Sejer pulled to the side and answered, recognizing Snorrason’s Icelandic accent on the other end.
“We’re just on our way back from the funeral,” he explained. “On our way to the station. Sorry? You’ve got the results?”
“Yes, I’ve got the results,” Snorrason said. “And you’re probably dealing with a murder case. The mother will have difficulties explaining this away. Is she good at explaining things?”
“Not bad,” Sejer said. “We’ll have to wait and see. What have you found?”
Snorrason told him, trying hard to minimize the terminology. And when he had finished, Sejer gave a quiet whistle and looked over at Skarre.
“I’ll take them in for questioning then,” he said brusquely. “Both of them. But we’ll give them a couple of days. The boy’s not long in the ground. Yes, thank you. I’ll keep you posted.”
He finished the call and pulled out onto the road again.
“It’s as we feared,” he said to Skarre. “Tommy presumably had some help in reaching heaven, or at least it certainly looks like it. You can send another complaint in to God.”
19
He walked slowly through the empty rooms and listened. Tommy’s absence was deafening. No more hiccupping laughter, no more sobbing tears. The child was dead and buried, and over time the body would decompose, disintegrate, and become dust. But the bones would remain. A fragile, tiny skeleton in the black earth.
“It’s all just empty words,” he said. “‘Until you return to the ground, for out of it were you taken.’ It’s just garbage. To be honest, I feel ashamed.”
Carmen wriggled out of the black dress, threw it down on the bed, and put on some everyday clothes. “The priest was nice, wasn’t she?” she commented. She was now wearing jeans and a T-shirt. “Should we just take his crib down now? I mean, we don’t need it anymore and it takes up quite a lot of space. We could put it in the cellar until we have another baby.”
Nicolai gasped. To be saying that now — what was she thinking?
“Jesus, you’re in a rush to get rid of any traces,” he said, upset.
She pushed past him and went out into the kitchen. She opened a cupboard, took out a glass, and turned on the faucet. She drank water in greedy gulps until she was sated. Some water trickled down over her chin and between her breasts.
“I don’t need all these reminders,” she said. “It just makes things worse, going to bed at night with the empty crib staring at us. That’s just the way I am; I want to forget it. I don’t want to be upset by memories.”
He walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa. He felt so tired, like he’d shifted down a gear. Everything that normally happened in his body was now so slow, and he felt cold, despite the late summer heat. The warmth of the sun pressed in against the windows and glittered on the surface of the vile pond with its single water lily.
“Maybe we should move,” Carmen called from the kitchen. “Get away from it all. Start again somewhere else. I can talk to Dad. Because if I want a new house, he’ll get me a new house.”
Nicolai protested. He felt they had to stay in the neighborhood, close to the church and the boy. Tommy should be within easy reach, and the grave by Møller Church was only twenty minutes away. He was up between the birch trees beside Louisa.
Carmen had come into the living room. She stood there with the glass of water in her hand. He saw her nipples stiffen under her T-shirt, despite the heat. He had never seen a girl with such small breasts as Carmen; she could almost be a boy.
“If we dismantle the crib, it will take less room,” she said. “And there’s so much junk in the cellar already.”
Junk, Nicolai thought. So she thinks Tommy’s bed is junk.
Carmen drank some more water and dried her mouth.
“I want to start working again,” she said with determination. “The days go faster. Don’t you want to start working again too?”
He nodded. She went into the kitchen again and he heard her opening a drawer.
“Do you think they’ve buried him by now?” she shouted. “Was it stupid of us not to go to the grave?”
“Yes, it was stupid. I told you it was. You could have listened. You always want your own way, but I’ve got opinions too. Opinions and wishes.”
“We can go there tomorrow, if you like,” she called, in an attempt to placate him. “To look at the grave. It’s great, isn’t it, that he got a place under the birch trees? Just like I wanted. I’m so glad.”
Tommy is dead and buried, he thought, and you stand here and say you’re glad. Jesus, you’re unbelievable. But everyone grieves differently, he reminded himself. Carmen is not someone to dwell on things. She’s impatient and wants to move on. I have to remember that, he thought. But he felt overwhelmed by her energy and will all the same.
“I’m sure we’ll have another baby, sooner or later,” she said. “Life goes on, doesn’t it? You do agree?”
He went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. He studied her narrow back at the counter.
“But that’s not what I want,” he said defiantly. “Not anymore, at least. Don’t go on about it; it just makes me depressed.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” she said, offended. “I’m just trying to hold things together. It’s hard for me too, you know.”
He looked at her with doleful eyes. I don’t think I love her anymore, he thought. He felt exhausted and helpless and sad. Everything we had is falling to pieces and too much has happened to get over it. How, he thought, will it ever pass?
“We need to eat,” Carmen said after a few seconds’ silence. “I’ll make some spaghetti and meatballs.”
He declined. No, he was sure he didn’t want any food. He wanted to punish himself by not eating to atone for Tommy’s death, for the fact that he hadn’t looked after him better and put up that damn fence. Instead he had gone down into the cellar to tinker with bikes. As if that was important. There are always moments like that, he thought. A few minutes when the child is not being watched. But then Tommy had just learned to walk, and the door was open and he had toddled off toward the glittering water. Children and water. Of course it was just waiting to happen. He followed Carmen with his eyes as she wiped the counter with a cloth. She opened a cupboard and took out a box of spaghetti.
“Whatever the priest says,” he started, “Tommy won’t go to heaven. We’re both hypocrites. We’re hypocrites because we got a priest, and I feel like shit.”
She turned around and looked at him in exasperation. “Speak for yourself. Others can believe what they like. I can’t imagine where else the soul would go. And Tommy had a soul. You agree on that, don’t you?”
Yes, he thought, that’s true. But it was extinguished with his body. No living body, no energy, and therefore no soul.
“So you think you’re going to meet Tommy again?” he sneered. “Up in heaven?”
“Don’t be so mean,” she said. “It’s just that I believe in another existence. If you want to play the atheist, that’s fine by me. But you don’t have the answer either. And there are smarter people than you who believe, so there.”
He leaned his elbows on the table and had to admit that she had a point. He watched as she worked at the counter. She was quick, Carmen, everything was fast. And he was actually very hungry. He couldn’t ignore the fact that he needed food.
“Did you see what I got from Pappa Zita?” she asked. “I got a present.”
Yes, he had, but had forgotten it in the midst of everything else. Pappa Zita had given her a package when they got back to the car after the church service was over. He guessed it was a book; it was certainly a slim, flat package. Perhaps a book about death that she could read and find comfort in. That would be so like Zita, because that was the way he thought — that everything could be said in words.