by Peter Høeg
"Was there ever a woman?"
"Only once that was serious. And that was very brief."
One must be careful about being honest. Suddenly he heard the loneliness close in around him. He felt her listening. He could tell that at this moment she heard and understood his system.
"Even with children one is often alone," she said. "Even in a family. Children change very quickly. There's no stability. One is constantly reminded that in a little while they will be gone. I've been away for a month this time. When I come home in three weeks, they will have changed; it will be as though I'm seeing them for the first time. As if they are strangers. In everyday life too. Perhaps it's true that love is eternal. But its appearance changes all the time."
Just ahead of the boat was a fog bank; they sailed into it.
Lange Bridge emerged from the fog. It was closed. But a car was parked by the HK building. When your driver's license has been revoked in two European countries you instinctively keep an eye out for the man with a camera. Kasper found him on the bridge, on the walkway next to the control tower. The African saw him too.
"They've seen us," she said. "We'll be picked up; the whole area is patrolled by the navy."
Kasper pointed; the boat turned into Christianshavn's canals. Most of the neighborhood had been evacuated, the office buildings were dark, the vacant apartments were dark, the streets were empty. The boat glided under the arch of the bridge below Torve Street. The arch concentrated all sound, since concave surfaces focus sound at a central point; bridge arches are acoustic crystal balls, condensing all the surrounding sounds. Kasper heard the echo from the empty apartments. He heard the sound of water being soaked up through the masonry. The sound of incipient collapse. And some distance away: an incomprehensible sound of the tropics.
On the top floor of the last house on Overgaden Neden Vandet Street, narrow strips of light sifted through the heavily curtained windows.
2
The rain-forest birds did not sing; they laughed, they screeched, they gurgled. Behind it all one could just make out the towering blue shadow of Kilimanjaro swimming in the mist. At the foot of the mountain, the succulent greenness of the Serengeti. In front of the savanna, the rain forest and the birds. In front of the rain forest, a woman sitting in an easy chair by a table with two bottles of liquor and one glass.
Perhaps she was 95, perhaps 295. At some point in prehistoric times she had merged with the chair; you could no longer tell where the person stopped and the massive piece of furniture began.
Kasper rolled his wheelchair over to the table. He still didn't dare to breathe. The smell was too strong, the smell of death and liquor.
The African remained standing by the door.
"It's mealworms," said the woman in the chair. "For the birds. They crawl under the carpet, where they lie and rot. There's nothing to do about it. Have a drink, dear friend. How did you find your way here? Who's the little black sweetie?"
The room could have been light, the air could have been fresh; there were six windows facing the canal. But they were covered with shades and curtains.
"I'm the son of Maximillian Krone."
"Can you prove that, dear friend?"
The skin on her face was as lifeless as that of a wax doll. One mottled gray eye stared blindly into the jungle; the other was black and intensely alive. It examined Kasper's passport.
The room was vast, but inaccessible. The jungle was contained in large ceramic pots placed on synthetic felt carpet before a photocopy of the African scene. In front of the plants were the table, the chair, and a stand for grow lights. Flitting around the plants were at least a hundred birds. The remaining two-thirds of the room was filled with a dense mass of paper and cardboard. Rows of books, photograph albums, bundles of letters, newspapers, postcards, file boxes, catalogs, oil paintings, and posters were stacked and stuffed from floor to ceiling.
"This is only one third," she said. "The rest is in the Royal Library's archives. Also films and videos. There are fifteen hundred hours of film."
"You knew my grandmother."
She held a bottle with both hands and pushed it toward Kasper; he shook his head. She poured some liquor into the glass. First from one bottle, then from another--green and yellow chartreuse. She mixed them in equal amounts.
The glass was narrow. But what it lacked in diameter, it made up for in height; it was as tall as a flower vase. Perhaps to shorten the long way from the table to her mouth. If it was to go down fast. It was to go down fast.
She drank like a dockworker, poured the liquid down without swallowing. Then she set down the glass and smacked her lips.
"One should be good to oneself. Especially when one is alone. Henry died ten years ago."
On the floor Kasper could see how good she was to herself. Two rows of bottles were carefully lined up, like props before a performance, twenty-odd bottles of each color. Her brain must be pickled in alcohol and sugar, like a green walnut. He would never be able to connect with her.
"Your grandmother was among the thousands of 'Vienna children.' They had a special passport around their necks. In Austria they would have died of hunger. She came to Denmark in March 1920. In the same shipment as Ilona Wieselmann. Who made her debut in Cradle Song at the Royal Theater when she was eighteen. One of Ernst Rolf's numerous female acquaintances. Married Aage Stentoft. Who wrote that song 'Your Heart Is in Danger, Andresen."'
The birds had become quiet. A new sound began to fill the room. The sound of an extraordinary memory that had been activated.
"Your grandmother was taken into service. In an embroidery shop. In the town of Ørøskøbing on Ørø Island. That sure as hell didn't fit the young lady. It was undoubtedly some kind of forced labor. The first winter she walked across the ice to Svendborg on Funen Island. At that time the circus included a musical revue. Inside the tent. She traveled with one of the actors in the revue. There's a picture of her from those days. She's wearing a coat, half sheep's wool and half camel hair, ugly as an accident. The coat, that is."
A bird landed on her shoulder, an Amazon parakeet, a fiftythousand-kroner bird, enameled blue, gold, and red. It cooed; she answered it with an identical sound from deep down in her throat. It laid its beak against her hand.
"I know what you're thinking, dear friend. You're thinking: 'Why doesn't she find herself a new friend. To go walking with in Deer Park?' I'm only a good eighty years old. But you say that because you're so green. You haven't experienced a great love. It can never be like with Henry. I can't even have his photograph up. The big one, from '52, taken by Peter Elfelt's studio. It seems to call to me. The psychologist said I should put it away."
"Was there anything to do with religion? Anything with the Orthodox Church?"
She dipped her finger into the glass and held it up to the parakeet. The bird licked off the liquor with a grainy tongue. "The police asked me about that too. The answer is no."
She drained her glass.
"They didn't pay anything. The police. I have very large expenses. I'm collecting things for a museum. It's the world's largest collection. Normally I charge four thousand kroner. If it's something I can respond to here and now. If you also want to borrow a photograph, that's an extra two thousand. If a book comes out of it, I must be given credit."
He took out the envelope with the rest of the Institute's money.
"Was there anything to do with training children?"
"Nuns don't travel with the circus. Let's see the money."
He counted out the bills on the table.
"I didn't mention nuns," he said.
Her hands felt the bills. He recognized her tone, the tone of an artist. She was a sister. In spirit.
"Several of the children had gone to convent schools. During the winter. When the circus wasn't traveling around. No problems in the East. No enmity between the Church and the circus. The children stuck together when they came to Denmark. Kept contact with the Russian Church. There was a woman who got them tog
ether as a group."
The black eye gave him a blinking look.
"There may be a picture," she said.
He put another bill on the table.
"Try the middle aisle."
He rolled his wheelchair into the mountain of papers. The middle aisle was an opening in the piles. Her voice followed him, penetrating as a bird's shriek.
"You are now by a signed portrait of my very, very close friend Charlie Rivel. The albums begin just to the right of him."
There were six shelves, continuing into a distant darkness. There must have been at least a hundred feet of shelving.
"One of the first albums is red with gold printing."
The volume was as heavy as an illustrated Bible; there were bird droppings on it. He laid it in front of her.
She could have found the picture immediately, but she did not do that. She paged through the album slowly. Through an endless series of carefully pasted black-and-white photographs signed with unreadable signatures. Men with their arms crossed and waxed mustaches. Women who could have gone into the ring against a sumo wrestler and one would not have bet even five øre on the wrestler.
"She got them together on Sunday. There was some sort of convent outside the city. In Bagsværd. Maybe it's still there. She ran into trouble. Had to give up. Sunday isn't a day off for artists. And what did she want with them? She ran into trouble with the foster parents."
Kasper's eyes scanned the photographs. He listened into them. Into her voice. He heard the passage of time. The history. It was a diminished tone. Most events leave only the faintest echo; the people in the pictures were dead, lived now only in the mental archive in front of him. And in a little while she would be gone too.
"Was there anything special about the children?"
Her tone shifted. The dust of time left it. He had tuned into something that wasn't the past. Something that was the present.
He placed another bill on top of the small pile. She licked her lips.
"I'm not so old. I was a little child. But there were rumors. Persistent rumors. People said some big tent owners paid some of the children. Just to be present. During the performances."
She pushed a bottle toward him.
"Would you be so gallant, dear friend? I have osteoarthritis."
He poured. She spoke to the African.
"You've found yourself a nice piece of meat, sweetie. Even if he's in a wheelchair."
She took a big drink.
"I've seen them all. From Erik Truxa and before. Illusionists from other countries too. It's all skilled craftsmanship. There's no magic. But still, some of the children were paid. People said that whenever the children were there, the circus tent was full. The tickets were sold out. No accidents in the ring. That's just superstition, of course. Artists are superstitious. Two of the girls died. One traffic accident. And one drowning. There were rumors. That they were murdered. Jealousy. On the part of other managers. There are always rumors. But still, as Henry always said to me: There are only two things that can make people commit murder--sex and money."
Her fingers stopped at a picture.
"There can be an atmosphere around a person. Like around me. The birds love me. And men. Men and birds. They've fought to come sit on my lap. Maybe it was an atmosphere. Around the children. I can remember some of them. From the late fifties."
Kasper drew the album over to look at it. The picture was taken in what might have been a community garden. Sunshine. Summer flowers. Twelve people around a table on a lawn. At the end of the table, a woman in a nun's habit. Tall as a giraffe. Mother Rabia. Beside her, a younger woman. The tone rang out from the photograph as if it were a DVD with a sound track. It was the Blue Lady. As a twenty-year-old. Already with a powerful tone. Like the young Bach. Still close to Buxtehude. But the great motets are waiting ahead.
Seated around the table were women and men in their forties. And a boy of about ten years old.
Kasper put his finger on the boy. He heard a refined sound. Like that of the young Beethoven.
"Boras's heir," said the woman. "Disappeared."
The boy's hands were lying on the table. Not the way children's hands usually lie. Alive. With awareness right out to the fingernails already. It was Daffy.
"What was the rumor?" he asked. "What was it about?"
She cleared her throat. He placed his last bill on the table. The atmosphere in the room was magical. True intimacy is always fleeting. He could hear that she had kept silent about this all her life. And he could hear her pain over that silence.
"It was said that one time the woman called together the foster parents. As well as the parents of some of the other children in the group. And she told them the children had a chance to do something. Sort of the way one can do something in the circus ring, she said. The circus ring is kind of a holy place. Where at times something divine happens. When the artists are trained. And brought together. And the lights go on and the music plays. And God's grace appears. In a similar way, the children could do something. Children and certain adults. If they were trained. And brought together. She didn't get through to them. Maybe they didn't believe her. And think of the times. The twenties and thirties. Poverty. The Danish mentality. Spiritualism. Exorcism. She had to let the children go. Which was a good thing. It was just entertainment."
Kasper gazed into the black eye in front of him. He recognized the woman. She was the Oracle of Delphi. She was one of the volvas. She was the witch from "The Tinder Box." The old Fury who struck Hakuin to the floor with a broom. The hetaera who knocked down Marpa.
He wanted to tell her about that. To tell Sister Gloria. But perhaps this wasn't the right time.
"Josef Kain?"
She shook her head. But her sound nodded.
"The woman said a person can become like God," she said. "And can meet God. Is that true?"
Today even oracles are searching for the ultimate answers. He pointed toward the jungle.
"Your little bird has gotten caught."
She turned like lightning. Now only the blind eye rested on Kasper. With a smooth unhurried movement he retrieved his money from the table. Divided the stack in two. Laid half in front of her.
"For your sake too," he said. "We need to find an amount that's acceptable to both your heart and mine."
The black eye grew evil.
"You're a damn fool," she said. "With bad taste. When I was a child, Negroes were something we exhibited in a circus. Behind bars."
Kasper did not see the African move. One moment she was standing by the door, the next she was leaning across the table. One hand held the Amazon parakeet, the other gripped the old woman's neck. The two women looked at each other.
"Will you accept an apology?" said the woman in the chair.
"What about Kain?" Kasper asked.
The black eye was afraid. Generally none of us reaches the point where we want to die; we all want to live, no matter what our age.
"There's a rumor," she said. "They say someone went in and tried to buy up several of the medium-size circuses. That name was mentioned."
Kasper took a final look at the picture. One of the men stared into the lens as if he were ready to give someone a beating. Kasper pointed to him.
"This is in black-and-white," he said. "But someone who knows men as you do, you would be able to remember if these eyes were blue."
"Turquoise," she said. "Like a lagoon in the Pacific."
"And you would be able to remember a little about the man."
"Gert. Suenson. Navy. I remember the first time I saw him. In Tivoli. He was passed out drunk on the bar at Wivex. In his white naval officer's uniform."
The African straightened up. Let the bird go.
"Was it true?"
The old woman had whispered. Kasper heard her longing. The longing that can be heard in all people. But in most people it's shoved into the background. With her, it suddenly filled everything.
"It would be quite different," she said. "To be
about to die. If one knew there was love on the other side."
Kasper rolled his wheelchair backward.
"The hell with the psychologists," he said. "Put Henry's picture back on the table."
3
The African pressed the elevator button, but the panel did not light up; the electricity had gone out. She helped Kasper out of the wheelchair to start walking down the stairs.
He heard the outside door from Overgaden Neden Vandet Street open, and a moment later, the door to the stairway. The African put down the wheelchair and gave him a thoughtful look. They hadn't seen anyone coming here.
Kasper enjoyed the sound of movement up the stairs. Most people walk up stairs as if they want to be done with it. As if it's a kind of exercise one would prefer to do without. The man coming up toward them moved leisurely, pleasurably, resolutely, almost soundlessly. He rounded the corner; it was Kain. He had climbed six flights of stairs, but his breathing showed no sign of it.
He stopped short when he saw them.
Kasper did not take his eyes off him. He listened to Sister Gloria. Her sound showed no recognition. She had never seen him before.
"Kain," said Kasper, "is a fellow member of the Naval Officers Club. While you hoist sail and ready my life jacket, he and I will exchange a few words."
The African looked from one man to the other. Kasper could hear the conversation between her mind and her instincts. They told her that something was wrong. Nevertheless, she obeyed.
The door at the bottom of the stairway closed behind her.
"The police said you had been sent to Spain," said Kain.
Kasper handed the folded wheelchair to Kain. Took hold of the railing. Gave the businessman his free arm. Kain took it. They began going down the stairs, slowly, very close to each other.
Kasper felt the other man's body tremble slightly; his own did as well. He sensed how dangerous Kain was. He knew that he was closer to death now than he had ever been in the ring.
"I can save you the trip upstairs," said Kasper. "You and I should be able to do business. I've talked with her. The bird lady. I got a little background information. What I know, I'll tell you. In return, you'll tell me a little about the children."