The American Girl Page 2

  ____________

  BARON VON B. LIKED TO PLAY POKER. HE WAS NOT ALWAYS lucky, but he took the defeat like a man is supposed to. That is to say, he paid out without making a face.

  In the beginning there was the District. The Second Cape and the First Cape and the great woods and something else too. In the beginning was the war, and the war, it was lost.

  Certain areas caught the eye of the victorious nation, the great land in the east, areas that were highly desirable for future military exploits and just in general, and the country could keep its independence regardless.

  One area was handed over to the victorious nation, for a time. The District was located in just that area. Consequently, the people were evacuated and everyone was forced to move, and later during the years that followed it was as though the area was closed off from the outside world.

  It was during these tumultuous years that Baron von B., who happened to own almost all of the Second Cape and a significant portion of the woods and so on, sat down at the poker table. And played. And lost. And played. And lost.

  Against the cousin’s papa and the Dancer. They won everything.

  The whole of the Second Cape, a significant portion of the woods, and so on.

  And some years later when the occupied area was returned it was not the baron but the cousin’s papa and the Dancer and his wife with their three children who came to the District. And settled there. Like a real clan.

  And that is what they were in the beginning. But shortly thereafter the Dancer and his wife were killed in a car accident and the three children became orphans.

  The three children: that was Bengt and the twins, Rita and Solveig.

  I.

  BENGT AND THE AMERICAN GIRL

  (Bengt’s story)

  ____________

  BENGT AND THE BUILDINGS, 1969. AS A CHILD BENGT WAS fascinated by the buildings on the Second Cape. They were built on land the cousin’s papa had sold for large sums of money. The Second Cape was a peninsula jutting out into the sea, one of the most beautiful places in the District. The area was divided into individual parcels of land on which houses were built, modern vacation homes for an exhibition of country living, one of the first public displays of its kind organized in the country. When the exhibition was launched one summer at the end of the sixties, the houses were sold one after the other, for the most part as vacation homes for people with money, the houses were not exactly cheap, and often to people without any ties to the District.

  They were unique houses, utopian houses. Houses built in a bold, new architectural style. And Bencku, he knew about architecture, he knew those houses. He had studied their blueprints and discussed them with the architects, he had hung around the buildings while they were being built. So he was obsessed with them long before they were finished.

  He also saw himself as being the expert on them; he knew more about them than their future owners, more than the architects who had drawn them. Because he was the one who was from the District, the only one who knew the houses in that environment.

  And the surroundings, the District, it was his world: the Second Cape, the First Cape, the four marshes, and the long, deep woods that ended by the marshes in the east—there where the house in the darker part gradually came to be built.

  And the entire District existed in Bencku’s head in a truly unique way. That is what he drew on his maps. He would devote himself to these maps during the remainder of his youth.

  Bencku and the maps. They were not exactly a secret. He spoke about them, in any case, with the people he knew well. But there were not many who got to see them, almost no one, so many thought it was just talk. That it was just Bencku who wanted to seem self-important, as usual.

  But they existed. They existed in reality. Little by little Bencku drew in almost all of the houses, all of the places, everywhere in the District. But in his own way. He used pictures, codes, and his own names. Names that were a mixture of the traditional names in the District and all of the words he had made up or looked up in books. Kapu kai, for example, it means secret ocean in acronesian.

  The names also served another purpose for Bengt. It is like this: he thought that regardless of who was going to come live and own the houses on the Second Cape, the houses were, by virtue of him being the one who had named them, his. Just like everything was his.

  Bencku himself. He was thirteen years old then, tall, and looked considerably older. A surly and taciturn fellow, who kept to himself for the most part; except sometimes, when he was among people he knew, it could happen that impassioned, he opened up and held lengthy expositions about this and that and it seemed as though he was the only one who was interested. Architecture and crime, monochronics within landscape architecture, that sort of thing.

  “Bencku is bananas,” his sister Solveig would often say to her twin Rita when it was just the two of them in the red cottage.

  “He has a screw loose,” Rita would second. It was a time, at the beginning of time, once long ago, when the sisters had always been in agreement.

  Rita, Solveig, Bengt: the three siblings did not have very much in common, though they were all tall. And that there was not much of anything else was something Rita and Solveig were really very careful about pointing out.

  And all three of them were “cousins” in the cousin’s house. They had been taken in by the cousin’s papa and the cousin’s mama, whom the cousin’s papa had married when his brother and his brother’s wife had been killed in a tragic car accident when the three siblings were little. The cousin’s mama had a son of her own when she came to the house, he was Björn. And the cousin’s mama, she was Superintendent Loman’s daughter, and basically someone who stood with both feet firmly on the ground in all kinds of weather.

  Cousin Björn shared a room with Bengt on the second floor of the cousin’s house. Björn was eighteen years old, worked in the woods and might go to school to become an agronomist. For the most part he hung out in the barn on the cousin’s property, tinkered with his moped or with junk which there was a great deal of in the cousin’s papa’s extensive collection. Bengt was often there with him; Bengt and Björn, they stuck together.

  They were best friends despite the fact that Björn was five years older. And in some way they were a lot alike, for example both of them were rather quiet. Björn’s silence was less noticeable than Bengt’s, it was like Bengt was a bit more prickly. Björn was well liked and friendly, and easy to get along with.

  Björn and Bengt: together they made an amusing, odd couple. People would sometimes say the collected silence. Bengt, thirteen years old, and half a head taller than Björn, the older, thoughtful one. The cousin’s mama used to say “the apples of my eyes” about both boys.

  . . .

  So that is the way it was before Eddie came, before Bencku met Eddie and everything changed. And once everything started changing, everything happened very quickly. In less than one year everything that had been would be destroyed.

  Eddie from the boathouse on the Second Cape, Eddie with the guitar and the thin, flat voice, but it did not matter. Eddie who spoke with a strange accent and with phrases that were sometimes very bizarre, but that still, and maybe just because they were so strange, made an impact on you.

  “I’m a strange bird, Bengt,” she said. “Are you too?”

  Eddie, the American girl.

  Eddie most beloved, but in the mire.

  Eddie most beloved but gradually in the mire.

  Private property. When the houses on the Second Cape had been sold, Bencku no longer had any right to them. The new owners moved in and took over the entirety of the Second Cape, made it theirs. In their eyes Bengt was an odd one, an intruder who walked on other people’s property without permission.

  You could see him between the stylish buildings on the stretches of woodland, in the yards and in the gardens at all hours of the day. Or on their beaches and on the jetties that were sticking out like tongues between the cliffs. It seemed like he w
as everywhere, and always in his own way. And there was no one who could stop him.

  “Aren’t you going to go home and play in your own yard?” someone might yell.

  “The public beach is in the other direction. EVERYONE is allowed to be there.”

  “Doesn’t your mother get worried when you’re gone so long?”

  Bencku did not answer, barely took any notice of them. And it was not outright frightening but certainly rather annoying. But among themselves the adults on the Second Cape did not speak out much about this nuisance. Despite everything, Bencku was just a boy, and a child.

  Little by little signs with PRIVATE PROPERTY or NO TRESPASSING started popping up. Some properties were enclosed by fences that were painted a brilliant yellow or red in order to soften the impression of exclusion. Someone got a dog—of course not any gigantic beasts of the kind that would populate the District fifty years later, but rather those small and hot-tempered ones who barked incessantly and understood the most important assignment of all: to differentiate between those who were family and those who were not.

  But it did not help a bit. Bencku was where he wanted to be regardless, furtive, quiet, and obstinate. And he was not exactly invisible, he was so tall after all. Walked a bit stooped over, with his head leaning to one side, and his light hair hung a bit loosely over his eyes, which were prickly and peering.

  Sometimes it happened that he stayed away, sometimes even for several days. But sooner or later he was always back, and that was almost the most annoying thing of all. Just when you thought you had gotten rid of him he was there again. Almost in the middle of your garden, if he felt like it.

  That is the way it went for several weeks before the children from the Second Cape got their hands on him.

  Sea urchins. They would gradually grow into sea urchins: become sunburned, superior teenagers who would hang out only with each other. But they were still just children, a touch more brazen and maybe a bit more spoiled than others, but not in any noticeable way. They were the way most kids are, that is to say, in the middle of their own games. They were a group of seven–eight kids who hung out together and just this summer they had decided that they were the Lilliputs. The Lilliputs in their own carefully demarcated Lilliput Country, a country that by chance just happened to be the entirety of the Second Cape, neither more nor less.

  And, of course, the Lilliputs were on the prowl for their Gulliver to torment to death. A giant was trespassing on their property. And it was as easy as anything to find him; they had actually had him under supervision quite a long time before they struck. And Bencku, he did not suspect a thing. He was so deep in his thoughts as he always was when he wandered around on the Second Cape, defiantly moody but with an endless self-assuredness. And when the attack finally took place in the thicket between the Glass House and the Red Tower he was, in other words, taken unawares. Bencku was easy pickings, maybe all too easy.

  In just a few seconds the children had surrounded him and pushed him up against a tree trunk.

  “Don’t come don’t come don’t come don’t come near me!” he had stood there and yelled, flapping his arms as if the much shorter children had been insects he should have been able to ward off. But it was his voice that betrayed him. It was filled with terror, thick with a real, unbridled fear, and the panic shone from his eyes, which had been filled with deceit only moments before. And in a strange way it was inciting, downright fascinating, and all of it increased the hot temperament that prevailed among the Lilliputs, who had been planning this for a long time.

  It was early on a Saturday evening at the start of the summer vacation, clear skies and just the right temperature. At a distance, not so very far away, the adults were on the cliffs of the Second Cape, on their properties, and in their gardens. Calls and voices spread through the air; somewhere badminton was being played, croquet balls were being hit against fragile metal hoops somewhere else. A clink could be heard when the balls hit the hoops, there was in other words almost no wind, voices could certainly be heard. For those who wanted to hear them. It was obvious then that this time the children would get to play their game in peace and quiet.

  “Now we have you, Gull,” the smallest boy hissed, a stocky boy with yellow-green eyes and a sharp look, almost as sharp as Bengt’s could be but in other situations. It was Magnus von B., who years later would be like grease on bacon with the object of torture he now had in front of him. But for the time being he was the General of the Lilliputs with only one thing in mind.

  “Now we’re going to teach you a lesson. Gull is going to learn to stay away from here. To stay away once and for all.”

  It was a girl who attacked him first, with her nails. She also had soft-drink bottle caps around her fingertips, and she attacked him with these sharp tips, scratching him. His shirt was torn open, the buttons scattered, and the metal made deep gashes in his skin, the pain whistled through Bencku’s head and there was blood. Bencku screamed and screamed, even though he probably understood no one was going to come to his rescue. They could kill him if they wanted to: there was no one on the Second Cape, no one in the entire world who would stop them from doing so.

  No one can stop us, when we start our game. The playful children became even more excited by the blood and their own audacity and that Bengt so openly showed he was afraid. He who was so much bigger than them, and they also had something of their parents’ irritation inside. “Do you want that kind of person sneaking around on your property?” Now you’ll see! Here we come!

  “Now we’re going to tie you up and leave you here in secret to be humiliated and to think about your trespassing,” said the boy. “And when we’ve come up with a suitable punishment for you we’ll be back. A Peeping Tom like you should be punished so that he never again sets foot on our land.”

  “If you survive, that is,” the girl added, the one with the nails and the blood. “Don’t be so sure.”

  “And now we’re going to cover your mouth. No screaming here. Just go jump in the sea, Gull, you won’t find any help here.”

  And he was pushed over on the ground on his stomach, someone sat on his back and he felt how his face was being pressed against the ground; someone else wound tape around his wrists and legs. Wide, sharp-edged insulation tape that cut into the skin and it burned if he made even the slightest movement. His head was pulled up by the hair at the nape of his neck, some cloth, a handkerchief or something similar, was stuffed in his mouth, and then someone was there with the tape as well, his lips were going to be taped shut.

  “Now Gull is a mummy.”

  It was madness. They were going to kill him, and they could kill him if they got it into their heads to do so. But at the same time, that and everything else, it was already slipping away. Far, far away. Because it was futile. He was no match for them. He was at their mercy now, they could do what they wanted with him. And because of that, he drifted away.

  Like in a dream. And it was there, somewhere in that dream landscape, he suddenly heard someone calling for him. And it was her. Eddie de Wire. The American girl.

  That is when she was there. She came running through the woods, small and thin in light pants and a light blue woolen sweater, with her half-long light hair flying around her head. She came from the Glass House, and with her jumps and her calls it was like she cut through the indifference that otherwise ruled in the presence of what was going on. And the kids became scared and surprised and scattered in all directions, like rats.

  And suddenly, for just a brief moment, there was life and movement in other places on the Second Cape again. An adult could be heard calling: “What’s happened? Has the boy fallen and hurt himself? Is it bad?”

  Later, when Bengt went over everything in his head, and he would really go over it, again and again, he would of course be convinced of the impossible: that he had seen her coming to his rescue. He had been lying there with his face drilled into the hard ground. But it was a feeling, a dream that slowly became reality.


  Later, when she was actually there and had turned him over on his back and started tearing the tape away from his mouth, it was very real then, their first meeting, a reality.

  “Can you walk? Lean on me. Here. Take my hand. I have a knife at home, the tape is too tight.”

  And Eddie and Bengt, they had walked on the path farther in toward the Second Cape, the one that led down to the Glass House where the baroness lived. To begin with he had leaned against her and she had taken off her woolen sweater and laid it over his shoulders so that it covered his back, and then she walked close, close behind him so that his wrists, which were still taped together, could not be seen. But suddenly, again, it was completely empty: the Second Cape was a completely deserted place. All sounds of play and games and summer activity were gone, just like all the adults, all the children.

  “Careful. Can you make it? Does it hurt a lot?”

  Bencku had mumbled something that might have been a yes, but it is not certain. Because the pain, yes, it was there, just like the shock and the blood and all the rest of it, the indignation and the humiliation. But at the same time, that had also suddenly faded into the background, he almost did not feel it at all. The only thing that was really there was resentment and shame, pounding inside him: why, WHY, did he have to meet her like this?

  Because he knew instantly, as soon as she came, as soon as he had seen her running toward him—which he had not seen, but still—that this was something he had been waiting for, something tremendous.

  “I’m Eddie. And you are?”

  . . .

  She lived in the boathouse below the Glass House on the Second Cape. The Glass House, one of the most beautiful houses on the whole of the Second Cape; it was situated on a hill and all of the walls on the side facing the sea were filled with floor-to-ceiling windows. When the light fell on the glass panes it was reflected in the water and a game of color and movement arose, which was especially intense in the fall when the wind blew hard.