The Happiest People in the World (16 page)

L
arsen, that's a Danish name,” Ellen repeated. She and Henry were sitting in their room above the Lumber Lodge. It was just after one in the morning. Ellen had finally kicked the drunk stragglers out of the bar and closed up without mopping the floor, without even putting the chairs up. Henry had just told Ellen the story of the stranger visiting him in his office.

“How did he say it?” she asked. Ellen was now holding her phone, which was also something of a computer, and with her left hand she was doing gymnastic things to the face of the phone.

“How did he say what?”

“Jens,” she said, pronouncing it improperly. It is
Yents,
not
Jenz,
Henry thought but did not say. “How did he say, ‘Larsen, that's a Danish name'?”

“With an emphasis on the word ‘Danish.' ”

“What kind of emphasis?”

Henry pretended to consider this for a moment. “Unhappy,” he said.

Ellen nodded again. “But you're from Sweden,” she said. “Larsen is a Swedish name.”

“That's true,” Henry said. “But Larsen can also be a Danish name. You could hear the name Larsen and you wouldn't be wrong to think that it was a Swedish or a Danish name.”

“And he spoke to you in Danish first and then in English,” Ellen said, thinking about it. “You know how to speak Danish?” It was a very good question. Henry couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it himself.

“Danish isn't so different from Swedish,” Henry said. “If you speak one, you can generally at least understand the other.”

“But why is he here in the first place? Did he really hear that in Broomeville there was a guy with a Danish last name and thought, I should go there and talk to him?”

It was another excellent question. Henry didn't answer it. His thoughts drifted toward other excellent questions that he had not anticipated, other excellent questions people might yet ask and he might not be able to answer. This was a serious violation of his method. His method demanded that, when in the company of someone else, his thoughts remain on that person and only on that person. Because when your thoughts were somewhere else, then so were your eyes, and eyes could be read. Eyes will be read. Henry's thoughts and eyes returned to Ellen, who was looking at him, reading him.

“You look like you want to tell me something,” she said.

“I do,” he said. “I love you,” he said. But she wasn't paying attention now; instead she was back looking at her phone.

“Does he look anything like the guy who was in your office today?” she asked. Jens looked over her shoulder. There was a picture of Jens Baedrup on her phone; it filled up its tiny screen. The picture was now six years old; it had been taken before Jens had drawn the cartoon, etc. The Jens Baedrup in the picture had a large, grisly black beard. He was sloppily dressed and tubby, with receding black hair in front and a wiry fan of hair over his ears and down to his shoulders. He wore thick red-framed glasses, too. Jens had always liked those glasses, even though Ilsa had thought they made him look like a clown. “Do clowns wear glasses?” he'd asked her. “They do if they're also cartoonists,” Ilsa had said. She was right. A man who looked like that could be only one of two things: a clown or a cartoonist. And Ellen was right to ask her question, too: the stranger looked nothing like Jens Baedrup. But then again, Henry realized, neither did Henry. Over the past four years his hair had gone completely gray, and he'd lost so much of it, and he'd lost so much weight, too. He'd lost the clownish glasses, as well. You could stand Henry next to the guy in the picture and you would have a hard time arguing that they were even related, let alone the same human being.

“Somewhat,” Henry said.

“Somewhat?”

“Yes,” Henry said. Ronald hadn't said how closely he'd examined the man coming out of Henry's office. Ronald, Ronald. For two years, Henry had thought that Ronald was looking out for him. Now he was thinking that Ronald had it out for him, if that was the proper use of the American expression, and Henry wasn't sure that it was. Had
what
out for him? Anyway, Henry decided to describe the stranger as he was, just in case Ronald had also seen him as he was. Stout, dark bearded, with tired eyes. The tired eyes made it difficult to tell how old the stranger was. Ellen listened, looking dubiously at the picture of Jens Baedrup on her phone.

“Maybe it's not really him,” Henry said.

“It's a weird thing to lie about,” Ellen said.

“Maybe he had surgery,” Henry said.

“Maybe he had
a lot
of surgery.” Ellen stroked the phone face, and the picture of Jens disappeared and a newspaper article took its place. Ellen read it, frowning. “But then again, maybe he needed a lot of surgery.”

Henry leaned back against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, thinking of what he should say next. Now, back in their room, after seeing Ellen see the picture of the real Jens Baedrup, who looked nothing like the stranger, Jens's plan seemed even more clearly doomed to fail. Tell her! Henry said in his mind. Shut up! he said in the same place. These were his two paths. The first seemed to lead directly to disaster. The second probably would lead there, too, but only probably, and not as directly. Plus it was the easier path to take; all he had to do to take that path was to do nothing.

“Jens Baedrup,” Ellen said again.

“Not
Jenz. Yents,
” Henry said. Ellen just looked at him, as though expecting more, so Henry said, “That's the correct pronunciation.”

“Yents,” Ellen repeated. “So you'd heard of him before today?”

Henry shrugged. “The Copenhagen cartoons were more famous. But yes, I'd heard of him.”

“And what did you think?” He frowned at her, and she said, “About the cartoons.” Henry shrugged again but didn't say anything, and Ellen didn't seem to notice: she was back to reading her phone. “I mean, on the one hand,” Ellen said, “what was this guy thinking?”

He was probably thinking that everything was going to be just fine, Henry thought but did not say.

“But on the other hand,” Ellen said, “someone
killed
him. For
this
?” At that, she held up the phone so Henry could see. There was the cartoon. He had managed to not picture the cartoon since he'd been in Broomeville. Once, Henry had seen a monster movie in which the only way to keep the monster from killing you was to not think of it, to not allow the image of it into your mind. That had been Henry's approach to his cartoon. But it had found him anyway. What are
you
doing here? the cartoon seemed to be saying to him.

“But I guess he's not dead after all,” Ellen said.

“Unless it's not really him,” Henry said.

“I still don't get what he's doing in Broomeville,” Ellen said. “It's a long, long way to Skagen,” she sang, in a tune Henry didn't know, but in any case, in singing it she'd mispronounced the name of his hometown.

“Skane,” he said.

“What now?”

“You said ‘Skaw-gen.' But it's pronounced ‘Skane.' ”

“
Skaw-
gen,
” Ellen insisted, drawing out the
aw,
daring Henry to correct her again, and also letting him know she wasn't crazy about the way he'd corrected her the first time. This was the closest they'd come to fighting in their two years together. It reminded him of fighting with Ilsa, how they'd never fought until the day they'd started fighting, and from then on it felt like the most natural thing in the world. This was the worst thing about fighting with someone you loved: it taught you how easy it would be to just keep on fighting. “How do you know how it's pronounced anyway?”

“I went there once,” he said. “On vacation.” Then Henry described it: Skagen, the town between two seas; the town with the pretty yellow houses with the red tile roofs and the neat yards; the town with the wet wind and the cold sand; the town that painters in the nineteenth century made famous for its light; the town where the eastward-moving waves from the North Sea crash into the westward-moving waves from the Baltic Sea, and the spectacle is so great that even the skeptical end up taking too many pictures; the town so orderly and good that even the hulking tankers from Sweden and Norway and England and Germany patiently wait in lines that stretch from one sea to another before easing into the docks at Skagen Havn. The town with the big white church with the little white clipper ships dangling from the ceiling in between the chandeliers. The town that I loved, even though I went there only once, on vacation.

“That sounds nice,” Ellen said when Henry was through, clearly not peeved anymore. She tossed the phone onto the bed and leaned back into him. “Skagen,” she said, getting the name right this time. “Maybe you can take me there someday.”

“Yes, I will do that,” Henry said, thinking, How am I ever going to do that? He was still thinking that a minute later, when Ellen said, “We're getting married in three days,” and then, before he could respond, she said, “I wonder when this
Yents
is coming back.”

“Who knows?” Henry said. “Maybe he's never coming back.” And in this, of course, Henry was right, but later he would have reason to wish that he hadn't been.

S
o we got three things,” Crystal said. “This.” And then she handed Søren's knife to Capo. This meeting was taking place in Doc's. The blinds were drawn, and the lights were off except in the kitchen, where Doc was preparing the stove. London, who was now just called Joseph, was in the bathroom, running the water, thus drawing attention to his vomiting, which the running water was meant to obscure. Capo was sitting on a stool, back against the counter, facing Crystal, who was standing, violently chewing on something. Gum, Capo guessed, although he would not have been surprised if it were broken glass, or barbed wire, or human gristle. She really was terrifying; if there was a room where Crystal would not be the scariest person present, then Capo really did not want to be in it. He extended his right hand and she handed him the knife, handle first. He examined it briefly, then placed it on the counter behind him.

“And also this,” Crystal said, and she handed Capo a cell phone. He idly fiddled with it as Crystal told him what they'd learned from Søren. That Locs had found him at the cartoonist's ex-wife's house; that she had brought him back to the house in the dunes in Skagen; that she had coerced Søren to come to Broomeville to kill the cartoonist again, finally, once and for all. The one thing that Søren had not been able to tell them is why Locs wanted him to kill Henry. Others would have made more sense. Matty, for instance. Ellen. Capo himself. But why Henry?

“Don't know,” Crystal said. “But he wasn't going to be able to actually do it anyway.”

“Is that your opinion?”

“I don't have an opinion,” Crystal said.

“But if you were required to have one.”

“I don't have an
opinion,
” Crystal said. “I have a
knife,
which I took off the terrorist-arsonist-murderer who said he really wasn't one. But he—”

“Søren,” Capo said.

“Yup,” Crystal said.

“Søren Korkmaz.”

“That guy,” Crystal said. “He was sent here to kill our little guidance counselor, but he wasn't going to be able to actually do it. That was his opinion.”

It's mine, as well, Capo thought but did not say. The griddle hissed, the toilet flushed, and Joseph emerged from the bathroom, eyes red, face wet. He saw Capo looking at him, and tucked his nonexistent hair behind his ears. It'd been two years since Capo had removed Joseph from his London post; two years since Capo had convinced his brother to hire Joseph as a security guard for the school when in actuality he was there to guard not the school but Henry Larsen; two years since Capo had made Joseph cut his ridiculous hair and then ordered him to keep it cut. And still, the child acted as though his mane had just been sheared.

“I was thinking,” Joseph said. Crystal laughed. Joseph tried to ignore her. “We should send someone to Locs's house in Skagen,” Joseph said, and again Crystal laughed.

“Locs won't be there,” she said. “She's not stupid enough to still be there.”

“I don't suppose Locs told Mr. Korkmaz where she might go next,” Capo said, and Joseph shook his head.

“She never even told him her name,” Joseph said. “Go to Broomeville, and kill the guidance counselor who is really the cartoonist. That's all she told him.”

“How he reached the guidance counselor's office in the first place, I'll never know,” Crystal said. Chewing, chewing, she pretended to think about it. Then she turned to Joseph and looked at him blankly. “Never mind,” she said. “I know.”

“I went to the
bathroom,
” Joseph said. “Can a man not go to the
bathroom
?”

“A
man
can, sure,” Crystal said.

“Fortunately,” Capo said, “Jennifer intervened.”

“Now, Jenny's a good girl,” Crystal said.

“Jennifer
is
surprisingly capable,” Capo agreed. “I've taken the liberty to invite her to my weekly summit with the students Friday afternoon.” Here, Capo grew thoughtful. “Although she will have to be taught to keep the news of her good deeds to herself.” And then Capo told them what he'd learned, beginning with Jenny telling Kurt and his cronies about what she'd seen and heard in Henry's office, and ending with Henry informing everyone at the Lumber Lodge that Søren had told Henry that his name was actually Jens Baedrup.

“He said
what
?” Doc said. He was bearing three plates laden with eggs, hash, English muffin for Capo, dry toast for Crystal, no toast for Joseph. Doc placed the plates on the counter, and Joseph and Crystal sat down on either side of Capo. “Eat,” Doc said, standing behind the counter. No one ate. Capo watched them think about this new bad news, watched them try to go back in their minds, determine who was responsible, how it could have been prevented. The cartoonist drew the cartoon, Søren burned down his house; that was not their fault. Locs was crazy, but that was more Capo's brother's fault than Capo's. And besides, they could not have anticipated that she would bring the cartoonist to Broomeville. They could not have anticipated it, but that did not mean they had to facilitate it. Joseph had helped Locs bring the cartoonist to Broomeville; Joseph had killed the old guidance counselor, Sheilah, instead of Locs; Joseph's killing of the old guidance counselor had gotten her brother involved, her brother with the stricken hand and the murderous eyes. Ronald. Doc had told Capo that they should be worried about Ronald, that Ronald knew that his sister had not killed herself. Now, Ronald had seen Søren run out of Henry's office. And whose fault was that? Whose fault was it that Søren had made it to Henry's office in the first place?

“Hey, at least you killed the right person this time,” Crystal said to Joseph.

“Crystal, no more,” Capo said, but by then Joseph had already gotten up and run to the bathroom. Capo sighed and said, “I assume Mr. Korkmaz's body . . .”

“No one will ever find it,” Crystal said.

“Good,” Capo said, although he was not feeling especially good, especially since they had killed Søren only because Capo had ordered them to. He supposed that it was necessary to kill the person who had come to kill the person under his protection, even if that assassin would never be able to bring himself to be anything but a would-be assassin. But still, the whole episode seemed miserable and brutish and excessive and totally lacking in nuance and gamesmanship. Not at all like it used to be. “Denmark!” he said. “Copenhagen, of course, is a wonderful city. But there are so many others. Vejle, for instance, with its fjord, its gentle river, its Munkebjerg! An unlovely name, but such a lovely mountain! And its people! Such amazingly generous people! Carsten, for instance, the old mapmaker whom I befriended in the old city and who took me into his home!” But then Capo remembered that before Carsten had been an old mapmaker, he'd been a young Nazi collaborator. So Capo stopped midreverie. Not that Doc and Crystal seemed to be listening to him anyway. Perhaps they had heard this sort of thing too often from him. Or perhaps they were distracted by Joseph's loud retching. Capo picked up his fork and began eating. Doc's scrambled eggs and corned beef hash! But the first bite tasted vile and the second bite worse. Even the English muffin tasted like soap. Everything is ruined, Capo thought, including my favorite meal, and also my brother's marriage.

“It's time to move Henry,” Doc said.

“I hardly think that's necessary,” Capo said.

“It's necessary.” When Capo didn't respond, Doc said, “He's in danger here.” Capo didn't say anything to that, but he did make a face that said, Too bad. “You don't like him very much, do you?”
Still,
Capo didn't respond. “Why?” Doc asked. “Because of his cartoon?”

“Well, it did reveal an impressive lack of cultural sensitivity,” Capo said. “But, no.”

“Because it made it harder to do our jobs?”

“Our jobs are supposed to be difficult,” Capo said.

“Then why?” Doc asked.

“Because Henry can't keep it in his pants,” Crystal said.

“Must you be so vulgar?” Capo asked.

“And when he can't keep it in his pants, he shares it with Capo's brother's wife. His brother's
ex
-wife.”

“One does feel a certain loyalty to one's brother.”

“Because your brother is a saint.”

“My brother is the reason Locs will come back,” Lawrence said. “And we'll be waiting for her this time.”

“Oh really?” Crystal said. “And how are we going to get her to come back, exactly?”

I don't know, Capo thought but did not say. I don't know, but when she comes back, I'm going to stab her in her face with this fork until she's dead! But where did that thought come from? It seemed to have come not from Capo's mind but from the miserable, brutish world's. A horrifying thought, thought Capo, and even more horrifying to have thought it. Capo dropped the fork, picked up Søren's phone, and began idly opening and closing it, and then suddenly he had another thought, a thought that Capo thought was much less the world's, much more his own.

“How was Mr. Korkmaz to contact Locs to let her know that he'd killed Henry?” Capo said, just as Joseph returned from the bathroom and sat next to him at the counter. He looked more pitiful and wrung out than ever, and Capo patted him on the shoulder in an attempt to reassure him that everything was going to be just fine.

“And that's the third thing,” Crystal said. She handed a piece of paper to Capo. On it was an e-mail address. “He was supposed to use the phone to e-mail her.”

“I see,” Capo said. “It might be amusing . . . ,” he said, and then he explained to them his plan. When he was done, Crystal said, “You know, I like it.”

“Me, too,” Doc said.

“I guess it might work,” Joseph said. His head was bowed, his back hunched. Even his hair, as short as it was, seemed lank. It seemed as though his whole self was weeping. Capo might have paid more attention to this if he weren't so enamored with his plan.

“It
will
work,” Capo said. “And it will also be
fun
.” He typed the first of his four e-mails, hit Send, and then added, “We so rarely get to have any fun anymore.”