The Seventh Child (35 page)

He didn’t have to say that Peter had been one of these few specially chosen children. They both knew this.

“When the room was fully occupied by these favored children, there’d be seven beds in all. They always kept an extra bed ready for acute situations—the assistants referred to this as
the eighth bed
—because it was always prepared to accept a baby on short notice, so that all of the children could spend at least one night in the Elephant Room. One of my sources who worked at the orphanage during the years we’re looking at ticked off the nicknames of these kids as though it were yesterday: the Merchant was Orla Berntsen, she knew, because
he’d
visited the home many times with his mother, who was single and lived in Søborg. And the Wisp—or Buster—that was Søren Severin Nielsen, who also came by a few times. Your friend in Jutland, Nils, went by the name of Viggo, after then Prime Minister Viggo Kampmann. And there was a girl they called Clara after the actress Clara Pontoppidan. As far as I can tell from the photograph, there was another girl in the Elephant Room in 1961
…
”

“Impressive.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t bring us any closer to solving the mystery.”

“Orla!”

The name was spoken with the same intensity he remembered, and yet he started. Nobody (except for Almind-Enevold) addressed him by his first name, and in that tone.

The past became the present in that moment. She stands before him, large as life, just like back in the day, and she holds a small, old-fashioned camera in her hand. She takes his picture before anyone manages to respond.

The driver holds the door for them, but the Almighty One has stopped midmotion and sits for a moment, frozen, his upper body halfway emerged from the car. He doesn’t care to have his photograph taken.

Then Magna wraps Orla in a bear hug and gives him what she calls a royal squeeze. Orla thinks her eyes are a little duller than usual, but it’s hardly surprising given the stress that she and the orphanage have been under lately.

Nonetheless Magna has retained the straightforwardness that is characteristic of her eastern Jutland origins. “You’re just about the last guests to arrive,” she says, and clutches him as though she wants to comfort him; he lets her squeeze his shoulders and arms but doesn’t return the affection. She is wearing a blue, tailor-made suit and has powdered her cheeks as a defense against the hectic hours ahead.

Her successor stands in her shadow. She is tall and slender and for once isn’t dressed in flattering green colors, but is wearing a canary-yellow dress. There is a faint smile on her lips, which seems both formal and ironic. Susanne Ingemann shakes the minister’s hand, then Orla’s—and, finally, the chauffeur’s, curtsying each time.

The two women lead the guests through the living room with its little tea pavilion, out a back door on the northern end of the house, where they turn and walk down a narrow garden path made out of round flagstones.

There are more than two hundred guests on the lawn in front of the villa and even more under the beech trees by the southern annex. A light breeze blows in from the sea, and all the guests hold long-stemmed glasses. A small army of magazine photographers swarm about, taking advantage of this rare opportunity to be granted access to the famous orphanage. There are no children among the guests, and none of the reporters are allowed inside. On the beach itself, a few feet from the old pier, a crane has been set up, and mounted on it, high up in the air, is a camera with a long black lens. On each leg of the tripod, it reads Channel DK.

A group of press people are moving sideways through the crowd and approaching their prey, the main speaker, Ole Almind-Enevold. Most are from the “On the Town” section, and to be allowed in, each reporter has had to pledge to not disturb the joyous occasion with embarrassing questions. The Witch Doctor has recently arrived by taxi, and his piercing eyes are scanning the crowd; perhaps he is hoping to find the anonymous letter writer in proximity of the minister. A little way off, Malle’s tall figure appears among a cluster of older, white-haired women sitting on a bench, no doubt representatives from the heyday of the Mother’s Aid Society.

The minister has made it onto the patio, stopping in the shade under the wide roof between two white pillars. He raises his glass, filled with sparkling Portuguese white wine, and toasts Magna. “You’re still looking after our little blue elephants?” he asks.

“Yes, of course.”

Orla is the only person within earshot, and no one else catches the words in the sea of voices from the garden.

The guests begin to turn toward the patio, sensing the ceremony is about to begin. Conversation slowly dies out. Malle joins the group on the patio, lightly placing a hand on Almind-Enevold’s arm. The aging minister freezes; he does not like to be touched. Then he suddenly smiles, as though he’s received a new cue, and he retrieves a single slip of paper from his pocket. He holds it out at arm’s length.

This was how Orla would remember the Almighty One: it took him only a second to ease back into the role of minister, as though
he’d
never been among mere mortals.

A smooth, momentary, and entirely flawless transformation to being the most celebrated figurehead in the nation.

Susanne Ingemann smiles at the guests. “Thank you all for coming today. Our guest of honor will now address Magna—Ms. Ladegaard—today’s honoree,” she announces in a clear voice.

Her words are met by loud, spontaneous applause.

Without hesitation, the minister turns toward the former matron and speaks directly to her. You can hear his voice all the way down on the shore, because the patio under the King’s Room amplifies every single word. “Time, Magna. Time,” he says, raising his gaze toward the twelve beech crowns that tower above them. “Time is invisible, it is unreal, and some say it doesn’t even exist, and yet”—he looks at her again—“yet it determines everything in a person’s life. In
yours
too. Time and its most faithful companion”—the Almighty One steps closer to the matron—“longing.”

A falling leaf would have made more noise than the guests at that moment. This is the kind of atmosphere that the second-most powerful man in the kingdom could create with nothing more than a few trees, a patio, the sky, and a view of the sound.

He glances at the handwritten note, gestures suddenly with his right arm, and says, “Here—under the beeches—a little girl with cerebral palsy was born many years ago. She was the grandchild of the architect who designed this place and whose ideas, according to legend, were supported by King Frederik VII. Here on the slope the king would take his evening walks, here on this very beach.” The minister pauses briefly and then turns toward the neighboring house, the white façade just visible behind the foliage, and the absolutist king’s story is in full bloom. He raises his right arm again. “Here on this slope he walked
…
the People’s King
…
the father of the Constitution
…
and this house”—he gestures toward Kongslund—“was built during the same memorable years when the Constitution became the foundational law of the kingdom of Denmark.”

The crowd breaks into spontaneous applause. Even a couple of the magazine photographers lower their cameras and join in.

“At this place she was born,” the minister continues, “the little girl whose greeting from the past I’ve chosen to bring Magna Louise Ladegaard. Spastically paralyzed from birth, unable to walk along the paths and explore the hills, woods, and fields, born to be different
…
ostracized. You could call her ugly or disfigured; you could even call her deformed, and you could call her fate and her physiognomy a burden—but you could also focus on her sunny disposition, her presence, and her appetite for life. She was a child with a strength that
we’d
all like to see our children bring into the world—children that this country cannot live without. Let me tell you why
…
”

The minister allows himself a smile before continuing: “Instead of grieving and feeling sorry for herself, she taught herself how to write—and indeed she did. Among many other famous people, a man by the name of Hans Christian Andersen called on the house on the slope to visit the little girl’s grandfather, and that may explain her singular urge to tell stories and express herself. Maybe he helped and inspired her, maybe he even held her hand, very carefully, when she wrote her first words
…
” The minister has conveniently ignored the fact that Hans Christian Andersen died many years before Magdalene was even born.

He pulls a little notebook from his pocket and holds it so that everyone can see it. “When she passed in 1969, here in this spot, she left her diaries to Magna’s daughter, Marie, who is, unfortunately, ill today and unable to attend. I would have asked her to read a particular passage, but I’ll do it myself, and the audience will have to ignore the fact that my voice is far from Marie’s—and even further from that of the woman who wrote these words.”

A mild laughter rises under the beech crowns, and the Almighty One makes another short dramatic pause before continuing: “She wrote this section in the summer of 1945, immediately following the Second World War. As you listen to the words, remember that she was severely disabled. Each sentence took days for her to write. Her name was Ane Marie Magdalene Rasmussen, but she was simply called Magdalene.”

He looks at the paper, and if you didn’t know any better,
you’d
think he had a lump in his throat.

“ ‘Believe me, longing has remained with me all these years. We’re like sisters, we’ve never really been apart, and I don’t think I would have lived at all had it not been for the children at Kongslund. They ran about me, they crawled on my lap, they comforted me without knowing it every single day. But I also see the longing in their eyes, and I know their longing is even deeper than mine. One thing I have learned: rather than experience such longing, I’d prefer sitting immobile in my wheelchair knowing my roots.’ ”

Ole Almind-Enevold lowers the paper. The guests stand still. Even the wind dies down, as if it’s holding its breath. A red light blinks from a television camera resting on someone’s shoulder, a magazine reporter crouches to the left of the patio (he is probably trying to get the trees into his frame), and even the note-taking reporters silently wait for him to go on.

Slowly he turns toward the honoree. “Longing. Magna, that is the secret of your work here for over sixty years. Nobody has fought against longing like you, with all your presence and being.” The minister raises a hand, at once threatening and generous. “These hills, between the sound and the beech forests that have inspired so many Danish poets through the centuries, were home to purebred families with distinguished names like Kaufmann, Nebelong, Ottosen, Damm, Holbek, and Michelsen”—he raises his brows as if to express disapproval—“and then you arrived, Magna, with your little group of children, the offspring of ordinary Danes
…
Jørgensen, Hansen, Svendsen, and Pedersen. Your work reverberated all around Skodsborg and all the way to Copenhagen, and eventually across the entire country. From the beginning, you were part of the Children’s Right to Life association, which still exists and is becoming ever more popular by the day—indeed, is at the forefront of the renewed attention on women’s access to a so-called free abortion in our country. But what was Kongslund’s secret?”

He stuffs his paper in his pocket and looks directly at Magna. “I think your secret was your awareness of this
longing
, Magna. No one knows the nature of longing better than you. It was probably no coincidence that you had the strong blue elephants painted on the walls of the infant room—because in every possible way you’ve shielded the vulnerable with your whole body, your calm, and a formidable stubbornness that characterizes a female elephant protecting its herd.”

A ripple of laughter rolls through the crowd on the lawn. The minister has touched on a dangerous topic—his political hobbyhorse, the restriction of abortion—and left it again. Magna sits with her head bowed. A blush spreads across her neck like a large, torn poppy leaf. She wears a deep green pearl necklace and a purple brooch. Amethyst.

“In this way, you became nothing less than the mistress of longing. For thousands of children, this meant that time could once again move forward. But—and there is always a
but
—as an illustration of this, I’d like to read another passage from Magdalene’s diaries. She wrote it shortly before her death, more than sixty years after her first passage.”

Ole Almind-Enevold removes the piece of paper from his pocket, opens it, and focuses on the text: “ ‘But no one, and no action, can remove longing entirely. It exists in the darkness around us. It is soothed by daylight, but it returns with darkness. The children play all around me, and they show me clearly and shamelessly that I will die and be forgotten. My questions will never be answered, and when darkness falls, I will have no one to direct them to.’ ”