Physically she had escaped with scars on her legs and arms, as well as one in the centre of her chin, which gave it a tiny, masculine cleft in the otherwise so girlish face. The scar on her chin was a constant reminder of the accident to her, and she was often seen rubbing the spot with her index finger, with a remote look in her eyes.
Her distracted air only added to the family's concern and she was sent to a child psychologist, who had nothing to offer except to give her pills – a solution that seemed to keep the voices at bay but had the same effect on all other input.
For that reason she paid very little attention when her father was discharged, permanently confined to a wheelchair and so bitter at life that he spent most of his days behind the closed door of his office with no desire to speak to anyone.
She started roaming around, fleeing from her father's bursts of rage behind the closed door, and from the voices. There were places where they left her in peace. The woods and grassland of Amager Fжlled was one of these, and she seized every opportunity to bicycle out to that area where she could sit for hours, enjoying the silence. School was the worst place of all, and she soon began to skip classes and go out to the park instead.
Of course it was only a matter of time before her family became aware of her truancy. She then realized that her condition was not just affecting herself but was also hurting everyone around her. It was at that point that she decided to reconcile herself to the voices. Outwardly she would pretend they didn't exist, that she had been miraculously cured, but for her own part, she would start to listen. She wanted to find out what they wanted, clarify why she was the one they sought out, and whether she really was meant to be their victim. Up until then she had refused to listen to what they said, but now she had begun to suspect that they weren't speaking to her directly – it seemed more as if they were coming from a radio tuned to several different stations at once. Could it be that the voices were actually radio signals she was picking up?
Because she was dyslexic, more severely than most, the world of the alphabet was already foreign to her, and the connection between the incomprehensible symbols on the page and the voices she heard in her head when others read them evaded her for a long time. But one day on the bus she worked it out. She was sitting there staring out of the window and listening to a clear female voice telling a story about a girl with red plaits, freckles and such strength that she could lift a horse. It was an entertaining story, and at a particularly funny scene, Katherina couldn't help laughing – she laughed out loud, to the amazement of all her fellow passengers, except for one. In the very back of the bus, a boy was holding a book in his hands and laughing just as heartily as she was. Even from her seat in the bus Katherina could clearly recognize the girl with the plaits on the cover of the book. It was Pippi Longstocking.
The bells over the door in Libri di Luca rang, pulling Katherina out of her reverie. A man in his thirties, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, a corduroy jacket and carrying a worn leather bag over his shoulder, stood in the doorway. It was clear that he hadn't been to the shop before because he reacted the way most newcomers did: he looked around the room in surprise, paying special attention to the balcony, as if he'd never seen a bookshop on two levels before. Katherina had probably behaved in the same way when she first discovered Libri di Luca ten years earlier, but she was always a little annoyed by the bewilderment of new customers. Yes, it was an antiquarian bookshop. Yes, there was a balcony with rare books in glass cases. Yes, it was a fantastic place, so why don't you just see about buying a few books and then get lost? If it were up to her, Libri di Luca would be closed to customers.
The man in the horn-rimmed glasses caught sight of Katherina at the top of the stairs and immediately lowered his eyes, turning to close the door behind him. Afterwards he headed for the table where the newly arrived books were displayed.
Katherina stood up and slowly went down the steps.
The intruder was scanning the book covers.
'Swann'sWayJoysAndDaysJamesJoyceAbsalomAbsalomWilliamFaulknerBuddenbrooksTheGothicRenaissanceExLibrisJorgeLuis BorgesTheExpelledFiccionesTheDumasClubFranzKafkaItaloCalvino…'
The names of authors and titles on the books babbled chaotically in her head like the sound of a reel-to-reel tape recorder whirring at high speed. She clenched her teeth and continued over to the green leather chair behind the counter. The customer raised his eyes for a moment to nod at her in greeting, and the flow of voices stopped. Katherina nodded back and sat down in the chair.
'FootprintsInHeavenTheArtOfCryingGustaveFlaubertCharlesDickensTheCastleTheWoodenHorseCarlSchmittBennQHolm PoeticsAndCriticismFrankFшnsASeriousConversationJeffMatthewsLastSundayInOctober,' chirped the voices, and she leaned back and closed her eyes. Katherina couldn't completely shut out the voices, but she had learned to turn down the volume, mostly thanks to Luca and Iversen.
Ten years earlier she had been walking past Libri di Luca when a voice stopped her. It was late afternoon and raining, so she didn't feel like bicycling out to Amager Fжlled. Instead she was wandering around the Vesterbro district, heading for areas of silence – any place at all, if only she could have some peace for a moment. After discovering the connection between the voices and readers, she had tried to avoid places where it was worst, and on this day she had ended up on the street where Libri di Luca stood.
The voice that stopped her was one she immediately recognized. It was identical to the voice from the hospital, which had kept her company while she was unconscious. She looked around, but no one was near. As she approached the bookshop, the voice became clearer, and when she was close enough to look in the windows, she saw a group of about fifty people sitting on folding chairs in the front of the shop. At the counter stood a short, compact man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and a Mediterranean fervour on his face. He was reading from a book he held in his rough hands, and doing so with such energy that his entire body was taking part in the reading.
Katherina cautiously opened the door, and even though the chiming of the bells drew attention to her, the reader didn't interrupt the story, merely sent a friendly glance in her direction. She sat down at the very back of the room and closed her eyes. Although the man behind the counter was an excellent reader, it wasn'this voice that she had come inside to hear. She shut it out by placing her hands over her ears and concentrating on the other voice, the one that she recognized from the hospital. That was how she sat there at the back of the room with her elbows propped on her knees, oblivious to all sights and sounds. Inside she was filled with the voice and the images the story evoked, scenes from the city where it was set, the miserable flats, the birds above the rooftops, the dust and filth of the streets. Even though it wasn't a happy story, she felt comforted, and if she hadn't been sitting there looking down at the floor, people would have been able to see the tears on her face.
Suddenly the whole thing was over. The reading came to an end, and everyone around her applauded. She removed her hands from her ears in time to hear that the story was calledThe Stranger. A discussion of the text ensued, but Katherina stayed where she was, with her eyes closed and her face turned towards the floor. People started to get up and wander about, and as they began studying the books on the shelves, the titles and author names and excerpts of the texts flowed towards Katherina. Voices and images forced themselves upon her in an ever-growing torrent, and she had to summon all her forces to stand up and stagger towards the door. The intensity seemed to increase when she got up, as if she were leaning into a strong wind, and it got harder and harder to focus on the exit. After only a few steps, she collapsed on the floor.