Christian Jungersen - You Disappear

I find myself shouting with relief. “Oh but yes, three years ago he changed radically!”

For the first time, Bernard’s composure breaks. “Fantastic! That’s utterly crucial! Congratulations!”

“For the first time, Frederik was coming home from work at normal times, for the first time he took the time to—”

I grasp the arms of my chair. Squeeze them tightly and fall silent. And then run from the room.

In the kitchen I stop and lean over the counter, gasping for air, slumped over the outstretched arms that are propping me up. I don’t want to cry while Niklas is sitting in the living room with a guest. But I can’t help myself.

The best years we’ve had together. Years that were going to sustain me the rest of my life. Were they just a by-product of a tumor?

Frederik and I walking down the narrow wooded path along Lake Farum, remodeling the house together, cuddling in the yard and sitting up late in the hanging sofa. His high spirits, regardless of what we had to deal with in our respective jobs; his impulsiveness, which was so life-giving after all those years of sense and discipline; the way he horsed around, the way he suddenly relaxed about work obligations. Where’d it all come from?

In the living room, I hear Niklas assume his most adult voice. “It can get to be a little too much for her. It’s hard for everyone.”

He clearly doesn’t understand what I understand. Because our three good years also gave Niklas his father back.

I hear Bernard reply, “That’s something we’re all allowed to do. After my wife became brain-damaged, I can assure you I had to leave my share of rooms too.”

It’s strange to hear a sensible adult male talking to Niklas. The calm deep voice and words of wisdom, in contrast with Frederik’s prattle. And to hear how Niklas listens. How good for him to be with a healthy man. It seems so long ago that our home was ever like this.

• • •

I have to lie down. And I can’t go into our bedroom, where Frederik is. The only place I can be is Niklas’s room. I lie down in his bed with my clothes on, even though maybe that’s wrong of me. Pull the comforter up to my nose.

I mull over details from the best years of our marriage. Frederik coming in from the yard barefoot one Sunday morning, he chases me around to tickle me, I run away, both of us laughing until we tumble onto the sofa together. Frederik arriving home from work jubilant after he bought that expensive camera for Niklas on the spur of the moment. They were my memories of the best we’ve had. What are they now?

Bernard drives away without me going back down and saying goodbye.

A little while later I hear Niklas open the door to the room. My eyes are still closed.

He must be surprised to see me, yet he just comes over to the bed, as if to look down at me. Then in a concerned voice, he asks, “How are you doing?”

I remain prone, eyes closed, in the same position. “I’m sorry, Niklas. I can’t go into our room right now.”

“I understand.”

“You were really great down there. With the lawyer.”

“Thanks.”

“Is it okay if I lie here for a little while?”

“Of course.”

When Niklas wakes me, this time I open my eyes. I can see from the light that I must have slept several hours. He’s standing again by the side of the bed. He asks, “Do you think I should stay home tonight?”

“That might be a really good idea. We don’t know what’s happening. Or what could—”

“It’s just that Mathias and I were going to meet at his house about our show. It’s actually really important.”

I can recall bits and pieces of something I must have dreamt; Frederik riding a dinosaur.

“But of course,” I say. “That’s what you should do then.”

The inside of my mouth feels sticky. I need something to drink, and as soon as I can I need to text the parents of my fourth graders to say our parent meeting tonight is canceled. I should really call our friends too before they hear about Frederik on TV. And we don’t have any food in the house.

I don’t have the energy to call anyone, but I’m just going to have to slip out to the mini-mart to buy something for supper.

I get up out of bed and check to see that Frederik’s still asleep. As I walk from our yard out to the street, wrapped in more clothing than I perhaps need, I discover Niklas’s friend Sara. She’s standing a few yards from me, almost hidden beside the neighbor’s hedge, busy peering at something on her cell phone.

I’m exhausted, but I pull myself together for a smile.

“Hi,” I say. “Do you want to come in? He’s home.”

She looks almost alarmed. “I was actually … I’ll just wait out here.”

“Well, he’s heading over to Mathias’s.”

“Yeah, I’m going over there too.”

“So you make photo and sound shows too?” I ask.

“Nah, we’re just going to hang out.”

Niklas calls out from his window, behind me. “Stay right there! I’m coming down!”

I call back up to the window. “Niklas, you’re welcome to invite Sara up to your room!”

Immediately she loses all interest in her phone. “ Sara? You thought I was Sara ?”

“What? No, not at all! I don’t even know who Sara is!”

“Has Sara been here?”

“No! Nobody’s been here.”

I wince under the weight of her probing gaze, as if I were the teenage girl and she the grown-up. “There hasn’t been anyone called Sara,” I say a little too quickly, feeling as though I’m still waking up. I add, “You can go inside if you like. Until he’s ready.”

“We actually agreed … I think instead, I should …”

The front door opens and Frederik comes out. He looks fresh and cheerful again. Fresh and cheerful, as he pretty much always is, regardless of whatever he may have left in ruins around him. He looks like a man who’s just gotten a big raise.

“This is Niklas’s friend,” I say.

Frederik smiles happily. “ Damn you look good. To think that you’re Niklas’s friend. I’ve got to hand it to him!”

“We’re on the social committee together.”

He reaches out to touch her arm. “I’d really like to get inside your pussy!”

I slap his hand away. “ Frederik! ”

He snaps at me. “But it’s something she should be proud and happy to hear — that men want to get inside her pussy.”

“Stop it! Just stop it!”

Niklas comes storming out of the house and immediately sees his friend’s face. “What’s going on here?”

“I think you two should leave,” I say. “Go now, and I’ll get him inside.”

Niklas and the girl who isn’t Sara hurry off. Frederik and I yell at each other. Then I run into the house, and he follows me in so he can keep arguing with me.

Once we’re inside, and the neighbors can no longer see us, I throw him facedown to the living room floor, where I straddle his lower back and pin his arms.

“You big piece of shit!” he shouts again and again. “Big piece of shit!”

He thrashes around so much that he bangs his shinbones against the doorframe and knocks over a lamp, and I can see blood soaking through one of his trouser legs.

“Shut up, God damn it!” I shout, struggling to hold him down on the floor.

He succeeds in twisting a hand free, which allows him to pinch me hard on the thigh. I grab the little stainless-steel bowl standing on the coffee table and hammer it down on his back so that he roars in pain.

Who the hell is he, this strange man who’s broken into my house? Who’s invaded my husband’s body, his head?

Once I strike him I can’t stop. I bang the bowl down on his back again and again while he writhes and yells that it hurts, that I’m a piece of shit.