Christian Jungersen - You Disappear

“But what’s the matter then? Why do you look like that?”

“I don’t look like any thing.”

“ Some thing’s eating you.”

“I’m just thinking about your case, and that makes me nervous. That’s all.”

We keep eating, while he looks at me inquiringly and I try to appear natural. I already know that I’ll go out for an evening walk tonight in order to call Bernard. Frederik’s gradually gotten used to me needing to go on long walks almost every night.

After dinner, I’m back down among the young dark men between the long dark buildings. At night, the Midtpunkt apartment blocks aren’t brown anymore but black.

How often does someone get raped here? Never, as far as I know. How often are there attacks or shootings? Almost never. The area’s bad reputation is mostly due to teenagers who try to snatch purses or extort money from the sick or elderly in exchange for leaving them alone.

I leave a message on Bernard’s machine.

“Are you sick? Is something wrong?”

Maybe his cell phone’s broken, or maybe he’s left it somewhere.

Still no answer. When I get back home, before I go to bed, I send him a text. I write,

Love you. Do text me tonight if you want .

• • •

Saturday morning, after a miserable night’s sleep, I meet up with Andrea near the local marina. I’ve promised to show her some of my favorite runs, as well as the spot of my atheistic revelation by Lake Farum. As a pedigreed scientist, she’s been much more intrigued by my revelation than I have, and she’s discussed it with the other biologists at work.

Andrea’s not a very experienced runner. She shows up in baggy exercise clothes and her shoes look ancient, though that shouldn’t matter as long as we stick to the soft forest paths.

Right away I can see it’ll be easy for me to talk while she gasps for breath beside me, and while we’re still jogging through Nørre Woods, I’m already telling her that I feel a bit uneasy about Bernard not calling me back. She asks about the last message I left on his machine. I say it was the one that mentioned Sissel.

Andrea snorts. “But Bernard’s been around the block more than any man I know. I thought you knew that.”

“What!” I pull up short.

“He oozes sex,” she says. “No one’s that way unless they’ve had some experience.”

“I simply can’t believe that. I know him really well now, and he’s the one guy who — he’d never—”

“But I’m talking about before the accident.”

It’s like a blow to the gut. “Before the accident?”

“Didn’t he tell you they were both in the car?”

“Yes. Of course he did.”

“Didn’t he tell you he was injured too?”

“Yes.”

“Well? What kind of injury did you think it was?”

“I don’t know.”

I’m drawing a complete blank. I can’t recall anything he said about it, or that I even gave it a second thought. But he did say it was serious. That I remember.

It’s as if I’m taking a final exam in a bad dream; I can’t think straight.

“He lay in a coma for days,” Andrea says. “Just like Lærke. Everyone thought he was going to die, and his parents flew up from Paris.”

I manage to say, “I know they came up, but wasn’t he sitting next to Lærke while she was in a coma?”

“Yes —after ward! He was a totally altered man when he came to. Just like other people who suffer brain damage — their sleeping pattern changes, their body odor changes, their appetite. It’s all hormones. Didn’t he ever tell you how he had to restructure his life, dropping his career and all?”

I don’t answer. I just say, “He isn’t sick.”

I say that even though I know she’s right. Something deep inside me knows that he’s terribly sick, just like Niklas is sick and I’m sick too. Everything’s so fragile. Our brains are all disintegrating, halfway to some alien state — and only maybe is the alien state death.

The sun reflects off something between the trees and hurts my eyes. I feel as if I can’t stand up any longer. Andrea sees this and embraces me, she clasps me to her and prevents me from falling.

“I never heard you could become monogamous from hitting your head,” I say in a small voice, speaking into her neck.

“Nor I. But have you ever met another man like Bernard?”

“No.”

“Me neither. He’s not normal; he’s too good to be true. It’s all something to do with vasopressin and oxytocin. It’s well known that those two hormones in particular are the ones that control monogamy. Compared to a healthy man, Bernard’s hormone profile must be off the charts.”

“But it’s his choice to be kind to Lærke, isn’t it? His own healthy choice?” I ask in a voice that I can hardly hear.

The sun’s reflection from in among the trees. It ought to be raining. If my story had any symbolic meaning, it ought to be coming down in buckets.

• • •

Winnie opens the door of Bernard and Lærke’s house. I cut short my run with Andrea and had her drive me over. Now I stand here in running clothes that never got sweaty, and Andrea’s driven off again.

“Sorry to intrude,” I say, “but there’s something I need to ask Bernard about our case. Really quick, it’ll just take a minute.”

Winnie looks a bit skeptical, but she leads me through the house and into the backyard, which the roses during these last days of August have made even more overwhelming than last time. At a long table on the lawn sit Bernard and Lærke, their two boys who I’ve seen pictures of but never met, and Bernard’s father-in-law.

The welcome’s not the warmest; Bernard’s family doesn’t look as if they like having their lunch interrupted. And perhaps they have a sneaking suspicion, an intuition that I’m not just here to take their food — that after I’ve raided their Saturday lunch I’ll plunder their house and kidnap their father, husband, son-in-law. That I’m shameless, that like a swarm of grasshoppers I will consume everything .

Lærke’s the only one who gives me a big smile when she sees me, waving her arms enthusiastically. “Why Mille! So lovely that you’ve come. You can sit between Jonathan and Benjamin. There’s lots of room!”

The boys have mousy hair and look sullen. They’re not nearly as handsome as my Niklas, not by a long shot.

Bernard’s on his feet long before I reach the table. “Oh yes, I forgot to give Frederik the documents,” he says in a clear voice across the table. “It’s good you came by to get them.” He turns toward his mother-in-law. “Mia and I just have to pop into the office. I have some charts she and her husband are going to use this weekend.”

He walks quickly around the table.

“The papers should be inside,” he tells me loudly.

“But Mette, you’ll come back out and eat with us afterward, won’t you?” asks Lærke.

Bernard answers for me, saying, “Not everyone has time to sit down and hang out all afternoon like we do.”

“I’d love to,” I say. “Unfortunately, I need to bring these charts back to my husband.”

As Bernard walks across the lawn, it’s as if he’s grasping my arm and dragging me away, though of course he doesn’t actually touch me. We march over to the house. As soon as we’re out of the others’ hearing, he hisses, “You should never come here without calling first!”

“But I did call! I called you again and again!”

We step into the house, and he leads me toward his little office, saying, “What the hell were you thinking of, coming here?”

Looking at him, I can tell he’s not so much angry as afraid; his family’s nearby. My voice is louder than it should be. “You lied to me, you lied through your teeth! You said you’d never been with anyone since you met Lærke, and here I find you were screwing the whole town! You don’t return my calls! And you deceived me! I’m married, and you — what the hell were you thinking, Bernard? What the hell? You deceived me so that—”