Death of a Nightingale

The gym smelled of apple fritters and coffee and faintly of sour gym sneakers. Nina’s gaze moved like a radar shadow across everything that was shorter than a four and a half feet: Spider-Men, musketeers, carrots with legs, Tiggers, pirates, a slightly dated Ninja Turtle, a pumpkin—recycled from Halloween?—and a couple of witches, a Darth Vader and a knight in a silver helmet and a homemade coat of chain mail. My God, Nina thought, how many hours had it taken to sew all those key rings onto the leather vest—and what did it weigh?

She had to check the knight and Vader twice, but then she was certain.

It was 11:02, and Anton wasn’t there.

The noise was earsplitting. Excited children’s voices climbed to a register that would make any soprano envious, and the parents’ attempts at chatting had begun building in a slow but relentless crescendo in order to be heard above the children and themselves.

“Coffee?” yelled a mother from Anton’s class and handed her a mug without waiting for an answer. “Where is Anton?”

“He’s coming with Morten,” Nina yelled back and saw the mother’s expression change because she suddenly remembered the divorce.

“Oh, right,” the mother said. “But how nice that you can do this together.”

“Yes.” Nina smiled mechanically. 11:06, and still no Anton. Morten was usually early for these kinds of things.

“There’s Minna,” said the mother and pointed. “She wanted to be a shower stall this year. Isn’t it amazing how creative children can be?”

Minna. Yes, that was her name. A highly energetic and slightly trying little red-haired girl whose freckled face right now was sticking out of a box affixed with a flapping plastic curtain, real faucets, a soap dish and a little steel basket with shampoo and a sponge. The red hair was, of course, crammed into a flowered bathing cap.

“We got most of it for next to nothing at IKEA,” said Minna’s mother happily. “She even has a spray bottle, so she can squirt people if they want a real bath experience.”

“Fantastic,” said Nina. 11:14. The teachers had already begun to herd the children toward one end of the room, where they were lining up. Two barrels hung from the rafters on blue nylon ropes, waiting to be beaten to a pulp in time-honored Danish carnival tradition. At least there were no longer live cats inside them, thought Nina with an involuntary shudder, looking at the grinning black paper cats that adorned the outside of the barrels.

“Little ones to the right and bigger ones to the left,” shouted one of the phys ed teachers, a tall man from southern Jutland called Niels, who was currently dressed in a Robin Hood cape and a green crepe paper hat with a pheasant feather.

“Am I little or big?” peeped a Tigger who was definitely no more than four.

“You are little.”

“What about meee?” hollered a brawny nine-year-old, a Frankenstein’s monster rubber mask his only nod to dressing up.

“What do you think, Marcus? Back in line you go. You were behind Selma.”

There he was. There they were, all three of them, Morten and Ida and Anton. Ida had not stooped to fancy dress, but the fact that she was here at all was a major concession. Anton was wearing a pair of blue overalls with extra big yellow buttons sewed on, a red shirt, white gloves and a red cap with a white M on the front. His eyebrows had been drawn on with a thick makeup pencil so they looked like black slugs, and a bushy black mustache decorated his eight-year-old upper lip.

Nina’s heart flickered in her chest.

“Mom,” he yelled and came racing through the crowd. “Look! I’m Super Mario!”

“Yes, you definitely are,” she said. She couldn’t stop her hands, which, entirely following their own agenda, tugged at the blue suspenders, touched his warm cheek, rested against his soft neck under the pretext of straightening his cap. He didn’t want a hug, she knew that, not here, not now, while all his friends were watching. But her hungry hands couldn’t quite let him be.

She could tell by Morten’s tight shoulders that something was wrong, but she didn’t know if it was simply because she was here. Should she have asked? No, damn it. She had a right to come see her son hit the carnival barrel without asking him first.

“Hi, Mom,” said Ida.

A year ago it had been “Nina.” Now she was Mom again. Ida also looked a little less like a caricature than usual—not so much doomsday mascara and a T-shirt that wasn’t actually black.

“Hi, sweetie. It was nice of you to come.”

Ida shrugged. “I’ve promised to cheer for the little maggot if he gets to be the Cat King,” she said, referring to the honor bestowed on the child whose blow finally cracked the barrel. “Plus I made the cap.”

“He looks totally cool,” said Nina and, to her horror, felt a burning flood of tears well up. She had to control herself! Ida would never forgive her if she suddenly started blubbering in front of most of the school.

Anton had already moved on, in a peculiar gait that was supposed to look like the way Super Mario moved in his favorite Nintendo game. Ida gave her a quick fist bump on the shoulder—the height of teenage affection—and waved at another big sister who stood at a careful distance from the noise and the barrels, contriving to look bored.

“Millie! Hi, Millie!”

As soon as Ida was out of hearing, the question jumped out of Nina’s mouth without permission. “What’s wrong?”

Morten didn’t answer right away. “I didn’t know you were coming,” he said.

“Of course I was coming. I usually do.”

“When you have time …”

“Morten, can’t we …”

“I may need to move,” he said.

Her chest felt wooden. “Where?” she croaked. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Far enough to rescue the children from your war zone.”

“What?”

“You promised to stop.”

“I have stopped. The network doesn’t exist anymore. Besides, a clinic is being established, a clinic where people can be treated anonymously …”

He didn’t even look at her. She could see that his entire body was on high alert. He was repressing an anger so great that there was barely room for it inside him.

“What?” she asked. “What is it you think I’ve done?”

“She touched Anton. She grabbed him. Do you know how frightened he was?”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Some disturbed woman who said she was your friend. She was looking for her daughter.”

Natasha. It couldn’t be anyone else.

“Where did you see her?”

Now Morten gaped at her. “Oh, I knew it,” he said. “You know what? It would almost be easier if you were an alcoholic. Then at least there’d be Antabus.”

Bang. The first blow connected with the decorated barrels to general cheering and applause. Bang, bang.

Nina stared at Super Mario Anton, almost wishing that Morten would move away with the children, at least for a while. Until … until this was over. Natasha had grabbed Anton. What would have happened if Anton had been alone? Natasha was desperate. Exactly how desperate Nina could tell from her own irregular heartbeats. And she no longer had any idea where Natasha’s limits lay. “A child for a child—give me my daughter, and you can have your son.” Would she do that?

Nina had no idea.