The Seventh Child (19 page)

Denmark’s Mother
, the caption read.

On the front page of the second section, the newspaper had replaced Ms. Ladegaard with a younger woman in green, Susanne Ingemann, standing on the stairwell before the painting of the lady in the idyllic forest glade alongside the headline: “A Secret Past?”

Susanne Ingemann will be furious
, Nils thought.

“It’s begun,” Knud said, glancing at the paper. “In fact, I’ve already gotten some interesting calls.” He awoke his monitor by tapping the mouse. “One of them was from that big, new TV station whose director I know, or
used
to know in days gone by.”

He stared at an e-mail Nils couldn’t see.

“Peter Trøst is a doer, brutally so, you might say. At any rate, you know how famous he has become in our little TV nation. If anyone can shed light on the matter, it’s him. And that’s fine with me—as long as we solve the mystery first.”

The photographer remained silent.

“We need to go to that anniversary event. In the meantime I’m going to try and track down people from back then. First and foremost the governess, Agnes Olsen.” Knud tapped the image of the capped young woman
who’d
discovered the foundling on the stairs. “It probably won’t be easy with such a common name. It’s as though everyone had an ordinary name back then.”

Orla Berntsen imagined how the two men’s faces would abruptly change the second he closed the door.

He had left the minister’s office as soon as Almind-Enevold had signaled that
he’d
like to speak to his old friend and ally in private.

Nevertheless, he thought he could hear their voices through the thick ministry walls, even through the anteroom where the Fly desperately tried to follow him.

What the hell is going on, Carl?

Damned if I know.

Well, you’re going to have to put a bloody lid on it!

That’s how it would be in there, he was certain. Orla sat down to wait for Malle. It was possible his investigation was nothing more than a precautionary measure, but the minister was remarkably nervous, and Malle’s grave warnings suggested that he felt the same.

What did they know? What did they fear?

Orla glanced at the door. A narrow beam of light filtered in, forming a pattern on the floor like a bent sword; it reminded him of the place
he’d
grown up: the row house near the wetlands. He always thought of doors as highly reassuring, whether tall or short, narrow or wide—and preferably as many as possible. They represented the circulation of air and light, and, above all else, escape routes. Of course the letter had been addressed correctly, and both the security advisor and the minister knew as much, but he couldn’t work out what the connection was.

Why was all of this so important to them?

Orla stared at his white forearms. His pulse was normal, his hands calm. He cast a sidelong glance at the door separating him from the Fly’s domain. It was a secret that very few knew about. The chief of staff’s office—like those of the minister and the department head—had more than one exit, just in case. Officially, there was the one that led to the grand room they called the Palace, but partially concealed behind a floor-to-ceiling curtain was another narrower door that went mostly unnoticed. If you opened it,
you’d
find a tight staircase winding three floors down to a dilapidated stone floor—and there, deep under the parliament building, a low corridor connected the ministry directly to a network of hallways. Using hushed voices, officials called these hallways
the
catacombs
. Only the janitorial staff, as far as anyone knew, had the right to enter them; this group, which consisted mainly of Tamil, Iraqis, Afghans, and Sudanese, had slipped through the needle’s eye of the Danish asylum system and been rewarded with permanent, minimum-wage jobs. Their locker rooms and break rooms were located in these hallways. The ministry, despite accusations of racism and cynicism by its foes, invited the very luckiest ones in. Of course, the catacombs might seem rather cold at night, especially to people from the southern hemisphere.

“You look like the lost boy from the wetlands.” Malle had entered Orla’s office without making a sound.

Startled, Orla’s thoughts of escape vanished.

The security advisor didn’t seem to notice. He came straight to the point: “Be honest now. Do you have any idea why that anonymous letter was sent directly to you?”

“No,” he replied, wondering why Malle thought he wouldn’t be honest.

“Or why the sender went to the trouble of sending a copy to the ministry’s arch enemy? That was quite clever.”

Orla gave the man no answer.

“Back then you were really fucked. The other boys had you by the balls, but we got you shipped off to boarding school and everything got better. We helped you, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” Orla said. He felt the words diminishing him, demoting him to a schoolboy again, admiring a curly-haired police officer who invited him to sit in his office, to wear his police cap, and to build miniature London buses out of prefabricated wood.

“Of course Ole is nervous. What the hell is all this? He’s about to take over the most important job in the nation. The highest office.”

Orla said nothing.

“What worries me are the
little
details. They suggest it’s a very cunning individual, with precise knowledge. A purposefulness you don’t find in fools.
That’s
what worries me.”

Orla realized he might be under suspicion himself. The former assistant chief of police was known for his own brand of cunning.

“The most damnable thing about all of this is that the TV station has the letter now, too. That or someone whispered the story into Peter Trøst’s ear.” Malle stared accusatorily at Orla. “Trøst just left a message for Ole, so of course Ole is all worked up now. It’s one thing if some scandalized little shit paper prints the story, but it’s another matter altogether when Channel DK gets involved.”

Orla remained silent.

“Who the hell is John Bjergstrand?” He sounded almost angry.

“I have no idea.”

“I think you’re lying
…
and I think you have an inkling of what that means.”

Orla had not blushed in many years, but he could feel his cheeks growing hot now. He stood. “If I knew anything, I’d tell you.” It sounded strangely naive, like a babbling, delirious child.

“I hope so.”

“The question is whether or not Ole knows something—since he called
you
.”

Malle stared at the man
he’d
known as a boy. “If he does, I’ll find out. And then I’ll be back.” He stood and then added in a grave voice, “I can promise you that much.”

“Is it a coincidence? With Severin, I mean?” Orla asked. The question was apropos of nothing. Although he had left several messages scattered over three days,
he’d
been unable to reach the only friend
he’d
ever known—and lost.

Malle stopped abruptly on his way to the door. “With
whom
?”

“Severin, the boy from the yellow tenements? The fact that you know him as well?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, without turning.

“The boy with the bandage, Søren Severin Nielsen—the one who’s now the most sought after refugee advocate in the country. Is that a coincidence?”

The security advisor stood motionless.

“Why don’t you ask
him
, Carl, if he got any mail?”

It was clear that his remark had hit its mark. Malle breathed deeply, his back still to Orla, before he replied, “Søren Severin Nielsen isn’t exactly on good terms with this ministry. You ought to know that as well as anyone. But you can ask him yourself.”

“I already tried, because I believe several former Kongslund children received the same letter. I don’t know why, and I don’t understand how you and Ole are involved.” He sniffled, and an indeterminate fear crept into his voice. “But something’s not right.” He fell silent, realizing that he sounded like a child again.

Malle ignored the accusation. “If that TV station calls, if Peter Trøst contacts you, don’t say anything to him. Not a single word. Enough has already slipped loose.”

Orla spread his fingers on the surface of his desk. “Maybe you should investigate whether Peter Trøst is adopted. He’s the country’s biggest star. Maybe it was the
letter writer
who whispered into his ear.”

Without a word, Malle exited the office and closed the door so quietly that all Orla could hear was the sound of the fountain in the courtyard.

9

THE TV STATION

May 8, 2008

Magdalene would say that nothing in life ever goes according to plan, not even in the nation’s upper echelons. The little child, whom the governess had compared to Moses in the bulrush cradle, had found her voice in the country’s newspapers; the big TV stations would follow suit, and with their reports would come anger and indignation from the country’s citizens.

This was, of course, exactly what the ministry feared.

Of all the children I tracked down and kept tabs on after their departure from Kongslund, Peter was the most fragile and peculiar creature—though he didn’t appear that way on television. In his adult life, he did exactly as Magna had predicted in her endless song: he marched over the fine web without ever stumbling or even looking to the side.

Everyone watched him, and everyone admired him.

No one ever dreamed that his life contained the kind of secrets that all the children of Kongslund harbored.

To someone equipped with a strong imagination, the headquarters of Channel DK, a little south of Roskilde, might resemble a stranded spaceship from a distant galaxy, but to more sober minds it was just a modern oval-shaped edifice stretching into the skies. And since the latter held the majority, the building became known as the Big Cigar or simply the Cigar. Critical observers—and there still were quite a few of those among the last Socialists and Progressives whom the station constantly castigated—the nickname seemed fitting for a place that only aspired to increase its viewership and, thus, maximize its revenue.

Every morning, in the mist from Roskilde Fjord, you could see the employees glide from the parking lot, across the lawn, and into the building where they did their daily work. Seen from above, the procession resembled a phalanx of ants marching through a tray of garden cress, leaving only the faintest trail in their wake. No one looked back, and no one doubted the day would be a successful one; everyone showed up on time—bosses, reporters, secretaries, technicians, messengers, and cafeteria ladies—all grateful for their place in the center of the world of television entertainment. Even from his sixth-floor perch, Coordinator of News and Entertainment Peter Trøst sensed the eagerness in the movement of bodies across the lawn.

All the employees of Channel DK were subject to the philosophy outlined by Chairman of the Board Bjørn Meliassen in his proclamation to the Danish people on the day the station was founded: “Television brings us proximity and insight. Television brings us adventure, and it offers us human understanding.”

In his civilian life, Meliassen had held the title of lecturer, but this very first television appearance earned him the moniker of the Professor, and his lofty words were drowned out by the applause of more than one thousand employees of the Cigar. Everyone loved the Professor.

In just a few years Channel DK had grown to become Denmark’s largest and most advanced television workplace. By the spring of 2008 (a year before its astonishing and catastrophic collapse), it employed its own doctor and nurse, its own psychiatrist, and three psychologists—with a clinic on the sixth floor—as well as half a dozen massage and physical therapists. In addition, there were chefs, cafeteria and janitorial staff, contractors, technicians, messengers, and guards—along with a sea of reporters. On the ninth floor, where the chairman’s office was located, there was a movie theater, a concert hall, a large lecture hall, a nightclub, and a cafeteria that was called the Ninth Heaven. This floor also featured a discreet door, hidden to the eyes of visitors, behind which lay the CEO suites, consisting of twelve luxurious sleeping chambers—each with an en suite bathroom, a large oval panorama window, and a balcony with a view of the coast and its many fjords. A spiral staircase wound its way to a beautiful rooftop terrace that featured nine antique benches next to a Jacuzzi and a blue teardrop swimming pool. On the eastern end of the terrace was the employee recreational area, which featured a wild garden with exotic trees, bushes, and flowers, and a small stream with tiny waterfalls. The employees referred to this area as the Garden of Eden—or simply Eden—and the joke was that it was the only Eden anyone ever needed to visit.

God could keep his.

“Maybe we ought to bury our dead up here too!” the union representative had once joked in his lively midsummer-eve speech, only to find himself swiftly relocated to the basement along with the older culture reporters
who’d
been buried alive down there. Nobody made fun of someone as successful as the Professor.

The editor of the culture department was called Might Have because someone thought he or she might have seen him on the ground floor, where he had no business at all. After all, his department was merely a cover to win the considerable public service funds the station received from the state. In the middle of the culture department was an almost soundproof chamber with a lead-lined steel door that all visitors considered the inner sanctum—the very heart of cultural journalism—but which trusted employees referred to as the Concept Room. In this room, young lions who knew nothing about the world but everything about influencing the masses provided the Professor and Peter Trøst with input for new best-selling programs.

Might Have knew nothing about concepts. He was, however, the only one who read newspapers, and for that reason he was the first to notice the peculiar article in
Independent Weekend
about the anonymous letters and the famous orphanage.

It reminded him of a fable
he’d
heard in his childhood. Nevertheless, he decided it was important enough to point out to his superiors. He took the elevator to the sunny third floor and put the clipping on the desk of the news editor, Bent Karlsen. But Karlsen,
who’d
essentially been hired to produce highly dramatic news clips, thought the story would be expensive and inconvenient, one that would require at least half a day of research and a whole day of recording. So he left the story on the oval news desk before he took the elevator to Ninth Heaven to enjoy a green salad. (“We hired him to be a predator, but so help me God he’s a vegetarian!” the Professor had once hissed.)

It was there, on the news desk, that Peter Trøst stumbled upon the article, his eyes drawn to the photograph of the old matron.

He recognized her immediately.

He sat on the edge of the desk and began to read, a rare sight for editors at his level.

Then he went looking for Karlsen, who sat in the heavenly cafeteria drinking seltzer, a shred of lettuce clinging to his smooth chin.

“What’s up with this story?” He set the article in front of his subordinate.

Karlsen stared at the headline: “The Kongslund Affair: What Is the Orphanage Hiding?” “There’s no story. Besides it’s in that crap paper,
Independent Weekend
.” He bit into a slice of cucumber. “And it’s about identity and adoption and so on.” He pushed a cherry tomato into his perfectly round mouth as if to underscore the absurdity of the article. “So we shelved it.”

“We shelved it?”

“We went over it and decided there was nothing in it. There is nothing there.” Karlsen had a habit of speaking almost exclusively in the present tense, because to him the past only existed in boring world history, which rarely made for captivating television.

“But have you
read
it?” Trøst leaned across the table. “Just because it’s in a newspaper. None of our viewers read the papers anymore.”

“Nah.” The news editor speared half an egg with his fork. “But
we
definitely don’t have time to do that kind of story. People have already started taking their vacation.”

“Then I’ll do it myself,” Peter said, demonstrating a spirit quite typical for the young TV station. From time to time, the bosses developed a story themselves if it engaged them personally or carried political significance.

Karlsen cut his egg in half and shrugged.

Peter Trøst left Ninth Heaven and took the elevator down to his enormous south-facing executive office where he could be alone. His secretary was on extended sick leave due to stress, and he hadn’t asked for another.

He gazed out at the landscape west of Roskilde, across the hills and fringe of woods and the dark-brown spots that signified some sort of constructed environment (as in a half-erased map that no one bothered to update). The shocking part about the article hadn’t been in recognizing Kongslund—it was the mother of all other adoption homes and orphanages, after all, and he was far from the only one who knew it. What had shocked him was the description of the envelope: letters cut from the newspaper, the baby socks, and the mysterious form.

He opened and then closed the only desk drawer to which he possessed a key. Hidden in that drawer in the antique birch desk, under an orange spiral notebook, was the very same letter—or an exact copy of it, at any rate. He had received it on May 5—the same date the newspaper and the ministry had received theirs—and in precisely the same type of envelope. He pulled out the mysterious almost fifty-year-old form.

John Bjergstrand
, it simply read. Nothing more.

Had he been specially chosen, or was he simply one of many in the media
who’d
received a copy of the old record?

He hoped it was the latter, though didn’t believe that to be the case.

At first
he’d
simply put the letter in his drawer and tried to forget about it. But the article in
Independent Weekend
had made that impossible. It had brought it, and his entire past, which very few people knew about, to the forefront. His parents and grandparents had told him about the orphanage when they believed it responsible and safe to do so (on his thirteenth birthday), along with what they knew about his mother, which was practically nothing. He had no opportunity to investigate their information and so, ultimately, he had no idea who he really was—a predicament he shared with many other adopted children.

Next to the form were the crocheted baby socks the paper had mentioned. Once they had been white, but now they were gray. He thought of his daughters from his last—failed—marriage. They were now seven and eight years old, and he seldom saw them. He didn’t miss them. He smelled the socks; they smelled of dampness and age, but they had a faint, spicy odor too, as though they’d been lying in a flowerbed for some time. He couldn’t explain that. His mother had never crocheted anything. He had never seen her near anything remotely resembling yarn or thread. He only remembered her pathological interest in the bushes, trees, and flowers in her garden; she knew more about their growth and daily life than about her husband and son.

Adopted
son.

He thought of Knud Taasing, and hesitated. They had grown distant, though they’d often greeted one another (silently) at press meetings over the years (it was easier when they were surrounded by colleagues). They hadn’t spoken since the catastrophe at school: the brutal death of Principal Nordal. To Peter it seemed like an eternity ago.

His fingers tapped in the number to the newspaper. He took a deep breath.

The phone rang for close to four minutes. Maybe
Independent Weekend
had cut the switchboard for budgetary reasons, he thought. Then someone picked up.

He asked for Taasing without introducing himself and then waited again. He hadn’t used Knud’s full name. Very few knew that the reporter was named after a famous explorer of Greenland. Knud
Mylius
Taasing had incited a hell of a lot of teasing at school.

“Taasing,” the reporter simply said when he picked up.

“It’s Peter Trøst.”

“How about that?” Taasing replied.

He always had such composure; with only a second’s notice, the once lauded journalist had managed to put just the right dash of irony in his words.

Peter had drawn a large, misshapen question mark on his notepad and now slashed a line through it. The ball was in his court. “I’m sitting here looking at your Kongslund story,” he said. “I’m thinking about covering it.”

“I figured you might be interested. I am too—since, after all, I know.”

Peter was quiet. Taasing had remembered his story and even had it in mind when he wrote his article. He was one of the only people who knew.

“But you didn’t write anything about it,” he finally said.

“No. In the end, it’s merely a single, distant story. How far back does it go? Thirty years?”

“Yes. I told you the day after my thirteenth birthday.” It wasn’t a response as much as a simple observation.

“Do you think I ought to have mentioned it?”

Carefully, Peter slashed at the question mark again and again, until it was almost black. The present had nothing to do with the event that had once separated them. They’d been boys. “I just wanted to know
…
” He fell silent.

“What else I know about Kongslund. And the matter with the letter.” Taasing finished his sentence for him.

“Yes.” Peter drew an exclamation point next to the question mark. “I believe there’s something to this story, just as you do.”