The Quiet Girl (51 page)

His face was a mask of perspiration. Gleaming perspiration. "This is blackmail," he said. "Spiritual blackmail."

"That's the best kind," she said.

He made a resigned gesture with his hands.

"Okay," he said.

"Swear. By SheAlmighty."

"That's blasphemy. That's taking God's name in vain."

"Can you afford to be hard to persuade?"

He raised his hand to swear.

At that moment the door was kicked in.

It was Kain.

Kasper was filled with a kind of respect for the man. Granted, the door was not what it had been a minute ago; it was shimmering like a watercolor painting, vibrantly luminous. But it was still made of oak.

The Blue Lady stood in the doorway. Most of her had been transformed into rainbow light. But not all of her. And what was left was anger.

It was a fantastic fury. Kasper realized immediately that he should appreciate the sound. That he would not have a chance to hear it very often.

"KlaraMaria," she said. "Shut that down!"

Kasper had never heard such a tone before. The voice was as authoritative as a true prediction of Judgment Day. It didn't ask for anything. It simply established a new reality.

There was no landing. One moment the shining alembic seemed to be floating thirteen hundred feet above the city, outside time and space, illuminated, transparent, in absolute silence. The next moment reality was reestablished. Everything was just as before. Nothing had happened. And nothing was any longer the same as before.

While it happened, Kasper's head had been empty. Now his psychological nature hit him like a tidal wave that had been restrained. And his first thought was: If only one could be the children's impresario!

Isn't that what we all strive for? That our children will be able to support us, so we can sit with our feet up, let our evening cocktail and joint pleasantly blend, knowing that we've employed people to pay the best possible interest on our savings?

Then the prayer broke though. He realized that if you are driving 250 miles an hour with SheAlmighty and you grab hold of roadside trees to pick fruit, there's a considerable likelihood that your arm will be torn off.

He met the Blue Lady's gaze. Her sound intensified. It was like gazing down into water that's tinkling with jewels.

"This," she said, "we will keep to ourselves. For a while yet."

Kain stood next to her. She put her arm around his waist.

Kasper was even more shocked than before. He let himself be drawn back into the prayer. There is nothing the Divine cannot endure.

"If Christianity is to survive," she said, "a decisive change must take place."

She could have had anyone. She could have had one of the fourteen-year-old boys. Under slightly different circumstances she could perhaps have had him, Kasper Krone,  "Why him?" said Kasper. "Why choose a crippled devil?"

Josef Kain drew himself erect.

"I'm going through an intense process of repentance," he said. "I want to be cleansed. Become a new person. I've spoken to Maria about making a general confession."

"That will take a couple of years," said Kasper. "Talking nonstop twenty-four hours a day."

Kain doubled over, ready to pounce. Kasper waved the tire irons. Gently, invitingly, like Chinese fans.

Somebody touched him; it was Stina. He landed in his own body. She stood behind him. As when he used to remove his makeup. In a past that no longer existed. That could never come again. And that he did not desire. But that nevertheless would look good in the scrapbook.

"When it came right down to it," he said, "I never believed any woman could love me."

Her hands grew warm, almost burning, against his skin.

"I understand completely," she said. "I really wouldn't have thought so either. But against all odds and the laws of nature there's possibly one who does anyway."

He closed his eyes.

The moment had something of the ending of BWV 565 about it, Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor, great fateful pillars of music that stand there briefly before the curtain goes up again.

Yet it leaned slightly toward the romantic. And Kasper knew that the cosmos is not especially romantic. Romance is an extreme position, and all extremes get evened out.

He felt something against his body. It was the child. The quiet girl pressed herself between Stina and him. She smiled at him. A wolf smile.

He bared his fangs and smiled back. He listened into the future. He could hear it only piecemeal, divided up bit by bit.

What he could hear certainly sounded lovely. Certainly like a great gala performance. And certainly very, very difficult.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Quiet Girl is a masterful, inventive novel that marks the triumphal return of one of the great writers of the international literary world. Set in Denmark in the here and now, The Quiet Girl centers around Kasper Krone, a world-renowned
circus clown with a deep love for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and an even deeper gambling debt. Wanted for tax evasion and on the verge of extradition, Krone is drafted into the service of a mysterious order of nuns who promise him reprieve from the international authorities in return for his help safeguarding a group of children with mystical abilities--abilities that Krone shares. When one of the children goes missing, Krone sets off to find the young girl and bring her back, making a series of shocking discoveries along the way about her identity and the true intentions of his young wards.

The result is a fast-paced philosophical thriller that blends social realism with the literary fantastic while pitting art and spirituality against corporate interests and nothing less than the will to war of the industrialized world.

Peter Høeg is the author of the international bestselling novel Smilla's Sense of Snow. Born in 1957 in Denmark, he followed various callings--dancer,1 actor, sailor, fencer, and mountaineer--before turning seriously to writing. His work has been published in thirty-three countries. The Quiet Girl is his fifth novel.

Jacket design and photographs by Kwasi Osei
Author photograph by Ulla Montan
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
www.fsgbooks.com