“I guess you’re right. But there was someone who was murdered down the street from here. An old lady. Two years ago. Right on this street, Jonas.”
Jonas sighed, and then looked at her with compassion. She hated that look. It always made her feel like a young child.
“Yes, there was that old story. We talked about it, but the killer was found, remember?”
“It was a police officer, Jonas.”
“I know. But he’s gone now, right? So, no more worries.”
“There has been other stuff the last two years…a lot, actually. I read about it the other day.”
Jonas leaned over and kissed her lips. “You read too much,” he whispered. “Now, let’s get to bed. I want to have sex with my wife on the first night in our new house, no matter who is looking at us from outside those windows. Let them look. Who cares?”
Maria chuckled and pushed him lovingly on the shoulder. “Oh, you…” she said. “You never take me seriously, do you?”
“Nah. Not really.”
He grabbed her hand, and pulled her up from the floor. He held her in his arms. She could feel how strong he was. She loved that about him. He was a real man. Big hands and long arms to wrap around her. He had been working all day on moving boxes and furniture, and not once did he complain that he was tired. He even had the energy to make love to her…even after a day like this.
Maria had grown up alone with her mother, since her dad left when she was just a young child. During her entire childhood, her mother had been constantly afraid…almost paralyzed by fear at times. She’d had her entire life destroyed by this fear…the fear of almost everything she could come up with, it seemed at times. Some days, it could be a fear of burglars entering the house, on others it was the fear of being attacked by some random stranger in the street or of eating something that would make her sick, of germs entering her body and killing her. It could be almost anything. But especially hard for Maria was her fear of something bad happening to her. It made Maria’s teenage years lonely and devastating…never being able to do what the other kids were allowed to. It became so bad in the end that her mother refused to go outside. The doctor called it a Social Anxiety Disorder and Agoraphobia, the anxiety of open spaces. But even worse, she forbade Maria to go outside as well, except to go to school or to grocery shop, since she didn’t dare to do that on her own. That was when Maria decided she would rather die than end up like her mother.
But it was easier said than done. Every day of Maria’s grown-up life she was fighting her own anxiety and, luckily for her, Jonas helped her tremendously. Especially after her mother killed herself two years ago. Jonas had been there, and he had promised he would take care of Maria. He told her she didn’t have to be afraid of anything anymore.
Her unease went away as he pulled her towards the bed and undressed her. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the moment. She was so happy she had him. He and his strong arms made her feel so secure. She felt like nothing in this world could ever touch her, could ever touch them.
For the first time in her life, she felt perfectly safe.
3
July 2014
JESPER MELANDER LOOKED at the couple having sex in their new home for the first time through the big window leading to the bedroom. He had the best view and enjoyed every moment of it. He knew they wouldn’t pull the curtains, because the people from the curtain company weren’t coming until the next day to put them up.
He watched as the husband climbed on top of his wife and entered her. He licked his lips and kept watching this delicious scene until the couple were done and fell to the bed moaning and breathing hard. It made Jesper Melander even more excited.
“There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,” Jesper Melander murmured to himself with a giggle, trying to sound like Dorothy in the old classic movie. He tapped his shoes together three times while repeating the sentence.
Jesper Melander loved the innocence of these people inside their new home. He loved their sense of security…the feeling of being home where it is safe and you feel so untouchable. That was what he dreamt of destroying.
He tilted his head as the lights went out in the bedroom and everything went quiet. Jesper Melander felt the knife in his hand and closed his eyes for just a second, taking in the fresh salty air mixed with the wonderful smells of the anticipation of a kill.
Jesper Melander opened his eyes and looked at the sleeping house.
“What a be-ea-u-ti-ful home. I’m never ever leaving again, Auntie Em,” Jesper Melander laughed. “Oh, you’ll never ever leave this house again.”
Jesper Melander walked up to a window in the back leading to the basement. It was slightly ajar. They hadn’t been into the basement yet. Of course they hadn’t. They had just moved in. They hadn’t had the time to check all doors and windows yet. In a new house, you never know where they all are or how many there are, do you? No, you don’t.
Jesper Melander slid inside and ended up in an empty room in the basement. Quietly, Jesper Melander found the stairs leading up.
“Just follow the yellow brick road!” Jesper Melander started chanting and dancing up the stairs. “Follow, follow, follow…Follow the yellow brick road.”
Jesper Melander opened the door and walked inside the kitchen. With quick and very determined steps, he walked straight towards the bedroom. The door was open. Jesper Melander stopped by the bed and looked at the happy couple in their sleep. The husband was snoring heavily.
“Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!” Jesper Melander giggled.
Jesper Melander walked to the husband’s side and sat on the edge of the bed. Then, he stroked the man gently on the cheek till he opened his eyes, blinking and trying to see in the darkness.
“W…What? …Maria?”
“No. Not Maria,” Jesper Melander whispered. “But I bet you wish I was.”
“What the…?”
Jesper Melander lifted the knife into the air and plunged it deep into the husband’s chest. Between the ribs. Straight to the heart.
A scream startled him. It came from the wife. She had woken up. Good. Jesper Melander pulled the knife out of the man’s chest and blood spurted up from the wound. Jesper Melander then stabbed the husband again, pulled out the knife and stabbed him again, every time pushing the blade in deeper. The body of the husband stiffened in a spasm. Guttural and gurgling sounds escaped his throat, his last effort to try and catch a breath. The woman wouldn’t stop screaming in fear. Her eyes were terror ridden. Jesper Melander fed off of her anxiety. The woman was screaming her lungs out now. It was like the most beautiful music to Jesper Melander. So soothing. So refreshing to the soul.
“What have you done?!!” the woman screamed. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Jonas! JONAAAS!!”
Jesper Melander took a photographic memory picture of her frozen and wide-eyed state. All the feeling of safety and security she had felt just before going to sleep had been sucked right out of her in a matter of seconds. Her eyes darted back and forth between Jonas and Jesper Melander. Jesper Melander was amused by the display. He tilted his head and giggled. The woman’s eyes searched for a way out, and she tried to run for it, but Jesper Melander grabbed her and held her back.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she whimpered, her lips quivering in despair. “Please, let me go.”
Jesper Melander lowered the blade and sliced it into her. The smell of blood was deep in his nostrils. Her begging eyes were pleading to be spared. But it was too late. She fell to the ground in a pool of blood. Jesper Melander giggled again.
“Guess we’re not in Kansas anymore. We must be over the rainbow!”
4
July 2014
IT WAS ONE of those rare quiet mornings. The kids were still on their summer break, and Victor had decided to sleep in, for once.
This is a first, I thought as I walked downstairs and he wasn’t there. Usually, he was the first one up, sitting in the kitchen, waiting for his breakfast. I was even late. I
had slept till eight-thirty and was certain he would be very anxious…almost on the verge of annoyed that I wasn’t there yet.
But, he wasn’t. He hadn’t even gotten up yet, I realized, when I went back upstairs and checked his room. Victor was still asleep. A very rare and delightful sight.
It had been a tough summer on all of us. Maya had moved back home, but was still suffering from amnesia after some lunatic doctor had drugged her as a part of an experiment. I had hoped she would have regained more of her memory by now, but it was still almost the same as when I brought her home before the summer started. Every day, I showed her pictures of her childhood, and every day, she told me she still didn’t remember. There were days when I could tell she tried to please me and told me she remembered some of it, but I knew she was lying.
It was wearing on all of us, especially Victor, who didn’t seem to understand why we were all fussing over Maya now.
“Why does she need to remember all this stuff anyway?” he would say.
He was just upset that I didn’t pay as much attention to him as I used to.
There had been some improvement in Maya, though, even if it didn’t go as fast as I would have liked it to. She had started to get glimpses of her life in her dreams. If it was just the pictures that caused them to come, I didn’t know, but something had happened, and I was so grateful for that, little as it might be.
I had tried to contact every doctor in the country, hoping to get some help, but had received no other advice than what Dr. Faaborg had given me. It was all about giving her rest and time.
I just wanted her to be able to go back to school in August. I wanted her to go back to her old life and to be able to get by like a normal teenager. Heck, I wanted her to yell at me and roll her eyes at me like she used to. It was almost like she had become numb. She was never excited or happy about anything; she wasn’t even angry or upset about anything. She was just this ghost-like version of herself.
I had asked the county for help. I tried to get a social worker to provide us with something, anything would do, but they were closed down for the summer, so they told me to come back in August. Denmark had to be the only country in the world that closed down for an entire month because everyone went on vacation. There was nothing that could be done at this time of year. Anything that had to do with the government – which was most things – closed down for the summer, or was run by only a few people who could make no important decisions. That was just the way it was.
So, here I was on a beautiful Tuesday morning in the middle of summer, enjoying my coffee, thinking about my life, and worrying about both of my children and how they were going to make it…when someone knocked on the door. I went to open it. Outside, stood a man in a blue uniform that said the Curtain-Company. He smiled. Behind him in the street he had parked a red van with the same name on the side of it.
“Mrs. Boegh?”
“No. You have the wrong house. That’s next door. They just moved in yesterday,” I said, and pointed to my next-door neighbor. Sophia, Jack, and I had walked over there yesterday to bid them welcome. I had even baked my famous buns for them, and Sophia had brought the wine. They seemed like a nice couple, but didn’t have any children yet. I had hoped for a new friend for Victor.
The man looked at his papers, baffled. “Oh my. You’re right. I’m so sorry for disturbing you like this.”
“No problem,” I said, and closed the door.
When I turned to walk back, Victor was standing right behind me. He stared at me with upset eyes. “Where is my breakfast?” he asked.
5
April 2009
SHE HAD WRITTEN him a letter. Louise didn’t think anything would come of it. He probably gets tons of mail from women, she thought to herself on this spring morning a month later, as she ate her toasted bread. Lorianne and Lurifax were sitting on the table, eating out of their bowls, keeping her company. In the background, the TV was on, as usual. Louise had turned the volume down, so she didn’t have to hear about all the ugly stuff going on in the world.
“We don’t need to hear about war in Afghanistan or starving children in Africa while eating our breakfast, now do we?” She said to her cats and petted Lorianne on the head. The cat spun around while eating her fish.
“No, we don’t,” Louise answered herself.
She took another bite of her toast and finished her glass of orange juice when she saw him again. She grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. The trial was still on, and Louise had followed it closely.
She watched as Bjarke Lund walked towards the court and the press corps tried with vulturous delight to get a comment from the man they unanimously had declared was a dangerous psychopath.
“Here he comes, kids. You see him? Oh, he’s wearing a red shirt today under his leather vest. That’s a great color for him, don’t you think, kids? Methinks he looks very handsome today, yes me do. Oh, just look at that piece of man. Look at those hands and arms. Isn’t he just adorable? Did he trim his beard a little? Well, I think he did. It looks very good, but I hope he doesn’t cut any more off. I like his beard. Makes him look raw and tough. I like him to look tough.”
Lorianne answered with a purr, and then placed herself comfortably in Louise’s lap. Louise kept petting her, while staring, paralyzed, at the man of her dreams, following his every move until he disappeared inside the courtroom and the doors were closed.
“Ah. It always goes too fast,” Louise murmured. “Guess we won’t see him until next week then when he has his next court appearance. Good thing Mommy taped all his appearances on TV, isn’t it? That way we can watch him over and over again.”
Louise got up from her chair and went to get more coffee, when the mail was pushed through her door. She grabbed the letters and went through them.
“Bill…bill…another bill, ah, this is water; better pay that one right away. The others can wait a month or two, I guess. But wait. What is this?”
Louise dropped all other mail on the floor and studied the white envelope with her name handwritten on the front. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest. On the outside, it had a stamp telling the receiver that its content had been security checked by the police. Louise almost forgot to breathe. She ripped it open and pulled out a handwritten letter. Two pages. Front and back!
Louise couldn’t believe her own eyes. She was gasping for air, her hands shaking heavily, as she started to read.
Dear Louise,
Is it okay if I call you Louise? I hope so. After the letter I received from you, I got the feeling it would be all right. Anyway, I am writing you to tell you I truly enjoyed your letter and especially the photo of you and your cats. I myself am very much a cat person, and I can tell that Lurifax and Lorianne are two very special cats. They are beautiful. And so are you, Louise. You are a very beautiful woman.
Louise looked up to catch her breath. Her cheeks had gotten warm and red, and she had to sit down to read the rest. She couldn’t believe he had actually answered her letter. She couldn’t believe he really liked her and thought she was pretty. No one had ever called her pretty before. It was all very exciting.
Louise kept reading the letter and soon realized that she had actually established some sort of connection to the man she hadn’t stopped dreaming about since the day she saw him on TV for the first time. In his answer, he wrote that he would very much like to get to know her better, and maybe even get to meet her one day.
I hope to hear from you again soon, Louise. I will be thinking about your kind words to me in your first letter until I do. You seem to be the only one in this world who understands me and believes in my innocence. For that, I am eternally grateful. It makes me believe in humanity again.
Yours truly,
Bjarke Lund
6
July 2014
PETER WAGN HAD worked with curtains for twenty-five years. He loved curtains, and he loved being able to help people find the right curtains to fit their needs in their homes. It was a job
where he made people happy, and he truly enjoyed that. He got to come to people’s houses, and every day was different, every house was different, every person’s needs were different.
It was always exciting to meet new customers, and today he was going to do just that. He had the van packed with samples of different kinds of curtains, different colors, patterns, and different types of fabric. Today, he would sit down, typically with the lady of the house, and decide what they wanted for their new home. Then, he would measure the windows, and within a week, he could promise them they would have their perfect curtains. That was why the customers came to him. They could easily go buy something and put it up themselves, but people who contacted him wanted something special. They wanted their home to be unique. And that was exactly what he provided…something specially designed and sewn to fit those exact windows. He was a specialist, and his customers got the best treatment. That’s why they came back again and again, and that was why they referred him to their best friends.
Peter’s wife had thought he was stupid when he decided to start his own company back in the nineties.
“No one uses curtains anymore,” she said. “They want blinds. Curtains are outdated.”
But he proved her wrong, didn’t he? Yes, there were years when business was bad, when he considered expanding to also provide specially designed blinds for his customers, but little by little, people had returned to using curtains, and since it was now considered a luxury to have custom made curtains made with good quality fabric, Peter’s business was now blooming like never before. People in Denmark had money, and they wanted luxury. They remodeled their houses, built new kitchens, and they didn’t compromise on quality anymore.