You Disappear: A Novel (45 page)

Bernard’s moved out of his lovely house in Brede, and his in-laws have moved in to take care of Lærke. That also lets them spend a lot of time with the twins, who’ve just begun gymnasium.

Yet it’s only a temporary solution. Bernard will probably move back in with the boys soon, and Lærke will enter an institution nearby, where he says he’ll visit her every day. He’ll never stop seeing her. He just needs to have a life of his own.

But it caught Lærke completely off guard to hear that Bernard missed having an equal partner in his marriage. The doctor’s prescribed her some sedatives, yet she still weeps and talks about him all day long at the handicapped center. Bernard’s had long discussions with her doctor and nurses about how to make everything as good as possible for her, and they’re full of advice, having encountered this situation hundreds of times before.

And then there are the kids. We knew that if we were ever going to have a good relationship with each other’s offspring, we couldn’t just barge into their lives the day after the breakups. So Bernard hasn’t been over to our apartment yet, and I make sure I’m home every morning when Niklas gets up for school.

Meanwhile, in the middle of this earthquake that’s turning everyone’s life upside down, Bernard and I have been like teenagers: living on cheap food, cheap wine, sex, love, and endless gazing into each other’s eyes. We savor each day in the small student apartment he’s sublet in Nørrebro, Copenhagen’s most bohemian neighborhood.

One afternoon, I’m sitting with Andrea in a café nearby and telling her how happy I am.

“I’ve found the man of my dreams!” I exclaim. “I could live like this forever.”

We have an hour before Bernard meets me here to take me to the opera.

Andrea looks tired. As usual, she isn’t wearing any makeup, and she’s at least a month overdue for a haircut. She’s been telling me how, earlier today, she drove Ian to his fifth appointment for some bronchial problems caused by his paralysis.

“I only wish everything could fall into place for you too,” I say.

She quietly raises her coffee cup. “But everything
is
already in place for me. That is, if you mean living a good life.”

“Yes, a good life.” I don’t finish my thought. She knows quite well that what I wish for her is
my
form of happiness—a new man.

She says, “Only in the old days did people think it was critically important for a woman to end up with one man instead of another. It’s the sort of thing that you once would have read in the last chapter of a novel:
Ah, she finally chose the doctor instead of the aristocrat. Hurray
, you’d say,
a happy ending!
But now we know that that’s not the key to a good life. It’s a lie, an oppressive delusion.”

“The key
isn’t
whether you get one man instead of another? And that’s something we know?”

“Yes, it’s an antiquated way of thinking.”

“Then what
is
the key?”

“Well, happiness can occur when the brain’s level of dopamine and various other neurotransmitters rises. That happens when you have sex, win the lottery, get a new house, that sort of thing. But the levels fall back down a very short time later, and then you’re no happier than before.”

“So you’re saying that if we just think ahead a bit, nothing in life would really matter.”

“No, that’s not at all what I’m saying. Because there exists another form of happiness—when the level of activity in your left frontal lobe exceeds that in your right. This form of happiness doesn’t run dry. On the contrary, you can train it so that it keeps increasing your entire life.”

“So how exactly do you obtain this form of happiness?”

“You get it by doing good deeds, meditating regularly, and dedicating
your life to something meaningful. These are all things that neuroscientists have measured and verified.”

“So you meditate and you’re happy.”

“That’s what I do. And I help Ian, and I help my kids. And yes, I’m happy. That’s what’s so brilliant about atheism, I think: it points the way to a worldview that’s infinitely richer and more beautiful than what you’ll find in any religious book. And it points out the most ethical approach to boot.”

And then I ask her something that perhaps I shouldn’t. “So you think I’d be happier in the long run if I went back to Frederik?”

“That’s not something I can really say, of course. Or … no. No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that I think the difference isn’t as big as you make it out to be. Not as big for
your
life, anyway.”

• • •

I still wake at night from dreams where I’m in love with Frederik.

He and Niklas and I are on vacation in Greece. We’re having coffee and cake in the broiling sun near some ancient Greek ruins. Frederik wants to tease me, so he sprints down the slope next to the café tables and chairs, knowing that I’ll think it dangerous and won’t like it. But then he starts running too fast and can’t stop and he falls into a deep chasm at the bottom of the slope. I scream and wake up.

I’m always so unhappy when I wake from these dreams. Why the hell do I still love him when I’m asleep?

I turn on the light and get up. I want to go out and pee—and more than that, to stretch my legs and try to drive the dream from my body. I open the door to the hallway and there’s Niklas, standing outside my room.

He’s had his Kurt Cobain hair chopped off. He’s just as handsome without it, and now he looks even more like a man.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“You were talking.”

“Did I scream?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry if I woke you. It was just a dream.”

Of course he’s been upset that his father and I are no longer together:
nonetheless, I’d say my relation to him has improved. Since our talk by the freeway, there have been days now and then when he lets me in on something he’s been doing or thinking.

I suppose I’m still waking up as I tell him about the dream. As soon as I finish, he asks, “Do you think you might still love Dad?”

“Yes, definitely.”

But I need to find the right balance—more openness between us, but not too much. I don’t want to get him tangled up in all my layers of doubt.

Will I end up in a situation like last time if I go through with the divorce? There’s something within me that I don’t recognize. Last time I threw Frederik out I was happy, I wanted to paint, I wanted to meet another man. I had tons of plans. And then it all went south, and I’ve never understood why. Perhaps I simply can’t live without him. Which is precisely what Frederik says.

And my fear of dying without him—in some solitary fit of madness in the night—feels an awful lot like love.

Niklas shouldn’t be involved in any of this. He should hear nothing but what I’m convinced, 90 percent of the time anyway, is the truth.

I look him in the eye, the way he and I are able to now, my son and I, the two of us alone in the dark hallway.

“But I love Bernard even more,” I say. “I had to do it, Niklas. I love Bernard in another way.”

He stands still, listening, his short hair above me.

“I had to. I didn’t have any choice.”

• • •

It’s the day before the trial is scheduled to begin. Frederik’s fired Bernard, though I did what I could to dissuade him.

On the news, they’re reporting an industrial fire at a factory fifty miles west of Copenhagen. Twelve workers died in the explosion that started it, and firemen have been called in from all the neighboring cities.

I have TV2 News turned up loud while I clean so I can follow the story. They’re warning people within a three-mile radius against going outside because of the chemicals in the air. But the rest of us, they say, should go out and watch the sunset tonight. The vast quantity of soot particles in
the atmosphere won’t be visible to the eye, but they’ll act like a filter, only letting through the sun’s red rays. If the clouds dissipate, the evening sky will turn blood-red like it’s never been seen in Denmark before.

Maybe I’ll step out for a bit to see it, but with my new life I’ve gotten behind on math assignments in all my classes. Tonight’s my last chance to correct them before the trial begins; starting tomorrow, I can’t expect to be able to concentrate on anything other than the sentence that the panel of judges will hand down.

The phone rings. It’s Frederik, and I assume he’s worried about tomorrow too. But no. Some way or another, he’s heard about Bernard’s brain injury, and that’s the only thing he wants to talk about.

After a short while I have to interrupt him.

“Frederik, I’m happy to talk about your case if you want. I’m terribly anxious too. We all are. But you’re going to have to stop criticizing Bernard and running him down. I don’t want to hear it!”

“But he’s been soaking in an artificial bath of hormones that’s turned him into a teddy bear.”

“Frederik, if you don’t change the subject, I’m going to have to hang up.”

“Do you really want a love robot like that instead of a real man?”

“Bernard’s the man I’ve dreamt about for a very long time. Now let’s talk about something else.”

“Surely you have to admit that—”

I hang up the phone.

• • •

It’s early evening, and I’m actually making good headway on the assignments when there comes a knock on the door. Niklas is down by the marina with Emilie and some friends, so I think it might be him and he’s forgotten his keys.

But it’s Frederik.

“I don’t want to discuss it anymore,” I say right away.

“We won’t. I understand that.”

“So what’s up then? What do you want?”

“To show you something.”

He doesn’t look angry. He looks gentle, radiant, kind. Like he’s in a
good mood, yet at the same time miles from the manic high spirits of his illness.

“What sort of something?” I ask.

“Something outside.”

“You mean the sunset? I can see that by myself. I heard about it on the news.”

“Just come with me. It’ll be a surprise.”

“First I want to know what it is you’d like to show me.”

“Mia, trust me. It’s something nice. You won’t regret it.”

I think about Niklas; his father and I ought to try and cultivate a good relationship with each other. And I think of the trial tomorrow. It’ll have a major impact on all of our lives, Frederik’s most of all; he must be terrified. So I put on my jacket.

He gets four cushions out of the large closet in what used to be his room. We’re going somewhere outside, apparently. That must be it—the sunset from some special place he’s found.

We don’t say much as he leads the way through Farum Midtpunkt. The sky is already amazing, and there’s still half an hour before the sun goes down. A peculiar violet shade, not only in the west but also above us and to the east. He seems tense, but cheerful as well. I don’t think there’s any reason for me to be nervous.

“Any new developments in your case?” I ask.

He doesn’t reply, just smiles mysteriously.

We head down toward the train station.

“Have you gotten a job at a school?”

“No, I haven’t. But it’ll be great at the corner shop too,” he says. As if in another week he won’t in all likelihood be sitting in jail.

From the station he takes me down Station Road.

“Are we going home? Frederik, what are you trying to do?”

Once more I grow uneasy. Is he sick again? Is he aware of what he’s doing?

But then I see our house. I haven’t been here since we moved. There are new curtains and the hedge is higher; I would have trimmed it. The garbage cans and the wicker enclosure around them have been moved, and it actually looks pretty nice; that’s something we could have done too.
They’ve painted the door, and through the windows I can see one of those new origami lamps in the living room.

Frederik walks up to the gate and opens it.

“Frederik, it’s theirs now. We can’t just walk in there.”

“I met Jens at The Square,” he says. “He said that the new owners are on holiday for two weeks.”

And then he strolls into the yard, as if nothing’s happened.

“I’m really not sure that …”

But somehow he gets me to join him anyway.

My flowers and bushes have grown like mad during the past three months. I planted the trumpetweed last year and have never seen it like this. Everything’s a little wilder than when it was mine. By next year it might be unmanageable, but right now—with the phlox and the asters blooming, the weigela fading, and night about to fall—the hint of neglect only makes the yard seem that much more fertile and lush.

“Come,” he says. He takes my hand and leads me around to the backyard. I follow gladly.

When we turn the corner and see the sky, we can hardly move. Never have I seen the like: red flames tower up from the horizon and have driven the violet back. Toward the west there are no clouds, so that the sinking sun is colossal, bright and blazing crimson. And above us the clouds are lit from below, by all the red. The beauty is paralyzing. And I see from Frederik, who’s standing still, that he can appreciate beauty again.

Our hanging sofa hangs where it always has. The grass is overgrown, though perhaps that’s just because the owners are on vacation. Frederik places the cushions on the sofa and sits down.

“Come.”

I seat myself at his side. The way we often sat during the good years.

Above us there’s a maze of grey and white folds, splashed with red. There lies the sense of smell, and there visual processing. There lies muscular control of the speech organs, and there short-term memory.

The soot from the burning factory and its dead workers has filtered out so much of the sun’s rays that we can gaze directly into its disk. The immense red sun. The unnatural sun. We can stare at it in silence: the beauty, this place, our life together. Here we sat once, and this was our
world. We left the neighbor’s party because it felt better to be just the two of us alone. We made love, we set the crooked row of tiles in the bathroom upstairs. We argued about Niklas’s camera, and we shouted with joy when he showed us his tennis medal.

The hanging sofa rocks beneath us and that in itself is enough to make me smile.