by Agnete Friis
He didn’t say anything, but I could see he was listening.
“When my father was in jail, he asked my grandmother to find a woman at a particular address in Holstebro. He didn’t know her name, but I might’ve figured it out. There was a woman who stayed in the house at that time. Her name was also Lea, and she had once been a Jehovah’s Witness. I believe it’s a relatively small sect, so it has to be more than just a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“So your father was looking for your mother’s girlfriend—without knowing that they were friends?”
“Maybe.”
I bit into the inside of my cheek. Pain had always helped to keep me focused.
“Tell me what you can remember about my mother,” I said.
“She was nice.”
Thomas slowed, rolled down a window, and lit a smoke, offering me one as well. We smoked with a velvet soft wind in our faces.
“She was very pale. She had white-blonde hair and lots of freckles. She’d bring us sodas and ice cream in the yard when it was hot.” He sighed and shrugged in resignation. “Hell, Ella, I don’t know. I can’t remember much more than that. Your father was also a nice guy. He used to hunt with my dad once in a while. They sat out in the yard polishing their guns in the sunshine before they set off to hunt. They let me hold the gun, I remember, and I still have my dad’s . . .”
He trailed off. The subject was inappropriate.
“I mean, he seemed like a decent person. They both did.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.” I stole a glance at him.
“All I can tell you about your mother is what I’ve heard from other people in town. Most people thought she was really sweet. Kind, and friendly. She worked at a fish factory in Hanstholm that has closed down now. But they had no friends, your parents. Mostly because your mother had some difficulty talking to other people, I think. She was kind of . . . shy. Apparently your father took really good care of her and people were very baffled by the fact that things could go so badly wrong for them. Maybe your father wanted to tell your mother’s friend about her death. Maybe he just wanted to talk to her about what had happened.”
“Yes.”
I hesitated. In my mind’s eye I could see my grandmother’s bright, big eyes behind her glasses. My father hadn’t been himself, she’d said. When I went back to our house I had remembered hearing him talk her, the other woman, on the phone. But till now, nobody had turned the stone this woman must be hiding under. Nobody had mentioned her. Just as nobody had mentioned my mother’s friend, either.
“But . . . there was no mention of a Lea in the police reports, was there? Or in the court case. She hasn’t existed—till now.”
Thomas shook his head. “I’ve never heard a word about a friend of your mother’s. According to local gossip, your mother was alone in this world.”
The yellow rose popped up before my inner eye, a message attached to its stalk on a crumpled piece of paper. Anna.
Thomas insisted on driving us right to the front door. Alex stumbled, half-asleep, into the house and up the stairs, one arm slung over my shoulder. When I came back downstairs Thomas had taken two cups from the shelf and was pouring water into the kettle for coffee. Lupo had come to greet us briefly, but was now curled up asleep on a blanket in the corner.
There was no sign of Barbara. The house was dark and silent, but then it was after one o’clock in the morning. I thought of Barbara lying on the box mattress in her room, surrounded by paintbrushes and her ever more wildly wayward paintings on the walls and ceiling.
I hadn’t told her where we were going. That we were going.
Thomas found some milk in the fridge and poured a few drops in his mug before sitting down and stretching his long legs under the kitchen table.
“Is she still here?” He nodded towards the dark living room and the door to Barbara’s make-shift nave.
“Yes . . . she’s just staying for a couple more weeks . . . just till we’ve settled in.”
“Settled in,” he repeated, raising an eyebrow and smiling crookedly. “Nothing is going to change around here in the next two weeks. And that woman is stark raving mad, by the way. I know you like her, but you should know that she was kicked out of her place a week ago. I was out there yesterday to fix some pipes for the owner. She’s left most of her shit behind. The owner is really pissed.”
I looked at him in amazement. “She’s been kicked out? But why?”
“I don’t know. She probably didn’t pay her rent. People laugh at her, Ella. Her drawings are a standing joke in town. She doesn’t sell any of them, and the portraits she does . . . the children. It’s always children, right? They all look the same. And she drinks—but you’ve probably noticed. You have to get rid of her, Ella. You know how people talk.”
A window was banging in the dark of the living room and a cold wind filtered into the kitchen.
“She’s helping me,” I stammered. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“What what is like, Ella?”
I could feel his gaze on me, even though my eyes were fixed on my coffee cup. My grandmother’s things, my grandmother’s home. I owned nothing and I was surrounded by strangers. Nothing had changed.
“What it’s like being a ghost.”
He smiled. “No, I don’t know what that’s like,” he said. “But maybe someday you will explain it to me. Over a hotdog at the grill-bar by the harbor—maybe even at a real restaurant in town.”
There was something at once sarcastically flippant and deeply serious in his tone. He stood up without looking at me and tossed the last sip of his coffee into the sink in the washing room.
I felt the unease rising in my body. The thought of the two of us in a restaurant together. I could just see it. Me in my worn T-shirt and flip-flops. Thomas, stick thin, sitting at the other end of the table. I wouldn’t know where to put myself. I had never had dinner at a restaurant, I had never had the money, I had never been asked. The thought made me sick. I didn’t fit in a restaurant. I was someone who collected cans in the park, and I didn’t have to talk to anyone when I did.
“That’s sweet of you,” I said. “But no thanks. I don’t do that kind of thing.”
“Date?”
“Among other things.”
“What about that surfer guy?”
It was the second time he’d mentioned Magnus, and his attempt to sound flippant fell heavily to the ground. His voice was brittle.
“It has nothing to do with the surfer.”
“Is it because of the cancer? Because I’ve been sick?” He had come back into the kitchen and was standing in the doorway with his hands buried deep in his pockets.
“I said no, okay?”
He smiled, and threw his arms wide to take in the kitchen like an estate agent showing a client the best deal he had on offer. “No, it is not okay, Ella. I invite you out for dinner, and you say no. I would like to know why.”
I cringed. This idiot must be stone deaf. Where did he get off smiling at me like that, as if he knew what was best for me?
“Yes, it’s because you’re sick,” I said. “I don’t sleep with men out of pity.”
He stepped back, as if I’d dealt him a physical blow. He even raised a hand to his jaw. His face was completely open and unguarded, and I knew I could destroy him completely if I said one more word.
I dropped my gaze instead, listened with a pounding heart to the sound of his steps in the entrance, the door being closed, the engine of the car roaring in the driveway. Then he was gone. Good riddance. Things were getting too weird. And besides, he was getting too close to Alex.
It was almost two in the morning, but I wasn’t tired.
My phone vibrated on the kitchen table where I had left it. A message announcing missed calls. Not surprisingly, Troels from Aalborg had left three messages, all thr
ee of them listing what he’d had to drink at Friheden since I‘d left, followed by a detailed description of some woman named Jytte’s tits. Oh yes, and by the way, he missed me already.
Scrolling further down, there were four calls in a row from Rosa, who, for her part, hadn’t left any messages. She never did. She was the only person I knew who telephoned from a landline only. It seemed she’d had an extended conversation with Barbara. The final call had lasted over twenty minutes.
I punched in the number and let the phone ring and ring in Hvidovre. No answer. I called again. After the fourth call, someone picked up, but it was Jens on the other end.
“Ella? Hi, pussycat,” he slurred.
Jens was just as drunk as Troels in Aalborg. A wire snapped in my chest. I had only turned my back for a moment, for Christ’s sake. I took a deep breath.
“I see Rosa called,” I said. “Can I talk to her?”
“Of course you can, Ella-mouse.” I could see him standing there, swaying on his feet in the dark, cramped bedroom. “There’s just one itsy-bitsy problem. She’s not here. She’s . . . ”
He grunted softly and the pause that followed was so long that I thought he’d put down the phone to go and look for her. Then he snorted down the line again.
“She left,” he said. “She’s gone. Finis, finito. Adios, Jens, you old bastard.”
“Good for her,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Jens, you’re as pickled as a herring, for Christ’s sake. What the hell are you doing?”
“Everything is just fine, Ella,” he replied. “Everything is just the way it should be.”
“Okay, if you say so.” I took another deep, deep breath. “Where is she staying, Jens? Do you know? Do you have a number where I can reach her?”
He laughed. “Yes, but she’ll be staying here when she gets back,” he said in a tired voice. “She’s just gone down to the store get a couple of beers. Just so there’ll be something in the fridge when we wake up.”
Something hard had lodged itself in my throat. I swallowed. Bloody idiots. Both of them. Rosa had not gotten out of there in time.
“I’m going to wring your neck, Jens. I swear to God.”
He laughed again. His voice was mild and gentle as always. “It isn’t worth the trouble, little Ella. A complete waste of effort.”
“Can you ask her to call back tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“Will you remember?”
I heard him fumbling for paper and a pen next to the bed, something falling to the floor as he repeated the crude message. “Call Ella.”
“Thanks, Jens.” I paused. “Look after yourself.”
He mumbled something that sounded like the bars of a song. Then the connection was cut, and I sat staring at the dead phone for a long time before going into the living room. One of the bulbs in the ceiling had blown, and it was impossible to reach the switch of the orange lamp in the corner. It was cut off by a row of stacked furniture, rolls of tarpaulin, and half-filled buckets of paint. I carefully felt my way through the dark instead, and opened the door into Barbara’s room.
There was no ceiling light either, but I could see the outline of the box mattress and the crumpled pile of bedding in the middle of the room.
“Barbara . . . ” A couple more steps brought me to the wire at the end of her painting spotlight. “Barbara, are you awake? We need to talk.”
The room reeked of paint and sour sweat. Even though it was hot, she hadn’t opened a window. Condensation collected on the moonlit windowpanes.
“Barbara.”
I crossed over to the bed, reached the duvet, and knew at once that she wasn’t there. The blankets were cold and clammy.
When I looked out onto the yard, I realized that her car was gone as well.
34
“She’s still out there. She exists.”
It took a split second for me to recognize the voice on the line. Troels Pinholt. It was 11:30 in the morning and he was already so drunk that he was slobbering.
“Troels?”
“Yesh, for Christ’s sake. We agreed I should call you, so I’m calling . . . ” A lighter clicked, and there was a brief silence while Troels lit his cigarette. He had me on the line, and he was in no hurry.
I wedged the telephone between my shoulder and my ear and continued doing the dishes from the day before. I had fetched warm water from the bathroom and filled the sink in the washing room with a mountain of plates and dirty cutlery. Barbara had not returned.
“And? Have you found something?”
“Of course.” He coughed. “It’s so easy to find people nowadays. Everybody’s got mobile phones and Facebook and all that. I took a trip down Memory Lane with a beer at the Internet café. Many of the old guys are dead, but the live are kicking—all you have to do is send a text! Anyway, I’ve spoken to one of the gang in Viborg. He used to live in Århus, but now he’s in Viborg . . . smokes a little hash, and he shtill sells some shtuff. All kinds of stuff. He shtill sees Lea now and then. She comes to buy. In fact, he saw her a couple of weeks ago, and he’ll try to dig out her number for you—if you’re interested.”
I took a deep breath. “Of course I am,” I said. “How soon can he get the number?”
Troels faltered. “You’ll need to give him some money first,” he said, forcing out yet another murderous volley of coughs. “Ten thousand kroner. That’s what he wants.”
“Go fuck yourselves.”
“Hey. I’m not the one asking for the money.” Troels sounded mortally offended. “I’m just passing on what he said. And it’s a reasonable request, for Christ’s sake. He has a reputation for being discreet.”
I heaved a sigh. There was a reason why former pushers, alcoholics, and other ghosts never changed. They had a chronic lack of judgment and no sense of reality. And they tended to exaggerate their own significance—even within the narrow, seedy confines of the cesspit they stewed in.
“I couldn’t care a shit if it’s a reasonable request or not. I don’t have the money, and if I did, I would spend it on a new television. Tell him he can go to hell. I’ll find her on my own. Like you said, it’s easy to find people nowadays . . . ”
“Not this girl.” Troels lit his second smoke. “According to him, she changes her name as often as the rest of us change our underpants.”
“Once every five years?”
He ignored my jibe. “ . . . I’m just saying, it’s not gonna be easy . . . ”
“Go to hell.”
“It’s a fact. Well, I was just trying to help . . . ” Troels sounded sincerely indignant. “How are you otherwise, Ella?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Troels. I’m going to put the phone down now, okay?”
“Oh, yes, I just thought maybe we could talk for a bit . . .”
“Maybe another time.”
“Well then, farewell. Hey, do you know what it means, fare . . . well? Fare is an old word for traveling or driving. So fare plus well means to drive well, have a good trip, bon voyage . . .”
He was shitfaced. Another succession of coughs. This guy talked too much. I cut the connection and turned off my phone, bitterly regretting having given him my number. I should have simply called him up and remained anonymous. But I hadn’t, and now I was saddled with him and his penetrating, drunken blabber, the same shit I’d had up to my ears back home in the ghetto.
I called to Alex and we went down to the beach together with Lupo. The weather was grey, the motions of the sea heavy and lazy. Far out on the horizon there was a glimpse of the black shapes of container vessels. Alex followed my gaze.
“Do you think we could sail to England next year? I would really like to see London.”
“It’s too far away.”
“Everyone else goes on vacation.” He was drawing in the sand with his big toe, poked at a little pile of seaweed.
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“We are not other people,” I said. “We are us, and we can’t travel anywhere. If I go on holiday, I wouldn’t be at the job market’s disposal, and then I wouldn’t get any money.”
“We could collect more cans . . . ”
“No.”
“You could get a job. Then you would have a right to take a vacation.” He looked at me defiantly. “Why can’t you just get a job, Mom?”
I patted down my shorts. I had run out of smokes.
“What we are doing now is also fine,” I said. “How many of your friends in Hvidovre have a house by the sea?”
“If I’d stayed with Tom and Lisa, I could’ve gone on vacation to Italy with them. They’d already booked the tickets and everything. We were going stay in a hotel with a swimming pool.”
I felt the wave of self-pity rising in my throat. “Tom and Lisa get money from the state for letting you live with them and to take you on vacations to Italy with them,” I said. “I don’t get shit. I can’t afford it, Alex. Okay? So quit pissing on me.”
“Whatever.”
He shrugged and walked down the beach on his own, kicked at a few more piles of seaweed and finally sat down to study something more closely. Lupo had sprinted over to a little stream that snaked through the dunes and was lapping up water with his big, pink tongue.
“Hey!”
Alex looked up, when I called. His eyes were still darts.
“Do you want to come with me to Thisted?”
“Why?”
“We’re going to visit your great-grandmother.”
The long corridors of the nursing home were cool and silent.
We had come during their midday nap, explained a nurse. All the residents were resting in their rooms to gather strength for their afternoon tea, but she’d be happy to show me to my grandmother’s room; she might still be awake. She was young, the nurse, about my age, her step energetic in her sandal soles. If there had been no “family tragedy” and I had grown up in Klitmøller, we might even have been friends. Maybe even colleagues. I liked the way her ponytail swung cheerfully ahead of us and the fact that she had a black leather bracelet wrapped around her tan wrist. Some people were just nice to look at. Calm and at peace with themselves and the world. She would be hard not to like, I was sure.