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Authors: Lene Kaaberbøl
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of as “the Islamist whisper.” “But we ought to get them all checked out. Ask them to send us a list as soon as possible.”
Gitte nodded briskly and left, and Søren turned back to the flickering pale-green screen on his desk. Despite Denmark’s restrictive gun laws, it really wasn’t all that difficult to get hold of an ordinary hand weapon if you knew where to go. Gun-shopping in Hungary seemed a bit extreme, what with all the delivery problems and border crossings it entailed, so maybe the buyer was looking for something a little more exotic. Søren scrolled down through the bare-bones layout one last time. “Buy now, good stuff, new needles, from Russia with love.”
In my next life, he thought, I want to do something else. Something that actually permits the existence of love.
UCK !”
Nina jumped back a few steps, swearing, but it was too late.
The aerator from the kitchen faucet had come off. It shot down into the dirty pan soaking in the sink, and a cascade of greasy dishwater sprayed indiscriminately across the wall, the counter, the floor, and Nina’s T-shirt and jeans. She turned the water off and gave the little piece of thoroughly corroded metal that should have been replaced a long time ago a dirty look. Now the kitchen floor was awash with water
and
dust bunnies, and on the counter, the parade of salad bowls, plates, cutlery, and cups remained unstacked and unwashed. Nina felt her already bad mood descend into a thoroughly foul temper. It wasn’t really the water on the kitchen floor and the unappetizing onion skins and carrot peelings at the bottom of the sink, although none of that helped. It was Morten. Morten and the damn duffel bags in the bedroom.
Morten was packing.
He had done it many times before. He was a geologist and had been the resident “mud logger” at one of the North Sea oil rigs for years. Recently he had been promoted to project manager, which did mean fewer days at sea, but he still had to go on a regular basis, and every single time, Nina had the same aching anxiety in the pit of her stomach when he started packing. She missed him when he was gone, and once the door had closed behind him, Ida’s hostile, brooding silence would hang over the apartment like a sort of teenage curse. It wasn’t that Nina had much trouble from Ida while Morten was away. She went to her friends’ houses most nights, but she also dutifully picked up Anton and did the grocery shopping a couple times a week. On the face of it, a fourteen-year-old marvel of daughterly obedience. But Nina knew she did those things onlybecause Morten had asked her to do them and because doing them quietly was one more way of avoiding conversation. If Ida did deign to join them for dinner, her complete lack of expression squashed any attempt at small talk. Ida seemed barely able to tolerate Nina’s presence, and Nina asking her to pass the potatoes was obviously a major imposition.
Nina would almost have preferred the arguments they used to have, and she felt sorry for Anton, who fidgeted in his chair as he tried to lighten the atmosphere with jokes and quotes from his favorite show on Cartoon Network. He did sometimes manage to wring smiles out of Ida or Nina, but God, he had to work at it.
Nina got out a cloth and mopped up the water from the kitchen floor while she tried to concentrate on the seven o’clock news. The police didn’t have enough manpower for the Copenhagen Summit, and the far right was up in arms again because some new Islamic cultural center was building “what amounted to minarets,” according to the professionally outraged spokesman for the party. As he went on about the importance of “upholding Danish values,” Nina’s ability to concentrate plummeted abruptly. She dried her hands, turned her back on the rest of the mess, and went into the bedroom.
He was almost done.
Socks, underwear, T-shirts, and a variety of electronic gear were laid out in small, separate mounds on the
Gitte nodded briskly and left, and Søren turned back to the flickering pale-green screen on his desk. Despite Denmark’s restrictive gun laws, it really wasn’t all that difficult to get hold of an ordinary hand weapon if you knew where to go. Gun-shopping in Hungary seemed a bit extreme, what with all the delivery problems and border crossings it entailed, so maybe the buyer was looking for something a little more exotic. Søren scrolled down through the bare-bones layout one last time. “Buy now, good stuff, new needles, from Russia with love.”
In my next life, he thought, I want to do something else. Something that actually permits the existence of love.
UCK !”
Nina jumped back a few steps, swearing, but it was too late.
The aerator from the kitchen faucet had come off. It shot down into the dirty pan soaking in the sink, and a cascade of greasy dishwater sprayed indiscriminately across the wall, the counter, the floor, and Nina’s T-shirt and jeans. She turned the water off and gave the little piece of thoroughly corroded metal that should have been replaced a long time ago a dirty look. Now the kitchen floor was awash with water
and
dust bunnies, and on the counter, the parade of salad bowls, plates, cutlery, and cups remained unstacked and unwashed. Nina felt her already bad mood descend into a thoroughly foul temper. It wasn’t really the water on the kitchen floor and the unappetizing onion skins and carrot peelings at the bottom of the sink, although none of that helped. It was Morten. Morten and the damn duffel bags in the bedroom.
Morten was packing.
He had done it many times before. He was a geologist and had been the resident “mud logger” at one of the North Sea oil rigs for years. Recently he had been promoted to project manager, which did mean fewer days at sea, but he still had to go on a regular basis, and every single time, Nina had the same aching anxiety in the pit of her stomach when he started packing. She missed him when he was gone, and once the door had closed behind him, Ida’s hostile, brooding silence would hang over the apartment like a sort of teenage curse. It wasn’t that Nina had much trouble from Ida while Morten was away. She went to her friends’ houses most nights, but she also dutifully picked up Anton and did the grocery shopping a couple times a week. On the face of it, a fourteen-year-old marvel of daughterly obedience. But Nina knew she did those things onlybecause Morten had asked her to do them and because doing them quietly was one more way of avoiding conversation. If Ida did deign to join them for dinner, her complete lack of expression squashed any attempt at small talk. Ida seemed barely able to tolerate Nina’s presence, and Nina asking her to pass the potatoes was obviously a major imposition.
Nina would almost have preferred the arguments they used to have, and she felt sorry for Anton, who fidgeted in his chair as he tried to lighten the atmosphere with jokes and quotes from his favorite show on Cartoon Network. He did sometimes manage to wring smiles out of Ida or Nina, but God, he had to work at it.
Nina got out a cloth and mopped up the water from the kitchen floor while she tried to concentrate on the seven o’clock news. The police didn’t have enough manpower for the Copenhagen Summit, and the far right was up in arms again because some new Islamic cultural center was building “what amounted to minarets,” according to the professionally outraged spokesman for the party. As he went on about the importance of “upholding Danish values,” Nina’s ability to concentrate plummeted abruptly. She dried her hands, turned her back on the rest of the mess, and went into the bedroom.
He was almost done.
Socks, underwear, T-shirts, and a variety of electronic gear were laid out in small, separate mounds on the
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