Christian Jungersen - You Disappear

I remember his callousness when I confronted him with what I had discovered. The indifference in his features, the complete disengagement and lack of empathy. Was his coldness pathological — something wrong in his brain? It was in any case a far cry from his ordinary self. It might have been an incipient phase of his disease.

And in our first years together, he didn’t bury himself in his work. Since then I’ve learned that a tumor can make it harder for someone to multitask, that it can lead to monomania. Medically, it’s definitely possible that it took root at the beginning of our marriage, transforming my marvelous charming husband into an unfaithful workaholic. That it then stopped growing until he learned to compensate and, for three good years, became more like himself again. And that at the end of that time, it started growing again until the seizure and operation.

I followed Helena’s advice and left school early, so now I’m home three hours earlier than planned. Are reporters and photographers standing outside, lying in wait? No.

On my way into the house I can see that my in-laws have been with Frederik in the front yard, getting it ready for spring. They’ve trimmed the bushes and raked twigs, leaves, and the last half-burned remains of the fire into two piles. At the sight of their gifted son, Thorkild and Vibeke have always been fit to burst with pride. Now I remember Thorkild standing in our kitchen and saying, “If only I were dead, so I didn’t have to see this!” But that must be something I dreamt, because when they came to take care of Frederik this morning, it was the first time they’d been here since the arrest.

I let myself in, and already as I open the door I can hear Frederik’s mechanical sobbing from above. I rush upstairs and find Vibeke and Thorkild in the hallway outside the bathroom.

“He won’t come out. We’ve tried everything.”

“What happened?”

They hesitate, and I walk over to the bathroom door.

“Frederik, it’s me. I’m home now.”

Maybe he can’t hear me.

“Frederik, I’m home. It’s me here now. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you.”

Still no answer.

“We had a … discussion,” says Vibeke.

I don’t say anything, just look at her until she finally goes on.

“He peed on my pile. In the yard.”

“Peed on your pile?”

“The pile I was going to pick up with my hands and carry to the street.”

“Did you yell at him?”

Vibeke draws a breath and is about to launch into a long explanation, but I ask in a low voice if they would please go down below, and Thorkild squeezes her hand and leads her to the stairs.

“They’re gone, Frederik. It’s just me now. May I come in? I’d really like to.”

I end up sitting for a long time with my back against the door, making small calming remarks. And then suddenly his sobbing ceases.

Through the door he says, “I didn’t do anything.”

“No.”

“Word of honor, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t pee on her pile.”

“No.”

“And then Mom got angry.”

“I can understand how that would upset you … May I come in?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s just as easy for me to sit out here. It doesn’t matter.”

After a long quiet wait, I say, “I’m going to go down and talk to them. I’m sure it’ll be all right. Just call if you want me to come back up, okay?”

In the living room, I fall into my armchair and sigh deeply. But I don’t relax, not a bit. Vibeke can hardly wait to tell me everything she has to say; she shakes one hand so that her heavy bracelet slides up her arm, and I can tell she’s frightened of me. She has reason to be. My head feels cold; everything in me is ready to explode.

“The yard work was going so well,” she says. “Frederik and I did the trimming and raked up all the yard refuse, each of us making our own pile. I had to go in for a minute, and when I looked down from the bathroom window, I could see him standing there, urinating on my pile. The one I was going to put my hands into and carry out to the street!”

She pauses and looks inquiringly at me. I must be doing a good job of keeping my emotions in check, because she keeps talking.

“I became furious! And Mia, you can go ahead if you want and just tear my head off. But it’s not because I’d get urine on my hands. I’ve had plenty of urine on my hands — I’m a mother and a nurse, after all. Rather, it’s what it signifies. Why did he do it? It’s as if he’s urinating on me. There are so many symbols in such an act: the phallus, of course, that ridicules the mother …”

Vibeke’s psychotherapy training and the way it’s been teaching her to think have really gotten on my nerves in the last few months. But I control myself and listen.

“The burnt branches — are they death and decay? Does it mean that he doesn’t care if I’m old and will die in the not-too-distant future? That he mocks my mortality? Does he wish for me to die?”

“He’s hardly putting that much thought into it,” I say.

“It’s so obvious that he’s angry, that he feels this overwhelming grief that lies behind everything and every once in a while bursts forth. And that’s something we can all find perfectly understandable. That’s how any of us would react. But it feels deeply unjust when he lets his anger spill over on Thorkild and me. We don’t deserve it — not when we’re here almost every day, just to help him!”

“But there’s no way he can—”

“Mia, has anyone ever urinated on something of yours? Urinated? Really urinated on it?”

How can she punish a sick man, I wonder. Frederik can’t help it! And now he’s hiding upstairs, feeling miserable. I already know that in a few moments, when I finally permit myself to tell her what I think of her, I won’t ease up until she cries.

Just as I’m about to let rip, Frederik comes down the stairs. I hurry over to give him a hug but stop halfway; his body language tells me he wouldn’t like it.

Before I can turn my attention back to Vibeke, Thorkild says, “Mia, you haven’t seen the papers.”

I never would have thought that articles about Frederik embezzling would have been able to defuse a tense situation. But Thorkild pulls it off. Børsen, Jyllands-Posten, Politiken, Berlingske —he’s found articles on his son in all of them. Thorkild and I sit side by side on the sofa and read them, his tall thin body reminding me of Frederik’s. It gives me the same feeling of warmth — of something fundamentally right — to sit next to him. To sit next to Frederik thirty years from now; a future we’ll never know. As I study the articles, I glance occasionally at my father-in-law’s composed features.

The shame in his cheeks, the old skin drooping over his shirt collar. I think of the large office he had as headmaster at North Coast Private Grammar, the office where naughty boys were sent to be punished. Thorkild and Vibeke never found anything strange about Frederik’s obsession with his work. When Frederik was little, Thorkild was basically absent all the time.

The urge to put Vibeke in her place dissipates. She’s sitting in my armchair now, catching her breath and sending me timid looks.

“Don’t you need a bite to eat, Mia? After your long day at school?”

On her way to the kitchen to put on some tea and get the things for sandwiches, she pats Frederik’s hair gently.

“Sorry,” she says. “I’m really sorry, Frederik.”

He shakes off her hand as if it were an insect that landed on him.

When she comes back, Thorkild and I look up from the papers.

“Frederik,” I say. “Did you pee on your mother’s pile because you were angry with her?”

“No.”