Don't Look Back (35 page)

Matteus was scurrying around, full of anticipation, a killer whale in his arms, made of black and white felt. His name was Free Willy, and it was almost as big as he was. Sejer's first impulse was to rush forward and lift him up, roaring out his great joy in a jubilant voice. That's the way all children ought to be greeted, with genuine, exuberant joy. But Sejer wasn't made that way. He took the boy carefully on his lap and looked at Ingrid, who was wearing a new dress, a butter-yellow summer dress with red raspberries. He wished her happy birthday and squeezed her hand. Before long they would be leaving for the other half of the globe, to heat and war, and they would be gone an eternity. He shook hands with his son-in-law while he held Matteus tight. They sat quietly and waited for the food.

Matteus never nagged. He was a well-mannered boy, blessedly free of defiant or contrary behavior. The only thing Sejer didn't recognize from his own family was a tiny tendency for
mischief. Matteus's daily life was all smiles and love, and his origins, about which they knew very little, seemed not to have given him genes that would manifest themselves in abnormal behavior, drive family members out of their wits, or make them cross disastrous boundaries. Sejer's thoughts wandered. Back to Gamle Mollevej outside Roskilde, when he himself was a child. For a long time he sat lost in memory. Finally he was listening. "What did you say, Ingrid?"

He looked in surprise at his daughter and saw that she was brushing a lock of blond hair away from her forehead as she smiled in that special way she had reserved just for him.

"Coke, Papa? Do you want a Coke?"

At the same time, somewhere else, an ugly van bumped along the road in low gear, and a big man, his hair sticking up, was hunched over the steering wheel. At the bottom of the hill he stopped to let a little girl, who had just taken two steps forward, cross the road. She stopped abruptly.

"Hi, Ragnhild!" he cried out.

She was holding a jump rope in one hand, so she waved with the other.

"Are you out taking a walk?"

"I'm on my way home," she said firmly.

"Listen to this!" Raymond said in a loud, shrill voice, to be heard over the roar of the engine. "Caesar is dead. But Pasån had babies!"

"But he's a boy," she said.

"It's not easy to tell whether a rabbit is a boy or a girl. They have so much fur. But at any rate he had babies. Five of them. You can come and see them if you want."

"They won't let me," she said, disappointed, staring down the road and hoping vaguely that someone would appear to rescue her from such a spellbinding temptation.
Baby bunnies.

"Do they have fur?"

"They have fur and their eyes are open. I'll drive you back
home afterward, Ragnhild. Come on. They're growing up so fast!"

She glanced down the road one more time, shut her eyes tight and opened them again. Then she dashed across and climbed in. Ragnhild was wearing a white blouse with a lace collar and tiny little red shorts. No one saw her get in. Everyone was in their backyards, preoccupied with planting and weeding, tying up their roses and the clematis. Raymond felt great in Sejer's old windbreaker. He put the van in gear. The little girl was sitting excitedly on the seat beside him. He whistled happily and looked around. Nobody had noticed them.