Little by little Sebastian becomes livelier and more lucid. I put him on my shoulders so he can see the landscape, and when I look around for Anne again, she's gone. A little while later I make out the sign. Imagine finding a hotdog stand in such a desolate place. I wonder how it stays in business.
* * *
Sebastian catches sight of a butterfly and flaps his arms. He asks how long a butterfly lives. The sun comes out for a moment through the clouds and sends a burst of warmth through me. My son is healthy and happy. I have the feeling that things will soon become simple and clear. But when we turn into the parking lot near the stand, the first thing I see is Anne. She's sitting on a bench with a man. The man has his arm around her, and she's got her face buried in his chest, it looks like she's crying. I stop. "Mom," Sebastian says. She lifts her head, trembling, and looks at us for a moment. Then she breaks down again in the man's arms. He has dark curly hair and is very tan. "Anne isn't doing so well," he says. He speaks the local dialect, heavy and droning, the dialect that Anne and Tine dropped long ago.
"Listen, my son hit his head and I need an ambulance right away." The man shakes his head despondently. "A phone," I say. He gets up slowly from the bench. "What kind of a man are you?" he asks. Slowly, slowly he moves toward me. "I'll tell you what kind of a man I am, I'm Anne's husband, and I need to use your phone." I go over to the counter. A strong smell of burnt oil hits me in the face.
"Hell of a husband," he mutters. I lean over the counter and grab the cell phone. But he must have snuck up behind me because when I go to press the numbers, he tears the phone out my hand. He's right up close, his eyes narrow with his upper lip pulling back a little.
"I should beat the shit out of you," he hisses. Sebastian pulls my hair. "Just call," I say, exhausted. Out of nowhere, Anne lets out a yell. I reach for the phone again and try to pry it out of his hand. He lets go and it drops down to the ground and he lays his big hand on my shoulder. "Give me the boy and piss off." I lose my balance and nearly drop Sebastian. He must have pushed me hard. "Dad?" says Sebastian. His voice is weak and well-behaved, he's scared. I turn around and look at Anne.
"Who is this person?" I ask. She gives me a grim look.
"It's Sebastian," she says, and I can tell that this startles the boy, who's still on my shoulders. "Do as he says. Get the fuck out of here."
Sebastian takes hold of my head with both hands, I feel his warm breath all the way down my ear canal. "I want to go home," he whispers.
"Come here, Seba," says Anne getting up. "Come here." She moves closer with outstretched arms. "Come and get an ice cream from Sebastian, he's the one you're named after." Her face is twisted into a crazed grimace.
* * *
He looked a lot like an ape, standing there with his broad chest and hairy arms. He stepped forward and pointed suddenly, threatening me with his short fat finger. I walked backward, then started to run. He didn't follow us. When I looked back a little later, I thought I saw him standing in the middle of the road kissing Anne deeply, pulling on her ponytail. I also thought that I could hear her mooing like a cow, maybe it was him, I'm not sure. We reached the main road. Sebastian was silent and stiff. I didn't say anything either. Tine's white breasts and the small dark nipples. The fat finger pointing right at the soft spot between my eyes. I was sweating heavily and was startled when I heard myself gasp.
It was nearly dark before a car finally picked us up. Sebastian was for the most part fine. The doctor examined him, the nurse tried to make him to laugh. He didn't say a word. They glued his wound together, and sent us home. You were sitting in the dark by the window when we got back to the summerhouse late that evening. You hadn't even fetched the dog.
SUNDAY
It was completely still on the terrace in front of the house where Iben was sitting on a bench with her back against the wall enjoying watching the children bounce on the trampoline. She could hear Peter shouting something, making the children squeal with delight. It was such a beautiful day. The September sun crashed down from a cloudless sky. The cat snuck under the bench. They had all sat there eating breakfast a little while ago, and now Kamilla was inside doing the dishes with the girls. Iben closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She remembered a sad and pretty song that always made her cry with joy when she was young. She whistled the opening lines to herself. Then someone was pulling on her sleeves. It was her son wanting to go down and throw stones into the pond at the far end of the yard. She got up and took him by the hand.
Mosquitoes swarmed over the water. She threw a stick in and told the boy that it was now sailing out into the wide world. But the boy replied that it would never come up from that mudhole again. The girl bounced light as a feather up and down on the trampoline. Peter stood near them smoking. Then Kamilla came out on the balcony with a camera. "Smile!" she shouted. Iben and the boy went over to the others, and then all four of them looked up at her. Peter made the children say cheese. Kamilla suggested that they go to the bakery to get some pastries.
They put both children in the carriage. The neighborhood was abuzz with Sunday and late summer; people were busy with garden work and afternoon coffee, a group of teenagers played ball, and some younger boys sat in an apple tree and threw rocks at a small group of girls playing hopscotch. The strong orange afternoon light made everything look clear and almost surreal. Peter's brown eyes shone like illuminated stained glass, and she began to wonder about the yellow spot she thought he had in his left eye, which he definitely once had, but that she hadn't noticed in a long time.
"What a day!" he said, pushing her to the side so he could take over the carriage. "And here we are taking a stroll," she said. "Yeah," he said, "here we are taking a stroll."
The bakery was closed so they had to go to the gas station at the other end of town. They walked in step side by side. They talked a little about the older girls. Iben said they should probably start thinking about birth control for the oldest one. "For Christ's sake, she's only fourteen!" Peter said, raising his voice. Iben told him that the youngest one was still lagging behind in school and was getting terrible grades. "You have to go over her homework with her more," she said. Peter snorted, "Birth control!" She looked up at a poplar tree and caught sight of a squirrel. She counted to ten slowly to herself. A large BMW was parking in front of them. "They've got too much fucking money around here," said Peter, stepping testily to the side as the car backed over a large puddle. "We'll never have that problem," she said. Then he stopped at the hotdog stand and got the children hotdogs with ketchup and relish. He bought a hamburger for himself. She had a bite, and he wiped ketchup from her cheek. They shared a pint of chocolate milk. "Like the old days," he said, with his mouth full of relish, "before we learned how to cook." "When we lived on fried cod roe," she said. "With mushy potatoes," he said. "Yeah, and that was because you insisted on cooking them in the down comforter, like your mother taught you, but you can only make rice pudding that way." Then the girl began to cry and he pulled her out of the carriage and swung her around. That scared her and she gulped down most of her hotdog. Iben hurried to walk ahead. It was such a beautiful day.
They stood in the convenience store at the gas station, each with a child in their arms — he wanted a lemon pound cake and she, a marzipan cake. They ended up buying both. On the way back, he wanted to have a cigarette. "Why didn't you buy some yourself?" she asked. "I didn't think of it," he answered, as she rooted around in her pocket for a match. She sighed. He began to hum an old pop song, and soon he was screaming it at the top of his lungs. People in their gardens turned to look at them. The girl fell asleep. The light grew deeper in color, redder, and she said she heard that at some point people who are dying blaze up, become their old selves again, full of energy, so that their loved ones almost think that they're about to come around, and then suddenly they die; this feels unexpected and so it comes as a big shock. Peter threw his cigarette over the wrought iron gate. "That's what they deserve," he said. "Did you hear anything I said?" she asked. "Rich bastards!" he yelled. The man passing them on the path in a polo shirt and tan trousers stared condescendingly, first at them, then at the worn carriage, which they had bought for the older girls.