The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [82]
“Shhhh!” hissed Jolita. “You’ll wake him.”
“A complete stranger wants to give you money to tell him where I am. He looks like a gorilla. What the hell were you thinking? Don’t you realize that he has taken Mikas?”
“That’s hardly my fault!”
“You made it easy.” Sigita’s voice was shaking. “You sold me. Without even warning me. And then they took Mikas!”
Mrs. Orlovienė sat with her mouth open, on the point of dropping her coffee cup. At that moment, the door flew back on its hinges. In the doorway stood a young man, dressed only in black boxers and a foul temper. His hair had been dyed blue and stuck out in odd directions, still coated with several layers of gummy styling gel.
“Stop that fucking racket,” he snarled. The two older women were instantly silenced. Mrs. Orlovienė slid a little lower in her chair, as if being smaller would help. Jolita stood her ground, but her hands had begun the nervous rubbing movement Sigita knew so well. The young man transferred his furious glare to Sigita.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked.
“This is my niece,” said Jolita. “She came for a visit. But she’s leaving now.”
“I fucking hope so,” said the bartender. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”
He withdrew, slamming the door as he went. A few seconds later, the living room door was slammed with even greater force. The walls trembled slightly.
Sigita bent to retrieve the envelope. It contained eight five-hundred-litu bills and a few lesser bills Sigita couldn’t be bothered to count.
“Four thousand litu,” she said. “Was that the price?”
“No,” said Mrs. Orlovienė. “At first he only wanted to pay three thousand, but in the end he agreed to five.”
Jolita made a violent shushing gesture in Mrs. Orlovienė’s direction.
“I don’t quite see the reason for all this high-minded outrage,” she told Sigita. “If some idiot is willing to pay five thousand litu for something you can look up in the phone book, why should I turn down good money?”
“He didn’t know my last name till you told him” said Sigita, fishing three thousand litu from the envelope.
“What are you doing?”
“This is your contribution,” answered Sigita. “I need it in order to get Mikas back.” She let the envelope with the rest of the money fall to the floor. Mrs. Orlovienė was the one who snatched it up, ferret quick. Jolita remained where she was, staring at Sigita. Then she shook her head.
“You feel so put-upon, don’t you?” she said. “Poor little Sigita who has had such a hard life. But did you ever pause to think what it’s been like for your mother? You taking off like that, not even leaving a note? She lost a daughter. Did you ever think about that?”
The accusation hit Sigita like a hardball to the stomach.
“She knew where I was,” said Sigita. “The entire time. They were the ones who turned their backs on me, not the other way around.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“What do you mean?”
“You sit there in your fancy apartment, waiting for them to come to you, isn’t that right? But you were the one who ran away. Perhaps you should be the one to make the first move if you want to come home again.”
Not now, thought Sigita. I can’t deal with this now. She glanced at her watch. Her plane would be leaving in two hours.
“Goodbye,” she said. And stood there, waiting, even though she wasn’t sure what she was waiting for.
Jolita sighed.
“Take the damn money,” she said. “I hope you get your little boy back.”
JESU HJERTE KIRKE, it was called in Danish. The Church of the Sacred Heart lay in Stenogade, squeezed in between a fashion shop and a private school.
Nina had asked an elderly lady in the Istedgade cornershop where she had bought fresh rolls for herself and the boy. They had struggled a bit over the translation; Nina had guessed herself that it might be Catholic, and the old lady’s local knowledge did the rest.
Afterwards, Nina had called Magnus from a small, seedy bar on Halmtorvet. The bartender at The Grotto had let her use both phone and bathroom at no charge, but her conversation with her boss had been brief and unsatisfying.
“Fan i helvete,