The Quiet Girl (24 page)

"How can we be sure?"

Kasper couldn't catch her answer. But it was evasive.

"We all saw the fault area," said the man. "During the assessment. How does one explain that?"

"By unique conditions that made the limestone more transmissive."

"We saw the papers from Pylon Five. And the Land Registry office. There are soft sediments under Copenhagen. A zone of fifty to a hundred and fifty feet would have been realistic."

"Our own geologists have looked at it. The grain size of Copenhagen lime is different from sand lime. That could explain a skid like that. Against the white chalk beneath."

"And the earthquakes?"

"People need to reevaluate Copenhagen. Experts are considering whether fault zones may be active. There were tremors in the Sound in the nineties. Maybe they were stronger than previously thought. There is a fault line in Sweden under the Barsebåck nuclear power plant. Stronger movements than assumed until now in the lime zones that intersect the baseline on Amager. The differing beach ridge heights on Saltholm Island suggest there have been larger quakes than previously assumed. The problem is that geological memory is short. There are no written records of an earthquake that occurred only a thousand years ago."

No one said anything. She had not reached them. With whatever it was she wanted to say.

"We can do many things," she said. "But we can't order an earthquake."

"And if we could nevertheless?" said the man. "If the earthquake were manufactured somehow. And it was discovered. We'd get life imprisonment."

Kasper touched a button on the panel; they glided upward. He counted the rows of dark windows. Beneath them, the ground first grew dark, and then disappeared. There was light in front of them.

* * *

Only one desk lamp was on in the room. Lona Bohrfeldt sat in a chairand her husband sat next to a radiator; they looked straight ahead out the window, like two people in a movie theater. They both had bandages around their jaws. The man had undergone a remarkable transformation. His face had become longer, longer than any human's; he laughed toward the window.

Aske Brodersen stood with his back to the window; in his hand he held a little crowbar. A sheet of plastic covering had been unrolled on the floor under the three people. Kasper put on his glasses. The seated man's face hadn't gotten longer. His mouth was split open to his ears; the blows had damaged both chewing muscles, and his jaw had dropped onto his throat.

Kasper felt the body next to him grow limp. Franz Fieber slumped to the bottom of the cabin.

Aske Brodersen struck the seated man with the crowbar. He was standing about three feet from the window. Kasper knew that even in his prime he would not have been able to climb in over the windowsill before the other man got to him.

He pressed the button, and the elevator glided sideways.

"I want to go down," said Franz Fieber.

"Pray. Keep praying."

"I can't. I can't concentrate."

"There's a story about Saint Lutgarde, a Cistercian nun. I hope it's okay that she was Catholic. She couldn't keep her mind on things. But SheAlmighty revealed herself to the nun. And said: 'Relax--it's all right if there are holes, because I will fill them up.'"

The office was empty; Kasper secured the lift and crawled in the window. He pulled Franz Fieber in after him.

The doors in the office must lead out to a corridor. And there must be access to the library from the corridor; he reached for the door handle.

The door was kicked open. It hit Kasper in the chest and flung him against the wall.

The stocky man with the hearing aid came through the door. Fie had a flat weapon in his hand; it looked like a child's gun, but with a long barrel.

When Kasper was a child, guards had been recruited among the poorest classes of society. Since then, concern for the common good had risen to the surface; it had become a high-status profession to guard people's money. The man coming toward him moved fluidly, like a dancer at a royal ball. Close at hand his sound had a tone of massive presence and great inner authority.

He stopped with his legs apart, raised his weapon, and relaxed his muscles against the recoil. Kasper saw why the barrel was long. A perforated metal cylinder had been screwed onto it, and you could see the hole was stuffed with glass wool; it was a silencer. Kasper remembered them from the circus. They were used when killing had to be done quickly--for example, if a horse struck the edge of the ring and one of its legs got an open fracture.

The prayer began of its own accord, wordless, but the meaning was: "May SheAlmighty grant me an open heart, and give me strength to meet the great light."

Behind the open door, Franz Fieber was hidden from the man.

Now he walked out, thrust one crutch between the man's legs, and twisted.

The sound of the shot was dampened. But Kasper heard a surprising sound behind him, like a hammer against stone. At first he didn't notice any pain, but the middle of his body felt paralyzed. His legs gave way under him, and he slid to the floor. The assailant's face was less than an inch from his own.

Kasper grabbed the other man's head, and bit him in the nose. He bit in order to survive, but at the same time he felt sympathy; part of his mind prayed, "May SheAlmighty let this man fall into the hands of a skilled plastic surgeon, because that's the minimum requirement if he's ever to be a male model again."

The man opened his mouth to scream. Kasper stuck the Easter egg into it.

Kasper got up. His abdominal muscles felt like one continuous disc-shaped pain. He took the egg's brass holder and struck the fallen man on the back of his head, as hard as he could. The man's head flopped back on the floor, and he lay still.

Kasper took the pistol from him. It was the first time in his life he had held a firearm; he wouldn't have had any idea how to use it. He handed it to Franz Fieber.

Doubled over with pain, he walked out the door and down the corridor; it wasn't possible to straighten up. There were three doors to the library. He tried one carefully. It was locked. So the others would be locked too.

He crawled back to the office. He would have to get into the library from the lift outside.

He had thought that pneumatic tubes had gone out of style; this system must be the second generation. There were no buttons to push, just a black screen; he brushed it with the tips of his fingers, and red numbers came to life. A list of dispatch addresses hung on the wall; he found the library's. He took out his fountain pen. Got the egg from the man on the floor. On the wrapping paper he wrote: "A price has been placed on my head. I'm coming to get you instead." He put the egg into the tube.

"Count to twenty," he said. "Then send it."

"You've been shot in the stomach," said Franz Fieber.

Kasper pulled up his shirt. There was a small swollen hole beside his navel.

"Also on your back," said Franz Fieber. "The bullet went through you."

Kasper climbed back on the lift, and glided sideways to the library.

In just the short time he had been away, the man had bled a great deal. Kasper couldn't tell for sure if he was alive. Aske Brodersen had now turned toward the woman.

Kasper listened inwardly to the prayer for a moment; it hadn't stopped at any time. He turned it toward his inner picture of Saint Genesius, patron saint of actors and entertainers; he had suffered martyrdom in a.d. 303, but before that had freed numerous souls from torment.

The pneumatic tube hummed. Aske Brodersen stopped short. He went over to the terminal. We are, all of us, information addicts. All of us have to listen immediately to our telephone messages. Look at our e-mail. Empty the mailbox. In the middle of a meal. In the middle of making love. In the middle of an interrogation.

Kasper opened the window. He got up onto the windowsill, slid onto the floor. Aske Brodersen stood with the egg in his hand.
 

11

Aske Brodersen had taken off his jacket. Underneath he was wearing suspenders.

"I want to see the girl," said Kasper.

The other man stood with the egg in his hand.

"She's in the room next door."

Kasper placed his fingers on one side of the husband's neck; the man was alive. Lona Bohrfeldt was gagged with sports tape, which had also been used to tie her to the chair. The roll of tape and a scissors lay on the table. Kasper cut her free.

Aske Brodersen led the way toward a door. Kasper couldn't hear any discord. Maybe the world was really so simple when one had deep contact with one's musicality Maybe he would see KlaraMaria now. The tall man opened the door and let Kasper walk in.

At first the room seemed completely dark, but then Kasper noticed a gentle light coming from the sea. One entire wall was glass. He looked around; KlaraMaria would be sitting somewhere on the floor with her dolls.

He heard the egg hit the floor. Then he was grabbed from behind. The other man had a good grip; he was holding Rasper's upper arms. He lifted him off the floor and smashed him against the windowpane.

The window must have been laminated, like bulletproof glass; it had no elasticity; it was like hitting a cement wall.

Aske Brodersen didn't say anything, but Kasper could hear him nonetheless. Or actually, not him, because he wasn't there anymore. When feelings become strong enough, the ordinary personality disappears: The sound of the heart disappears; the compassionate aspect of the frequency field disappears. What is left is an extreme form of the impersonal. Kasper could hear that the figure behind him wanted to kill him.

He was flung against the glass again, this time much harder. He saw something being drawn across the lighted windowpane. At first he thought it was Venetian blinds or a blackout curtain, but then he felt the warmth on his eyelids; it was blood.

The next time the window struck him there was no pain and no sound; he knew he was very close to the end. The prayer in his heart began by itself. What he heard himself pray was: "May SheAlmighty give me strength to strike back."

The windowpane came toward him again. But this time he flexed his hands and feet; his palms and soles took the blow. It sounded like an explosion; he heard one wrist break, but his head was not struck.

He let his body go limp like a rag doll, let his head fall forward. The man behind him took a deep breath for the final effort. In drawing the breath, he lowered Kasper. The instant his feet touched the floor, Kasper gave the man behind him a backward head butt.

The backward head butt is the Dom Pérignon of stage fighting and onstage violence. Kasper had practiced for two years on a swinging sandbag before he learned to perform a knockout with one blow. And then he practiced for months to learn to stop the movement just beforehis partner's head. But now he didn't stop; now he followed through.

The man didn't go down immediately. He was still standing upright when Kasper slipped out of his grasp and swept his feet from under him. But his eyes were blank.

He hit the floor without bracing himself. On the way down, Kasper ripped off the man's suspenders and wrapped them around his throat. He put a knee against the back under him and tightened the suspenders. He could use only his right hand.

The door opened, and the ceiling light was turned on; the blond woman stood in the room.

Actual violence against real people is terrible. But stylized scenic violence is necessary. For those of us who haven't come farther than we have.

. "Please come in," said Kasper.

She walked in, like a robot.

The light had transformed the panorama pane into a mirror; in it one saw the face of the man on the floor.

"When a person is strangled," said Kasper, "it's not primarily because he can't get his breath. The first thing that happens is that the supply of oxygen to the brain stops. Because of the pressure on the large veins in the throat. If you look in the mirror, you can already see sort of avocado-colored, burst blood vessels in the whites of his eyes. Do you see that?"

The woman's legs collapsed under her; she slid down along the wall until she was sitting on the floor.

"Where is KlaraMaria?" Kasper said.

She tried to say something, but had to give up.

A broad stream of perspiration was running down into Rasper's eyes. He rubbed his face against the back under him; the shirt became colored as if he had used a paint roller. It was blood.

He heard something unexpected. He heard love. It came from the woman. He looked down at the man beneath him. It was the man she loved.

"Tell me where she is," he said. "And we won't have to pull the suspenders tighter."

"They're both down in the basement," she said.

"So the boy is alive too?"

She nodded.

"What are you going to do with them?"

Something clinked like pieces of glass when Kasper spoke; at least two of his teeth were broken or knocked loose.

The blond woman didn't say anything. He tightened the suspenders.

"I don't know," she said, "I swear. I look after her, after them-- please don't do anything, please don't."

He stood up.

"Take my arm," he said.

She obeyed mechanically. She opened the door. They went down the hall. The door to the office was open. He pointed; she led him over to the desk, to a telephone.

He dialed the Institute's number.

"I want to talk with the Blue Lady," he said.

Half a minute went by until she came to the phone. He fell in and out of consciousness.

"Yes?"

It was a year since he had last heard her voice.

"Both children may be alive," he said. "They may be in the basement at Konon, a place built on the landfill beyond Tippen in North Harbor. I'd like to go and get them myself. But I've encountered a slight problem which prevents that."

Her sound did not change. Perhaps she could receive news of the end of the world without modulating.

"We'll contact the police," she said.

He supported himself against the desk. The telephone connection was poor; the small receiver and speaker holes were filled with blood.