The Boy at the Door

by Alex Dahl

  At home, I park outside the garage because most likely I’m going to have to spend the rest of the evening driving this forlorn little boy around when the police find out where his parents actually are, because they sure as hell aren’t at home in their squat. I switch off the ignition, look quickly in the rearview mirror, and freeze, my hand on the door handle. Tobias is crying silently, big droplets rolling from his eyes and hovering a moment on his chin before dropping off onto his already-soaked jeans.

  ‘Hey…’ I say. ‘Hey… Come on inside. I’ll fix you a hot chocolate and you can watch a movie with my girls until we figure something out, okay?’ I think he shakes his head but his sobs are so violent that I can’t be sure he isn’t just shaking all over.

  ‘Please,’ he whispers finally. ‘Please can I stay here tonight? Just tonight? They’ll come back tomorrow. I promise. I promise! Just tonight! Please don’t call the police!’

  ‘But, Tobias, where are they? Who are they? Your parents?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘They’re coming back tomorrow.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘They said.’ At this, I let out a sharp little sigh. Judging by the state of their living quarters, I wouldn’t take Tobias’s parents’ word on anything.

  ‘Please,’ he says again, and there’s something so raw and urgent in his eyes that I wait a moment before I speak. I have to say no. This kid can’t just stay here. It must be illegal to just take some kid in overnight without at least alerting the authorities. I could call now, and they’d come straight here; serious-looking men and women with briefcases sitting around my living room all night questioning this mostly mute boy. There would be phone calls, crying, pleading, the astonished expression on Johan’s face when he gets home from the airport less than two hours from now. Or… or I could put him up in the guest room, just for tonight, and drop him at his school first thing tomorrow morning and that would be that. Then the school could deal with him if the parents don’t return.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Of course you can stay here tonight. But just one night.’ He nods and smiles a tight little smile at me as we walk the last few steps to the front door. Next to it hangs a wooden heart, made and painted by Nicoline, which reads: ‘Welcome to the Wilborg family!’ Tobias pauses next to it for several long moments and there is something in his focused, serious expression that unsettles me. There is something else, too; something about his smile – it looks familiar, like I have seen him somewhere before. This is a small town. I could have seen him anywhere, at any time. It isn’t so strange. But there was something about his smile… something familiar.

  ‘Welcome,’ I say, holding the door open for him, smiling stiffly, and he nods, stepping into the hallway.

  *

  Sometimes, if I wake in the quietest hour of the night, when the house seems to gently buzz with all that sweet normality, I pad across the hallway and stand awhile in one of the girls’ rooms. I stand still, listening to the rise and fall of soft, slow breath. In spite of the hell they put me through sometimes, and in spite of the fact that, really, I’m just another working mother trying to hold it all together at an astronomical cost, I am so very grateful for them. That somebody as perfect and wonderful as those two should have chosen Johan and me as parents is astonishing.

  Hermine is contrary, sharp-mouthed and utterly beautiful. She is witty and independent, and has mastered sarcasm since she was tiny. Nicoline takes after Johan – she is truly kind, both in actions and in thoughts, and I don’t say that lightly, because nobody else in this family is as completely and uncomplicatedly kind as those two. Nicoline just wants us all to get along all the time, and easily senses when something is even slightly awry. One day, she’ll make an incredible mother. The kind who lives for the glee on dirty, sugar-crusted little faces. The kind of mother I’m just not.

  I love my girls, wildly, but often my intentions surpass my practical ability. I want to be the kind of parent who reads to them for hours after spending the afternoon baking glittery pink, gluten-free unicorn oat biscuits. I want to be the mother whose facial expression is calm and harmonious even when they shout ‘Mommy’ for the seventh time – in that minute. ‘Mommy, mommy, mommy!’ ‘Yes,’ I want to smile, ‘here I am.’ A one-woman comfort station, a one-stop shop for food, fun and endless reassurance. But I’m not that mother, most of the time. I’m the mother who fantasizes about a piscine de champagne on Mala Beach, the one who wants to smash stuff when they fight and shout, the one whose maternal patience just isn’t all that.

  But I do adore them. And especially in those silent, dark hours, when their faces are vulnerable and bare by the light of the moon, their breath uncontrolled and peaceful, their little hands clasped to their chins beneath unguarded faces, lingering at the very end of childhood.

  Tonight everything is different. For several hours, I lie in bed, unable to sleep, just focusing on syncing my breath to Johan’s soft, regular rhythm. A part of me wants to go and stand in one of the girls’ rooms, to make sure that they really are there, that they are safe. I want to walk quietly around the house, making sure everything is okay, that everything is how it should be, but I don’t, because everything is strange and different, and I know I’ll burst into tears if I move even an inch.

  2

  Here in Sandefjord we have everything. Or, rather, we don’t – and that is my point exactly. We don’t have any of the undesirable components that make life so unpalatable in many other places: pollution, poverty, property crises, excessive crime, immigration issues – I could go on and on. This is not the kind of place where little boys turn up out of the blue, with empty eyes, no parents and nothing but a plastic bag containing a pair of Batman swimming trunks and a frayed baby-blue towel. Sandefjord isn’t that kind of place. Wasn’t.

  Sandefjord is the kind of place people want to live. Postcard-pretty, snug and sheltered at the top of its fjord, Sandefjord is the kind of place less attractive places bad-mouth. Can’t blame them, of course – it’s not everybody’s privilege to be able to live somewhere like this. Here, everybody has a nice home that they own, a new car in the garage, a well-paid job, numerous foreign holidays a year and a mountain cabin, too. Everyone I know, at least.

  The call came at lunchtime. I’d only just begun to relax after the events of the last twenty-four hours and though I’d only been at the office for an hour, I decided to take an early lunch break so I could get my eyelash extensions done – Johan likes them. Walking from my office in Kilen, past the fish shop and the boats pulled up for winter, and the steel-gray water of the inner harbor, it occurred to me that the whole town resembled how I felt; cold and drained from all the rain. I checked my phone a couple of times as I walked along; I’m not sure why, really. And then, when I lay atop the table and the young girl was working painstakingly on my new, feathered lashes, I heard my phone vibrate from where it lay in my bag. Again and again. It couldn’t be work – nothing I do is urgent enough to merit repeated missed calls. The eyelash girl stopped for a moment and asked if I wanted to pick up. ‘Nope,’ I said, trying to fight off waves of annoyance. Did I, on some level, know then what I know now?

  ‘Cecilia Wilborg?’ said a smooth, female voice when I picked up on the sixth attempt, walking back out of the salon into the bleak day.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hi. This is Vera Jensrud calling from Østerøyparken School. I’m glad I’ve got hold of you. Finding your number wasn’t exactly easy. Presumably you know why I’m calling?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t. I’m… uh, actually in the middle of something here,’ I lied, picking at my cuticles. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘Is it correct that you dropped off a little boy here at the school this morning?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

  ‘May I ask what your relationship to the child is, Mrs Wilborg?’

  ‘None. None whatsoever. Now, I’m afraid I’ll have to…’

  Vera Jensrud in
terrupted me. ‘But Tobias lives with you and your family, is that correct?’

  I burst out laughing, an exaggerated, outraged squawk. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Look. This boy does not attend this school.’

  ‘So which school does he attend?’

  ‘We don’t know. He refuses to say. You can only imagine how upsetting this is for everyone, most of all, of course, this little child. Now, we need to immediately establish who he is and where he belongs, and the only thing we have been able to get out of him is that he lives with you.’

  I glanced briefly up at my office building, trying to stop myself from screaming. ‘He most certainly doesn’t live with me! I don’t know this child!’

  ‘But you dropped him off here this morning?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I met him for the first time last night.’

  ‘Right.’ Vera Jensrud sounded uncertain, as though she didn’t quite know whether to believe the half-mute eight-year-old or me. ‘Wait. You say you met him last night? But he stayed at your house?’

  I hesitated. Fear seeped into me, ugly and cool, like poison through the pores of my skin. The wind ripped at my jacket and I ran the short distance back to the office. ‘Yes. Look, it was a very strange situation. He told me he attends your school, so I figured it would just be best to drop him off there.’

  ‘Presumably you spoke with his parents last night before taking him back to your house? That’s why I’m calling, really, to see whether you’d be aware of some way of getting in touch with them.’

  ‘I… uh... The lady at the pool tried calling them several times and they didn’t pick up the phone.’

  ‘What about when you tried, later, from home?’

  ‘I… I didn’t. Tobias asked me explicitly not to.’

  ‘Mrs Wilborg, this is a boy no more than eight years old. Did it not occur to you to call the parents before taking in a small child overnight?’

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you. I’m afraid I’m going to have to go now…’ I stuttered, and hung up the phone. It began ringing again before the screen had even gone dark, and when I realized I was being watched by the guys in the office across from mine, I picked up. I pushed my chest out but turned my face away from them so they wouldn’t notice my intense annoyance.

  ‘What? I’ve said I can’t help you!’

  ‘Mrs Wilborg, this is Police Inspector Thor Ellefsen. I’m sitting here with Vera Jensrud, the social environment teacher at Østerøyparken School, as well as a representative from social services. We really need you to come down here as soon as you can so that we can discuss this situation.’

  ‘Look,’ I said as pleasantly as I could manage, though by then a full panic had set in and I could feel my mind receding into a blank, numb state. ‘Of course I wish to help you, and I feel desperately sorry for this poor child. I just don’t think I’m able to add anything at all to your. . . your investigation.’

  ‘He says he lives with you.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t.’

  ‘This really is the strangest situation I have encountered. Will you be able to be here in fifteen minutes, do you think? We think you should bring your husband as well.’

  ‘Johan? Oh. Oh no. That’s really not necessary.’

  ‘In cases like this, we prefer both partners being present. We’d appreciate any help you and your husband can give us. We’re quite happy to call him to explain, if you’d rather?’

  ‘No. No, I’ll call.’ Irritation gave way to the most profound rage. After we’d hung up, I stared out at the slightly churning sea, at the rows of pretty little houses along its shore, at the white-gray, low-hanging sky, at the swathes of ochre, downtrodden leaves in the park across the road.

  I’ve loved this town my whole life, but in those moments I hated it and wanted to barge through it like a giant, smashing and burning everything in my way until only charred splinters remained. And now, driving slowly and distractedly back to the school where I dropped Tobias this morning, I feel no less unhinged. I can see Johan’s car a few cars ahead of mine and imagine him, serious and pensive behind the wheel, glancing around for me, anxious at having been summoned by the police. He’ll be worrying about the child, wringing his hands and stressing about how the situation will affect me. Before he spots me, and for the last few minutes before I get there, I have to run through the rest of the events of last night and this morning to make sure I get the wording exactly right.

  By the time Johan got home from the airport, I had managed to re-establish a semblance of normality at home. The girls had meekly gone straight to bed, jolted by the presence of the boy; a sense of strangeness lingered on the air in the house. I put Tobias into Marialuz’s old room in the cellar apartment, and momentarily felt bad for leaving him two whole floors away from us, and especially on such an unsettled night. I had to do what felt right for my own family, didn’t I?

  I heard the door downstairs shut softly, followed by the familiar thud of Johan’s footsteps. When he appeared at the top of the stairs, I turned from where I was sitting on the chaise longue by the floor-to-ceiling windows and gave him my most dazzling smile. I’d lit candles in countless little metallic jars, and a shy fire was flickering in the fireplace. On the table stood an open bottle of Johan’s favorite red, a Côte de Beaune-Villages. I poured him a glass and watched him settle exhaustedly into the sofa, rubbing his eyes. I positioned myself close to him and gave him my best adoring-wife expression.

  The thing about men, I find, is to treat them with a carefully honed combination of casual aloofness, sharp reproach and unadulterated adoration. It throws them, keeps them on their feet – you can’t be nice all the time. Big mistake.

  ‘Baby,’ I whispered, ‘you look exhausted. Let’s get you to bed in a minute…’ I narrowed my eyes slightly and laid a hand at the top of his thigh. ‘I’ve missed you. . .’ Johan smiled, his handsome face bright and grateful for this warm welcome home. I’m not always that pleasant – to put it mildly – when he’s jetted off somewhere for four days, leaving me alone with the kids.

  ‘I have to tell you something,’ I continued. ‘A friend of Hermine’s from the swimming club is staying the night, okay? He’s downstairs, in Marialuz’s bed.’

  ‘On a school night?’

  ‘Yes... Well, I think there was some sort of family issue, so I figured it would be okay.’

  Johan nodded thoughtfully. ‘But why didn’t you put him upstairs in one of the guest rooms on our floor?’

  ‘Hermine and Nicoline were terrible this evening, fighting and shouting at each other. I thought it would be best if he had his privacy.’ I forced a little laugh. ‘It’s not like he’s not under the same roof. Besides, he looks very tired. He’s a tiny little thing.’

  ‘What kind of family issue did you say the kid had, honey?’ Johan gazed into the ruby dregs at the bottom of his wine glass, frowning.

  ‘Oh, I’m not really sure. I didn’t want to get too involved, to be honest. Here,’ I took the wine glass from his hand and pretend-pulled him to his feet. I stood on my tiptoes and tilted my face up for a kiss. Johan still looked preoccupied, but leant in and kissed me chastely on the lips. I pulled him in closer and slipped my tongue into his mouth, pressing my body against his. He pulled back after a while and looked at me, dazed but happy.

  ‘Baby...’ he whispered.

  ‘Shhh,’ I said, and together we half ran up the stairs in the soft darkness. As I walked ahead of him down the hall towards our bedroom, I glanced briefly out of the skylight, and saw the face of a strange and unsettling full moon appear from behind a dense cloud, blurred by rushing rain. Suddenly my mind darted to that place I never allow it to go; to another cold, dark night, the darkest of all my life.

  I could practically hear the sound of flames snapping, the wind wailing outside, my own short breath interspersed with an occasional high-pitched, involuntary howl as the pain crashed over me again. I still can’t believe that I survived... I am not someone who is easily thro
wn, but in that moment, struggling to reciprocate Johan’s eager kisses, I felt a surge of panic, and had to swallow back tears. The fear did not subside, and as Johan climbed on top of me, I had to reach over and switch on the bedside lamp so that I could see that it really was him.

  Afterwards, when his breath had settled into a slow, steady purr, I lay a long while on my back, trying to keep hot tears from scattering down the sides of my face. They were no longer for bad, old memories, or for myself, but for a tiny boy.

  *

  Johan is waiting for me in the parking lot and I clumsily park across two bays next to his Tesla. He is smiling, but his eyes are serious.

  ‘This is about that little boy, they said.’

  ‘Yeah, apparently’ I say, walking up the gravel path towards the merry yellow school building.

  ‘I’m not sure you mentioned last night what kind of family problems he’d had.’

  ‘Come on, Johan, they’re waiting for us. I told you, I don’t know. I just wanted to help him last night and assumed the school would be able to sort out whatever the issue is today.’

  ‘So... so why are we here?’

  ‘It would appear he doesn’t actually go to this school.’

  ‘But... but he said he goes here. Where does he actually go, then?’

  ‘Well, that seems to be what everybody wants to know.’ Just then, a man and a woman appear in the doorway of a smaller building next to the main school building, waving for us to come that way.

  ‘Let me do the talking, okay, babe?’ I say in a low voice and smile reassuringly at my husband.

  Inside, we are introduced to Police Inspector Thor Ellefsen, social environment teacher Vera Jensrud, and a representative of social services, Laila Engebretsen. The latter looks vaguely familiar, and it takes me a while to realize why; she used to be called Laila Hansen, and we went to primary school together. Back then she was a timid, chubby girl with messy pigtails and hand-me-down clothes, and she’s not really that different now. Scruffy is the word that comes to mind. I must admit that she’s gone from awkwardly tall and ‘big-boned’ to what I suppose some people might call statuesque, but she most definitely retains that gangly, clownish presence I remember from childhood. I’m surprised that she’s got married and changed her name and wonder what kind of man would be drawn to someone as void of sexiness as this chunky missy.