Hell Fire (19 page)

BONNIE ALWAYS FELT
sad in March.

She had often wondered why, but in March it was as if she was in no man's land: it was no longer winter but not yet spring or summer. The weather was unpredictable and the light was gray with rotten snow. Roadsides were dirty, as forgotten garbage from the previous autumn emerged once again. One day it was freezing and there were snowstorms, the next the sun shone generously and all the snow melted again. It was hard to know what Simon should wear; he had to take his winter clothes and rain gear, waterproof boots, and a hat and mittens. There was a spare set of clothes in his bag, and some more on his peg under the snail.

One morning in late March, she stood outside Erna's door and rang the bell. Even though Erna was always up and often unlocked the door before Bonnie arrived, she still gave three short rings to announce her arrival, to say it's me, Bonnie. But that morning, the door was locked. She realized that Erna hadn't been sitting in the window watching out for her. She stood on the step for a while, baffled and worried. She might have fallen and broken her hip, or worse. Or perhaps one of the children had been to collect her and had forgotten to notify Ragnhild in the office. Bonnie put her ear to the door and listened in case the old woman was lying on the floor, calling out, but there wasn't a sound to be heard in the house. Maybe she had overslept and was sleeping so heavily that she hadn't heard the doorbell. Bonnie gave three more short rings and stood there waiting. Then she did what they agreed upon, an agreement she had with practically all her clients. Erna had a spare key, so Bonnie went around to the back of the house and found it under the flowerpot where it was always kept.

She let herself into the hall. She stood there and listened. Erna was not in the living room nor was she to be seen in the kitchen, although the light was on. Bonnie's heart started to thump and she called her name—quietly and carefully at first, then louder. She was most scared to go into the bedroom, but when she did it was clear that Erna was already up. Or had she not gone to bed the night before, could that be it? She might have fallen down the steep stairs into the basement, tumbling down onto the cement floor with her fragile bones. No, that didn't seem right. So she turned to the only other place: the bathroom. The door was ajar. At first all she saw was the white tiles, the ones that Erna insisted she scrub with a toothbrush, so that she could clean the discolored gray grout as well. Erna was lying on the floor beside the bathtub. She was wearing an old lacy yellow top, but her thin body was naked from the waist down. The strip light on the ceiling was flickering and it made Bonnie feel dizzy. Was she about to faint? Erna's feet were big and swollen. Bonnie noticed a web of blue veins on the inside of Erna's thigh. She was lying on her stomach with her arms out, and a large gash was visible on her forehead. A small amount of blood had pooled on the white tiles.

Bonnie leaned against the door frame for support. She saw that there was water in the bathtub and realized that Erna must have fallen and hit her head on the edge of the bathtub.

She got down on her knees to feel for a pulse, but there was nothing beating under the thin skin. So she went into the living room and took the crocheted blanket from the sofa, went back to the bathroom, and put the blanket over the dead body. She had never seen Erna naked, so pitiful and exposed. All her energy gone. I'm going to die one day too, Bonnie thought. Someone will come into the room and find me when it's all over. I hope to God I'm never found in this state.

In the evening, she had to explain to Simon why she had come to collect him so soon after she had dropped him off. She wanted him to know the truth about life and death. But she was careful all the same.

“You know that she's going to be buried in the ground, don't you?”

Yes, Simon knew that because they'd talked about death at daycare. Kaja had tried to explain that dead people weren't there anymore. They weren't sleeping, they weren't dreaming, they couldn't see, they didn't breathe, and they would never wake up again. She said that death was another country and that anyone who was alive could only imagine it.

“The coffin is very beautiful,” Bonnie explained. “It's got silk and velvet inside, and the person is all dressed up for their final journey.”

“Where are they going?” Simon asked.

“To eternity,” Bonnie replied.

“Where's that?”

“We don't know. But I think it's very beautiful there. I think it's a bit like a big garden full of flowers. And you get to meet all the other people who are dead.”

“But how do they know how to get there?”

“Oh, they just know,” Bonnie said. “But when we're alive, we don't know. It's like a special surprise for all of us, don't you think?”

Simon was happy with that. But after he had gone to bed that evening, Bonnie sat up thinking about her own death, which of course she knew nothing about.

“
WHAT ARE YOU
doing on the phone?” Mass asked. “You haven't said anything.”

For English, press 5,
Eddie heard as he played with the photograph that Inga Nielsen had sent him. It was an enlarged color print of his father with his arms around Inga and their son, Mads. It was taken in 1991, only a year before he died. It was obvious to Eddie that Inga Nielsen was beautiful; she was much younger than Mass, with wavy blond hair, and she was wearing a spotted summer dress. It was easy to understand why they had fallen in love. Why his father, tall and handsome as he was, had chosen this beauty over them. His mother had been reluctant to look at the picture when he held it up for her to see. His brother Mads was just a little boy, and he could tell that his father was much older in this picture than the one above his bed.

No, he didn't have a Eurobonus card, but he continued patiently to tap his way through the menu to book a return flight to Copenhagen.
This phone call may be recorded,
he heard. Jesus, as if I care. And then, having waited for what seemed like forever, he finally heard a voice asking if it could help him. He had doodled all over the notebook as he waited. The doodles didn't mean anything; they were simply an expression of his excitement and tension. This was perhaps the most important decision he had ever made in his whole life.

“I have flown before, you know,” Eddie muttered, when his mother expressed her concern.

“But I was with you,” Mass pointed out. “How will you find out where to go?”

“I'll ask,” he said curtly. “Everyone at the airport will be in uniform.”

“I mean to get to the cemetery,” she said. “Copenhagen is a big city.”

“I'll take a taxi,” he replied. “It's not that difficult, is it? Stop going on.”

Mass wanted to cry. Her son, whom she loved so much, was going out into the big, wide world, alone, to find a father who had deserted him. And then showered all his love on a second son.

The flight was at ten past seven in the morning and his mother drove him to the airport express train. She stood on the platform and watched the train pull out with a sense of foreboding and an uneasy heart. Eddie. Dear Eddie. He had a backpack on his back that contained the few things he needed, and as the train whizzed him out to the airport, he sat and thought. It didn't bother him in the slightest that his mother didn't want him to go.

When he got to the airport, he went to the check-in desk with his reference number. He didn't dare use the automatic check-in, in case he got it wrong. He was given his boarding pass, went through security, and then had to take off his heavy boots and go through again. He went straight to the gate, where he sat and waited patiently. Dad, he thought, I'm only a few hours away. He boarded the plane, found his place by the window, and collapsed into the narrow seat. The person before must have been a real skinny malinky, so he had to adjust the seat belt. He concentrated on the safety demonstration, keeping his eyes on the flight attendant. He picked up on the oxygen masks, the life jackets and whistle, and the four emergency exits. He would have to struggle out through the doors if they crash-landed. He would crawl down the aisle, over the other passengers if necessary. The plane might explode in a ball of flames. And all that his mother would be given was the remains of some scorched bones. Eventually he relaxed and settled in. The pilot wanted to get home in one piece too; he probably had children waiting for him. So he had to land them all safely.

When he got to Kastrup, he didn't know where to go. He followed the other passengers to the baggage claim, but he didn't need to wait for anything since he had his bag on his back. So he headed straight for the exit and found a taxi.

“Amagerbrogade 33,” Eddie said and leaned forward between the seats.

He got his wallet out of his bag and had his Visa card at the ready.

“You got someone there?” the driver asked.

“My father,” Eddie explained as he sat back in his seat. The driver steered a steady course through the Copenhagen traffic. He had a ring of silver hair around the back of his head, and his crown shone like a globe. Eddie was almost there, for real. The sexton was going to meet him at the main entrance. When they found each other, they shook hands. It had started to rain, so they would get wet.

“So,” Povel Koch said, “let's go and find your father. As I told you, he's in a very nice place. You might find that his grave is a little overgrown, but you said yourself on the phone that his family had moved away.”

The sexton was heavy and waddled through the maze of beautifully kept graves. It was an enormous cemetery and Eddie was astounded that the sexton could find his way anywhere, even if he did have a map. His heart started to pound inside his wet jacket, and he felt very proud of himself as he followed behind. Tracker Tore could eat dirt.

And then all at once he was standing there alone in the rain. The sexton left him in peace, and he stared at the name, Anders Kristoffer Malthe. Peace be with you.

Eddie noticed immediately that his father's gravestone stood out. The other stones were black or gray, whereas his was white. It stood there gleaming among all the other dark stones, as if it were calling out to him. The stonemason had carved a wreath under the arched top of the stone. Now that Eddie was finally standing in front of his father's grave, after endless years of frustration, anger, and longing, the emotions overwhelmed him. He was furious and happy and proud, but he was still bitter. There was nothing growing on the grave since it was March, and Eddie suddenly realized that he should have brought flowers. Think of traveling all this way and forgetting the most essential thing. He bowed his head in shame and looked around at the other graves. Many of them did not have flowers either. He wandered a little but made sure he didn't stray too far, for fear of not being able to find his way back. When he had been walking around for a while, he spotted a gravestone with an angel on it and a bunch of fresh flowers on the ground in front. There was a candle beside the flowers that had been extinguished by the rain. He read the name on the gravestone, Martin. He only lived to be four years old, which was probably why he had such fresh flowers. Presumably his mother came to the grave every day. He picked up the flowers and inspected them; they were white and blue. He took the candle too and said to the grave: “You'll get new ones tomorrow.”

He went back to his father's grave and laid the flowers on the ground. He stood in front of the white gravestone for a long time, with so many thoughts in his head. It felt good to be there, but there was a certain sadness too. As he prepared to leave, he pressed his hand against the stone, and the rain trickled down under his collar and made him shiver.

You shouldn't have come. Mom is raging.

For the rest of the day, he wandered around Copenhagen.

He went into a café and had some chicken for lunch. A little later, he sat down somewhere else for a Coke and some cake. He went into some stores, looking for things from New York and thinking about his brother Mads. I'm going to find you too, he thought, now that I've started. By the time he was on the flight home again at eight, he felt deeply satisfied. He had done what he'd set out to do. It had been an important project, and he had not let anything stop him—not the authorities or his mother's doubt. He was served coffee and a roll. The sky was dark, and his mother would be waiting for him at the station. He would give her a detailed report, though he would omit the fact that he had stolen the flowers from four-year-old Martin.

Mass was there waiting and gave him a big hug, relieved to have him home again in one piece. She hoped he would calm down now and be himself again. When she thought about it, it was only right and reasonable that he'd gone. I clipped his wings, but they've grown out again. She had bought some cinnamon rolls for him and Eddie munched away happily. She had also been to the shopping center and bought him a new sweatshirt. It was black, but it said something different:
Survival of the Fittest,
with a picture of a Rottweiler baring its teeth. He liked it a lot. He told her about the rain in Copenhagen and the friendly sexton. The enormous double wrought-iron gate at the entrance, the beautiful white stone with a wreath on it. About the chicken and cakes he'd eaten and all the people in the rain. Later that night, he finally put the photograph of the Malthe family up on the wall and slept more soundly than he had in a long time.

Mass sat under the reading light. It warmed the top of her head. She had a constant ache in her back now and had found more bruises. Her right wrist was sore as well. What on earth was the matter with her? She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. There could be no doubt anymore. Something was seriously wrong with her body.

Shiba was no longer as fat as a stuffed sausage but instead was a weak, skin-and-bones bag of a dog feeling a lot of pain. She was riddled with cancer, so there was no hope. Mass could sit in the corner with her for ages, stroking her head and back while mumbling words of affection. She drew in the smell of her, buried her face in her fur, rubbed her big paws. Eddie watched them from the living room. He knew where it was all leading and could tell that his mother was putting it off for as long as she could. One day, he went into the kitchen, leaned against the windowsill, and said: “Enough is enough. She can hardly walk. And there's no dignity in shitting on a newspaper.”