The Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg Page 4

  Her eyes were fixed on his lips. When one is sixty-five and falls in love it must be the same as when one was fifteen. If he had shown slides and related anecdotes about Maximillian she would have sat at his feet for three months.

  "Because of moments like those, I love him," he said.

  The situation was full-toned. It's important to exit at a high point. He got out of the car.

  She got out on her side, walked around the hood.

  "And aside from those moments," she said, "what was it like?"

  He was mistaken, apparently, about being in love. When one is sixty-five, one wants a more comprehensive picture.

  "They tried to chop each other's head off," he said. "Aside from those moments, it was like the Viking battle at Bravalla."

  He had started to walk; she came up beside him.

  "What about forgiveness?"

  "That was thirty years ago. I've forgiven everything."

  She took his arm.

  "You've forgiven a certain percent. If we can increase that percent, it's never too late to find a happy childhood."

  He tried to pull loose, without success; she had a grip like a paramedic.

  "It's too sensitive," he said. "He and I, we're both deeply traumatized."

  "You're a couple of hooligans. You've fought for forty years. Now you have three weeks, at the most, to make your peace."

  She walked back toward the car. He followed her.

  "Three weeks?"

  She got in.

  "He's strong as a workhorse," he said.

  "I'm the head of the Rigshospital hospice service. I've watched fifteen hundred people die. There are three weeks left at the most."

  She wanted to close the door; he blocked it.

  "Death isn't the end. I'm very religious. After the last breath there's a general intermission. Then consciousness starts out in a new physical body and the music plays again."

  She looked him straight in the eye.

  "What good is it to me," she asked, "when I'm lying alone in bed, to know that somewhere on this earth a newborn baby is nursing at its mother's breast, and in that baby lives my lover's consciousness?"

  He leaned against the car. There was still hoarfrost on the grass in the empty lots.

  "I love him," he said.

  "I do too," she said.

  He bent down to her.

  "Could the fact that we share this deep feeling create a starting point for a loan of five thousand kroner?"

  She found her purse, opened it, handed him two thousand-kroner bills. Closed the door, rolled down the window.

  "What's all this about the child?" she asked. "And the drawing?"

  Her eyes were expansive. He could have put himself in them with all his sorrow, and there would still have been space remaining. He shook his head.

  "Don't be mistaken about me," she said. "I charge interest. Bank discount rate plus two percent."

  The window closed, the car started and accelerated. As if up the long side of the Jutland racetrack. He felt an involuntary admiration for his father. For the fact that, despite his deviant psychology, Maximillian had still been able to capture a she-elephant.

  8

  He walked into the office and placed the woman's two thousand kroner in front of Daffy.

  "Installment payment on the rent," he said.

  The watchman handed him a letter, without postage, stamped by a messenger service. Gave him a letter opener from the desk. The envelope had an extrasensory feel that can't be scientifically explained, but that results when its contents are both a letter and a check. The letter was two typed lines.

  "We hereby inform you that KlaraMaria will no longer come to instruction. Enclosed find twenty thousand kroner for your trouble."

  No signature. The check was a money order.

  He sat down on a chair. The good thing about having reached the bottom is that you can't fall any farther.

  The door opened. A young man with censers held it. Moerk walked in.

  "You're going to be deported," he said. "You have ten hours to get everything in order. You'll be put on a plane for Madrid tomorrow morning."

  Maybe there is no bottom. Maybe it's an endless fall. Kasper stood up. Opened the door. Walked out into the courtyard.

  He stripped off his jacket. His shirt. Two groups of workmen were lounging on the benches by the warehouses. Some costume makers on break were drinking coffee at one of the tables. He took off his shoes and socks. His pants. He was now in just his harlequin-pattern boxer shorts. Made of silk. He had a thing about silk, as Wagner did.

  "Everything must go," he said to the seamstresses. "It's a matter of giving away everything. Our Savior did it. Liszt did it. Wittgenstein. The fourteenth-century Tibetan Buddhist Longchen Rabjam did it seven times. When there's nothing more anyone can take away from you, then you're free."

  He waited. Maybe he had frightened Moerk. To be legally valid, deportation must also be communicated in writing.

  Paper rustled; Moerk stood behind him.

  "Does the name Kain mean anything to you?"

  "It's right at my fingertips. From the Bible story."

  "Josef Kain."

  Kasper didn't respond.

  "Here's the deportation order," said the official. "In your jacket you'll find a taxi voucher. With a telephone number on it. In case you should remember something. About your little student."

  Kasper shut his eyes. When he opened them, Moerk was gone. Someone put a blanket around his shoulders. It was Daffy.

  * * *

  They sat across the desk from each other. Kasper had wrapped himself in the blanket; it was as long as a ball gown. He was numb. Perhaps it was the cold.

  The letter lay in front of Daffy. He must have read it.

  "She's a student who means something to me," said Kasper.

  "They owe me money, they aren't coming back. I have no address, no trace of them."

  The watchman raised one hand. It was empty. He turned it around. Nothing behind it. He moved it along the desk. From the top of the desk a card appeared.

  "The tall man. The emperor. He had this in his wallet."

  Kasper picked up the card. A name was printed on it. ASKE BRODERSENa. Beneath it, written in pencil, was a telephone number beginning with 70. He turned over the card. On the back the same pencil had written the name of a person or a place, BOHRFELDT.

  "The names aren't listed," said Daffy. "The number isn't either."

  When Kasper was a child, tent workers and craftsmen were called "circus specialists." They were Danish. At the beginning of the season they emerged from the ground; in October they disappeared without a trace. Since then the name had been changed to "technical workers." Now they were groups of Poles and Moroccans who traveled through Europe led by a team boss, like highly specialized ships' crews. When a circus docked, they went on to the next job. Their tone had remained the same, a tone of discipline, professional self-confidence, and raw effectiveness. He had always loved the sound--he had heard it ever since he first met Daffy, and also heard it now.

  But there had been another sound too; he had missed it. Until now. The watchman set the telephone in front of him. Kasper looked out the window.

  "I wonder what time the sun will set," he said.

  Daffy turned toward the bookshelf. It held many manuals. Too many for a watchman who had gone to school for seven years at most. There was also an almanac. He looked up sunset times.

  "In fifteen minutes," he said.

  "Then I'd like to wait fifteen minutes. I express myself best at sunset."

  The watchman raised both hands. Brought them over the desk. Out of nothing appeared the fountain pen, visiting cards, loose change. The lottery ticket. The keys. Minus the one Kasper had given to Asta Borello.

  "Montblanc Meisterstück," said Daffy. "For important signatures. But the other pockets don't match up. No credit card. No wallet. Loose bills. Money is just passing through. No driver's license. No permanent address. Someone withou
t roots. My professional opinion. Don't take it personally."

  It wasn't Kasper's own will that made him stand up. He would actually have preferred to stay seated. It was the orange impersonal rage that's awakened by criticism when it's justified.

  The desk was less than three feet away. In short distances he was as fast as a Chinese Ping-Pong player.

  He didn't reach it. Daffy's right hand dissolved. Rematerialized instantly. With a leather-covered conical stick two-thirds the length of a billiard cue. Made like a riding crop. With a shiny ball at the end about the size of a glass eye.

  It was an animal trainer's baton. Kasper remembered them from the early sixties, before carnivore menageries were prohibited. A man with a good forehand who knew where to strike could smash a lion's skull.

  He stopped in his tracks. He heard the refined tones he had ignored in Daffy. They were like those in the young Beethoven. The world was about to discover him now. The muted treasures had been drowned in subsequent events.

  The watchman's hands dropped out of sight. Appeared again. With a laboratory stand, a dish of uncut diamonds, a box of toothpicks, two glasses, a bottle of slivovitz. He fastened a diamond to the stand, filled a glass with liquor, warmed it in his hand, and lit a match. Held it to the liquid mirror. A voracious, restless blue flame crept along the edge of the glass. He pushed it in under the diamond. The flame caught the mineral, which began to melt and drip down into the glass. It was rock candy.

  Kasper listened toward the sunset outside. He pulled the telephone over to himself, collected his thoughts, and dialed the number on the card.

  "Yes?"

  It was a woman in her early forties.

  "I'm a very close friend of Aske," he said. "I had a dream I want to tell him about."

  She left the phone but did not hang up; she was away for fifteen seconds. He could have hung up--he had all the information he needed. A feeling of helplessness and an absurd hope of hearing KlaraMaria voice from somewhere in the background made him stay on the line.

  The woman came back.

  "He's away on a trip."

  "To the men's room at most," he said. "I think you should go and get him there. This is a profound dream. He would hate to miss it."

  He must have been standing beside her. Now he took the receiver. "You got your money. How did you get this telephone number?"

  "The little girl. I want to talk to her."

  He heard his voice from outside himself. It belonged to a person who was about to lose his composure.

  "She's been hit," he added. "This is assault and battery. I've spoken with a lawyer."

  The man hung up.

  Drops of boiling-hot sugar hissed down into the slivovitz. Daffy slid a glass over to him.

  "A vagabond existence is fine until the age of forty," said the watchman. "After that, one needs a permanent address to stop the decline. Especially if it's as rapid as yours."

  Kasper drank. Closed his eyes. It gave him a physical lift, similar to what large birds of prey must feel when they are flying. The concentrated fruit, the alcohol, the sugar, and the tropical heat rushed through his body out to the farthest capillaries. Chased away hunger, cold, and weariness. Bathed his suffering in a golden light.

  "And this profound philosophy," he said, "has led you to a meteoric career as a janitor in Glostrup."

  Daffy smiled. It was the first time Kasper had seen him smile in the six months he had known the man.

  "With help from the judge. I got four years' suspended sentence. Provided I changed my occupation."

  Kasper gathered together his things. Picked up the glass, which was still hot. Laid the check on the table.

  "An installment payment on what I owe," he said.

  Daffy came around the desk. Opened the door for him.

  "Why at sunset? Why do you express yourself best at sunset?"

  Kasper looked at the watchman's hands. Daffy could have been famous, as Bach was only after his death. Wealthy, as Richter never was. And now he stood holding the door.

  Pie pointed toward the sunset sky above the city.

  "Listen," he said.

  There was no loud or distinct sound. It was an intricate curtain of muffled ringing tones. The city's church bells chiming the sun to rest. "The key they are tuned to becomes the tonic in a major or minor triad. An overtone, which is an octave plus a minor or major third, varies along with the tonic. The city is a sound map. Grundtvig Church. Tuned in D. And above that, the F-sharp is heard just as strongly. The church has only the one huge bell. Its chimes could never be confused with those of the Church of Our Savior. Each is unique in its own way. So if you talk on the phone at sunset, and listen beyond the voice and compensate for the flat sound picture, you get an impression of where the person at the other end is located on the sound map."

  9

  He sat down on the bed. He drank slowly. The dark amber liquid had everything. It calmed you and filled you up, brought clarity and ecstasy. It anesthetized bad nerves and stimulated healthy ones. He raised the glass and let it refract the last light coming through the window. April light was unlike any other. It had a charming, optimistic unreliability, like an overbid hand in poker. It gave a promise of spring that it wasn't sure it could keep.

  He opened a large shallow rectangular drawer, the kind architects keep their elevations in; it was Stina's. He had asked Rud Rasmussen to make it for her.

  * * *

  Before the drawer she had never left anything at his place. In the morning she would methodically gather up everything, often while he was still asleep. When he woke up everything was gone, no physical trace of her; only her sound remained.

  He had looked for her when she was away. He hoped she would have left a toothbrush or some lotion in the bathroom; there was nothing. One evening he put it into words as they sat eating.

  "I could clear out a couple of shelves in the closet."

  She put down her knife and fork and wiped her lips. She did it delicately, but at the same time like an animal, the way a cat washes itself, the way a jaguar is delicate.

  "You've heard about voodoo," she said. "Some years ago we purified groundwater in Haiti. We were warned by our department head and by COWI, an international consulting firm, that we must never leave personal belongings behind. If a sorcerer wants to put a spell on you and gets hold of anything of yours, he'll have power over you."

  The food had turned to sawdust in his mouth.

  "We can't see each other anymore," he said. "If that's how you view me. I can't stand humiliation. We've known each other for a month and a half. I've behaved with total respect. Toward you. Toward all women. Like a little boy who peeks over the hedge at the neighbor girl. But never jumps over it. Always waits for her to want to Play."

  "But who, deep inside," she said, "is hatching a plan. About how to take over the whole neighborhood."

  A week later he'd had the drawer made. He hadn't said anything. She arrived, the cabinet was attached to a wall in the trailer, and the drawer was pulled out slightly. Her hands glided over the wood, pulled out the drawer, pushed it in, without a word. He had taken its measurements from the drawers in her apartment. It exactly fit a four-centimeter-scale map.

  The next time she brought a briefcase with her. Without saying anything she left a small stack of maps, copy paper, an etui containing a bow compass. The things had been there ever since.

  One of the maps was of Copenhagen Harbor, 1:25,000. Now he took the compass, and recalled the sound picture from the telephone conversation.

  Foremost were the Marble Church bells, electrically amplified, but muted so as not to awaken Amalienborg Palace. In open surroundings the sound pressure level decreases six decibels each time the distance to the sound maker doubles. With the compass he measured two and a half miles according to the scale at the bottom of the map. Using the church as the center, he drew a circle with this distance as the radius.

  Grundtvig Church lay far back in the sound picture, but it was very cle
ar. The huge vibrating bell seemed to be playing, quite alone, "Christmas Bells Are Ringing." It was also in D; the composer had imitated the sound of the church bell. So it was likely that the telephone had been located high up. Above the sixty-five feet that would have made it higher than the roofs of Nørrebro and Østerbro. He estimated the distance at three miles. He heard the Church of Our Savior chimes. Farther out in the sound picture were the City Hall chimes; he must have caught their quarter-hour tolling. They were made of iron ore instead of bronze, and had a hard clang. The frequency wasn't as pure as that of the church bells. Their distance from the telephone was three miles. Using Grundtvig Church as the center, he drew a new circle with this radius. The two circles shared a common area that included all of outer Østerbro.

  He listened again. He identified the English Church and St. Jacob's Church; their interference created a corona of suggested major keys from A to D. He drew two additional circles.

  They intersected the two original circles fifty-five yards offshore. North of the entrance to Copenhagen Harbor. Beyond the tip of the peninsula, at a depth of thirty-nine feet. He hadn't heard correctly.

  * * *

  He drank from the glass. In the midst of failure all the sounds he heard seemed very near. The sounds of April were unlike any others. No leaves on the trees. No vegetation to dampen reflection and diffusion. He heard the last rush-hour traffic from Glostrup. The distant drone from Ring Road 4. The birds in the bogs. Voices of the seamstresses. Cheered by the sunset. By closing time. Yet, not completely present. A part of their systems was already on the way home. Most of them had children. Women's voices developed a certain gravity when they had children. An ostinato.