The Seventh Child (5 page)

Ole Almind-Enevold shook his head vigorously. “I doubt anyone will care about his case for more than a day or two.”

The subject matter was closed for now. Orla Berntsen studied the photograph the guard at the asylum center had sent the ministry. It showed a small boy with an innocent face, thick black hair, and clear brown probing eyes—just a tiny snowflake in the universe. Berntsen nodded to Bog Man. They were in agreement that the case could explode at any moment. Quite a few Danes were still uncomfortable at the sight of a crying child in state custody. They would have to discuss it later.

“It’s May fifth,” the minister cheerfully reminded the group. The anniversary of Denmark’s liberation from the Nazis was the natural starting point in the story Ole Almind-Enevold starred in—a narrative that wove together the Ministry of National Affairs and his own altruistic efforts during the Second World War.

The intervening years hadn’t diminished the story’s power in the least, and no one dared question it either. According to myth, the minister had thrown himself into the resistance movement in 1943, while still a young boy, hardly able to lift the sacks of dynamite he transported to and from older saboteurs. Because of his broad area of operation and his unrelenting stamina for cycling and running,
he’d
acquired the cover name “the Runner.” As the story goes, he was only thirteen when he helped liquidate a snitch near Svanemøllen Station. The snitch had threatened an older saboteur with a gun, but Ole had leapt forward and seized the weapon. The snitch and the boy tumbled to the ground together and the gun went off, leaving the traitor dead—a bullet between his eyes.

The story proved to have immense popular appeal. “Still running errands for the nation,” read the Witch Doctor’s powerful slogan in newspapers and on campaign posters during the nerve-wracking election in November of 2001—in the wake of 9/11. During the 2005 election, he introduced a triumphant addition to the winning slogan: “Defending Danish democracy.”

In Orla Berntsen’s universe, a bureaucrat to the core, patriotism was not a particular virtue. Every one of his enemies was Danish, and his mother hadn’t wasted a single opportunity to remind him of the distinctive brand of Danish hypocrisy that had haunted their lives together during his childhood in the row-house section of town, near the wetlands. In those years, during the 1960s, to avoid shame and condemnation, thousands of single young women relinquished their newborn children to complete strangers. Those who refused to do so were barely tolerated in their communities. A boy like Orla, without a father, was viewed as an illegitimate child, a bastard, and the national virtues of community and unity (or
solidarity
as it was quaintly stated in the party program) meant nothing. And it was for this reason that Orla considered hypocrisy the true mark of the Danish national character, though he never admitted as much to others, and certainly not to those in the ministry, where he served as the right hand of the successful minister.

In public, Berntsen fought the invasion of bogus asylum-seekers and economic refugees in a cold and calculated way. But in his personal life, he didn’t believe there was any real difference between people—whether black or white, from one culture or religion or another—he was beyond such distinctions.

Orla Berntsen had almost forgotten the blue envelope
he’d
left under the mug that reminded him of his wife and daughters.

Once again he looked at the photo of the seven babies in their elf hats. He scrutinized the other photo as well: the majestic villa with its dark, gleaming roof. Not only did he recognize the house, but also he knew why the magazine had included the golden border around it. His mother had had the exact same picture on their living-room wall. Very few people would know that. His mother’s voice was a weak buzzing in his head, but he couldn’t make out the words. After her death she had developed a habit of whispering to him, but the messages rarely made sense, consisting mainly of fragments of conversations they’d once had.

He stretched his fingers, shaking them a bit, as though sending a discreet signal to an invisible guest in the office.

“I took three calls from
Independent Weekend
while you were out,” the Fly suddenly whispered from behind him.

For a second he couldn’t place where the voice was coming from. Then she walked around his desk and repeated the message, more loudly, adding a distressing detail: “It was that journalist
…
Knud Taasing.”

The Fly understood how this name affected her boss.

He could smell his own sweat mixed with the optimistic scent of the ministry. “Just tell him I’m at a meeting.”

“He said it was important
…
something about an anonymous letter.” She hissed the final two words between her thin lips.

“Okay. Well, put him through if he calls back. It would be worse to avoid him,” he replied, softly sniffling.

Berntsen studied the form again.
John Bjergstrand
. The name meant nothing to him, but apparently someone had felt it important enough to send a copy to the minister’s oldest enemy, the reporter at
Independent Weekend
. It was the only possible explanation. As if on cue, the intercom buzzed.

The speaker clicked. “I’ll put him through.” She didn’t have to repeat the name.

For a moment he sat silently, feeling the presence of the other man, and then he said loudly, “Orla Berntsen speaking.”

“Taasing.” The voice was muted and nasally. It hadn’t changed since the day they’d first met, and that had to have been ten years ago, maybe more.

“Yes?” he said.

Taasing spoke with the same preternatural calm as he had the morning
he’d
become Orla’s sworn enemy. Back then the telephone rested on the desk in the Ministry of Justice, and when the old party organ (then in its heyday) had uncovered a scandal that could bring down the minister and his closest allies, the reporter called, not to ask questions, but to inform Orla that the paper planned to print a devastating article the following day—with or without his blessing.

Orla had told him to get lost.

The article was published.

It had nearly destroyed Berntsen’s career. Shortly afterward, Knud Taasing himself was disgraced by a fatal mistake grown epic in size, destroying his reputation in less than a day. At the ministry, they had celebrated this fantastic good fortune, raised a toast to it. It was a miracle the man even had a job today.

“You need another number to talk to the minister,” Orla said, instinctively searching for an exit strategy.

“I don’t want to talk to the Almighty One, at least not yet. But give him my regards anyway,” Taasing replied sarcastically. “For now, I just want to talk to you.”

Orla Berntsen reflexively covered the word
D
AD
on his empty mug.

“We received a letter here at the paper. It’s somewhat, how can I put it,
mysterious
,” the reporter said.

The chief of staff gazed at the mug in front of him and thought of his daughters whom
he’d
abandoned when
he’d
returned to his childhood home in Søborg.

“I’ve got a copy right here. It’s actually a magazine article, I think, with a photo of a house and some children and a kind of cryptic caption. But at the very bottom there’s a note I don’t understand:
Copy sent to Orla Pil Berntsen, chief of staff to Minister of National Affairs Ole Almind-Enevold.
That would be you—and your honorable boss. That makes me think you received the same letter. Blue envelope. Rectangular. Red and black letters, all cut from an old glossy, it looks like.” He paused. “Very melodramatic. Like something from an Agatha Christie novel.”

Orla was silent.

“Are you still there, Berntsen?”

“What does it say?” he asked. Practically an admission.

“It’s a short piece on children adopted to new families. I think the pictures may have appeared in a magazine to accompany a larger article on the topic. It hints at something devious, though: that certain children were adopted in secrecy to spare the biological parents from being identified. But the envelope also contains two items”—the reporter hesitated for a second—“some sort of form with a name on it, and then a tiny pair of white woolen socks. Baby socks it looks like. That’s what seems most peculiar.”

Whatever one might say about Taasing, his descriptions were succinct and precise. The powerful chief of staff heard a muffled rustling of paper on the other end of the line.

“So what do you say?” his tormenter asked.

“This was sent to
you
…
?” Orla heard himself say. It was dangerous to lie, and so far the content of the letter was too bizarre and inexplicable to pose an immediate threat. He doubted anyone would be able to make heads or tails of it. It was all so long ago that there was really no connection to his present career or life.

“Actually”—Orla Berntsen heard the reporter shuffling papers again—“it was sent both to me and to Nils Viggo Jensen. He’s my photographer on big assignments.”

It was a wonder that Knud Taasing was still writing for a national paper (though
Independent Weekend
had been forced to amend its moniker in recent years, as it could no longer sustain a large enough daily readership). A small one to be sure, Orla thought, but still. For years, the topics Taasing covered had been insignificant. If he hadn’t had such a glorious past,
he’d
have penned his last article that fateful day nearly ten years ago.

“Yes, Berntsen,” the voice was teasing now. “You’re getting it
…
The old circus horse has scented a big story. If not a big story, then at least something to entertain the crowds. I’ll admit as much, between you and me. And now it’s your turn. I think you received the same mysterious epistle.”

“Yes,” Orla confessed. There was no point in lying.

His response was met with silence.

“But,” the chief of staff continued, “I have no idea what it means.”

“You also received
…
a pair of socks
…
and the strange form?”

“Yes,” Orla admitted.

“John Bjergstrand?”

“Yes.”

“Who is he?”

A soft sniffle. “I’ve no idea.”

“You got the photo of the children too? And the peculiar text?”

“Yes.”

“And I suppose you can’t tell me who they are?”

“No.”

“Or what it all means?”

“No. I don’t have faintest idea,” he said, deciding to lie after all.

“You have
no idea
what this letter is about?”

“That’s right. I have no clue. I’ve never met anyone named John Bjergstrand. Look him up in the phone book.”

“Ha,” his nemesis exclaimed.

Orla could hear the reporter breathing heavily on the other end of the line.

“Inside the circle on one of the pages is a photo of a house,” Knud Taasing said, changing the subject. “Do you know the house?”

“Well, it’s not mine.” Orla sniffled again.

“That much I know.” Back when it couldn’t be avoided, Taasing was one of the few reporters ever to visit Orla Berntsen’s residence. But nowadays, Berntsen’s private life was as concealed as his emotions, perhaps even more so. The official story was that he was married, had two daughters, and resided on Gisselfeld Boulevard in the wealthy suburb of Gentofte. Journalists also knew that his wife was Cuban. The most critical among them had joked about how Orla—then the chief of the Department of Immigration—had stopped issuing humanitarian visas for refugees after he himself married a foreigner—a citizen of one of the last remaining Communist countries in the world to boot. Those same journalists wondered if this was the reason he was now getting divorced.

“Why would the sender go to the trouble to indicate that the letter was also sent to you—the chief of staff to the minister of national affairs—and why mention
his
name explicitly?”

“I have no idea.”

“Is this connected in some way to Enevold?”

“You can’t take this nonsense seriously, Taasing,” Orla said with a little more vigor in his voice. “The minister hasn’t even seen the letter.”

“Where is that house?” The sharp tone again.

Berntsen hesitated. The case didn’t need to appear more mysterious than it was, and the truth would solve that problem. On the other hand, he couldn’t just give away his biggest secret. Not to a reporter. And certainly not to Knud Taasing.

“You know what
…
what I feel and think about my private correspondence, or what I know about it, is nobody’s business.”

He knew it sounded arrogant.

“Actually it is the public’s business, Pil Berntsen. The letter was sent to the
public
as well. Remember that.”

Taasing’s words held an implicit threat—he could demand access to documents.

“Yes, but it was sent by some maniac!” He could hear his own breath now. This wasn’t good; he needed to calm down. He lowered his shoulders and put his hands on the desk. “Listen, Taasing. I’m actually busy. I’m attending a reception at the Ministry of State to commemorate the Liberation.”