The Boy in the Suitcase

A SEAGULL, THOUGHT JAN. A damned seagull!

He should have been back home in Denmark more than an hour ago. Instead he sat on what should have been the 7:45 to Copenhagen Airport, frying inside an overheated aluminum tube along with 122 other unfortunates. No matter how many cooling drinks he was offered by the flight attendants, nothing could ease his desperation.

The plane had arrived on schedule from Copenhagen. But boarding had been postponed, first by fifteen minutes, then by another fifteen minutes, and finally by an additional half hour. Jan had begun to sweat. He was on a tight schedule. But the desk staff kept saying it was a temporary problem, and the passengers were asked to stay by the gate. When they suddenly postponed boarding again, this time by a full hour, without any explanation, he lost his temper and demanded to have his case unloaded so that he could find some other flight to Copenhagen. This met with polite refusal. Luggage that had been checked in was already aboard the plane, and there was apparently no willingness to find his bag among the other 122. When he said to hell with the bag, then, and wanted to leave the gate without it, there were suddenly two security officers flanking him, telling him that if his bag was flying out on that plane, so was he. Was that a problem?

No, he demurred hastily, having absolutely no desire to spend further hours in some windowless room with a lock on the door. He was no terrorist, just a frustrated businessman with very important business to attend to, he explained. Airline security was very important business, too, they said. Sir. He nodded obediently and sat himself down on one of the blue plastic chairs, silently cursing 9/11 and everything that awful day had wrought in the world.

At long last they were told to begin boarding. Now everything suddenly had to be accomplished at breakneck speed. Two extra desks were opened, and staff in pale blue uniforms raced around snapping at passenger heels if anyone strayed or loitered. Jan sank gratefully into his wide business-class seat and checked his watch. He could still make it.

The engines warmed up, flight attendants began explaining about emergency exits here and here, and the plane began to roll forward on the pavement.

And then it stopped. And stayed stopped for so long that Jan became uneasy and checked his watch again. Move your arses, he cursed silently. Get this stupid aircraft off the ground!

Instead the voice of the captain was heard over the PA system.

“I’m sorry to inform you that we have yet another hitch in our schedule. On departure from Copenhagen airport on the way down here, we were hit by a bird. The aircraft suffered no damage, but of course we have to have a mechanical overhaul of the plane before we are allowed to fly it again, which is the reason for the delay we have already suffered. The aircraft has been checked and declared fully operational.”

Then why aren’t we flying? thought Jan, grinding his teeth.

“The airline has a quality-control program, in compliance with which the documentation for our check-up has to be faxed to Copenhagen for signature before we are given our final permission to take off. At this time, there is only one person on duty in Copenhagen qualified to give us that permission. And for some reason, he is not to be found at his desk. . . .”

The pilot’s own frustration came through quite clearly, but that was nothing to the despair that Jan was feeling. His heart was pounding so hard it physically hurt his chest. If I have a heart attack, will they let me off the damn plane? he wondered, and thought about the advisability of faking one. But even if they let him out, it would still take time to get on some other flight, even if he forked out the cash it would cost to arrange a private one. He had to face the fact that he wouldn’t make it.

What the hell was he going to do? He feverishly tried to think of anyone he might call on for help. Who would be loyal and competent enough to do what needed doing? And should he call Anne?

No. Not Anne. Karin would have to do what was necessary. She was already involved to some extent, and the fewer people the better. He took his private mobile phone from his briefcase and tapped her number.

The flight attendant descended on him like a hawk on a chicken.

“Please don’t use your mobile, sir.”

“We’re stationary,” he pointed out. “And unless the airline wants to be sued for a six-figure sum, I suggest you back off and let me call my company now.”

The flight attendant noted the no doubt exceedingly tense set of his jaw and decided that diplomacy was the better part of valor.

“A short call, then,” she said. “After which I must ask you to switch it off again.”

She remained by his seat while he made the call. He considered asking her to give him his privacy, but there were passengers all around him, and he wouldn’t be able to speak freely in any case.

Tersely, he instructed Karin to go to his Copenhagen bank for the sum he had just had transferred from Zürich.

“There is a code you have to supply. I’ll text you. And bring one of my document cases, one that has a decent lock. It’s a sizeable sum.”

His awareness of the listening flight attendant was acute, and he had no idea how to say the rest without sounding like something out of a pulp-fiction thriller.

“In fact, I’ll text you everything else,” he said quickly. “There are a number of figures involved. Text me back when you have read my message.”

Though the show was over for now, the flight attendant still stayed demonstratively next to his seat while he texted his message and waited for the reply. It took a worryingly long time to arrive.

OK. But you owe me big-time.

Yes, he wrote to her. I realize that.

He wondered what it would cost him—particularly her compliant silence. Karin had acquired a taste for the finer things in life. But at heart she was a good and loyal person, he told himself soothingly, and she had several compelling reasons to stay on his good side. He had after all been very generous as an employer, and in certain other ways as well.

At that moment, the plane jerked forward and began to move, and he wondered whether he had after all been premature in involving her. But it turned out they were being taxied off the runway to a parking area. The captain explained that they had lost their slot in the busy departure schedule of the airport and were now put on indefinite hold while waiting first for their permission to take off to arrive from Copenhagen, and secondly for a new slot to be assigned to them. He was very sorry, but he was unfortunately forced to switch off the air conditioning while they waited.

Jan closed his eyes and cursed in three languages. Fandens. Scheisse. F*cking hell.





NINA LOOKED THE man right in the eyes.

“I think you had better leave,” she said.

It had no effect. He stepped even closer, deliberately looming over her. She could smell his aftershave. In a different situation it might have been a pleasant scent.

“I know she is here,” he said. “And I demand to see my fiancée right away.”

It was a hot August day, and there were white roses from the garden in the blue vase on her desk. Outside Ellen’s Place the sun was shining on dusty lawns and white benches. Some of the children from the A Block were playing soccer. One team was yelling in Urdu and the other mostly in Romanian, but they seemed to understand each other all the same. Recess, thought Nina with a small, detached part of her brain. Her colleagues Magnus and Pernille had deserted her in favor of the cafeteria ages ago, and she could see the psychologist Susanne Marcussen having lunch with the new district nurse in the outside picnic area. It was 11:55, and except for the soccer game, a heavy siesta-like tranquility had descended on Danish Red Cross Center Furesø, a.k.a. the Coal-House Camp. Or at least, things had been tranquil until the man in front of her had marched into the clinic four minutes ago. She threw a quick look at the telephone on her desk, but whom would she call? The police? So far, he had done nothing illegal.

He was in his late forties, with medium brown hair swept back from his temples, tanned and immaculate in a short-sleeved Hugo Boss shirt and matching tie. Apparently no one had thought to stop him at the gate.

“Get out of my way,” he told her. “I’ll find her myself.”

Nina stood her ground. If he hits me, I can press charges, she thought. It would be worth it.

“This is not a public area,” she said. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

This had even less effect than it had the first time. He looked straight through her to the corridor beyond.

“Natasha,” he called. “Come on. Rina is already waiting in the car.”

What? Nina tried to catch his eyes.

“She’s at school,” she blurted.

He looked down at her, and the smile that curled his lips was so smug that it physically sickened her.

“Not anymore,” he said.

A door clicked open softly. Without turning around, Nina knew that Natasha had come into the corridor.

“Don’t hurt her,” she said.

“Darling, as if I would,” said the man in the Boss shirt. “Shall we go home now? I bought pastries from that bakery you like.”

Natasha nodded briefly.

Nina involuntarily reached out to stop her, but the small, blond Ukrainian girl walked right past her without looking at her. Nina knew the girl was twenty-four, but right now she looked like a lost and terrified teenager.

“I go now,” she said.

“Natasha! You can report him!”

Natasha just shook her head. “For what?” she said.

The man put his hands around her slender neck and drew her close for a provocatively deep kiss. Nina could see the girl stiffen. He let his hands move down her back and slid them inside the tight waistline of her denim jeans until he was clutching both her buttocks. His hands bulged under the fabric. With an abrupt jerk, he forced her pelvis against his own.

Nina could taste the acid of her own stomach. She felt like taking the blue vase and smashing it against the head of that vicious bastard, but she didn’t. She knew that this was a show put on for her benefit, to sneer and parade his victory. The more reaction she gave him, the longer it would continue.

Nina still remembered the brilliant happiness of the Ukrainian girl when she showed off her engagement ring. “I stay in Denmark now,” she had said with a dazzling smile. “My husband is Danish citizen.”

Four months later she showed up at the center with one hastily packed bag and her six-year-old daughter, Rina. She looked as if she had dragged herself out of a war zone. There were no outer signs of violence except for a few minor bruises. Hitting her was not his thing, it seemed. Natasha wouldn’t tell them exactly what he did, she just sat there with tears she could not control rolling down her cheeks in a steady, unstoppable flow. At length, severe abdominal pains had forced her to agree to being examined by Magnus.

Nina had rarely seen Magnus so angry.

“Jävla skitstöfel,” he hissed. “Fy fan, I wish I knew someone with a baseball bat.” When Magnus was particularly upset, his native Swedish tended to come through in his swearing.

“What did he do?” said Nina. “What’s wrong with her?”

“If the bastard would only stick to using his miserable little prick,” said Magnus. “But you should see the lesions she has, in her vagina and in her rectum. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

And now the Bastard was standing right in front of her, kneading Natasha’s buttocks with his greedy hands, while his eyes, gazing across Natasha’s shoulder, never left Nina’s. She had to look away. I could kill him, she thought to herself. Kill, castrate, and dismember. If I thought it would do any good.

But there were thousands like him. Not exactly like him, but thousands of others who circled like sharks, waiting to exploit the desperation of the refugees and take their chunk of the vulnerable flesh.

Eventually, he pulled his hands out of Natasha’s jeans.

“Have a nice day,” he said, and left. Natasha followed him as if he had her on a leash.

Nina jerked the receiver off the phone and dialed an internal number.

“Teacher’s room, this is Ulla speaking.”

“Is it true that the bastard who is to marry Natasha has picked up Rina?” asked Nina.

There was a silence at the other end. “I’ll look,” said the English teacher. Nina waited for six minutes. Then Ulla Svenningsen came back on the line. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He turned up just as the bell went for the recess. He had brought her a popsicle, the children say, and she ran right up to him.”

“Bloody hell, Ulla!”

“Sorry. But this is not a prison, is it? Openness is part of the concept.”

Nina hung up without saying goodbye. She was shaking with fury. Right now she was in no mood to listen to excuses or politically correct sermons on the importance of opening up to the community.

Magnus appeared in the doorway, out of breath and glasses askew, and big beads of sweat everywhere in his large, kind dog-face.

“Natasha,” he gasped out. “I just saw her getting into a car.”

“Yes,” said Nina. “She went back to the Bastard.”

“For helvete da!”

“He took Rina first. And then Natasha just followed.”

Magnus sank into his office chair.

“And of course she won’t report him.”

“No. Can’t we do it?”

Magnus took off his glasses and polished them absentmindedly on the lapel of his white coat.

“All he has to say is that it’s nobody’s business if he and his fiancée like rough sex,” he said dejectedly. “If she won’t contradict him . . . there’s nothing we can do. He doesn’t hit her. There are no X-rays of broken arms or ribs that we can beat him over the head with.”

“And he doesn’t abuse the child,” sighed Nina.

Magnus shook his head.

“No. We could report him for that, at least. But he is too smart for that.” He looked at the clock on the wall. It was 12:05. “Aren’t you going to lunch?”

“I seem to have lost my appetite,” said Nina.

At that moment, her private phone vibrated in the pocket of her uniform. She took it.

“Nina.”

The voice at the other end did not introduce herself, and at first she wasn’t sure who it was.

“You have to help me.”

“Err … with what?”

“You have to pick it up. You know about such things.”

It was Karin, she realized. Last seen at a somewhat inebriated Old Students Christmas Lunch, which had ended in a furious shouting match.

“Karin, what’s wrong? You sound weird.”

“I’m in the cafeteria at Magasin,” said Karin, naming the oldest department store in Copenhagen. “It was the only place I could think of to go. Will you come?”

“I’m working.”

“Yes. But will you come?”

Nina hesitated. Suddenly, all kinds of things were in the air. Old favors. Unsettled accounts. And Nina knew full well she owed Karin at least this much.

“Okay. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Magnus raised his eyebrows.

“I’m having lunch after all,” said Nina. “And, err … I’ll probably be at least an hour.”

He nodded distractedly. “Oh, all right. I suppose we can hold the fort without you.”





MRS. RAMOŠKIENĖ!”

A piercing light struck one of Sigita’s eyes. She tried to twist away but found she couldn’t, someone was holding her, someone held her head in a firm grip.

“Mrs. Ramoškienė, can you hear me?”

She was unable to answer. She couldn’t even open her eyes on her own.

“It’s no use,” said a different voice. “She’s out of it.”

“Whew. That’s a bit ripe.”

Yes, thought Sigita dizzily. There really was a foul odor, of raw spirits and vomit. Someone ought to clean this place up.

“MRS. RAMOŠKIENĖ. It will be a lot easier if you can do some of it yourself.”

Do what? She didn’t understand. Where was she? Where was Mikas?

“We have to insert a tube in your throat. If you can swallow as we push, it will be less uncomfortable.”

Tube? Why would she want to swallow a tube? Her confused brain took her back to the absurd bets of the schoolyard. Here’s a litas if you eat this slug. Here’s a litas that says you’re too chicken to swallow the earthworm alive. Then a grain of logic asserted itself. She must be in a hospital. She was in a hospital, and they wanted her to swallow a plastic tube. But why?

She couldn’t swallow, as it turned out. Couldn’t help. Couldn’t stop herself from struggling, which brought a new pain, sharp enough to pierce the fog of her confusion. Her arm. Oh God, her arm.

It is very hard to scream with a plastic tube in your throat, she discovered.

“MIKAS.”

“What is she saying?”

“Where is Mikas?”

She opened her eyes. They felt thickened and strange, but she forced them to open all the same. The light was blinding, and white as milk. She could only just make out two women, darker shapes amidst the whiteness. Nurses, or aides, she couldn’t make out the details. They were making the bed next to hers.

“Where is Mikas?” she said, as clearly as she was able.

“You must be quiet, Mrs. Ramoškienė.”

An accident, she thought, I’ve been in an accident. A car, or perhaps the trolley bus. That’s why I can’t remember anything. Then came the fear. What had happened to Mikas? Was he hurt? Was he dead?

“Where is my son?” she screamed. “What have you done with him?”

“Please calm yourself, ma’am. Mrs. Ramoškienė, will you please lie down!”

One of them tried to restrain her, but she was too afraid to let herself be restrained. She got up. One arm was heavier than the other, and a bitter green wave of nausea washed over her. Acid burned her much-abused esophagus, and the pain took her legs from her, took away all control, so that she ended up on the floor next to the bed, clutching at the sheets, still struggling to get up.

“Mikas. Let me see Mikas!”

“He’s not here, Mrs. Ramoškienė. He is probably with your mother, or with some other relative. Or a neighbor. He is perfectly fine, I tell you. Now will you please lie down and stop screaming so. There are other patients here, some of them seriously ill, and you really mustn’t disturb them like this.”

The nurse helped her back into the bed. At first she felt simple relief. Mikas was all right! But then she understood that something wasn’t quite right, after all. Sigita tried to see the woman’s face more clearly. There was something there, in the tone of her voice, in the set of her jaw, that was not compassion, but its opposite. Contempt.

She knows, thought Sigita in confusion. She knows what I did. But how? How could some unfamiliar nurse in a random ward in Vilnius know so much about her? It was so many years ago, after all.

“I have to go home,” she said thickly, through the nausea. Mikas couldn’t be with her mother, of course. Possibly with Mrs. Mažekienė next door, but she was getting on now and could become peevish and abrupt if the babysitting went on too long. “Mikas needs me.”

The other nurse gave her a look from across the neighboring bed, smoothing the pillowcase with sharp, precise movements.

“You might have thought of that before,” she said.

“Before … before what?” stammered Sigita. Was the accident her fault?

“Before you tried to drink your brains out. Since you ask.”

Drink?

“But I don’t drink,” said Sigita. “Or … hardly ever.”

“Oh, really. I suppose it was just a mistake, then, that we sent you to have your stomach pumped? Your blood-alcohol level was two point eight.”

“But I … I really don’t.”

That couldn’t be right. Couldn’t be her.

“Rest a little,” said the first nurse, pulling the blanket across her legs. “Perhaps you will be discharged later, when the doctor comes by again.”

“What’s wrong with me? What happened?”

“I believe you fell down some stairs. Concussion and a fracture of your lower left arm. And you were lucky it wasn’t worse!”

Some stairs? She remembered nothing like that. Nothing since the coffee and the playground and Mikas in the sandbox with his truck.