A few seconds of silence followed. Niels was the one to speak first. “They strike simultaneously.”
“Precisely. They strike at the same time.”
“An optical illusion?” suggested a voice behind Niels.
“No. It’s not an illusion. Both results are equally correct. It just depends on the position where you’re standing. It’s . . . relative.” She smiled.
The theory of relativity became their bridge from Fyn to Jutland. Hannah wanted to remind Niels of how little humans actually knew. Einstein developed the theory a hundred years ago, and it turned the view of the world upside down, even though very few people truly understood it. Niels could tell that she had no intention of stopping. Apparently, she saw it as her mission to convince him.
They forgot all about the time, and when they next looked out the window, the fences were tall and white, in the best style of horse country. They had arrived in Jutland.
It was impossible to tell when they’d be captured, but Niels was hoping that several days would pass, maybe even a few weeks. He was hardly a top priority, and time was on their side. New cases would appear, more pressing manhunts, and slowly but surely, they would be moved down on the list of priorities. Of course they would be caught. It was just a matter of time.
6
Jutland
Middle-aged mothers and fathers were waiting at the station to welcome home their grown children returning to celebrate Christmas. Were people looking at them? Niels could feel his paranoia grow as they stepped out onto the platform. They could have been spotted a hundred times between Odense and Esbjerg.
Niels saw the man before he spotted them. The cold expression, a piece of paper in his hand, his eyes roaming over the arriving passengers. Niels pulled Hannah into the train station men’s room.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He didn’t reply. He was trying to collect his thoughts. How could they have found him so quickly? Just like when they were discovered down by the harbor. It was too fast. Someone must have made a call to the police. Was it Hannah? Niels stared at her, thinking back. At the harbor he had gone into the kiosk, so she could have used her cell. And on the train she had left at one point to use the bathroom.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
Niels shifted his glance to the floor. “There was a man out there. A plainclothes policeman. He’s looking for us.”
“How do you know that?”
“That sort of thing is easy to spot.”
Niels pondered the situation. Hannah was the only one who could have given him away. Or else it was . . . He pulled his cell out of his pocket. It was turned on. “Shit!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“They’re tracking you through your cell?”
“Yes.”
Niels waited a couple of minutes before he looked out the bathroom window. Passengers were still getting on and off the train. There were heaps of baggage, and everyone was lugging heavy suitcases as they pushed their way through the crowd. The world must weigh significantly more at Christmastime, he thought. At that instant he caught sight of the man again. At the end of the platform.
“Is he still there?”
Niels shut the door. The police officer gave himself away not so much by the way he was staring; but every time a middle-aged man passed, he looked down at the piece of paper he was holding.
Niels pulled Hannah into one of the toilet stalls. Someone went into the next stall to pee. Hannah smiled and held her breath. The walls were covered with desperate invitations. Guy seeks guy. Young man seeks mature male partner.
“I guess this isn’t an easy place for anyone who doesn’t fit into the sexual norms,” said Niels once they were alone again.
“No. But it’s never easy.” She sounded as if she spoke from experience. “You go out first. Keep an eye on the exit. A middle-aged man, about five-eleven, wearing a light suede jacket. He’s looking for us. If he’s still there, cough.”
“Then what?”
“Turn around and calmly go into the toilet next door. As if you just went into the wrong one.”
She left. A moment later he heard a surprisingly natural-sounding cough, then the door to the ladies’ room as it banged closed. He waited for five long minutes. Then he looked out. The man was on his way down the stairs. He had given up.
Outside the train station, before they jumped on a bus, Niels cursed himself. It had been years since he’d been part of a manhunt. He was a negotiator—he wasn’t used to thinking about things like tracking devices, satellites, GPS signals, and cell towers. First he ripped out the SIM card, then he stomped on his cell phone. It gave him a satisfying feeling.
“Can I have your cell, too?” he asked.
Hannah handed it to him without protest. An elderly couple watched from across the street as Niels threw Hannah’s cell to the ground and then crushed it underfoot. They shook their heads.
The bus started out along the highway but then turned off and continued on small country roads.
“I think I know where we are,” said Hannah, looking out at the landscape. “I haven’t been here in thirty years. And back then it was in the summertime.”
“There’s a hotel?”
“There must be. Don’t you think?”
They drove into the town. Like most other Danish towns, it looked rather boring at first: a supermarket and redbrick one-story buildings. It ended up looking quite lovely down by the area that used to be the old fishing village. The bus pulled over and stopped.
Hannah got up. “This is it.”
Outside, they saw two locals, elderly men standing next to their bicycles.
“Hi.” Niels went over to them. “Do you know if there’s a hotel that’s open?”
Suspicious glances and the sort of silent treatment practiced only in small towns. Niels was about to ask again when the man who still had teeth spat out his wad of snuff and answered, “It’s closed to tourists. Come back in the summer.”
“Closed, or just closed to tourists?”
The men didn’t reply. Hannah intervened. “Are you sure there’s no place where we could spend the night in this town?”
The toothless man said, “Go down to the shore and head north. But watch out for the freight trains. The gate at the crossing isn’t working properly.”
“Thanks.”
They followed the traces of sand that got bigger as they approached the sea. The sound also served as a guide. The waves bombarding the coastline. Niels had never understood why anyone would want to live on the coast. It was never quiet.
“Watch out!” Niels grabbed Hannah’s arm and yanked her back. The train raced past them, and only then did the train driver sound the horn, more as a greeting than a warning.
“Idiot,” said Niels.
“They did warn us that the gate wasn’t working.”
“Sure, but what about people who weren’t warned?”
The tracks were nearly covered with sand and snow, and the roar from the sea drowned out the sound of the diesel engine. The gate was trying hard to come down, but it refused to budge. For a moment neither of them spoke. Like all policemen, Niels felt an ingrained aversion to unsafe traffic conditions. Someday one of his colleagues would be standing here, comforting the survivors, coordinating ambulances and fire engines, and trying to figure out who was responsible for the accident.
The North Sea shoreline was wide and hard-packed; tiny rivulets and lagoons had wedged their way into the sand. They had to keep stepping over them, while the wind tried to knock them over. Hannah laughed.
“What are you laughing about?”
She couldn’t stop.
“What is it? Why are you laughing?”
She held her hand over her mouth while she laughed. They kept on walking as she chuckled to herself.
Maybe it was just because he looked so foolish.
7
The North Sea
Th
e hotel smelled of school field trips, of sack lunches and damp clothes. The floors and walls were made of wood, and the only pictures on display were of the sea, even though it was right outside the door. The lobby was deserted, and Niels looked for a bell on the front desk that he might pound with his frozen fist. The hotel clerk finally appeared behind them. “Good evening,” she said.
“Good evening.” Niels’s face felt stiff with cold. “Is the hotel open?”
“Yes. We’re open all year round. How many nights?” She took her place behind the counter.
“Er . . .” Hannah looked at Niels.
“Five, for the time being,” he said. “Maybe more.”
The clerk stared at a computer screen. “A double room?”
“No.” Niels caught Hannah’s eye. “Two single rooms.”
The window faced the sea. A chair, a rickety table, a wardrobe, and a thick red carpet. Niels stretched out on the bed just for a moment. It creaked, and the mattress sagged. It was almost like lying in a hammock. But he didn’t care. He closed his eyes, turned onto his side, tucked up his legs, and used his hands as a pillow. He imagined someone looking at him from above. Maybe he was doing that himself. Or a bird. He ought to go into the bathroom to take a look at the mark on his back. He pushed the thought away as quickly as it appeared. He sank another quarter inch into the mattress. Other disturbing thoughts passed through his mind: about his mother, about the climate conference and Abdul Hadi. The pastor’s words: But Mommy, what if the monster has a mother, too?
“Niels?”
A voice from far away. Had he fallen asleep?
“Niels.”
Hannah. Out in the hallway. “We need to eat. How about meeting in the restaurant in ten minutes? It’s on the third floor.”
“Okay.” He propped himself up on his elbows. “See you in ten minutes.”
The restaurant decor was white-painted wood, with dried North Sea flowers adorning the walls. Christmas decorations stood on the windowsills. There were no other guests. Hannah appeared from the far end of the restaurant.
Niels had a feeling that she’d been there a while but had waited in the wings in order to make a grand entrance. She looked different.
“Have you ordered yet?” she asked him.
“No. The girl from the front desk is the waitress. She’s probably the cook, too.”
“And the hotel manager.”
They laughed. The desk clerk came over to their table. “Have you decided?”
“We’ll start with something to drink.”
“White wine,” said Hannah at once.
“Any particular kind?”
“The best you have.” Niels smiled at the clerk. “If the world is going to end this weekend anyway, we might as well have the best.”
“I don’t understand.” The young woman gave him a puzzled look.
“Me, neither.”
An uncertain smile and a slight laugh. Then the clerk disappeared.
“There’s no reason to make her nervous,” Hannah said.
“She might as well know what’s going to happen. Maybe there’s something she needs to do.”
“We often talk about that up at the institute.”
“The end of the world?”
“Of course. We sit there staring out into space, looking at dying suns and colliding galaxies.”
“And meteors?”
“They’re a little harder to see. But my work is a constant reminder of the end. Fortunately, it’s also a reminder of the birth of new worlds.”
The hotel clerk was back. She uncorked the wine and filled their glasses. After she left, a comfortable silence settled over them.
Niels ruined the moment. “Your son.”
“Yes. My son. My beloved son.”
He may have regretted broaching the subject, but it was too late now. She grew distant, but still she said, “He killed himself.”
Niels looked down at the table.
“Johannes was a child prodigy. An extraordinarily gifted boy.” She sipped her wine.
“How old was he when he died?”
She ignored the question. “He started showing signs that he was psychologically disturbed. He was schizophrenic. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“The day we got the diagnosis out at Bispebjerg Hospital, it felt like the whole world came crashing down around me and Johannes.”
“What about your husband?”
“Gustav was somewhere else. He was always away giving guest lectures whenever things got complicated from an emotional point of view. When I told him about the diagnosis on the phone, he said, ‘Well, at least we now have an explanation, Hannah. I’ve got to run. I have a meeting.’ ”
“I’m sorry.”
“Maybe it was a good thing he said that. His way of dealing with the situation was to continue on with his life as if nothing had happened. So there was at least one thing that was the same as before. Gustav.”
“Was Johannes committed to an institution?”
She nodded. She didn’t speak for so long that Niels thought she was done with the topic.
“I left him at the hospital and visited only on Sundays. And there he sat.”
Another pause, even longer than the previous one. The silence was starting to feel uncomfortable.
“Do you know what day he chose to hang himself?” she asked at last.
Niels kept his eyes on the table.
“The day that Gustav received the Fields Medal. It was the clearest message a son ever sent to his parents: ‘Congratulations. You abandoned me.’ You won’t find that part of the story in Wikipedia if you look us up.”
“You shouldn’t look at it like that.” Niels could hear how feeble his protest sounded.
“The first few months, my only thought was to leave this place.”
“You mean . . . commit suicide?”
“I didn’t deserve to live. I even got hold of the necessary pills. Planned the whole thing.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I don’t know. I just decided not to do it. Maybe because I needed to . . .” She stopped.
“What, Hannah?”
“Because I needed to meet you, Niels.” She looked at him. “And do something right.”
Niels wanted to say something—he had to say something—but Hannah put her hands on top of his, and that made all words superfluous.
8
The wind from the North Sea was tearing at the old hotel. As Niels and Hannah walked down the corridor toward their rooms, he imagined that the wind might shove the hotel so fiercely during the night that the building would end up in Copenhagen. He seemed to have voiced this thought aloud, because Hannah giggled and said, “We better not make so much noise. I think it’s really late.”
“Why do you say that?” Only now did Niels realize how much he’d had to drink. “We’re the only guests here.”
Hannah stopped and took out her key. “Thank you for a lovely evening.”
“I’m the one who should be thanking you.”
There was something very deliberate about the way she turned her back to him. Without looking at him, she asked, “Would you like to come in?”
“The condemned prisoner’s last wish?”
She turned around. “I just thought it might be comforting. Or wonderful. You know what I mean.”
Niels stroked her cheek. That was stupid of him. If he’d taken a few seconds to think things through, he could have come up with at least ten things he would have rather done.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea,” said Niels. “Sleep well.”
He didn’t move. Everything in his body was telling him to go to his own room—except his feet.
“You should do something wrong once in a while.” Her voice caught him off guard.
“What do you mean?”
“You should do something evil.”
“Maybe. But there’s nothing evil about going to your room wit
h you.”
Niels closed his door behind him. He could hear Hannah talking to herself out in the hall. Do something evil, she said twice before she opened the door to her own room and went inside.
The mark was getting clearer. Niels studied his back in the bathroom mirror. He turned his head as far as his body would allow, examining the swollen, reddish skin. Just some sort of rash. A rash with a will of its own. He couldn’t see any numbers yet. Yet?
Niels went over to the table and sat down. He couldn’t sleep. Half drunk and half exhausted didn’t equal the calm necessary to fall asleep. He ignored the NO SMOKING sign on the door and lit a cigarette, then counted how many were left in the pack. He looked around the room. Thought about Hannah. About her grief. About Kathrine and how much he longed for her when she was thousands of kilometers away. More than when she was standing right in front of him. He tried to push that thought out of his mind, but it wouldn’t budge. Two cigarettes later, he saw the scene from their latest fight play out word for word in the middle of the room. He pictured the two of them so clearly: Like amateur actors, they stood before him, yelling at each other. He was just about to step in like a referee at a boxing match and shout “Break it up” and then send each of them back to their separate corners—him to the North Sea and her to Cape Town.
Something made him open the drawer in the table. He found a local phone book, a postcard that had never been sent to someone’s grandmother in Gudhjem. And a Bible. He picked up the book with the dark cover and leafed through the pages. Abraham. Isaac. Rebecca. It was an eternity since he’d held a Bible in his hands. He hung his shoulder holster and pistol on the back of the chair. It seemed wrong to have those two things so close together—a gun and a Bible. The Beatles came to his rescue, as only pop music can when contradictory emotions need to be resolved. He was still half drunk—actually more than half—or he would have started singing “Rocky Raccoon.”
The Last Good Man Page 36