The Chosen

CONCLUSION: FRAGMENT II

The detective inspector who thought he had seen everything is standing in the bedroom, frozen to the spot. He cannot take his eyes off the man lying on the bed with his two children. Around them a handful of people are trying to work a miracle. Anything else would be of no use. The inspector has seen enough dead bodies during his career to know that no one on that bed is alive.

There are paper bags on the floor. Without saying it out loud, he knows that someone has drawn on them.

He hears a commotion, shouting from the stairwell.

‘She got away! Stop her!’

But the inspector knows that it is not possible to stop the woman who is on her way up the stairs. Standing in her way would constitute attempted suicide.

Let her come, he thinks. After all, this moment is un avoidable.

And then she is standing in the doorway, and he turns to face her.

Snow in her hair, snow on her clothes, a violin case in her hand.

No one moves, apart from those who are trying to bring the dead back to life. The woman doesn’t move either. At first it looks as if she is about to take a step towards the bed, but then she changes her mind. Stays exactly where she is. Slowly she puts down the violin.

Someone pulls out a chair, asks if she would like to sit down.

She doesn’t answer; she simply stands there. She doesn’t scream, doesn’t shed a tear. Perhaps because it is impossible to take in what she sees before her? A future without her family. A life without the man the inspector believes she regarded as the love of her life. Probably a life without children, because how long does a woman remain fertile? Not long enough for her to have more children than those she has already given birth to, the children who are now lying dead in her bed.

‘Do you know her?’ a colleague says, nodding towards the woman in the doorway.

Oh yes, they know one another. Well enough for the inspector to realise that it is best not to approach her.

‘Is there anyone we can call?’

He can’t answer that. Is there?

Then one of the paramedics by the bed says:

‘I’ve found a pulse! She’s alive!’

A miracle has happened.

One of the children is alive.