The Boy in the Suitcase

SHE DIDN’T REALLY have the time.

Nina’s sense of urgency made it feel all wrong to contemplate a mundane shopping expedition, but the devil did, after all, reside in the details, and at a minimum she needed one set of T-shirt, shorts, and sandals sized for a three-year-old if she and the boy were to remain relatively secure and invisible for a while.

She scanned the storefronts on Stationsvej and cursed softly to herself at the lack of choice. There weren’t all that many shops to begin with, and most of them now had closed doors and dead, unlit windows. But as she approached the end of the street, more appeared, and two of them, amazingly enough, sold children’s clothes. Both clearly saw themselves as up-market; one even had a French name—La Maison Des Petites. Outside, the racks sported brightly colored rompers in a trendy retro ’70s style, and when she peered through the window, she spotted a mannequin that looked to be about the right size. And the shop was still open. A big retail chain like Kvickly would have been better, not to mention cheaper, but so far all she had seen along the way had been a co-op with nothing much but food products. She was running out of time. The boy was lying on the back seat like a small, ticking bomb; traveling discretely with a screaming three-year-old in tow was difficult enough in itself—if the child was naked, it would be plain impossible. First rule of survival: don’t draw attention to yourself.

She turned into Olgasvej and squeezed the antiquated little Fiat into a space between two larger cars parked along the curb. She twisted in her seat to draw the blanket more thoroughly over the boy, who already seemed too close to the surface. One small arm came up to tug reflexively at the woolly material, pulling it off his face again.

Nina got out of the car, quickly scanning her surroundings. On a day as hot as this, presumably most of the inhabitants of Vedbæk would have retired to the beach, or to shady gardens and barbecued patio meals. But there were still people in the streets. On the opposite sidewalk, a suburban family sauntered past, the father thin-legged in shorts that were too short, the mother in a white summery top exposing her sunburnt, peeling shoulders. Their two young daughters both held giant ice cream cones, and the parents were engaged in heated conversation. A little further up the street on Nina’s side, a senior citizen was walking a heavy-set basset hound, and a tight little group of long-haired teenagers had just turned the corner from Stationsvej and were headed Nina’s way.

“All right,” said Nina, deliberately leaning across the back seat through the open door. “I’ll get you an ice cream, but that’s it, okay? No more pestering.” She paused artistically, covertly eying the dog walker, who was now within easy hearing, but moving at a draggingly slow pace. “Mama will be back in a jiffy.”

She locked the doors quickly, then trotted resolutely back towards Stationsvej. The teenagers seemed not to have noticed her, or the little show she had provided. They moved only enough for her to edge past them and forge on. Behind her she heard their odd mix of conversation and intense texting. Good, she thought. Much too self-absorbed to be a problem.

LA MAISON DES PETITES seemed to think that what every parent really wanted was to dress their offspring like small replicas of the children they themselves had been in the ’70s. The colors were bright and loud, the fabrics mostly linen and organically produced cotton, so that the little ones were not exposed to unwanted chemicals. All very well-intentioned, but Nina winced at the thought of what it would do to her bank balance.

A discretely perfumed young mother, hair tucked back by the big dark fashionable sunglasses riding on top of her head, glided past with a fat baby on her hip. Again, Nina became conscious of her sticky T-shirt and the far from fragrant odor of sweat she projected. And of fear, probably. Right now she fitted into this affluent suburban idyll about as well as a Saint Bernard in a two-room flat.

She dug out five pairs of underpants from a jumble box of Summer Sale offers in the middle of the shop. Then she rifled through the piles of jeans and T-shirts. How many days should she plan for? How long would he have to stay with her?

She had no idea, but decided to err on the side of optimism. One pair of jeans, one pair of shorts, and two light long-sleeved cotton shirts… . That would have to do for now. Biting her lip, Nina eyed the footwear shelves. A pair of sandals were really a necessity. She piled the goods onto the counter and tried to look as little as possible at the salesperson as she ran the scanner over the brightly colored price tags.

“That’ll be two thousand four hundred fifty-eight kroner,” said the young woman behind the counter, smiling with superficial courtesy. Nina forced herself to return the smile. Overcoming her reluctance, she tapped her credit card pin-code into the register and received the big white carrier bag with a measured nod.

Outside, the heat was unremitting. Nina checked her watch. 7:02. She had been gone from the car for twelve minutes. She crossed to the corner of Stationsvej and Olgasvej and looked toward the Fiat. No signs of unusual activity. No collection of worried onlookers, no curious faces. An elderly man in an oversized T-shirt shuffled past the car without giving it a second glance. The boy must still be alseep, thought Nina in relief. There was a supermarket just across the street. If she hurried, she might have time to pick up a few groceries. She wasn’t exactly hungry, but she had had nothing since breakfast, and she knew she would have to eat something soon.

It didn’t take her long to grab a loaf of white bread, a bag of apples, and two bottles of water. That was all she could think of, until she was approaching the exit and her eyes fell on the ice cream freezer next to the toiletry section. Cold, she thought. Sweet. Plenty of calories. Just the thing. She transferred a foil-wrapped ice cream cone from the freezer to her basket and began to load her purchases onto the conveyor belt. The pimply teenage girl at the register was the only living, breathing human in sight. For some reason Nina couldn’t take her eyes off the girl’s unusually long, square nails as they clicked against the display.

Nina piled her purchases into a yellow plastic bag and hurried back into the brightness of the sunlight. She had been gone for sixteen minutes now, and she suddenly knew sixteen minutes was too long. She had the horrible sensation that time, vitally important time, had once again slipped through her fingers, and she headed for the Fiat at a near-run.

The car was where she had left it, of course, but something was wrong all the same. A woman with a thumb-sucking toddler in a stroller had taken up position a few feet from the car and was anxiously scouting up and down Olgasvej. Nina’s stomach dropped, but she still managed to slow to a speed she thought more appropriate for her role as a slightly frazzled but responsible mother.

“Is that your car? Is that your boy in there?”

The woman’s voice rose into an indignant descant the moment she caught sight of Nina.

Nina only nodded. The distance to the car seemed to stretch into infinity, and now that the woman had found someone to focus her outrage on, her temper was visibly rising like the tide. Close up, she was older than she had appeared at a distance, one of those thirtysomething women who took such infinite care with their appeareance that only faint lines at the corner of their eyes betrayed their age when they smiled or frowned. Now indignant anger narrowed her eyes and added years to her face. It didn’t become her, thought Nina, and felt her own muscles tense in response.

The stroller was parked so that it blocked the entire sidewalk, and the woman had her hands set on her hips in a confident stance.

“I’ve stood here waiting for you for nearly twenty minutes,” she announced, pointing demonstratively at her watch. “You don’t just leave a child in a car like this. And in this heat! He might die of heat stroke. It’s completely irresponsible, and frankly dangerous.”

Nina considered her strategy. The woman had not been there for twenty minutes, and Nina had made sure the Fiat was shaded by one of the big chestnut trees along the road, and had left all the windows ajar. The boy was in no danger of dying from the heat in such a short time, and nobody knew it better than Nina. She had seen children lie for days without proper shelter in 120° weather and still live long enough to die from malnutrition. The outraged mother was clearly one of those overzealous idiots who enjoyed showing others what a wonderful parent she herself happened to be. But knowing this was of little use. The main objective was to get away without drawing any more attention to herself or the boy. Nina lowered her eyes and forced a contrite smile.

“I had promised him an ice cream cone, and there was a line at the check-out,” she said, trying to edge past the aggressively parked stroller.

“Oh? And I suppose the Maison Des Petites was terribly busy too?” countered the woman, and Nina cursed under her breath. The big white carrier bag from the fashion boutique was hard to explain away, and she decided not to try. Instead, she turned her back firmly on the indignant woman, unlocked the car—and came close to knocking down both woman and stroller as she took a startled pace backwards.

The boy was sitting up.

The blanket was still wrapped about his legs, and he was staring at her through the half-open window with huge dark blue eyes.

Nina forced herself to stand still while possiblities and halfformed plans flitted feverishly through her head. Should she simply get into the car and drive away? Should she speak to him? And if she did, what would happen if he answered?

Then she recalled the ice cream cone.

She tore her attention away from the confused, fearful gaze of the boy for as long as it took to rummage through the yellow plastic bag and fish it out. She peeled off the shiny blue wrapper and held out the cone to him through the open window, hardly daring to meet his eyes again. Apparently, she didn’t have to. She saw instead how a small pale hand slowly moved toward the rim of the rolleddown window and took hold of the ice cream.

“Atju.”

The boy’s voice was faint, but he spoke the word slowly and clearly, as if to make sure she didn’t misunderstand.

“No,” she said quickly. “They were all out of those. You’ll have to make do with this one instead.”

Then she marched around the front end of the car as quickly as she could and got into the driver’s seat. The indignant voice followed her as she backed and turned, sounding loud and clear through the open windows.

“You don’t even have a proper car seat for him,” shrilled the woman. “I simply don’t understand how someone like you can call herself a mother. I simply don’t… .”





SIGITA WOULD HAVE liked to stay at the police station, but Gužas evicted her politely but firmly. He had her phone number, he would call. He repeated his exhortation to go home.

“But perhaps you shouldn’t be alone. The boy’s father?”

“He works in Germany. He’s not coming.”

“Well, a relative, then. Or a friend.”

She just nodded, as if she were still someone who possessed such things. She did not want to admit to him just how alone she was. It felt shameful, like some embarrassing disease.

Her headache was so strong now that it hovered like a black ring at the edge of her field of vision; her nausea swelled once more. She ought to eat something, or at least drink a little, like the old man had told her to: It’s important to drink enough when it is this hot. She bought a small square carton of orange juice at tourist price from a man selling candy and postcards and amber jewelry at a bright green cart. The juice was lukewarm and didn’t taste particularly nice, and the citric acid burned her sore throat.

They’ll find him, she whispered to herself. They will find him, and he will be all right.

There was no conviction in the words. Normally, she didn’t see herself as a person with a very lively imagination. She was much better at recalling facts and figures than at picturing places she had never been, or people she had never seen. She didn’t read a lot of novels, and saw only the films that were shown on TV.

But right now she could imagine Mikas. Mikas in a car, hidden under a rug. Mikas wriggling and crying while strangers held him down. Mikas calling for his mother, and getting no answer.

What had they done to him? And why had they taken him?

Her legs shook. She sat down on the wide stone steps leading to the river. A couple of years ago, the city had put up benches here, but they quickly became a magnet for addicts and homeless people, and now the seats had been removed, so that only the galvanized steel supports bristled from the concrete like stubble. Below, the Neris moved sluggishly in its concrete bed, brown and shrunken and tame compared to its winter wildness.

HER FIRST SUMMER with Darius, the river had been their secret place. If you followed the bank far enough away from the bridge, the paved pathway gave way to a muddy trail through the jungle of reeds. Insects buzzed and whirred, gnats and tiny black flies, but there were no people, no prying eyes or wagging tongues, and that was a rarity in Tauragė. They could even bathe. Together.

She didn’t know anyone else like him. The other boys were idiots—giggling and drawing crude pictures of penises on school books. Milda’s older brother had once pinched Sigita’s left nipple and tried to kiss her; he was basically just as mean as Milda, only in a slightly different way.

Darius was completely different. He seemed utterly relaxed and at ease with himself, and so much more mature than any of the others. He told her he had been named after the hero pilot Steponas Darius, just like Tauragė. That was rather fitting, she thought. She could easily imagine Darius doing great things one day.

When he wanted to take off her blouse, she stiffened, at first. He stopped what he was doing, and slid both hands down to her waist.

“You are so tiny,” he said. “My hands go almost all the way around you.”

A deep shudder went through her that had nothing to do with cold. His hands moved up inside her blouse and brushed her breasts very lightly, very gently. She raised her face to the sun. Don’t do that, said Granny Julija’s voice in her head, you will go blind. But she let the sunlight blind her for a few more moments before she closed her eyes. Her hands spasmed into fists, clutching two handfuls of shirt from his back, and his tongue touched hers, then her lips, then the inside of her mouth. He had given up on the blouse and concentrated his efforts on her skirt and knickers. She stumbled and was thrown off balance, and he did nothing to hold her, but let himself fall with her instead, so that they hit mud and sunwarmed river water with a wet thud. His weight came down on top of her so hard that she was too winded to move or speak, which he took for acceptance.

“God, you’re fine,” he whispered, spreading her thighs with eager hands.

She could have stopped him. But she wanted it too. Her body wanted it. Even her head wanted it, in a way. She wanted to know what it was like—this sinning business. And it was good that she didn’t really have to do anything except lie there and let him at her. She was prepared for pain; there had been whispers and sniggers in the girls’ lavatories at school, that the first time was difficult, and that it hurt.

But it didn’t. It was almost too easy, too right, to lie with him like this, pushed down into the soft warm mud by the weight of him, to feel him move between her legs and then inside her, like a welcome guest that might have stayed for so much longer than the brief moment it actually took.

He hunched over her, and then slid out. Lay there completely spent for a while, as the buzzing of the insects slowly returned, and the sound of the train on the railway bridge in the distance, and the rustle of the reeds in the wind. For an instant, a dazzling blue dragonfly hovered over his shoulder before zooming away.

Was that it? thought Sigita. Was that really all?

He rolled off her. He hadn’t taken off any of his clothes; only his fly was open. She, on the other hand, was suddenly conscious of how inelegant she looked, with her knickers round one ankle and her skirt rucked up so that her entire pelvis was exposed. Somehow, he had also managed to push up both her blouse and her bra to get at her breasts, something she had barely noticed because so much else was going on. She hastily tugged her skirt into place and wanted to pull down her blouse also.

But this was when he did something that none of the other boys would have done. The thing that was just Darius. He pushed her gently back into the mud. He kissed her, a deep wet kiss that went on till she could hardly breathe. And then he touched her, outside and in, so that she gasped in surprise.

“Darius… .”

“Shhh,” he said. “Wait.”

He used only his hands and his mouth. And he kept at it till the light and the sounds went away. Till she shuddered from head to foot. Till something wild and unfamiliar throbbed inside her, over and over, and she knew for certain that she was no longer any kind of virgin, and never would be again.

She felt no guilt at that moment, nor did she think of shame, or sin, or consequences. That came later.





AUGUST TWILIGHT HAD begun to gather over the bay when Nina turned off the former fishing village’s main street and continued up the sparsely paved road that led through the neardeserted holiday cottage park. Tisvildeleje these days was populated mainly by commuters and tourists, and now that the school holidays had ended, most of the visitors had left. There were still a few cars with German license plates outside the biggest and most luxurious of the houses, and a couple of children whacked away at a tetherball, the pole wobbling ominously with each swing. Except for that, the lawns lay deserted and scorched from the unremitting sun of this late, hot summer. Last year had been rainy and dull, but this year the sky had seemed permanently blue since May, and by now leaves, shrubbery, and grass had long since lost any vestige of lushness and formed a dry landscape of burnt yellows and dusty greens. Nina checked her watch. Exactly 8:20.

She parked in the lane by the mailbox, behind a blue VW Golf with a streamer in the rear window. M-Tech, it said. Solutions That Work. Was it Karin’s? It didn’t seem like the kind of car she would choose, but Nina could see no other, more likely vehicle. She peered up the long winding drive. The cottage looked to be quite old; it was painted a deep dark red, with white frames and tiny romantic window panes from before the age of double glazing. It was set some distance from its neighbors—the last one before the woods, just as Karin had said.

Nina jammed her keys and her mobile phone into the pockets of her jeans and got out. The boy was watching her covertly, beneath half-closed eyelids. She opened the rear door and touched his wrist gently. He felt warm now, but not fevered, she noted with professional routine. There was no doubt that he was fully conscious, even though he was lying very still, the now somewhat greasy blanket wound around his legs.

He is trying to disappear, thought Nina. Like the baby hare she had once come across as a child, in the back garden, where it had been desperately trying to hide. When she had picked it up, it hadn’t struggled or resisted. It just crouched in her hands, featherlight and downy. In her six-year-old ignorance, she had thought it liked her. But when she put it on her bed, it had already had the same distant look as the boy in the back seat, and later that night, she found it limp and dead in the shoe box she had provided for it.

Was the boy giving up in the same way?

Nina shivered, and not entirely because the day had finally begun to cool. She couldn’t leave the boy in the car, she decided. He was awake, and even though he didn’t know her from Adam, coming with her had to be better than the alternative—being left locked in a car in the gathering darkness, not knowing where or why.

He hadn’t moved a muscle, but as she reached for him now, he suddenly scooted back with such abruptness that the blanket slipped off him and dropped onto the floor of the car.

Nina hesitated.

She didn’t want the child to be afraid of her. She didn’t like that he looked at her as if she might be a monster little different from the man in the railway station, but she had no idea how to win his trust.

“What on earth have they done to you?” she whispered, sinking down onto her haunches and trying to catch his eyes. “Where do you come from, sweetie?”

The boy made no answer, only curled himself into a tighter ball at the opposite end of the seat, as far away from her as he could get. She could see a dark stain on the seat where the blanket had slipped, and the boy smelled unpleasantly of body sweat and old urine. Nina felt a surge of tenderness, just as she did when Anton or Ida had a temperature or threw up, back home in the Østerbro flat. She would bring them crushed ice, berry juice, and damp cloths; the urge to be good to them and make them well again was so overpowering it filled her entire being. So simple to be a good mother then, she thought. It was everything else that got to be so complicated.

She pointed to the house, then put her hands togther like a statue of a praying saint and rested her cheek against them in a parody of sleep.

“First, we’ll get you something to eat,” she said, trying to smile. “And then we’ll find a bed for you to sleep in. And after that, we’ll see.”

The boy made no sound, but she had to have done something right after all, because he uncurled and slid an inch or two in her direction.

“Good boy,” she said. She remembered an article she had read a few years back about children’s ability to survive in even the most brutal of environments. They were like little heat-seeking missiles, it had said, aiming themselves at the nearest source of warmth. If a child lost its mother, it would reach for its father. If the father disappeared, the child would head for the next grown-up in the line, and then the next, seeking any adult who would provide survival, and perhaps even love.

She showed him the clothes she had bought, and when she began to dress him, he helped. He obediently held out his arms so that she could put them into the sleeves of the new T-shirt, and ducked his head so that it was easier for her to pull it on. A clean pair of underpants followed. That would have to do for now, but even that much suddenly made him seem much more like a normal three-year-old. He came into her arms easily, as she lifted him from the car. Again she was struck by the difference between his weight and Anton’s.

Now that he was awake, he didn’t allow her to hold him against her shoulder. He sat warily straight on her left hip as she walked up the gravel path to the veranda.

“Hey, little one,” murmured Nina, softening her voice into a maternal cooing. “No need to be afraid anymore.”

His warm breath came quickly and carried a sour smell of fear and vomit.

On the veranda, someone had arranged a row of large pots containing herbs and pansies; their well-watered plumpness looked odd against the aridness of the rest of the garden. By the half-open door, a pair of bright yellow galoshes sat next to a small pet carrier. Nina remembered that Karin had spoken of a cat, at that drunken Christmas party. Mr. Kitty, she had called him. She had acquired this male presence when she’d decided once and for all that she was tired of looking for Mr. Right and the two point one children she was statistically entitled to.

At the moment, Nina could detect no sign of either kitty or Karin.

She raised her free hand to knock on the door, but it moved as she touched it, swinging open at her first knock. Unhindered, Nina stepped right into the little darkened hallway. There was a clean detergent-borne scent of citrus and vinegar, and Karin’s shoes and boots were lined up neatly by the half-open kitchen door.

It was very quiet.

“Karin?”

Nina’s foot came down on something soft, which gave way under her heel with a slight crunch. Startled, she backed up and steadied herself against the wall.

“Karin?” she called again, but this time with little expectation of an answer. She inched forward, running her hand over the door frame until she felt the sharp plastic contours of a switch. The light came on with a faint click, revealing a half-eaten sandwich on the floor. It was still partially wrapped, and had been acquired from the deli of the local Kvickly, she could see.

Nina felt a sharp cold jab in her stomach. It was possible that Mr. Kitty had made illegal forays into the groceries and dragged his booty into the hallway, but the house was entirely too silent considering the distraught and loudly sobbing Karin that Nina had been talking to just ninety minutes ago.

She lowered the boy to the floor of the hallway and stood undecided on the threshold.

“Stay here,” she whispered, pointing at the floor. “Don’t go anywhere.”

The boy made no reply, only looked at her with solemn eyes. New cracks of black fear had begun to open in his gaze; he had been frightened to begin with, and her indecision was not improving matters. She had to do something quickly.

“Karin!”

Nina walked quickly through the kitchen and into the compact living room. Karin had turned on a small, green lamp above the settee. The television was on, but with the sound turned down. TV2 News. Nina recognized the scarlet banner headlines and the usual respectable suit of the anchor.

She strode across to the window, which overlooked the garden on the other side of the house. She could see very little, only the tall pines of the plantation behind the cottage, and an unkempt lawn littered with leaves and pine cones. Nina dug into her pocket for her mobile phone, pressed the recall button and waited for the call tone. Immediately, there was an answering trill from a real phone somewhere in the house. The sound seemed to be coming from behind a closed door that probably led to the bedroom, and although the distance couldn’t be great, it sounded oddly muffled, as if someone had dropped it into a bucket. A quick glance assured her that the boy’s small straight form was still standing motionless by the kitchen door. She looked at the phone again. 8:28.

The numbers on the pale blue display had a calming effect on her. She slid the phone back into her pocket and pushed open the bedroom door.

Karin lay curled on the bed, with her forehead resting against her knees, as though she had been practicing some advanced form of yoga. But Nina saw it the second the image was processed against her retina.

Death.

There was a peculiar quality about dead people. Little things that seemed insignificant on their own, but added up to an umistakable impact, so that Nina was never in any doubt when she encountered it. The slight out-turned wrist. The leg that had slipped limply from its orignal position, and the head resting much too heavily against the mattress.

Nina felt the first rush from her flight instinct. She forced herself to approach the bed, while new details flooded her senses. Karin’s fair hair spread around her head like a flaxen halo mixed with red and dark brown nuances. The sheet beneath her had soaked up far too much blood, and when Nina carefully turned Karin’s upper body, Karin’s mouth opened, and vomit mixed with blood sloshed over her lower lip and ran down her chin and into the soft folds of her throat. Two of her teeth were missing, and there was red and purple bruising on her face and neck. A lot of the blood seemed to come from a wound above the hairline, at her left temple, and when Nina probed it cautiously, the skull gave beneath her fingers, too soft and flat. Death had not been instantaneous, thought Nina. She had had time to curl up here, like a wounded animal that left the herd to die alone.

And now. So much blood.

She didn’t mind blood, she reminded herself soothingly. She was okay with it, had, as a matter of fact, been one of the most steadfast at nursing school when it came to dealing with bodily fluids. (Since that day twenty-three years ago she had become very good at it. She had decided to become good at it, and it had worked.)

Nina stepped back from the bed and managed to twist to one side before she threw up, in short, painful heaves. She had eaten nothing since this morning, and all that sploshed onto the clean wooden floor was dark yellow gall and grayish water.

It was then she heard the scream. A shrill, heart-rending note of terror, like the scream you hear in the night when a hare is caught by the fox.