The Purity of Vengeance

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  “The dimwit’s lost her tongue. Perhaps she’s learned her lesson now,” the wardens would say. She heard them, and knew it to be true. For a month she refused to utter a sound. What good would it do her anyway?

  And then she was discharged.

  Rita remained behind. There was a limit to who could be let out into society again, they told her.

  Nete stood in the boat facing aft and watched the island disappear behind the waves, the lighthouse gradually sinking into the horizon. And all the while she thought she might just as well have stayed there, because now her life was over.

  • • •

  The first family she came to was a blacksmith and his wife and their three sons, who were motor mechanics, all of them living from hand to mouth on odd jobs or on the fiddle. No family had greater need of someone to yell at and toil for them all day long. It was a need abundantly fulfilled after Nete moved in. They had her doing everything, from tidying up the yard that was littered with rusting scrap metal to waiting on a callous, unfeeling mother whose only pleasure seemed to be bullying everyone in sight, especially Nete.

  “Little slag,” the woman would spit. “Stupid whore.” Not a single opportunity missed to deride or denigrate.

  “Imbecile. Can’t you read, you simpleton?” the woman berated her one day, indicating the back of a packet of washing powder. And when Nete admitted that she could not, her humiliation was compounded by a stinging blow to the back of her neck.

  “Don’t you understand Danish, you cretin?” became her litany, and Nete all but faded away.

  The sons fondled her breasts at will and the husband threatened to go even further. When she washed herself they would come, one after another, sniffing her out like dogs, hanging around outside the door, shamelessly howling their lust.

  “Let us in, Nete. We’ll make you squeal like the pig you are,” they snorted. Thus passed the days, but the nights were worse. She closed the door of her room tight, wedging the bentwood chair under the handle and bedding down on the floor at the foot of the bed. Should one of them succeed in getting in, she would make sure he received an unpleasant surprise. For the bed would be empty and the iron bar she’d found in the yard was more than heavy. If it came to that, she didn’t care if she beat whoever it was senseless or even killed them. What could befall her now that could be worse than this?

  Now and then she thought about spiking the family’s evening coffee with some of the henbane she’d brought with her from the island. But each time her courage failed, and nothing came of it.

  But then came the day the wife dealt her husband one stinging slap in the face too many, whereupon he went out and fetched the shotgun and blew apart not only her skull but also the family’s means of subsistence.

  Nete sat for hours all on her own in the kitchen, rocking restlessly back and forth while forensics officers picked lead shot and brain matter from the walls.

  Not until evening did her future destiny become clear.

  A straight-backed young man, perhaps no more than six or seven years her senior, stood with his hands outstretched toward her and presented himself: “I’m Erik Hanstholm, and my wife, Marianne, and I have been asked to look after you.”

  The words “look after you” sounded so alien to her. Like the faint sound of music from a long forgotten age. And yet also they were a warning signal. Such words had given her hope to cling to so many times before, hope that had proven futile. But here in this dreadful home, where the echo of the fatal shot still lingered, they had never before sounded so genuine.

  She looked up at the man and studied his face. He seemed kind, but she dismissed the thought immediately. How many times had she been taken in by men she thought to be kind?

  “If you want,” she said with a shrug, for what else was there to say? She had no choice in the matter.

  “Marianne and I have taken on an appointment teaching the deaf in Bredebro. In ‘darkest Jutland.’” He chuckled at the expression. “We hope you might like to accompany us.”

  Only then did she look into his eyes. Had anyone ever suggested before that she might have a choice as to her own future? As far as she recalled, it had never happened. And how many times had anyone said they hoped she “might like to”? None since her mother died, of that she was certain.

  “We’ve seen each other before, albeit many months ago,” the man said. “I read a book out loud for a girl who was hard of hearing and very ill with leukemia. It was at the hospital in Korsør and you were in the bed opposite. Do you remember?”

  He nodded when he saw her bewilderment, the way she blinked quickly in succession as though to shield herself from his searching gaze.

  Was it really him?

  “Don’t you think I noticed you listening to us then? Well, I most certainly did. How could a person forget such lovely blue eyes as yours?”

  And then he extended his hand cautiously without taking hers, simply waiting, his hand held out toward her.

  Until she reached out and accepted.

  • • •

  Everything in Nete’s world was turned on its head only days later in the house that came with the couple’s job in Bredebro.

  She had been lying on her bed since arrival, waiting for the slavery to commence. Waiting for the harsh words and betrayal that seemed to follow her like a shadow.

  It was Erik Hanstholm’s young wife, Marianne, who fetched her from her room and took her down into the study, where she gestured toward an alphabet board.

  “I want you to concentrate, Nete. I’m going to ask you some questions. Take all the time you need before answering. Will you do that for me?”

  Nete looked at the letters. In a short while her world would collapse, for she knew all too well what this was about. The alphabet had been her curse ever since she attended the village school. The swish of the cane across her buttocks, the snap of the ruler against her knuckles would remain with her forever. And when this woman now standing before her discovered that Nete could at best recognize fewer than a quarter of the letters of the alphabet, and moreover was incapable of joining them together in any meaningful way, she would once again be condemned to the mire where everyone told her she belonged.

  Nete tightened her lips. “I’d like to, Mrs. Hanstholm. But I can’t.”

  They looked at each other for a moment in silence, Nete wondering when the blow would fall, but Marianne Hanstholm simply smiled.

  “Trust me, dear. You can do it, only not that well yet. Would you like to tell me which of these letters you know? That would please me a lot.”

  Nete frowned. And when nothing happened other than the lady opposite her smiling encouragingly, she reluctantly got to her feet and stepped up to the board.

  “I know this one,” she said. “It’s an N for Nete.”

  Mrs. Hanstholm clapped her hands and laughed. “Well, that’s a start, wouldn’t you say?” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and giving Nete a hug. “We’ll show them, just you wait and see.”

  Enveloped by these warm arms, Nete began to tremble, but Marianne Hanstholm kept tight hold of her and whispered in her ear that everything was going to be better now. Nete could hardly believe what was happening. She continued to tremble and then began to cry.

  At that moment Erik Hanstholm came in, drawn by the excitement, and was at once visibly moved by the tears in Nete’s eyes and the way she clung to his young wife.

  “That’s right, Nete. You have a good cry. Let it all out, because as from today you’ll never have to suffer that pain again,” he told her. Then he softly whispered the words that from that moment on banished from her life all the malice she had ever known.

  “You’re good enough, Nete. Remember it always: you’re good enough.”

  • • •

  Nete ran into Rita outside the chemist’s in Bredebro one day in the autumn of 1961. The news came blurting out
before Nete even managed to react to the coincidence of their meeting again.

  “They’ve shut down the home on Sprogø,” Rita announced, laughing at Nete’s sudden bewilderment.

  Then all at once she was serious again.

  “Most of us were put into service, working for board and lodgings, so as far as that goes, nothing’s changed. Grafting from dawn to dusk and not a penny to show for it. A girl can get tired of that, Nete.”

  Nete nodded. She knew all about it. And then she tried to look into Rita’s eyes. It was hard. She never thought she would ever see them again.

  “What are you doing here?” she eventually asked, uncertain of whether she wanted to know.

  “I work at a dairy twenty kilometers away. Pia, that old slag from Århus, is there, too. We slog our guts out from five in the morning until late. It’s misery. So now I’ve done a bunk and come to ask if you’ll come with me.”

  The idea was completely alien. Nete didn’t even want to hear it. Everything inside her balked at the sight of Rita. How dare she come here after what she’d done? Had it not been for Rita’s jealousy and selfishness, everything would have turned out differently.

  Nete would have got away from the island and still been able to have children.

  “Come on, girl. Let’s take off, you and me. Sod everything. Remember the plans we made? First England, then America. A place where no one knows us.”

  Nete looked away. “How did you know where I was?”

  Rita let out a dry, gutteral laugh that told of years of smoking. “Don’t you think Gitte Charles has been keeping tabs on you, you silly sod? The cow tormented me day in and day out, taunting me about where you were and how your life had turned out on the outside.”

  Gitte Charles! Nete clenched her fists at the mention of the name. “Charles! Where is she now?”

  “If I knew that, she’d have something coming to her,” came Rita’s retort.

  Nete studied her for a moment. She had seen what Rita was capable of. Seen her take the wooden laundry tongs to the girls who wouldn’t pay up for cigarettes, thrashing the daylights out of them and making sure the bruises were visible only when the girls removed their clothes.

  “I want you to go now, Rita,” she said, in a measured voice. “I never wish to see you ever again, do you understand?”

  Rita lifted her chin and looked down her nose. “So I’m not good enough for you anymore, is that it? You little scrubber!”

  Nete nodded deliberately. Life had taught her to stick to two universal truths. The first was her brother’s observation about the two kinds of beings: male and female. The other was that a person’s life is an eternal balancing act, a tightrope walk across a void of temptation, and that the consequences of failing to proceed along the straight and narrow were immeasurable.

  At that moment, Nete was tempted to use her fist to wipe the smirk off Rita’s face, but it was a temptation she resisted. If anyone should fall into the void it wasn’t going to be her.

  “Look after yourself, Rita,” she said, turning away. But Rita wasn’t finished yet.

  “Just you wait a minute,” she spat, grabbing her arm and then glaring at two startled housewives who happened to be passing with their shopping bags.

  “Here are two tarts from Sprogø who’ll shag the arses off your husbands for ten kroner, and this one here’s the worst,” she yelled, grasping Nete roughly by the cheeks and forcing her to face the two astonished women. “Have a good look at this one. Don’t you think your husbands would rather bonk her than a pair of dogs like you? She lives here in town, so I’d watch out if I were you!”

  Rita turned back to Nete, her eyes narrow. “So, are you coming with me or not? Because if you’re not, I’m going to stand here and scream my head off until the police arrive. And that’s not exactly going to make life easy for you here, is it?”

  • • •

  Later there was a knock on the door of her room where she sat crying. Her foster father ventured in.

  His face was grave, and he said nothing for a long time.

  Now he’s going to tell me to leave, she thought to herself. And I’ll be sent on to a family who can keep me away from normal people. A family who won’t be ashamed. A family who don’t even know what shame is.

  Erik Hanstholm placed his hand cautiously on hers. “Nete, I want you to know that the only thing people are talking about in town is how you managed to retain your dignity. You clenched your fists, they saw that. But you didn’t strike out. You fought back with words instead, and for that you deserve praise indeed.”

  “But now everyone knows,” said Nete.

  “Knows what? The only thing they know is that you stood your ground and told her: ‘You’re calling me a tart? Do you know what, Rita? Next time you mistake me for your twin sister, I think these people here will be happy to show you the way to the nearest optician. Go away, and don’t come back, otherwise I’ll call the police. Do you understand me?’” He nodded. “That’s what they know, Nete. And it reflects well.”

  He looked at her and smiled until she smiled, too.

  “One more thing, Nete. I’ve got something for you.”

  He reached behind his back.

  “Here,” he said, and handed her a diploma written in big letters. She read her way through it slowly, word by word.

  No one who can read this can be called illiterate, it read.

  He gave her arm a squeeze. “Hang it on your wall, Nete. When you’ve read all the books in our bookcase and done all the maths we do with the deaf, we’ll send you to grammar school.”

  • • •

  It was all in the past before she even noticed. Grammar school, the technical college, her training as a laboratory technician, being taken on by Interlab, her marriage to Andreas Rosen. A wonderful past that Nete thought of as her second life. The time before Andreas was killed, long before she sat here in her apartment with four killings on her conscience.

  Once Gitte’s out of the way, my third life will begin, she thought to herself.

  And at that moment the entry phone buzzed.

  When Nete opened the door, she found Gitte standing before her, a marble pillar ravaged by time yet beautiful still and elegant as ever.

  “Thanks for inviting me, Nete,” she said without pause, slipping inside as a serpent into a rat hole.

  Gitte glanced around as she stood in the hallway, handed her coat to Nete, and proceeded into the living room. Each silver spoon was registered, each painting on the wall assessed by Gitte’s keen eye.

  Eventually she turned to face her hostess. “I’m so awfully sorry to hear how poorly you are, Nete. Is it cancer?”

  Nete nodded.

  “And there’s no more they can do?”

  Nete nodded again, ready to offer Gitte a seat, though wholly unprepared for what her guest had in store.

  “No, you take the weight off your feet, Nete. I’ll take care of things. I see you’ve made tea. Let me pour you a cup.”

  She steered Nete backward onto the sofa and turned to the sideboard.

  “Do you take sugar?” she asked.

  “Not for me, thanks,” Nete replied, standing up again. “I’ll make a fresh pot; that’ll be cold by now. I made it for my previous guest.”

  “Your previous guest? You mean there have been others?” Gitte looked at her inquiringly, then began to pour despite Nete’s protests.

  Nete felt unsure of herself all of a sudden. Was Gitte burrowing? Did she suspect something wasn’t right? Nete had seen her coming from the direction of the Pavilion, so the risk of her having bumped into one of the others had to be rather small.

  “Yes, there’s been a couple before you. You’re the last.”

  “I see.” She handed Nete her tea and poured a cup for herself. “Are we all being favored in the same way?”

  “No,
not everyone. The lawyer’s just popped out, by the way. Some errands before the shops close, so you’ll have to be patient, I’m afraid. Are you in a hurry?”

  The question prompted an odd outburst of laughter. As though being in a hurry was the last thing in the world Gitte could imagine.

  Keep the conversation going until she lets me pour, Nete told herself. But how? She racked her brains amid the stabbing pain of her migraine. It felt like a helmet lined with spikes had been clamped on her skull.

  “It’s so hard to understand that you should be ill, Nete. The years seem to have been so kind to you,” Gitte commented, stirring her tea.

  Nete shook her head. As far as she could see, they resembled each other in many ways, and the word “kind” didn’t quite seem appropriate in describing how the years had treated them. Wrinkles, pasty skin, and gray hair had long since become a part of their appearance. No, it was obvious that life had not been without its trials for either of them.

  Nete tried to think back to their time together on the island. It all felt so strange now that she knew their roles had switched.

  They chatted about nothing for a while, then Nete got to her feet, picked up her own and Gitte’s cups, and went over to the sideboard, where she stood with her back to her guest just as she had done four times before. “More tea?” she asked.

  “No, thanks, not for me,” Gitte replied. “But don’t let me stop you.”

  Nete ignored her and poured anyway, adding several drops of the extract. How many times had she been bossed about by Gitte Charles on that dreadful island? She put the cup down on the table in front of Gitte without refreshing her own, the throb of migraine pulsing in her ears. Even the smell of the tea made her queasy.

  “Do you mind if we swap places, Gitte?” she said, nausea welling in her throat. “I’ve a terrible headache and I’m afraid I can’t bear to sit facing the window.”

  “Headache, too? Oh, you poor thing,” Gitte consoled, standing up as Nete moved her cup across the table.

  “I can’t really talk right now, to be honest,” Nete added. “I need to close my eyes for a while.”