"Seba," I whisper. My voice calls from far away, strangely resonant. "Can you hear me, Sebastian? It's Dad."
You've crawled into a thicket. You watch me with your light green eyes, while holding the dog by the leash. For some reason, it's showing its teeth and snarling and barking violently. "He's not fucking dead! Anne!" And it's as if by saying your name I prod you into action. You tie the dog to a tree. You lift Sebastian up and begin to stagger down the path with the large limp child over your shoulder. I don't know why, but I don't take him from you, even though you're sinking under his weight. I simply follow you, keeping about five yards between us, while the dog's bark turns into a pitiful whimper as it realizes that it's being left behind.
* * *
I clearly remember the first time I heard Anne say her own name. Almost a whisper, while she looked down. She blushed shyly and smiled a little. And then she did something completely unexpected: suddenly, and with great confidence, she leaned over and kissed me deep and long. She really impressed me. I was so touched. I thought she was so cool. I let my hand run through her hair and pulled gently so her head was forced back a little. She closed her eyes and grinned, almost vulgarly. "Anne?" I whispered. The scent from her skin was unbelievably sharp, almost sour.
Five years later we were called to our first adoption interview.
"My name is Anne," she said loud and clear, placing both hands on the back of the chair before finally taking a seat in the small stuffy office. No one had asked for her name. It seemed strange and formal. As if her name was the deciding factor in whether or not she was fit to be a mother. "There's no guarantee that you will get a sweet little baby. You have to imagine that you'll be getting a three-year-old with a harelip and severe mental problems. If you're ready for that then you're ready to adopt," the caseworker said. Anne replied immediately that she was prepared for that.
Much later, when we picked up Sebastian and were sitting on our separate sides of the large king-sized bed in a hotel in Hanoi and with him between us throwing up, she said suddenly, "His name is Sebastian, and I'm not going to discuss it."
Their names sit like two awls in my main artery: If someone pulled them out, I'd bleed to death in a flash.
* * *
You trudge along with Sebastian at least five hundred yards, and I can hear how out of breath you are. You don't say anything. The foliage over us is dense, it's cloudy now, dark and damp where we're walking; I can smell resin and mold and wet grass. Then suddenly you turn off the path and go into the forest. You stagger a few yards and almost trip over a thick gnarled branch, you squat and gently lay the boy down under a tree. Sebastian is chalk white against the dark green moss. You shoo a fly away from his face. I bend down to the child and notice his faint breathing like a fine dust of warm air on my face. I stand up and put my hands on your shoulders. "Look at him," I say, "he's coming back to his old self again. We're going now. We're going, Anne, and before you know it, we'll be near Bulbjerg, and then there's got to be someone there with a fucking car so we can get him to the emergency room."
I lift up Sebastian and place him on my back like a bundle. "Come on," I say. You follow obediently and walk next to me hunched over, exhausted, I imagine, but you don't cry. I tell you that we're almost out of the forest, that I'm certain of it, that we just have to pass through a rosehip hedge and over a rise and then we'll be able to see Bulbjerg and the entire fascinating landscape that surrounds the cliff. Kittiwakes breed out here. Northern fulmars, too, I think. Fulmar, what a strange name for a seabird.
* * *
"I'm having an affair," I say. You turn your head and look at me, astonished.
"I have a mistress," I say. You knit your brows together, uncomprehending.
"I'm fucking your sister. You understand?" You speed up. "I'm screwing Tine, I can't get enough of her, she gives me head like she's been paid to do it, I can't get enough, I fuck her on the rug at home, I fuck her on the kitchen table, in the bathroom. I take her from behind, up her ass, in our bed. . " Suddenly I notice how I'm breathing hard and wheezing. She stops.
"In our bed?" she says. "Up her ass?" she says.
I turn around and look at her. She's clutching at her throat, and swaying back and forth a little. She stares at me a long time, and I can see her nostrils flaring. She shakes her head. Fear and an almost divine purity radiate from her wideopen eyes.
"You're sick," she then whispers.
But quickly her voice becomes loud and shrill, "You're crazy," she cries, pointing at me, she runs backward in front of me, pointing with a straight finger, "YOU SICK BASTARD!" she yells with more rage than I'd imagined; she's ugly and distorted, her movements are mechanical, clumsy, "You disgusting, sick BASTARD!" she shouts, and this is the only thing that comes out of her mouth: sick bastard, disgusting, sick, filthy bastard. And she turns and just runs, she sprints as if the devil were on her heels, and I finally make it to the top and see Bulbjerg towering in the distance. My eyes follow first the soft stretch of coastline, then I look out over the sea, far out, the great wild North Sea, which is grayish-green today and almost completely still. I close my eyes and open them again. There's more wind out here. I want to lie down and surrender to the white light, close my eyes and feel only the wind in the grass, that distinctive whistling sound that the summer wind releases in the grass, and the bumblebees, the grasshoppers, so, so near.
* * *
But at that moment Sebastian begins to make small moaning sounds. I take him into my arms and hug him tightly. The bump on his forehead is huge and bluish-red, and a deep gash cuts right across the middle. Blood flows from the light red, exposed flesh. He reaches his hand up and cautiously touches some dried blood on his lip. His tongue glides over the wound, he knits his brows, winces, and calls for his mother.
"Mom ran ahead of us. We have to flag down a car so we can take you to the hospital. You've fallen, Sebastian. The doctor just needs to look at your head. Are you sick to your stomach?" He meekly shakes his head no. I carry him like a baby. His eyes slide shut as I walk. I try to keep him awake. I remember that you're not supposed to sleep when you've hit your head. I retell little stories from his life and ask if he remembers the time we played soccer with the big boys on the field over in the park, and one of them gave him a baseball cap. "And when we were in Tivoli with Mom and Grandma and Aunt Tine, and you ate three cotton candies, and we could see the tower of the town hall when we rode on the roller coaster, and you peed in your pants?" I speak loudly and make sure that I laugh once in a while to startle him; I want to keep him awake at all costs. I jog a bit. Now I see Anne a long way off in the distance on her way down the big hill. She's hunched over walking and reeling in the middle of the road. The many different grasses wave in the wind on all sides, it's incredibly beautiful here. The ocean sparkles far down below, the sky is vast and open. It feels good to be out of the forest, I feel light and comfortable here where one can breathe. I begin to sing to Sebastian. I sing as I begin heading down the hill, down the steep paved road, which is still sticky and soft from the sun. I have a violent urge to race down it; it's not only tempting, but perfectly reasonable to run down a hill like this, yelling, ecstatic, but I don't. I walk and walk toward land again, toward the main road, with both Bulbjerg and the ocean at my back.