Sigita was going nowhere. She bought all her vegetables at the supermarket now. And when she saw little four-year-old Sofija from number 32 dash across the pavement and throw herself into the bosom of her hennaed, sun-tanned grandmother, it sometimes hurt so badly that it felt as if she had lost a limb.
This Saturday, her solution was the same as it always was—to make a thermos full of coffee and pack a small lunch, and then take Mikas to the kindergarten playground. The birch trees by the fence shimmered green and white in the sun. There had been rain during the night, and a couple of starlings were bathing themselves in the brown puddles underneath the seesaw.
“Lookmama thebirdis takingabath!” said Mikas, pointing enthusiastically. Lately, he had begun to talk rapidly and almost incessantly, but not yet very clearly. It wasn’t always easy to understand what he was saying.
“Yes. I suppose he wants to be nice and clean. Do you think he knows it’s Sunday tomorrow?”
She had hoped that there might be a child or two in the playground, but this Saturday they were alone, which was usually the case. She gave Mikas his truck and his little red plastic bucket and shovel. He still loved the sandbox and would play for hours, laying out ambitious projects involving moats and roads, twigs standing in for trees, or possibly fortifications. She sat on the edge of the box, closing her eyes for a minute.
She was so tired.
A shower of wet sand caught her in the face. She opened her eyes.
“Mikas!”
He had done it on purpose. She could see the suppressed laughter in his face. His eyes were alight.
“Mikas, don’t do that!”
He pushed the tip of his shovel into the sand and twitched it, so that another volley of sand hit her square in the chest. She felt some of it trickle down inside her blouse.
“Mikas!”
He could no longer hold back his giggle. It bubbled out of him, contagious and irresistible. She leaped up.
“I’ll get you for this!”
He screamed with delight and took off at his best three-year-old speed. She slowed her steps a bit to let him get a head start, then went after him, catching him and swinging him up in the air, then into a tight embrace. At first he wriggled a little, then he threw his arms around her neck, and burrowed his head under her chin. His light, fair hair smelled of shampoo and boy. She kissed the top of his head, loudly and smackingly, making him squirm and giggle again.
“Mamadon’t!”
Only later, after they had settled by the sandbox again and she had poured herself the first cup of coffee, did the tiredness return. She held the plastic cup to her face and sniffed as though it were cocaine. But this was not a tiredness that coffee could cure.
Would it always be like this? she thought. Just me and Mikas. Alone in the world. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Or was it?
Suddenly Mikas jumped up and ran to the fence. A woman was standing there, a tall young woman in a pale summer coat, with a flowery scarf around her head as though she were on her way to Mass. Mikas was heading for her with determination. Was it one of the kindergarten teachers? No, she didn’t think so. Sigita got hesitantly to her feet.
Then she saw that the woman had something in her hand. The shiny wrapper glittered in the sunshine, and Mikas had hauled himself halfway up the fence with eagerness and desire. Chocolate.
Sigita was taken aback by the heat of her anger. In ten or twelve very long paces, she was at the fence herself. She grabbed Mikas a little too harshly, and he gave her an offended look. He already had chocolate smears on his face.
“What are you giving him!”
The unfamiliar woman looked at her in surprise.
“It’s just a little chocolate. . . .”
She had a slight accent, Russian, perhaps, and this did not lessen Sigita’s rancor.
“My son is not allowed to take candy from strangers,” she said.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that . . . he’s such a sweet boy.”
“Was it you yesterday? And the other day, before that?” There had been traces of chocolate on Mikas’s jersey, and Sigita had had a nasty argument with the staff about it. They had steadfastly denied giving the children any sweets. Once a month, that was the agreed policy, and they wouldn’t dream of diverging from it, they had said. Now it appeared it was true.
“I pass by here quite often. I live over there,” said the woman, indicating one of the concrete apartment blocks surrounding the playground. “I bring the children sweets all the time.”
“Why?”
The woman in the pale coat looked at Mikas for a long moment. She seemed nervous now, as though she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t.
“I don’t have any of my own,” she finally said.
A pang of sympathy caught Sigita amidst her anger.
“That’ll come soon enough,” she heard herself say. “You’re still young.”
The woman shook her head.
“Thirty-six,” she said, as though the figure itself were a tragedy.
It wasn’t until now that Sigita really noticed the careful makeup designed to eradicate the slight signs of aging around her eyes and her mouth. Automatically, she clutched her son a little tighter. At least I have Mikas, she told herself. At least I have that.
“Please don’t do it again,” she said, less strictly than she had meant to. “It’s not good for him.”
The woman’s eyes flickered.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It won’t happen again.” Then she spun suddenly and walked away with rapid steps.
Poor woman, thought Sigita. I guess I’m not the only one whose life turned out quite different from expected.
SHE WIPED AWAY the chocolate smears with a moistened handkerchief. Mikas wriggled like a worm and was unhappy.
“Morechoclate,” he said. “More!”
“No,” said Sigita. “There is no more.”
She could see that he was considering a tantrum, and looked around quickly for a diversion.
“Hey,” she said, grabbing the red bucket. “Why don’t you and I build a castle?”
She played with him until he was caught up in the game again, the endless fascination of water and sand and sticks and the things one could do with them. The coffee had gone cold, but she drank it anyway. Sharp little grains of sand dug into her skin beneath the edge of her bra, and she tried discretely to dislodge them. Leafy shadows from the birches shimmered across the gray sand, and Mikas crawled about on all fours with his truck clutched in one hand, making quite realistic engine noises.
Afterwards, that was the last thing she remembered.
A SEAGULL, THOUGHT JAN. A damned seagull!
He should have been back home in Denmark more than an hour ago. Instead he sat on what should have been the 7:45 to Copenhagen Airport, frying inside an overheated aluminum tube along with 122 other unfortunates. No matter how many cooling drinks he was offered by the flight attendants, nothing could ease his desperation.
The plane had arrived on schedule from Copenhagen. But boarding had been postponed, first by fifteen minutes, then by another fifteen minutes, and finally by an additional half hour. Jan had begun to sweat. He was on a tight schedule. But the desk staff kept saying it was a temporary problem, and the passengers were asked to stay by the gate. When they suddenly postponed boarding again, this time by a full hour, without any explanation, he lost his temper and demanded to have his case unloaded so that he could find some other flight to Copenhagen. This met with polite refusal. Luggage that had been checked in was already aboard the plane, and there was apparently no willingness to find his bag among the other 122. When he said to hell with the bag, then, and wanted to leave the gate without it, there were suddenly two security officers flanking him, telling him that if his bag was flying out on that plane, so was he. Was that a problem?
No, he demurred hastily, having absolutely no desire to spend further hours in some windowless room with a lock on the door. He was no terrorist,
just a frustrated businessman with very important business to attend to, he explained. Airline security was very important business, too, they said. Sir. He nodded obediently and sat himself down on one of the blue plastic chairs, silently cursing 9/11 and everything that awful day had wrought in the world.
At long last they were told to begin boarding. Now everything suddenly had to be accomplished at breakneck speed. Two extra desks were opened, and staff in pale blue uniforms raced around snapping at passenger heels if anyone strayed or loitered. Jan sank gratefully into his wide business-class seat and checked his watch. He could still make it.
The engines warmed up, flight attendants began explaining about emergency exits here and here, and the plane began to roll forward on the pavement.
And then it stopped. And stayed stopped for so long that Jan became uneasy and checked his watch again. Move your arses, he cursed silently. Get this stupid aircraft off the ground!
Instead the voice of the captain was heard over the PA system.
“I’m sorry to inform you that we have yet another hitch in our schedule. On departure from Copenhagen airport on the way down here, we were hit by a bird. The aircraft suffered no damage, but of course we have to have a mechanical overhaul of the plane before we are allowed to fly it again, which is the reason for the delay we have already suffered. The aircraft has been checked and declared fully operational.”
Then why aren’t we flying? thought Jan, grinding his teeth.
“The airline has a quality-control program, in compliance with which the documentation for our check-up has to be faxed to Copenhagen for signature before we are given our final permission to take off. At this time, there is only one person on duty in Copenhagen qualified to give us that permission. And for some reason, he is not to be found at his desk. . . .”
The pilot’s own frustration came through quite clearly, but that was nothing to the despair that Jan was feeling. His heart was pounding so hard it physically hurt his chest. If I have a heart attack, will they let me off the damn plane? he wondered, and thought about the advisability of faking one. But even if they let him out, it would still take time to get on some other flight, even if he forked out the cash it would cost to arrange a private one. He had to face the fact that he wouldn’t make it.
What the hell was he going to do? He feverishly tried to think of anyone he might call on for help. Who would be loyal and competent enough to do what needed doing? And should he call Anne?
No. Not Anne. Karin would have to do what was necessary. She was already involved to some extent, and the fewer people the better. He took his private mobile phone from his briefcase and tapped her number.
The flight attendant descended on him like a hawk on a chicken.
“Please don’t use your mobile, sir.”
“We’re stationary,” he pointed out. “And unless the airline wants to be sued for a six-figure sum, I suggest you back off and let me call my company now.”
The flight attendant noted the no doubt exceedingly tense set of his jaw and decided that diplomacy was the better part of valor.
“A short call, then,” she said. “After which I must ask you to switch it off again.”
She remained by his seat while he made the call. He considered asking her to give him his privacy, but there were passengers all around him, and he wouldn’t be able to speak freely in any case.
Tersely, he instructed Karin to go to his Copenhagen bank for the sum he had just had transferred from Zürich.
“There is a code you have to supply. I’ll text you. And bring one of my document cases, one that has a decent lock. It’s a sizeable sum.”
His awareness of the listening flight attendant was acute, and he had no idea how to say the rest without sounding like something out of a pulp-fiction thriller.
“In fact, I’ll text you everything else,” he said quickly. “There are a number of figures involved. Text me back when you have read my message.”
Though the show was over for now, the flight attendant still stayed demonstratively next to his seat while he texted his message and waited for the reply. It took a worryingly long time to arrive.
OK. But you owe me big-time.
Yes, he wrote to her. I realize that.
He wondered what it would cost him—particularly her compliant silence. Karin had acquired a taste for the finer things in life. But at heart she was a good and loyal person, he told himself soothingly, and she had several compelling reasons to stay on his good side. He had after all been very generous as an employer, and in certain other ways as well.
At that moment, the plane jerked forward and began to move, and he wondered whether he had after all been premature in involving her. But it turned out they were being taxied off the runway to a parking area. The captain explained that they had lost their slot in the busy departure schedule of the airport and were now put on indefinite hold while waiting first for their permission to take off to arrive from Copenhagen, and secondly for a new slot to be assigned to them. He was very sorry, but he was unfortunately forced to switch off the air conditioning while they waited.
Jan closed his eyes and cursed in three languages. Fandens. Scheisse. Fucking hell.
NINA LOOKED THE man right in the eyes.
“I think you had better leave,” she said.
It had no effect. He stepped even closer, deliberately looming over her. She could smell his aftershave. In a different situation it might have been a pleasant scent.
“I know she is here,” he said. “And I demand to see my fiancée right away.”
It was a hot August day, and there were white roses from the garden in the blue vase on her desk. Outside Ellen’s Place the sun was shining on dusty lawns and white benches. Some of the children from the A Block were playing soccer. One team was yelling in Urdu and the other mostly in Romanian, but they seemed to understand each other all the same. Recess, thought Nina with a small, detached part of her brain. Her colleagues Magnus and Pernille had deserted her in favor of the cafeteria ages ago, and she could see the psychologist Susanne Marcussen having lunch with the new district nurse in the outside picnic area. It was 11:55, and except for the soccer game, a heavy siesta-like tranquility had descended on Danish Red Cross Center Furesø, a.k.a. the Coal-House Camp. Or at least, things had been tranquil until the man in front of her had marched into the clinic four minutes ago. She threw a quick look at the telephone on her desk, but whom would she call? The police? So far, he had done nothing illegal.
He was in his late forties, with medium brown hair swept back from his temples, tanned and immaculate in a short-sleeved Hugo Boss shirt and matching tie. Apparently no one had thought to stop him at the gate.
“Get out of my way,” he told her. “I’ll find her myself.”
Nina stood her ground. If he hits me, I can press charges, she thought. It would be worth it.
“This is not a public area,” she said. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
This had even less effect than it had the first time. He looked straight through her to the corridor beyond.
“Natasha,” he called. “Come on. Rina is already waiting in the car.”
What? Nina tried to catch his eyes.
“She’s at school,” she blurted.
He looked down at her, and the smile that curled his lips was so smug that it physically sickened her.
“Not anymore,” he said.
A door clicked open softly. Without turning around, Nina knew that Natasha had come into the corridor.
“Don’t hurt her,” she said.
“Darling, as if I would,” said the man in the Boss shirt. “Shall we go home now? I bought pastries from that bakery you like.”
Natasha nodded briefly.
Nina involuntarily reached out to stop her, but the small, blond Ukrainian girl walked right past her without looking at her. Nina knew the girl was twenty-four, but right now she looked like a lost and terrified teenager.
“I go now,” s
he said.
“Natasha! You can report him!”
Natasha just shook her head. “For what?” she said.
The man put his hands around her slender neck and drew her close for a provocatively deep kiss. Nina could see the girl stiffen. He let his hands move down her back and slid them inside the tight waistline of her denim jeans until he was clutching both her buttocks. His hands bulged under the fabric. With an abrupt jerk, he forced her pelvis against his own.
Nina could taste the acid of her own stomach. She felt like taking the blue vase and smashing it against the head of that vicious bastard, but she didn’t. She knew that this was a show put on for her benefit, to sneer and parade his victory. The more reaction she gave him, the longer it would continue.
Nina still remembered the brilliant happiness of the Ukrainian girl when she showed off her engagement ring. “I stay in Denmark now,” she had said with a dazzling smile. “My husband is Danish citizen.”
Four months later she showed up at the center with one hastily packed bag and her six-year-old daughter, Rina. She looked as if she had dragged herself out of a war zone. There were no outer signs of violence except for a few minor bruises. Hitting her was not his thing, it seemed. Natasha wouldn’t tell them exactly what he did, she just sat there with tears she could not control rolling down her cheeks in a steady, unstoppable flow. At length, severe abdominal pains had forced her to agree to being examined by Magnus.
Nina had rarely seen Magnus so angry.
“Jävla skitstöfel,” he hissed. “Fy fan, I wish I knew someone with a baseball bat.” When Magnus was particularly upset, his native Swedish tended to come through in his swearing.
“What did he do?” said Nina. “What’s wrong with her?”
“If the bastard would only stick to using his miserable little prick,” said Magnus. “But you should see the lesions she has, in her vagina and in her rectum. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
And now the Bastard was standing right in front of her, kneading Natasha’s buttocks with his greedy hands, while his eyes, gazing across Natasha’s shoulder, never left Nina’s. She had to look away. I could kill him, she thought to herself. Kill, castrate, and dismember. If I thought it would do any good.
The Boy in the Suitcase Page 2