The Seventh Child (63 page)

“Then it’s obvious. He’s gone completely crazy!” the Witch Doctor said. He stood with his legs spread, like a gladiator. “We’ve got him now!”

Malle studied the little wizard who spun his web around everything and everyone. “I’ve already put out a search bulletin for him, but I’m pretty certain we won’t find him.”

That statement caused the minister to stir uneasily in the plastic chair, but he didn’t comment.

“In the meantime you can use the bulletin to discredit his
truthful
description of your absurd treatment of the case of the eleven-year-old Tamil boy,” Malle said.

The Witch Doctor ignored his sarcasm. “That’s to put it mildly,” he said. “We’re talking about an unpredictable and very dangerous man who has gone berserk—in a row house in a nice neighborhood—someone who has lost his mind
…
Don’t try to apprehend him on your own but immediately contact your local police
…
What a card he’s dealing us.”

Nobody replied to the little man. The Witch Doctor’s drawn-out giggle lingered in the room for a moment. Then he too fell silent.

Finally Malle spoke again, “I need full access to everyone involved. Wiretaps, mail, Internet surveillance
…
the terror law gives us warrants for all of that
…
and I need
all of it
.”

Again the minister nodded almost imperceptibly.

At this stage, Malle would get whatever he wanted.

PART IV

DARKNESS

28

ESCAPE

June 27, 2008

I don’t believe the Professor or the national minister ever imagined that such a random event—an anonymous letter with some name on an old form—would shake their houses so fatally and in such a short time.

I remember Magdalene once described the People’s King’s delight in knowing that the construction of Kongslund would be completed just as he was signing the Danish Constitution. “This magnificent villa will be a symbol of everything that is,”
he’d
said. But the monarch’s prediction didn’t bear out, because three days before he was to sign the law, the wind shifted to the east and Skodsborg was hit by a forceful storm. First it knocked over the northernmost of the seven chimneys, and then, just as the crew began repairing the damage, the strangest thing happened: despite an absence of wind, the southernmost chimney crumbled and landed in the driveway in the exact same spot as the first.

All seven chimneys had to be rebuilt from scratch.

That was Fate’s decree, and not even a king could change that.

Orla had arrived at Kongslund late in the evening.

He’d
taken a cab with Severin and sat in the backseat, his face in the shadow like a refugee being shuttled off to the detainment center—and in reality, that’s what he was.

The Ministry of National Affairs had discreetly alerted all police units in the Copenhagen metropolitan area to keep an eye out for the missing chief of staff, without offering any explanation. There was no official APB, but vigilant officers nevertheless sensed that apprehending him would be properly appreciated.

I heard Susanne greet the men but didn’t bother to open my door. She put them in the room that had belonged to one of Magna’s senior assistants, Ms. Nielsen.

The next morning I rose early and even changed a couple of the infants before joining our guests and Susanne in the living room.

It was no doubt the most peculiar breakfast party in the history of Kongslund. Across from us sat the national ministry’s scandalized chief of staff and the country’s most famous immigration lawyer, his diametric opposite.

Orla looked as though he was still startled by his own deeds—broadcast on TV the evening before—and didn’t utter a word. Severin, on the other hand, seemed strangely exhilarated, as though
he’d
finally escaped a prison where
he’d
spent the last hundred years. The Kongslund Affair had somehow liberated him from the merciless idealism that deprived him of any praise, except for the measured nod of morality. Even when some of the most miserable fates in his care obtained asylum, even these lucky few, they often left only a nominal fee as thanks (some even reacted with hatred because he had, with his act of salvation, stripped the last thing they possessed: their pride).

The fifth person to join the table was Asger, who stepped into the living room and paused a moment. His big professor glasses sat at the very tip of his long nose as he stared at the strange group. He sat down at the end of the table. “Have you been filled in on the case?” he asked the two newcomers.

Severin shook his head, but Orla didn’t move.

While buttering a roll, Asger went over the revelations of the last few days, not least of which was
my
responsibility for the anonymous letters. He told them about Susanne’s connection to Kongslund and about Eva Bjergstrand’s letter to Magna—which I had intercepted—and which Knud Taasing and I had investigated while Malle chased the anonymous letter writer.

During Asger’s monologue, Orla sat with hunched shoulders and two pieces of half-eaten bread on his plate, and I couldn’t read in his facial expression anything but the astonishment that had befallen him. I listened for a sniffle but heard none.

By his side, Severin nodded almost cheerfully as he listened to Asger’s explanation. “If only we had the letter that Eva wrote to her child,” he said.

“The letter she
intended
to send but never did,” I corrected. It was crucial that I maintain my version of this particular point.

“Yes. She must have changed her mind at the very last minute,” Asger said.

Susanne bowed her head. I knew what she was thinking. She had her own suspicions. And unfortunately, I was at the center of them.

Asger smiled suddenly and exclaimed, “We’re an odd bunch, aren’t we?”

Orla started as though
he’d
reached the same conclusion that very moment. And then the characteristic sniffle finally appeared.

“There’s five of us here
…
at the table”—Asger stole a glance at the far wall, behind which was the infant room—“and we all spent the first months of our lives in this place. Now we’re here again, and I suppose no one had ever imagined that.” Once again he looked as though he were studying a newly discovered constellation that shouldn’t have existed—equal parts excitement and scientific caution.

I noticed a deep blush in Severin’s cheeks as he listened to Asger. For a second he seemed like a man who took a personal responsibility for an entirely unexpected event. Perhaps his savior’s soul was ready to be filled with fresh feelings of guilt.

Susanne poured Asger a cup of coffee. She glanced at me over the coffeepot as though she were asking me a question, and I halfway expected that
she’d
ask me to explain why we were all here, despite the fact no one wanted to be.

Thankfully Asger began speaking again. “According to Knud Taasing’s source in the Australian embassy, the Danish woman was granted residence in her new country in December 1961. But she could have easily arrived earlier, and I think that must have been the case. Eva Bjergstrand gave birth to her mysterious child in the spring or early summer of that year, and then someone who could pull some pretty powerful strings made sure that she got an entirely new passport—new name, new identity.” He raised his coffee cup. “And bam, an incredibly embarrassing problem solved.”

“Embarrassing to whom?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“To
them
.” It was Orla Berntsen who, to our surprise, spoke for the first time. “To Almind-Enevold and his henchmen, Carl Malle and Magna.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Asger said. “We have to confirm the theory.”

After breakfast Asger retrieved his duffel from the room, and Susanne called for a cab. Her blue suitcase rested in the hallway—under the painting of the woman in the green dress whom Magna had called the Guardian Angel of Kongslund—already packed and ready to go.

I’d spent the evening with Asger in the sunroom, and
he’d
revealed their joint plan: “I’ll go with Susanne to Kalundborg. She’s going to visit her parents on the cape, while I go to Aarhus to see mine.” He stood without looking at me and said, “We’ll have to see if they know anything besides what you’ve told me. There are dark areas in every person’s life, but it should be possible to find the truth.”

For my part, there was no one alive to confront. I hadn’t revealed anything at all about my spying on my former roommates—it would come as a terrible shock, and I wasn’t ready for that reaction—but I could hardly tolerate the thought of missing the final scenes of my fairy tale. Once again I longed for the excitement of crouching behind the bird feeder in Asger’s garden; squeezing unseen through the thicket near the white, pastry-box house, and watching the final confrontation, jotting down my notes—for my sake and for Magna’s. But mostly for Magdalene’s.

Asger had rejected my subtle hint, however, and insisted that I stay with Orla and Severin, who had nowhere else to go. For now, they were to be kept hidden at Kongslund.

Susanne and Asger carried their bags to the cab, and I walked to the pier, as I had so many times before. I stood with my back to the wind—at the very spot where I’d met the best friend I’d ever known—and listened to them drive away.

It was a warm day, and I put out patio loungers for the three of us who remained.

Orla and Severin dozed in the sunshine, their faces turned toward the sound. I pulled a lounger into the shade and closed my eyes too.

The telephone rang around dinnertime. I’d just fallen asleep. The youngest childcare assistant signaled to me from the patio door, a hand to her ear. It was Knud Taasing. He spoke, loudly and nasally.

“I’m with Susanne and Asger on our way to Kalundborg,” he said. “Asger will go on to Aarhus where he’ll be meeting his parents. I’ll be going to Mols—or rather Helgenæs.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t want him to hear the distress that would surely surface in my voice.

Taasing misunderstood my silence. “Did the police stop by
…
?” For a second he actually sounded worried, but perhaps more worried about the story that would save his career than about the two officials on the lam and the strange woman who harbored them.

“No one was here,” I said. A helicopter had actually circled over Vedbæk and Skodsborg for a few minutes late in the afternoon, but I doubted my slumbering guests would have been recognized: both men had been sitting, immobile, with their chins drooped on their chests. They looked like vacationers after a long swim and a lunch with generous amounts of alcohol.

“Did you hear the evening news?” Knud asked. “Our little Tamil friend is the top story now—coming in ahead of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Two reporters from my paper went to Sri Lanka to find him.”

Taasing sounded excited—even though he was heading in a different direction—and out of the corner of my eye, I stole a glance at the man who, by all accounts, had driven the eleven-year-old asylum seeker back to a life of imprisonment or worse. His regrets had come too late. Next to Orla, Severin grunted in a kind of subconscious agreement, but he didn’t wake. His exhaustion had to be immense after twenty-five years of working in the thankless service of foreigners.

“And another anonymous letter has arrived,” Taasing said even louder into my ear. I nearly dropped the receiver.

He sensed my reaction. “No, no, Marie.” It sounded as though he were smiling. “I know you didn’t send
this
one
…
it’s an ordinary letter. But it’s still extraordinary.”

I waited for him to continue.

“The sender encourages me to visit a woman at Helgenæs—hence this emergency trip,” he said. “It looks like a serious letter.”

“A woman at Helgenæs?” I asked the question as innocently as I could. But I already knew the name—and could have echoed him.

“Her name is Dorah
…
Dorah Laursen. According to the letter, she knows something about the Kongslund Affair, and about our mystery
…
”

The word
mystery
sounded a little naive coming from him—as though we were children looking for a little excitement. I wanted to warn him but couldn’t find the right words. And I couldn’t think clearly. I didn’t understand Dorah’s role in everything that
we’d
uncovered, and I had no idea
who’d
sent the anonymous letter. But I hadn’t mistaken the fear that had trudged through the rooms at Helgenæs the day I’d threatened to tell the truth to her son—about herself and about Kongslund.

And I understood at that moment with more clarity than ever that I should have been there when she did.

I should have tried to uncover the pattern that connected the lives of these three peculiar women: Eva Bjergstrand, Dorah Laursen, and my foster mother.