The Seventh Child (4 page)

Orla Pil Berntsen,

Slotsholmen,

Christiansborg Slotsplads, Copenhagen K.

Three lines. Very melodramatic in their multicolored layout.

“I don’t know what’s in it
…
” he said, hesitating. Seeing his middle name made him nervous. He hadn’t used that name officially in many years.

Carefully, the Fly shook the envelope, as though chasing away the worst possibilities. “Maybe it’s just a dead mouse,” she said softly.

“A dead
mouse
?” Orla Berntsen blanched in fright.

“Or animal feces
…
” Her pointy nose twitched as if to sniff out the rot in the mysterious correspondence. Her sweating boss gave off a sweet, slightly nauseating odor. The Fly flew to the window and opened it wide.

If the letter didn’t have this strange aura around it, he would’ve considered it a joke. Instead he felt fear creep in, a tickling feeling in his nostrils—which he recognized from the world of his childhood. He knew a headache would descend on him in a matter of minutes.

“Maybe we should let the mail room open it after all,” the Fly said in a near whisper.

He imagined the headline in
Independent Weekend
: “Top Official Lets Innocent Officers Face the Music.”

“It’s probably nothing dangerous,” he said, grabbing the letter opener.

The Fly emitted a little squeal and eased away from him.

“I’m sure it’ll be a dud, and they—whoever they are—will just get a lot of free publicity.” Once again, he sniffled.

Then he used the fine, arched letter opener that Lucilla had given him as a wedding present in 2001; he hesitated only a second before emptying the contents onto his desk. He had no idea
who’d
sent the letter, or whose fingers had painstakingly folded two pieces of paper around the contents. He blinked rapidly, as though finding himself in bright sunlight, as he held up one of the cloth balls, studying it curiously through his eyeglasses.

“What on earth
…
is that?”

Soundlessly, ever loyal, the Fly mimed his question behind his back. He could almost feel her tremulous breath against his skin as she drew closer.

To his surprise, he was holding a pair of delicately crocheted baby socks.

He stared uncomprehendingly at the peculiar item. He sniffled once, then again, much too loudly, before turning halfway around, relieved to find the Fly still standing there, now more than three feet away and thus unable to determine the envelope’s contents.
A pair of baby socks?
For a moment his mind went blank, and then it registered the remaining contents. With fingers that, to his irritation, trembled as if cold, he quickly picked up one of the sheets of paper, turned it away from his secretary’s gaze, and studied it.

What he saw looked like a copy of two magazine pages. On the left side of the page was a round circle resembling an old-fashioned picture frame, inside of which was a photograph of an old mansion with rust-brown walls. It appeared to be floating in a gray mist that hid both the sky and the foundation of the building, as though it had never been anchored in earthly soil.

No less than seven white chimneys—three on each end and one in the middle—rose from the steeply pitched roof above ivy-clad walls, underscoring the fairy-tale character of the rendering. The tiles gleamed, suggesting the photo had been taken early in the morning, before the sun had evaporated the dew.

On the right side of the page, the anonymous sender had placed another photo, one that resembled a black-and-white reproduction of an old amateur photo: under a Christmas tree that extended to the ceiling, a small group of children sat on a carpet, staring up at the photographer. They were all wearing elf hats. A couple of the children smiled, while others looked solemn, as if unsettled by the scrutiny of the person behind the camera.

Above the photograph, in block letters, were three words: “
T
HE
S
EVEN
D
WARVES
.”

Under the old photograph was the only text accompanying the two-page spread:
The seven dwarves—five boys and two girls—live in the Elephant Room and are all ready to find a good home in the new year!

The chief of staff wrinkled his forehead involuntarily—avoiding the Fly’s attention—and continued reading:
Because the biological parents’ identity can be protected, they choose adoption rather than illegal abortion. It is rumored that famous Danes, whose names and reputations would be damaged beyond repair by prying eyes, have benefitted from the discretion of Mother’s Aid Society. In these cases, it is essential that the names of the biological parents are kept secret
.

“It’s nothing,” he said without being asked a question. He could feel the Fly behind him, curiously trying to see what he was looking at. He covered the two photographs with his arms. “I’ll take it from here.”

Her disappointment was palpable. She whirled toward the door and then stopped.

“It’s nothing,” he repeated, a little louder. “I’ll handle it.”

The Fly—Fanny was her real name—lingered stubbornly in the doorway for a moment before reluctantly leaving; a gust of air followed as the door slammed shut.

He breathed deeply and stared once more at the letter. If she had been there, Lucilla would have warned him about the fear now tightening its grip on him.

Though the pictures revealed nothing—except what was repeated in the short text—he understood their meaning immediately, and he knew what they were of.

Taking a deep breath, he turned to the second piece of paper, which was thicker—entirely white and stiff—and crinkled softly as he unfolded it.
He’d
almost expected another photograph (perhaps even of himself), but what he held in his hands contained no images. It was a copy of a form or official record—the kind the authorities had used since Gutenberg’s time.

There were traces of a hole punch on the left side of the page, and he guessed the original had been removed from a three-ring binder before being copied.

He leaned closer to the paper and began to read. The year 1961 appeared in the top left corner, nothing else. He drew a quick breath as his eyes scanned down a dozen or so narrow fields:
Name. Date of birth. Place of birth. Current address
.

There were other fields for more nontraditional information:
Biological mother. Name. Current address
. Below that:
Biological father. Name. Current address
.

At the bottom of the form, the unnamed authority had included a spacious category for
Name and address of adoptive family
.

It was an adoption form intended for families
who’d
applied to foster one of that era’s unwanted children.
He’d
seen such forms before, of course.

Only one of the boxes had been filled in, the very first one. Someone, presumably long ago, had written a single, still fully legible name:
John Bjergstrand
.

The name meant absolutely nothing to Orla Berntsen, but he thought it sounded a bit strange. A small space was left between the first and last names, and beside it the official had added, almost as an afterthought,
Infant Room
.

He could feel perspiration forming on the bridge of his nose, under his glasses. He turned the paper over and glanced at the back of the page. Blank.

Then he sniffled again and squinted. What was a forty-six-year-old, soon-to-be-separated public official to do with an old form that barely contained any information? He sensed that he ought to know the answer, but he didn’t.

It wasn’t the name itself that was so upsetting—that might have baffled him for a day or two before he forgot about it—but rather something else. A droplet of sweat fell from the tip of his nose onto the handwritten name at the top of the form. Carefully he dabbed at it with a tissue, as though
he’d
forgotten it was a copy and the ink wouldn’t smear.

He stood and turned toward the window, gazing at the rainbow gleaming in the air above the snake’s mouth. He felt more than heard the gurgle of panic that arose from his chest. It sounded as though a prehistoric creature had sought refuge inside his body, much as he had once sought sanctuary from his persecutors in the wetlands.

If anyone had been able to read his mind at that moment, they would have noticed that Orla Berntsen did not ask the most obvious question—the question other recipients of such a strange letter would have asked themselves:
Why did I get this?

After the election victory in 2005, the office of the minister of national affairs had been expanded to almost double its previous size. The country’s second-most powerful man had practically demanded a throne room as a reward for his role in the frenzied election.

Only those in the exclusive inner circle—individuals handpicked by the minister—set foot in his office. They were members of CRL, an association the minister had formed early in his career, though only in recent years had he acknowledged his leading role in it.

CRL was an acronym for Children’s Right to Life.

During the 2005 election, CRL had been a real drawing card for the party, since it advocated for the rights of unborn Danish children, and it reintroduced the position that abortion be restricted to cases in which the mother’s life was at risk or the child would die anyway. Fertility rates had sunk too low and the nation lacked healthy Danish children, conditions that resulted in a burdened social security system and disturbingly low numbers of young people. Increasingly, the labor market was forced to import workers from distant parts of the world. A growing contingent of Danes therefore supported this commonsense approach—which combined practical economics and Christian morality—not least because they felt that increasing the ethnic-Danish population would strengthen the nation against the growing ranks of newcomers. Danes risked becoming a minority in their own country—both the party and the opposition had conjured up this frightening scenario during the campaign—but the party had held the trump card: the minister of national affairs.

Ole Almind-Enevold set the tone for an informal meeting with an uncharacteristic, “Have a seat—and Happy Liberation Day!”

The Witch Doctor appeared in the doorway. He slipped along the wall to a vacant chair; being late and out of breath seemed to be an integral part of the PR director’s image.

“What’s this business about the Tamil boy?” the minister asked, brandishing a thick green folder. With exasperated precision, he tossed it across the table to the department head, whom staff called Bog Man; the hue of his bluish-green skin reminded them of the famous prehistoric man discovered in a bog near Silkeborg.

“What do I need to know?” the minister continued.

Orla Berntsen was relieved that
he’d
not presented the case to the minister himself but had delegated it to the department head, who didn’t dare sit on it lest it blow up in his face. The national minister hated troublesome cases, and
he’d
always had a straightforward approach to them: clear them away or bury them so deep no one will ever unearth them.

Some reporters (and officials) called him the Almighty One—a play on his surname, Enevold, which means “king” in Danish—and most found his systematic efficiency intimidating.

Bog Man held out his hands apologetically. “It’s
only
for your orientation, and
only
if you should run into a reporter from
Independent Weekend
today. They are the
only
ones who care about the case. So far.”

Orla noted how
he’d
used the word “only” three times.

“You can’t possibly think that an eleven-year-old Tamil boy could become a sensation?” the Almighty One asked.

“He might,” Bog Man replied cautiously. “He’ll be the litmus test for the ministry’s decision to expel juvenile refugees who don’t have families. That’s why he’s all alone in a cell at Asylum Center North at this very moment
…
” He fell silent, which was unusual for him.