DEATH OF A NIGHTINGALE

CHAPTER 1

AUDIO FILE #83: Nightingale

"Go on," says a man's voice.

"I'm tired," an older woman answers, clearly uncomfortable anddismissive.

"But it's so exciting."

"Exciting?" There's a lash of bitterness in her reaction. "A bit ofSaturday entertainment? Is that what this is for you?"

"No, I didn't mean it like that."

They are both speaking Ukrainian, he quickly and informally, shemore hesitantly. In the background, occasional beeps from an electronic game canbe heard.

"It's important for posterity."

The old woman laughs now, a hard and unhappy laughter. "Posterity," she says."Do you mean the child? Isn't she better off notknowing?"

"If that's how you see it. We should be getting home anyway."

"No." The word is abrupt. "Not yet. Surely you can stay a littlelonger."

"You said you were tired," says the man.

"No. Not ... that tired."

"I don't mean to press you."

"No, I know that. You just thought it was exciting."

"Forget I said that. It was stupid."

"No, no. Children like exciting stories. Fairy tales."

"I was thinking more along the lines of something real. Somethingyou experienced yourself."

Another short pause. Then, "No, let me tell you a story," the oldwoman says suddenly. "A fairy tale. A little fairy tale from StalinLand. A suitable bedtime story for the little one. Are you listening,my sweet?"

Beep, beep, beep-beep. Unclear mumbling from the child. Obviously, her attentionis mostly on the game, but that doesn't stop theold woman.

"Once upon a time, there were two sisters," she begins clearly, asif reciting. "Two sisters who both sang so beautifully that the nightingale hadto stop singing when it heard them. First one sister sangfor the emperor himself, and thus was the undoing of a great manypeople. Then the other sister, in her resentment, began to sing too."

"Who are you talking about?" the man asks. "Is it you? Is it someone we know?"

The old woman ignores him. There's a harshness to her voice, as ifshe's using the story to punish him.

"When the emperor heard the other sister, his heart grew inflamed,and he had to own her," she continued. "'Come to me,' he begged. Oh,you can be sure he begged. 'Come to me, and be my nightingale. I'llgive you gold and beautiful clothes and servants at your beck and call.'"

Here the old woman stops. It's as if she doesn't really feel like goingon, and the man no longer pressures her. But the story has its ownrelentless logic, and she has to finish it.

"At first she refused. She rejected the emperor. But he persisted.'What should I give you, then?' he asked, because he had learned thateverything has a price. 'I will not come to you,' said the other sister,'before you give me my evil sister's head on a platter.'"

In the background, the beeping sounds from the child's game haveceased. Now there is only an attentive silence.

"When the emperor saw that a heart as black as sin hid behind thebeautiful song," the old woman continues, still using her fairy-talevoice, "he not only killed the first sister, but also the nightingale'sfather and mother and grandfather and grandmother and whole family. 'That's whatyou get for your jealousy,' he said and threw the othersister out."

The child utters a sound, a frightened squeak. The old womandoesn't seem to notice.

"Tell me," she whispers. "Which of them is me?"

"You're both alive," says the man. "So something in the story mustbe a lie."

"In Stalin Land, Stalin decides what is true and what is a lie," saysthe old woman. "And I said that it was a Stalin fairy tale."

"Daddy," says the child, "I want to go home now."

"Gum?"

Natasha started; she had been sitting silently, looking outthe window of the patrol car as Copenhagen glided by in frozenshades of winter grey. Dirty house fronts, dirty snow and a low anddirty sky in which the sun had barely managed to rise above the rooftops in thecourse of the day. The car's tires hissed in the soap-likemixture of snow, ice and salt that covered the asphalt. None of it hadanything to do with her, and she noted it all without really seeing it.

"You do speak Danish, don't you?"

The policeman in the passenger seat had turned toward her andoffered her a little blue-white pack. She nodded and took a piece.Said thank you. He smiled at her and turned back into his seat.

This wasn't the "bus," as they called it—the usual transport fromVestre Prison to the court—that Natasha had been on before. Itwas an ordinary black-and-white; the police were ordinary Danishpolicemen. The youngest one, the one who had given her the gum,was thirty at the most. The other was old and fat and seemed niceenough too. Danish policemen had kind eyes. Even that time withMichael and the knife, they had spoken calmly and kindly to her asif she hadn't been a criminal they were arresting but rather a patientgoing to the hospital.

One day, before too long, two of these kind men would putKaterina and her on a flight back to Ukraine, but that was not whatwas happening today. Not yet. It couldn't be. Her asylum case had notyet been decided, and Katerina was not with her. Besides, you didn'tneed to go through Copenhagen to get to the airport, that much sheknew. This was the way to Central Police Headquarters.

Natasha placed her hands on her light blue jeans, rubbed themhard back and forth across the rough fabric, opened and closedthem quickly. Finally, she made an effort to let her fists rest on herknees while she looked out at Copenhagen and tried to figure out ifthe trip into the city brought her closer to or farther from Katerina.During the last months, the walls and the physical distance thatseparated them had become an obsession. She was closer to herdaughter when she ate in the cafeteria than when she was in her cell.The trip to the yard was also several meters in the wrong direction, butit still felt soothing because it was as if she were breathing the same airas Katerina. On the library computer Natasha had found Google StreetView and dragged the flat little man to the parking lot in front of theprison, farther along Copenhagen's streets and up the entrance rampto the highway leading through the woods that sprawled north of thecity's outer reaches. It was as if she could walk next to him the wholeway and see houses and storefronts and trees and cars, but when hereached the Coal-House Camp, he couldn't go any farther. Here shehad to make do with the grubby satellite image of the camp's flat barrackroofs. She had stared at the pictures until she went nearly insane.She had imagined that one of the tiny dots was Katerina. Had dreamedof getting closer. From the prison, it was twenty-three kilometers tothe Coal-House Camp. From the center of Copenhagen it was probably a fewkilometers more, but on the other hand, there were neitherwalls nor barbed wire between the camp and her right now. There wasonly the thin steel shell of the police car, air and wind, kilometers ofasphalt. And later, the fields and the wet forest floor.

She knew it wouldn't do any good, but she reached out to touchthe young policeman's shoulder all the same. "You still don't knowanything?" she asked in English.

His eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. His gaze was apologeticbut basically indifferent. He shook his head. "We're just the chauffeurs," hesaid. "We aren't usually told stuff like that."

She leaned back in her seat and again began to rub her palmsagainst her jeans. Opened and closed her hands. Neither of the twopolicemen knew why she was going to police headquarters. They hadnothing for her except chewing gum.

The court case over the thing with Michael was long finished, sothat probably wasn't what it was about, and her plea for asylum hadnever required interviews or interrogations anywhere but the Coal-HouseCamp.

Fear made her stomach contract, and she felt the urge to shit andpee at the same time. If only she could have had Katerina with her.If only they could have been together. At night in the prison, she hadthe most terrible nightmares about Katerina alone in the children'sbarrack, surrounded by flames.

Or Katerina making her way alone into the swamp behind thecamp.

It was unnatural for a mother not to be able to reach out andtouch her child. Natasha knew she was behaving exactly like cowsafter their calves were taken from them in the fall, when they stood,their shrill bellowing lasting for hours, without knowing which wayto direct their sorrow. She had tried to relieve her restlessness withcold logic. They were not separated forever, she told herself. Katerinacame to visit once in a while with Nina, the lady from the Coal-HouseCamp, who reassured Natasha every time that she would personallytake care of Katerina. Rina, the Danes called her. They thought thatwas her name because that was what the papers said. But Rina wasn'teven a name. It was what was left when an overpaid little forger inLublin had done what he could to disguise the original text.

Maybe that was why she was here? Had they discovered what theman in Lublin had done?

Her dread of the future rose like the tide. Her jaw musclestightened painfully, and when she crushed the compact piece ofgum between her teeth, everything in her mouth felt sticky andmetallic.

The policeman at the wheel slowed down, gave a low, triumphantwhistle and slid the car in between two other cars in a perfect parkingmaneuver. Through the front window, Natasha could see thegrey, fortress-like headquarters of the Danish police. Why were therethick bars in front of some of the windows? As far as she knew, itwasn't here by the entrance that they locked up thieves and murderers. It seemedas if the bars were just there as a signal—a warningabout what awaited when the interrogations with the nice Danishpolicemen were over.

The fat cop opened the door for her. "This is as far as we go, younglady."

She climbed out of the car and buried her hands in the pockets ofher down jacket. The cold hit her, biting at her nose and cheeks, andshe realized that she had brought neither hat nor gloves. When youwere in prison, the weather wasn't something that really mattered.She had barely registered the snow the day before.

The older policeman pulled a smoke out of his uniform jacket andlit it, gave an expectant cough. The young cop, who already had ahand on Natasha's arm, sighed impatiently.

"Just two minutes," said the heavyset one and leaned against thecar. "We've got plenty of time."

The young one shrugged. "You really should stop that, pal. It'sgoing to kill both you and me. I'm freezing my ass off here."

The old one laughed good-naturedly and drew smoke deep intohis lungs. Natasha wasn't freezing, but her legs felt weak, and shenoticed again that she needed to pee. Soon. But she didn't want tosay anything, didn't want the policemen to rush. She looked up atthe massive, squat building as if it could tell her why she was here.Relaxed uniformed and non-uniformed employees wandered in andout among the pillars in the wide entrance area. If they were planning to sealthe fate of a young Ukrainian woman today, you couldn'ttell, and for a moment, Natasha felt calmer.

This was Copenhagen, not Kiev.

Both she and Katerina were safe. She was still in Copenhagen.Still Copenhagen. Across the rooftops a bit farther away, she couldsee the frozen and silent amusement rides in Tivoli, closed for theseason. The tower ride from which she and Michael and Katerinahad let themselves fall, secure in their little seats, on a warm summernight almost two years ago.

The big guy stubbed out his cigarette against a stone island in theparking lot and nodded at Natasha. "Well, shall we?"

She began to move but then remained standing as if frozen inplace. The sounds of the city reached her with a sudden violence.The rising and falling song of car motors and tires on the road, theweak vibration in the asphalt under her when a truck rumbled by,the voices and slamming car doors. She was searching for somethingdefinite in the babble. She focused her consciousness to its utmostand found it. Again.

"Ni. Sohodni. Rozumiyete?"

Natasha locked her gaze on two men who had parked their carsome distance away—one of them wearing an impeccable black suitand overcoat, the other more casual in dark jeans and a light brownsuede jacket.

"Did someone nail your feet to the pavement?" the young cop said,in a friendly enough fashion. "Let's keep moving." His hand pressedharder around her elbow, pushing her forward a little.

"I'm sorry," she said. She took one more step and another. Lookeddown at the slushy black asphalt and felt the fear rise in her in itspurest and darkest form.

They worked their way sideways around a small row of dug-upparking spaces cordoned off with red-and-white construction tape.Long orange plastic tubes snaked their way up from the bottom ofthe deserted pit. Next to it was a small, neat pile of cobbles half covered bysnow.

Natasha slowed down. Gently. Avoided any sudden movements.

The old guy looked back just as she bent down to pick up the topcobble. She smiled at him. Or tried to, at least.

"I'm just ..."

He was two steps away, but the younger one was closer, and shehit him, hard and fast and without thinking. She felt the impact shootup through the stone and into her hand and closed her eyes for aninstant. She knew that the young cop fell in front of the old one,blocking his way, because she could hear them both curse and scrabble in thesoap-like slush. But she didn't see it.

She just ran.

Nina woke slowly, with some kind of murky nightmarerumbling at the bottom of her consciousness. There had beena refugee camp that looked like Dadaab, the flies and the heat andthat smell you never completely escape from, the stench of atomizedhuman misery. But the children lying before her on the ground withstarved faces and protruding bellies were Anton and Ida.

She rolled over onto her side and tried to escape the dream. 9:02,announced the large digital wall clock that had been the first thingshe hung on the wall when she moved in. An anemic February sunwas streaming unimpeded through the window; the shades she hadbought at IKEA on a rushed afternoon in August were still lying intheir packaging on the radiator almost six months later. Luckily,there were no neighbors. Outside lay Grøndals Parkvej, and on theother side of it the park and the railroad embankment, the reasonshe had bought the apartment. Centrally located yet still a quietneighborhood, the realtor had said, a really good parental buy—didshe have a son or daughter starting college, perhaps? When hehad realized that she was going to be living there herself, he hadadjusted expectations noticeably. Divorced mothers were difficultclients, it seemed, confused and unrealistic and with no perspective on theirown budget.

The cell phone rang. It must be what had woken her, even thoughshe hadn't really registered it, since it wasn't her ringtone. She pokedMagnus in the ribs.

"It's yours," she said.

A groggy sound emanated from the fallen Swedish giant. He layon his stomach, his head buried so deep in the pillow, it was amazingthat he could breathe. His broad, naked shoulders were covered withshort golden hair, and he smelled of semidigested beer. She nudgedhim again.

Finally, he lifted his head.

"Oh, my God," he said in his distinct Swedish accent. "What timeis it?"

"It's Saturday," she said, since that was more to the point.

He reached for the cell phone, which was lying on the floor next tothe bed along with his wallet and keys. Neat little bedside tables, hisand hers, were not part of the apartment's inventory. The only placewhere she had made an effort was in Anton's and Ida's rooms, andthey still hadn't turned out right. Everything was too tidy. It lacked theclutter of toys and discarded clothing, the scratches on the wall fromhockey sticks and lightsabers, the remnants of stickers that wouldn'tquite come off, odd splotches from overturned soda cans and soap bubbleexperiments. Quite simply, it lacked children. She hadn't managedto make it more than a temporary refuge. Home was still the apartment inFejøgade, and that was where they had their life.