The Seventh Child (58 page)

“But something happened here that both Kongslund and the National Ministry have sought to keep under wraps for decades,” Taasing said insistently. His lean face had the same yellowish tint as the smoke from his ever-present cigarette. Asger didn’t respond.

As usual, Susanne Ingemann sat on the dark mahogany sofa with her back to the window and the sound. She pulled her legs up under her like a teenage girl and turned to Taasing. “Maybe both Eva’s and Magna’s deaths were accidents?”

“It’s remarkable the way people die the minute they get involved in the Kongslund Affair,” Taasing said dryly.

“Yes, and you’re famous for never being wrong.”

This sarcastic jab at Taasing was delivered in a malicious tone that I didn’t normally associate with Susanne. It was also unfair. For as far as I could tell,
he’d
put every bit of his energy into the case. The Kongslund Affair was his last shot at reviving his career.
He’d
spent the first hour going over his investigations into the prison system, and even if they didn’t bring us any further along, his discoveries were impressive.
He’d
been able to confirm that Eva Bjergstrand had been incarcerated in Horserød State Prison, and
he’d
found a retired correctional officer
who’d
led him to another and yet another. All in all,
he’d
been able to find five guards who remembered the young girl. Unfortunately, their recollections were scant and didn’t lead him any deeper. The events occurred, after all, nearly fifty years ago.

But the fifth guard believed he remembered the girl because she was so young—and had been pardoned so suddenly. But he didn’t remember that
she’d
been pregnant, nor did he recall any visitors
who’d
shown particular interest in the convicted murderer. Taasing had sought further access to the records of Prison Services, and
he’d
combed through all the documents that had anything to do with Horserød;
he’d
read every single word and every single syllable but still hadn’t found anything useful. If there was any relevant information, it had either been discarded or removed by the individuals
who’d
desperately wanted to keep the pregnancy and birth a secret.

With a long, thin finger, Asger made a deprecating gesture. “Were there any episodes here at Kongslund that
…
?”

“Anything strange you mean?” Susanne Ingemann nodded.
She’d
kept an eye on me during Asger’s narration the day before, discreet but persistent. I was probably the most mysterious thing that had ever happened below the slope—since the King’s tumble, that is—and her visible nervousness made me uneasy. I hadn’t been in the company of strangers since the clandestine voyages I’d made so long ago to Glee Court, Rungsted, the cape, and a couple of times to Asger’s in Aarhus—and of course the Coastal Sanatorium.

“Once there was a break-in at Magna’s office,” she said. “
Everything
was turned inside out, and nobody ever found out what the thieves were after. Nothing was stolen. Gerda once told me it was an example of one of the few things that could ruin Magna’s mood. A break-in.”

“If anyone came looking for something here at Kongslund, we have to find out what it was,” Taasing said.

My eyes blinked and a few tears dropped onto my hands, but no one noticed, luckily. Of course they’d come looking—and Gerda had apparently only mentioned one of around a dozen break-ins
we’d
had at Kongslund. Everyone knew that it was Magna’s express wish that we pretend nothing had happened, that we ignore these mysterious visits.

The same pattern repeated itself every time: no sign of broken windows, no sign of picked locks—the uninvited guests had apparently just walked right in. They always came when we were away on a trip or on Sundays when we traveled to the city; in Magna’s heyday we paraded up and down the main pedestrian street, because she wanted to show the world that we had nothing to be ashamed of. After the
guests
visited Kongslund,
we’d
find all the records and files pulled from the shelves and lying in a big mess on the floor. There was something almost demonstrative about the persistent repetition of the exact same, curious procedure. Magna was equally upset each time it happened. But she never reported it. She said she was afraid of what the authorities would think of the orphanage’s security if they found out. And then it all stopped in the summer of 1985.

“It takes a lot to ruin Magna’s mood,” Asger said, as though she were still alive. I huddled on the sofa, trying to make myself invisible. The last break-in had occurred during the first large Pentecost Carnival in Copenhagen, and as usual it had pushed Kongslund into a state of silent unease, like it had been under the Occupation. Gerda had by no means exaggerated her description of Magna’s reaction. Every time it happened,
she’d
hammer away at her flower stems, clattering her vases for days in a silent rage, and I think the assistants interpreted it to be pure fear. But I sensed something else in her vigorous antics—something that was, for me, just as clear as what the assistants saw.

Pure triumph.

Instinctively I knew why. The tireless thieves had never found what they were looking for. And Magna crushed the stems with a force that revealed both anger and stubbornness. And Schadenfreude.

They couldn’t find it.

“What could they have been looking for?” Asger formulated the banal question in a voice so reverent
you’d
think he was asking about the creation of the universe. I held my breath and kept quiet.

“Papers
…
documents
…
” Susanne said rather vaguely. “If they were looking for the child—if anyone was on the track already then—then they’d be looking for records and forms from Mother’s Aid Society, just as we’re are doing now.”

“Did Gerda have any idea who might have been doing it?” Asger asked Susanne.

“No,” she replied.

There was such blind trust for this woman
who’d
bullied the German commandants and booted an entire Gestapo battalion out of the orphanage.

Asger sat for a while staring at his fingers, which should have never touched anything but hollow-ground lenses or the fine mechanics of far-reaching space telescopes. “But
Magna
must have had an idea,” he said stubbornly.

“No. She didn’t even report it to the police.” Categorically, Susanne cut off any access to Magna’s thoughts and motives.

“But why haven’t there been any break-ins since?”

“I gather he gave up.”

Everyone looked at me. After several hours of silence, I had interrupted their contemplations. My contribution came quite unexpectedly, even to myself.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I said, trying to backpedal from my idiotic blunder by hiding behind something even more naive. “If they didn’t come back, it must have been because they gave up.”

Of course it sounded foolish. Like describing UFOs that never returned—because they’d never existed.

I didn’t say anything else. My outburst had ended the conversation.

27

KONGSLUND’S CHILDREN

June 24, 2008

It was during those days that the collapse accelerated, spreading from the ministry to the newspaper house to the TV station—all the way to Kongslund, of course. There was no way back for any of us.

Magdalene once said that, even as infants, the children in the Elephant Room spoke a language that no adults could hear because it existed in a space where thoughts and words had not yet been formed. It was an ability that was conditioned by absolute darkness, she told me:
Being abandoned was the first feeling you shared—and this knowledge moved easily from bed to bed. Later you talked about the angst and how to combat it—and maybe one day you let anger pass back and forth in the darkness, even though of course that might be risky in such a small room.

Then she laughed at my bewilderment and said,
Marie, remember that within little children is everything that they later lose as adults—the total acceptance of Darkness and of all the creatures that live in it.

“The living cling to life. The unborn aren’t allowed to live.”

In one breath, the minister referred both to the prime minister and to the project
he’d
been passionate about for his entire life.

The remark might have been perceived as a cynical statement, but the only two persons present knew his style too well.

This bluntness had captivated the Danish people and had therefore characterized the Almighty One since the historic election of 2001.

On this Saint John’s Day, the minister of national affairs glimpsed the only true ambition of his adult life: ruling of the nation. In his drawer was the agenda
he’d
prepared for his first term, and at the top lay the proposal that would mark the Grand New Departure:
Proposal to define women’s access to abortion.

The core components of the bill had long since been crafted and could be found, word for word, in the founding principles of the Children’s Right to Life organization, which the minister and a large number of the top advocates for Goodness had founded based on inalienable humanitarian principles: all Danish children were to have the best possible beginning in life, and no child was to be barred from the greatest possible happiness. Naturally, these principles needed to also include unborn children, because in a Christian country like Denmark, the protection of life had to extend to the voiceless fetuses, and any proponent of human rights would have to concede that point in the end.

The barbarism would end once and for all.

Magna had become a member of the organization out of concern for Kongslund’s relationship with the powerful politician, and she had even agreed to become a board member. But I think she knew how strongly Almind-Enevold despised his wife’s infertility, the supreme tragedy of his life. And it was the reason he made it the centerpiece of his political agenda; if it was his tragedy, it would be the nation’s.

Concerned about the more rebellious women in the party, he had, over the years, articulated his intentions in appropriately vague terms; and in his political life he had only gradually intensified his tone as his power grew. First, he recommended lowering the abortion limit from twelve to ten weeks into pregnancy, then from ten weeks to eight. In the secret bill he kept in his drawer, he proposed that it be lowered from eight to six weeks. And when the prime minister’s handkerchief had become chronically bloodied,
he’d
crossed out the six and written four. That too would be corrected as the country moved toward the complete ban that would only exclude the few women who could prove a clear and irrefutable threat to their lives. As with most asylum cases, the vast majority of such claims could be dispelled due to lack of concrete evidence.

This morning, the national minister had read an article about the morning-after pill aimed at slutty teenage girls, and it made him furious. “When the time is right, we’ll grant life to every Danish child—without exception,” he said. “And we’ll ban all drugs that kill fetuses.” He stood by the window with his back to his guests, as was his habit, and studied two young female assistants who were having lunch on the granite bench in the courtyard.

“Are we going to ban condoms too?” Malle asked.

The unexpected question from the security advisor left the sanctimonious minister speechless. Then he turned and said, “If it helps.”

“If it
helps
…
?” This was Malle again.

“Yes. If it helps increase the birthrate. The birthrate goes hand in hand with our welfare project. We can promise Danes who have children, no matter how many, that they’ll never be humiliated like the women who gave up their children to—”

“To Kongslund,” Orla Berntsen offered from his seat on the minister’s sofa. For some reason,
he’d
put his expensive designer glasses in an empty ashtray before him. Maybe he didn’t want to see anything more than what was strictly necessary this morning.

Malle shrugged and changed the topic. “As you know, I sent a couple of guys to Australia to track down the package and Eva. And it has proved difficult
…
Actually, impossible,” he admitted.

The Almighty One walked around the birch table and then said slowly, “Is that so?”

“She isn’t there. At least not under any of the names we know of. Or maybe she just isn’t there
…
anymore. Every clue we have suggests that she left the country—long ago,” Malle said.

He didn’t have to say anything else, and regardless, the two men wanted to keep the significance of this disturbing piece of information from Orla. He didn’t know about the busybody chief inspector
who’d
long ago found a mysterious woman dead on a beach near Kongslund and just couldn’t forget about it.

Ole Almind-Enevold bowed his head, in what appeared to be a gesture of humbleness, but Malle knew the Almighty One was never humble. Instead it was simply a desperate, unarticulated question.

“Yes
…
yes,” Malle replied. “She might have died
…
as we’ve discussed.”

Malle sent a subtle warning in Orla’s direction, and the minister took the hint. He stood and walked to the sofa.

“Congratulations,” he told his chief of staff.

“Congratulations?”

“Yes. On kicking out that little Tamil boy, returning him to Sri Lanka. He’s been completely smeared in the press. We’re
home free
.” This was the kind of American expression the Witch Doctor had popularized throughout the ministry.

Orla said nothing.

“According to Channel DK, the boy was at the center of a Tamil gangster network that used him to deceive public opinion by claiming that his life was in
danger
…
” The minister savored his last word. “They wanted to affect public opinion so that people would demand compassion for the boy. From then on, every asylum seeker would be the subject of that compassion, the sluices would be opened wide
…
but that plan was thwarted. The press caught wind of an anonymous fax sent to the Ministry of State by a resident Sri Lankan who described the plan.” The Almighty One raised his voice: “It’s exactly the kind of fraud we have to put a stop to, and where even our administration has been too soft. It’s just the type of thing that demonstrates the legitimacy of this ministry!”

Neither of the other men replied. The plan was all Orla’s, and it had no basis in reality, but that was a detail the minister had practically eliminated from his consciousness.

“We’ll only need a couple of such examples a year, then—” The Almighty One searched for the words to finish his sentence but was interrupted before he could continue.

“But it’s all a lie,” Orla Berntsen said. His outburst was so abrupt and naive that they all froze for a second. Even Orla.

“I met with him,” Orla said, now in a more controlled tone (but of course it was too late). He reached for his glasses.

The two older men looked at him, saying nothing.

“I went and
met
him, and there wasn’t anything wrong with him, and he was never a part of any criminal network.” He put on his glasses.

“No, I suppose
you’d
know that better than anyone.” For a brief moment the minister strayed from his role and seemed about to laugh hysterically.

“We just needed to kick him out, right? He was an insignificant card we played—we just needed him out.”

“Out?” the minister said in mock innocence.

“Yes. That’s our philosophy, isn’t it? Your philosophy.” Orla shook his head. “But there’s no difference, not really.” He stood.

“No difference between what?” The minister was clearly dumbfounded at this.

“Between them
…
the boy from Sri Lanka
…
and the adopted boy John Bjergstrand.”

Almind-Enevold shook his head.

Malle smiled as though
he’d
understood Orla’s foggy statement in his own way: “Because you are his
father
, right?”

The Almighty One stared in disbelief at the boy
who’d
never had a father of his own. He opened his mouth to speak. But there was no sound.

“Lower your voices,”
Malle spat as he rose from his seat. “Sit down, Orla!” It sounded as though he were speaking to a dog.

But for the first time in his life, Orla ignored the big man. “You are his father, and that means something very special to you—but the others can just go to hell, and so they do
…
as they have their entire life.” He hurried across the room and opened the door.

Malle made no move to stop him.

“I’m leaving,” Orla said with the last remnant of formality, superfluous by now.

The air in the room barely stirred when the door closed behind him. Orla Berntsen left the office, the ministry, and his secure life for the final time.

“It is
really
disconcerting.” The Professor’s forehead was cast in an ice-blue hue, disproportionally wide and blank like a plasma screen just before the picture breaks through. “It’s as though everything is breaking down—as though
everyone
is questioning
everything
. But to what end?”

To forestall any silly suggestions, he answered his own question: “To no good.”

“But he intends to reveal a
conspiracy
right in the heart of the state’s mouthpiece,” Peter Trøst said. The word
conspiracy
felt good in his mouth. You could shoot vultures with a word like that. The Professor must have heard the danger whizz past his head, because he sank stiffly into his chair.

“Orla Berntsen was ordered to manipulate us—and he did—but now he regrets doing it,” Trøst said.

“You’re a fool, Trøst. He’s manipulating us even now.”

“Why would he do that? What’s his motive?”

“If he’s lied once, he might as well do it again—and how do you know when he is speaking the truth anyway?”

At this reasonable interpretation, the vulture craned its neck triumphantly from the chairman’s seat on the ninth floor of the Big Cigar. “Of course he has a right to give us a call. And it’s fine if you want to listen to him—though I think you should have asked the minister straight off if this guy is even sane
…
But we’re not putting him on TV with that nonsense when it is clear that he’s full of lies. One of the two versions must be a lie, that’s self-evident—so you can’t trust either one of them. With your background, surely you see that.”

Peter felt a pleasant warmth spreading through his belly. It was a strange sensation to have at the very moment he realized he had no future with Channel DK. He was defenseless before the old man
who’d
given him his career and taken everything else from him. He should have left a long time ago. But he no longer knew what anyone was thinking or how life was lived outside the Big Cigar. He didn’t even know how people talked outside a TV studio; how people expressed themselves without a teleprompter to rely on.

After his third divorce, he hadn’t had the energy to go home but had driven around aimlessly on Zealand’s roads. These small towns normally filled him with the kind of dread of the everyday life that he and many of his colleagues feared.
Gøderup. Assendløse. Svenstrup. Rorup. Osage. Ørninge.
What a parade of absurd, antiquated names.
Lejre. Osted. Borup. Højelse. Manderup. Kløvested.
It was his awareness of these enclaves of life, in living rooms and kitchen nooks, that had finally shaken his self-confidence. What did people
do
when they weren’t watching television?