The Seventh Child (86 page)

The day after Eva’s death, I began erasing the last possible traces that might connect me to the body on the beach. During the previous days I had—along with Susanne Ingemann—searched for Eva, and an employee at the Australian embassy had told us
she’d
come to Denmark. After that
we’d
tried locating her in hotels, and now I told Susanne that I’d miraculously trailed her to a small Copenhagen hotel at Frederiksberg Allé, but that
she’d
left without paying her bill and without leaving a single clue.

She was irrevocably gone, I said.

But she insisted on going to the main library to read the newspapers. Maybe
she’d
been in an accident, she suggested.

I was relieved that her discovery of Eva Bjergstrand’s death compelled her to demand that we immediately stop investigating the case. And I was grateful for what seemed like a rare, friendly gesture from my old adversary up there in the beyond. Fate had chosen to overshadow that unfortunate push with the greatest act of terrorism the world had ever seen.

Hardly any attention was paid to a mysterious death of an unknown woman on a Danish beach.

I hid the letters from Eva in my secret compartment in the old cabinet and began patiently waiting for it all to blow over. During the following years, I often looked at the letters and read her words to Magna and the unknown child whom I realized had to be one of my companions from the Elephant Room. Every time I read them, I felt the same anger as the first time—and every time my fear of being exposed outweighed my urge to find the man
who’d
destroyed Eva’s and her child’s life.

For the next seven years my hatred directed itself against this unknown man, but I had no idea how to proceed in my investigation. Not until Magna’s sixtieth anniversary approached was I stirred from my trance, which might have lasted my whole life otherwise.

When the newspapers began covering the impending anniversary of Kongslund on May 13, 2008, I understood it would be irresponsible of me to wait any longer. I owed it to Eva and especially her child to locate the man
who’d
ruined their lives. There would be a lot of focus on Kongslund and my foster mother, and therefore never a better opportunity to garner publicity on the case without getting involved myself.

That’s what I was thinking.

On Ascension Day—May 1—I completed the painstaking work of gluing letters on five envelopes addressed to the five boys from the Elephant Room. There was no reason to involve Susanne, who was afraid to do anything.

Since Nils Jensen did not know that he was adopted, I followed a sudden impulse and, out of tenderness, I put Knud Taasing’s name on an envelope, informing him that a letter had been sent to Orla Berntsen, chief of staff in the Ministry of National Affairs as well. I was thoroughly aware of the deep enmity between the two after having followed Orla’s career over the years.

The ramifications of my maneuver were much greater than I’d anticipated, especially since
Independent Weekend
was, at the time, desperate to find a scandal that could rescue the paper from its death spiral. The story immediately became front-page material.

From the beginning it must have been clear to Ole, Magna, and Carl that something had gone completely wrong. Someone had come into possession of this dangerous knowledge and was now trying—in full public view—to open up the dark passageway back to the secret they’d managed to keep for nearly five decades. The minister’s panicky reaction only confirmed the case’s significance to those demanding answers, and it was motivated of course by his position as heir to the kingdom, since the prime minister was terminally ill.

Any suggestion that he was connected to a murderer—and that there was a secret pact concerning the adoption of famous people’s children—would cost him dearly.

For that reason alone, Malle was called in and given a single, urgent task: find the letter writer.

That was followed by yet another task: find John Bjergstrand.

Before anyone else.

As is evident from the Protocol, Magna also panicked; it wasn’t just that she feared the damage to Kongslund’s reputation or her own involvement; she had another worry that, in many ways, overshadowed the others because it was highly personal: me.

The unease I’d sensed in Magna after Eva’s death had been unimaginable, but I’d never understood why it continued unabated over the years. It was as though she no longer dared look me in the eyes and never truly relaxed in my company.

Now, I knew why. She described the reasons for that in the Protocol, and I should have guessed it long ago:

Could this be connected to Inger Marie?

When she read about the mysterious woman who was found dead on the beach, whom she knew
had
to be Eva,
she’d
first believed it was Carl Malle’s doing (along with Almind-Enevold, who had a clear motive), but then a much more logical and eerie possibility dawned on her: the last person to have seen Eva alive might very well have been her own foster daughter—indeed, it was the most likely scenario.

I fear the truth more than ever
, she wrote.

Despite all her well-meaning repair work, I had perhaps inherited my biological mother’s temperament after all. A temperament that Gerda had warned me against, though I’d never understood why.

On the other hand, Magna’s fear also contained all her natural, maternal anxiety if I had indeed committed such deeds: like most mothers, she couldn’t bear to see her child exposed, disgraced, humiliated, and imprisoned.

There are only four more entries in the old book. The first of these is from May 2008—in the midst of the hectic press coverage:

I think the anonymous letter mentioned by
Independent Weekend
frightens Carl and Ole as much as it does me. They don’t know that Eva is dead; no one else knows, because the woman on the beach was never identified.

In one of the following pages—in one of her few dated entries, on May 12, 2008—she writes:

These days I don’t dare read the papers or listen to the radio because I’m afraid to hear confirmation that what cannot happen is happening. I don’t dare leave the house, but stay at home and turn away all attempts at contact. I just pray that no one else will come to harm, and I no longer have the nerve to think about what we started so long ago. I cannot bear to acknowledge what my own pride and vanity has led to. It cannot be true. I really fear for the deeds that my love for Inger Marie has led to.

In desperation she visits Gerda, and here she absorbs another shock. I can tell from her writing that her hand was shaking when she made the entry:

I visited Gerda this morning to tell her about Eva Bjergstrand’s death. I asked her if there was something she hadn’t told me about Eva and what had happened. She immediately began to hyperventilate, and I know what that means.

I had to give her two large glasses of port before she told me the story—and this is the most shocking thing I’ve ever heard. Her story was about Dorah Laursen from Svanemøllen, whose boy had become “John Bjergstrand” when we made the exchange. Five years later, in February of 1966, Dorah called Kongslund saying she regretted that we “took her child.” She spoke to Gerda and her demand was grotesque. She wanted us to provide her with a “new child,” or she would reveal everything. Gerda then decided to act on her own without involving me. To protect me.

It is the most dreadful thing I have ever heard a person say, but I know it is true because Gerda cannot tell a lie. Two days after Dorah’s call, she kidnapped a boy from a baby carriage on a street in Copenhagen and gave the boy to Dorah. She forged a birth certificate and gave it to her as well; she has always been the great artist of this place. I’ve always admired her strength and determination, but I never knew she was capable of doing something like this.

And then my foster mother adds:
In a way she was right. I would have never agreed to commit such an act; it would have meant the end of Kongslund and everything we had built together. Gerda could not let that happen.

At that moment I heard Fate laugh with a rare human tenor, because nothing is more entertaining or grotesque than to see the great advocates of Goodness of Heart sink under the weight of pure, unadulterated brutality—their own.

The very last entry in the Protocol is an angry outburst following the sixtieth anniversary celebration:
Ole had the impertinence to read from a text he referred to as the diary of the old invalid Magdalene. That text constituted the main part of his celebratory speech, and he must have known how I would react.

It confirms what I’ve always known deep down: that he and Malle were behind all the break-ins at Kongslund. They found my copies of Marie’s journals and stupidly thought they were actually the life wisdom of that woman!

That kind of man won’t stop. He won’t give up. Not until I give him the name of his child.

But I can’t. And at this very moment I am honestly happy about that.

That was the last thing she wrote. A few hours later after the anniversary.

The next evening I went to see her. This was after the fight between Malle and the reporters had capsized the whole case, and I knew the battle was lost because the ensuing scandal would drive the Kongslund Affair from the front pages, the TV news on Channel DK, and elsewhere.

I’ve never suffered the illusion that Magna would reveal Kongslund’s potential dark sides to me, but at that point I was desperate. I knew the media coverage over the last few weeks had shaken her. Maybe she would finally talk—if I begged her.

During those weeks, I had no idea about what she described in the Protocol. I didn’t know who John Bjergstrand was; I had no proof that could trap a biological father; and my enemies, Almind-Enevold and Malle, seemed invincible.

When darkness was about to fall, I rang Magna’s doorbell. Her surprise was evident. I never came unannounced. I wanted to say something angry to her, but as usual not a word passed my lips. It was as it had always been in our relationship: she crushed the stems, and the flowers yielded—exactly the way they were supposed to. The scent of freesia clung to Magna.

She set out the coffee cups, placing them soundlessly as always in their saucers, and just when she was about to pour, Fate made another move of the kind that is irrevocable. The question came without warning. I heard my own voice asking: “Who is he, Mother?”

And then I repeated it in a slightly different way: “Who is John Bjergstrand?”

And then a third time, differently still: “Who is John Bjergstrand’s father?”

Slowly, she put the coffeepot down and gave me a strange, almost fearful look. She waited for a long time. Then she said, emphasizing every word and syllable: “Marie, there is no John Bjergstrand.”

These were the exact same words that Gerda Jensen had uttered—and the same words I’d heard in the night air before Eva Bjergstrand fell and died.

“It’s too late to lie now,” I said. “Seven years ago a letter arrived at Kongslund from Eva Bjergstrand, and I
know
Eva is the boy’s mother.”

She looked at me with a tenderness that I didn’t understand. “Yes, Marie. Eva was the mother.” It came out almost dreamily, and that wasn’t like her. “And she had her child at the Rigshospital, in Obstetric Ward B, that’s true—a spring night many years ago.”

Then she told me about Eva’s pregnancy in prison and how she, Magna, had tried to devise a good solution following all the principles of altruism.

She told me about meeting Eva in 2001, and she described her fear of what I might have done that night. Abruptly, she paused in her monologue to ask a question in a voice so anxious that she no longer sounded like my mother: “Did she visit you at Kongslund
…
before she died?”

I ignored her. “Who is the father?” I asked. “Where is Eva’s child now?”

These were the only questions that mattered.

She rose and made her way to the bookshelf. Once again I felt she was evading the most important questions of my life.