Bernard’s low white house looks exactly as homey as I imagined, and the woods at the end of the street can’t be more than seventy-five yards away. I can smell dank soil and the Mølle River; everything seems so lush, even though here I’m closer to Copenhagen than when I’m home in Farum.
But it’s not Bernard who opens the door. Instead I find myself standing before a striking older woman with an upright bearing and impressively upswept grey hair.
“Hi. Bernard called to say that he’s been slightly delayed.”
“Oh, but that’s all right.”
I already know that she’s Lærke’s mother, Winnie, but we introduce ourselves anyway.
“Lærke’s in the yard,” she says. “Can I get you anything?”
“If you have any cold juice, that would be lovely.”
“You bet. Just go out to her and I’ll make up a pitcher.”
My eyes are drawn to a photo on the wall of the entry, the same holiday snap that Bernard showed me on his cell phone the other day: all that happiness, all those smiles. It’s odd that it stayed with me, for I only saw it briefly, yet I have the sense of having dreamt about it since.
Winnie follows my gaze. “Yes, simpler times,” she says.
We both stand there, looking at the picture.
“One can get so angry,” she says. “But he’s dead now — the driver.” I keep staring stiffly at the photo, but not from curiosity anymore; I just know I can’t bear to look into Winnie’s face.
“He changed lanes and rammed three cars into each other,” she says. “There was nothing they could do. Two seconds, and it was all over.”
As we walk through the living room, I take in everything I can, trying to get a reading on their home without drawing too much attention to myself. Low ceilings, quite cozy, and lots of framed black-and-white art photographs on the walls — just the thing for Niklas. And thick art books on a set of shelves that cover an entire wall.
They’ve clearly done something with the space, a bit like I have, but more inventively. More French signs and fun things they might have found at a flea market, less Danish design.
The backyard is decidedly larger than ours, and it slopes gently down to a large impenetrable thicket. Perhaps that’s actually the woods extending all the way to here.
Seated at a table in the middle of the lawn, Lærke looks, with her flowing blond curls beneath a broad-brimmed hat, as aristocratic and dreamy as her yard. She’s hardly aged in the past eight years. Blue tits dart about the blooming honeysuckle halfway down the slope.
I walk all the way over to her before she notices me.
“Hi, I’m Mia.”
She smiles but doesn’t get up. I can see the grips of her crutches sticking out from the darkness under the table. “Oh yes, welcome. Good that you could come.”
“What a magnificent yard you have!”
“Thank you, we like it a great deal too.”
“And it’s so well maintained! Are you the one who takes care of it?”
“My mother does.”
“I’ve got to say, it must be great having a mother like that.”
“Yes, we like it a great deal.”
I sit down. “Your mother’s coming out with some juice for us in a little bit.”
“Well now, juice. That’s something I really like.”
Everything is so inviting, so tempting, so marvelous, yet I feel like the healthy person whose hand approaches a dangerous pile of cards in the Iowa Gambling Task. I can’t say why, but there’s something about her replies that gives me a strong urge to retreat. Instead, I make an effort to find my cheeriest and most relaxed tone of voice. “We were just standing and admiring the picture of the four of you in your entryway.”
“That’s from the Cévennes.” A long curly lock of blond hair has fallen across her forehead, but she leaves it there. “We love those mountains, they’re in France. Bernard’s family has a house in a village there, Aumessas. It’s our favorite place.”
“I’ve never been down there.”
“It’s lovely.” She smiles and says, “You’ve been tennising?”
“Yes.”
“Just like Bernard.”
“Yes.”
“I also tennised. Or … it’s not called that, is it?”
“You also played tennis.”
“Ah yes. Ha-ha!” She has a sweet, girlish laugh. “I plaid tennis.”
“But you can’t anymore?”
“No, and it’s really too bad.”
“Yes.”
I keep discovering new aspects of the garden. An azalea bed in a far corner blossoms in several colors, and when I look back toward the house I catch sight of three camellias. I certainly haven’t seen many of those in Denmark. I once tried to get one to grow in my yard.
“Have you been to the day-care center today?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“And you like going there?”
“Yes, I like it a great deal.”
“So what did you do today?”
She sits silently for a long while before she answers. “Imagine, do you know what? I can’t remember.” She laughs. “ ‘Do you know what,’ that’s a good pression, isn’t it? I love good pressions. Our language is so rich! It’s rich in good pressions, in … ex- … ex-pressions.”
“Yes, it is. I really like good expressions too.”
“ ‘Do you know …’; ‘do you know …’—what was it now?”
“ ‘Do you know what?’ ”
“Oh yes. Ha-ha! I said, ‘Do you know … — what …?’ And you said, ‘Do you know what?’ ”
“Yes, that’s funny.”
“Ha-ha! Language is so rich.”
Winnie comes toward us from the house, bearing a tray with a pitcher of juice and four glasses. When she’s still some distance away, she calls out, “You’ll have to pardon me! I was delayed.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “We’re sitting here enjoying your lovely yard. I could stay all day.”
“Thank you, we like it a great deal. Actually, I was in the middle of playing mah-jongg online with my sister in Sydney. She was sitting there waiting for my next move, so I just wanted to—”
“That’s fine, you should go back in then and finish playing.”
“Thanks, I’d actually like that. Just give a shout if there’s anything I can do.”
She leaves again, and Lærke says, “You and Bernard are going to talk about your son Nelkas, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“Tumor.”
“Yes.”
Through the bushes at the bottom of the yard, I glimpse a couple running past in sweat suits. There must be a path back there. So Bernard and Lærke used to be able to go running in the woods right from their yard.
Bernard’s suddenly standing behind us. He’s in a suit, and when he bends over to kiss his wife, his white-grey hair catches the sun.
After embracing her and exchanging endearments, he glances over at me. “You’ll have to excuse me. I try to always be punctual, but sometimes when I’m in court …”
“Of course.”
He looks at Lærke again and touches her shoulder. “Why isn’t Winnie here? Is she in her room?”
“She’s mah-jongging.”
Bernard explains, “My in-laws have their own room here, with a computer and everything. So they can overnight when we have a special need for them.”