The Seventh Child (9 page)

It sounded as though she knew him better than she wanted to admit.

“He didn’t have it easy,” she said, in a strangely detached way.

Knud leaned forward but did not ask the question on his mind:
Why?

She returned to the sofa but made no effort to sit—perhaps because she wanted to avoid the security advisor. Nils wondered if she would respond to Knud’s unspoken question, and then she did, “At one point
…
it’s an awful story.”

Carl Malle started to stand but changed his mind.

She didn’t look in Malle’s direction, and even with the sunlight in his eyes, Nils saw the dim, spiteful glow in her eyes as she continued. “It was said that he once witnessed—or was involved in—another man’s death. But that may have been a mistake. He was just a boy, after all. All I know is that Magna arranged for regular contact with a psychologist here—Kongslund has always had an established team—and there might have been other arrangements that I’m not familiar with. Of course this isn’t something you can print in your paper. I’m only telling you so that you can see that I am being quite honest
…
that we’re not trying to hide anything. There’s nothing of interest to anyone in this, including
Independent Weekend
.”

All the same, she had given Knud and Nils significant information that would’ve taken them months to dig up.

“What other arrangements?” Knud asked.

Carl Malle pounded his fist on the table, sending three teaspoons clattering to the floor. “That’s enough! That is private information, which this journalist has a record of mismanaging. People have died as a result!” The security advisor began to rise.

Knud collected the adoption form and the other papers and stuffed them in his folder. “Thank you for your kindness,” he told his hostess. “We’ll return in a week, for the anniversary.” He stood. “And on that occasion we’ll restrict ourselves to applause.”

She watched from the stoop as the two men walked to their car. Carl Malle stayed inside, his assignment apparently complete.

Suddenly Knud halted midstride and turned. He looked at the beautiful matron. “Doesn’t it matter anymore
…
that old issue
…
the two young boys
…
since you
…
?”

She seemed to understand his incoherent question right away.

“Yes,” she said.

Nils held his breath.

“And what do you think about it now?”

“I think that
…
it’s in the past. Everything becomes history if you are patient enough. And if you don’t dig everything up again.”

He nodded slightly. Her meaning was clear: let Kongslund’s past rest in peace. Then the world—and Carl Malle—will let your demons rest.

“The old matron has a foster daughter, right?”

For a moment he got no response, and then at last came the confirmation, “Yes, she has a foster daughter. Inger Marie. That’s the name she was given when she arrived in 1961. But we just call her Marie. She’s my assistant, and always has been.”

Five short sentences, delivered like wreckage on the shore.

In a single glance, Susanne anticipated his next question. “Yes, it’s true: she lives here. In a very beautiful room. The most beautiful in the house. We call it the King’s Room because the architect designed it according to the careful instructions of King Frederik VII. It has always been her room.”

She waved a slender hand at the roof. “It’s the nicest spot in the house, with a fantastic view of the sound and the island of Hven. But she’s not here today.” She fell silent. “So if you want to speak with her, it’ll have to be another day.”

She gave two quick nods. Green eyes, auburn hair, shades of gold-red.

Lies,
Nils thought
. She’s here, but we’re not allowed to see her.

“I’m troubled by how Carl Malle managed to insert himself into that conversation. And she just let him do it.” Knud lit a menthol cigarette with shaky fingers.

Nils turned the large Mercedes onto Strandvejen and headed for Copenhagen.

“It was creepy,” Knud added. He appeared paler than usual.

Nils said nothing.

“We couldn’t get anywhere with her
.
But, damn, I would’ve liked to meet Inger Marie. She would have been able to tell us something about those years, I’m sure.” Knud shook his head. “Maybe we should have insisted
…
It wasn’t our best performance. We didn’t get access to the infant room, didn’t meet the foster daughter, didn’t get anything on little John Bjergstrand—if he ever existed.” There was an uncharacteristic tone of resignation in his voice.

They passed Strandmølle Inn again.

“She was very beautiful, very capable, and very, very much on guard,” Knud said more to himself than his companion. Still, it was probably the highest compliment he had ever paid anyone, at least that Nils knew of.

“Did you notice the atmosphere in the house?” Knud said.

Of course I noticed the atmosphere
, Nils thought.

“It was very peculiar.” Knud rolled down his window and lit another cigarette.

They passed Bellevue and Charlottenlund Fort.

“The place is rich with history, that goes without saying, including the bit with Frederik VII and his mistress.”

Knud’s sense of the past was about as sketchy as you might expect from someone in a profession suspicious of history (since it didn’t sell newspapers).
He’d
been orphaned when he was twelve or thirteen years old—that was about all Nils knew. His father had died suddenly, and Knud had been shipped off to his aunt and uncle’s place on the island of Ærø. Not exactly the kind of home where
you’d
slog through thick volumes of Danish history.

“He was one of our most beloved kings,” Nils said, aware of how pedantic he sounded. “The mistress was Countess Danner, the former Miss Louise Rasmussen.”

“I see,” Knud said, with a touch of sarcasm. “Some
Miss
she was. Maybe the old matron is related to her. In any event, if we are to believe the many newspaper articles written about her, Magna seems to have had a certain power over men—and Kongslund.”

Nils kept his hands planted on the steering wheel, thinking about the woman he had photographed. After a short while, Knud guessed what was on his mind. “Like I said, she’s an
interesting
woman. Beautiful. Careful. There’s a third thing I can’t quite put my finger on
…
” He nodded, yawned, and flicked his cigarette out the window. “Keep her out of your head,” he suddenly warned.

Nils recalled how she stood before the painting of the countess—half-turned, her green eyes staring at some point above his head. Then he remembered the shadow
he’d
seen—or hadn’t seen—halfway up the hill. A figure crouched among the trees, nearly hidden in the lush foliage, observing everything that went on down below.

“Son of a bitch,” Knud mumbled. “I wish I could’ve met the foster daughter—I would really like to know what’s actually going on in that place.” Before long, his head lolled onto his shoulder and he was snoring in rhythm with the rattletrap old Mercedes.

They passed Svanemøllen, and Nils Jensen accelerated.

4

THE ELEPHANT ROOM

May 6, 2008

We feel her presence before we see her—a scent of freesia and a rustle of freshly ironed linen as she glides from bed to bed.

We reach out for her, but we don’t complain. We are disciplined creatures who don’t exaggerate our yearning. We have come into this world without the slightest demand or expectation.

From the very beginning, we acquired the skills that would protect us from evil: humbleness, obedience, gratefulness. And we passed the message from bed to bed, because we knew that only perfect balance would bring us safely through to the end.

The finest web, the most cautious gait
…

The two men in the driveway bowed humbly (I was hiding behind the curtain in the southern annex, above the stoop where I’d literally entered the world) and took awkward leave of their hostess, as men visiting Kongslund tend to do.

I knew it was a passing paralysis, evoked by Susanne Ingemann’s beauty and sudden arrogance whenever she—and Magna’s kingdom—was threatened.

Standing on the front steps, she curtsied and waved. And they would drive away without knowing whether that little gesture was a holdover from her childhood—an exquisite and studied politeness—or an elaborately disparaging gesture.

I drew back. I’d anticipated their visit but was nonetheless concerned about the journalist’s acuity. This Knud Taasing would return with additional questions—for me too—and that meant I’d have to cancel my part in Magna’s anniversary celebration. There was no way around it. My reclusiveness was well-known (among the few who knew me), and my absence surely wouldn’t cause suspicion or grief—except for my foster mother, perhaps. At her tribute I was supposed to appear on the patio before all the guests, like some sort of Cinderella, and for the umpteenth time play my role as the greatest miracle in the history of Kongslund: the small foundling that awoke to the world on a stoop, and, thanks to Fate’s most ingenious string-pulling, found a home at this proud orphanage.

They would have to do without this performance, and my foster mother wouldn’t care for that, but that’s how things stood. Susanne was uneasy.
She’d
lied—she had told me she would have to—and I think she recognized a pattern in the events unfolding over the last few days, a pattern beyond her control and comprehension.

For over half a century, my home had been described as the best of the best, a golden lagoon in the nation’s cultural heritage, a testimony to the kindness and charity of a people increasingly accused of the exact opposite, and Kongslund’s official history up to now had confirmed it.

The grand mansion had been erected at the foot of the hill more than 150 years ago, placed like a rune between the sound and Strandvejen, just below the notch of land that curves around the northern part of Skodsborg Hill.

From May to September, the area teems with green-gold foliage; during these summer months, it lies in a shaded pocket of time and could have remained that way, invisible for hundreds of years, had it not been for the kindhearted emissaries from Mother’s Aid Society: the stiff-backed governesses whose single vision was to save the nation’s abandoned children.

The story of my arrival is oft told, and scores of magazine articles have documented it, one of the most sensational events to transpire in the early years of Denmark’s welfare society.

It happened on the very day that Kongslund celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, the morning of May 13, 1961. Perhaps it was symbolic, or perhaps it was merely the kind of coincidence that seems like a sign from higher powers.

The night before the anniversary, the assistants had put flowers in every windowsill. The profusion of flowers blocked nearly all light and filled the air with a thick, sweet fragrance. The children observed the preparations with amazement. For a tot no more than a couple of feet tall, the desire to touch and bend the delicate corollas, to knead and break them, must have been overwhelming. But no one dared give into the temptation; they knew well the force of Magna’s wrath.

Very early in the morning on the day of the anniversary, the governesses had heard a loud shout coming from the stairs in the southern annex. It was one of the caretakers: “Something’s down there! Something’s down there!”

“Something’s down there,” she said again, this time the note of wonder in her voice was clear.

When the other women reached the source of the noise, they found plump Agnes, staring directly at the blue carry-cot, the little white duvet bulging beneath a pink blanket like a delicious cream puff. She repeated her words without realizing that they would become her hallmark. In the following decades she would repeat them endlessly, speaking to newspapers and magazines and annual reviews, then to her own children and grandchildren, and then finally to her great-grandchildren. Perhaps she would even ask the pastor to shout those redeeming words into her grave when she departed this world, so that she could bring them to the Other Side.

“I found the child in a blue carry-cot outside the door. It was almost like Moses!”
Billed Bladet
quoted her as saying on May 19, 1961. The author of the article had excitedly informed his readers: “The young caretaker
who’d
first spotted the little orphan was Agnes Olson, 21.”

The caption,
ARE YOU MY MOTHER?
,
was printed in all caps underneath the photograph of a small baby with squinting, shiny eyes staring directly at the reader. “Take a look: a little girl with an unknowable future. Except for one thing—she will be given away,” the article began.
The story of the little foundling was laid out in minute detail, next to advertisements for Heart Yarn and Lion Yarn paid for by the Council of Knitting Fashion.

For weeks, newspapers and magazines followed the story, and collections were taken. There was much speculation about how it would turn out—all of it enthusiastic, as though this tragedy was a cause for celebration, and, to this day, illustrates the especially optimistic nature of the Danish character.

In this national spectacle, the Famous Foundling from Kongslund appeared out of nowhere, acquired a duvet and bed, and some years later, a mother.

It wasn’t a normal beginning, but few tracked my fate after these frenzied first days, in large part because over the next couple of years, Magna didn’t present me to the public. Only much later did I understand why.

Ugly
was the only appropriate term for the creature the anonymous envoy had left on the stoop of the orphanage.

At first no one suspected anything was amiss, because when they found me I was firmly wrapped in a blanket. Agnes Olsen had barely called for help before Magna descended upon her, grabbed the cot, and disappeared into a bathroom. You can imagine her surprise when she set her eyes on my naked body and saw the packaging that the Lord had delivered me in: I was twisted from my right shoulder to my lower back, as though I had slammed sideways into a concrete slab; I was stocky, stooped, and had dangling, flabby limbs, which the amazed doctors from Mother’s Aid Society discovered could rotate nearly 360 degrees without resistance. The only positive thing the doctors had to report from those first days was that the defects were relatively symmetrical: if there was a defect on the right side of my body, you were certain to find the same defect on the left side. Only my face reflected the lopsidedness of my back: my cheekbones and the right eye seemed to hang slightly lower, which, combined with my dark, coarse hair, gave me a somewhat exotic look that would later diminish my initial ugliness. As the years passed, my left shoulder sank lower than my right, but for the most part, I could hide it with a slight twist of my body.

“You looked like a little Peruvian whose head had shrunk on one side,” Magna laughed. This was how she handled disappointments: by retelling them in a way that allowed her to chuckle, as she gave the unfortunate subject a thump on the back. Like so many champions of justice, she possessed empathy in the abstract, but sometimes fell short when confronted with the flesh-and-blood reality.

“The doctors found it incredibly interesting to study a body that the Lord had equipped with so many idiosyncratic features,” she laughed, blowing the warm, life-giving ashes from her cheroot into the laps of those closest to her.

On the third day, the specialists noted another peculiarity about me, something they had missed the first time around: the two middle fingers were visibly shorter than the pinkies. In addition, from the wondrous mold of life, two bizarre thumbs had emerged, wide stumps that seemed to disappear into my hands. It might not sound all that awful—I was still able to clutch things with the deformed digits—but for a child, such a deformity can be immensely embarrassing. I learned to hide my hands in various ways: in the folds of my clothing, in my shirt sleeves, under the table and the seat of my chair, squeezed under my thighs—I almost always sat on my hands, hoping that one day they would be miraculously healed.

My feet, however, were the most peculiar. “A thoroughly abnormal construction,” the Mother’s Aid Society doctor had jotted in his report.

“Oh my! They’re backward!” the children’s orthopedic surgeon enthusiastically exclaimed before trying to assume an appropriately dismayed mien. Magna, meanwhile, with signature amusement told her colleagues in the all-embracing Mother’s Aid Society about my fantastic design: “And as if that isn’t enough, God has, in his outrageous daring, given her a little toe that is bigger and sturdier than each of her big toes.”

To cure this defect, my feet and the lower half of my legs were wrapped in foam strips and thick bandages until my toes and instep reluctantly straightened. I was approved for lifelong disability before I even left my cradle; but, for the sake of normalcy, I was put in an infant room bed as soon as the specialists grudgingly departed Kongslund, taking all their notes with them.

Around the same time, during the summer months of 1961, the doctors in departments A and B at the Rigshospital delivered a handful of perfect little boys, and one girl, all of whom were transferred to Kongslund within a few weeks of each other.

By Christmas 1961 there were seven of us, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that what later became known as the Kongslund Affair began with us, though of course no one was aware of that at the time.

In Magna’s photo album from that year, there’s a picture of us sitting under a Christmas tree, staring up at the photographer. All seven of us are wearing elf hats, and we resemble the seven dwarves in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. There’s Asger, who even then had long, pale limbs and a nose so pointy and elongated that
you’d
think it was anticipating the heavy, horn-rimmed glasses it would later support. There’s Orla, known as the Merchant for his stocky features, in his collared pajamas with the glimmering buttons, his gaze so guarded as to suggest that he already knew of the traps Fate would place in his way. Severin is next to him, looking wounded even then (perhaps this is why he, as an adult, attracts down-and-outs from near and far). Closest to the camera, Peter lies on a duvet with a floral design, reaching for a golden cornet hanging from the lowest branch of the tree. His eyes are like two shiny beads of glass (are these really the same eyes that stare at tens of thousands of viewers every day?). The last two children, those beside me, are in the shadow of a heavy branch of the Christmas tree, and their faces are difficult to make out in the black-and-white photograph.

Kongslund’s records show that each of these children—with the exception of me—was adopted between February and June of 1962. Under normal circumstances this separation would be definitive, and any reunion would, at best, take place on the Other Side. Around the time the others left, restlessness must have settled into my soul. The small, crooked legs must have trembled some, and then steadied, preparing for the inevitable.

I wasn’t going anywhere.

Every morning during those years, Magna put me on the little Japanese pull-along elephant (donated to Kongslund by an admiring delegation from Tokyo) and called encouragingly to me when I clung to the funnel-shaped ears that had little holes for my fingers. Terrified, I would stare over the curved trunk that stretched nearly all the way to the wide, gray elephant feet attached to four ramshackle wheels. In time, I grasped the symbolism: the elephant’s feet resembled my own.