“We have to choose an undertaker,” Pappa Zita said. “Not the biggest or most expensive; let’s use a smaller one. Sentrum,” he suggested, “I hear they’re very good, even though there are only two of them. When will we get Tommy back from the coroner?”
Carmen and Nicolai looked at each other. Neither of them could answer, because they had forgotten to ask.
“Well, I guess they have set procedures,” Zita said. “I’m sure it won’t take too long, and they know that we’re waiting. Has either of you thought about the funeral?”
“He was our child,” Nicolai burst out. His voice was breaking up.
“I’m sorry,” Zita said hastily. “I was only trying to help. I just thought we should make some decisions. And I thought that you might need someone to do that for you, as you have more than enough to deal with. How did the police treat you? Were they understanding? Did they treat you with respect?”
“They poked around and asked lots of questions about all sorts of things,” Carmen said. “And Nicolai and I were kept in separate rooms, which I thought was horrible.”
“But that’s just procedure,” Zita reassured her. “Rules that they have to follow in the event of sudden death and accidents. To find out exactly what happened.”
“But we’d explained to them,” Carmen said sulkily. “In detail. And still they said that we might have to go in again. To answer more questions after the autopsy. But they won’t find anything. He was fit and healthy. He had that ear infection once but got over it quick enough. I told them that Tommy was healthy.”
They sat in silence while eating Elsa’s food. Nicolai was hungry, but he let it gnaw at him and only took a couple of mouthfuls. Afterward Zita went out into the yard and wandered around aimlessly, not knowing what to do. If there was anything, anything at all that could soothe the pain, he thought. Again and again he berated himself for not having built a fence.
Nicolai wanted them to leave, because he wanted to be alone. He wanted to grieve without onlookers. He left the house again around midnight and went back down to the pond. He sat at the end of the jetty and wept. He could barely resist the lure of the black water.
9
Eleventh of August. Morning.
“I dreamed about death,” she wailed. “He was right here in the room, and he was falling to pieces. All stained and rotten and messy, with long yellow nails. I’ve never seen anything so hideous in my life. He sat on the rug beside the bed all night, breathing. It was disgusting. I thought I could still smell him when I woke up — a kind of sweet, rotten smell. And something’s bitten me on the thigh. Look, it’s all red and starting to swell up.”
“A wasp,” Nicolai said, exhausted. “There’s some lidocaine cream in the bathroom drawer. It should help a little.”
“Haven’t you slept?”
“No.”
“Have you been drinking whiskey?”
“Yes.”
“More than one?”
“Yes, and don’t worry. I can do what I like with my life. If I want to go to hell, I’ll go to hell.”
Carmen stood there for a while, thinking she desperately wanted to say the right thing. She wanted to be good and to save him. Because that was what the situation called for. She had to put out the fire that was burning all around her. She saw the empty glass on the table and started to fret. To think that he was sitting here drinking on his own so early in the morning.
“It won’t get any better if you’re tired and hungry,” she said. “It won’t get any better if you’re drunk. We don’t need to numb ourselves; we have to get through this. And there are things we need to organize. The funeral and lots of other things. Listen to me, I’m trying to help!”
He didn’t answer. Just sat there and played with the fringe on the blanket. His eyes were swollen from crying and his hair was a mess. She stood looking at him, not knowing what to say. So she said nothing, went into the kitchen, and put on the kettle. She had a life to live, after all. She needed air in her lungs, blood in her arms and legs. Things had to keep working. He called to her from the living room.
“Why do you think they want to examine the house?”
She went back out and fell into a chair. She licked her finger and brushed it over the bite, because she thought that spit might soothe it. That was right, wasn’t it?
“Don’t think about it anymore,” she said in a comforting voice. “It’s bad enough as it is, and you’re only making it worse sitting here brooding. I don’t know why they want to look at the house, but I guess they’ll do what they like.”
He pulled off the blanket and sent her a dark look. His eyes, which she normally thought were kind, were suddenly accusing.
“You didn’t think Tommy was good enough,” he said.
Carmen didn’t recognize his voice. Again he showed a bitterness that only confused her.
“I’ve known it the whole time. Ever since we were at the hospital and the doctors came into the room with the bad news. I remember your face, your expression when you realized the truth. You’d had a baby, and you made a face.”
Carmen looked at him across the table and scratched the red, now irritated bite. She stepped into the bathroom to get the cream.
“You weren’t exactly clapping with joy, either,” she countered. “And I can’t help my feelings. I am the way I am. But you can’t say that I didn’t love him. Because I did. I loved my little Tommy. More than you know.”
She blinked away her tears, moved by her own words. It was strange to be sitting here early in the morning with Nicolai, without Tommy crying or making a fuss or needing something. It was bizarrely quiet, as though time had stopped. The new day lay ahead of her, aching with a new and welcome freedom.
“They won’t give up,” Nicolai told her. “They’re going to keep asking questions, because that’s what they’re like. What we’ve done and not done, what we were thinking. Did we love him and how much are we grieving? How deep is your grief?” he asked, looking at her with his wet green eyes.
She pulled herself up a bit and said she had told them all there was to tell. That she came out of the bathroom and saw that he wasn’t there. And yes, it had taken awhile. Enough time for Tommy to toddle out of the house and across the yard down to the water.
“So,” she said, looking at his drawn face, “they can call me in for questioning as many times as they like. They can ask questions and poke around for as long as they like, but I’ve got nothing more to tell them. I’m done.”
But most of all, in the midst of it all, she wanted to be good. She wanted him to be on her side, at any price. She stood up and went over to the sofa, sat down on his knee, and kissed his tense and pale cheek.
“I know you don’t like me saying it,” she said, “but we can have another baby sooner or later. Maybe a little girl. Margrete or Maria. You can decide.”