by S. J. Gazan
“I thought it might be a good idea to visit Cecilie,” she suggested. Lily stood up among the bubbles and held up her arms.
“Granny, Granny,” she shouted. Karen turned around and gave Anna a baffled look.
They walked through Assistens Cemetery. It took them nearly an hour. Lily was in her snowsuit and insisted on climbing everything. Anna and Karen wandered side by side, taking in the snow-covered landscape.
They bought cakes filled with chopped pistachios and a bag of dry, sweet rolls from an Arab bakery in Nørrebrogade. Anna and Lily stopped outside every store and admired the displays. Anna pointed and said, “Look at that” or “Isn’t that cute.”
“Come on,” Karen implored them, shivering. “Walking slowly isn’t going to get you out of it.”
Anna shot her a look.
Karen and Lily raced each other up the stairs. Anna followed. She heard joyous commotion when Cecilie opened the door.
“Hunnybunny!” Cecilie exclaimed. “Hi, Karen! How lovely to see you. Come here, sweetheart, let me give you a big hug. I’ve missed you so much.”
When Anna reached Cecilie’s apartment, Cecilie had lifted Lily up and was holding her tightly. She spotted Anna over Lily’s shoulder and paled.
“Hi, Anna,” she said, putting Lily down. Lily slipped into the apartment with familiar ease.
“Hi, Mom,” Anna said, her cheek brushing her mother’s.
“Come in. It’s freezing outside.”
Inside the hall Lily quickly pulled her toys from a big blue box and started playing. She was still in her snowsuit and wool hat. Karen helped her out of them.
“Look, this is my bed when I’m at Granny’s,” Lily chatted. “And look, I’ve got dollies, too. A little dolly and a big dolly. And teddies and books.” Karen admired everything. Anna remained in the hall. Cecilie smiled nervously.
“Aren’t you going to take off your jacket?”
“No, I’m not staying. There’s something I need to do. Is that okay with you, Karen?”
Karen looked puzzled, but she nodded.
“Are you still sulking?” Cecilie wanted to know. “Am I still banned from helping out with Lily?” She smiled patronizingly.
“Have you spoken to Jens?” Anna asked.
Cecilie blinked.
“I speak to Jens every day, Anna.”
Cecilie’s gaze was expectant and a little wounded, as if she was waiting for Anna to apologize for shouting at her the other day. Anna watched her mother in silence, aware of how uncomfortable Karen was at being monkey-in-the middle. Then Karen took charge of Lily, lifted her up, and carried her into the living room with a book. Cecilie suddenly looked ill-at-ease, as if she sensed that something was wrong.
“I know everything, Mom,” Anna said in a thick voice.
Cecilie blinked again.
“Sorry, what?”
“I know you had postpartum depression when I was born. I know you couldn’t take care of me, that you didn’t feed me properly. I know my name used to be Sara, because Dad loved that name; I know he took care of me as best he could. I know you came home from the hospital when I was nearly a year old, and I know you didn’t want anyone to ever know you had been ill. I know everything.”
Cecilie’s jaw dropped.
“I also know you love me,” Anna continued. “That you try to make up for it every day. I know you love Lily more than anything, and I know you’re afraid I will fail her, as you failed me. I think you got scared when Thomas left and I was so distraught I could barely take care of her. I hit rock bottom, and you thought history might repeat itself. You were afraid I might hurt Lily, like you hurt me.”
Cecilie had said nothing. Now she gasped for air and let out a dry, agonizing howl.
“But I’m not you, Mom,” Anna said, gently. “I’m Anna Bella, and I’ve never been ill way you were. True, I struggled… I felt angry and impotent because Thomas had abandoned us. But I was never ill, and I have never failed Lily.” Anna fixed Cecilie with her eyes. She stepped forward, took Cecilie’s hand, and pulled her toward her. Cecilie was rigid with fear and resisted, but Anna kept hugging her.
“What happened was bad, Mom,” she said into Cecilie’s hair. “But it happened. I can live with it. Now that I finally know,” she added. “Lily loves you. You’re her granny. But don’t try to protect her from something that has nothing to do with us.” Anna grabbed her mother’s shoulders.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” she said, firmly.
Cecilie’s face dissolved. She still hadn’t uttered a word. She nodded. Anna embraced her again.
When Cecilie composed herself, Anna kissed her daughter and Karen good-bye, gave Cecilie another hug, and left.
Anna opened the door to the Vertebrate Collection, stepped into the twilight and called out. “Dr. Tybjerg, where are you? I need to talk to you.”
She was impatient and when she heard a noise coming from the far end of the room, she marched directly toward it. Suddenly he appeared in front of her, just like the last time. Dark-eyed and surrounded by shadows.
“Why are you shouting?” he asked.
“Why did you blackmail Professor Helland?”
Dr. Tybjerg’s eyes widened. He didn’t look like he intended to give her an answer.
Anna leaned toward him and, very calmly, said, “I ought to suspect you, you know.”
“Of what?” he said, genuinely surprised.
“Of killing Helland. You’re the only one I can think of who actually has a motive. You were Helland’s crown prince, and now the king is dead.”
“That’s utter garbage,” Dr. Tybjerg said. “Lars was my friend.”
He retreated into the darkness. Anna followed him.
“But you were blackmailing him?”
“The two things aren’t remotely connected,” he said. “One is about science, about research; the other is about friendship. Friendship and science are two irreconcilable entities. Lars would have done the same, he said. Everyone puts pressure on you. That’s just how it is. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And the times are truly desperate.” Dr. Tybjerg gave her a fraught look.
“But why? Seven thousand kroner a month for three years. That’s serious money.”
Dr. Tybjerg momentarily looked stunned, then he shrugged.
“To fund my research. I’ve already said so.” He took another step into the dark and Anna pursued him.
“How did you blackmail him? Come on, help me out here.”
Dr. Tybjerg shrugged again.
“I discovered Lars had an illegitimate son. His name’s Asger.”
Asger. The name rang a bell.
“Asger used to be my friend, but not even Asger knew he was Helland’s son. It was a scandal. Or rather, it would have been had it become known that Professor Helland had had an affair with one of his students. She was a nineteen-year-old undergraduate and Helland was her tutor. Asger’s mother hasn’t told her son who his father is.” Dr. Tybjerg suddenly looked horrified at Anna. “Asger attended lectures given by his own father and he never knew, can you imagine? Asger and I aren’t friends anymore. He changed when he lost his job. Grew strange. He used to be good. The best. He was a coleopterologist; still is, I suppose. He sailed through his studies. His PhD was approved, he wrote his doctoral thesis, the whole shebang in record time. He was the youngest staff member in a tiny department whose elderly professor was about to retire, leaving the Chair vacant for Asger. The future looked bright. And do you know what happened then? The Faculty Council closed the department. They claimed they had sent Asger a letter, but it somehow had gotten lost. We were still friends then. When he came back after the summer break, ready to start a new term, to teach and research, the department was no longer there. The end. Terribly sorry, et cetera…”
“How did you find out Asger was Helland’s son?”
Dr. Tybjerg looked torn, then he sighed and continued.
“Asger’s mother is a professor here, but she works in
a different department. One day I saw her with Helland. They were having an argument, which was clearly personal. It happened in a corner right by the entrance, and I watched them from the stairs, unnoticed. It sounded like Asger’s mother was threatening Helland—she was very angry. At the time, I had just finished my PhD and my dream was to research, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to go about it. I don’t know what prompted me, but shortly afterward I dropped a hint to Helland. We were working together—over there, as it happens—by those long desks, and it was a chance shot. Turned out to be a bull’s eye. I could see it in his face. He went pale, and his reaction told me I had stumbled onto something much bigger than I had initially suspected. I brought up the subject every time we met, until he asked me outright to keep quiet. I agreed, of course. Shortly afterward I was given an office in the basement. Helland arranged it. Remember, I wasn’t demanding astronomical sums of cash and all sorts of perks. However, I could see how government cuts were affecting us, we were all hanging on by the skin of our teeth and I feared redundancy. I have devoted my life to reaching this level of expertise, and there’s no way I’m joining a retraining program for the unemployed.” He sounded outraged now. “So I suppose you could say I twisted Helland’s arm a little. But like I said, we struck a deal. I did him a favor by keeping quiet, and he did me a favor by sending work my way. I got a small office, one that no one else wanted, and an invitation to join in his research. That’s why we did so many things together, papers, posters, and research proposals. But it wasn’t the only reason. It was killing two birds with one stone, see? We worked within the same field, and together we made a strong team. One of the strongest in the world. Over time, my arm twisting faded into the background.”
“Why didn’t Helland want it known that Asger was his son?”
“Well, why do you think? Number one, he would have been fired on the spot, and number two, his wife would have been less than thrilled.”
“Who is Asger’s mother? Do I know her?”
“Possibly. Her name is Hanne Moritzen; she’s a parasitologist. She has an office on the ground floor.”
You could have knocked Anna down with a feather.
“She’s his mother?”
“Yes,” Tybjerg said. “Asger’s mother is Professor Moritzen.”
“Why do you think that?” she said in disbelief.
“You don’t think Asger would know his own mother?”
“But I know her,” Anna said, vehemently. “She doesn’t have children. She always said she never had children!”
“Then she was lying,” Dr. Tybjerg declared.
Anna was at a total loss. Hanne had a son with Professor Helland. Anna was only distracted for a second, but Tybjerg managed to retreat so far into the darkness that he vanished. Anna heard the sound of his shoes, heard him mutter something, and then the rattling of a cupboard door. She stared into space, stunned.
“I have to go,” she muttered to herself.
Anna left the Vertebrate Collection and let herself into the museum. Her heart was pounding and she was starting to have second thoughts. Should she have told Søren what she had discovered? Was her plan too dangerous, after all?
Then she spotted Troels. He was waiting for her in the doorway to the Mammoth Room. He touched the artificial glacier with trepidation and withdrew his hand in wonder. He wasn’t wearing a jacket and had stuffed his wool hat into his back pocket. His auburn hair fell in skillfully cut locks across his forehead.
Anna’s breathing quickened as she watched him, her weapon safe in her pocket. When she had managed to calm down, she approached him and gently put her hand on his back. He turned around.
“Hello again, Anna,” he said. His eyes were flickering.
“Come on, let’s go,” she said, softly.
Slowly, without speaking, they drifted through the exhibition. They even stopped in front of some exhibits before ending up in the Sperm Whale Room, where they found a bench. A group of noisy kids shuffled their feet, waiting impatiently for headsets to be passed around. Anna and Troels sat close together.
Anna said, “What have you done?” and turned to him.
“I didn’t mean to.”
Anna gasped.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“I fell in love with him,” he confessed.
“With Johannes?” Anna raised her eyebrows and, for a moment, her horror gave way to confusion. “But Johannes wasn’t gay… he…”
“I know,” Troels replied, quietly. “But I was still in love with him.”
“So what happened?” Anna probed.
“We met at the Red Mask. I went there with a couple of guys I don’t actually know very well. I had never been there before, but I liked the place. I noticed Johannes almost immediately. He was standing at the bar, looking amazing. He wasn’t actually very handsome, was he? But he outshone everyone and made us all laugh. He was surrounded by people. I moved closer and we started talking. I drank some more beer—I had already had too many. We talked for a long time, and I struggled to keep up.” Troels looked embarrassed. “He spoke about complex subjects, gestured with his hands, touched my shoulder, stabbed his finger into my chest, ruffled my hair. For a new acquaintance he was very physical, and I lapped it up. I’ve been on the gay scene for years,” he smiled, “where, usually, quick physical contact equals sex, and I thought… he wore a leather skirt, fishnet tights, and army boots. Johannes, however, spoke about everything but sex that night. He talked endlessly about the theory of science, which didn’t really interest me. But he mesmerized me. He seemed completely indifferent to how other people perceived him, waved his arms around whenever he felt like it. Take me or leave me. That was why he was a magnet, of course. I’ve always admired people like that.
“At dawn, we left together and walked to Enghave Plads. He hugged me and said it had been great to meet me, that he would like to see me again.”
“Johannes wasn’t gay,” Anna protested. Troels looked away.
“We met a few days later. I couldn’t get him out of my head. He invited me to dinner at his apartment; we drank wine. I was totally confused. He sent out such contradictory signals and in the end, I asked him outright. I said I was very attracted to him; I wanted to have sex with him. He said he wasn’t gay. At first, I got angry. I felt he had strung me along. With the wine, the meal, and the ridiculous clothes he was wearing. But then I realized there was more to it. He wasn’t gay, but…” Troels hesitated.
“He wanted me to… humiliate him. Sexually, but without us touching. I was allowed to hit him and to verbally abuse him, but I must never touch his dick. He got off on being humiliated. He had tried it with women, but it wasn’t really working for him. So that’s what we did that night. I’ve tried something like that before, but never anything that real. I lived in the US for years and I was a part of that scene, going to S&M clubs, I’ve been the dominant one in all my relationships, the aggressor. But with Johannes it was… so hot. Because it was new for him. Because I was the first.” He glanced shyly at Anna who was sitting very still, staring at the sperm whale on the wall. The noisy children had gone, and a family of four had arrived. The father lifted up the younger boy.
“I hit him, and… no, it doesn’t matter. He masturbated until he climaxed. Obviously I wanted to touch him, but every time I tried, he turned away. He didn’t want me. In the end, I was deeply frustrated. I wanted to have sex with him. I tried, but the magic disappeared. Johannes got upset, went into another room, and told me he was disappointed in me. That it wasn’t what we had agreed. I apologized, but it was no good. He just wanted me to leave. Get out, get out, he whispered. Very quietly, as if I had failed him. So I left. In the days that followed I was beside myself. He was all I could think about. I e-mailed him, but he never replied. On the goth scene I’m known as YourGuy.” Troels peered at Anna. “Most people on the scene have aliases. It’s part of the game. It suited me just fine. Copenhagen is a very small town. And I’ve just come back from a
broad and, to be honest, I’m scared shitless of ending up on the front page of the tabloids. ‘Supermodel into S&M’ or something like that. I’m actually quite famous in the US,” he added, “but getting work back here, when I returned last spring, was really tough. But finally I was about to land a huge campaign, a well-paying one, so I preferred going to places where no one cared who I really was. Anyway, Johannes never replied, and I was getting desperate. Then we bumped into each other, accidentally, in a café. He seemed pleased to see me. As though he had forgotten what had gone wrong during our last meeting. He had been busy, that was all. We agreed to meet again, the next day.
“That night I realized the two of you knew each other. He had mentioned you several times that first evening. Anna, my colleague; Anna, the woman I share a study with, without me making the connection. But when we met again, he referred to you as ‘Anna Bella,’ and it clicked that it had to be you. I knew where you lived, and I had meant to get in touch ever since I moved to Copenhagen. Only I was too ashamed. Ashamed I had run away back then. Your parents…” Troels shook his head. “I heard from them for years. They had my address in New York, and they wrote faithfully to me every Christmas and on my birthday. Your mom even sent me an advent calendar one year. They urged me to get in touch if ever I came back to Denmark.” He laughed bitterly. “And I never replied. When I moved to Copenhagen, I thought it would be easier to get ahold of Karen first. I missed you the most, but… Christ, how you freaked out at me that night.” For a moment, he looked at her with tenderness.
“So much that you were afraid you might beat me up?” Anna asked. She felt her anger rise through her shock. It wiped the smile off Troels’s face.
“I don’t know why you had to humiliate me,” he said. “You were just as bad as my dad that night. You kicked me, Anna. You hit me and you screamed. And group sex was a seriously shitty idea. Whose was it?”