Baboon

BULBJERG

Suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of an astonishing landscape: luminous, white sand dunes on all sides, wind swept, small trees twisting under the vast open sky. We gasped joyfully as though coming up for air after being under water too long. We stood there looking around, our eyes blinking after staring at the gravel road in the dark forest for so long. Even the smell was different here, salty and fresh, the sea had to be close by. But we lost our bearings long ago. We were going in circles. It was hot. We had a six-year-old boy and dachshund with us. The bikes were old and rusty, the danger of getting a flat was imminent. We stood completely still and listened. The wind moved through the leaves with a faint rustling, the birds sang, and then one shrieked, hoarse and desperate, as if for its life. Sebastian looked nervously at me. "It's just a buzzard. Nothing to be afraid of."

"Come here, Seba. Do you want a cookie?" You called the boy over with excessive gentleness, and I caught myself jerking my head around with an exaggerated and timid movement to look behind us. There was the forest we had come from, dark and still as a deep lake. The path stretched before us through what looked like a little birch grove, and beyond that the dense pine forest, moss, heather, and fallen trunks, grayish black with cracked branches sticking out like spikes.

"My legs are tired," complained Sebastian. Then he broke down — his dirty hands hid his face, his shoulders shook.

You took him on your lap.

Sitting in the grass, you rocked him back and forth while he cried. You looked at me with large worried eyes. I stared back. "What?" I said. "Nothing," you answered, stroking the boy's head. "It's going to be dark in four or five hours."

"So? What do you want me to do?"

You sighed.

I lay down with my arms under my head.

* * *

Sebastian is turning seven in fourteen days. In August, he will enter the first grade. In a way, he's the same as when he was a baby. The same slightly worried look, those little knit brows. It looks like he'll have an overbite. Then we'll have to go through all that with braces and headgear. I open my eyes and you are standing over me with a look of hatred. Maybe you've been standing there for a few minutes. "Shouldn't we get going?" you ask. I get up and suddenly notice how tired I am. My arms are completely limp and there's an overwhelming feeling of weakness throughout my entire body. The water bottle is empty. The dog pants with its tongue hanging out of its mouth. You lift it up into the cardboard box on the bike rack. Sebastian bravely picks up his bike and rides ahead of us. His bell rings with every bump in the road, and the flag he was so proud of when I mounted it on the rear mudguard looks cheap and shabby now. We ride on in silence. Every time we come to an intersection, you look inquiringly at me, but I'm not the local here, and so each time you end up saying something to the effect of: "So, um, I think we turn right here. I think I remember that woodpile." Then, without a word, we turn right, until Sebastian throws himself on the ground, yelling and screaming. He's completely hysterical. He thrashes at us every time we get close. I use sour and you, sweet. In the end, I shake him hard, shouting that he should calm down or else we'll ride off without him, and then he can cry all he wants, until that buzzard comes and gets him. I regret the moment immediately and put him down. He bawls, holding onto my leg. You're sitting, leaning against a tree stump. Some ants are crawling up Sebastian's neck, dangerously close to his mouth. "What the hell?" I shout. He shrieks and throws himself to the ground. He spits and sputters and slaps himself in the face. I have to pull off all his clothes to brush off the ants. He flails and kicks. He's bit in several places. The snot runs from his nose. I pick up the naked boy and stand holding him for a while. He just whimpers now, pressing his face against my chest.

"If we're not riding in circles, we should reach Bulbjerg at some fucking point. It's impossible to ride in circles here, for Christ's sake," I say. "It's impossible in a shitty little forest like this," I hiss. "Anne!" I shout. You finally stand up, your face gray and streaked. You rub your eyes like a child. "I know the guy who owns the hotdog stand," you then say.

"What hotdog stand?" I ask irritated. "The stand near Bulbjerg," you whisper.

Sebastian breathes so close to my ear that it tickles terribly; I let him slide down to the ground. He wraps his arms around my hips.

"Seba, sit on the back of my bike," I say loud and furious.

I pull myself away from the child and fling the yellow kid's bike into the bushes. I think how it looks like evidence from a grisly crime. Someone will come across it one day. They'll find my fingerprints on the frame and Sebastian's on the handlebars. Perhaps yours as well. Maybe they'll think we murdered the child. "We'll get your bike another day," I assure Sebastian. He's sitting behind me, arms around my back, still naked, his legs dangling, and the fear that he'll get a foot caught in the wheel irritates me, the same way a mosquito waiting in the dark until you're about to fall asleep irritates.

We ride like this for nearly an hour; it's muggy, and I guess that it's almost six o'clock, but neither of us has a watch on. We left home at nine in the morning. It was supposed to be about ten miles from the summerhouse to Bulbjerg. We had wanted to see the beautiful ice-age landscape. I also wanted to show Sebastian the German bunker. We were going to have a good talk about the time of the Occupation.

* * *

When I woke up this morning, you were watching me. We were both lying on our sides, facing each other, and you were watching me. You smiled. The light fell from the skylight in a sharp diagonal line onto the white duvet. I felt like I was being spied on. Then Sebastian was standing in the doorway. He said the dog had peed on the rug in the living room. A little while later I could hear you laughing and chatting in the kitchen. We used to do it on that rug. We were here in the fall, it was cold, and in the evenings we lit the fire. I slowly peeled the clothes off her, and she looked beautiful on the red Persian rug, in the warm light from the fire. She spread her legs. She looked at me with dark, almost sorrowful eyes. Your sister has a tighter cunt than you. I wonder whether you're born that way, or if it's just because she's so young. Tine is only your half sister. Sebastian is adopted.

"No one in this goddamn family is really related," your stepfather always proclaims on Christmas and Easter when he gets up to make a toast. "Assholes!" he yells later, collapsing in his drunkenness, so that your cousins have to carry him out.

Now it's usually on the rug at home that I make love to her. That she makes love to me. When you're out and Tine babysits Sebastian. When he's sleeping. I enjoy looking at her when she's lying there, vulnerable and exposed on the cold floor, and at the same time protected by the carpet's soft pile. She's a little cold. She gives good head. Her palate is warm and hard, and she concentrates, always making it into a little performance. I miss her. I miss her thick brown hair, her warm neck, her profile when she's lost in thought with one hand under her chin, unaware that I'm standing there in the dim light watching her. I feel horny and desperate. It's come this far. I thought I could easily handle a couple of weeks' vacation up here; after all, we do have a child together.

* * *

We're riding down the hill at a good speed, and how it actually happens I have no clear recollection, but a stick gets caught in your spokes and I ram into your back wheel, the bikes flip, and the boy and the dog are thrown to the side: they both land in the ditch; Sebastian hits his head against a large rock and the sound it makes when he hits that fucking rock makes my skin burn; my throat is dry; I'm afraid he's dead. You're already over him, calling out, crying. I push you aside with all my strength, you gasp for air and fall back and away. Sebastian is unconscious. He's pale as death, and the new fine jagged front teeth have split open his bottom lip. He's bleeding.

"Seba," I whisper. My voice calls from far away, strangely resonant. "Can you hear me, Sebastian? It's Dad."

You've crawled into a thicket. You watch me with your light green eyes, while holding the dog by the leash. For some reason, it's showing its teeth and snarling and barking violently. "He's not fucking dead! Anne!" And it's as if by saying your name I prod you into action. You tie the dog to a tree. You lift Sebastian up and begin to stagger down the path with the large limp child over your shoulder. I don't know why, but I don't take him from you, even though you're sinking under his weight. I simply follow you, keeping about five yards between us, while the dog's bark turns into a pitiful whimper as it realizes that it's being left behind.

* * *

I clearly remember the first time I heard Anne say her own name. Almost a whisper, while she looked down. She blushed shyly and smiled a little. And then she did something completely unexpected: suddenly, and with great confidence, she leaned over and kissed me deep and long. She really impressed me. I was so touched. I thought she was so cool. I let my hand run through her hair and pulled gently so her head was forced back a little. She closed her eyes and grinned, almost vulgarly. "Anne?" I whispered. The scent from her skin was unbelievably sharp, almost sour.

Five years later we were called to our first adoption interview.

"My name is Anne," she said loud and clear, placing both hands on the back of the chair before finally taking a seat in the small stuffy office. No one had asked for her name. It seemed strange and formal. As if her name was the deciding factor in whether or not she was fit to be a mother. "There's no guarantee that you will get a sweet little baby. You have to imagine that you'll be getting a three-year-old with a harelip and severe mental problems. If you're ready for that then you're ready to adopt," the caseworker said. Anne replied immediately that she was prepared for that.

Much later, when we picked up Sebastian and were sitting on our separate sides of the large king-sized bed in a hotel in Hanoi and with him between us throwing up, she said suddenly, "His name is Sebastian, and I'm not going to discuss it."

Their names sit like two awls in my main artery: If someone pulled them out, I'd bleed to death in a flash.

* * *

You trudge along with Sebastian at least five hundred yards, and I can hear how out of breath you are. You don't say anything. The foliage over us is dense, it's cloudy now, dark and damp where we're walking; I can smell resin and mold and wet grass. Then suddenly you turn off the path and go into the forest. You stagger a few yards and almost trip over a thick gnarled branch, you squat and gently lay the boy down under a tree. Sebastian is chalk white against the dark green moss. You shoo a fly away from his face. I bend down to the child and notice his faint breathing like a fine dust of warm air on my face. I stand up and put my hands on your shoulders. "Look at him," I say, "he's coming back to his old self again. We're going now. We're going, Anne, and before you know it, we'll be near Bulbjerg, and then there's got to be someone there with a fucking car so we can get him to the emergency room."

I lift up Sebastian and place him on my back like a bundle. "Come on," I say. You follow obediently and walk next to me hunched over, exhausted, I imagine, but you don't cry. I tell you that we're almost out of the forest, that I'm certain of it, that we just have to pass through a rosehip hedge and over a rise and then we'll be able to see Bulbjerg and the entire fascinating landscape that surrounds the cliff. Kittiwakes breed out here. Northern fulmars, too, I think. Fulmar, what a strange name for a seabird.

* * *

"I'm having an affair," I say. You turn your head and look at me, astonished.

"I have a mistress," I say. You knit your brows together, uncomprehending.

"I'm fucking your sister. You understand?" You speed up. "I'm screwing Tine, I can't get enough of her, she gives me head like she's been paid to do it, I can't get enough, I fuck her on the rug at home, I fuck her on the kitchen table, in the bathroom. I take her from behind, up her ass, in our bed. . " Suddenly I notice how I'm breathing hard and wheezing. She stops.

"In our bed?" she says. "Up her ass?" she says.

I turn around and look at her. She's clutching at her throat, and swaying back and forth a little. She stares at me a long time, and I can see her nostrils flaring. She shakes her head. Fear and an almost divine purity radiate from her wideopen eyes.

"You're sick," she then whispers.

But quickly her voice becomes loud and shrill, "You're crazy," she cries, pointing at me, she runs backward in front of me, pointing with a straight finger, "YOU SICK BASTARD!" she yells with more rage than I'd imagined; she's ugly and distorted, her movements are mechanical, clumsy, "You disgusting, sick BASTARD!" she shouts, and this is the only thing that comes out of her mouth: sick bastard, disgusting, sick, filthy bastard. And she turns and just runs, she sprints as if the devil were on her heels, and I finally make it to the top and see Bulbjerg towering in the distance. My eyes follow first the soft stretch of coastline, then I look out over the sea, far out, the great wild North Sea, which is grayish-green today and almost completely still. I close my eyes and open them again. There's more wind out here. I want to lie down and surrender to the white light, close my eyes and feel only the wind in the grass, that distinctive whistling sound that the summer wind releases in the grass, and the bumblebees, the grasshoppers, so, so near.

* * *

But at that moment Sebastian begins to make small moaning sounds. I take him into my arms and hug him tightly. The bump on his forehead is huge and bluish-red, and a deep gash cuts right across the middle. Blood flows from the light red, exposed flesh. He reaches his hand up and cautiously touches some dried blood on his lip. His tongue glides over the wound, he knits his brows, winces, and calls for his mother.

"Mom ran ahead of us. We have to flag down a car so we can take you to the hospital. You've fallen, Sebastian. The doctor just needs to look at your head. Are you sick to your stomach?" He meekly shakes his head no. I carry him like a baby. His eyes slide shut as I walk. I try to keep him awake. I remember that you're not supposed to sleep when you've hit your head. I retell little stories from his life and ask if he remembers the time we played soccer with the big boys on the field over in the park, and one of them gave him a baseball cap. "And when we were in Tivoli with Mom and Grandma and Aunt Tine, and you ate three cotton candies, and we could see the tower of the town hall when we rode on the roller coaster, and you peed in your pants?" I speak loudly and make sure that I laugh once in a while to startle him; I want to keep him awake at all costs. I jog a bit. Now I see Anne a long way off in the distance on her way down the big hill. She's hunched over walking and reeling in the middle of the road. The many different grasses wave in the wind on all sides, it's incredibly beautiful here. The ocean sparkles far down below, the sky is vast and open. It feels good to be out of the forest, I feel light and comfortable here where one can breathe. I begin to sing to Sebastian. I sing as I begin heading down the hill, down the steep paved road, which is still sticky and soft from the sun. I have a violent urge to race down it; it's not only tempting, but perfectly reasonable to run down a hill like this, yelling, ecstatic, but I don't. I walk and walk toward land again, toward the main road, with both Bulbjerg and the ocean at my back.

Little by little Sebastian becomes livelier and more lucid. I put him on my shoulders so he can see the landscape, and when I look around for Anne again, she's gone. A little while later I make out the sign. Imagine finding a hotdog stand in such a desolate place. I wonder how it stays in business.

* * *

Sebastian catches sight of a butterfly and flaps his arms. He asks how long a butterfly lives. The sun comes out for a moment through the clouds and sends a burst of warmth through me. My son is healthy and happy. I have the feeling that things will soon become simple and clear. But when we turn into the parking lot near the stand, the first thing I see is Anne. She's sitting on a bench with a man. The man has his arm around her, and she's got her face buried in his chest, it looks like she's crying. I stop. "Mom," Sebastian says. She lifts her head, trembling, and looks at us for a moment. Then she breaks down again in the man's arms. He has dark curly hair and is very tan. "Anne isn't doing so well," he says. He speaks the local dialect, heavy and droning, the dialect that Anne and Tine dropped long ago.

"Listen, my son hit his head and I need an ambulance right away." The man shakes his head despondently. "A phone," I say. He gets up slowly from the bench. "What kind of a man are you?" he asks. Slowly, slowly he moves toward me. "I'll tell you what kind of a man I am, I'm Anne's husband, and I need to use your phone." I go over to the counter. A strong smell of burnt oil hits me in the face.

"Hell of a husband," he mutters. I lean over the counter and grab the cell phone. But he must have snuck up behind me because when I go to press the numbers, he tears the phone out my hand. He's right up close, his eyes narrow with his upper lip pulling back a little.

"I should beat the shit out of you," he hisses. Sebastian pulls my hair. "Just call," I say, exhausted. Out of nowhere, Anne lets out a yell. I reach for the phone again and try to pry it out of his hand. He lets go and it drops down to the ground and he lays his big hand on my shoulder. "Give me the boy and piss off." I lose my balance and nearly drop Sebastian. He must have pushed me hard. "Dad?" says Sebastian. His voice is weak and well-behaved, he's scared. I turn around and look at Anne.

"Who is this person?" I ask. She gives me a grim look.

"It's Sebastian," she says, and I can tell that this startles the boy, who's still on my shoulders. "Do as he says. Get the fuck out of here."

Sebastian takes hold of my head with both hands, I feel his warm breath all the way down my ear canal. "I want to go home," he whispers.

"Come here, Seba," says Anne getting up. "Come here." She moves closer with outstretched arms. "Come and get an ice cream from Sebastian, he's the one you're named after." Her face is twisted into a crazed grimace.

* * *

He looked a lot like an ape, standing there with his broad chest and hairy arms. He stepped forward and pointed suddenly, threatening me with his short fat finger. I walked backward, then started to run. He didn't follow us. When I looked back a little later, I thought I saw him standing in the middle of the road kissing Anne deeply, pulling on her ponytail. I also thought that I could hear her mooing like a cow, maybe it was him, I'm not sure. We reached the main road. Sebastian was silent and stiff. I didn't say anything either. Tine's white breasts and the small dark nipples. The fat finger pointing right at the soft spot between my eyes. I was sweating heavily and was startled when I heard myself gasp.

It was nearly dark before a car finally picked us up. Sebastian was for the most part fine. The doctor examined him, the nurse tried to make him to laugh. He didn't say a word. They glued his wound together, and sent us home. You were sitting in the dark by the window when we got back to the summerhouse late that evening. You hadn't even fetched the dog.