The Dinosaur Feather

by S. J. Gazan

  “Which are?”

  Anna was on the verge of giving up.

  “It’s a bit complicated,” she began. “But internal contradictions, for example, are banned if you want to call your work scientific, and Freeman’s work is littered with inconsistencies. Further, he rejects generally accepted analytical methods. He’s entitled to do so, but only if he can argue convincingly for an alternative, and we don’t know if he can because he has never tried.” Anna paused and looked at Søren. One of his eyes was drooping slightly.

  “I don’t believe for a moment that Professor Freeman has anything to do with this. If Freeman wants to prevent my dissertation from being published, then there are several people he needs to kill before Johannes and Helland. Me, for example. And Dr. Tybjerg.”

  “Yes,” Søren said, looking at Anna. “But the reason we can’t find Tybjerg might be that he’s dead. I’m starting to think you should be put under police protection.”

  “If there is a link between the two deaths,” Anna objected. She had absolutely no desire to have the World’s Most Irritating Detective following her round the clock. And, besides, Dr. Tybjerg wasn’t dead.

  “Yes, if,” Søren said, suddenly looking very tired.

  “I know the cysticerci were between three to four months old,” Anna continued. “I think this means even though Johannes and Helland died in the same week, they were technically killed at two completely different times. Johannes yesterday”—she swallowed—“and Helland possibly as far back as June or July.”

  “We won’t know until tomorrow whether Johannes was also infected with cysticerci,” Søren said quietly. Anna stared at him.

  “Who is the man who has waited for you twice, Anna?” Søren suddenly asked.

  “How do you know about him?”

  “Mrs. Snedker told me,” Søren said.

  “I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “But I know it’s not Freeman. Maggie says he was young.”

  “Haven’t you wondered about it?”

  “At first I was convinced it must have been Johannes,” she said, “and I texted him to find out. When it turned out not to be him, then I started wondering. But if… if his killer has his cell,” Anna gulped, “maybe Johannes really was here, and the text messages are lying…. Perhaps Johannes came to tell me something? But then, why would he run away? That doesn’t make any sense.” She looked away.

  Søren rose. “Tomorrow at 10 a.m.,” he said, pointing at her, “and don’t be late.”

  Anna shook her head.

  When she had closed the door after him, she gave him the finger.

  Thirty seconds later, someone rattled Anna’s mail slot. Anna opened the door.

  “So, what’s the latest?” Maggie whispered. Anna could hear that Søren hadn’t even reached the ground floor yet.

  “Maggie, I’m exhausted,” Anna whispered back. “Tomorrow.”

  Maggie looked disappointed and had turned around when something occurred to Anna.

  “Maggie,” she said, taking the old lady’s hand. It was velvety. “If the man who waited for me comes back, then…” She looked gravely at her. “Then I want you to call the police.”

  Maggie looked momentarily frightened, then she said, “I’ll tell you one thing, you’re a much more exciting neighbor than Mrs. Lerby. When she lived here, nothing ever happened.”

  Anna smiled feebly and said goodnight. She sat down in her living room, barely able to keep her eyes open. For the first five minutes she just sat there. Johannes was dead. Her brain refused to accept it. She couldn’t tell Jens and Cecilie. They would freak out completely and refuse to allow her ever to set foot in the university again. Jens would stomp up and down and threaten to expose the department in the press. Then she remembered neither of them was talking to her. She kicked off her shoes.

  She wanted to cry, but her chest tightened and no tears came. She mourned Johannes. Then she called Karen.

  Karen picked up the telephone immediately and was thrilled when she realized who it was. She wasn’t the least frosty or guarded, as Anna had feared. Karen chatted away. She was a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and had lived in Copenhagen since August. She loved it, Copenhagen was a great city, and she had made lots of friends in no time. She knew where Anna lived but hadn’t called her. She admitted, frankly, that she needed to summon the courage after all these years, but last Tuesday she had bumped into Cecilie in the street. Cecilie had told her Anna was super-busy and one of her supervisors had died. Cecilie had promised to e-mail Karen with the date of Anna’s dissertation defense, and they had arranged for Karen to be there. As a graduation present.

  “Imagine, you’re a real biologist now!” Karen exclaimed. “I’m so proud of you!”

  Karen wanted to know everything about Lily. Brown hair, red hair, Anna’s color? What did she like? Could Karen buy her a present? A doll? Or a Spiderman apron so they could make models out of clay together? Anna was filled with regret. Why hadn’t she kept in touch with Karen? It seemed beyond silly, and Anna had an uncomfortable feeling it was her who had chosen not to see Karen, rather than the other way around. Her throat tightened and she responded monosyllabically to Karen’s joyful outbursts. Finally, Karen asked how she really was, apart from busy.

  And the whole story poured out of her. Thomas, their shipwrecked relationship, Cecilie picking up the pieces, but who now stuck to her life like a barnacle, her graduate work at the department of Cell Biology and Comparative Zoology, about her supervisor and a fellow student, who both appeared to have been murdered. At this point, Anna burst into tears and Karen insisted on coming over—there’s no way you can be alone right now, she said, horrified.

  “I don’t want to be by myself, either,” Anna sobbed. “But would you be able to come over tomorrow evening instead, please?” she asked in a small voice. “Would you like to stay with us over the weekend? Help me with Lily, so I don’t have to call Cecilie? I don’t want to call Cecilie. I feel so ashamed.” Karen agreed without a moment’s hesitation. She would love to come; there was nothing she would rather do. “I’ve missed you so much,” Anna said and hung up before Karen had time to reply.

  Afterward, she was unable to fall asleep. The thoughts were churning inside her head. Finally, she sat up in her bed. Johannes was dead. He was in cold storage somewhere, on a stretcher in a mortuary. And she had never apologized to him. She had yelled at him, she had punished him for what he had said to the police, even though she wasn’t even seriously angry about it. Now it was too late, and Johannes had been right. She acted as if the whole world revolved around her.

  Anna got up, walked through the apartment, past the nailed-down door to Thomas’s old office, and into the nursery where she picked up her sleeping daughter.

  Once they were cuddled up under Anna’s comforter, she felt guilty. It was one thing when the kid toddled in during the night wanting to get into her bed, another to actually pick her up. Lily was a human being, not a hot water bottle. Cecilie had a tendency to act as if she was entitled to Anna. Not in an evil or calculating way, Cecilie wasn’t like that. But situations and clashes often had an undercurrent of “but you’re my daughter and I’m your mom.” As if that justified everything. It didn’t give you the right to cut corners and cross boundaries whenever you felt like it, it didn’t allow you to just take and keep on taking. And here Anna was, getting high on her own child. Inhaling the smell of Lily’s hair in the darkness, unfolding her sleeping fingers, caressing a warm, round shoulder. She couldn’t hold back the tears. The bedroom was dark and the street below very quiet. The bed linen absorbed her tears, but they kept on coming. She wanted her love for Lily to be pure. She wanted to be able to love her child. She desperately wanted to be the constant sun, warming her from afar, warming Lily, an eager seedling who wanted to grow up, up and away, grow lush green leaves and scarlet flowers and juicy pods. But her heart felt numb.

  She stuck her arm under the pillow where Lily’s head was resting and pull
ed her closer. Anna had never been able to delight in things the way Karen could. Karen would be delirious with joy when she saw Anna after summer vacation, or when she cut school and spent the day shopping and going to cafés in Odense with her mother, with whom she had a seemingly great and uncomplicated relationship. Karen loved movies, spaghetti Bolognese, the beach, card games, and musicals, which she would play at maximum volume and dance around to with her wild curls. Karen never hinted her approach to life was better than Anna’s. Karen danced and sang at the top of her voice. Anna would hesitate, then tap her foot a couple of times. They had been friends. And Anna had messed it up.

  Was Anna even capable of enjoying herself? Her parents mattered. A great deal. Just as Lily meant the world to her. But her worth came from the head, not the heart. She turned away from Lily, ashamed to entertain such thoughts while the toddler clung to her. She looked at the light from the city, which seeped in through the coarse curtain fabric.

  When Troels had walked out that day ten years ago, the summer they graduated from high school, Karen had been beside herself. She had looked for him everywhere, called his parents; they had to find him, she wanted a reconciliation, she said so over and over, even though it was Anna who had done the damage. To Karen it was unbearable that they weren’t friends, and Anna tried to empathize with her friend’s anxiety. Where was he? What had she done? Deep down, she hadn’t actually cared, but merely pretended. He had been a bad friend. He no longer mattered. They could go to hell. All of them.

  But there had been one great love. The thought was banal, trite even, but it filled her with horror because she longed to love Lily the way she had once loved Thomas. Passionately, unconditionally, non-negotiably. Anna let go of Lily completely and sat upright. It couldn’t be true that she had been able to love him but not her child. That had to be impossible. She didn’t want to be someone like that. Thomas was the past. Lily was the present and the future, she was forever. Anna swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She checked the time; it was 3 a.m.

  She left the bedroom and closed the door behind her so as not to wake Lily. She made coffee, a large mug with warm milk. She lit a fire in the living room and pushed the armchair in front of the open doors of the stove.

  Why are you so angry, Søren had asked? For a moment, his eyes had been tender and curious. As if he truly didn’t understand. Perhaps she didn’t understand it, either. That was just the way she was. Anger was her most powerful emotion. Much stronger than love. The thought paralyzed her. She was angry with Thomas, but her anger was ultimately futile. They hadn’t seen him for over two years, and all she knew was that he worked in Stockholm and she had his number somewhere, but apart from that she knew nothing and he never contacted them.

  But she was also angry with Cecilie and feelings ran high every time they saw each other. And Jens annoyed her. When he picked his nose, when he was late, when he couldn’t quit smoking, or generally failed to pull himself together. She was incapable of tempering her irritation with concern and tolerance, she simply blew a fuse. At the slightest thing. And then there was Lily. Anna obviously wasn’t angry with her three-year-old daughter, but neither did she possess the patience she so desperately longed to have. Lily was demanding and impossible to negotiate with, she was stubborn, she acted as if she had no common sense, and she clearly hadn’t because she was only three years old!

  She had been angry with Helland, Tybjerg, and Johannes. Johannes, who massaged her shoulders when she had slept badly. Johannes, who listened gently and attentively and made her laugh. Her rage triumphed every time. It made no sense. Why was she so angry? She put her mug on the floor and pressed her knees into her eyes. The fire was roaring now and warmed her thighs.

  She got up, feeling livid. No way did she want to be angry with her child! Children couldn’t handle that! A child loves because it feels loved.

  Anna studied the photo of Cecilie, Jens, and her younger self, a girl with sparkling eyes. Noted the contrast between her parents’ smiling mouths and their sad eyes; stared at her own, oblivious innocence. Something had happened back then. She would visit Ulla Bodelsen tomorrow. A child loves because she feels loved.

  Her interview at the police station on Friday morning lasted just under two hours. Søren was clean-shaven, and his treatment of her was equally smooth. Nothing in his behavior revealed he had tucked her daughter in bed and held her hard by the shoulders last night. Another officer was present during the interview; perhaps that explained why. She left just after twelve and had an hour and a half before her train to Odense. She was in need of fresh air and decided to walk down Frederikssundvej. It was cold and a couple of birds on the pavement couldn’t even be bothered to take off when Anna walked past them.

  Further down the street she noticed a man who reminded her of Troels. Karen hadn’t mentioned him, and Anna had avoided the subject completely. But perhaps she had to face it at last? Maybe it was time to get in touch with him and apologize for what she had said? Even though she didn’t feel genuinely sorry? Handsome Troels. Anna stared—surely she was seeing things? How could anyone look so much like him? It couldn’t possibly be him. Troels wouldn’t just show up out of nowhere, after ten years, on Frederikssundvej; there was no way he could know that Anna would be there or that she had got back in touch with Karen the day before. That simply couldn’t happen.

  But there he was. He was standing outside a grocery store, casually, as though he was waiting for a cab on the corner of Second Avenue and Fifty-eighth Street. Troels stared into the distance, across the road, across the cars, and Anna tried to follow his gaze. She just had time to think that he was posing, that he must have seen her and was now trying too hard to pretend he hadn’t, when he turned his head and looked straight at her.

  “Hi, Anna!” he exclaimed, astonished. “Wow, Anna, hi!” he said again. His voice sounded delighted and genuine, and Anna couldn’t help laughing when she embraced him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she said into his oilskin jacket. It smelled of nicotine.

  “I was just wondering,” Troels laughed, squeezing her, “if Anna Bella Nor had learned to speak like a lady or whether she still swears like a sailor! How are you? I hear you’ve become a dinosaur expert, or an archaeologist or something?”

  “That’s about it,” Anna smiled. “But who told you that?”

  Troels looked fantastic. He had flawless skin and his dark eyebrows and lashes were exquisitely groomed and beautifully arched. A green stone sparkled in one eyebrow, and he wore a St. Pauli hat with the famous skull emblem pulled over his ears.

  “I ran into Karen a couple of days ago. Imagine running into you both within the same week, how weird is that? She told me. It sounds really exciting! We talked about getting together.”

  Anna frowned. Get together? Him and Karen? Or did he mean Karen and Anna and him? He didn’t seem angry, not at all. More like exulted, bordering on nervous. She certainly was. Through her clothes, her armpits felt clammy.

  “A dinosaur biologist, Anna Bella, you show-off! I always thought you wanted to do something else.”

  Anna wrinkled her nose. “Let’s walk,” she suggested. “It’s too cold to stand still.”

  He glanced at his watch, then he nodded. They started walking.

  “If I were to hazard a guess, I would have said you would become a sergeant in the army or something hard-core, where you could boss a lot of people around,” he laughed.

  Anna gave him a wounded look.

  “Ten years and you’re still full of opinions about things you know shit about.”

  “Hey, Anna Bella,” he said, amicably. “Let’s not argue.”

  “Why not?” Anna snapped, taken aback by how quickly her old rage flared up. “You’ve always had completely the wrong impression of me!” They had only been walking for 150 feet, and Anna wanted to stamp her foot. Troels seemed unperturbed.

  “Why didn’t we keep in touch?” was all he said. “You, me, and Karen. You were my best frien
ds, and suddenly you disappeared.”

  “No, you disappeared,” Anna protested. “It was you who disappeared.”

  It was Troels’s turn to frown. “Whatever,” he then said.

  “So, what have you been up to?” Anna said, changing the subject.

  “This and that,” Troels said, unenthusiastically. “Went to Milan first, that was all right. Then I moved to New York. Made some money modeling, but perhaps you already know that?”

  “No,” Anna replied.

  “Seriously? And here was I thinking I was famous for my good looks.” He laughed a hollow laugh. “In New York I started to paint. That’s why I’ve moved back to Copenhagen. I applied to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. That’s where I bumped into Karen, at an open evening. It was unbelievable. We had a beer afterward and talked about you. Unfortunately I was rejected, but I’ll apply again. Since then we’ve gotten together a couple of times.” Troels smiled. “In fact, I saw her last Tuesday. We had a burger at a café. Karen wanted me to come with her to your dissertation defense. As a surprise. I think she would like us to be friends again.” Troels temporarily looked shy, and they walked on in silence.

  “Karen said something about someone in your department dying?” Troels remarked.

  “He wasn’t just anybody, he was my supervisor. Heart attack. He was only fifty-seven,” Anna muttered. It was none of his business. Cecilie should not have told Karen, and Karen should certainly not have told Troels.