by S. J. Gazan
Clive stared at Michael.
“I’ve secured funding for the department for more than thirty years. Every single time money was handed out,” he whispered.
“And that’s why you need to stop now. While the going is good. It can’t last. You will be given fewer and fewer grants and, finally, none at all. Besides, the University Council demands it. An immediate merger and your retirement.”
“I’m in my prime,” Clive objected.
“I should have told you before we left. Or on the plane, at least,” Michael said, “but it wasn’t easy.”
“Business class tickets and a Michelin star dinner? Was that the department’s attempt at a golden good-bye? And what about the meeting?” Clive shouted triumphantly. “That meeting which I, very conveniently, failed to be invited to.”
“I’m really very sorry,” Michael said again.
Clive clenched his fist.
“I want to be alone,” he hissed. Michael threw up his hands.
“I’m sorry, old boy,” he said in a convivial tone. “Life goes on, eh? You made a huge contribution, we all know that… without you the department wouldn’t have had such a high profile, and—”
“I want to be alone,” Clive roared.
“Calm down. It’s not my decision,” Michael said, hurt, and headed for the exit. He shook his head lightly as he left. He was merely the messenger.
When Clive was alone, he stared at the huge PowerPoint screen. He felt numb and consumed with hate. When he heard footsteps, he thought Michael had come back. But it wasn’t Michael, it was the young woman from Helland’s funeral. She held out her hand, and he shook it out of pure reflex.
“My name’s Anna,” she said. “I would like to talk to you, please.”
“You were at Helland’s funeral,” he said. “Why were you staring at me?”
“I was surprised to see you,” she replied calmly. “Curious.”
Her eyes were almost yellow and there was a touch of defiance about her mouth.
“And why is that?” Clive started gathering up his papers and returning them to his briefcase.
“I’m Professor Helland and Dr. Tybjerg’s postgraduate student,” she said. “I’ve written my dissertation on the controversy surrounding the origin of birds. There are some anatomical details I would very much like to discuss with you. I’ve come to ask if you would meet me in the Vertebrate Collection. Tomorrow… ? Or is Monday better? Will you still be here on Monday?”
He stared at her.
“Being Professor Helland and Dr. Tybjerg’s postgraduate student is your problem,” he sneered as he picked up his jacket and his briefcase. “What’s there to talk about? Helland is dead, and I’m sorry about that. Tybjerg…” He glanced at her. “Tybjerg didn’t even have the decency to attend my lecture today. I’ve nothing to say to their protégée. Good-bye.” He climbed the broad steps between the seat rows. The young woman followed him.
“I’ve got something for you from Dr. Tybjerg,” she said. Clive stopped and gave her a sharp look.
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you here.” She glanced over her shoulder as if the walls had ears.
“Why doesn’t he deliver it to me in person?” Clive persisted.
“I’ll explain later. It’s a bone… it’s complicated.” The young woman straightened up and said softly: “Imagine how you would feel if you finally had to accept that you had been wrong. Your entire scientific career.”
“Ha!” Clive snorted. “Hell will freeze over before Tybjerg admits he’s wrong.”
He continued walking, reached a corridor, and increased his pace. The young woman called out after him.
“Professor Freeman! Monday, eleven o’clock. In the Vertebrate Collection. Do we have a deal?”
“I guarantee you we don’t!” he said, shaking his head as he left.
Michael was waiting for him in a taxi in front of the Bella Centre. He was sitting in the back with the door open, the meter was already running. What was he thinking? That Clive would act as if nothing had happened and drop the subject? Michael was on his cell, reporting back, most likely, oh yes, everything had gone fine, he had finally managed to say it, the old fool was history. Who was he even talking to? Someone from the department? The Head of the Institute? Michael moved to make room for Clive.
“Don’t you ever wait for me in a taxi again,” Clive screamed into Michael’s astonished face. Michael lowered his phone.
“Relax, Clive,” he said quietly. “Get in the taxi.”
Was he not listening to him? Not anymore. That was the message. Clive stomped across the parking lot to the subway station. He didn’t look back.
He got off at Nørreport and walked down a random street. He had trusted Michael. He had taught Michael everything he knew. Without Clive, Michael was a mediocre researcher with a—to all intents and purposes—superfluous knowledge of bird evolution. It struck him he wasn’t any better than Jack. One of a scientist’s most important qualities was the ability to stand firm. Through stormy weather, starvation, and torture. Otherwise you were nothing but an amateur. Jack and Michael were amateurs. Cut from a different cloth to him. He would remain firm even if it was the last thing he did. To be honest, he had respected Helland and Tybjerg for that very characteristic. You could say what you liked about them, but they stood firm and defended their position, just like him. It was the only valid stance. U-turns were for politicians. He would pay no heed to that silly girl. Tybjerg would never admit to being wrong. If he could, it never would have come this far! Tybjerg would stick to his guns just as stubbornly as Clive’s father had done. A bone. Ha! What a joke.
He entered a round tower that appeared on his left. The ascent was almost without steps, a smooth spiral, and he tripped and fell on his knees. Thinking he was alone, he swore out loud, but a younger man, on his way down, stopped and looked shocked. Clive exploded and screamed at the young man, who retreated, said something, but left in the end.
Clive was alone. What was happening? In the old days, when he was younger, the sun had shone and when he leaned across his desk to look out into the garden, he would see Kay sitting there, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, and the boys dipping their toes in an inflatable pool, squealing and drinking lemonade through curly straws. Once, a respectful silence had accompanied his arrival at work; Michael had been twenty-two years old, bright green like a newly hatched grasshopper, delirious with happiness because he had been promised a postgraduate place in two years’ time and grateful for being allowed to type out Clive’s lecture notes and laminate the covers of all Clive’s reference books in the meantime. Once his sons had looked at him with admiration in their eyes, once Jack had loved him.
Clive felt the cold and he stood up. He needed Kay. It was no good without her.
He called her from a telephone booth. Around him, people fought their way through darkness and it snowed lightly. Clive’s heart nearly exploded when Kay answered the telephone. Not Franz, not Franz’s wife. Kay.
“Kay, I love you,” he whispered. “I don’t want to live without you. I can’t live without you. I’ll change. I’ll never hit you again. I’ll make it right with the children. Take me back, please. I’ll try harder. I promise.” Clive struggled to hold on to the handset; the wind seemed to change direction, it started blowing directly at his back and the hand that held the telephone. His telephone card counted down. There was silence down the other end.
“Kay?”
“Call me tonight, Clive,” she said, suddenly sounding tender. “I can’t talk now. I’m going out with Annabel. But tonight I’ll be… in our house. You can call me then.” She hung up.
A flash of jubilation exploded in his chest. It wasn’t too late! Kay loved him!
He went back to the hotel. Michael had left three messages. Clive left one for him. If he didn’t get the meaning of that one, he had to be an idiot. He went to his room and switched on his computer. He wanted to book a trip for Kay. She had never been across t
he Atlantic and had often mentioned how much she would like to see Paris. It was sixty degrees in Paris, nothing like the raw cold that dominated Copenhagen. He checked flight departures and began to plan. There was a departure from Vancouver, via Seattle, over London and onward to Copenhagen the next day at 1:20 p.m., arriving at Copenhagen Tuesday morning at 6:20 a.m. Clive could meet Kay here and together they could fly on to Paris at 12:35 p.m. He paid for the ticket with his credit card. Almost two thousand Canadian dollars for a return flight. It was a lot of money. But then he remembered he hadn’t bought Kay a present for their silver wedding anniversary. He also remembered he didn’t want to be alone. He tried to call her at Franz’s, but no one answered. He imagined she would like some time to pack. Soon afterward he fell asleep. He slept heavily and only surfaced a couple of times, when the telephone in his room rang angrily, but he slipped back to sleep the moment it stopped. At first, he dreamt about Helland, about Kay, about the boys, about Michael and Tybjerg. They all apologized to him. The dream changed and became about Jack. Jack stood close to him, smiling, as he said something. Clive couldn’t hear what it was because there was music playing. Clive asked Jack to repeat himself, but when he did, Clive could still not hear it. Suddenly, Clive realized that Jack’s face was that of a child. He was as tall as a grown man and wearing a grown man’s trousers and thin sweater, but his face was a boy’s; the sharp upper lip, which had pointed at Clive for nearly forty years, his eyes filled with a child’s admiration. Clive’s groin throbbed. Jack smiled and nothing felt wrong. You’re allowed, Jack said. The music had stopped. It was very quiet. Clive knelt in front of Jack and carefully pulled his trousers down over his slim hips.
Clive woke up with a start and sat bolt upright in the bed. He was dripping with sweat. He dried himself furiously with a towel and tried to rub away the stains on the sheet. His watch on the bedside table glowed fluorescent green. The alarm would soon go off to remind him to call Kay. Clive showered and when he sat, clean and refreshed, in the chair by the telephone, he called Kay. She answered after four rings.
“Hi,” she said gently. “I’m glad you called.”
Clive breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to be alone.
“Do you know what you’re doing tomorrow?” he said.
“Looking after Annabel. She has tonsillitis,” Kay replied.
“No, you’re going to Paris!”
“Paris?”
“Yes, I’ve bought you a ticket. If you check your e-mail, you’ll see. Your flight leaves tomorrow afternoon at 1:15 p.m. from Vancouver, via Seattle and London, and on from there to Copenhagen. I’ll meet you at the airport, and we’ll fly to Paris together.” There was silence down the other end.
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean?” Clive was flabbergasted.
“I can’t. I have plans tomorrow.”
“But I’ve already bought the ticket,” Clive protested.
“You should have checked with me first.”
“Can’t you cancel your plans? What are you doing, anyway? You can look after Annabel some other time.”
Pause.
“Kay?” he said.
“I don’t want to,” Kay said quietly. “You should have checked with me first. I want to go to Paris, but I’m looking after Annabel tomorrow. It’s important to me. She’s looking forward to it. You should have checked with me first.”
When their conversation had ended, everything around Clive went black.
Chapter 15
In 1975 Søren’s parents, Peter and Kristine, had rented a vacation cottage on the North Sea coast. Søren suddenly remembered the cottage. It was wooden and painted pale blue, situated in the corner of a vast plot, surrounded by tall trees. The beach lay a little further away with the fishing village beyond it. The accident happened one week into their vacation. Søren’s father was busy fixing the car and had stripped it of everything: wings, bumper, silencer. The sun came out and it was time for ice cream. The stand was only two miles down a tiny road, but they took the car because Søren’s mother wanted to come, and she couldn’t ride her bicycle because she was heavily pregnant with Søren’s baby brother or sister. They only had one major intersection to cross. They would be fine.
The car was squashed into a cube when it hit the truck. Søren didn’t die. His face was badly cut, he broke several ribs, and he suffered a concussion. It took the emergency team more than an hour to cut him free. Søren remembered nothing. Not the drop of sweat trickling down the nose of one of the ambulance men, the smell of coffee, the golden wheat swaying in the summer heat. Nothing. Blackout. His parents had sat in the front of the car, which was squashed flat.
At the hospital, no one knew who Søren was or where he came from.
The doctors and nurses asked him over and over, but he said nothing. He was in the hospital for nearly three days and didn’t utter a word. Something terrible had happened, he was alone, and he was five years old. It was important to be very quiet. Knud and Elvira hadn’t come, either. No one loved him.
Knud and Elvira had no idea what had happened. They were attending a seminar in Finland. They weren’t at home when they heard the news, nor did Knud go out into the garden to tell Søren about the accident, like they had told him. It was a lie. They were in Finland.
After three days, Søren said: “My grandfather’s called Knud Marhauge, he lives in a red house outside Ørslev in Denmark.” After that, everything happened very quickly, a telephone call was made, a friend housesitting for Knud and Elvira answered it, another call to Finland, and Knud and Elvira flew back to Denmark to pick up their grandson.
When Vibe had finished her story, she looked anxiously at Søren. His arms hung helplessly by his sides, and he stared at the candles in Vibe’s white ceramic candleholders, burning infinitely slowly on a bookcase in the living room. Søren had been playing in the garden when the accident happened! At the far end. Knud had come down to tell him. He remembered it, though he was only five years old and had moved to Copenhagen soon afterward. The house outside Ørslev had been red, there were three apple trees in the garden, and Elvira had a large barrel for collecting rainwater into which Søren would tip tadpoles he found in a nearby lake. Peter and Kristine had been on their way to Ørslev to pick him up when the accident happened. His grandparents had been looking after him for the weekend, and he had been playing with a red car when Knud came down to him at the far end of the garden. Later, they had had ice cream. It wasn’t like Vibe had said.
“Why did you keep it secret?” he asked. His sweater was sticking to him, something was howling inside his head.
“I’ve known since I was seventeen,” Vibe said. “I’ve known it since the summer I saw the wedding photograph on the sideboard and discovered that Elvira and Knud were your grandparents. I was shocked your real parents were dead. Dead! It was the first time I realized you can lose someone you love in an accident. When I went home, I was beside myself. That night, when my mom said goodnight to me, I burst into tears. You had lost your parents, and I was terrified of losing mine. I was seventeen years old,” she defended herself. “I told my mom what Elvira had said. How awful it had been for Knud to find you in the garden and tell you about the accident. She had stayed in the house, slumped against the wall in grief. My mother hugged me and promised not to die.
“The next time I was at the library, I couldn’t help myself. I looked up the accident on a microfilm. I wanted to see a picture of your parents, read about the accident, mourn the terrible fate my boyfriend had suffered, wallow in it a bit, I suppose.” Vibe looked down. “I had almost given up when I found a newspaper clipping. ‘Tragic vacation mystery solved’ was the headline. ‘The five-year-old boy from Viborg, who miraculously survived the car crash that claimed the lives of his parents three days ago, has finally been identified and reunited with his grandparents.’ I stared at the photo that accompanied the article; the police had released it in an attempt to find out who you were. It had been taken in the hospit
al and it was like a bad joke. You were black and blue, swollen, and unrecognizable. With bandages around your head. The caption read: ‘Five-year-old Søren has finally been reunited with his family.’ I ran out of the library, terrified and furious. That night, I called you. Knud answered the telephone, and I told him what I knew. They had lied and they must tell you the truth. Knud asked to meet me the next day, by the embankment behind our school.
“He was sitting on a bench staring at the water in the moat when I got there. It was windy and I was cold. He hugged me. Elvira didn’t want Søren to know, he said. She was adamant that you had suffered enough and didn’t think you needed reminding of the tragedy, if you couldn’t remember anything yourself. If it ever surfaced some day, they would be there for you, explain it to you and support you. But until that happened, they would keep their mouths shut. Suppression is the body’s way of protecting you against the unbearable, was her opinion.
“Knud had serious doubts that this was the right thing to do, he told me, and I got the impression that it had driven a massive wedge between them. Knud was convinced that children were survivors; they healed quickly; they adapted and compensated like plants that wither in the shade and thrive in the sun. But Elvira said no. In the end, Knud reluctantly gave in, however, he did so in exchange for Elvira’s promise that if ever any scrap of your memory returned, they would put their cards on the table. That was the deal. They shook hands on it.