Gordon had regained his natural paté-colored hue. Apparently he was at his best when he looked most ill. Carl had never thought about that before.
“What if we speak to a psychologist to get their interpretation of Rose’s varying states of mind? Then we’ll also have someone who can pass on the results to her psychiatrists in Glostrup,” suggested Gordon.
“Good idea. We’ll need to talk to Mona, won’t we, Carl?” For once Assad had wiped the smile off his face when talking about her.
Carl folded his hands, resting his chin on his knuckles. Even though he and Mona were working in the same building, it had been several years since he had really spoken with her. And even though he wanted to, she appeared so unapproachable and fragile that it seemed like a risky undertaking. Of course he had asked Lis if she was ill, but Lis had said she wasn’t.
Carl tried not to frown but without success. “Okay, Gordon. You call the sisters now that you’ve developed such a rapport with them. Maybe some of them will have time to come to the meeting. Assad, you organize that meeting. Tomorrow if possible, okay? Have a word with Mona and fill her in on the situation.”
There was Assad’s cheeky smile. “And what about you, Carl? Are you going home to slack off, or would you rather visit the second floor to see what you can find out about the Zimmermann case?” asked Assad, looking mischievous.
Why the hell did he even ask when he already knew the answer?
20
Tuesday, May 24th, 2016
They had been standing for a long time in front of the bathroom mirror. Jazmine and Denise in front, Michelle in the middle behind them, chatting away like old friends while they commented on and touched one another’s hair. They looked smashing. If Michelle had not been living with them, she would have simply copied them. Jazmine’s method of accentuating her high cheekbones with a soft brush, Denise’s totally cool way of pushing up her breasts, and all sorts of things she thought made them different from her.
“My guy gave me four thousand yesterday,” said Denise. “What about yours, Jazmine?”
She shrugged. “He wouldn’t give me anything at first. He actually got pissed off and said it wasn’t that kind of dating site, but then he threw me two thousand anyway because he was horny. But when I gave him a condom he demanded one thousand back, the idiot, and I had no choice because he looked like he meant it.”
Michelle stuck her head in between them. “But you said you were going to try and get pregnant with him?”
Jazmine raised an eyebrow in the mirror. “Not with him; he was too ugly. Not that it matters, but I would have wanted more money out of him on the spot.”
Michelle looked at her face. Would she be able to do what the others were doing? And would anyone want her the way she looked now? Two black eyes, a bandage on the back of her head, and a bloodshot right eye.
“Do you think this will go away?” she asked, pointing at her eye. “I’ve heard that blood in the eye can turn the whites brown if it doesn’t heal quickly enough.”
Denise turned around, dangling her eyeliner in midair.
“Where on earth have you heard that? Do you also believe in fairies?”
An unpleasant feeling of being revealed as an idiot came over her. Were they now going to be the ones to belittle her? Wasn’t she just as good as them? Didn’t they actually like her? If she hadn’t been extremely lucky, she would be lying in a coffin now instead of being here. Didn’t they even think about that? Didn’t they consider that she had nothing and that she wasn’t like them? She couldn’t sleep with strange men like they did. Did that make her stupid too?
In a way, Michelle knew that she wasn’t quite as clever as her parents had led her to believe. Maybe they weren’t as clever as they thought they were either. Her upbringing in the small, modest, light concrete house in Tune had certainly sheltered her from the reality that while she was walking around in her own fairy-tale world, thinking about her complexion, hair, and matching clothes, many of the other girls on her street had slowly and almost imperceptibly stepped out of the fairy-tale world and started to develop their skills.
The first time her confidence suffered a blow that really hurt was when she, in all earnestness, claimed that Ebola was a city in Italy, and later the same night that the past had been in black and white because she had seen it like that lots of times in films. These and other blunders had resulted in harsh and nasty comments about her intelligence, and the looks alone were enough to make her feel deeply ashamed—a feeling she had often felt ever since. She had a tendency to express herself with words that made sense to her but which didn’t actually exist. And when she was called out, she had learned to disarm her critics with a laughter that she thought showed that she was in on the joke. However, the reality was that she felt deeply hurt when these things happened. And over time she had learned only to talk about things she knew about and otherwise keep her mouth shut in the company of people she didn’t know, losing herself in her own fantasy world.
A world in which a handsome knight in shining armor came riding on a white horse. In which she was rich, adored, and waited on hand and foot. She was fully aware that she was good-looking and a nice person, and that that was what all knights were looking for. She knew that from romance novels, quoting proudly from them when she spoke with Denise and Jazmine over breakfast. The way they spoke about prostituting themselves in one way or another! It was up to her to show them a different path.
Denise looked up from her yogurt. “A knight? Do you really think they exist?” she said. “Because I don’t—not anymore.”
“But why not? There are plenty of nice guys in the world,” said Michelle.
“We’ll be thirty soon, Michelle. That ship has sailed, all right?”
Michelle shook her head. No, it wasn’t all right. It was unthinkable.
She sat up straight. “Do you want to play truth?” she said, attempting to change the subject, pushing the plate of breakfast rolls to one side with a smile.
“Don’t you mean truth or dare?” asked Jazmine.
“No, let’s play without the dare. That’s only fun if you’re playing with guys. Just truth.” She laughed. “Can I start? The one with the worst answer does the dishes.”
“Worst answer? And who gets to decide that?” asked Denise.
“We’ll know when we hear it. Are you in?”
The others nodded.
“Okay, Jazmine, what’s the worst thing you’ve done in your life, apart from giving those babies away?” She noticed Jazmine’s expression, realizing that she hadn’t needed to say the last bit. She had just wanted to make sure that they didn’t have to touch on the subject again.
“I’m not answering that,” she said.
They were already ruining the game, making Michelle feel unsure if it would be a good idea for her to live with them. But what other option did she have?