The Seventh Child (26 page)

When the anonymous letter arrived, he hadn’t seen Severin in fifteen years.

But the old feelings from his days at Regensen resurfaced: tenderness, longing, anger—and something even deeper that no one dared name, not even the bearded men who had tried to analyze his mind when they’d discovered the one-eyed Fool in the creek.

On the fifth day after the letter’s arrival, he sat in the ministry, waiting for Severin’s call.

13

THE BLUE ELEPHANTS

May 10, 2008

The anniversary was fast approaching—only three days left now—and I could feel the tension that had gotten hold of the ministry and the press, which was chasing the scandalous story of the possible fall of Kongslund. The entire nation followed along. It looked as though no one could stop the process.

Many years ago, one night before the departure of another Kongslund child, just before the first verses of the old song about the blue elephants would be sung, I asked Magna a question I’d always been curious about: “How many verses are there in that song?”

“How many do you think?” my foster mother replied.

“Two thousand nine hundred and seventy-three,” I said without hesitating—and I noticed the startled look in her eyes, as though she thought that little girls like me shouldn’t even know such large numbers. Then she said: “Our song will go on forever, Marie. Long after you and I are gone.”

I sank under the weight of this tremendous confidence, though it was not an answer that reassured me in the least.

The follow-up article to the Kongslund story appeared on page three of
Independent Weekend
, and it was so short that one flat hand could hide it, a fact that had not escaped the notice of Knud Taasing’s displeased editor.

He knew they risked having the Kongslund Affair fizzle out before it even got going.

It was a cool day. The wind whipped from City Hall Square down Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard, farther down around the corner by Kalvebod Brygge, and along the harbor front, where the newspaper house with all its grandiose ideals about freedom, equality, and tolerance had once, paradoxically enough, marked the end of the hippie encampment in the houseboats along Tågernes Kaj. They’d all been removed by the police without a second thought. The black five-story building that ran along the harbor basin had always reminded Knud of an oversized building block absentmindedly tossed by a child’s clumsy hand.

“If you didn’t have a reputation, nothing would have ever come of this case,” the editor finally said after several long moments of silence. Taasing knew his boss was dissatisfied with the day’s lead story: “Former Matron Silent About the Kongslund Affair.” While he couldn’t deny that Knud had once been a star,
he’d
never considered his reporter’s personal involvement in cases professionally acceptable.

That same morning, Channel DK had aired the first commercial spot, advertising its documentary about Kongslund, to be broadcast May 12 at 8:00 p.m. Just two days from now.

“Have they got anything we don’t?” the editor asked.

“I don’t know,” Taasing said, staring at the empty cigarette pack
he’d
squashed into a little green-and-white ball. The other journalists were quiet, an expression of the kind of resignation that had recently infused these meeting held around the conference table in the giant editorial office. Maybe the run-off idealists had uttered a vindictive curse on their way out, because nothing seemed to go right for the ailing newspaper. The life force seeped from the editorial staff in small but significant splashes as circulation continued to shrink nearly as quickly as the dwindling staff; the editor of domestic news was only the most recent victim of the paper’s hemorrhaging finances.

Nils Jensen entered the room and stood beside one of the green mobile walls that was too unsteady to lean on. His Nikon camera was slung over one shoulder.

“That anniversary party—can we get anything out of that?” the editorial chief asked. “I think the big
revelation
is wishful thinking. We have to acknowledge that it isn’t going to happen.”

Taasing flicked the crumpled cigarette pack off the edge of the table. “I disagree. But someone
is
putting obstacles in my way.” It sounded strangely formal. “I can’t get through to the Family Council, what used to be called the Civil Registry. I’ve put in several requests for access to the old archives, employee contracts, salary payments—anything they have—so I can locate former employees. But someone is blocking it.”

“Employees who are probably long since deceased, since no one has contacted us offering to help,” said the editor, who hadn’t been hired for his talent in story development but on his promise to raise productivity by cutting overhead.

“Or possibly because they’re not among the loyal readers of this newspaper, if we’ve still got any of those,” Taasing responded.

The editor’s hands tightened into fists. “You can spare us those kinds of remarks, Taasing.” He glanced at the photographer, whom everyone knew had developed a kind of friendship with the journalist, but Nils Jensen just stared at the floor.

“We’ve confirmed that both the form and the baby socks date to that time at Kongslund. And we’re going to see two social workers who worked at Mother’s Aid Society then. They may be able to throw some light on what went on at Kongslund in the sixties. That’s our story for tomorrow,” Knud said.

“And what have they got to say, these two ladies
…
the social workers?”

“I haven’t pumped them on the phone, of course,” Taasing replied, staring at the editor over the rim of his glasses. “That would be extraordinarily foolish.”

“Well, it certainly ensures that we have no idea what kind of story we’ve got for tomorrow—if there even is one.”

The twelve journalists around the conference table all smiled nervously at the editor’s last quip.

“What it ensures is that they won’t be afraid—or talk to anyone who might persuade them to keep quiet.” Taasing stood abruptly. “No wonder this newspaper is going under. He cast a glance at the old panoptical boardroom full of former youth activists and union organizers. “Maybe the fine gentlemen up there don’t think it’s a good idea to bother their old friends in the party and in the administration. Maybe they still want us to be a party newspaper that will do anything to keep its ties to power intact.”

The editor rose so quickly that he knocked his chair over. “Our editorial decisions are based on
relevance
. You know that.”

“Yes, but relevance has eyes and ears, and it understands, better than anyone, when moving in a certain direction is dangerous.”

“You were admired once, Taasing—admired by me too—but then something happened, didn’t it? Maybe—and let me make it very clear that I mean
maybe
—you’re the one blocking the story you seem to have such high expectations of.” The editor paused and took a deep breath before continuing. “Because who the hell dares to believe a story coming from a man who cost two children their lives? Maybe
that’s
the message I’m getting from below, above, and in my gut. Who the hell dares stake an entire newspaper on that foundation?”

Taasing had grown pale, and it seemed as though all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. “I see.”

The words fell from his lips and were gone in a second.

Then a voice said reassuringly, “We’ll get a story out of it for tomorrow.” It was the photographer, who was normally silent, especially with so many journalists present.

They all looked up in surprise.

Nils Jensen, a man who typically spoke only in images and
who’d
called the story sensationalist, continued, “As long as Channel DK is on it, people will retain their interest—until the anniversary—and maybe something will happen that no one anticipates.”

Even he seemed surprised by his statement. But it was unclear whether this was the result of his unexpected behavior or because
he’d
had a revelation.

The sound technician turned off the engine, opened the van door, climbed out, and looked around.

Peter Trøst stayed in the backseat for a moment. Even though the producers of the competing television stations demanded ever more efficiency on location and assigned fewer and fewer people to each news team, the coordinator of news and entertainment at Channel DK still had a sound technician, a cameraman, and a production assistant, like in the good old days.

Closing his eyes, Peter leaned back. Here in the van, immediately before recording,
he’d
always felt in his element. He enjoyed the smell of the leather and rubber, the buzzing machines, and the cigarette smoke that hung in the air—the sense that everything was turned on and ready for action. Channel DK’s retrofitted Chevrolet was nicer and more expensive than most vans in the business, and it had more technology and transmission power than any other TV van in the country, sponsored as it was by the generous parent station in the United States.

He got out and closed the door—slowly, almost inaudibly, as if he were afraid to awaken a creature sleeping in the bushes under the beech trees, but there was no movement and no one in sight.

He looked up. The house stood as it had the last time
he’d
visited it, just a few weeks after his sixteenth birthday. As usual, his mother had grabbed his hand and said, in a throaty voice, “This was your very first home, Peter. Don’t ever forget that.” For much of his life, his parents had tried to do nothing but forget that fact.

The evening before that visit,
he’d
been sitting in the villa in Rungsted with his mother, following a television report from Rebild Bakker, where a group of activists from a political theater company named Solvognen had dressed up as Indians, donned full war paint, and stormed the bourgeois audience celebrating America’s Independence Day. It was his first realization that a simple idea translated into action—and from there to images—could open the television portal wide and reach every nook and cranny of the nation. It wasn’t the action itself that was the miracle, but the fact that the world received it so unconditionally. The day he visited Kongslund for the last time was the day he decided to become a television reporter.

He signaled to the sound technician, who put out his cigarette. The production assistant was already knocking on the orphanage’s front door, even though there was a doorbell. The pounding echoed through the villa’s ivy-clad soul.

According to Magna, Peter had been born at the Rigshospital by an unknown woman
who’d
delivered him at about 7:00 p.m. and then allowed him to be wheeled immediately away. They’d put him in a bed, in absolute darkness, as though he were a piece of fine clothing too fragile to be touched. They’d left him in a world with neither beginning nor end, where
you’d
need very good ears to hear the meek workings of Our Lord on the other side of the wall.

Nine months later
he’d
been adopted, and they gave him the name Peter, the middle name Trøst, and the last name Jochumsen. After
he’d
completed his journalism degree, he began using down-to-earth names because, at the time, it benefitted one’s career to seem like a man of the people, a representative of the working class. Today, most Danes knew him simply by Trøst. Jochumsen had become Jørgensen though he didn’t use that name, and it was unlikely that anyone knew of his path from the orphanage to the mansion, because
he’d
always refused to answer questions about his private life.

Early on, his mother had developed a predilection for the most fragile and delicate plants. Everywhere she planted rare trees and bushes that were supported by a stick or tied with a string to reach the rays of the sun: black poplars, pond cypresses, whitethorn, Japanese cherry trees, a Turkish maple with red summer buds. As a result, his mother banned all common childhood activities like soccer, kite flying, Frisbee, bow and arrow, and even running in the yard, forcing her only son to remain on the bench in the shade of the elm. And this is where he first discussed with My the accusations Principal Nordal had made against him.

Immediately following the scandal, My’s father grew more taciturn than ever. Principal Nordal’s victory had weighed down his otherwise straight back, and by winter he was curled up like a glazed stalk of bulrush. It had shocked My to witness the transformation; for years
he’d
thought that his father was invincible, unbreakable. Sitting on the bench, he confided to Peter the most precious experience of his young life.