I wonder what Lærke’s doing now. I can’t stop myself from imagining her at the handicapped center. No doubt she’s sitting with a group of other disabled people at some round table where they’re weaving baskets or painting with watercolors, while she waits to be picked up by her amazing husband whom she’s too brain-damaged to appreciate.
I see them come home from the center in their white Volvo station wagon — Bernard opening the door for her, getting out the wheelchair or the crutches, helping her over to the magnificent yard that slopes down toward the woods. There they sit, contemplating the mild summer evening. It’s true that I don’t know her that well, so in my fantasy she says the same thing as when I visited them: We like it a great deal. She smiles sweetly and beautifully beneath her large hat. Language is so rich.
And I see how Bernard was standing last night in the orange light with his pants down. His large erect cock; the feeling that every cell of my body is excited and alert.
“The Medico-Legal Council finds that even though you were somewhat impaired mentally at the time of the crime, it shouldn’t have been abnormally difficult for you to resist selfish impulses.” Bernard gazes intensely into Frederik’s eyes, as if I weren’t here. “That’s because before you had the tumor, you were unusually intelligent, structured, and focused in your thinking.”
That might be the only thing that gives Bernard away — the fact that he isn’t sufficiently attentive to me. After all, I am the wife of the accused.
He’s kind to Frederik, and he’s always been — also back when Frederik was much sicker than he is now. Bernard’s shirt lies a little taut across his shoulders; I know how it feels to squeeze those shoulders tight.
“There have evidently been some problems in using the Iowa Gambling Task diagnostically,” he continues. “In brief, people with orbitofrontal damage are not the only ones who exhibit the irrational behavior that the test detects. There are also many healthy people who make precisely the same mistakes when they sit before the stacks of cards. They too will gamble all their money away, flouting common sense — and the strategy they expressly state they should be using. And that certainly doesn’t exempt them from punishment.”
Frederik asks, “But then what can we do?”
“Louise was correct in saying that there isn’t any higher court to appeal the ruling to. But the ruling is not a verdict. It’s perfectly acceptable for us to contact the Medico-Legal Council and argue that they’ve overlooked something in their report. But that only makes sense if we can point them to facts that they haven’t been aware of.”
“I’ve told them everything.”
“If for instance your secretary were to declare that your personality underwent a dramatic change — or if others who’ve worked closely with you for a long time were to say so.”
“But they’re all at Saxtorph. They work for Laust.”
I break in. “Are you suggesting that we try to get employees from the school to speak up in defiance of the new administration?”
“Yes.”
He looks at me only very briefly before turning his attention back to Frederik. “If the truth is on our side and you did undergo a transformation in the period leading up to the crime, it may be that some of your former staff members will acknowledge it.”
In the moment he finally met my gaze, I saw how capable he is of shutting me out of his life. How he’s a noble person who puts his sick wife before anything else.
We do not flirt. I do not try at all to be charming, and he doesn’t try to look good in front of me either. That’s it. It’s over.
“Is there anyone you worked closely with, who you think we could interview?” he asks Frederik.
“There were three secretaries in the office. If we’re going to ask any of them, we should begin with Trine.”
• • •
No longer can any of us — Niklas, Thorkild, Vibeke, and me — avoid understanding what’s happened. Niklas is always out with Emilie and his friends, while the rest of us lie around in our beds or in front of the TV, sprawling like mournful dogs anywhere there’s a little warmth and space.
Since the auction house has taken my most expensive prints and pieces of furniture, I move around our home bumping repeatedly into big patches of empty space — places where there used to be something I was fond of, where now it’s utterly bare. In a way this feels more real. Frederik’s soul has disappeared, and now everyone can finally see what we’ve known for so long: that the contents of our lives have been torn away.
But we need to get hold of at least a couch and a dining table and chairs, so on Sunday afternoon Frederik and I drive the trailer over to Thorkild and Vibeke’s to get some surplus furniture from their basement.
In the old days, Vibeke would have baked a nice cake for our visit, but she’s been lying sick in bed this past week. In the old days, I would have then baked a cake to take along, but I don’t feel up to it either, so I buy one at the bakery.
When we sit down to afternoon tea, Vibeke sets out my cake with one she bought. Hers is much more expensive.
“But you knew that I would buy a cake,” I say.
“Yes, but I fell for this one, it looked so tempting. So we have two.”
Fortunately, my inhibitory mechanism is robust enough that I can behave as if nothing’s wrong. But is this the way it’s going to be now? Am I going to be humiliated the rest of my life just because her son ruined me and not her? We’ve only been in their house five minutes, and already I feel the need for a few moments to myself.
“I’m just going to run down to the basement and look at the dining table,” I say.
Seconds later I’m halfway out of the living room, but in the doorway I hear Frederik behind me. “Shouldn’t we all go down there together?”
I curse his obliterated capacity for empathy as they all troop down behind me.
Easy now. Easy. Easy.
I’m playing tennis, the balls on the clay court, the low sun. I want to enter my daydream. I’m sitting in the hanging sofa, it’s evening and we’ve come from the neighbor’s garden party. We’re happy, me and Healthy Frederik. That’s key. It’s Healthy Frederik I want to be alone with. We go on a walk around the lake. And it’s Healthy Frederik.
But the fantasies no longer open up for me. They don’t invite me in — not with Frederik beside me in the hanging sofa, not with Bernard.
In one of the basement rooms, Thorkild and Vibeke have piled up all their old junk. Someplace in the very back are buried a dining table and chairs.
“It’s great that you can use them,” Vibeke says to Frederik. “It’s a good thing we saved them. They aren’t anything special, but it’s the first table your father and I owned as a couple.”
Was I crazy when I accepted this offer? It must be possible to borrow furniture somewhere else. I sure as hell don’t want their furniture in my house after all. It’ll be torture.
The table is hidden behind so much clutter as to be invisible. Frederik brings out some chairs that stand right behind the door. Then he grabs hold of two large moving boxes that also go into the hall, then two suitcases and a food mixer.
Vibeke says, “Stop, stop. We were just going to come down here to look. The tea’s hot upstairs.”
There’s a restless energy in Frederik’s eyes. “But aren’t we going to look at the table? That’s what we came down here for.”
He starts struggling with an armchair. Then a freezer chest.
“Come, we’re going upstairs,” Vibeke says. “Frederik, come along.”
He doesn’t answer, just continues to heave on the freezer.