The Quiet Girl (2 page)

"His current property?"

It was the older monk who asked.

"None. Since '91 we're entitled--under the tax compliance law--to freeze remaining assets abroad as well. When we contacted Spain we were turned down at first. They say that variety-show performers and flamenco dancers enjoy a form of illegal diplomatic immunity. But we went back with an international judicial ruling. It turns out that he liquidated what little real estate he still owned. The bank accounts that remain, a few million kroner in all, we now control."

"Might he have money somewhere else?"

"It's possible. In Switzerland, tax evasion isn't a crime. There, it's a religious act. But he'll never get money into this country. The National Bank will never permit him to make transactions. He'll never get another bank account. He'll never get so much as a gas card."

She folded her hands and leaned back.

"Paragraph Thirteen of the tax compliance law authorizes fines--as a rule, two hundred percent of the tax evasion--and imprisonment if the fraud is deliberate or grossly negligent. In this case it will be one full year in prison, and a combined fine and reimbursement of not less than forty million kroner. Since October we've been asking that he be taken into custody. Our request has been denied. We believe that decision can no longer be upheld."

The room became quiet. She had finished.

Moerk leaned forward. The atmosphere in the office changed. It began to take on the feel of A-minor. At its best. Insistent and serious. In contrast to the woman, the official spoke directly to Kasper.

"We've been to London and, along with folks from Interpol, we spoke with the De Groewe law firm, which is examining your contracts. A year ago, in one twenty-four-hour period, you canceled all your signed contracts, using a medical certificate that WVVF did not approve. They have quietly barred you from all larger international stages while they prepare the lawsuit. The trial will be held in Spain. At the same time as the Spanish tax case. Our experts say both cases are very clear. The reimbursement claim will be at least two hundred and fifty million. And there will be an additional penalty for drunk driving. You have two previous judgments against you; the latter resulted in suspension of your driver's license. You will get a minimum of five years' imprisonment without parole. You will serve your sentence in Alhaurin el Grande. They say it hasn't changed since the Inquisition."

The woman tried not to show her shock. She didn't succeed. "Tax evasion is plain theft," she said. "From the state! He's our case! He must be tried here!"

Emotion expanded her being. Kasper could hear her. She had some lovely aspects. Very Danish. Christian. Social Democrat. Hated economic turmoil. Excesses. Overconsumption. She had probably completed her master's degree in political science without going into debt. She already was saving for retirement. Bicycled to work. Knighted before the age of forty. It was very moving. He sympathized with her 100 percent; she had impeccable character. He wished he could live up to such standards himself.

Moerk ignored her. He was concentrating on Kasper.

"Jansson here has an order for your arrest in his pocket," he said. "They can take you to the airport right away. Just a quick trip home and a look around the hayloft. Get your toothbrush and your passport. Then off you go."

The tones of everyone else in the room faded. The young men and the functionaries had been purely ornamental. The woman had played the cadences. But the whole time Moerk had held the score.

"We may have another possibility," he said. "They say you're a person people keep coming back to. You once had a young student named KlaraMaria. We wondered if maybe she had come back again."

The room whirled around before Rasper's eyes. Like when you straighten up after a triple forward somersault. No chance to orient yourself in the forward bends.

"Children and adults," he said, "return to me in hordes. But the individual names . . ."

He leaned back in his chair, back into a feeling of no escape. The pressure in the room was enormous. Soon something would burst. He hoped it would not be him. He noticed the prayer begin by itself.

It was the woman who stumbled.

"Seventeen thousand kroner!" she burst out. "For a suit! When you owe all this?"

His prayer had been heard. It was a minimal blunder. But it would suffice.

His fingers closed around the arms of his jacket. Tailor-made jackets button at the wrist. Ready-to-wear suits have decorative buttons.

"Thirty-five thousand," he said mildly. "The seventeen thousand was for the material. It's a Casero. It cost seventeen thousand just to have it sewn."

Her earlier confusion reappeared in her system. Still under control.

For the first time, Kasper caught her eye. He nodded toward Moerk, toward the functionaries, toward the two young men.

"Can they leave the room for a minute?"

"They're here, among other reasons, to guarantee the legal rights of the accused."

Her voice was flat.

"It's about you and me, Asta."

She did not move.

"You shouldn't have said that about my clothes. It's only banks, businesses, and certain accounts that are required to report debt and interest. Now these people know."

Everyone in the room was quiet.

"It's hypocritical," said Kasper. "All these humiliating meetings.

Without our being able to touch each other. I can't stand it. I'm not as strong anymore."

"This is utterly absurd," she said.

"You must ask to be taken off the case, Asta."

She looked at Moerk.

"I had him followed," she said. "You'll get a report. I couldn't understand why you didn't arrest him. I couldn't understand why information was being withheld from us. Someone is protecting him."

Her voice was no longer controlled.

"That's how we knew about the clothes. But I've never met him privately. Never."

Kasper imagined her fragrance. The aroma of life on the steppes. Blended with wild Tajik herbs.

"I've come to a decision," he announced. "You resign your position. We work up an act. You lose thirty pounds. And appear in tulle."

He placed his hand on hers.

"We'll get married," he continued. "In the circus ring. Like Diana and Marek."

She sat paralyzed for a moment. Then she jerked her hand away. As if from an enormous spider.

She rose from her chair, walked around the desk, and headed toward him. With the physical sureness of an athlete, but with no clear motive. Perhaps she wanted to throw him out. Perhaps she wanted to silence him. Perhaps she only wanted to vent her anger.

She should have stayed seated. From the moment she stood up, she didn't have a chance.

Just as she reached his chair, it tipped over backward. To the others in the room it looked as though she knocked him over. Only he and she knew that she didn't manage even to touch him.

He rolled onto the floor.

"Asta!" he pleaded. "No violence!"

She was in motion; she tried to avoid him, without success. His body was flung across the floor. To those watching it appeared that she had kicked him. He rolled into the bicycle; it fell on top of him. She grabbed for the bike, and what they saw was her lift him off the floor and sling him against the door frame.

She tore open the door. Maybe she wanted to leave, maybe she wanted to call for help, but now it looked as though she threw him into the front office. She went after him. Grabbed for his arm. He determined the doors' position by dead reckoning, and crashed into first one and then another.

The doors opened. Two men came out. More people emerged from other offices. Little Jack Horner was on his way too.

Kasper got to his feet. Straightened his suit. He took his keys out of his pocket, loosened one from the ring, and dropped it on the floor in front of the woman.

"Here," he said, "is the key to your apartment."

She felt the eyes of her colleagues on her. Then she lunged toward him.

She didn't reach him. The senior monk had gripped one of her arms, Moerk had the other.

Kasper retreated backward toward the door to the landing.

"In spite of everything, Asta," he said, "you can't pawn my body."

* * *

Access to the staircase was through a dividing wall of reinforced glass with one door, next to the booth. Little Jack had left the door open. He followed Kasper out to the landing.

Kasper felt in his pocket for a piece of paper; he found a one-hundred-kroner bill. He held it against the glass and wrote: "I got an unlisted number. I had my locks changed. I'll return the ring. Leave me in peace. --Kasper."

"This is for Asta," he said. "I'm breaking up with her. What's the name of this setup here?"

"Department H."

There was no sign on the door. He handed the bill to the young man. He was in his late twenties. Kasper thought sadly about the pain that lay ahead for such a young person. And you couldn't prepare him. Couldn't spare him a thing. At most, you could cautiously try to let him suspect your own bitter experiences.

"Nothing lasts forever," he said. "Not even a department head's love.

* * *

Kampmann Street was grayish white with frost. But bright sunlight fell on him when he stepped onto the sidewalk. The world smiled at him. He had dripped clear water into the poisonous well of mistrust, and thereby transformed it into a healing spring. As Maxim Gorky so aptly said about the great animal trainer and clown Anatoly Anatolievich Durov.

He wanted to start running, but was about to collapse. He hadn't eaten for twenty-four hours. At the corner of Farimag Street was a newsstand that also sold lottery tickets; he escaped into it.

Through the fan of porn magazines on the shelves he could keep an eye on the street. It was deserted.

A clerk leaned toward him. He still had a hundred-kroner bill in his pocket; he should have bought a sandwich and a Coke, but he knew he wouldn't be able to eat, not right now. Instead he bought a lottery ticket, the cheapest kind, for the Danish Class Lottery.

The monks emerged onto the sidewalk. They were running, but their bodies were still stiff, and they were still confused by the way things had gone. They looked up and down the street. The older one was talking on a cell phone, perhaps to his mother. Then they got into a big Renault and drove away.

Kasper waited until a bus stopped at the railroad underpass. Then he crossed Farimag Street.

* * *

The bus was almost full, but he found a place in the back and sank down in the corner.

He knew he didn't have a real head start. He missed music, something definitive. So he began to hum. The woman sitting beside him edged away. You couldn't blame her. It was the rugged beginning of Bach's Toccata in D-Minor. Not the Doric, but the youthful work. He fingered the lottery ticket. The Danish Class Lottery was sophisticated. The prizes were big. Chance of winning, one to five. Percentage of return, sixty-five. It was one of the world's best lotteries. The ticket was a comfort. A tiny concentrated sphere of possibilities. A small challenge to the universe. With this ticket he dared She-Almighty. To reveal Her existence. To manifest Herself as winnings. In the midst of April's drab, statistical improbability.
 
 

3

To people with ordinary hearing and consciousness, Copenhagen and its suburbs stretch out horizontally from the center. To Kasper it had always seemed that the city lay inside a funnel.

Up at the edge, with light and air and sea breezes rustling in the treetops, lay Klampenborg, Søllerød, and, just barely, Holte and Virum. The downward spiral began already near Bagsværd and Gladsaxe, and far, far down lay Glostrup. A claustrophobic echo reverberated across its deserts of meager plots; Glostrup and Hvidovre preempted Amager, as if singing directly down into the drainpipe.

The great Polish nun Faustina Kowalska once said that if you pray fervently enough you can adapt yourself comfortably in hell. Earlier Kasper had thought that was because the saint had never been in Glostrup. Now he had lived here for six months. And he had grown to love it.

He loved the bar-and-grills. The jitterbug joints. The Hells Angels clubs. The coffin warehouses. The Cumberland sausages in the butcher shops. The discount stores. The special light over the gardens. The existential hunger in the faces he met on the street, a hunger for meaning in life, which he felt himself. And once in a while this recognition made him unnaturally happy. Even now, at the edge of the abyss. He got off the bus at Glostrup Main Street, unreasonably happy, but very hungry. It was impossible to keep walking. Even Buddha and Jesus had fasted for only thirty or forty days. And afterward said it was no fun. He stopped at the Chinese restaurant on the corner of Siesta Street and cast a discreet glance inside. The eldest daughter was working behind the counter. He went in.

"I've come to say goodbye," he said. "I've gotten an offer. From Belgium. Circus Carre. Varieté Seebrügge. After that, American television."

He leaned across the counter.

"Next spring I'll come and get you. I'll buy an island. In the Ryukyu chain. I'll build you a temple pavilion. By a murmuring spring. Moss-covered rocks. No more standing by deep-fat fryers. As we gaze at the sun setting over the sea, I'll improvise."

He leaned in over her and sang softly:

The April moon glows
on drops of dew
her dress is damp
she pays no mind
she -plays and plays
her silver lute
alone at home
she fears the night

Two truck drivers had stopped eating. The young woman gave him a serious look behind soft, curly coal-black eyelashes.

"And what," she asked, "must I do in return?"

He lowered his head so his lips almost touched her ear. A white ear. Like a limestone cliff. Curved like a cockleshell found on Gili Trawangan.

"A plate of sautéed vegetables," he whispered. "With rice and tamari. And my mail."