The Dinosaur Feather

by S. J. Gazan

  They played board games, read books, talked about Elvira, about the first Christmas without her and about Knud, who was putting on a brave face and had insisted they go to Sweden. Søren had rung him twice, but had only gotten the answering machine and he was just starting to worry when he received a voice mail from Knud. Everything was fine. Vibe and Søren spoke conspicuously little about their relationship, as though they had agreed to a truce.

  “We’re like brother and sister,” Vibe exclaimed one day and lowered the book she was reading. Søren was standing by the window, looking out at the wild garden; he was thinking about Maja, how he was going to break the news, how he would tell Vibe. Now was an obvious moment. Right now. But Vibe was cuddled up in a blanket, her cheeks flushed with the heat from the wood stove, a pot of tea on the table, and she looked so peaceful. For the first time in a long time.

  They made love only once. New Year’s Eve. After a lot of salmon and wine. It felt familiar and comforting. They left early in the morning on January 2. Søren had still not told her about Maja.

  They had stopped at a service station to buy milk when Søren saw the newspaper headlines: ASIAN TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL REACHES 200,000.

  “What’s happened?” Vibe gasped. A strange noise escaped from Søren’s throat. They bought milk and a copy of every newspaper.

  “It’s just so awful,” Vibe said, over and over. She was leafing through the newspapers. “It’s unbearable.” With tears streaming down her cheeks, she told him about an Australian mother who had been with her two sons when the tsunami hit and how she hadn’t been strong enough to hold on to them both. She had had to let go of her older son, who was seven. Now he was gone. Vibe dissolved completely. Søren didn’t utter a sound.

  “Do you want to come in?” she asked, when Søren had parked in front of her apartment block. Søren shook his head.

  Maja, Bo, and Katrine weren’t on the lists of missing persons. Søren checked the homepages of the Danish Foreign Office every thirty minutes every single day. They weren’t there. Why hadn’t they called? He would scream at Katrine when he saw her. Teach her never to be so selfish again. He wondered whom to call. He couldn’t think of anyone. Officially, he had no relationship with the Beck Vestergaard family. He had donated some sperm, and there was no one he could call. Vibe rang him several times, but he could barely breathe and he couldn’t talk to her.

  Bo called on January 5 in the evening. Søren had tried to eat some take-out food, but he had lost his appetite. He was standing by the window; the telephone was on the window sill. He answered it after the first ring.

  The weight dropped off Søren, and halfway through January he took a sick leave. Bo called every day, but Søren ignored the telephone. Once, Bo tricked him by calling from a different number. Bo screamed at him, and Søren hung up. After that, Søren stopped answering his telephone. Twice, someone banged on his front door in the night. Søren knew it was Bo. He didn’t open the door, instead he lay very still under his comforter. Eventually Bo gave up.

  Søren spent his days with Knud, stroking the old man’s hair and watching him waste away.

  “Shouldn’t you be at work?” Knud asked. Søren shook his head.

  The night before Knud died, he lay in the living room in Snerlevej, hooked up to a morphine drip, dosing himself nearly all the time Søren was there. It wasn’t until nine in the evening that Knud suddenly woke up and reached out for Søren. Knud’s blue eyes were alert, but he struggled to speak.

  “Vibe,” he said.

  “Vibe isn’t here today. Do you want me to call her?”

  Vibe had gone out to dinner. They had agreed that she would leave her cell phone on silent so that Søren could call her if Knud deteriorated. Søren reached for his cell.

  Knud made a grunting noise, which stopped Søren in his tracks.

  “No, don’t call,” he hissed. His eyes rolled a couple of times, then his eyelids closed heavily and just as Søren decided to get up and make some coffee, Knud’s voice could be heard again.

  “You should love your woman,” he wheezed, “like I love Ella.” Knud was the only one who had ever called Elvira “Ella.”

  “I look forward to dying,” he said, and now his voice sounded strangely clear, like the Knud Søren used to know.

  “Because I’ll see her again.” He smiled faintly. Knud was an arch-atheist. A tear rolled down his cheek.

  “And I so want to see her again.”

  Søren fought hard not to cry.

  “And Vibe…”

  “We’ve agreed that I’ll call her,” Søren said again.

  “Shut up,” Knud snarled, as though it was less painful to rebuke him with a quick crack of the whip than with a lengthy explanation. Søren glanced at the morphine drip.

  “Vibe is like a daughter to Ella and me.” His voice was calm now. “But if you love someone, you should be willing to die for them.” He closed his eyes. Søren sat still like a statue. Knud opened his eyes again and said: “And you’re not willing to die for Vibe. This much I know.” Those were his last words.

  Søren rested his head on his grandfather’s emaciated thighs, covered by the blanket, and sobbed. He thought he would never be able to stop. He could feel Knud’s hand move slightly, but Knud was now too weak to reach his head. Søren was Denmark’s youngest police superintendent, he could identify a murderer from the mere twitching of a single, out-of-place eyebrow hair, he could knit backward, and everyone he had ever loved had died and left him behind.

  Søren parked his car in the basement under Bellahøj police station. He walked up the stairs, filled the coffee machine in the kitchen, switched it on, and went to his office while the water dripped through the filter. It was all a long time ago now. Elvira, Maja, Knud. Three years. Søren contemplated the sky. It looked like it might snow, even though it was only October. He was rummaging around on his desk, looking for a report he had to finish writing, when Henrik burst in without bothering to knock first.

  “Hi, Søren,” Henrik said. “Fancy a lecture at the College of Natural Science?”

  Søren looked perplexed, but he reached for his jacket and started putting it on.

  “A very upset guy by the name of Johannes Trøjborg dialed 911 an hour ago saying his academic supervisor lay dying in his office. Sejr and Madsen followed the ambulance, and they have just called in to report that the deceased, as he is now, is a Lars Helland, age fifty-seven, a biologist and a professor at the University of Copenhagen. The preliminary findings from the paramedic who attended the scene suggest that Helland died of a heart attack.” Søren started taking off his jacket. “But,” Henrik raised his hand to preempt him and checked his notes, “Professor Helland’s severed tongue was lying on his chest, and young Mr. Trøjborg has lost his shit. The deputy medical coroner and the boys from forensics are on their way. Are you coming?”

  Søren rose and zipped his jacket. They went to the garage and drove at high speed to the university. Henrik told a completely unfunny joke, and Søren watched the sky, which looked as if it were about to burst.

  Chapter 4

  Clive Freeman lived in Canada and was professor of Palaeoornithology at the department of Bird Evolution, Palaeobiology, and Systematics at the University of British Columbia—where he had worked for almost thirty years. He lived on Vancouver Island, not far from campus, and he specialized in bird evolution.

  It was generally accepted that birds descended from a primitive reptile, the thecodont, and the most likely candidate for the role of the ancestor of all birds was the archosaur Longisquama. Most scientists—people whom Freeman respected—argued that modern birds were living dinosaurs. Professor Freeman disagreed.

  Clive had grown up in the far north of Canada, the only child of the famous behavioral biologist David Freeman, one of Canada’s most important wolf experts in the latter half of the twentieth century. David taught his son all there was to know about the woods; the life cycle of trees, the forest floor, and the flora and fauna. There was nev
er any doubt that Clive would grow up to be a biologist.

  When Clive turned twelve, he made up his mind to specialize in birds. Birds were the most advanced animals on the planet. The primitive reptile they descended from was also believed to be the ancestor of turtles and crocodiles. A bird skeleton was streamlined, its bones were hollow and filled with air and provided the bird with superior movements, its plumage was perfect, and its egg-laying process was second to none. People never thought about that when sparrows pecked their lawns or pigeons soiled the windshields of their cars. This appealed to Clive. It was as if he alone had spotted the ruby in the dust.

  Clive’s father didn’t care for birds.

  “It’s actually shocking how little you know about the local wolves, given that your father is a world-famous expert,” the elder Freeman remarked one day. He had tested Clive on the subject of mammalian teeth over dinner, and Clive hadn’t been very successful. He could remember molars and premolars. “And eye-teeth,” he had added. Clive’s father gave him a long, hard stare.

  “Eye-teeth are premolars, you moron,” he said after a lengthy pause, then he got up and went to his study. Clive had been on the verge of telling him something about bills. The structure of the bill was unique, evolved, and adapted to such an extent that Clive could barely believe it. Long, thin bills, short, stubby, curled bills. Herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore, there was a bill for every imaginable purpose. Clive’s heart was set on birds, and he didn’t mind that they weren’t mammals.

  Clive was offered a place to study biology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver when he was twenty and knew all there was to know about birds. He ran to the mailbox the day the letter arrived and tore it open. When he learned that he had been accepted—something he had been expecting—he looked back at his childhood home. Somewhere inside it, his father was clinging desperately to his books. Clive never wanted to end up like him. There was more to life than academia. The sun warmed Clive’s forehead, and he closed his eyes. As a child, he had worshipped and feared his father—he still did, as a matter of fact. However, as Clive’s knowledge of natural science had expanded, it had become impossible to believe everything his father told him. Besides, natural science was changing with new methods, modern behavioral research, and a world of technology that Clive believed to be the future, but that David Freeman had very little time for. In recent years their discussions had become so heated that Clive’s mother would sometimes take her plate to the kitchen to eat in peace.

  In a few weeks he would put his childhood behind him. Perhaps this would improve their relationship? Perhaps David would visit him in Vancouver, proud that his son was following in his footsteps?

  That evening, he told his parents about the offer and informed them he would be leaving home soon.

  “The gait of birds is clumsy and ridiculous,” David Freeman observed, and carried on eating.

  Clive’s mother said: “Stop it, both of you.”

  Clive visualized himself leaving the table, casting a patronizing glance at his father’s bald patch, and taking his plate to the kitchen before going to his room to read. But instead he turned to his father and remarked calmly that even if one accepted birds didn’t walk with much elegance, it followed it was even more impressive that many of them still used their feet for walking, given their highly evolved ability to fly. After all, wolves could only walk. They didn’t master an alternative form of movement.

  David said he couldn’t hear what Clive had said. Clive repeated his words, louder than strictly necessary.

  David responded by firing off Latin terms for bones, but he messed up describing the wolf’s leg, whose construction he regarded as superior to that of a bird’s in every respect. Clive’s mother passed the potatoes and poured water into glasses. She shot Clive a quick, pleading look.

  Suddenly Clive pricked up his ears.

  What was it David had just said?

  “What did you just say?”

  Clive’s mother sat absolutely still and David’s face froze halfway through his argument, his hand suspended in midair, his mouth half-open. They both knew it. In his outburst, David had referred to a small bone, which in more primitive mammals was located between the talus bone and the tibia, though any fool knew that the bone in question had been reduced through evolution. David Freeman had made a mistake, Clive had heard it, and David knew that he had.

  Nothing happened for several seconds. The air stood still and Clive’s heart raced. Then David pushed back his chair and walked out.

  For two days Clive was ecstatic. David had finally been put in his place. He came downstairs for meals and would join in the conversation, though he was somewhat subdued. Even Clive’s mother livened up and said, “Don’t you think so, darling?” several times.

  “Yes, yes,” David muttered.

  Clive was the center of attention as he talked about the reading list he had been sent and the forthcoming term. His mother listened and David stayed silent. This had never happened before. Clive suddenly thought his father looked old, eaten up by the antagonism he had harbored over the years and, seized by a rare moment of tenderness, Clive called David “Dad,” which he never normally did.

  Two days later, Clive decided to suggest to David a final walk through the woods before his departure. It was Clive’s fondest childhood memory, and he wanted to take a dew-fresh one with him to Vancouver. He was leaning against the kitchen table, drinking a glass of milk, while he summoned the courage to go to David’s study, when something in the garden caught his eye. Their lawn was a curved piece of land, scattered with Arctic plants; Clive’s bird table was at the far end, and behind it four large rocks broke the surface of the earth. Then the woods began.

  There were dead birds all over the lawn. Three, seven, twenty, his eyes flickered as he started counting. He slammed down his glass and ran outside. There were dead birds everywhere. Limp balls of feather lay on the ground, on the naked area under the bird table, even on the board itself where Clive usually scattered seeds. Horrified, he inspected the feeding table. It was bare with the exception of a few husks whirling around in the wind. He checked the ground where the spike of the table had been pushed in, and that was where he saw the red pellets. There weren’t many left, but enough for him to know what they were: rat poison.

  Clive went straight to his room and packed his bags. He didn’t want to spend another second in his father’s house.

  In Vancouver, Clive rented a room from an elderly lady who lived in a villa. Her front garden was a mess, and Clive volunteered to tidy it up.

  Jack lived next door. He was five years old when Clive moved in and had lost his father a few months previously. He was a beautiful boy with watchful eyes and one day, when Clive was gardening, he came over and started digging his toe into the ground. Clive asked him if he wanted to help.

  Jack and Clive dug a hole for a rose bush the old lady had asked for and, together, they studied everything they unearthed: beetles, worms, pupae ready to burst, skeletons, and a recently deceased mole whose coat still was soft and black. Jack wanted to know all there was to know about nature.

  College began the following week, and Clive soon became very busy. There were compulsory lectures on campus, and he had essays to read and write. Clive told Jack he had to entertain himself during the week. He wouldn’t have time for him until nine o’clock Saturday morning. Jack would show up at nine on the dot in the front garden under Clive’s window with his bucket, his dull pocket knife, and his butterfly net. To begin with, they stayed in the garden, but when they had examined every square inch of it, Clive took Jack into the woods, taking water bottles and packed lunches, reference books, and collection boxes for their findings.

  Clive taught Jack to dissect an animal on a flat rock. A mouse, a rabbit, a pigeon. Clive bought scalpels from the supplies store on campus and made a big deal out of telling Jack how sharp they were. The boy gazed at him, wide-eyed. The first animal they opened up had died from natural causes only
a few hours earlier. It was very fresh and didn’t smell at all. Clive guided the scalpel in Jack’s hand and when the animal was laid out and its abdomen revealed, he asked Jack if he wanted to dissect the spleen.

  “The spleen is bluish and shaped like a plum, that’s all I’m going to tell you.”

  Jack picked up the scalpel, lingered a little, and then he took a deep breath. Soon the boy—pale but smiling—held the shiny organ in the palm of his hand. He had specks of dried blood on his cheek and his hair was tousled, and when Clive praised him, his face lit up.

  This became their game. Clive would tell him which organ to remove and Jack would do it. When Jack turned ten, he was a skilled surgeon, not just in terms of dexterity but also speed. Rarely more than fifteen minutes would pass from the time they found, or killed, an animal before Jack would have dissected it. Clive ruffled the boy’s hair.

  Clive watched Jack’s mother from his window. She had four children, of whom Jack was the youngest. She worked at the checkout in the local supermarket, but she never seemed to recognize Clive when he did his shopping. She had bags under her eyes, she smoked too much, and yet there was something attractive about her. She had slim tanned arms and a narrow back. Not that Clive had any desire to take on another man’s children. Thanks, but no thanks. Jack, of course, wouldn’t be a problem. He was a good boy, Clive’s boy, but Clive found the other children irritating. The oldest one was a young man of sixteen—seventeen years, an apprentice mechanic somewhere. Clive would see him come home in the evening, hear him argue loudly with his mother, and watch him tinker with a car in the front yard, chucking beer bottles on the grass as soon as he had emptied them. One evening, he came home late and Clive heard a violent argument erupt inside the house. “Whore,” the young man shouted. Jack’s mother howled and something got broken. After that night Clive rarely saw him, and Jack told him his big brother had moved out. The middle children were fourteen-year-old twins. The girl was pretty, but had already acquired the same slutty look as her mother. From his window, Clive would watch her smoke furtively, put on makeup, and change into high-heeled boots behind the hedge when she went out in the evening. She would end up like her mother, anyone could see that. Have too many kids she couldn’t support when her boyfriends walked out on her. Her twin brother was no better. He looked like a mini version of his older brother, and when he was home alone he would sit in a deckchair in the garden and masturbate under a blanket. Clive could see from far away what he was doing; he could see what kind of magazines were lying on the grass next to the deckchair. Clive’s throat tightened at the thought of what Jack had to look forward to.