The Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg

by Peter Høeg

Twenty years ago Sonja and Kasper had been lovers; they had not lost contact since then, and never would as long as they lived. SheAlmighty awards lifetime partners to some people. Brahms got Clara Schumann, Mozart got the clarinetist Anton Stadler as a lifelong partner in pin billiards. Maybe it has something to do with the thing called love.

  Sonja's office resembled the Defense Command in Vedbæk, where Kasper had performed several times; the military love clowns-- Crock met Hitler personally twice. Everything was in its proper place here, and orders were not to be questioned. A large pair of binoculars lay on the window ledge; the Bellahøj circus grounds were just opposite the office, and Sonja liked to keep up with things. On her desk were four telephones and the remainder of an Italian lunch, including a whole bottle of Brunello. He laid the four-centimeter-scale map and the CD in front of her, and explained the situation.

  She turned the CD over in her hands.

  "You never went for little girls," she said. "You went for grown-up women. So what can she do? Is it talent? Does it have something to do with money?"

  * * *

  It wasn't he who had left Sonja, and it wasn't she who had left him. They had known it simultaneously.

  She'd had an apartment in Frederiksberg, on King George Road.

  The last night he had been awakened about two o'clock in the morning by the city's atmosphere; it had felt like a blister on his brain and heart. He'd had to sit up and hum the arpeggio from BWV 4, "Christ Lay in the Bonds of Death." The Danish philosopher Martinus once said that to endure living in Frederiksberg he needed to pray constantly.

  Sonja had already been awake. They were both in their early twenties. He hadn't had a word for it, but he had known, they both had known, that they were in the path of a storm it would be hard to ride out.

  "We can't cope with it," she had said. "Soon I'll want to have children, and a dog, a female dog, and a fire in the fireplace, and will need to turn off the hearing aid and say the sound won't get better now."

  He had gotten up and put on his clothes. She had followed him to the door; she moved in a free and easy manner, when she was naked, when she was clothed, through life as a whole.

  "Since you believe in something," she had said, "can't you pray for help for us?"

  "One can't pray for something," he had said. "At least not for different musical notes. One can only ask to play as well as possible the notes one is given."

  It had been a dignified exit line and departure. He had gone out into the night with eyes dim with tears; it had felt like singing Wotan's farewell scene with Brynhild from Wagner's Ring. Then dawn came, and he had discovered that when there first is love, it does not go away when the sun comes up and the curtain goes down. It remains. Now twenty years had passed, and somehow both his happiness that she existed, and his sorrow that it couldn't be more, were not diminished.

  * * *

  He had laid his hands on the city map in front of him.

  "I've always been searching for something," he said.

  "Does she have it?"

  He shook his head.

  "She's nine years old. But she knows something. About where one can find it."

  Sonja did not ask any more questions. She drew a telephone over to her and gave him headphones to listen in. Then she took a stack of green books out of a drawer.

  "Mostrup's municipal directories," she explained. "We need to look at all of Copenhagen County."

  She looked up and wrote down while she talked. There were two children's homes within the circle on the map.

  "We can't call them directly--it's sensitive personal information. We'll get a flat refusal. We have to go via the county's Health and Social Welfare Administration. What's our story?"

  He listened outward; necessary lies come from the same place as the ideas in the ring, from outer space.

  "We found a small purse after the show. A brocade purse. With feathers on it. The kind little girls love. It was a benefit performance. For institutions. The name inside the purse is KlaraMaria. We'd like to send it to her. May we have the address?"

  She made the call. The woman at the other end was cooperative. Kasper could hear her sympathy, for both children and adults. As so often before, he felt a longing to live in a world administered to a greater extent by women. It was a warm day; the woman on the phone had a window open.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "We have forty-seven children on our list. No KlaraMaria. Could she be with a foster family?"

  On Sonja's piece of paper Kasper wrote: "Matron."

  "I believe there was a matron."

  "She might be living with other children in some sort of family arrangement. I'll give you the telephone numbers for the foster home associations."

  Through the telephone Kasper recognized the sound from the open window. It was the sound of Glostrup. He stood up and looked over Sonja's shoulder at what she had written. The Health and Social Welfare Administration address was Amstgården County Courthouse in Glostrup.

  "Ten numbers!" said Sonja. "Fourteen thousand children are placed outside their parental homes. I'll get you the numbers for boarding schools too. It's hard to find them in one place; institutions are listed under each community."

  * * *

  For a quarter of an hour Sonja looked up numbers, telephoned, wrote. Kasper sat absolutely quiet. She hung up the receiver. Pushed the telephone away.

  "Eight hundred children. Divided among two children's homes, eighteen foster families, three boarding schools, and one children's hospital. No KlaraMaria."

  "Could there be some type of institution we don't know about? An institution that's registered some other way?"

  She telephoned the county courthouse again. Spoke with the woman. Hung up.

  "All the private institutions get a county subsidy, or at least fall under county supervision. So they are listed with the county. The one exception is institutions that--especially after September eleventh-- are designated as possible terrorist targets. Their telephone numbers and addresses are released only by the police. But she doesn't think any of them are in our area."

  Kasper stood up. They had reached the end of the road. Then he sat down again.

  "Try the police."

  * * *

  Sonja telephoned police headquarters. She was transferred three times. Then she got a woman who was the same age as her. The woman's voice had a secret. Don't we all? She was sorry, but the police did not have any institutions listed in that area. She too had a window open; she hung up.

  * * *

  Sonja accompanied him to the door; the office was so large that the distance was a hike. She gave him his mail. One letter had a window envelope. He opened it with a feeling of distaste; the unknown often arrives by mail and frequently in a window envelope. It was from Maximillian, a sheet of letter paper with a woman's name and an address printed on it. At first he did not understand anything. He looked at the envelope. It was postmarked with that day's date, by the central post office on Bernstorff Street. Then he understood. Maximillian had been to the main office of the Department of Motor Vehicles. He got out his glasses. The printout was from the database of a large insurance company; they too had access to the records now, along with Customs and Taxes. As access to large databases grows more liberal, Danish national feeling becomes more intimate. Soon we will all know everything about one another.

  Maximillian must have gone to the main post office to try to reach him immediately. He read the name.

  "Andrea Fink," he said. "Does that name mean anything to us?"

  Sonja's face grew blank.

  "It's the name of the woman," she said, "from police headquarters. The woman we just talked to."

  * * *

  He had gone back to the desk, sat down, and put on the headphones.

  "Our story now," he said, "is that we're married. The world doesn't feel safe with single people."

  Sonja dialed the number.

  "It's me again. I have my husband on the line. There's no Klara-Maria anywhere."<
br />
  "And what do you want me to do about it?"

  The secret was a tragedy in C-minor; it had something to do with children. She was childless; A-major perfectionism had not been softened. With increasing age a person integrates the next higher musical key in the circle of fifths, the acoustical equivalent of what we call maturation. Something in her had impeded that process.

  "My wife and I met her," said Kasper. "After the performance. She made a deep impression on both of us. Also on our three children."

  Sonja had closed her eyes. There are few women among the great poker players. No woman would care to bluff, as he was doing now, a royal straight flush in hearts. Against an opponent who was acting in good faith. On a hand that was as thin as bouillon.

  "All five of us in the family," he said, "had the--perhaps completely crazy--feeling that we could give her a new home."

  At first there was no response at the other end of the line. He tuned in to the traffic noise from her open window. She had a body of water outside, closer than police headquarters did. He heard traffic crossing a bridge, crossing two bridges. A siren howled past; the shift in sound-wave frequency known as the Doppler effect gave him a sense of the nearest bridge's length. It could be Knippel Bridge. The woman cleared her throat.

  "Our agreements," she said, "regarding institutions are related to how we evaluate the threat. If, for example, there were diplomats' children, it would mean tighter security."

  "I'm a clown," Kasper said. "Do I sound like a terrorist?"

  "I don't know what terrorists sound like. They say Nero loved circuses. Heliogabalus did too."

  "May we stop by?" he asked. "Then you could experience our credibility firsthand."

  "Call me tomorrow."

  She hung up.

  He helped himself to a piece of paper, took out his fountain pen. He drew Knippel Bridge. Lange Bridge. The National Museum, the Royal Library, and the Black Diamond, the library's modern extension on the waterfront. He put a check mark next to the government building on Christians Brygge Street. Pushed the paper over to Sonja.

  "What do the police have here?"

  Her sound grew uneasy.

  "Their Intelligence Service," she said. "Most of it is located above the Gladsaxe police station. But some of the administrative offices are over on Slotsholm Island. They approve the circus security plans. For gala performances. When the royal family and government officials attend."

  * * *

  He took the binoculars from the window ledge. Borrowed cardboard and tape and wrapped up the other CD. Sonja didn't ask any questions.

  "You'll have to go there alone," she said. "I've left the circus ring."

  He wanted to leave--she blocked his way.

  "I have more than you," she said. "Children. A home. Accounts all in order. More love. You have very little talent when it comes to being satisfied in everyday life. But your longing. Sometimes I envy you that."

  She put her arms around him.

  Touching doesn't help; we never reach each other anyway.

  But still--

  2

  He parked behind the Stock Exchange after driving from Sonja's office. When he got out of the car the city wrapped itself around him like a wall of sounds. No harmony, no concentric waves, no tone center. One and a half million people, all with individual, uncoordinated refrains.

  He turned down Christians Brygge Street. The building had a glass entranceway with an intercom. He remembered his childhood, when one could walk right in to see people and government authorities. Since then, life had become less free; now we all keep one another under surveillance. Or perhaps he remembered incorrectly. From the time we are forty we all gild our memories.

  Beyond the entrance a civilian official was sitting in a glass booth. Kasper wished he had a partner; the task ahead was not a solo job. He walked along Frederiksholm Canal, across the Parliament grounds, past his own automobile, and back. Next to the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum and the Isted Lion sculpture was a daycare center; a boy about five or six years old was standing just behind the gate.

  "Where are you going?" asked the boy.

  "I'm going over to warm a cold angel."

  Colored lights lit in the boy's eyes.

  "Can I come along?"

  The child's sound was interesting. The world is rarely able to block the openness of children before they are seven or eight years old. Kasper looked up and down the street; it was empty and deserted.

  "The grown-ups will miss you."

  "They just went for nap time. I'm the only one outside."

  The boy's system interfered with Kasper's. But anyway. One needs to choose one's partners carefully.

  "What if I'm a child molester?"

  "They're different," said the boy. "They've tried to get me to go with them."

  Kasper leaned forward and lifted him over the fence.

  * * *

  He pressed the button by the door; from somewhere inside behind many layers of glass he was asked to identify himself. He acted as if the intercom was broken, lifted the boy in his arms, and pointed at him. The presence of children casts a legitimate light on adults; the door buzzed and they were inside.

  Kasper set the boy on the counter.

  "Andrea Fink's son," he said. "He has a high fever. Over in the daycare center we think it may be gastroenteritis. We telephoned Andrea and agreed that we should come immediately."

  The attendant behind the counter pushed his chair backward, away from the source of infection. The situation was uncertain; it could go either way. On the wall behind him was a list of offices. Andrea Fink's was on the third floor.

  "I want my mommy," said the boy. "I'm hot. I don't feel well. I'm going to throw up."

  The attendant reached for the telephone. Kasper shook his head. "She's in an important meeting. They don't want to be disturbed. She told us to go right up, and she'll come out."

  * * *

  He knocked, and walked in without waiting for an answer. The woman behind the desk was surprised, but composed. The room was not in keeping with his prejudice against the Intelligence Service; it was large and friendly. There was a potted palm about as tall as a man. The white paint on the walls had a hint of pink pigment. On the desk was a figure of Buddha.

  He set the boy on the desk beside the statue and the telephone; as he put the child down, his fingers detached the phone cord. In a little while, when the attendant from the glass booth telephoned, his call would not go through.

  "I'm Kasper Krone," he said. "I'm the one who called you earlier, about KlaraMaria."

  The woman laid two open books on top of each other and moved them. Her face grew cold. The temperature in the room fell to something that called for caps and mittens.

  "I inquired about you," she said. "You're not married. You don't have any children either."

  Part of her mind was still on the open books. It was important that he get a look at them. He took the boy's arm. Ran a finger lightly over the Buddha.

  "One of Buddha's teachings that I like very much," he said, "is that all living beings have been each other's mothers. In an earlier life. And will be again. I've thought about that. It must mean we have all been each other's lovers. And will be again. Including you and me."

  She began to blush, faintly, like the walls.

  "I don't know how you got in," she said. "But now you must leave."

  * * *

  Outside the office door he put the boy down and knelt beside him.

  "Can you get her out here?" he said. "And keep her out here for a little while?"

  The boy opened the door. Kasper crouched behind it.

  "I have to pee," he heard the boy say. "My daddy left without me. I'm going to pee my pants."

  The woman did not move.

  "Can I pee in the palm tree?"

  Kasper heard him unzip his trousers. The woman stood up.

  "I'll take you to the bathroom."

  They disappeared down the hall. Kasper slipped into the off
ice.

  The two books she had moved were Krak's map of Copenhagen and something that looked like an address book.

  Behind the desk he saw a small scanner and copy machine; it was turned on. He put the opened pages on the machine, folded both copies, and stuck them in his pocket. A toilet flushed. He walked out into the hall and went to meet the woman and the child. She was pale. He took the boy by the hand and headed toward the stairway.

  "I'll call for someone to show you out," she said.

  The door to her office closed.

  Kasper winked at the boy. Laid his finger to his lips. He took off his shoes, stole across the herringbone parquet floor in stocking feet, and put his ear to her door.

  She was about to dial a number. Every push button has a tone; sufficiently refined hearing would have been able to catch both the number she dialed and the voice that now answered on the other end. His could not.

  But he heard her whisper.

  "He's been here," she said. "He just left."

  Something was said on the other end.

  "Very Puccini," she said. "Seems like a bit of a Lothario to me. I got rid of him. He's out of the picture now."

  Kasper stole back to the boy. Put on his shoes.

  The attendant from the glass booth now stood behind them. Kasper picked up the boy in bis arms. The glass door opened automatically.

  * * *

  They were out in the open air; the city sounded better than before. In the deepest sense, do we ever hear anything but the pitch of our own voice?

  "Why didn't you want to go to nap time?" asked Kasper.

  "I can't lie still," said the boy.

  "Why not?"

  "They don't know why. They're investigating it. Maybe I've got DAMP syndrome. Or water on the brain."

  Some children weren't children; they were very old. Kasper had begun to hear this twenty years ago. Some children were ancient souls with a thin infantile veneer. This boy was at least twelve hundred years old; his sound rang like one of Bach's great pieces. Kasper lifted him back over the fence.

  "You did well," he said. "For someone five years old. With water on the brain."

  "Six," said the boy. "Six years old. And it's good to praise children. But money is good too."