by Pia Juul
‘You should have him on the lead in a churchyard,’ I said.
‘Is that where we’re headed?’ Brandt sounded as if he had lost his voice.
The dog sniffed at me, sticking its nose deep into my groin. I felt a cold sweat. It will bite me. It will not. Brandt attached the lead.
The churchyard gate creaked appropriately. The moon emerged from behind clouds.
‘Will Halland be buried here?’
‘In the new part, I imagine. Whoever shot him must have been standing here on the bank. Funder said they had found the spot. I wish the shooting had been an accident, but they think that’s unlikely.’
The dog whined, then pulled sharply on the lead, causing Brandt to lurch forward.
‘Because he was shot in the heart?’
‘Shooting parties tend not to frequent churchyards.’
‘On the other hand…’ said Brandt, and stopped walking. I could hardly see him; the moon had disappeared again.
‘What?’
‘There was some trouble last year, don’t you remember? I’ll ring the chairman of the Churchyard Committee first thing.’
‘Church Committee?’
‘Churchyard Committee. The chairman,’ he said.
‘Who the hell is he when he’s not chairing the Churchyard Committee?’
Brandt recoiled in surprise. ‘Don’t swear!’ he whispered.
I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Because we’re in a churchyard?’
‘Just don’t.’
The moon reappeared.
‘The funeral’s on Friday,’ I said. ‘He wanted to be buried. I don’t want anything extra, nothing at all. No death notice, no nibbles afterwards.’
‘What about the booksellers, his publisher? Do they know he’s dead?’
‘I’m sure they read the papers. Anyway, his mobile’s gone, so I haven’t got their numbers. I hadn’t given them a moment’s thought, to tell you the truth. I can’t be bothered. I know so little about what he did, and…’
Brandt put his arm through mine. It felt right.
‘I won’t do it!’
‘Do what?’ he asked.
‘Whatever they expect me to do. I won’t!’
14
‘Do tell me, why have you never married, Mr Burton?’ (…)
‘Shall we say,’ I said, rallying, ‘that I have never met the right woman?’
‘We can say so,’ said Mrs Dane Calthrop, ‘but it wouldn’t be a very good answer, because so many men have obviously married the wrong woman.’
Agatha Christie,
THE MOVING FINGER
Troels had gone grey and let his hair grow long. He had become pudgy. No substance. We hadn’t seen each other for ages. I was taken aback. He said that Abby was fine; after that I didn’t listen. I showed him into the house, which he had never seen before, and made some tea. We sat down across from one another.
‘What a dreadful thing,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking about you a lot.’
‘Yes, all right!’ I blurted out like a child.
‘You haven’t changed.’
Which was a lie. Although perhaps he wasn’t referring to my appearance but to the ‘Yes, all right!’ We stared into space for a while. The silence didn’t bother me in the slightest. He took a deep breath.
‘Will you go to bed with me?’ he asked.
‘What?’ I spluttered, trying to make light of his remark. I was perfectly aware of what he had said. ‘No! What are you thinking?’
He didn’t seem embarrassed. ‘I always thought I’d ask you when Halland wasn’t around any more.’
‘Wasn’t around any more?’
‘Yes. I hadn’t counted on him getting shot, though!’
‘Really?’
I noticed a muscle twitching in his cheek while the rest of his face remained impassive. When we were young, the twitching muscle had fascinated me. I fantasized about it, analysed his personality in light of it, convinced that the profundity of his personality lay there.
You were so dull and I was so bored, I thought to myself, feeling a sudden relief wash over me, as though I had spoken the words out loud. ‘I understand why you ask. But I’m amazed.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He wedged his tongue behind his teeth. So it did matter.
‘I could make something of this, you making a proposition when I’ve just been – does the word widowed apply when a person wasn’t married? But I haven’t really got to grips with Halland’s death. People in my situation talk all sorts of rubbish and do the strangest things. Yesterday, for instance, I kissed my neighbour.’
‘Really?’ Troels livened up.
‘Yes. I haven’t a clue why, but last night kissing seemed the obvious thing to do. How are your twins?’
He looked confused. His hair wasn’t actually long; he just hadn’t had it cut in a while. He looked dishevelled.
‘I miss you,’ he said.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I know. The twins are noisy.’
‘Yes.’ I pictured them in my mind, although I had never seen them.
15
(As though unnerved by death
The black horse pulls the sleigh,)
And icicles long and piked
Suspended above the way
Emil Aarestrup, SLEIGH RIDE
I told the pastor I would arrive an hour before the funeral, but I didn’t manage. My clothes weren’t right, a plate needed washing. I opened and closed windows. Then there was a tiny pink rose, one of the wild ones Halland had planted. I had to cut the flower for him. ‘Only neighbours will come,’ I said to the pastor. ‘I’m not announcing anything in the paper.’ He disagreed. ‘Halland’s death has already been reported in the papers. The news has even been on the television!’ But he didn’t force the issue. And he understood when I said I didn’t want any speeches about Halland’s personality or achievements.
When I finally left the house, a drizzle was falling, so I grabbed an umbrella. I knew that all the neighbours would be watching. I kept my head down. I had to pass the spot where Halland had fallen to the ground. I didn’t stop but slowed my steps. I had no wish to dwell on his death in front of an audience, assuming there was one. A surprising number of cars were parked outside the church. Someone stood in the doorway and ushered people in. Pernille. Behind her a long row of wreaths and flowers stretched down the aisle. Half the pews were full.
‘Bess!’ she said, and opened her arms as if to embrace me. ‘Where on earth have you been?’ I shook my umbrella and showered her with raindrops. She was forced to step back so I could squeeze past her enormous belly. Sudden rage surged up inside me. ‘Who do you think you are!’ I hissed. Then I saw the coffin. And with that came the thought of Halland inside it. I stepped into the church holding the tiny pink rose. Looking straight ahead, I strode down the aisle to the coffin, placed the flower on the lid and then edged my way along the front pew without looking at anyone. Who were all these people? After a while I realized that the pastor was trying to attract my attention.
‘Where do all these people come from?’ I whispered angrily.
‘Halland’s daughter placed a notice in the paper yesterday. Didn’t you see it?’
I wasn’t keeping up with the newspapers. His daughter! Who did she think she was?
‘She’s not Halland’s daughter!’ I said loudly.
‘In that case, apologies are called for. I must have got the wrong end of the stick…’ The pastor glanced towards the entrance with a bewildered look on his face. His glasses slid down his nose and he pushed them back into place.
The bells rang, the door was closed and the organ struck up. Pernille sat down beside me. I slid away from her. She slid with me. Was she stupid or what?
‘I suppose you arranged for nibbles at the Postgården too?’ I hissed.
‘Nibbles?’ This was going to be an ordeal. ‘Did you notice we had our picture taken?’
‘When?’
&n
bsp; ‘There were some photographers outside.’
I hadn’t noticed. Forcing myself to concentrate on the coffin, I found my place in the hymn book and ignored her as best I could. I would be furious with her later. Not now. Later.
16
Arthur’s father and I lived no further apart, with half the globe between us, than we were together in this house.
Charles Dickens, LITTLE DORRIT
A person can be matt and shiny at the same time. Halland was just that. His eyes were closed when I ran into the hospital and found him on a gurney in a corridor without even a screen around him. I didn’t know if he was asleep. I saw his matt and shiny face and his closed eyes and thought he was a stranger. We had been living together for more than a year, yet I had never told him that I thought about Abby every day and that I kept wondering if I had made the right decision in the first place. Every single day. I told him about my writing – a little bit – and about books and shopping, and about people I met in town. We were getting to know the neighbours, and I told him about them. Now he was lying on a gurney in a hospital corridor and didn’t even know I was there. He suffered too much pain. He couldn’t hear me yelling at the nurses to find somewhere else to put him, to get him a doctor, to do something. And he was oblivious when I threatened to contact a journalist I knew on one of the tabloids. I didn’t know any tabloid journalists. A lie. But it helped.
The porter wheeled him along without looking at me. I held Halland’s cold, damp hand. I couldn’t talk to him with the porter there, so I squeezed his hand.
They said he had woken up. But when I went in to see him he just lay there. I sat down and waited. His breathing was laboured. The sun shone through the window; I felt hot and nearly fell asleep. Then, without turning his head, without even opening his eyes, he said, ‘The anaesthetist asked where I wanted to go. He told me to imagine somewhere I was happy. I said, “On a bus.” They all laughed, but he said, “A bus it is, then!’’’
At first I said nothing. I didn’t think he was properly awake. We had hardly ever been on buses together.
‘Was it a nice journey?’ I asked eventually.
Nodding, he turned his head to look at me. ‘I was there straight away, on the back seat. With you. You put your head in my lap.’
Oh, how I loved Halland at that moment. At that moment the memory returned.
17
‘I see you lead a double life.
There’ll be an extra charge for that.’
A fortune-teller
When I stood up to follow the coffin out of the church, I bowed my head to avoid looking at anyone. Brandt didn’t seem to have come. Was he angry with me? Was he embarrassed? Though there were plenty of pall-bearers, some confusion arose around the coffin. The pastor stepped in and sorted it out. I stared at the various feet as I waited to leave the pew. I didn’t want to be a bearer. I imagined breaking down, yet I kept myself together. I felt only a little pain in the hip but stayed in one piece. Pernille was beside me and I didn’t try to get away. There were clicking sounds as if someone was taking pictures, but I wouldn’t look up. We sang ‘There is a lovely land’. I had nothing to toss into the grave. Thus I took Pernille’s arm and steered her out through the gate onto the square. A voice, Inger’s perhaps, called out to us, but I kept going.
‘Do you have your bag?’ I asked Pernille.
‘Yes,’ she replied, yelping as she stumbled in her high heels.
‘Good. I’m driving you home!’
‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘All the way?’
‘Yes.’
In the car, I pretended that she wasn’t with me. Otherwise I couldn’t have driven to Copenhagen. I turned on the radio and found what I normally would have regarded as the most insufferable station imaginable. I sang along as best I could, even when I had no idea what they were playing. Pernille shrank back in her seat. Eventually she said, ‘You need to fill up with petrol.’ She was right.
‘Have you got a licence?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then let’s swap over at the services.’
She could talk and drive at the same time, and she had that way of checking the mirror that I so admired. ‘I thought there was supposed to be coffee and a bite to eat after a funeral,’ she said, checking the mirror again. ‘Not after this one,’ I replied.
‘I went to a funeral once, and afterwards over coffee people stood up and said nice things about the deceased. I found that so touching.’
‘What would you have said about Halland?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘But I’ve been thinking about something since he died. After I fell pregnant, I became rather unhinged. I told him I didn’t want to see him any more, that I wanted him to move his stuff out. That made him cry.’
Halland didn’t know how to cry. I never saw a tear in his eye, not once, not even a snivel. A slight flutter in his voice on occasion, then a deep breath and he regained control.
‘I feel so bad about asking him to leave, because I didn’t really want that. But everything was such a mess, and I need my baby to have the right start.’
‘But you can’t afford the rent without Halland’s help,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t that what you told me the other day?’
‘Yes, and in fact I didn’t want to throw him out. I just wasn’t thinking straight at the time. We worked things out in the end.’
Halland didn’t know how to cry. I didn’t believe her.
‘Did Halland need to leave for the baby to have the right start?’
‘I told you, I wasn’t thinking straight!’
‘So you keep saying.’
The flat was big for someone on their own; I could see why Pernille had rented out a room. While I waited in the hallway, she disappeared into the bathroom. ‘Do you have the keys?’ she called out.
‘Yes, they’ve been in my pocket for days, bloody things,’ I muttered, pulling them out. ‘Which room is it?’
‘First on the left, the one with the door closed!’ Emerging from the bathroom, she came and stood behind me as if to follow me into the room. Turning round I said, ‘I’ll tell you if I need you!’
‘Please yourself! Do you want something to drink?’
‘Have you got any aquavit or whisky? Anything strong. Just a single glass.’
‘I’ll have a look.’
I unlocked Halland’s room, stepped inside and closed the door behind me. My gaze fell on a film poster that hung on the wall between the windows: Le Retour de Martin Guerre. I sat down on the bed and stared. ‘That’s not funny!’ I said to Gérard Depardieu.
At home Halland had hung up a couple of reproductions. This poster was so enormous that the room nearly capsized. The bed was narrow and prim. A white cover was tucked in neatly at the corners. On top lay a large pillow. His laptop stood on the desk with the lid open, the screen blank. Books were stacked in a deep-shelved bookcase rather than lined up in rows. There were piles of documents. On the floor stood three packing cases with their flaps open. Papers had been thrown into each of them without much thought. There was a clothes rail with hangers, a jacket and two white shirts.
‘Halland?’
‘I have some aquavit as it happens!’ said Pernille, entering the room with a bottle and a glass in her hands.
‘Out!’ I shouted. ‘I don’t want any aquavit! Make me some coffee! If you’ve got decent coffee, that is!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ she huffed, and went away again. The door didn’t shut properly behind her. Did it stand ajar like that when Halland was here, so his life could seep out into hers, and hers into his? Sighing, I stared wearily at the packing cases. What was I doing here? What had I been thinking? Would I have to lug all this down to the car? I wanted none of it. But I supposed I’d better have a look, if only I could get up. Then I could bin the lot.
‘Pernille!’ I called. She appeared in the doorway at once. ‘Do you know anything about all this?’
She glanced around. ‘It’s no
t normally untidy. Those boxes are new. I guess the rest is work.’
‘If I pay the rent, can the papers stay here for a while?’
‘The longer you pay the rent, the less I have to worry about! Do you want a hand?’
‘With what?’ I stared at the piles.
‘Don’t the papers all need sorting?’
‘But we don’t know what any of it is!’
Was I meant to ask if Halland was the father of Pernille’s child? I wouldn’t. How could Halland have fathered a child? That made no sense. Then why did I assume the baby was his? I had no reason. With whom was I angry? And what did Halland think he was doing putting up that poster, a poster for a film dealing with the most celebrated, most lamentable, most improbable case of imposture the world had ever seen. A film that was all the more improbable for ending happily. Halland had told me about that film so often. He loved it. I watched it once for his sake, but he watched it a thousand times. What was he thinking? Had he ever imagined that one day I would be sitting on this bed, unable to get up, glaring at a French actor?
Pernille knelt with difficulty beside one of the packing cases, gingerly lifted out a few documents and envelopes and began to read. I closed my eyes and listened. Sounds filtered up from the street. Cars drove through rain, buses pulled in and out. These were the sounds that had accompanied Halland to sleep. I always thought he stayed in a hotel when he visited Copenhagen. I knew about his life in provincial hotels; he had told me all about it. But what was this?
‘How long did you say Halland kept this room?’ My eyes were closed.
‘I didn’t.’
‘I might not be able to afford the rent…’