Free Doctor Death by Lene Kaaberbøl Page B

nodded, but I could see that he had received such condolences so many times that the words had lost their meaning.
    “Thank you,” he said politely.
    “Please tell me if you do not wish to discuss it,” I said carefully. “But have you learned more about what happened? Has the young man reappeared?”
    “No,” he said.
    “I am sorry if I am prying.”
    He shook his head. “Do you know what? People are so careful not to impose, not to speak of her, not to ask. It is almost as if she is more than just dead, she has been . . . erased. Removed from the family portrait. No longer a part of us. And I find that hard to bear. Yes, it hurts to remember and to speak of her. But if we don’t . . . then we are killing her all over again. Do you understand?”
    I spontaneously placed a hand on his arm. “Yes, I do.”
    “Cecile was bursting with life—happy and warm and outgoing, and no paragon of virtue. No . . . no demimondaine, you understand? Just in love with life.”
    I nodded.
    “In the summer she freckled because she refused to wear a hat. Mama could scold her as much as she pleased. It only worked until we could not be seen from the house, then the bonnet came off, and Cici would run and climb trees and catch frogs in the pond with me and François. She ran away from the first convent school she was sent to because she could not stand the discipline, especially being cooped up inside all day. We tried the Bernardine sisters because they are less strict and permit more outdoor activities, and that worked much better.” He looked at me imploringly, repeating his plea for understanding.
    “Do you understand what I am saying? She was alive. She hated to be closed in, could not stand not being able to move. But now . . . her body lies in a box in the ground. And her spirit . . . her memory . . . Papa would prefer to make her into a pure and pale saint who must not be soiled by coarse suggestions that she might have been something other than the most innocent and untouched lily of the convent garden. She was always Papa’s little girl, but it is as if he has completely forgotten that what he loved most about her was her passion for life and her inability to be tamed. The gossip—and, yes, we hear that, too, in roundabout ways and in what people are not saying—the gossip paints her as a slut whose sins were justly punished. And they are all merely boxes, do you see what I mean? Whether the label on the box says slut or saint doesn’t really matter. Cici would hate either just as much as she would hate the awful black coffin they buried her in.”
    “You loved her very much. That makes it hard now, but . . .”
    “I miss her,” he said, and stood for a moment breathing through his open mouth, as if it was difficult for him. “ Damn Emile Oblonski and everything he did to her. If I knew where he was, I would kill him.”
    “So you are convinced that he is responsible for her death?”
    “If he had not brought her along . . . If he had not convinced her . . .” He shook his head several times. “You are right, she might have fallen ill anyway. But at least the illness would have come upon her at the school, where the good sisters would have cared for her, and where a doctor might have been called in time. So, yes, Oblonski has good reason to hide. And I am not going to stop looking.”
    Supported by his crutch, my father came limping out into the garden, in shirtsleeves and waistcoat with his hair still damp.
    “I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said to Adrian Montaine. “What can I do for you?”
    Cecile’s brother darted a quick sideways glance in my direction, but our conversation had apparently already been sufficiently confidential for him to feel he could speak freely.
    “Monsieur le Docteur, we hope you can help us. My father . . . My father has been in an accident.”
    “An accident? How so?”
    “His . . . a gun went off. An injury to the jaw. Our own