Other Copenhagens

by Edmund Jorgensen

  * * *

  “This is more carbs than I’ve had in a year,” I said, sopping up the ragù from my third helping of gemelli with fresh Italian bread.

  “Glad you liked it,” said Aunt Daniela. She was still picking at her own first serving, but had paced me with the red wine, never questioning the appearance of the second bottle.

  About halfway through that second bottle she began to tell some of the stories about my mother as a girl: the time she hid her father’s wallet to punish him for hitting the dog; how she ran away and slept in the church the night of her first kiss; how she drank holy water after she lied to her mother about stealing her lipstick. Then her own drunken confessions began.

  “For a long time I thought your mother was the weak one. I looked down on her. I’m just being honest! I was going to study law and save innocent people from suffering at the hands of a corrupt system. I was going to right wrongs and further the cause of justice. Meanwhile your mother was going to get married and win the blue ribbon in the meringue category at the church bake sale. But life never works out like you expect, Bella. Now I think of my clients as guilty until proven innocent. Sometimes even after they’re proven innocent. I can’t even pinpoint when that changed, when I got so jaded.

  “And that’s not even the worst part–the worst part is the self pity–the feeling that somehow I’ve been cheated or tricked, when of course I’ve made my own decisions all along, and refused to listen to anyone. I guess it turned out I didn’t have much of a stomach for reality. But your mother? I never heard her complain, not once. Not with all that crap your father put her through, or when Mr. Moral himself ran off with his slut. Not when she got sick. Not even when she found out–when she found out she wouldn’t get better. She always did what she could with what she had at hand.”

  Aunt Daniela poured the dregs of the second bottle into her glass.

  “Speaking of which, young lady, do you want to explain to me how that painting miraculously resurfaced?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Uh huh. And is there anything you want to tell me about Firenze?”

  “Firenze?”

  “Maybe about him and the Mercer hotel, and where you were during the time the surveillance video was taken?”

  “That little weasel.”

  “He folded like a chair,” she said with unsteady professional pride. “Squealed like a … like a …” Her eyes unfocused for a moment as she suddenly and visibly descended a rung on the ladder of intoxication.

  “Pig?” I offered.

  “Canary,” she said with triumph. “But there’s still something fishy about the whole business. Firenze calling you out of nowhere, telling you to break the glass, ‘forgetting’ that the painting was being cleaned. I think he was trying to set you up, that’s what I think.”

  She tried to pour more from the empty bottle until I gently confiscated it from her.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s going on, Aunt Daniela, though I appreciate the maternal attitude.”

  “The point is,” she said, steadying herself and her glass, “that I wish I had believed you sooner. But anyone who saw that video would have thought you were stealing that painting.”

  “Even someone who didn’t know I was a recovering kleptomaniac.”

  “Recovered.”

  “We’re not allowed to say recovered.”

  “But why didn’t you just tell me the truth? Why that whole dog and pony show about your hair and everything?”

  “Would you have believed me? Honestly?”

  My aunt swirled the last drops of wine around her glass.

  “Probably not,” she said. “I’m sorry to say it, but that’s the truth. Probably not. But hey,” she continued, brightening, “you should have seen Detective Crane when he found out. He was fit to be tied–that guy really wants to charge someone. He even asked me if you had an undocumented twin.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “Did I tell him what?”

  “That you and my mother were twins.”

  My aunt sat up, stock straight, as though she had just tossed back a hangover remedy heavy on the horseradish and jumped into a cold shower at the same time. Her eyes widened and then narrowed. I knew what was happening–I had seen it before. The unwritten rule had been broken–only she was allowed to mention my mother. The hurt was still too raw when someone else brought her up.

  “Why on earth would I tell him that?”

  “I don’t know–I thought he might find it an amusing coincidence.”

  “It’s late,” said my aunt. “I have to go.” She stood, balancing herself on the table until she remembered how to use her legs.

  “Fine.”

  I helped her gather her things and walked her to the door, where she surprised me, breaking the discomfort with a fierce hug.

  “I’ll try to stop by more often,” she said into my ear. “By the way, I’m glad you cut your hair–it looks much better like this.”

  As she released me I opened the door for her, but she had noticed something over my shoulder, and was staring at it with a look on her face that I could not easily classify. Her expression would not have seemed out of place either in a wedding album or among the pews at a funeral. I turned to see what had captivated her: the mirror on the antique hall tree. Right away I saw what she saw there–saw how the reflection of my aunt in that old mirror, with its threads of missing silver around the edges, was no longer my aunt, but my mother. It was unbearable to look at, so I turned instead to where my own reflection should have been–but I could no longer say who it was that I saw looking back at me.

  * * *

  It was almost 11:30 when I arrived at Acuarela. The crowd was light, but not too unusual for a Monday, and more people were on the floor than at the bars or tables. DJ Romantik was spinning his weird medleys of Depression-era jazz and techno, which, as always, seemed remarkably less profound to me when I was without chemical assistance.

  I slid into a spot at the central bar (I had never seen the point of the more private corner bars, where no one could see you) and proceeded to wait–wait!–for almost five minutes.

  “Rudolfo, what the hell is this?” I asked as he tried to sneak past me. “I have to wait for a drink now?”

  “All right, Bella, one more, but just one–and take this one slow, yeah?” He began agitating the shaker.

  Before I could answer him, an arm reached around me and slapped a cocktail napkin on the zinc bar. It soaked up the ring of water sweated off an earlier patron’s drink, so the ink started to bleed, but my handwriting was still legible: “Acuarela, 10:00.”

  “Well?” said Detective Greary, swinging into position beside me, his back against the bar. As he spoke he refused to look at me, staring instead out at the thin sea of bodies moving to DJ Romantik’s whims.

  “Well what?”

  “Which apology would you like to make first? I’m flexible.”

  “Man,” I said, picking up the drink Rudolfo slid across to me, “are you in for a long night.”

  “First of all, there’s the fact that you wasted an hour of my time–and my partner’s–sitting in Interview Room Four and playing games with us, swearing up and down that wasn’t you in the video–when, as we now know, it was–and conveniently failing to mention as well that you were there on Firenze’s instructions. Supposedly, that is–I have some lingering questions about that scenario.”

  “It’s good to preserve some mystery–that’s what makes life worth living.”

  “So second we have your ditching me this morning. Some people might consider that your worst offense, but I have a professional appreciation for that one. I mean, the patience of waiting for me to hit the bathroom–the whole bit with the shoes. That was well played. And then leaving this note with a place and time, which is almost like an apology–or an IOU for an apology. How am I doing so far?”

  “There are no words to describe your understanding of the female mind.”

&
nbsp; “Then third we have the whole ‘tell him to be there at 10 and I’ll waltz in at 10:30’ thing, which is an interesting one. On the one hand, you could argue that showing up late to a date you made when you ditched someone is worse than ditching them in the first place. But on the other hand, men have always waited around for women and always will. She’s trying on her tenth outfit and he’s already in the car. Who am I to go against tradition? So I say that’s not really apology number one. With me so far?”

  “Except that it’s 11:30, not 10:30.”

  “But the one I really don’t get–the one that makes me question what I’m even doing here talking to you–even in that dress–is pretending not to know me.”

  “This is what you call pretending not to know you? What were you expecting, exactly? Sex in the bathroom?”

  “I’m not talking about now–I’m talking about when I came in. You were up there”–he pointed to the balcony–“looking down, and you saw me, clear as day, and you saw me wave to you. I thought you were coming down to join me, but instead I have to track you down for an hour. So yeah, now that I say it out loud, I’m pretty sure that’s your first apology.”

  “Save my spot,” I said, handing him my drink.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Seriously? To the bathroom. Do I need a hall pass?”

  “No no no,” he said, “we don’t have a good history with the bathroom. And no, I won’t take your shoes as collateral. I’ve seen this movie before.”

  “How about my dress?”

  “You serious?”

  “No.”

  His face fell.

  “If you’ve got to go,” he said, “you go. But then I’m out of here.”

  “Suit yourself. Shame to cut short what could have been a lovely evening.” I stood up on my tiptoes (I did like his height), took the tips of his collar between my index fingers and thumbs, and kissed him briefly on the mouth. Then I walked straight to the ladies’ room without looking back, to show him how that was done, just in case he might still prove trainable.

  * * *

  I had not been waiting for her more than a minute or two before she stumbled into the bathroom, visibly over-served. She had fixed her hair–I was glad to see that–but her dress was a disaster, a sherbet lime green A-line that even a moderately self-respecting bridesmaid wouldn’t be caught dead in. How could Detective Greary, who was presumably trained in observation, have confused that with my black Versace strapless? That might be strike three for the good detective.

  She stood next to me in front of the sinks, one basin over, the two of us looking askance at each other in the mirror. A blonde in business casual came through the door giggling and talking on her cell, but seemed to sense something was not right and turned around. I locked the door and returned to the sinks. We were alone.

  I watched her for a minute in the mirror, cringing whenever she swayed or moved in some way I had not, as if my reflection were defecting. I could not explain why it disturbed me so deeply when she blinked, until I realized: I had never seen my eyelids in a mirror before.

  “Are you me?” I said finally.

  She laughed–not my pleasant laugh, the one I used to secure an invitation, but the one I used to end an evening prematurely. Her eyes scrunched up meanwhile, and I had to look away. Did I look that pinched and unattractive when I laughed? I must.

  “I know you’re deciding whether to kill me right now,” she said. Hearing her was as strange and familiar as hearing my own voice recorded. “But I don’t blame you. The first time I saw you my instinct was to smother you under one of your many pillows.”

  “You were in my bedroom?”

  “Wednesday morning I was eating cereal in my apartment. Then I was eating cereal in your apartment. At first I did not understand what had happened. I thought all my lovely objects had come back to me–there was my oak coffee table, and the crystal horse-and-cart salt cellar that I couldn’t resist buying upstate, even though I knew you would call it to you. But certain details were off: I did not recognize the clothes strewn over the sofa, or the bronze cupid where you hang your keys. And then I found you in the bedroom, wearing your satin blindfold, with your second duvet kicked to the ground, and I understood. You had finally called me to you, as you had called all my lovely objects. You look confused.”

  “Those were yours?”

  “Where did you think they came from?”

  “I didn’t think they came from anywhere. I thought they were just … copies. Doubles.”

  “I’ve always known you must be out there, calling my things to you. You never even guessed about me–not even once?”

  She appeared distraught, as if, after a lifetime of my having taken things from her, this slight was the one injury she could not forgive.

  “Maybe I suspected,” I said, “once. Or at least wondered. It was the day after my mother died, and I was sitting in Riverside Park, looking out at the water, holding …”

  “My mother’s silver cross.”

  “Yes, my mother’s silver cross, the one she was wearing when she died, and then–I was holding two of them, and the second was already warm, as if …”

  “As if someone had been holding it? Gripping it tightly, for dear life? Praying furiously that this one thing, just this one thing, would not be snatched away?”

  “And I wondered, just for a moment, whose hand had made it warm. I’m sorry.” What else was there to say?

  She shrugged in the mirror, and I felt my own shoulders tense.

  “The art of losing isn’t hard to master. I’ve learned how to live. I sit down lightly, half expecting the chair to vanish. I carry extra pens.”

  “So why didn’t you kill me?”

  She squirmed a bit.

  “I don’t know. Fear at first. Then–perhaps–anger. Maybe I thought that would be too easy–that I wanted to take other things from you than your life, things that might hurt you more.”

  “You mean you wanted to get me thrown into jail by implicating me in an art theft?”

  “That was foolish of me–petty. I knew that even as I was doing it. When I had some time to think, walking around the city these last few days, I realized what I really wanted.”

  “Which was what?”

  “This. To meet you–to make you aware of me. To see you, talk to you. To touch you.”

  She stretched her hand along the bank of sinks, but I moved mine away.

  “Well, now you’ve met me,” I said. “But you still haven’t answered my first question–are we the same person? Two copies of the same person? I mean, do you work in a gallery in … wherever you come from? Were you having an affair with your boss? Do we like the same foods? Did you study art history?”

  “As a child I loved art–art and pretty frocks and silver chains, lovely objects of all kinds. But you were always calling them to you, taking my drawings before I had even finished them, or stranding me in a public bathroom without a blouse. Like a weaker sister defining herself I changed my tastes–I learned to love poetry instead of the plastic arts, and now I teach literature. Or I did. You might take a book from me, but once I had committed a poem to memory, then even you could not take it. A poem is all arrangement and no atoms. And I changed my taste in clothes, finding styles I knew you would never call to you–garish colors and vulgar cuts. Only the ugly shoes, those I could never learn to love. So I travel with extra pairs.”

  “So we’re not the same person.”

  “I did not say that. I have thought long and hard, and I believe there cannot be two of us. If human beings are not paintings, neither are we poems. We have histories. We cannot be just the arrangement and not the atoms. So there is only one original–and I suppose that must be you. After all, if the lovely objects are called to you–if even I am called to you–how can you not be the real us?”

  We stood in silence for a few minutes, a look of pain on her face, until I couldn’t stand any more.

  “Here,” I said, sliding the key alon
g the bank of sinks, careful not to let her hand brush mine. “It’s in Red Hook–the address is taped on top. You’ll find your things there, and some money. But then you have to go–get a moving truck or something and get out of New York.”

  She examined the key, rubbing it like a talisman, and put it to her lips before pocketing it.

  “I’ll go for now,” she said. “But I can’t say how long I will be able to stay away. You may call all my things to you again–or you might call me myself.”

  “You understand–if you come back, you won’t leave me any choice.”

  “I understand. Perhaps neither of us has any choice.”

  She leaned in towards me and seemed to grow large and terrible, a blur of lime green that I could not escape. My head began to swim–I reached out to steady myself on the sink. Then she kissed me–her lips against mine like a static shock–and I passed out.

  * * *

  “Bella? Bella?”

  Detective Greary was crouched over me on the floor, calling my name and snapping his fingers.

  “Hey,” he said as I stirred, “welcome back. You had us worried for a second.”

  As the bathroom came back into focus, I saw a small crowd of women standing in the doorway, hands over their mouths.

  “Did you take something, Bella?” Detective Greary asked.

  “No.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, not so fast, let me help you up. Let’s take our time with this. You feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I croaked, pushing him away, but I was not.

  My voice sounded like a recording. My lips still tingled warmly, as though I had glossed them with something caustic, and the raw skin there could actually feel itself against itself, as if it belonged to someone else.

  “Easy,” he said. “Easy there. I need to check your pupils, can you open up those beautiful eyes for me?”

  He cajoled, teased, even commanded, but I refused, shaking my head, crying and screaming and thrashing until he had to restrain me. I couldn’t open my eyes, I wouldn’t, not for him or anything or anyone. I could not bear to confirm what I had already seen in the corner of my vision–there where the elegant lines of black Versace should have been, instead of that terrible flash–impossible to unsee–of sherbet lime green.