The Boy at the Door

by Alex Dahl

  Her face was bare and her ugly teeth jutted out of her mouth as she opened it to speak. She looked even more deranged than usual and kept looking over her shoulder. She opened her mouth to speak and I silenced her with a finger to my lips and desperately tried to think. She’d fucked me over by not bringing the boy. The boy was the whole point, but I realized in those moments why she hadn’t. She no longer had the little boy I’d abandoned as a baby – I did. When she hadn’t picked him up from the pool, he’d ended up with my family. And now Anni had tried to extort me for fifty thousand kroner by pretending she still had Tobias. As if in slow motion, I felt my right hand stir in my pocket, then emerge into the cold, rainy air, pulling back, gathering force, then slamming as hard as I could into the side of Anni’s face, making a cracking sound. She dropped straight to the ground, and at no point did she even attempt to defend herself. I hit her again and again.

  19

  ‘Are you sure you are really able to do this?’ asks Inspector Ellefsen, gazing at me seriously across the long table. Next to him is that dreadful lesbian, Camilla Stensland, and next to her sits another man whose name I can’t remember. Unlike Ellefsen and Stensland, he is wearing a full police uniform, but he has scribbled all over the back of his left hand, which I find highly unprofessional. I sit across from them, and next to me sits Johan, though he’s deliberately placed himself so that there is a big space in between our chairs. To my right sits Laila Engebretsen, who’d seemed touched that I asked her to be here. Every now and again she gives me her sad, tight smile, and I force myself to return it – I need her on my side now. Also present is my mother, sitting alone on a green sofa next to the table, crossing and uncrossing her legs nervously. I nod solemnly. I’ve taken care with my appearance today, and instead of dressing like a sexy Scandi gym-bunny fashionista, which is the look I usually go for, I’m wearing a demure knee-length black skirt and a roll-neck white sweater. Part nun, part waitress, but my goal is to appear as harmless and proper as possible.

  ‘As you’ll be aware, there are so many holes in your previous accounts that we are at a loss to establish what information is true and what isn’t.’ Ellefsen pauses, and I nod again. ‘This is now a formal investigation, and I am obliged to inform you that everything you say in this room will be recorded and subject to further investigation. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, keeping my voice low and even. I glance at Johan, who, although he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye, quickly looks away. He thinks it’s insane that I should speak to the police today already, when I’ve just been released from the hospital and am ‘clearly confused’. It’s as though he fears that I will make up some fantastical story for fun, like he thinks I made up the fact that I’m Tobias’s mother.

  ‘Do you have any questions before we begin?’ asks Camilla Stensland, clasping her meaty manlike hands together atop the table.

  ‘I would like to know the results of the DNA test,’ I say. I can feel my mother’s eyes burning into my back – God knows what Johan has told her of all this, but she insisted on coming to support us. Stensland lets out an incredulous little whistle and opens her mouth as though to speak, but Ellefsen discreetly quiets her with a quick move of his head.

  ‘Certainly, Mrs Wilborg. Are you happy for me to tell you the results now, or would you like to be told in a separate room, alone?’

  ‘Now’s fine.’ For a brief moment, I imagine that Ellefsen opens his mouth and says that the test was negative. That would mean I truly am insane, and that I’ve imagined all the events of the past ten years. Sudden goosebumps prick at my forearms and I take a deep breath. Do crazy people ever know that they are crazy? Ellefsen and Laila exchange a long glance, or maybe I’m imagining it, because I may very well be truly mad. I hold on to the underside of the chair as if to tether myself to it – I fear I’d bolt from this room if I didn’t.

  ‘The results of the DNA test confirm with a ninety-million-to-one certainty that you are Tobias’s biological mother.’ The room is deathly silent, as though everyone is holding their breath. Told you so, I want to shout, but I’m looking at Johan’s stricken face. My mother looks as though an aneurysm has just burst open in her brain. I take another deep breath; I need to stay calm now. One shot. I nod seriously. I think about Tobias’s baby face, how his black hair started almost at his eyebrows, like a little monkey. I think about how being his mother is imprinted not only in my DNA, but in my bones, and almost laugh out loud at the thought of trying to run away from it.

  ‘Thank you for confirming that,’ I say. Everyone is looking at me.

  ‘What I would like you to do, Mrs Wilborg, if you still feel up to it in light of this new information, is run us through everything, from the beginning, and Inspector Stensland or I will stop you if we have any questions. Does that sound okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ says Johan, and stands up, a little too fast, knocking his bony knees against the table. ‘I’d like to leave.’

  ‘No!’ I say. ‘Please, no!’ He hesitates for a moment, and looks at me pleading with him. His eyes are empty. ‘Please don’t go, Johan. I can explain everything.’

  ‘Cecilia, for fuck’s sake! What they’re saying is that you had a baby with someone else, then abandoned it, and quite possibly murdered a junkie. I think I’ve heard enough.’

  ‘I can explain, Johan!’ I try to scream, but my voice comes out a mere whisper. I bring the tears to my eyes from the thought of placing five-day-old Tobias in my father’s arms and turning away from him. ‘I was raped at knifepoint,’ I say, louder now, letting my voice crack at the end of the sentence. Everybody grows stiller yet. Johan, who has reached the door, turns around slowly. A big vein is pulsating at his jaw, and for a long moment I both hate him and love him. I love him because I always have; it’s like something I was born with, a part of my basic construction, like arms or intestines. I hate him because I’ve sacrificed so much for him and now he might take it all away from me. Johan walks slowly back to his chair and sits down.

  ‘The beginning, please, Mrs Wilborg,’ says Camilla Stensland, but even her voice has softened slightly. I let myself cry all those tears I’ve held back over the years, and at one point my mother stands up and hovers by my side, patting my back, before sitting back down. Between sobs, I tell them of the desperation of postpartum depression. I woke every morning praying I was dead. I hated my child and feared I’d fling her into the sea when I strolled along the promenade with her. I’d look down at her little face looking up at me from the stroller and fantasize about smothering her. The dark fog didn’t lift for several months, and that was why we went to Uruguay. At this point, I focus on calming the crying down, so that only an occasional tear drops from my eye onto my hands.

  ‘I wasn’t myself,’ I say, rubbing at my swollen eyes with a tissue Laila handed me when I burst into tears. ‘If I’d been myself, it would never have happened. None of it.’ I turn in my chair, towards Johan. ‘Johan, I was broken. You remember how broken I was. I was literally falling apart. I truly feared I’d kill myself, or worse, Nicoline. I didn’t want to, but it felt like something dark inside of me was compelling me to. I couldn’t even slice bread for fear of turning the blade on myself. Or the baby.’ I pause. Johan winces. Laila gives me a very sad, small smile. ‘I began to drink secretly. Every morning, I’d pour myself three or four vodka shots before continuing with my day. It took the edge off, but by the time we arrived in Uruguay, I needed something more than just alcohol. We’d met some other young people at the beach clubs, and when some Swedish girls invited me to a midnight beach party, I decided to go.’ I catch Ellefsen’s eye and he doesn’t flinch. I feel like he doesn’t believe me. I need tears, more tears. Tobias latching on to my breast that first night, when the chubby snowflakes were falling heavily outside, when the wind howled, and I held my baby until dawn. Knitting that little bear with shaking hands and streaming eyes. I burst into tears again.

  ‘I didn’t see any
one,’ I whisper. ‘I’d gone down to the water’s edge because my head was spinning. I’d taken cocaine and amphetamines. I didn’t even hear anyone approach. I was sitting in the wet sand, watching colorful swirls grow out of the waves and move towards me like strange clouds, when I felt something sharp and cold pressed to my neck.’ Blow nose, rub eyes, hiccup. Repeat. ‘My face was held hard into the sand and I remember feeling certain that he’d suffocate me or stab me when he’d finished. I was wearing a dress and he just pulled it up and tore my underwear.’

  ‘May I stop you for a moment?’ asks Camilla Stensland gently. I nod. ‘Did you attempt to call for help, or struggle in any way?’

  ‘I... I cried “no”, and tried to wriggle free, but he was so strong. The whole time he held the knife to my neck, it’s what I remember most. How cold it was. And he hurt me, of course... down there. He was brutal. Afterwards, when I finally dared to stand up, I felt his come run out of me and waded into the sea to try to wash him off.’ At this, I pause again, and stare down at my hand holding the soaked tissue paper.

  ‘Did you tell anyone what happened to you, Cecilia?’ asks Ellefsen.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why did you not report the rape?’

  ‘I felt so incredibly stupid. I guess I was afraid of the police finding the traces of drugs in my system if they ran tests... I thought that nobody would believe me and that they’d make it out like I’d wanted it and got cold feet the next day and cried rape.’

  ‘I’d have believed you, honey,’ Johan whispers and takes my hand. I nod and a teardrop falls from my eye onto his hand intertwined with mine. He squeezes it. I tell them about how I didn’t realize I was pregnant for such a long time because I was still reeling, both physically and mentally, from the arrival of Nicoline.

  ‘Did you not at any point think the baby could be your husband’s, after you realized you were pregnant?’ says Ellefsen. I shake my head brusquely, glance tenderly at Johan, and smile a sad little smile, like the ones Laila uses.

  ‘Johan and I weren’t making love at that time,’ I say. ‘At all. I was so traumatized by what happened in Uruguay that I just couldn’t bear it. Please understand that I love my husband.’ I look at Johan. ‘I love you so much, and that’s why I did what I did. I was so shocked when I realized, it was as though I completely lost hold of myself. I unraveled. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m so ashamed... I...’

  ‘Shall we break for five minutes?’ says Laila, and Ellefsen nods. The guy with the scribbled hands flicks the ‘off’ button on the tape recorder on the table. Laila and Ellefsen leave the room. Camilla shoots me a vaguely sympathetic glance, then pulls a phone from her pocket. My mother is crying silently. Johan traces little shapes in the palm of my hand and looks at me as if I just did something wonderful and touching. Laila returns and places a steaming-hot black coffee in front of me. She squeezes my shoulder.

  ‘Are you feeling okay to continue?’ says Ellefsen, and I notice that his sausage-like bloated fingers are wet. He must have just gone to the bathroom and the thought of that makes me shudder.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ asks Laila.

  ‘Yes… It’s just… It’s… it’s so hard reliving everything. I’ve repressed it for so long. I just pretended it never happened, and it has been so difficult.’

  ‘It seems to me like a strange thing to do,’ says Ellefsen. ‘To run away from everything when you found out about the pregnancy. Many women might have tried to pass the child off as their husband’s. Did that ever occur to you?’

  ‘Uh, no.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, I presumed it would be colored and so it would be very obvious.’

  ‘But you never saw the rapist?’ asks Camilla, her eyes colder again, as though she’d slipped up and believed me for a moment, even though she didn’t really.

  ‘No. Like I said, my face was pressed into the sand.’

  ‘Why did you then assume he would be colored?’ asks Ellefsen. ‘As far as I know, Uruguay’s population is of predominantly European heritage.’ I swallow hard. I let out a bitter little half-laugh.

  ‘I… I guess I thought it would be likely because statistically speaking, let’s face it, most rapists are not predominantly of European heritage.’

  ‘I know of no such statistic, Mrs Wilborg,’ continues Ellefsen, ‘but I will make note that this was your personal belief.’ I nod, forcing my features to remain neutral. I feel my cheeks burn, and rub hard at my eyes again so the redness will be ascribed to the rubbing.

  ‘What did you do next? How did you come into contact with Annika Lucasson and Krysztof Mazur?’

  ‘I went to my father in Sweden.’ At this, my mother gasps. Ellefsen and Stensland turn to look at her. ‘My mother will be surprised to hear this, because as far as she knows, I haven’t spoken to my father since I was fifteen.’ I turn to my mother. ‘I’m sorry I never told you.’ My father convinced Johan to tell my mother that it was he who’d taken me to the clinic in Sweden – she would never have believed I’d seek my father out for any reason, and so might have become suspicious.

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but he left my mother and I, and I was very angry with him.’

  ‘And yet it was him you turned to when you found yourself in this desperately difficult situation?’

  ‘Yes. I knew he felt guilty about how he’d treated me, so I assumed he’d help me, no questions asked.’

  ‘Where is your father now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No. Presumably he is at home, in Värmland.’

  ‘But you are not in touch?’

  ‘No. I left the baby with him. He was going to give it up for adoption. He didn’t do it like I’d wanted him to. He’s only been in touch with me a couple of times since then.’

  ‘So how did the child end up in the hands of Lucasson and Mazur?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Ellefsen clenches his jaw, and looks briefly angry. I glance at Laila, who is hanging on my every word. I know she believes me.

  ‘Returning to the time immediately before Tobias’s birth,’ continues Ellefsen. ‘How long did you stay with your father?’

  ‘For almost nine weeks in total.’

  ‘And where did you think your wife was at this time?’ Ellefsen asks Johan, who looks as though he’s just been asked to perform a circus trick.

  ‘Uh. Uh. I thought she was receiving help for her depression at a clinic in Sweden.’

  ‘Why did you think that?’

  ‘Because her father phoned me and said she’d come to him, completely desperate. They sent me information on her treatment and... uh, I spoke with her father many times.’

  ‘And you believed him.’

  ‘Well, yes. She was... she was in a very bad place before she went there.’

  ‘Did you not at any point suspect that your wife may be pregnant again?’ asks Camilla Stensland.

  ‘Of course not. Like Cecilia said, we hadn’t been making love for a long time. I’d tried a few times, but... but Nicoline was a difficult baby and I could see that Cecilia was still struggling a lot after her birth.’

  ‘And when Cecilia returned from Sweden, did you feel like her condition had improved?’

  ‘Yes, very much so. She was warmer, somehow. Like every little thing touched her very deeply. I liked this change in her. She’d been so numb for so long. I assumed she’d missed me and Nicoline a lot, and that she was finally making real progress towards recovering. And almost as soon as she came back, she started talking about wanting another baby. I tried to say that we should wait a while, especially since our first experience with parenthood had been so dramatic, but she was adamant about needing to hold a new baby, and well, I generally like to give Cecilia everything she wants. Four months after she returned from Sweden, she was pregnant with Hermine.’

  ‘So, you gave birth to three babies in p
retty much exactly three years?’ asks Laila.

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper.

  ‘Returning to your account, and bearing in mind that we need to resolve several serious discrepancies here, I’d like you to explain to us how you first came into contact with Mazur and Lucasson.’

  I take a deep breath. I need to keep my version of events streamlined here, juggling both truths and modified truths. ‘I first met Annika Lucasson around a year ago. I had just come out of the gym when she approached me in the parking lot. She asked if I was interested in buying cocaine.’

  ‘You have previously stated, on several occasions, that you had no prior knowledge of Annika Lucasson.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lying to the police is a serious offence, Mrs Wilborg. It is, in fact, punishable.’

  ‘Yes.’ I nod miserably.

  ‘Why did you deny your connection to Lucasson and Mazur?’

  ‘Because I was ashamed. In the years after giving up Tobias, I had expected the fog to lift and that things would eventually go back to normal, but they never did. It was as though what I’d done had become a huge black hole inside me that just sucked all joy, all life out of me. I began to travel to Oslo to buy drugs...’ I’d still rather be thought of as a cokehead than a mother who purposefully abandoned her baby.

  ‘What kind of drugs?’ Camilla Stensland interrupts.

  ‘Mostly coke. Occasionally LSD.’ Both my mother and Johan gasp at this. Too late to stop now. ‘I drank in secret, and combined the alcohol and coke with Xanax and Zoloft, occasionally Adderall, Ritalin and Diazepam.’

  ‘Jesus,’ says Johan.

  ‘Did you have any inkling of Cecilia’s substance abuse, Mr Wilborg?’ asks Ellefsen.

  ‘Well, I sometimes thought she drank slightly excessively. But nothing that wasn’t within the accepted amount within our social circle, I’d say. I knew she was taking some antidepressants and was under the impression she’d have to take them for years to come, considering her history. But Jesus... No, I had no idea that she’d used cocaine and LSD.’