He mustered his courage and went into the kitchen, found a flashlight in the drawer, and went back to his bedroom. He stood in the doorway for a while staring at the thing. Then he approached it slowly, one step at a time, and turned on the flashlight. The beam of light slid over the curtain and then he understood. A bare animal with no feathers or fur but noticeable ears and folded wings. It was a bat. Eddie knew that bats were wild, that they could bite if they felt threatened, and that they could carry rabies. He had to get the beast out, and his mother was not there to help him. He didn’t dare get any closer, so he backed out of the room again. He got the mop from the cupboard. He opened the door and windows, approached the bat with care, and then nudged it with the mop handle. Suddenly there was movement everywhere. Eddie pulled back in fright; the bat flew frantically around the room, in tight, fast circles — he’d never seen anything so fast. He stood in the middle of the room, with the mop raised in defense. Why couldn’t the mad animal find its way out? All the windows were open. Suddenly it flew straight into his face. He waved his arms around wildly, but then, to his great relief, it vanished out through the open living-room window. He immediately rushed over to close it. Never again, not even in summer, would he have the windows open. There weren’t just bats out there; there were wasps too.
Afterward he sat in his chair and studied his wrists under a lamp. The veins on his left wrist were thin and spread out to the palm of his hand like a three-pronged fork. But it was completely different on the other wrist — the veins seemed to be bigger, perhaps because his right arm was stronger. A thick blue vein ran from left to right; he put his finger on it and felt his pulse, the gentle thud.
They weren’t looking forward to the holidays, because then Bonnie wouldn’t come and they would have to put up with a temp whom they might not like. Gjertrud thought that she would hide her bottles of eau de vie — you never knew who might come. And Alex wouldn’t have anyone to play chess with. Bonnie tried to do that little bit more for them and promised with her hand on her heart that she’d come back. But when she then told them that they were going to Kenya, many of them got even more anxious.
“They have the death penalty down there,” Alex said. “A student once stole a computer from the university and he was hanged.”
“That’s terrible,” she said, but then had to laugh. “I’m not exactly a criminal,” she added. “I promise not to steal so much as a coconut. We’ll stay on the straight and narrow.”
In the evenings, she and Simon sat writing long lists: everything they had to remember, everything they had to take with them. Britt had given her some good advice and promised to call every evening until they left. Her mother Henny was less enthusiastic.
“Why couldn’t you just go to Majorca, like everyone else?” she said. “It’s perfectly nice there.”
“I wanted Simon to choose,” Bonnie told her. “He hasn’t had that many of his dreams fulfilled.”
Eddie would sometimes go for a walk around the garden and look at the things that were growing. His mother had taught him the names of all the flowers: primula, flox and tulips, bleeding heart and freesia. Sometimes he would squat down to pull some weeds. Even though he didn’t really manage, he tried to keep it as tidy as he could. Indoors he had problems with the washing machine; it wouldn’t start, even when he pressed all the buttons. Often all that he produced was a red flashing light. So he wore the same top with a Rottweiler on it day after day. He wondered if he should tell Inga Nielsen; he could always ask his mother but she would probably say no, so he did nothing more. It was June 20 and the promised summer weather had still not arrived. A cold wind blew over the country.
His mother was now in so much pain that she couldn’t move. Some small clear drops of morphine dripped from a bag straight into her arm. They didn’t talk much anymore. Eddie sat lost in his own thoughts and Mass lay completely still with her eyes closed.
There wasn’t much time left.
Eddie barely left her side. He held her hand tight and sat leaning forward in the chair, making his back ache. The nurses were in and out all the time, and always had a friendly word for him.
“Would you like to be alone?”
“Yes,” Eddie replied.
“Are you frightened?”
“Yes.”
Sometimes his mother opened her eyes as if she wanted to check that he was still there. She felt him squeeze her hand, but her own lacked strength. Her lips were dry and cracked, and her hairless head was the color of wax. Eddie prepared himself for her imminent death. When the evening drew in, she clearly had something on her mind. She tried to turn her head to catch his eye.
“Eddie,” she whispered. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Yes, Mom,” he replied. “I’ll do whatever you say.”
“No, it’s not something I want you to do. It’s something that you should know. And I don’t have much time left.”
Eddie leaned even farther forward.
“Anders,” she whispered. “Anders Kristoffer. He’s not your father.”
Eddie dropped his mother’s hand as if it were a burning coal. “Don’t be ridiculous!” he said, alarmed. “I went to his grave.”
“Yes, but he wasn’t your father. Not your real father.”
Eddie felt himself swaying on the chair. He thought about the two photographs hanging on his bedroom wall, the ones he looked at every night before falling asleep. His father and him. Inga and Mads. She had taken everything away from him in the space of a second.
“But who was my father, then?” he asked.
Mass closed her eyes. “You’ll never find him, Eddie. Let it lie.”
“Is he dead as well?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know where he is. Let it go.”
“Does that mean you slept around?” he asked.
“No, it’s not what you think.”
The thought of having to look for a new father winded him. No father, no brother in New York. But what bothered him most was the fact that his mother had lied to him. He had lived a lie all his life and he didn’t know if he could forgive her. But perhaps she had her reasons for keeping it secret. His mother looked like she was sleeping. He thought she was perhaps already dead.
But a little while later, she came to life again. She coughed without any force, and a single trickle of blood appeared in the corner of her mouth.
“You have to forgive me, Eddie,” she whispered. “I only ever wanted the best for you. And the truth isn’t always the best. And we’ve had a good time together, you and I. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes.”
“So please take what I’m about to say with composure.”
Eddie didn’t know if he dared to listen.
“I’m not your mother, Eddie,” Mass told him. “Not your real mother.”
He sat on the chair for a long time, as though paralyzed.
Then he got up and went over to the window. He could see the parking lot and all the cars far below. And behind were the green hills where people went for walks in both summer and winter. He had been there as well, with Mass, for the first time when he was a baby in a blue Simo carriage. Then on his own two feet. To get to the top, they had to drive through a tunnel called Spiralen, and there was a big troll in the middle of the tunnel. He turned back to the bed.