by Frank Wynne
The detective does some detecting and learns that the man graduated from college but was unemployed and spent his days doing god-knows-what in his room—he was a vagrant, friendless in Seoul. His few acquaintances said they never saw him with a woman. A prostitute, perhaps? He didn’t exactly have the means to buy a woman. So who was she?
Didn’t you say he scheduled an autopsy? I ask.
He answers: He did, and the result was that the victim had had a fatal heart attack. The detective then resumes his search for evidence, but finds nothing he can connect to the woman. So he gets to thinking. He goes back to the scene, does yet another search, and a second diary turns up. This diary contains the following entry: My one pleasure is making creations out of smoke. Yesterday I made a car and I made an alcoholic beverage. I drank my smoky drink and drove my sporty car. I shut the windows tight to keep the smoke inside my room and to keep the air still. And yet it lasts only a moment. I need a woman. The detective closes the diary and concludes his report. Direct cause of death: heart attack. He rules out homicide and suicide. This was a case of death by natural causes.
I understand now, I say. The man created a woman out of smoke. He was caressed by her, and they had sex. But he’s not allowed to touch her. She’ll disappear if he does. She slowly drifts down and embraces him. His every sense is overwhelmed.
He nods in agreement. That’s right. But the detective keeps that part of the story to himself. Who will believe him? And it makes little difference if no one does.
Cigarette smoke can be very comforting, I say, smoking a cigarette myself. I look up at the lizard. It looks bigger than usual today. I crawl into bed, craving sleep. The man keeps his distance as usual. I turn off the lights and drift off to sleep.
As I sleep, I sense someone opening the window to my room and climbing in. I think it’s him, but my head is heavy. I hear him taking his clothes off. We’ve never slept together, and yet he calmly climbs into my bed as if he were my husband. His hands move gently from my feet up my knees and thighs. His hands are cold. I feel goose bumps all over. He climbs on top of me. His cold hard penis pushes inside me. Mustn’t shout. I steady myself. And I mustn’t touch him. If I do he’ll vanish. His penis moves slowly. Violent pleasure explodes inside me. I tremble with a satisfaction I’ve never felt with a man. A neon cross flashes in the distance. He’s thrusting more strongly now. His cold penis slides all over my body. I’m soaked through. I’m afraid his cold penis will pierce me. You must transform yourself, I remember him telling me. His words reverberate. Ahhh, I’m going away—go past the tropical sunshine, through the forest of crosses, and you’ll arrive at the playground. I want to scream but nothing comes out. My ears ring with the rhythmical beating of the tribal drums. It feels like his penis is coming out my ears. My eardrums are about to explode.
I’m languishing. He gets up and dresses. And then he’s gone, like smoke. Carefully I open my eyes and look toward the wall. The lizard is gone. I don’t bother to turn the lights on to make sure. I simply close my eyes again. And fall asleep. A most tranquil sleep. I never want to wake up.
SHE FREQUENTED CEMETERIES
Dorthe Nors
Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken
Dorthe Nors (1970–). A novelist and short story writer and translator, Nors studied at Aarhus University and worked as a teacher for some years before publishing her first novel Soul in 2001. She was first introduced to an Anglo-American readership in 2009 when several American magazines published stories by her, leading The New Yorker – for the first time – to publish a Danish writer. Since then, a collection of her short stories, Karate Chop has been published in English, together with her novel Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, which was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2017.
She started frequenting cemeteries that summer, preferring the ones others rarely visited. She could go straight from social events with white wine, canapés, and peripheral acquaintances, cycle to the nearest cemetery, and find the corner where no one ever really went. At the far end of Vestre Cemetery, by the Inuit and the Faeroese and the war graves, down by the disused chapel was a quiet spot. Well away from the plots where brewers, publishers, and prime ministers lay shoulder to shoulder and were dead. There was no edged grass, no small ponds with specially purchased ducks. Most of all, it resembled the hinterland of Jutland, depopulated and with plywood boards across the windows, and through it all a diagonal tunnel of willow trees. No one ever went there, so that was where she liked to go. In the same way, she was fond of the Jewish cemetery and the Catholic cemetery, and, provided she chose the right times and the right spots, Assistens Cemetery could be quiet, too.
Her favorite, though, was just between Frederiksberg and Valby. It was best in the twilight. In late July the evenings were still long and the place was like an overgrown park. Walking along the paths in the cemetery she found the unkempt graves of long-forgotten painters and poets, and at the northern end she came across a section where roses grew everywhere. The bushes had grown over the stones, weeds had tangled up in them, and they were the same roses her mother had at home. Pink, with small flowers, and no one bothered to cut them back. When she got to this part of the cemetery she would stroll peacefully around the paths as if she was drawing arabesques with her feet.
She was thirty-five years old and that summer she was avoiding her girlfriends. Now and then they would call her and ask about meeting up, but she would decline whenever possible. She knew they would be troubled by her situation, and that her way of dealing with what she claimed had happened would excite them and cause them to speculate impulsively. On a few occasions she tried to explain the situation to them, but it had not been pleasant. A few of them had tried to talk her out of it, suggesting her condition was the result of loneliness or biology. One had interrogated her. Was she quite sure, was it wise, wouldn’t it be better if … All of them wanted to give her advice, even if she didn’t need any. She knew why she was going to the cemeteries, why she continued to walk back and forth, and around and about, eating ice cream and rolling rose petals between her fingers. She was waiting, and while she was waiting she was putting something behind her and trying to find a new way of looking at the future. She walked slowly and if not devoutly then at least pensively and with a sense for the little things she didn’t feel she’d noticed for years. She saw the wild cats that lived in the bushes. She saw how they drank water from the pond in the middle of the cemetery. She saw the magpie’s young and the graves that had fallen in and the gravestones that had tipped over so it looked like the dead and their monuments were about to change places. As summer passed she saw the plants grow and fade, and some evenings she would pick a few of the pink roses and take them home with her to put in a vase on the bedside table. She thought mostly about how hard it was to be allowed to believe that good would arrive and how things would be when in spite of everything it did.
What had happened wasn’t exactly spectacular. She had met a man. That was all. She loved him, and the way she loved him had made her settle into a place inside her where intangible things took on natural substance. She felt at home there and she knew that at some point she would look back on this summer as the one when she stopped holding back. Her feelings were strong and reciprocated. She sensed it, yet she knew also it would take time before they could be together. He was in mourning for things he’d lost, and his mourning was unhurried. She could see that when he looked up at her from the table. But she was all right with it, because when he looked at her she was in no doubt and could abandon herself to the hope that he would bring all the good with him when he came.
But there was no way she could explain this to her girlfriends. They demanded evidence. They wanted to know who had died, why he kept crying, and if it really wasn’t just his own fault. They wanted to know if she’d looked into him and if she knew what laying down arms involved. She mustn’t get her heart broken, they said. That was the important thing. Not to get her heart broken. And all the time the
y jumped from floe to floe with their dreams of disappearing into the current, losing control, abandoning themselves. Always trying to fill in the empty spaces and keep things moving in the meantime. Doing their best to avoid going home too early to their little apartments that reminded them of coffee bars and bus shelters every time they stepped through the door. Love, nothing less. That was what they wanted. That was what they craved, unconditionally. It was what they talked about when they put their arms under hers and dragged her through the parks, as though the parks were eyes in a storm that had to be sat out, and now she had found it. But she couldn’t tell them. There was no way she could share it with them, so that summer she frequented cemeteries.
She would focus on her job, including her hospitality duties, but when it was done she would get on her bike and be gone. In the early evening she would pass through the iron gates into Park Cemetery, stroll past the dead painters, the poets, and head for the place where the pink roses were. When she got there she would walk between the graves, and as she went she closed her eyes to the parts of reality the others were keeping a watch on and imagined the man, who could only be with her in spirit, lacing his fingers in hers. They would walk there in various scenarios, sometimes silently, but together. They would be walking there when he said he loved her. Things like that would be said as they walked side by side through the cemeteries in the various stages of their as-yet-uninitiated time together. She had no trouble picturing the man zigzagging in between the small plots with a child on his shoulders. She could see the man and the child leap out from among the bushes where the wild cats lived. She could feel him kiss her behind the cemetery toilets, see the child fall and hurt itself, hear the wheels of the buggy squeak. Often he would sit down on one of the benches a little farther on and pat the space beside him so she would sit there with him, and that was what she did.
There was nothing secretive about it. She was in love with someone, and while it was going on she thought about the good that had happened and the good that was going to happen. The noise of traffic on Søndre Fasanvej and Roskildevej remained a distant hum as she stole names for the child from the gravestones, and it felt nice, the same way it felt nice to let her thoughts sink into the earth where one day they themselves would lie, white through to the bone and tangled up in each other while the world carried on above them. That was okay, she thought. That kind of death was a good thing, and she would tell him that when he came, and she would tell the child when it was old enough, and perhaps a particularly distraught girlfriend one day. Until then she would keep it to herself, frequent the cemeteries, waiting and occasionally squatting down to see the cats stretch their necks toward the water.
ORANGES
Mirja Unge
Translated from the Swedish by Kari Dickson
Mirja Unge (1973–) is a Swedish novelist and short story writer acclaimed as one of the leading writers of her generation. She published her first novel Det var ur munnarna orden kom (Out of Your Mouth the Words Come) in 1998, which won the Katapult Prize for best debut novel. This was followed by Järnnätter (Anticlockwise) and a second novel Motsols (Tide) which was shortlisted for the Swedish Radio Award. Her stories and novel, focussing on the the confusing experiences of young girls growing up, have earned her a devoted fanbase among young readers in her native Sweden. It Was Just, Yesterday was published in English in 2011.
It was nice of them to come and, like, bother about the fact you’re turning eighteen and that. I hadn’t really thought about it, just stood there in the door and they sang happy birthday and Anita got all soppy and was running around now, in her dressing gown, putting on the coffee and making breakfast. And they’d got Linus with them too, stood there in the hallway in his snow-covered trainers with ten bloody roses that he’d bought, and he held them out and he hugged me and I hadn’t showered or washed my hair so it just hung lank and looked greasy, I thought, but it didn’t seem to bother him because he nuzzled in, even though I kind of froze a bit. And Sara took Vicke out of the cage where he was dozing, because she liked having him on her lap and he liked it too and sat there grinding his teeth when she scratched him between the ears and he was bloody overweight even though Anita had had him on a diet for ages now.
Mum hadn’t met Linus, though I’d told her I hung out with him, so she knew about him and all that, and now he was sitting there, on the bench in the kitchen where we usually sat, Anita and me, now he was sitting there, and he smuggled the snus out of his mouth and back into the tin. And Sara and Magda had presents and things that they piled up on the table and Anita had got some clothes on and was sitting, smoking under the fan, and offered her yellow Blend cigarettes to everyone but no one wanted one. Magda rolled her John Silver and sat down with Anita by the fan and Linus drank his coffee and looked at me and gave me a knowing smile and Sara sat there, feeding Vicke crispbread, so he was happy as a pig in shit because no one bothered about him otherwise. Linus stretched his hand out under the table and stroked my knee and Anita said she thought it was really nice to meet Linus as well because I’ve heard so much about you, she said, and Linus gave a lopsided smile and stroked my knee. Aren’t you going to open them then, Magda said, and I played with my fringe and it was really nice of them to get presents and all that, so I picked the smallest one and unwrapped some really cool earrings with the peace sign on, and then I realised what was in the other one when I gave it a shake, and Magda grinned and Linus packed some snus and put it in and wiped his fingers on his jeans. I started to unwrap the second present and Anita shuffled around barefoot in her Scholls and put some buns in the oven to defrost. I pulled the paper off and there was a tape inside, and how Magda’d got me a tape of Eddie Medusa I don’t know, but it was a brand new tape and she grinned and said that it was a fucking good recording, much better than the one I’ve got, she said, and Anita wondered what it was and said that I should put it on the cassette player, there in the kitchen, but no fucking way, I thought. Anita put the buns down on the table and Linus and Sara started to eat. Jesus, thanks, I said, and nice of you to come and all that, and I held Linus’ hand under the table, kind of warm and sweaty it was, and he sneaked a smile and slurped his coffee and flicked his blond fringe, his eyes brown below. Really nice of you to come, I said, because I realised that they must’ve got up early to take the bus out here and sacrificed a lie-in and all that. And Magda grinned and blew smoke up into the fan because it had probably been her idea to come here and to drag Linus along too, and he hadn’t been here yet, even though we’d been together since the beginning of December. Magda had some wool with her and was going to plait me a friendship bracelet because she made really fucking cool ones. She got out her wool and I had to choose the colours and it was going to be a totally cool black and white one. Magda tied the wool to a safety pin and fixed it to her jeans and started to twist the wool and she was so fucking good at getting the pattern and all that. And Linus was comfortable on the kitchen bench and looked like he sat there all the time, drinking Anita’s coffee. They all seemed to be getting on fine so I nipped out to the toilet and sprayed my hair and put on some mascara and when I came back again Anita was sitting, leaning forwards so she could see down the road, and I leant forwards as well and saw someone cycling down the road and it was wonky, I mean the bike was wonky as hell, and it was still icy right out to the main road. Look, there’s someone coming down here on a bicycle, Anita said, and stubbed out her cigarette and leant forwards. Wow, your dad’s coming too now, Anita said, and pulled another fag out of the packet. Could be anyone, that, I said. I mean, we had neighbours, didn’t we. We didn’t live in total fucking isolation. It is him, Anita said, so Lennart’s got the bike out, obviously, and has come all the way over here, she said, and I saw that it was him cycling towards us, slowly slipping down the icy road, and the new kid was on the back, the new kid was sitting on the back, glaring out from under a sheepskin hat. And he’s got the new kid with him, Anita said. No doubt he wants to say happy birthday to you. That’s proba
bly why he’s cycled over here, because he’s never had a driving licence and he obviously can’t afford to take the bus, Anita said, and I knew only too well and so did everyone else in the town, for that matter, that Lennart cycles, and he’s almost always hanging around in town with his bike. Ah, there’s Linda’s dad coming now, Anita said, and I said to her to sit by the fan and smoke and not wander around all over the place, because it stinks of cigarettes in here now, I said. And Magda and Sara looked out of the window at Lennart and saw him slipping on the ice. Is that your dad, Magda said, and leant forward and stared. I didn’t know that he was your dad, she said, and I mean she’d obviously seen him before, though they hadn’t actually met, but they’d seen him around town with his bike. Standing there all the time, he was, with his bike, outside the supermarket, staring and saying hello to the people who went in. Linus spread another piece of bread and sat there and chewed and was always bloody hungry, he was, and Vicke sat grinding his teeth on Sara’s lap, and I saw Lennart brake and slide on his bike on the icy road outside, and then he lifted the new kid off and locked up the bike and he had this bloody great basket on the handlebars. You won’t have met Linda’s dad, Anita said, and I said that she should cut more bread because Linus wanted more, didn’t he, I said, and Linus grinned and said if there was any, well. The doorbell rang and there was a knock on the door and I skidded out into the hall in my woolly socks and opened the door and Lennart was standing there, smiley and bright, and the new kid was behind him all snotty in her waterproofs. Well, Lennart said, and nodded down at the new kid, now we can say happy birthday to Linda, he said, talking down to the new kid. Really nice of you to come, I said, and he barged into the hall with his basket and I peeked in and he’d obviously gone to town, Lennart, and packed it full of presents. Yes, he was smiling away, and the new kid was holding on to his trouser leg. Come on in then, I said, and he wiped away the new kid’s snot with his hand. Should we go in, he asked the new kid, bending down, and I said of course they should come in. Is he coming in, Anita called from the kitchen, and Lennart bent down slowly and pulled the new kid’s boots off. Well, they’ve asked us in now, Lennart said to the kid, and he didn’t have a jacket on, I noticed, just several sweaters that he started to peel off. The layered method, I said, and he bent down over the kid and said well, we’d better go in now, and he obviously didn’t have any money, Dad didn’t have money, but he had layers of sweaters instead and he was standing there peeling them off, and underneath it all he was really sinewy and skinny as he walked across the floor with the kid hanging onto his trouser leg. Well, let’s go into the kitchen then, he said to the kid, and I followed behind. Lennart lifted the new kid up onto the sofa, so there sat the kid, staring at Vicke who was perched crunching crispbread on Sara’s lap. Lennart had holes under the arms of his innermost t-shirt, I noticed, and Linus sat and chewed on his sandwich and Magda sat by the fan smoking and plaiting the wool bracelet and Lennart looked at them for a while but he didn’t say anything, even though they said hello to him, and Lennart stared back and Linus started to fidget with his snus and Madga lit another. There’s other people here, Lennart said to the new kid. It’s Linda’s friends who’re sitting here, you see, he said, and the kid sat there and squirmed in her waterproofs and was too bloody hot, I reckon. Oh, we’ve forgotten the basket, Lennart said, and went out to get it. Anita sat on the worktop with a cigarette and I said that she should hold it under the fan because it stinks of fags in here now, I said, and Lennart came in with the basket and cleared a space on the table for it, and Linda’s eighteen now, you see, Lennart said to the new kid. You’ve got a lot with you there, Linus said, and Lennart smiled and stretched over and buttered a piece of bread, and he found some old mugs on the draining board and emptied one and filled it with coffee and stood there drinking. And it was quiet, just the whir of the fan and Vicke grinding his teeth when Sara pulled his ears and scratched them, and the basket stood there, big and full on the table, and he’d cycled out here with it. Really nice of you to come, I said, and he smiled and sort of raised his eyebrows and he got sick pay, only he didn’t have any money, to come here with such a big basket, I said, and he smiled. But we’d like the basket back later, wouldn’t we, he said to the new kid, and well of course he’d get it back, I understood that, I said, and I mean what would I do with it anyway? The new kid squirmed in her waterproofs and Linus searched for my hand under the table, a sweaty and warm hand he had, and he held mine. Anita said why don’t we put on that tape, even though there was no fucking way we were going to. Oh well, said Anita, and sat there on the worktop tipping her shoe. And Magda eyed up the basket and said well, go on then, are you not going to open them, she said, and of course I would, wouldn’t I. Couldn’t it wait a while, or was there a rush, I said, and I didn’t know how much time they had or how long they could stay and, I mean, hang out. Sara leant over towards the new kid and undid the zip on her rain jacket and the new kid started to take it off and Lennart smiled and said so you’re getting help to take off your waterproofs. And should we help Linda to open her presents, he said to the kid, and stretched over and took one out of the basket and the kid pulled at the string and paper and suddenly an orange rolled out onto the table and Linus and Magda started to laugh their heads off and the kid stared at them and Anita sat on the worktop and tapped the ash from her cigarette and tipped her shoe on her toe. Give Linda a present, Lennart said to the kid, and the kid reached over and got hold of a present and gave it to me and that’s nice, I said to the kid, and pulled at the string around the present and unwrapped another orange, and Madga and Linus laughed like before. Bloody good idea that, the oranges, Magda said, and Sara giggled and Anita lit up another cigarette and ran her thumb over her lower lip. And the kid handed me another present and I could feel that it was, well, round, I don’t know, and I unwrapped an orange and Magda giggled and Sara asked if she could get one and of course she could. I went and got the coffee pot and asked if anyone wanted any, and Lennart held out his mug and I said to him that he could take a clean mug, because Anita had been drinking buttermilk from that one, I said, but Lennart smiled and winked and Magda said aren’t you going to unwrap them all, then, and of course I am, but there isn’t any rush, is there, and no need to bloody stress, I said, and Magda shrugged and rolled another John Silver and Anita took a drag and blew the smoke at the window and I said that she might as well open the window now, if she was going to blow smoke in that direction, otherwise it won’t get out, I said. Okay, okay, Anita said, and opened the window and I sat down at the table again and took out another present and pulled at the string and unwrapped an orange that rolled out and over to the others, and Sara was sitting there giggling and peeling now, and Linus grinned and Magda thought it was a really cool idea, she said, and lit up her John Silver and I unwrapped another one that rolled away and the paper fell onto the floor and the string, and the new kid just stared and Lennart nodded and smiled and said to the kid that Linda’s eighteen now, you see, Lennart said, and I unwrapped the presents and the oranges rolled all over the table and then lay still and Linus stopped grinning and packed in some snus and Anita sat balancing her Scholl shoe on her toe and I unwrapped oranges, one after the other, I unwrapped them and they rolled out of the paper and lay there shiny and orange on the table. Sara asked if she could peel one for the kid as well, and of course she can have one, and you too, I said, you can have one too. And there were only a few parcels left at the bottom now, and I picked them out and unwrapped them. Linus sat with his lip stretched over the snus and Sara chewed her orange while she peeled another and Mum dropped her slipper and fished it up again with her toe. I took the last present out of the basket and unwrapped it and is that the last one, Sara said, and I nodded and Linus sat with his mouth open and stared as I unwrapped it. I pulled off the string and unwrapped the last orange and it rolled out onto the table and lay there with the rest. There was silence and Magda got up and looked in the basket and then sat down again. The fan whirred an
d I reached for the last orange and started to peel it. Really nice of you to come, I said, and Lennart smiled. Magda sat and plaited the wool bracelet and kept her eyes on it and Linus had obviously taken a large pinch of snus and was numbed by it.