The pastor pushed back his chair, took a deep breath, and stood up. “As you know, on several occasions I’ve used the church to hide people whose application for asylum had been refused. ‘Hide’ is probably not the right word, since it was no secret what I was doing. I’ve used the church as a way to publicize the plight of those seeking asylum, as a platform for their causes. On one occasion in particular with great success.”
“When a special law was passed.”
“Exactly. After lots of articles appeared in the press, a special law was passed allowing the twelve refugees to stay in Denmark. I’m still in touch with some of them. One of them is even my barber.” Niels looked at the pastor’s sparse hair, and Rosenberg smiled.
“Not all of them have managed equally well. A few of them moved to Sweden. Three of them spent time in prison. One of them—a young man from Sudan—has become a professional soccer player.”
“What about the other two?”
“You’re right. There were two others.” Rosenberg hesitated. Niels sensed that this was the first time the pastor was telling the story. “One of them ran off. A stateless Palestinian. I have no idea what happened to him.”
“What about the other one?”
“Khaled.”
“The other one was Khaled? Abdul Hadi’s brother?”
The pastor nodded.
“What happened to him?”
“He’s dead.”
“How did he die?”
“Khaled Hadi was a potential terrorist.” Rosenberg turned his back to Niels as he went on. “That’s what it said in the documents I received from the police. And that’s what they told me when they showed up here. A potential terrorist. Something about how he’d been linked to several terrorist actions and had contacts with known terrorists, although it was never confirmed that he actually carried out a terrorist act. But . . .” Rosenberg searched for the right words. He sat down again. “Do you know about Daniel Pearl?”
“The journalist who was murdered?”
“That’s right. The American journalist who was lured into a trap by al-Qaeda in Karachi in 2002 and—”
“Beheaded.”
Rosenberg nodded. “An appalling case. Publicized around the world.”
“Did Khaled have something to do with that case?”
“It was believed that he did. Your colleagues said he had met Pearl shortly before his death. So it was assumed that he most likely participated in luring the American into the trap.”
“What was Khaled doing in Denmark?”
“I can’t answer that. He may have entered while traveling under an assumed name. Keep in mind that Denmark has housed several international terrorists on the most-wanted lists. The group behind the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 had connections to Århus.”
The pastor went on. “I was under a lot of pressure from PET, the Danish security and intelligence service. It was not in their interest to have it get out that an alleged top international terrorist was here on Danish soil. At the same time, PET knew that they couldn’t just come in and grab him. The other refugees would have defended him. Things would have gotten out of control.”
“So they were putting pressure on you. Did they want you to hand him over?”
“Exactly. But the worst part was the other refugees.”
“The other refugees?”
The pastor took a deep breath and nodded. “I sensed that I had an opportunity to save the refugees. Several newspapers, a number of prominent politicians, and large segments of the Danish population supported me. Time was on my side and on the side of the refugees. Opinion was beginning to tilt in our favor. But Khaled Hadi was a ticking time bomb underneath the upsurge of sympathy. How would people react if they heard that I had given refuge to an alleged terrorist? The support would instantly vanish. With terrible consequences for the other refugees.”
“That’s why you gave in?”
The pastor didn’t reply. For a moment he sat motionless. Then he got up, went over to the bookshelf, and took an envelope out of a drawer. He held it in his hands as he sat down. “I didn’t know what to do. At first I refused. A persecuted man had asked me for refuge. As a Christian, I felt it was my duty to open my door to him.”
“The first stone,” said Niels.
Rosenberg stared at him. “Yes. The first stone. It was a matter of everything I’d been preaching for years.”
“But you were afraid that all sympathy for the refugees would disappear?”
“Slowly, very slowly, images began creeping into my mind, helped along by the information from PET. I began envisioning the scenes: a bomb in a bus at Nørreport Station. Maybe on the metro in rush hour. Or on a domestic flight. Scores of people killed. Blood running in the streets. Finally, I decided that the risk was too great. Just imagine if he was granted a residence permit and went underground. One day I would open the newspaper and read about a terrorist bomb in the heart of Copenhagen. I would read that the terrorist had been given refuge in my church. That I could have prevented it but I did nothing.”
“So you turned him in?”
The pastor nodded. “Like some Judas, I lured him up here to my office—right here—where three PET officers were waiting.”
Rosenberg paused. He was breathing harder. Finally, he went on. “I’ll never forget the look he gave me. A mixture of disappointment, contempt, sorrow, and anger. His eyes said: I trusted you.”
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing. Several weeks passed. The other refugees were granted permission to stay. But then . . .”
Tears welled up in Rosenberg’s eyes. Niels was starting to like this man.
“One day I got this.” He placed the envelope on the desk.
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
The envelope contained pictures. Photographs. Niels held his breath. Battered hands bound to a table. A naked man hanging by his arms, a sack over his head. Niels was reminded of Jesus. The last photo showed a bloody corpse hanging head down from something that looked like a meat hook in a slaughterhouse. Niels couldn’t utter a word.
“Khaled Hadi. Six weeks after I handed him over. Secret photos taken in a prison in Yemen.”
Niels put the pictures back in the envelope.
“Yemen is one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to torture. Most of the torturers in the Middle Ages would have envied their inventiveness. Electrical current to the testicles. Beatings with cables. Submersion in ice-cold water. They force people to eat food laced with crushed glass. I’ve asked a doctor about . . . all of it.”
Niels looked at Rosenberg. He had asked a doctor. Personally suffered every torment on the way to the cross.
“How did Khaled end up back in Yemen?”
The pastor shrugged. “I don’t know. The Danish authorities have done a good job of suppressing the case. No journalists have gotten hold of it. PET has discreetly evaded all blame by stating that Khaled ended up in Yemen after being first sent to another country where he was wanted. PET handed him over to the country in question—they won’t say which country, but undoubtedly, it was the United States—which officially does not use torture. From a strictly legal standpoint, their hands are clean. Besides, there are plenty of gray areas. But what good is it if they hand him over to a country that doesn’t use torture if that country in turn gives him to a country that does? He was simply sent on.”
“Who sent you these pictures?”
“Abdul Hadi. He wanted me to know what I had done. He wanted me to know about Khaled’s fate.”
“So Abdul Hadi was going to kill you out of revenge?”
“Revenge. Yes.”
Neither of them spoke. The pastor glanced at the whiskey bottle. Niels could see that he was fighting a battle with himself. He wanted another drink, but he didn’t think he should have one. Niels was familiar with that battle.
“I don’t think Khaled had anything to do with Daniel Pearl’s murder. He was never
in Afghanistan. He was a nice young man.” Rosenberg looked Niels in the eye. “I threw all sense of judgment out the window.”
The pastor lost the battle and refilled his glass. For the first time Niels noticed the tiny burst blood vessels in the skin under his eyes.
Niels could hear voices from the square outside the church. The police officers were talking. He stared at the pastor sitting in front of him. Images merged in his mind: Abdul Hadi. Running after him down Strøget. The disturbing marks on the backs of the murder victims. The various homicide cases. Sarah Johnsson. Vladimir Zhirkov. The good people.
He was grasping at straws. None of it made any sense. He couldn’t get it to fit together. The pastor’s voice broke into his thoughts. Had he asked a question?
“So I’m not one of the thirty-six righteous people.”
Niels gave him an indulgent smile. “That’s probably not the theory that’s on the top of Interpol’s list, anyway.”
“Maybe it ought to be.”
“Yes, well. You could be right.”
Rosenberg got up. He had unburdened his heart. “My job is the opposite of yours.”
“How’s that?”
“You have to find proof in order to make people believe.”
Niels smiled. “And you have to make people believe without proof.” He wanted to say something to help the pastor rid himself of guilt. “Maybe PET was right,” he said. “Maybe you did the right thing after all.”
A heavy sigh escaped Rosenberg. “Who knows what’s right? There’s a famous Sufi poet named Rumi. He once wrote a story about a little boy who is haunted by dreams of an evil monster. The boy’s mother comforts him by saying that he should just think about her and about the evil monster going away. ‘But Mommy,’ says the boy, ‘What if the monster has a mother, too?’ ” He smiled. “Do you understand what I’m getting at? Evil people have mothers, too, Mr. Bentzon. Mothers who comfort them and tell them that they’re doing the right thing. For them, we’re the monster.”
Soft flakes of snow drifted down from the sky. There was something carefree about their dance through the cold, clear air. The officers were about to drive off. Niels turned to the pastor. “Don’t hesitate to call me.”
Rosenberg nodded. He seemed about to say something, but one of the policemen came over and handed Niels a package. “What’s this?”
“It’s from Venice. It came in the embassy mail this morning.”
Niels opened the package. A cassette tape labeled with Chinese characters. He wondered what it was all about as he stuck the tape in his pocket.
“There’s another possibility,” said Rosenberg.
Niels glanced up. The pastor looked like he was freezing.
“Another possibility?”
“Maybe God is deliberately removing the thirty-six righteous people.”
“You mean God is a murderer?”
“That’s not the way to look at it. If you accept God, you also accept that death is not the end. Look at it as God taking them home.”
“God is taking His best people home?”
“Something like that.”
The doors of the police car slammed. The engine started up.
“But why would God do that?”
The pastor shrugged. “Maybe to test us.”
“Test us?”
“To see how we’ll react.”
Niels stepped aside so the car could drive off. He made eye contact with Abdul Hadi in the backseat. He looked like a wounded animal. Not a monster.
“Or if we’ll react at all.”
48
Nørrebrogade—Copenhagen
The shop selling radios didn’t look like much, squeezed between a pizzeria and a junk shop. Eight televisions stacked on top of each other were broadcasting information from the Bella Center: The world is about to go under. This is the last call. Niels placed the cassette tape labeled with Chinese characters on the counter and tried to make eye contact with the lethargic teenager.
“What’s that?” the clerk asked.
“It’s a cassette tape. I’m looking for a player so I can listen to it. Do you have such a thing?”
“I have no idea.”
Niels looked at him. Waiting. Nothing happened, so he gave up. “Could you check and see?”
“Just a sec.” The teenager turned around and yelled, “Dad!” His voice, which was on the verge of changing, hurt Niels’s ears and reminded him of the children he didn’t have. They would have been about the same age as this boy if Kathrine had gotten pregnant when she and Niels first started trying—a futile process that had gone on for years.
A middle-aged man with remarkably greasy hair emerged from the back room. “Yeah?” he snapped.
“A tape recorder. I’m looking for a tape recorder so I can play this cassette.”
The man looked at the tape, snorted, and disappeared into the back room again. Niels moved aside to answer a call on his cell phone. “Yes?”
“I think I’ve found it, Niels.”
“What have you found?”
“The system. It’s so beautiful, Niels. So incredibly beautiful. That is, if—”
“Start from the beginning, Hannah. I’m a little tired.”
“I’ll explain the whole thing later. But just listen to this: I know where the other murders were committed. All of them.”
“The other murders?”
“Yes! Based on the theory that it’s an unbroken chain of events—the last number we have is thirty-four. A total of twenty-one have been found. So we’re missing thirteen murders, but I know where to look for them. One in Santiago, one in Hanoi, one in Belém, one in Cape Town, one in Nuuk—”
Niels interrupted her. “Wait a minute. There’s no way I can check up on all these cases. What exactly do you want me to do?”
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Then Niels asked, “Did you say Cape Town?”
“What I’m saying is that . . . no, the system says that murder number fourteen was committed on Friday, July twenty-fourth, at sundown in Khayelitsha, a suburb of Cape Town. I can text you the precise latitude and longitude.”
“Do that.” Niels was interrupted as the owner of the radio shop slammed an ancient cassette player down on the counter.
49
Cape Town—South Africa
It could have been a painting. The Indian Ocean. The palm trees. As Kathrine sat in her office on the twelfth floor, she often thought about the studio photographs of her and her sister that their parents always commissioned when they were kids.
They would drive into the town of Roskilde from their home out in the country. From far away, they could see the cathedral’s twin spires, sharp as awls, pointing toward the sky, toward God, like a declaration of war. You shall not come any closer.
Kathrine loved the town. New clothes, a gigantic supermarket where they always lost each other in the endless aisles of jams and spices. And the escalator. She was a little afraid of that. But the escalator carried them up to the floor where they would have their picture taken. She and her sister were never allowed to choose the background themselves, but the photographer always showed them the options. First he would pull down a backdrop showing a forest scene. Her mother loved that scene. Kathrine thought it was creepy. Moss-covered trees deep inside a forest, where the sunlight could shine through only when the trees had shed all their leaves. Her little sister had terrible taste and always wanted something with lots of colors, preferably pink. Then there was the beach scene. That was the one Kathrine had fallen in love with, but her mother had categorically refused to accept it. Even today Kathrine didn’t understand why she had never been allowed to choose that one. The photo had been taken from slightly above the beach, as if you were sitting on the dunes and looking down at the sea. They usually had to settle for a compromise: a clearing in the woods, with the trees pushed back into the distance. God only knew what sort of subconscious sexual tendencies were latent in her mother’s choice of backdrop.
Or what kind of repression motivated it. Kathrine wondered about that. She thought that maybe she was sitting here in this particular office, in this part of the world, because the view resembled the backdrop that had been so forbidden when she was a child. She wanted bright light, but her mother insisted on dim twilight, which better suited the atmosphere in their home. Kathrine’s father had suffered from “black holes,” as her mother called them. Today he would simply be labeled manic-depressive. Not that he was ever particularly manic. If only he had exhibited a little more manic behavior, like the others Kathrine had read about on the Internet: fathers who were either way down in the dumps or way up in the clouds. When they were up, everything was possible: taking trips, buying new cars, moving abroad. That wasn’t how things had been in her childhood home. The old man was either unobtrusive but more or less normal or else he didn’t say a word, sitting as motionless as a lizard for weeks on end.
Here she had air-conditioning and soundproof windows. Marc was hovering out there in the open office area where the secretaries and younger architects and engineers all had their desks. He was looking for an excuse to come into her office again. Did she want to sleep with him? They had flirted with each other, there was no doubt about that. The idea of sex with Marc had been more exciting when she thought that Niels was actually coming to visit. Now that he wasn’t and having an affair had become a realistic possibility, she wasn’t so certain. Marc tried to catch her eye through the glass walls. She turned around to look out the window. Her mother’s forbidden view. The sea. The light.
“Hey, Kathrine.” Marc was standing in the doorway, his pelvis almost imperceptibly thrust forward.
“Hi, Marc.”
“No holiday?” He spoke English with the typical South African Boer accent. Not exactly sexy.
“I’m just sending off the last report,” she replied.
“Isn’t your husband coming?”
He knew full well that Niels wasn’t coming. Right at the moment Marc was being anything but charming. Kathrine could feel tears welling up in her eyes. “Would you mind? I really need to be alone.”
The Last Good Man Page 21