The Happiest People in the World: A Novel Read online

  “Kolding and Aalborg,” Søren’s father said. “Don’t tell me who won.”

  “What?”

  “It was actually played last night,” Søren’s father said. “They’re replaying it on TV now. Don’t tell me who won.”

  Søren sat down next to his father, who smelled of salt and fish, even though the nets he made hadn’t yet touched the sea. Or maybe it was Søren himself who smelled that way. He watched the handball for a minute, but then it started to hurt his eyes, and so he looked out the front window. It was dark, and darker still with the fog, which came right up to the window. A deep-throated horn blew out there somewhere, and the fog seemed to get somehow even thicker against the pane. It was one of those times when it was difficult to imagine that it wasn’t six o’clock everywhere in the world. Søren turned back to the TV and saw a bunch of rangy white men in knee and elbow pads hugging each other.

  “Goal?” he said.

  “I believe so,” his father said.

  “I don’t know how you can watch this stuff.”

  His father shrugged. “It’s better than making nets.” This was the way Søren’s father talked. Something was always better than something else. When his wife, Søren’s mother, had died several years earlier of breast cancer, he’d gone back to work making nets the day after, and when someone had asked him how he could go back to work making nets so soon after his wife’s death, he had shrugged and said, “It’s better than sitting at home.”

  “Can I borrow the car tomorrow morning?” Søren asked. And then he added, “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Look at you like what?” Søren’s father said, still looking at him like that. His father’s look: it had always been there. But it had gotten more intense, more squirm inducing, more knowing, since Søren had accidentally murdered the cartoonist. Or was that just Søren’s imagination? In any case, Søren didn’t know how much longer he could take it, the look, the look, the look that was made up of a litany of don’ts: don’t disappoint me, don’t make me look bad, don’t make your people look bad, don’t you know we moved to this country so you could be your own person, don’t be someone else’s person, don’t forget that you’re my son, don’t do anything stupid, don’t hurt the car, don’t hurt yourself, don’t you know that your mother told me before she died not to let anything happen to you, don’t you know I’d die if something happened to you, don’t make me die, don’t kill me, don’t kill yourself, don’t kill anyone else, don’t get caught if you do, don’t do anything terrible, don’t you know that I love you no matter what terrible thing you’ve done, don’t forget that, don’t do it again, don’t make it worse, don’t you know I know everything about you, don’t cry, for crying out loud, don’t cry because then I’ll cry, just don’t, don’t, do not.

  “Just don’t forget to put gas in the car,” Søren’s father said, and he turned back to his handball.

  29

  Isn’t it Saturday?” the imam said. Søren was looking into the tiny eye at the top of his computer but was also looking at the screen itself. On it was a man his father’s age with a long gray-black beard grown high on his cheeks, wearing thick-framed glasses with slightly tinted lenses and a white turban and white robes. At least Søren assumed they were robes: Søren had only ever seen the imam from the shoulders up. “Isn’t it a Saturday night?” the imam asked.

  “Please, I know,” Søren said. There were no mosques in Skagen; there were no Muslim prayer groups in Skagen, either; there were no Muslims in town at all except for Søren and Tarik and their families. Before Søren had killed the cartoonist, he had not been religious; he had not felt religious; he had not felt the need to feel religious. But ever since then, ever since he had committed a crime that everyone seemed to think was a crime that could only be committed by a religious zealot, Søren had felt the need to feel something else, something greater that might keep him from feeling something worse than what he already felt. So he went online. The problem with going online was that the kind of people who wanted to give advice online tended to be people who were big advocates of things like burning and killing, and Søren had already done that. But finally, a few months earlier, Søren had received what seemed like a mass e-mail from this imam, a Turkish Dane from Copenhagen who claimed to be all the things Søren wanted—he was wise, he was gentle, he was measured, he was compassionate, he had a reliable Internet connection and the ability to skype—and it turned out he was all those things, although he could also be a bit of a nag when it came to the subject of how Søren spent his Saturday nights.

  “It’s a Saturday night,” the imam said. “You should be out with your friends.”

  It is not Saturday night in my heart, Søren thought but did not say, because the imam tended to get very impatient with Søren when he said this kind of thing. “I don’t really have any friends,” Søren said.

  “What about . . . ,” the imam said, searching for the name of the friend Søren had mentioned before.

  “Tarik,” Søren said.

  “Yes,” the imam said. “Him.”

  “He’s probably out with his friends.”

  “Is there a reason his friends can’t be yours?”

  Søren thought about this. He’d been out with Tarik and his friends on previous Saturday nights. Tarik’s friends were all white Danes—people with whom he and Søren had gone to school, people with whom they worked down at the boatyard, random people from around Skagen, friends of friends. They often gathered at Tarik’s apartment before they went out and did whatever. After work, Tarik would tell him, “Go home, shower, then come to my apartment. It’ll be fun. Don’t be such a mope.” Søren would go home, shower, walk to Tarik’s apartment. And then he would be such a mope. He couldn’t seem to help himself. Every time Søren caught himself having even a little bit of fun, he would think, But I’m a murderer. Whenever one of Tarik’s friends seemed to be looking at him even a little bit funny, Søren would think, I bet you think I killed that cartoonist. And then he would add, And you’re right: I did. “You’re such a mope,” Tarik would say. “What’s your problem?” But Tarik knew his problem.

  “Yes,” Søren said. “There’s a reason.”

  “Is it a good reason?”

  Søren shrugged. He’d never come close to telling his father what he had done, but several times over the past month Søren had come close to telling the imam. The urge is great among those guilty of serious crimes to confess to relative strangers who nevertheless seem, in some obscure way, trustworthy. But Søren never could quite do it. The imam might be affected by the confession, but he hadn’t been directly affected by the thing to which Søren wanted to confess. He would confess to the imam, and still he would feel the need to confess to the cartoonist’s widow. Søren shrugged again. “They just don’t seem like my kind of people,” he said. The imam just stared into the screen, waiting, and so Søren added, “I don’t think they like me very much.”

  “And why is that?” the imam asked. When Søren shrugged again, the imam said, “Sometimes, in order to understand our enemies we must put ourselves in their place; we must try to see ourselves from their point of view.”

  “Is that from the Koran?” Søren asked. The imam had seemed shocked that Søren had never read the Koran, not once in his twenty-two years. So he made Søren buy a copy, suggested he read a page or so a night. Søren had done that. Perhaps it was wrong to say, about reading a holy book, that you were kind of enjoying it, but Søren was kind of enjoying it, although it also had the effect of making much of what the imam said seem like he might be quoting from the Koran.

  The imam smiled. “No, that’s all mine,” he said. And then: “What about your father? What’s he doing tonight?”

  “He went out for a walk.” This was true, although it was also true that Søren had no idea where his father went when we went for his Saturday night walks. After dinner on Saturday, Søren’s father often went out for walks and then didn’t come back until an hour or two later. Søren suspe
cted that his father had a girlfriend, a suspicion that made him feel happy and also made him feel like the loneliest person in the world.

  “Poor Søren,” the imam said. “Everybody is out doing something. Everybody but you.”

  This was the kind of tough love the imam practiced when pushed. He could be kind, and gentle, and patient, but he also liked to mock Søren when those things didn’t seem to be working. Usually Søren just shrugged and took it, because he didn’t want the imam to give up on him. But not tonight. Tomorrow Søren was going to confess to the cartoonist’s widow, and everything was probably going to change then anyway. So why not start changing things tonight? “Not everybody,” Søren said. “It’s a Saturday night for you, too. You’re just as pathetic as I am.”

  The imam blinked once, twice. He smiled sadly at the computer screen. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. He leaned forward, into the screen, reached out his right arm, and then disappeared.

  30

  The next morning, Søren stopped at the gas station near Gammel Skagen, on the way south out of town.

  Gas stations were the worst, in Søren’s opinion. A guy with Søren’s skin color could go into a supermarket in Skagen to buy a loaf of bread without being especially scrutinized. But the minute you tried to buy something potentially explosive or flammable, you were suddenly terrorist material.

  But then again . . .

  Anyway, he went inside to prepay. At the counter, there was an American in front of him. Søren had seen only a few Americans in Skagen—they didn’t seem to ever make it this far north—but he’d seen lots of them on TV. The Americans on TV talked basically like an exaggerated version of the way this woman talked, and both were less refined versions of the way Søren himself had been taught to speak English in school. The woman wore a baseball hat, with a big white letter C against a bright red backdrop.

  “No, I don’t need a PIN,” she was saying to the clerk, who was holding the American’s credit card.

  The clerk just shrugged. His head was somewhat like the American’s hat. His hair and eyebrows were so blond they were almost white, and his face was ruddy. He swiped the card, then swiveled the card reader so that the American could read it. “It says to please enter your PIN, please,” he said in English.

  “But I don’t have that,” the American said. It seemed to Søren like she was trying not to cry. She took off her baseball hat, mussed her black hair, and then put the hat back on. Meanwhile the clerk smiled. The smile seemed genuine; the smiler, imperturbable. Everything about him, his hair, his eyes, his soul, communicated, Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out. “I bet you can just push a button or something so I don’t need one.”

  “You don’t need one what?”

  “A PIN,” the American said. “P-I-N.”

  “Yes,” the agreeable clerk said. “That spells PIN. That is what you need.”

  The American looked down at the machine. She hit four numbers in a hurry, not even seeming to try to guess what might be the right ones, just getting it over with. The machine made known its displeasure. And the American then reached into her purse, pulled out a bunch of kroner, gave the cash to the clerk, and then retreated to her automobile.

  Then it was Søren’s turn. He smiled in comradely fashion at the clerk, who was busy counting the kroner and then putting each bill in with its denominational kin. When he was done, the clerk smiled at Søren until he lifted his head and actually saw Søren. Not that he then stopped smiling. But the smile changed. It was the way that white Danes tended to smile at Søren: with equal parts accusation and apology. He turned the machine in Søren’s direction. Søren swiped his card, entered the PIN. The machine beeped in affirmation. But still, the clerk then asked to see Søren’s credit card, and also his driver’s license, all the while still smiling that smile, which said, I am truly sorry, I recognize you’re a human being, and a Danish citizen, just like me, except that I am a Danish citizen who doesn’t get asked to show my driver’s license when buying gasoline, but then again, I’m not a religious extremist who has used gasoline to blow up or burn up people, places, and things, but then again, you probably haven’t, either, odds are very strong that you’ve also not committed arson or murder, and what a shame it is that I’m even for a moment thinking of you as someone who has committed arson and murder, it’s actually worse than a shame that I’m thinking of you in that way, it’s actually a crime, but not a crime like arson and murder are crimes, I think we can all come to an agreement on that topic, and I think we can also all agree that this is a great, civilized, open-minded country, and that is why you came here, or your parents came here, because it’s such a great, civilized, open-minded country, and I’m sincerely glad, we’re all sincerely glad, that you came here, because just by your mere presence you’re confirming our sense that it is a great, civilized, open-minded country, or at least it was until you people started with your burning and killing and basically making it a little less great, a little less civilized, a little less open minded, but hey, I see from your credit card and driver’s license that your name is Søren, how funny, good for you, here’s your receipt, Søren, have a great day, drive safely, don’t forget that we’ll probably be watching you.

  Or maybe that was just the guilt talking. Søren couldn’t be sure. That was why he had to go confess to the widow. Murder, murder, he reminded himself. Blood, blood.

  Søren took his receipt and exited the building. On the way to his car he passed the American, who was still filling her car, and also talking on her cell phone.

  “You said I didn’t need a PIN,” she was saying. “Well, if it wasn’t you, it was someone like you.” The second time she said “you,” she was looking directly at Søren as he walked by.

  31

  The cartoonist’s widow’s house in Aarhus wasn’t as pretty as the one Søren had burned down in Skagen. It wasn’t even in Aarhus proper, but rather just outside the city; it looked pretty much the same as any place just outside any city in northern Europe. It was a two-story box among other two-story boxes—sleek, metallic, energy efficient, soul deficient, with lots of louvered windows that wouldn’t even open far enough for you to jump out of them, if there happened to be a fire.

  Am I really going to do this? thought Søren, and then he rang the bell before he could think it again. He heard footsteps from within. The door opened. A very pretty woman—white-blond hair, slender, attractive squinty sun lines in the corners of her pale blue eyes—appeared in the doorway. She was wearing workout clothes—black tights that ended just above the ankle, and a tight-fitting bright blue warm-up jacket—although she was also wearing clogs. These were clothes meant to communicate, I’m just hanging out, being myself, being comfortable, but also only a quick change in footwear away from launching into a really strenuous cardiovascular workout. “Hi, hi,” she said, without noticing it was Søren standing there. But when she saw it was Søren, her eyes went wide. Søren recognized the look. It was the look white Danes sometimes had when Danes who were also probably Muslims knocked on their door. But with Ilsa, Søren guessed, even more so.

  “Ilsa?” Søren asked, although he knew it was she. He’d seen a picture of her on the Internet. It was a picture taken by a newspaper, directly after he’d killed her husband. In the picture she looked so sad, so horrified, and she looked that way now, too. What have I done? was what Søren had thought when he’d seen the picture, and he thought it now, also. Nothing had changed: Ilsa was still a widow, Søren a murderer; Ilsa was still sad, Søren was still guilty. Things had to change. This was another reason he had to confess. No matter the consequences, which, honestly, were so overwhelming and awful that Søren hadn’t really allowed himself to consider them. “Ilsa Baedrup?” he said.

  “Oh no,” Ilsa said. She took a step back into the house, and Søren took a step closer.

  “Please forgive me,” Søren said, and he was about to explain for what when Ilsa blurted out, “I don’t know where Jens is! I promise!”

 
“What’s that?” Søren said. But Ilsa had already slammed the door shut. He could hear the lock click and then a bolt thunk into place. “What are you talking about?” Søren said. “Jens is dead.” Ilsa didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to: she’d said enough already, enough to make Søren feel as if he could finally think. For four years it had been as though there’d been a door in Søren’s head constantly banging shut and then opening, making too much noise, letting things in that he wanted out. But now, a bolt thunked into place in his head, too. The cartoonist is not dead, he thought. I did not kill the cartoonist. I did not kill anyone at all. I am not a murderer. That made him so happy, but then he also thought: Four years, four years, I’ve wasted four years thinking I was a murderer. And that made him so angry that suddenly he really did want to kill someone. Søren started banging on the door. “He’s supposed to be dead,” he yelled.

  “I’m calling the police!” Ilsa shouted from inside the house.

  “Your husband is supposed to be dead!” he said, and then he kept banging and shouting, “Supposed to be dead!” loudly enough and for long enough that some of the neighbors started louvering their windows closed, or open, depending on the previous state of their windows and depending on what kind of people they were.

  “You really don’t want to be here when the police come,” a woman’s voice said behind him. She spoke in English. Søren turned and saw it was the American from the gas station in Skagen, the one who couldn’t get her credit card to work. She was still wearing her baseball hat with the letter C on it, but otherwise she looked almost completely different. Not so helpless anymore. She smiled at him, the way people do when they want you to know that they know something that you want to know.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”