Borderliners
Page 25
Still, even though so few were aware of what was going on, they must have known that they were very close to the limit.
* * *
I called him up over the intercom.
It was a gray box, you had seen it before without really paying much attention, it was not much bigger than a telephone. It had grooves through which to speak and listen, and numbered buttons—sixty-three of them, quite small. On the desk there was a typewritten list assigning each number to a room, it looked as though there were buttons for every room in the school.
Three wires led from the instrument. One went into the plug, for the power, the second went into a box on the wall and must have been the link with the loudspeakers in all the school classrooms. The third ran across the floor and along the paneling and up along the door and through the wall. Out in the corridor it must have run up through the ceiling, diagonally across, through the wall, and into Bürk’s pendulum clock, from which impulses would be emitted whenever classes were to be let out or called in.
When the loudspeakers had been installed, Biehl had said just one thing—this was at assembly—he had said that the electronic bell had a more pleasant sound.
Next to number 23 the label read “Private apartment.” I pressed it, the button stayed down, but nothing happened. At the top there were two switches, one dark and one lighter. When I pressed the light one I got through to Biehl’s apartment.
At first there was almost nothing, just a hiss, but I knew that I was there.
It was impossible to imagine how it must look, no one had ever been up there. What I sensed was all the space and the light. The feeling that it was a home—even now when his children were all grown up, the feeling was still there. He had three children, all three of them teachers, they had held posts here at the school. Pale and quiet as though they had not had enough light. But still his children. I listened and I was with a family.
Then china was placed on china, a cup on a saucer, his tea, quite close to my ear. Then he cleared his throat. He was alone, this I could hear. He had no idea that I was listening. That was how the intercom was designed, you could listen without being heard yourself. That was how he himself must have sat, listening in to the classes.
I pressed the dark button, and a little green light came on below the grooves.
“Excuse me,” I said.
At first there was no sound. Then I could sense that he had come right up close to the microphone.
“Peter,” he said.
He was brilliant. There was hardly any reaction. Ever so calmly he had bowed his head and taken the problem upon himself.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” I said.
“Are you alone?”
I did not answer this question.
“I have a document I would like permission to present.”
He appeared a moment later, he was alone, he was wearing suspenders. The same type of gray pants as always and a white shirt, but no jacket. He had moved his watch from the jacket down to his pants, you could see the chain.
He remained standing in the center of the room. I suppose it was the first time ever that he had been the one to come through the door, and someone else had been waiting for him.
He switched on the light, his eyes found the paper immediately, he had always known it would be this.
“Give me that,” he said.
I handed him the list. He folded it and tore it in half, and folded it and tore it, and folded it and tore it, and put the pieces in his pocket.
“Did you slit open my bag?” I said. He did not answer, that was answer enough.
I gave him the list again. “These are copies,” I said, “photocopies, I’ve just tucked the original back into my shoe, back at home I have more copies.”
He waited, very aware.
“If the Children’s Panel see this,” I said, “and the accompanying explanation, they’ll have a word with the Ministry of Education. And they’ll have a word with you, and with the school board, and the parents’ association. And then they’ll start to question all the pupils on that list, and they’ll find out about Carsten Sutton and go back in time to Jes Jessen, and I’ll be questioned, too, there’ll be a long, long line of confrontations, it will be disastrous, what can be done to avoid this?”
It was almost overwhelming. All his life he had worked and fought for this school—you knew this, of course, from his memoirs—and considered himself in tune with time and eternal values. At heart he had known that his intentions were good. And yet he had wound up here.
It was hard to say whose fault it was, even today I do not know, even for the department it would have been almost impossible to unravel the threads and allocate the blame.
He looked careworn. He had often talked about God. But I do not believe that he had ever, until this moment, sensed so acutely the way that a purpose and a plan greater than himself had taken hold of him.
He was confronted with what he had always said was the most detestable thing of all, concealment and doubt. To look at him was overwhelming. All his life he had believed that he was fighting for good. And still.
“I want to be adopted,” I said. “The National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child will ask the school for a statement. I would be grateful if it could be no worse than is necessary.”
He said not one word in reply. He turned and walked out, leaving me alone. I stayed there only for a moment, and sat and looked out at the heavens. Then I left, it was his office after all. You had no right to be there.
Additional Praise for Peter Høeg’s
BORDERLINERS
“Moving … Wonderful details … Borderliners is written from the heart.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Mysterious and engaging … Gripping.”
—The Washington Post
“Harrowing … Gripping suspense … A remarkable book.”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Extraordinary … A fascinating intellectual puzzle.”
—Library Journal
“A nerve-wracking picture of bureaucratic stupidity and discreet corruption. Provocative in its evocation of juvenile loneliness and confusion.”
—The Atlantic
“A beautiful and satisfying book … The writing is stark, brainy, hypnotic.”
—The Hartford Courant
“Haunting.”
—US
ALSO BY PETER HØEG
Smilla’s Sense of Snow
The History of Danish Dreams
The Woman and the Ape
Tales of the Night
The Quiet Girl
Peter Høeg, born in 1957 in Denmark, followed various callings—dancer, actor, sailor, fencer, and mountaineer—before turning seriously to writing. He is the bestselling author of five novels and one short story collection. His work has been published in thirty-three countries.
BORDERLINERS. Copyright © 1993 by Peter Høeg and Munksgaard/Rosinante, Copenhagen. Translation copyright © 1994 by Barbara Haveland. All rights reserved. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Høeg, Peter, 1957–
[Måske egnede. English]
Borderliners / Peter Høeg; translated by Barbara Haveland.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42711-5
ISBN-10: 0-312-42711-5
1. Special education—Denmark—Copenhagen—Fiction. 2. Copenhagen (Denmark)—Fiction. I. Title.
PT8176.18.O335 M3713 1994
839.8'1374—dc20
94018892
&
nbsp; Originally published in Denmark by Munksgaard/Rosinante, Copenhagen, as De måske egnede
First published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
eISBN 9781466850811
First eBook edition: July 2013