Thirteen, Fourteen... Little Boy Unseen (3 page)

Then, I froze.

“Hi, Rebekka.”

It was David. David Busck.

6

“
W
HAT ARE
you doing here?” I asked, and hugged David tightly. I hadn’t seen him since that day we got out of the limestone mine two and a half months ago. He had left the hospital before me and never said goodbye.

“I…I was in the neighborhood,” David said, and looked at William. Loud arguing voices still came from the living room. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, no, come one in,” I said, and pulled his arm.

“I could come again another time. I’m in town for a few days,” he said, but I pulled him inside and closed the door.

“No way. You’re staying for dinner,” I said. “Sune! David is here, come say hello.”

“David?” Sune came into the hallway. Then he smiled. It came off a little awkward, but I didn’t think David noticed. I wondered why he was acting that way. They shook hands. “Hey…man…what are you doing here?”

“I was in town and thought I’d stop by to see how you were doing,” he said, looking at me. Then he shrugged. “Anyway, you all seem to be well. I didn’t mean to interrupt…”

“Nonsense,” I interrupted him. “Stay for dinner.”

It might not have been the best of decisions, but I just wanted to be friendly. David had been my friend and closest ally in the caves underground. I cared deeply for him and had long wondered how he was doing. But, I hadn’t considered Sune’s feelings in all this.

David sat in the kitchen while I cooked. I served him a glass of wine, while Sune stood in the doorway, looking like he couldn’t decide whether to come in or stay out.

“So, how have you been?” I asked. “Why didn’t you say goodbye at the hospital?”

I put the wine in front of David and he tasted it. “Well, I didn’t want to disturb you,” he said. “You were with your family.”

“Still, you should have said goodbye,” I said with a frown. “I’ve wondered for months what happened to you and where you went.”

David chuckled. “It’s nice to know,” he said. “But, to be frank, it’s been quite a journey. After I left the hospital, I went to Copenhagen, where I lived with a friend for awhile, trying to avoid the press.”

“I know,” I said. “The first weeks were brutal. They were constantly calling with the phone constantly ringing and the press even showing up on my doorstep. It’s ironic to suddenly be on the other side of the microphone, huh? Well, you’ve tried it before, but it’s a first for me.”

“Can you believe those people who made deals with them?” David said.

“No! Lars Dalgas, the librarian! Who would have thought that he would end up a reality star?” I laughed.

David chuckled as well, and we went quiet for a little while, both thinking about Lars and the others trapped in the mines. The silence made Sune uncomfortable.

“So, what about that Lars?” he asked. “Why is it so funny that he is a reality star now?”

I shook my head and looked at David. Our eyes locked for a second. I turned my head. “It’s not that funny. It’s just that…well…” I shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe it’s not that funny after all.”

I returned to peeling the potatoes in the sink. I felt bad for Sune. I could tell he felt left out, but I really didn’t know how to explain Lars to him. I really didn’t want to. A lot of things had happened down there that brought out the worst in people. It was better to be forgotten.

“No, I really want to know,” Sune said with a slightly shrill voice. “Tell me everything about this Lars Dalgas.”

I looked at David. “There really isn’t much to tell…”

“Oh, then I must have gotten it all wrong then, ‘cause a minute ago, it seemed like there was plenty to tell,” Sune said.

David looked uncomfortable. He got up. “You know what? Thanks for the dinner invitation, but I need to take a rain check. I have stuff to do. I’ll see you around, okay?” He shook Sune’s hand, and then hugged me.

“But…” I tried.

“It’s okay, Rebekka. I didn’t mean to interrupt like this,” he said, and almost ran out the door.

I was baffled.

Sune chuckled. “That was strange, huh?” he said with a laugh.

I stared at Sune. “What the hell was that?” I asked.

He looked like he didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

“Why did you, all of a sudden, act like this jealous boyfriend?”

“What do you mean?”

I rolled my eyes and returned to my potatoes. I felt sad that David had left so quickly. I really wanted to know how he had been. I had really missed him.

“Okay, so what if I got a little jealous, so what?” Sune said. I could tell by the sound of his voice that he wanted to fight.

“I really don’t want to…” I said.

“I think you should. I think we need to talk about this,” he said.

I turned and looked at him. His cheeks were red and his eyes wild. I didn’t like him when he acted like this.

“Don’t start…”

“Oh, I’ll start whatever I need to,” he said.

William started fussing in his high chair, where he was eating carrots and a banana.

“Let’s begin with you explaining to me why you’ve been wondering about this guy for months?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You just said it yourself. You told him you had been wondering about him for months. Those were your words, not mine.”

I exhaled. “I wondered about what had happened to him. Is that so strange? I care about people.”

“So, now you care about him, do you?” Sune asked.

“Yes. Yes. I care about David. Is that so wrong? I mean, we went through a lot of stuff together in those caves; it’s not something you simply forget after a few days. I’m never going to forget him or what happened to us.”

Sune looked like I had offended him. “You’ll never forget him? What does that mean? Did anything happen between you two down there? Why were you hugging him when we came down to rescue you?”

“What?” I grabbed William and got him out of his chair. He stumbled across the room.

“You two were standing awfully close when I entered that cave. In each other’s arms even. I could tell something was going on between the two of you. I just knew it. I could tell by the way you looked at him. Don’t you think I know you?” Sune was almost spitting when he spoke. I had never seen him like this.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“How can you not know what I mean?? I walked in there, ready to rescue you, and then I found you…I find you in the arms of this…this…guy.”

“Oh, my goodness. This has bothered you ever since, hasn’t it? I can’t even remember it.”

“You don’t remember that you were in his arms when I found you? You expect me to believe that?” Sune said.

I shook my head. “I…I really don’t remember. I was starved and dehydrated. There’s a lot from down there I don’t remember.”

Sune gritted his teeth.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I don’t. There you have it. I can’t stand the fact that you don’t talk about what happened down there with…with him. Why won’t you tell me about it?”

“Mostly because I only remember bits and pieces, but also because I really, really want to forget. I want to move on with my life. My life with you,” I said, feeling tears pile up.

Sune bit his lip and shook his head. Julie and Tobias had started fighting again in the living room.

“I don’t believe you. I think you want to remember. You wanted to when David stepped in the door, didn’t you? You wanted to talk about old times and know
everything
,” he said, making a mocking voice.

Julie started screaming again. I wiped my hands on a towel. “You know what? Believe what you want. I don’t have time for this,” I said, and walked into yet another war zone.

7

P
ASTOR
K
LARA
K
EMP
was sitting in her office in the vicarage that belonged to Karrebaeksminde Church. She was working on her sermon for next Sunday, and thought with joy about last Sunday’s speech. She had talked about gays and how homosexuality didn’t belong in the church and how it was an abomination, according to the Bible. She had long watched where the country was going on this, and now that the church accepted
those kinds
of people getting married within the church walls, she knew it was time for her to speak up.

Pastor Kemp was old and knew she didn’t have many years left before she had to resign. And she was determined to fight for the truth till the end. They’d have to carry her out of her church. She wasn’t going to let anyone of
that kind
get married in her church. And she would let her congregation know how she felt about it. There was no doubt in her mind that she would never approve this.

When the head bishop had told her the church was ready to change its views on homosexuals and let them get married, she hadn’t believed her own ears. She knew it was being debated. She knew there were forces of evil out there trying to change things, but she had never thought they would succeed.

“Never,” she had replied when he told her this applied to her as well, that if a couple came to her and wanted her blessing and to be married in her church, she would have to do it.

“It says very clearly in Leviticus,” she had continued. “
You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination
.”

The Head Bishop had told her that this was the way it was going to be, no matter what she said. There was no way out of it. She had an obligation to do as she was told.

“Never,” she now whispered into the small office in her vicarage, where she had lived for the past fifty years.

No, Pastor Kemp didn’t like the way the church was going or how the devil had been allowed to darken everyone’s mind and poison them with all this, making them believe they were just being open-minded and embracing the new.

“We shouldn’t exclude anyone from the church,” one of her colleagues had said a few years ago at a conference. “If God is love and two people love one another, who are we to judge? How can we tell them their love is not real? Isn’t it between them and God? After all, we can’t discriminate in the church. We’re supposed to bring a message of love to the people.”

Pastor Kemp had referred to the Bible and told him all homosexuals were sinners, and if they gave them their blessing, that would make them sinners as well. “You’ll rot in hell,” she told him, pointing at him with her cane. “All of you will. Mark my words.”

But would they listen? Of course not. This entire country was going to burn in hell. She told them over and over again, whenever the newspapers came to her for a comment. They thought she was raving mad, but that didn’t stop her. No one could. Not even her Head Bishop, who kept telling her that they would retire her. She didn’t care.

So, last Sunday, Pastor Kemp had spoken to her congregation about it once again.

“There’s a movement within the church that wants us to embrace homosexuals and bless them in our Lord’s name. But, I tell you, they’ll all rot in hell. It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” she had said, quoting one of the worst movies she had ever seen. Her own daughter, Camilla, had made her watch it many years ago, to make her understand her choice of lifestyle and how she was going to die. Pastor Kemp had watched
Philadelphia
over and over again after she put her daughter in the ground, after watching her wither away due to the gay-plague, due to her choices in life that ended up killing her. Just like her mother had told her they would. No, this atrocity had to be kept down. The opinions on this subject in the population were getting worse; people were accepting homosexuality and talking about it like it was the most normal thing in the world. With the result that more and more people were deceived into this…this lie…this
disease
from the pit of hell.

Pastor Kemp still remembered the day her daughter came to her and told her she was one of them. Told her she had a girlfriend. That she wanted to live her life in the worst sin possible. She had asked her to understand, asked her mother to bless them and what they called their relationship. She had asked her to open up her mind and told her this was the hardest thing she’d ever had to tell her mother, and that she had been terrified for years to let her know, because she knew how she felt about homosexuals.

Pastor Kemp hadn’t cried that summer day in 1995. Not even when she told her to get out and never come back. Not when she looked into her daughter’s eyes and told her she wasn’t her daughter anymore. Not when her daughter cried and begged for her mother’s acceptance.

But she did cry three years later, when Camilla came one day to the house holding a VHS-tape with the movie in her hand. Her face was pale and her body wasting away.

“I don’t know how else to explain all this to you, Mom. But I hope this will,” were the final words she ever said to her mother. Pastor Kemp watched the movie and that was when the tears started rolling across her cheeks. Three weeks later, Pastor Kemp received a call from the hospital in Copenhagen, telling her that her daughter was very sick and that it was time to say goodbye. Camilla hadn’t been conscious and never knew that her mother sat beside her deathbed for three nights straight, crying and cursing the devil and all his lies. Knowing her daughter had lived her life in sin, that the devil had ruined her life and taken her with him to a place where she was burning up for eternity, was the worst part about this whole damn thing.

She knew then that fighting this disease would be the thorn in her side. Just like Paul’s, she knew God would never take it away, and even if she asked him to remove it from her on a daily basis, she would have to struggle with it till the day she died.

Pastor Kemp hadn’t yet finished writing next week’s sermon when the doorbell interrupted her. She sighed and put down the pen. She looked at the old clock on the wall.

“Now, who would ring my doorbell at this hour?” she grumbled, annoyed. She was on a roll here, and really wanted to finish tonight. Who on earth would come to someone’s house this late? Had people no manners anymore?