She nodded and stood up straight. Yes, of course he’d gone down to Stranda. She should have thought of that before. She left the door unlocked in case he hadn’t taken his keys with him. She couldn’t be sure. Suddenly she couldn’t be sure about anything.
“Shall we take the car?” her father asked.
“No,” Carmen said. “We’ll walk; it will give him a bit more time. Then, when we get home, I’ll give him what for.”
“Well, it’s certainly a lovely day,” Pappa Zita said. “Nothing bad can happen when nature is on our side. And the October sky is blue and not a cloud to be seen, which must be a good sign.”
“Dad, this is serious,” she said. “He just shrugs, no matter what I say. He doesn’t care about anything, and it’s really annoying.”
Zita walked, deep in thought. A furrow appeared on his brow. “It sounds like serious depression,” he said. “Maybe he should get treatment. Maybe there are some pills that could help him get out of it.”
Carmen shook her head. “You won’t get Nicolai to take pills,” she said. “He’s totally against them. Let’s take the path, even though it’s slightly longer. When we get home again, he’s bound to be there. And sorry to say it, but screw him.”
Zita made no comment to this. And they walked on in silence.
“We’ll be getting the puppy in three weeks,” she said enthusiastically. “I’m really looking forward to it.”
“And Nicolai?” Zita asked. “Is he indifferent about the puppy as well?”
“Yes, he couldn’t care less about anything. But I’m sure he’ll fall in love with it, like me. There’s just something about puppies.”
She fell silent again. She had to work hard to keep up. Her father had long legs and kept a steady pace. It took them twenty minutes to walk to Stranda, but there was no Nicolai to be seen by the water. The waves rolled in lazily and broke along the shore. Carmen strained her eyes, staring out onto the horizon. Zita wandered along the water, picked up a stick, and then threw it down again almost immediately.
“Do you remember when you were little?” he started. “Do you remember all the good times we had, you and I?”
“Yes, of course. You used to carry me on your shoulders,” Carmen said.
Then she dried a tear and looked at him with her worried blue eyes.
“What if he’s not back by this evening?” she said. “What if it gets dark? What will we do then?”
When they got back, Pappa Zita went straight to the bedroom, as if he thought that Nicolai had come home and gone to bed in a moment of desperate loneliness. It was of course a possibility, and he did not want to imagine the worst. But the room was empty and quiet, just the bed with two crumpled comforters. Carmen sat down by the kitchen table, exhausted and confused.
“Have you been down to the cellar?” he asked tentatively.
Her answer was swift, with a slight sigh: “No, but I shouted down to him, obviously. From the top of the stairs, I mean, just in case. And he didn’t answer, so he must be out. I’m fairly sure he must be. Don’t talk like that,” she added hastily, “it makes me nervous.”
They sat for a while looking at each other, and Zita’s eyes were narrow with doubt and uncertainty. He picked up the saltshaker that was on the table, unscrewed the top, and then put it back on again. His hands suddenly looked so big and out of proportion on the scrubbed table, with nothing to hold.
“I’ll go down and have a look,” he said, “just to make sure. You sit here and wait; I’ll be back in a minute.”
Carmen nodded but didn’t say anything. Her father got up and went into the hall. She heard his feet on the stairs, clearly at first, but then more and more muffled as he descended into the dim cellar. A minute ticked by, and her thoughts started to wander to darker places. She couldn’t help it. More than anything she wanted to get up and go out into the hall and shout down to him and ask if everything was all right. But she couldn’t move. Dad, she thought, you have to find him. Well and alive. You have to sort this out, like you always do. Because this is more than I can stand. Two minutes passed and the silence was deafening. Once again she heard the humming in the air, but this time it got louder. She looked nervously out of the window, staring down at the horrible dark pond. What if he’d drowned himself? What if the worst thing imaginable had happened? She had experienced so much tragedy in her short life. No, she reprimanded herself. He’s just fixing the bikes. They’ll come into the kitchen at any moment, and Nicolai will be happy and smiling. He’ll be smiling because he’s pulled through, she thought. Life will be the same again, all smiles and laughter. And they could walk hand in hand out into the big wide world, happy as skylarks.
“Carmen,” he said in anguish.
His arms were hanging loose by his sides and his eyes were black.
“Carmen, you’re going to have to be strong. Nicolai has hanged himself in the cellar. Presumably last night while you were asleep. Don’t go down. Stay up here and wait. I’ll call for help.”
“It’s not my fault,” she screamed. “It’s not my fault!” She tipped down toward the floor, taking the chair with her as she fell. She tried to get to her feet again but was weak and frail. He scooped her up in his strong arms.
“Sit down!” he ordered, pushing her into a chair. “Sit still and don’t move!”
She collapsed onto the table and cried with shock and pain.
Pappa Zita went downstairs into the basement for the second time. Thirteen heavy steps in a somber spiral. This time he had a lump in his throat and a knife he had found in the kitchen drawer. He registered the open toolbox, oilcan, and overalls on the floor. Two old bikes had fallen over. And of course there was a good deal of junk, like the box of old schoolbooks. The sight of Nicolai hanging from the rafter was so shocking that he gasped. A plastic garden chair lay upended beneath the primitive gallows. He righted the chair and stood on it. He put one arm around the thin boy’s body and cut the rope. The body fell to the floor with a dull thud. He got down from the chair and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, intending to dial 911. His fingers were shaking so much that he got it wrong again and again, but finally he heard a voice at the other end. He explained the situation and then remained sitting in the chair, trying to gather his thoughts.
It was while he sat there that he spotted Tommy’s crib in the corner. It had been taken apart, and the mattress was lying beside it. He was filled with sudden unease when he saw this. And he remembered what Nicolai had said down on the jetty the day after Tommy had died.
There’s a lot you don’t know.
Now he wondered what he had meant by those words, and a hint of fear knotted in his stomach. But the thoughts that filled his mind were so awful that he pushed them to one side. He refused to think them. He had to believe his daughter’s distraught explanation; anything else would be impossible to bear. And yet he was extremely shaken by seeing the crib. There’s a lot you don’t know. There’s a lot you don’t know. It went around and around in his head, like a scratched record he couldn’t stop. Eventually he went back upstairs to Carmen. He picked her up from the chair and hugged her tight, all the while tormented by the difficult questions he didn’t dare to ask. In the end, he mustered the courage. He put her back down into the chair and looked her in the eye.
“His crib,” he whispered. “Tommy’s crib. It’s down in the cellar. What were you thinking? It’s damp down there, and the mattress will be ruined. It’ll get moldy, Carmen, you know that?” Carmen immediately started to cry and threw her arms around him, sobbing uncontrollably.