even what
Independent Weekend
thinks has happened.”

The attorney continued to stare at the letter. “I don’t think the newspaper has presented any evidence that anything has been going on.” As always, Severin’s assessment was matter-of-fact and sound, something few people associate with an idealistic refugee attorney.

“We don’t know whether Kongslund did in fact
ever
facilitate the adoption of rich people’s children—or try to irrevocably bury their past.” Severin cast another glance at the peculiar letter. “When it comes down to it, it’s just Knud Taasing’s claim—and it’s not the first time he’s done something like this
…
as you know.”

Orla stretched his fingers, but quickly settled them back on his knees before a single distracting crack could interrupt the conversation. “One coincidence is enough,” he said, referring to the form with the scant information about the child with the last name Bjergstrand. “One secret adoption would be more than enough. And I don’t care to
…
” He stalled.

“You’re wondering whether you yourself have a past you don’t know about,” Severin observed.

Orla stiffened, almost imperceptibly, but said nothing.

“You’re afraid your mother wasn’t who she said she was, or that she wasn’t your mother at all.”

With a single sniffle that he didn’t try to hide, Orla stood. “I didn’t say that. She’s dead. But she was always my mother.” He could hear how muddled he sounded.

Severin drank from his glass, as he had at Regensen dormitory before taking his turn in the confessional booth, and before Orla had traded their friendship for access to a career as a top official under Almind-Enevold.

Orla sat back down in the blue chair. “Did you ever call the number you carried around, your real mother’s?” The words left Orla’s mouth before he had time to stop himself.

Severin set his glass on the table and pushed the puzzle surrounding Orla’s mother away. “How do you know about that number?”

“You told me once, at Regensen.”

“I’ve never called, no.”

Orla said nothing.

“It was too late. And then I had my own kid.”

“You said you got the number from Marie, but where did she get it?”

“I have no idea.”

“So you really don’t know anything either. About your past.”

Severin abruptly changed the subject. “Do you remember when I told you about Kjeld?”

“Yes.”

“Besides you, I’ve only ever
…
confessed
…
to my ex-wife, Bente. And I’ve never dared tell my daughter.” He smiled as though to emphasize the irony of this secrecy. He married in 1988, had a child, and started his own practice during the years when refugee numbers were growing exponentially.
He’d
practically never been home.

“Maybe it was really Hasse, my dead big brother, who I killed on the lawn that day. For the second time.”

In that moment Orla felt an overwhelming urge to tell Severin about the episode that changed his life—the night at the creek with Poul and Karsten and the wounded giant who howled in fear, thrashing senselessly about in the muddy water.

It took Orla less than ten minutes to tell his tale, but he could see it shook even an experienced attorney
who’d
witnessed many forms of ugliness. “He was dead when we got back,” Orla concluded. “It was just lying there
…
the eye
…
on a water lily.”

“How do you know that it was your hand that
…
” Severin searched for the words. “Your hand that carried out the misdeed?”

He saw Orla’s fingers slide across the armrest in two slow, nervous circles. It was like nothing
he’d
ever encountered in his own home; his father had reacted to problems by running from room to room, while his mother sat on the balcony dreaming about another child’s life. Or her beloved Småland.

“It’s what I had inside of me,” Orla said, without really understanding what he meant.

“It could have been Poul’s hand. You said he was cruel.”

Orla’s fingers became still. “No, I heard a sound, and it came from inside of me.”

“A sound?”

“Like a waterfall—a waterfall that breaks through a
…
” He fell silent.

Severin furrowed his brow and said, “Do you ever think about the people you harm as an official—today?” Suddenly there was anger in his voice.

The chief of staff stood again, sniffling angrily. “What kind of a question is that?”

“Ever since we parted ways—and ever since the first Iranian refugees generated popular support for asylum and residency in 1985—you and I have disagreed about everything, and we’re from the same place. It has been more than twenty years now, Orla. In the beginning my side won—but now it’s
your
side that runs things.”

Orla sniffled.

“
You’re
the hand that rushes out of the darkness.” In the fading twilight, the attorney’s eyes glowed behind his glasses. “And no,
no one
catches sight of your face or grasps why it happens. But you are the blow that kills an eleven-year-old Tamil boy just as surely—why?”

Orla took a step backward, enraged. He could smell the sweet aroma of defeat on the failed attorney. “How melodramatic you are. Because it’s what the people want. You know that as well as I do. The people have
chosen
the government that protects them best
…
that safeguards the future by protecting us against the foreigners who threaten our national unity. The people have identified the means themselves. You’re simply working against it. Working against democracy.”

“That’s a lie. Every individual Dane would rise to the defense of such a boy. We want to help people in need. Think about the Jews during the Second World War. We came to their aid.”

“The Jews
…
” Orla sensed an uncontrollable anger in his voice. He breathed deeply to avoid sniffling. “All we’re doing is taking people away from their roots, from their homelands
…
Did you like being adopted? He could tell how foolish his analogy sounded, but he couldn’t stop himself. “They’ll wither away, Severin. They’ll die
…
like Kjeld!”

Now the attorney rose from the elegant birchwood sofa, and for a moment his face shone in the dim light like a red moon.

He took a couple of long steps through the living room before stopping in the hallway door. “You can keep my letter. Clearly it concerns you more than it does me. I can’t help you. You’re as thick-skinned in this matter as in all others. It’s a mystery to me how we ever lived in the same place, or that we ever became friends. But that was a long time ago, and tomorrow you’ll be getting my plea for a humanitarian stay for the Tamil boy. Think about your own past—when you raise your hand, Orla Pil Berntsen.”

“He’s just sitting there sniffling, refusing to take part in anything
constructive
whatsoever.” These were words that Malle normally didn’t use, but
he’d
clearly been irritated when he left Orla Berntsen, and he had brought his bad temper with him into Ole Almind-Enevold’s office at the National Ministry.