He worked through the longest day of his life without any sense of what he was actually doing. At five o’clock he drove to H. C. Ørstedsvej and rang the bell. The nameplate below the bell was new; in addition to Katrine’s name it said Bo Beck Vestergaard. Upstairs, in Katrine’s apartment, the situation became even more bizarre. Katrine was seven months pregnant, her belly beautiful and round.
“We’re really looking forward to the baby,” Bo said, narrowing his eyes.
Bo was assembling a changing table in the corner of the room. He was clearly putting in a lot of effort. However, Søren was the biological father, Katrine said, there was no doubt about it. Katrine didn’t meet Bo until after she had found out she was pregnant, and Bo had been relaxed about the whole thing—after all, they were all adults, and he was very much in love with Katrine. Initially, they had decided not to contact Søren, but as Katrine’s pregnancy progressed, they had second thoughts. They didn’t want to lie to the child, but this was precisely what they were setting themselves up for if they concealed the baby’s real parentage at this early stage.
Søren didn’t know what to think. His jaw had dropped and panic stuck to the inside of his throat like an obstinate fish bone. Bo continued explaining. Søren would be kept informed and the child would be told when it was old enough, but Bo and Katrine agreed it would be too confusing for the child if there were multiple fathers around during the early years. Søren understood, didn’t he? He wouldn’t have to pay child support either, unless he absolutely insisted. Bo had his own business selling musical instruments, and Katrine had gotten a job at a school in Valby; she was currently on maternity leave. They would manage. In fact, they were asking Søren to keep a low profile and not interfere too much. Not until the child itself wanted to meet its biological father. It was clear, as far as Bo was concerned, the need would never arise. Søren nodded, asked a timid question and nodded again. He declared that he would need time to process it all. Bo looked pleased and saw him out.
Søren stumbled out into H. C. Ørstedsvej, clammy with sweat, his mouth dry. In a kiosk he downed two soft drinks straight from the refrigerated case while the shopkeeper eyed him suspiciously. What the hell was he going to say to Vibe? Vibe, who had blind faith in him, who still called him “the straightest guy in the world” to her friends, even though they had broken up, even though he hadn’t been prepared to give her the child she so desperately wanted. He walked down to the lakes and began pacing up and down. He had to convince Bo and Katrine that it would be in everyone’s best interest if Søren never became the baby’s father. Not ever. Not on paper, not in real life. It would hurt Vibe deeply if the truth came out. Besides, he didn’t want to be a father, for Christ’s sake. Not to Vibe’s child, not to Katrine’s, and certainly not to Bo Beck Vestergaard’s. It was completely out of the question. He had donated some sperm, that was all. It should never have happened. Katrine was supposed to have had her period, and afterward she was supposed to meet Bo, and they should have had a baby of their own. Why the hell hadn’t he used a condom? He stopped at Saint Jørgen’s Lake and kicked a low wall hard with his black leather shoe. When he had calmed down, he went to see Knud and Elvira.
“It’s good that you’re here now,” Vibe said quietly, as he entered the living room. At first he couldn’t see Elvira and, for a brief second, he imagined that she had got out of bed, fit and healthy, and gone out into the garden to pick elderflowers, but then he spotted her. She was lying in a fold of the comforter—at least that was how it looked. Søren held her tiny frail hand and sobbed his heart out. Three hours later Elvira sighed softly, and then she was gone.
In the weeks that followed Søren tried to brush aside all thoughts of the baby. There was much to do. A complicated case at work, organizing Elvira’s funeral, and then there was Knud, who was falling apart with grief. When Bo called two and a half weeks later, he screamed furiously into the handset that they should leave him the fuck alone, he hadn’t asked to have a baby, and if Katrine could have been bothered to call him when she found out she was pregnant, he would have told her to get rid of it. Later the same afternoon, Søren called Bo back to apologize. He explained his mother had died and he was under a lot of pressure. To begin with Bo was distant and implacable, but as the conversation progressed, he softened.
“Okay,” he said. “Call us when you’re a bit more on top of things. After all, there’s no hurry. Like we said, we would prefer not to have you hanging around. I’m sorry, but I’m being honest here. We just don’t want to lie to the child. She deserves to know the truth so she can have a secure childhood.”
“It’s a girl?” Søren marveled.
“Yes,” Bo said. “And we’re calling her Maja.”
Søren managed to visit Katrine once before she had her baby, one afternoon when he spontaneously drove past H. C. Ørstedsvej, rang the doorbell, and found her home alone. They didn’t speak much, but she looked undeniably gorgeous on the sofa, big, round, and enigmatic as though she was hatching a golden egg. Suddenly, he heard himself promise to keep his distance, as Bo and Katrine had requested, and that he would be there if the girl wanted to meet her father when she got older. If. They sealed the deal with a cup of coffee and, as there was nothing more to say, Søren left.
Maja was born on September 8, 2004. Bo called him after the birth. He was rather monosyllabic and merely informed him the child had been born and that mother and baby were doing well. Then he hung up. Three days later Søren went to Frederiksberg Hospital. He had been racked with doubt, but in the end he had been unable to stay away. He bought a teddy bear for the baby and a bottle of lemon-scented lotion for Katrine. The young clerk in the drugstore helped him choose it. In the hospital corridor he hesitated before he entered the ward. What if they had visitors, what if it was inappropriate? But, for God’s sake, they had chosen to involve him, so they had only themselves to blame. And, anyway, he wasn’t some asshole who just stayed away.
To his surprise, the ward was nearly empty. There were no visitors and three empty beds waited for newly delivered mothers and their babies. Only the bed by the window was occupied, by Katrine, who was sitting with a faraway expression on her face. She looked up and smiled, almost as if she didn’t recognize him, then she lowered her eyes. Søren approached her gingerly and placed his presents on one of the empty beds. Then he saw Maja. She was absolutely tiny and swaddled in a white blanket. The bear he had bought for her was five times her size. Maja’s hair was long and black and her face all scrunched up. She was the spitting image of him. Søren was speechless. He looked at Katrine, then he leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
Everything changed. Not because there was a child at Frederiksberg Hospital who happened to share his genes, not because of her remarkable likeness to him, not because he had fathered another human being, technically, at least. No, it was because his brain was swelling to twice its normal size. He started to laugh out loud. Elvira had died, Knud was in mourning, and his relationship with Vibe was characterized by grief and anger, and yet he raced down Jagtvejen in his car, roaring with laughter. He hadn’t wanted a child. He still didn’t want a child. He hadn’t wanted to sit down to talk it over with Vibe or Katrine or any other woman. But now that she was here, he wanted Maja. With every fiber of his being. He would never let her out of his sight, he would protect her against all evil. The feeling was like an unbreakable chain anchored in his stomach. That night he made a plan. He would visit Bo and Katrine as soon as possible and make it clear to them that the deal was off.