The Boy in the Suitcase - By Lene Kaaberbol Page 0,44

with an overwhelming potential for happiness. Or that, at least, was how Nina had seen her, and it might have been why she stuck around, hoping for some of that happiness potential to rub off, needing to be with someone whose world was just as round and perfect as Karin herself was.

That Karin, in the end, had been the one who found it most difficult to realize her dream of a family, of husband and children, had always been a mystery to Nina. But for some reason or other, the men around Karin never stayed. Nina was the one who had acquired the whole package without ever really wanting it, and that may have been what came between them in the end.

While Nina had had her first child and gone off to save the world in foreign climes, Karin had worked as a private nurse to a Danish family stationed in Brussels, and later at some posh and probably hair-raisingly expensive clinic in Switzerland. They tried to meet during those interludes when they were both in Denmark at the same time, but it became more and more obvious that the distance between them was growing.

Like the time when she had been pregnant with Anton. Very pregnant, actually, and very nearly due. She could still recall the hurt, offended look in Karin’s eyes when Nina opened the door to her in the new flat in Østerbro she and Morten had just moved into. It had been that rarest of times when everything seemed right with the world, and she had felt, perhaps for the first and only time in her life, at peace with herself. She had gained fifty-five pounds and enjoyed every ounce of it, feeling pleasantly round, firm and soft at the same time.

Karin hadn’t said anything. Not even congratulations.

Since that visit, the phone calls had come at greater and greater intervals, and when she had seen Karin at that ill-fated Christmas party, already a little soused and wearing a pair of glittery reindeer antlers on a headband, it had been four years since they had last met.

Nina, too, had become rather drunk rather quickly, but she did remember Karin telling her that she was home to stay. That she had found a great job near … Kalundborg, wasn’t it? And what else?

Nina frowned, trying to recall the scene more precisely. There had been little handcrafted schnapps glasses and chubby Santashaped candles on the table, vats of beer, and for some reason the kind of confetti people usually used for New Year’s.

Karin was a private nurse again, she had said, and she was raking it in. Nina suddenly remembered seeing a peculiar weariness in Karin’s eyes. She had had entirely too much schnapps, and she sat there twisting a plastic beer glass between her hands and telling Nina exactly how much she brought home every month, after taxes. And that she didn’t even have to pay rent because there was this great flat that went with the job, with a brilliant view of the bay. The dim light deepened the furrows on her brow and made little vertical lines appear around her mouth, and for the first time ever, Nina had felt a dislike for her friend. It was as if she didn’t know her anymore, and as the evening wore on, she had been full of contempt for the choices Karin had made. They were both dead drunk by then, even more so than when they used to party together when they were students. And Nina was feeling tired, and mean, and sick at heart.

Perhaps that was why she had said it. That she was still saving the world. That she was happy. That she had the perfect family, and the perfect husband, and that she spent her spare time helping all the children, women, and crippled little men no one else in all of fucking Denmark seemed to care about.

She had told Karin about the network.

The first part of it was a pack of lies, but it felt fantastic to say it. The rest was true. She did spend a lot of time on the network. Too much, thought Morten. Sometimes he complained that she was only in it for the adrenalin fix, but it was more than that; she still needed to save the world, still needed to feel that she wasn’t powerless.

Nina wiped her eyes again, and eased her foot off the accelerator. This was not a motorway, although she was not the only driver