The Seventh Child (34 page)

“So now that the freedom of the press has triumphed, I suppose we can put it behind us, Trøst?” The deep vowels made a hissing noise within the Professor’s chest.

Peter heard his own voice. “No.” Just the one word. Far away he could make out the little town with the peculiar and comforting name of Our Lady.

The Professor visibly held back what was no doubt a brutal reaction, one that any other employee would have felt the full force of. Instead he murmured, “I see no reason whatsoever to pursue this story further
…
so long after something may have happened
…
and we don’t even know what that something might have been. And for that reason, I can’t see how it would appeal to our viewers. Appeal to
our
viewers, Trøst. The whole story seems completely
unreal
—”

“On the contrary. This story is absolutely real—it’s about deception. And the minister of national affairs is involved. His party has had an interest in suppressing the scandal for decades.”

“There won’t be any more programs.” There was an ominous gurgling in the old man’s throat.

“If there’s any significant development, we have to pursue the story,” Peter said. “Everyone expects us to. If we don’t, it’ll only prove that our—that your—relationship with the minister is too close; you know as well as I do that the papers would love to discredit the biggest TV station in the country.”

It was an unmistakable threat. Such a scandal could only be created if someone from the closed world of the Cigar confirmed it. “You think about what you’re doing, Trøst. Think very hard about it,” he warned. “Our ratings have shit the bed; our shares are terrible.”

“That’s the reality for all other stations as well,” Peter said. “And it’s because there’s way too many of us
…
Everybody wants to make TV, but there’s hardly anyone left to watch it.” It sounded like a joke, but neither of the men smiled. Channel DK was about to collapse under the constant pressure to develop new concepts and programs. Stress symptoms had spread like a plague through the building, relegating ever more departments into quarantined zones. Several employees were out sick, while others had gotten into brawls after work at bars in Roskilde and Tølløse. One poor employee had stepped off the train and laid down across the tracks at Lejre Station, while another had tried hanging himself in a hotel bathroom in Gøderup. So far, no one had jumped from the Garden of Eden, but it was a scenario so rife with symbolism that the Professor feared it more than anything else.
Employees at Denmark’s largest TV station jump to their deaths
. Channel DK’s competitors would have a field day.

Peter stood. “I’ll discuss it with the editorial staff, and then I’ll bring a team with me to the anniversary this afternoon. It would be conspicuous if we were the only media outlet not to show up.” He knew the Professor was invited, along with other members of the press, presumably a request from the minister himself.

The only reply was the sound of a faint gurgle from the Professor’s throat.

He left the Professor’s office and took the elevator back to his office on the sixth floor. For a few minutes he gazed out the window at the Zealandic landscape, observing the sound and Sweden in the distance.

Then he changed his clothes and prepared for his meeting with Knud Taasing and Nils Jensen at the harbor. The three of them would drive to the old matron’s anniversary together.

18

THE ANNIVERSARY

May 13, 2008

Naturally, Fate had decided that none of those implicated in the Kongslund Affair were to be left alone. There were far too many tempting threads flapping about—far too many opportunities. And for that reason, I’d sent my regrets to the anniversary when Kongslund invited the whole nation to celebrate the legendary Magna Ladegaard’s sixty years in service of forlorn children. I’d explained that I was suffering a spring cold; after all, during those days of preparation under great, sweet-smelling blankets of newly cut freesia, everyone at Kongslund was sneezing.

If I’d known how silly this last precaution was, I might have acted differently. In any case, the following events struck me just as hard as if the Great Master had found me reckless enough to emerge unprotected on the lawn, among Magna’s decorated tables.

The minister of national affairs sat, his hands folded, next to his chief of staff in the backseat of the service car as they wound their way through Charlottenlund, Skovshoved, and Klampenborg. The chauffeur, a Lars Laursen from Helgenæs in Jutland, drove at a steady, slow pace on the final stretch from Strandvejen to Skodsborg.

Laursen had been the private chauffeur of the country’s second-highest-ranking minister for only a couple of months, but he radiated the unique calm of his home region, and of course that appealed to the minister. It was reassuring to have such a solidly provincial man behind the mahogany steering wheel.

The chief of staff glanced at the minister, who silently stared out the tinted windows. “There’s something we need to talk about,” Orla said with hesitation.

The minister nodded absentmindedly.

“It’s about the Tamil boy who is going to be deported.”

The minister didn’t reply. It had been quite some time since anyone but the prime minister had been able to demand an immediate answer from him on any matter.

Orla fell silent and leaned back in the seat. Due north, a ways out Bernstorff Road, was the villa where Lucilla lived with their two children. Shortly after
he’d
started the job at the Ministry of Justice,
he’d
taken his first vacation ever.
He’d
chosen Cuba because the country’s eternal defiance and its ostracism from world society fascinated him. He was there for the New Year’s Eve when the country celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the revolution. In the midst of all the noise at Havana harbor that night,
he’d
heard a woman’s voice greeting him in an American accent: “Happy New Year!” Her greeting was directed at Che in his blood-red sky of course, and not the awkward man standing on the quay beside her—but she noticed that
he’d
heard her and she laughed along with him. In this way, he came to owe his first and only woman to a Communist revolutionary. Six months later, she came to Denmark and was granted residency almost immediately. It was in 1984, just before the giant waves of refugees began in earnest. They had a baby girl, who was now twenty-three, and after his mother’s death, another girl. He was happy they’d avoided a boy.

“I gather that you know what you’re doing, you and the department,” Ole finally said, interrupting Orla’s train of thought.

They drove past Sølyst, Emiliekilde, and Bellevue, where Orla had gone biking with his mother when the other boys’ fathers drove by car, their hair slicked back, to Hornbæk and Tisvilde with their well-dressed sons.

“Yes,” Orla said. “The boy’s deportation will immediately divert attention away from Kongslund. That’s all there is to it.”

The minister fell silent again.

“Later, we’ll reveal his asylum petition as a big lie,” Orla added.

The minister didn’t react.
Lie
was a dangerous word, whether it came from a friend or foe. And the minister was nothing if not cautious.

“The method is simple. There are many disputes between large and small groups of Sri Lankan refugees—the Tamil and the Sinhalese—and the small cluster of Sinhalese in Denmark will disclose the boy’s case as a big sham, charging that all Tamil refugees are involved in a criminal network that defrauds the Danish state by forging documents and creating phony asylum applications.”

Still no reaction from the minister.
Tamil
was just as unsettling a word as
lie
these days.

“This revelation will arrive at the ministry from a reliable Sinhalese source—we’re already in contact with this man.”

“But if the Sinhalese are at war with the Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka, wouldn’t such a witness be met with criticism?” Ole asked matter-of-factly.

“Yes
…
if he steps forward.”

“Aha.”

“But out of concern for his safety, we will only publicize his tip anonymously—perhaps via a letter or a fax he’s sent us. Of course, we have to protect his full identity. The press will understand
…
It will even
intensify
the drama. In reality, the press doesn’t care about the details—as long as it smells a good story.”

The minister nodded.

“Our source will say that a secret network is trying to get as many Tamils into the country as possible, unlawfully, of course, using illegal smugglers and unpleasant methods,” Orla said.

Ole did not reply. The lie was now being wrapped in the innocence that signals complete honesty. It already sounded like truth.

“He’s going to say that this boy who everyone is bawling for is the very
spearhead
of this nefarious network, that they simply use children to get their parents into the country via the family reunification provision. It doesn’t get any more devious than that. Their goal is to create a large Tamil community inside the country, just as they’ve done in southern India.”

“Goddamn!” The minister breathed through his nose.

“When the press and the public learn the truth, I think we’ll solve the Tamil problem once and for all,” Orla said. No one could eliminate problems the way Orla could.

There was a pause and then the minister said, “And this source
…
he really exists?”

“Yes, I’ve made contact. We’ll be getting a fax.” Orla turned toward his superior. “But there’s one more thing. I think we should let the Witch Doct
…
the PR director bring the idea to a colleague at the Ministry of State. It’ll look better if they receive the information. They’re not directly involved in the case—and the boss doesn’t have our
…
our reputation
…
for being so brusque with foreigners.”

Ole Almind-Enevold stared at the driver’s neck through the tinted window that separated the backseat from the front. The boss that the chief of staff referred to was the prime minister himself. This was dangerous territory—very dangerous.

Orla knew what the minister was thinking: his own chief of staff, his favorite official and the best problem solver in all of parliament, was essentially asking him to nudge the dying head of state into the line of fire. If something went wrong, it would cost the PM his job. If things went well, however, the prime minister would thank Ole for a brilliant plan, and Almind-Enevold’s boss and mentor would never know the danger he was in. One way or another, the plan would guarantee Ole Almind-Enevold’s access to the post he dreamed about all these years as second-in-command. If, at the last minute, the prime minister made a move to pass him by—the sick cannot be counted on to always act rationally after all, and the Kongslund Affair was clearly a worry—the Almighty One could use the Sinhalese plan as blackmail, threatening the damaging revelation that the prime minister had concocted a plan to deceive the public and blame innocent Tamils. It would be the end of his career.

Despite the danger, Orla could see that the minister agreed to the plan, and so they said nothing more to one another on the matter.

It was vital that the minister never formally approve the plan. This way he could deny his participation with genuine indignation.

“It really is a beautiful place,” his boss said, gazing out at Strandmølle Inn.

In front of the old inn, which in the king’s day was a canteen for the workers at the paper mill, chairs and tables had been set out for the summer season. A man stood on a bench with a view of the water; he was not much larger than a dwarf. On his tippy toes he rose and kissed a tall blond woman on the mouth. Her feet were bare and she smiled, and her hand rested on his shoulder. Neither of the men in the car said a word. So many strange things were happening these days.

The service car crested Skodborg Hill and swung to the right down the wide driveway that opened up between two six-foot-high Chinese stone pillars.

Like a whale in a green ocean, the dark-blue Audi dove into the shade of the beech trees and came to a halt in front of the windows Orla knew so well. Next to him sat one of the few people who knew why.

Chauffeur Lars Laursen stepped out of the car and opened the door for them.

“Thumbelina and the Giant!” Peter and Knud said almost in unison at the odd scene of the dwarf and the woman kissing on the bench. The journalists had been driving behind the minister’s car for part of the trip to Kongslund and had witnessed the same strange scene. Since both covered the bicentennial of Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday a few years earlier, they laughed together as they’d done long ago.

Nils Jensen was driving, and he sat alone up front so the two men in the backseat could concentrate on exchanging information and developing a strategy before reaching Skodsborg. As they rolled into Strandvejen, they’d gotten right behind Almind-Enevold’s blue Audi.

“I don’t think they’ve spotted us,” Nils remarked, putting his hand on his camera as he considered whether to snap a shot through the windshield. No one would imagine that the driver of the big Mercedes had grown up in a small Nørrebro apartment behind Assistens Cemetery, where every Sunday morning
he’d
visited Andersen’s grave with his father, who would always recount the fairy tale of the haughty lad who had renounced his own parents by stepping on the good wheat bread so as not to soil his shoes—after which
he’d
ended up in the depths with the Marsh Woman, becoming a statue in Hell. The story had both delighted and terrorized the young Nils.

As an adult, photography had given him access to a much wider world, one
he’d
barely known existed. His talent was in immortalizing the world’s seven horrible but visually striking plagues: floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, hunger, genocide, and war. Recently, his own father (with the constantly blinking eyes of the night watchman) had stood at Gallery Glasshuset and studied a placard of a dying African (a little girl) without saying anything at all to his son. (
He’d
retired and very rarely came out into the daylight, which he found to be ever sharper as the years went by.) Nils had been standing right behind him in a leather jacket
he’d
bought with the exhibition’s honorarium, and which had cost more than what it would take to feed ten African families for a year. His father had sniffed the scent of the expensive material and narrowed his nearly blind gray eyes.

“Do you intend to continue covering the case at
Independent Weekend
?” Peter asked. He was referring, of course, to the paper’s board of directors with their formerly close ties to the administration.

“Does Channel DK?”

The two journalists stared stubbornly at one another, without replying. Neither of them knew the answer.

Knud Taasing was the first to relent. “I’ve found something interesting in one of the sources that knew the orphanage back then. During those years, the Elephant Room was simply reserved for certain kids who enjoyed special attention from the matron and her two assistants.”

“Wasn’t it designated for infants?”

“Yes. All newly arrived children spent their first twenty-four hours in the Elephant Room—where the night nurse could keep a more vigilant eye on them—but most were quickly transferred to either the Giraffe Room or the Hedgehog Room, or to a small bedroom behind the tower that had bunk beds. Only a very few children stayed on and acquired this unique situation.”