The Seventh Child (41 page)

“An accident?”

“Maybe she simply fell. She couldn’t tell anyone, obviously, since she was dead when investigators arrived. But the circumstances made it a
…
special case.” Malle hesitated and then said, “She didn’t have any ID on her. They never found out who she was.”

“There’s hardly anything unusual about that. She was a tourist passing through. Or maybe just a person wanting to commit suicide, who didn’t want to be identified.”

“They discovered certain things—out there on the beach that morning,” Malle said, ignoring the minister’s interjection. “And that’s what bothered the chief inspector. He sent a list of his findings to the FBI to get some assistance, but this was right after the terror attacks on September 11—and of course the FBI didn’t have any background to interpret the clues they found
…
if they even were clues.”

“It’s not like you to speak in riddles, Carl. What the hell are you talking about
…
clues?” the minister said impatiently.

“Yes. Next to the body was an old science-fiction novel, a branch that had evidently been sawed off a tree and carried to the beach, and a short rope knotted in a noose. But the most peculiar thing they found was a canary with a broken neck. The woman’s head had struck a rock when
she’d
fallen, and it was practically the only rock on the entire beach. One of her eyes had been smashed in.”

“And?” The minister’s arrogance returned.

“Well, I’m just wondering whether all this is significant in a way I ought to understand
…
I just can’t grasp it.” Malle stalled and glanced at the ceiling as though for assistance.

The minister leaned back in his antique chair that had been so carefully carved by the famed cabinetmakers, Andreas and Severin Jensen. “
You’d
have to possess exceptional talent to find the connections in all of that, Carl. Were there other cases?”

“No. I already checked that out.”

“So what’s it got to do with Kongslund?”

“The final clue was in the woman’s pocket.”

“Yes?” The minister sounded both captivated and irritated at the same time.

“It was a photograph. A small black-and-white photograph”—Malle leaned in closer—“of Kongslund. And it was exactly the same photo the anonymous letter writer distributed a month ago. That was the photo the inspector recognized in the paper.”

This information shook the minister, it was clear. Nevertheless he tried to pass it off. “But numerous adopted children could have found a copy of some random picture of Kongslund.”

“Exactly the same?”

“Yes, of course.”

“But, eh, there’s one more thing
…
”

“Yes?”

“They didn’t think the woman was Danish. They examined the clothes.” Malle let the comment linger.

The minister went pale. He didn’t even have to ask his security advisor to continue.

Malle nodded. “Yes. They thought she might be from New Zealand or”—he paused dramatically—“Australia.”

“No!” Almind-Enevold’s outburst was genuine.

“That, of course, is what we should really be concerned about.”

21

LETTER FROM THE PAST

April 24, 2001

I should have understood Fate’s natural aversion to the symmetry that is humankind’s defense against uncertainty. I should have seen the signs that it had awoken in its heavenly bed once again to prove to the living and the dead that the world is not ruled by immense chance alone. Of course not.

For more than four decades, Magdalene’s words in the small, handwritten journals had served as the sole echo of Kongslund’s unknown past, and I thought it would stay like that. But then Fate raised its hand and pointed directly through the clouds—at me—and I knew right away that it was too late to escape.

Eva Bjergstrand’s final words reached me on an April morning in 2001. Out of nowhere. The letter lay on the brown doormat in the hallway, under the painting of the woman in the green dress. I should have left it there, but in the most reckless moment of my life, I did exactly what Fate had dreamed about, had waited for.

One of the stamps on the envelope depicted the Sydney Opera House, the other a leaping kangaroo in a gray-yellow desert landscape. The stamps were large and impressive, just like the country they represented, but I knew from my brief time as a six-year-old stamp collector that Australian stamps were rarely valuable. And the bigger they were, the less value they held.

This absurd thought struck me as I stood there in the hallway.

As I recall the moment, I felt an instinctive discomfort about the letter—but this may have been a later attribution as a result of the catastrophic events it triggered. The address had been hand printed. In a sense it had arrived at the right place, but the mail carrier in his haste had overlooked the difference between my name and the one that was actually on the envelope, Martha Ladegaard. My foster mother had retired in 1989 and had moved from Kongslund to an apartment in Skodsborg farther up Strandvejen. The letter had, of course, been intended for her.

I stood for a long time studying the letter and contemplating its contents. It had been postmarked on the other side of the planet a week earlier, on April 17, 2001.

Most likely, the sender was a former Kongslund child or a thankful adoptive family that was sending a happy greeting from a new continent—but for some reason, I didn’t think that was the case.

I took the envelope up to the King’s Room and sat on the bed. My deformed fingers trembled faintly, like small pieces of confetti in the breeze, when I finally tore the letter open. Maybe I sensed the fear already at that moment, or maybe it didn’t set in until I started reading—it’s hard to say now because it feels as though the words have always been with me.

There was a single piece of paper in the envelope, with writing on both sides. The paper had been folded around another envelope, smaller than the first and entirely white. On the front the sender had written in a clumsy hand only two words:
My child
.

I looked at the single piece of paper, which in contrast to the envelope was pretty ordinary, not intended for airmail. I registered this little illogical detail in the right part of my brain for posterity. Perhaps the detail would tell me something about the sender that might be useful in the future.

The letter itself was dated April 13, four days prior to the date on the stamp. On the bottom of the second page, the sender had written her name:
Sincerely yours, Eva Bjergstrand
.

It didn’t ring any bells at the time.

Under the name were a few more sentences:
P.S. I hope you do not take offense that I contact you after all these years. I trust that everything can be taken care of to the benefit of all and without too much hassle. I look forward to your response.

I could have folded up the paper and left it, unread, on my table. I could have taken it to Magna the next time I went to the baker in Skodsborg, but that wasn’t the kind of person I was.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, when time cannot be unspooled, I wish with all my heart that I had never seen the letter. That I’d never read it. That I’d given it to my foster mother, because then no one would have ever found it, and it would have almost surely prevented all the horrible things that have happened since.

On the other hand, the letter offered me insight into a world I didn’t know about, but which I was very curious to discover. It was like putting Magdalene’s long, royal telescope to my eye and staring straight into an age everyone believed was past and forgotten and therefore didn’t want to talk about.

What I saw was my home, four decades ago—and what I heard was a voice that had been silent almost as long.

I couldn’t have stopped even if the very guardian of the holy grail of Goodness had climbed onto my crooked shoulder and in a thundering voice had shouted a warning into my ear:
Stop! You’re stepping into a world that does not belong to you! Stop! For God’s sake!

I couldn’t resist the temptation to wander directly through the open door.

Dear Ms. Martha Magnolia Ladegaard (Magna),

In the hope that this letter will reach you and will be read in the spirit in which it was written, I now find the courage to write the words that have long been on my mind.

For forty years I’ve been thinking about Kongslund. Not like a shadow or echo of the past but very much present, as clear as the days back in 1961 when we discussed what was going to happen. About the pardon and the adoption, and that I had to leave the country and start a new life. As I write this, I am looking at your Christmas greeting from 1961, with the photo of the “seven little dwarves.” I can only envy them their innocence and their happy eyes under their elf hats. If one of them is mine, and I am certain that is the case, you didn’t write to tell me, and of course I know why. They must have all been adopted during the months that followed.

Perhaps it is wrong of me to write you. Perhaps I ought to put my pen down. I’m not writing to try to change anything or to accuse you of making a mistake. On the contrary, I think you did what you did with the best of intentions—hoping to give us all a chance of starting afresh. My child and its adoptive parents. And me.

As you see, I am writing these words on Good Friday, and as you know, this is a very special day for me. Do you remember how we laughed at the strange coincidence that I was born on the day of death commemorated by all Christians! When I was a child, my birthday often fell during Easter when it was still freezing, leaving even the raucous street that I grew up on silent as the grave.

Not a day passes that I don’t think about my child. We have to forget everything, you said. That was the promise we made one another for the sake of my child. To this day I have kept my word. I’ve done my best to forget and almost succeeded at times. I’ve often asked myself whether we had any other choice, but I never found the answer.

Though time does not heal all wounds, even grief becomes a habit. But as is always the case, it doesn’t take much for it to return, and that’s why I am writing this letter. Right before Easter, when the past is always closer than otherwise, I happened to walk though Adelaide. Often, Danish tourists sit in front of the old hotel reading the magazines and newspapers that the pilots and stewardesses brought with them from Denmark. One of them had left a paper on the bench, and I gave in to the urge to hear news from my native country. Normally I never do that.

I saw a lengthy article about a wedding in Holmen’s Church, and in one of the pictures of the guests I recognized the father of my child. It was taken at Slotsholm on April 7. It was a shock. I could still see, quite vividly, his face in the visitor’s room, and I could hear his voice talk to me until I could no longer resist.

God forgive me, Ms. Ladegaard, but on this very day when Jesus was crucified, I ask you: What right does he have to all the happiness he has had? What right does he have to everything I never had?

Can you imagine the loneliness in the room I am sitting in now? A whole life was wasted because of this one awful encounter and one single decision that could not have been different. I fear that he both knows and sees his child while I am sitting here alone. Perhaps it sounds terribly self-pitying? But I cannot react in any other way.

That’s why I decided to write you this letter. Not to break my promise of silence but to ask you one last favor: Would you pass on the enclosed letter to my child and confirm my existence? Will you tell my child that not a day passes that I don’t wish that things could have been different so that I might make amends for the colossal sin that was committed
?

Will you intercede for me now that time is short?

I don’t know whether I have been punished enough for my terrible deeds, but I will know soon. Perhaps there is still hope that we may find solace. Maybe even forgiveness.

Yours sincerely, Eva Bjergstrand

P.S. I hope you do not take offense that I contact you after all these years. I trust that everything can be taken care of to the benefit of all and without too much hassle. I look forward to your response.

But there was no sender’s address on the letter, so Magna must have known it already.

The next day I called the Australian embassy in Copenhagen, but it was clear they didn’t understand my questions.

The female clerk suggested I call the Danish embassy in Sydney, but I didn’t want to involve the Danish authorities.

Perhaps I sensed then that my search for the mysterious sender, Eva Bjergstrand, and her mysterious child would entail a very considerable risk that I hadn’t understood in the beginning.

Instead I left Kongslund and took the bus down Strandvejen to Østerbro. The embassy was housed in a surprisingly small building, considering the size of the country it represented.

Face to face with the female clerk, I repeated my request, and she noted the few facts that I presented. Once again she suggested that I contact the Danish representatives in her home country. Finally, however, she promised to investigate the matter.

I went on to the Royal Library on Krystalgade and browsed the three biggest national newspapers, the ones I imagined were most likely to wind up on a bench in Australia—but I didn’t find the photograph Eva Bjergstrand had mentioned. Maybe
she’d
been wrong about the date.

The very next day, the embassy clerk called Kongslund and asked for me. Susanne Ingemann knocked on my door, her curiosity roused. First, no one ever called me; second, the woman on the line had spoken English; third, she had mentioned an embassy. The Australian embassy.

But she knew better than to ask.

I took the liberty of closing the door to the office so Susanne could not hear my conversation, and in those minutes, I was told what I had expected to hear: no woman with that name lived in the region surrounding Adelaide, or in all of Australia for that matter. Either she had moved a long time ago, or I had the wrong name. There was a third possibility, the clerk explained: the woman I was looking for could have assumed a new name upon moving to Australia. Quite a few people did just that. A telling pause followed. Australia was a vast country, and, like America in the previous century, it had swallowed up many black souls, those desperate and troubled individuals who might otherwise have perished. Many of whom had replaced their old identities with new ones.