by S. J. Gazan
“I’m really very sorry,” Anna said.
“I’m so glad you could come,” Mrs. Helland said. “We’re in a state, I’m afraid.” Tears started rolling down her cheeks, and she did nothing to stop them.
“I’m so sorry,” Anna said again.
“For the first two days the telephone wouldn’t stop ringing. The Dean, the Head of the Institute. Former postgraduate students, colleagues from all over the world. They all wanted to offer their condolences. Most out of genuine compassion, but quite a few just called out of politeness. I can’t imagine why anyone would offer their condolences if they didn’t care about the person who died, can you?”
Anna shook her head.
“A lot of people didn’t like Lars. I can see why. Lars wasn’t an easy man.” She smiled. “But then, who is?” She looked gravely at Anna. “The telephone has stopped ringing now,” she added, glancing at the table where it stood.
“You didn’t call,” Mrs. Helland said. “Why not?”
Anna gulped.
“Lars was sure you didn’t like him.” She looked kindly at Anna. “Though he never cared very much whether or not people did. ‘Never mind,’ he would say. ‘That’s their problem. That will stir things up.’ Lars loved stirring things up. It always bothered me, though. Because it was so unfair. He was a good man.” Mrs. Helland smiled again. “A very unusual, but good man. He was a wonderful father to Nanna.”
Anna was about to reassure Mrs. Helland that there was no need for her to justify her late husband’s behavior, when Mrs. Helland said: “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.” She smiled and looked down at her hands. “Either I hide myself away, never to be seen. Or I tell everyone about Lars. The supermarket cashier, the bus driver, the cold caller, everyone is forced to listen to my grief.”
“I know how you feel,” Anna said. Mrs. Helland poured more tea.
“He often mentioned you,” she said. “I think he was fascinated by you. And Lars was usually only interested in birds.” She smiled wryly. Anna reddened and wanted to protest, but Mrs. Helland carried on: “‘She loathes me,’ he would say about you. ‘But she would rather die than admit it.’ He respected you, Anna,” she said.
Anna didn’t know what to say. Everything she had ever said about Helland suddenly tasted bitter.
“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted.
Mrs. Helland continued looking at her.
“We had our differences,” Anna said, tentatively.
“Well, of course you did. Lars had with most people. He was like that. He believed you had to court controversy to achieve anything at all.”
A pause followed.
“Do they suspect you, too?” Mrs. Helland asked out of the blue.
“Do they suspect you?” Anna was shocked.
“They don’t say so openly. The superintendent does. He wants to come across as a friendly teddy bear, so he ums and ahs. All he’s prepared to say is that Lars appears to have suffered from a tropical infection and they’re treating his death as suspicious. And then he assures me everything will be investigated very thoroughly. But he’s hiding something because he suspects me, I’m sure of it.” Mrs. Helland suddenly got up and sat next to Anna. She clasped Anna’s hands and looked desperate.
“We’re losing our minds,” she wailed. “Neither of us can sleep. Until last Monday, Lars was a perfectly healthy man, and now he’s dead. Why would anyone want to murder him? And what’s this about a tropical infection? It’s utterly ridiculous.”
Everything inside Anna resisted. Mrs. Helland was sitting too close to her, and something in Anna’s throat tightened.
“You’re lying,” she croaked.
Mrs. Helland stared at Anna. “What do you mean?”
“Your husband was ill,” Anna said. “I saw him. He was seriously ill. Why do you say he was well when we both know that isn’t true?”
Mrs. Helland pulled back.
“I don’t understand…” Her lips quivered.
“What was wrong with his eye?” Anna continued.
“That small polyp?”
“Yes, what was it?”
“His father had one of those.” Mrs. Helland faltered. “It was something inherited.”
“No,” Anna insisted. “It wasn’t. And you know it.”
Mrs. Helland looked stubbornly at Anna. “Lars wasn’t ill. I don’t understand why you keep saying he was. I loved him. He wasn’t ill.” Mrs. Helland started crying. “All I wanted to do was give you this,” she said and picked up a small white box from a circular table next to the sofa. The tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“It’s from Lars,” she sobbed. “Your graduation present.”
Reluctantly, Anna accepted the present.
“Open it,” Mrs. Helland ordered her.
Anna took the lid off the box and removed the bright yellow cotton. Underneath it was a silver chain with a pendant. The pendant consisted of two charms, an egg and a feather. Anna swallowed and looked up at Mrs. Helland.
“It’s beautiful,” she gasped.
Mrs. Helland smiled, red-eyed. She was still sitting far too close, Anna could smell her tears, feel a vile heat from her body. Anna didn’t want to stay there any longer. Not another second.
“I don’t know why you’re lying, but I know that you are. And, as long as you’re lying, don’t expect anything from me. Thanks for the tea.”
She didn’t realize how much she was shaking until she was outside in the street.
Anna caught the bus back to the university. She called Johannes, but it went straight to voicemail. When she reached the exit with Bellahøj police station and the bus turned into Frederikssundvej, she spotted Cecilie on the sidewalk. She was stooping and had covered her head with a scarf. When she looked up and saw the bus, she started to run. She didn’t see Anna. Despite the weather, she was wearing boots with stiletto heels and a beige jacket with a fur collar, which was fashionable, but not very warm.
Why were they so different? Why did Anna have a mother who often looked at her as though she were from another planet? Cecilie was now parallel to the window where Anna was sitting, two-thirds back in the bus. Her foot slipped, but she recovered her balance. She pushed her way onto the crowded bus and stood where Anna could observe her, unnoticed. Cecilie looked rough. She always wore red lipstick, but today her lips were cracked and devoid of color, and she looked as if she had been crying. Over Anna? Over Lily? Yet she hadn’t called. Jens had called. Seven times, since she had hung up on him. He was like the spy character from Stratego, willing to sound out the terrain, to die for the flag. Anna had ignored it and let the call go to voice mail.
Cecilie was clutching a strap. Anna was half-hidden by a night bus timetable, and if she moved her head she would be out of sight. She watched her mother and felt like crying. She missed her. When she had met Thomas, she had finally dared to separate from Cecilie. You can go now, Mom; you can get fat, bake cakes, but go, please. I have my own family now, I don’t need you anymore. Not in that way. She wanted Thomas to provide everything that had previously been Cecilie’s responsibility. Comfort, support, solidarity. For a short period, she convinced herself she had succeeded. Because she wanted it so desperately. Then her house of cards collapsed, and Anna fell flat on her face. And who picks you up when you’re down? Your mother.
Cecilie turned her head, and Anna could study her profile. She’s thinking about me, Anna thought. And yet she doesn’t call me; still she chooses to wait until I come to her. It was the game they always played. They got off at the same stop along with fifteen other passengers. Anna was among the last to leave. Cecilie didn’t look up but walked down Jagtvejen as quickly as her high-heeled boots would allow her. Anna stopped at the corner and looked at her mother as she disappeared.
At the university she met Professor Ewald in the corridor.
“Why don’t I give you a lift on Saturday?” the professor offered. “To the funeral, I mean. I could pick you up at twelve fifteen?”
She looked cautiously at Anna; they had barely spoken since their minor run-in the other day.
“Yes, please,” Anna said. “I had actually decided not to go, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“I’m so glad,” Professor Ewald said, warmly.
“Any news?” Anna asked.
“No.” Professor Ewald shrugged. “Only that dreadful rumor.” Her eyes shone.
“What rumor?” Anna feigned ignorance.
“Rumor has it he was full of parasites, cysticerci from Taenia solium. That there were thousands of them in his tissue and that’s what caused his death.” Professor Ewald gave Anna a look of horror.
Anna gulped. Should she confirm it?
“Don’t listen to rumors,” she said and put her hand affectionately on Professor Ewald’s shoulder. Professor Ewald nodded.
Anna continued down the corridor. She wanted a word with the World’s Most Irritating Detective. Why on earth were those parasites a secret?
She was starving. She went through Johannes’s drawers and found some crackers. They were stale and sweet, but she ate the whole packet. Then she drank a glass of water, switched on her computer, checked her e-mails, proofread the conclusion of her dissertation for the umpteenth time, chewed a nail, scratched her head, and when she had finally run out of displacement activities, she called Ulla Bodelsen in Odense.
The telephone was answered on the fifth ring, when Anna was about to give up.
“Yes?”
“My name is Anna,” Anna said. Her heart was beating wildly.
“Hi.” The voice sounded friendly.
“I know this might sound weird,” she said quickly. “But I’m looking for a woman who used to be a health visitor in the Odense area about twenty-eight, twenty-nine years ago. I know that her name was Ulla Bodelsen, and… er… I found your number on the Internet.”
The voice laughed. “Fancy that, I’m on the Internet. All that is completely beyond me. I’m retired now, but you’re quite correct. I worked as a health visitor for Odense City Council for more than thirty-five years. How can I help you?”
It was a straightforward request, but Anna was nervous and thought her story sounded lame. A father and a daughter. Jens and Anna Bella. The mother hospitalized with a bad back, father and baby alone. Could Ulla recall them?
“Ah. That’s no easy task.” She laughed again and it sounded as if she was weighing up her response. “But I ought to remember,” she continued. “Fathers and babies, there haven’t been many of them. It was mostly mothers. But then, back in the 1970s, there were quite a few. They had equality in those days,” she quipped. “And Anna Bella, that’s an unusual name. Were you named after anyone?”
“An apple, I think,” Anna replied.
“Hmm, it doesn’t ring any bells.”
Anna’s heart sank. “Ah, well,” she sighed.
“Where did you live? Perhaps your address might trigger my memory.”
“In the village of Brænderup, outside Odense. Hørmark svejen was the name of our street,” Anna said.
A pause followed.
“Yes, that’s right. I used to visit there all the time. All those communes. They kept having children.” She laughed again. “But no, I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you.”
“But it has to be you,” Anna persisted. “We lived there, your name is in my health record book. It must have been you. I’m trying to find out something about that time, why my parents—”
Ulla Bodelsen interrupted her. “Now I remember him!” she exclaimed. “Your father. His name was Jens. He was a journalist, wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” Anna exclaimed. “That’s him!”
“The poor man was under terrible pressure trying to work from home and look after a baby at the same time. It proved impossible, no surprise there, and as your mother was still in the hospital, he decided to quit his job. You wouldn’t believe the state the house was in, and he was at the end of his rope from sleep deprivation and working too hard, so I supported his decision. We spoke regularly, until he called one day and said he didn’t need my help anymore. I never found out why. I called him a couple of times, but he said everything was fine. I remember the child now. Gorgeous little thing, she was. She was dark and… you can’t shut me up now,” she laughed. “Old people are like that when you allow them to wallow in the past.”
Anna was confused. “The child,” she said. “That was me.”
Ulla went quiet, then she said, “No, she couldn’t have been you. The little girl was called Sara. I’m sure of it. My mother’s name was Sara, and when I was young I knew that if I ever had a daughter of my own, I would call her Sara. So, of course, I noticed every little Sara, I met.”
Anna was flabbergasted.
“So the name Anna Bella means absolutely nothing to you?”
“No.” Ulla Bodelsen was adamant.
Anna felt like screaming. It couldn’t be true. The man, Ulla remembered, was Jens, Anna was sure of it! Brænderup, the communes, Cecilie’s absence, Jens who had to manage everything on his own, it was them! Her life. Her childhood. There was no Sara. Ulla Bodelsen had to be wrong.
“Please may I visit you?” Anna asked out of desperation.
“But, child,” Ulla Bodelsen said, “even if I am your old health visitor, I won’t be able to recognize you, it’s been almost thirty years. You’re a grown woman now, not a toddler.”
“No,” Anna said. “I know, but perhaps you’ll recognize my daughter.”
Another silence.
“Of course you can come,” Ulla said then.
“As early as tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is… Friday? Well, that’ll be fine.”
When Anna had ended the conversation, she was trembling.
Who the hell was Sara?
She wasted the next half hour on her computer. Googled something, tried to compose an invitation to her dissertation defense, but who was there to invite? She looked up Karen’s address on the Internet. This was something she did regularly, and every time the address came up as somewhere in Odense. This time Anna’s jaw dropped when the search results appeared. Karen had moved and was now living in northwest Copenhagen, not far from Anna and even closer to the university! It had to be her. Karen Maj Dyhr. There could only be one person with that name. She stared at the telephone number for a long time. She twirled on her chair, looking around the room. Johannes’s computer was still missing, and the mess on his desk was unbelievable. She wondered why he hadn’t replied to her text about his computer being confiscated. If anyone had removed hers without asking, she would have had a fit. She texted him again.
Haven’t you hibernated for long enough now? No response. Damn! She called him. It went straight to voice mail. Thoroughly annoyed, she began going through his drawers. Chaos everywhere. Papers, notes, and books. She wasn’t looking for anything in particular, nor did she find anything interesting. It was almost two o’clock. She switched off her computer and packed up her stuff. She wanted to speak to Johannes. He had said they were still friends, so he had to talk to her. They couldn’t go on not speaking.
She was about to leave when she remembered the necklace. She took out the small white box. Fancy Professor Helland buying her a present. No man had ever given Anna jewelry. The pendant couldn’t be mass-produced; after all, how many people would appreciate the significance of an egg and a feather? Helland must have had it made especially for her. She held up the chain and put it on. Then she left. As she passed Helland’s office, she said out loud: “Sorry, but there’s no way I’m thanking a door.”
She caught the bus to Vesterbro and headed for the street where Johannes lived. As she crossed Istedgade, she was reminded of a winter’s night, a long time ago, when Thomas and she had left a bar where they had spent three hours. It had snowed in the meantime, Copenhagen had been enchanting and they decided to walk all the way home. There was white virgin snow, the clouds had long since disappeared and they could see a million stars. In front of their block, Thom
as had pressed Anna up against the wall.
“Let’s not go inside,” he whispered. “It’s beautiful out here.”
“Love me,” Anna said suddenly. “Love me, no matter what happens.”
“Anna,” he said. “I love you no matter what. It’s you and me forever. With kids and the whole kit and caboodle.” He laughed. Anna had started to cry.
The next morning all the snow was gone. That was four years ago now.
Anna crossed Enghave Plads, where the winos still hung out even though the temperature had dropped to below zero. It had started snowing and she pulled up her hood. She had visited Johannes several times, and it had always been enjoyable. Johannes had treated her to a selection of unusual sandwiches of his own design and made tea in individual cups rather than in a pot. Every time he brought her a fresh cup, it would be accompanied by a crunchy biscuit on the saucer. On one occasion, he had starting quizzing her about her private life. Not just superficial information, such as grew up in a village outside Odense, single parent, but personal stuff.
Johannes had long since told Anna everything about himself that mattered. His father had died when he was very young, and he had acquired a stepfather, Jørgen, when his mother remarried. His stepfather owned a furniture emporium and hoped Johannes would take it over one day. It had been very hard for Johannes to fight this expectation. He hadn’t really pulled his life together until he joined the goth scene, where he had met a uniquely accepting community. In a voice that came close to breaking, Johannes had told her about his younger sister. In return, Anna felt she ought to be honest about her own life.
At first, she tried to get away with the edited version, and initially Johannes bought it. But the next time they met he had said: “Anna, you really can trust me.”
It had taken Anna two hours to tell him the story about Thomas. She had gotten pregnant and Thomas hadn’t been pleased. Anna had raged and cried. She didn’t want an abortion. Neither of them had worried about contraception for almost three months! When Thomas finally acquiesced, Anna convinced herself she had read too much into his initial reaction. A child was something abstract to a man, and he had simply been incapable of relating to it. They were going to live happily ever after.