Rock, Paper, Scissors

by Naja Marie Aidt

  “The emotions unleashed . . . are painfully universal. Yet you know exactly where in the universe you are. This is the hallmark of great short stories, from Chekhov’s portraits of discontented Russians to Joyce’s struggling Dubliners.”

  —Radhika Jones, Time

  “Without question one of the best—and possibly the best—story collection(s) of the year, Aidt’s [Baboon] appears for the first time in English after winning a major Nordic prize. Prepare to brave the darkness.”

  — Jonathon Sturgeon, Flavorwire

  “Undoubtedly one of the most intelligent writers of the contemporary literary world, Aidt is also clearly one of the most compassionate—and therefore one of the most important—voices in fiction. How she bears the weight of such empathic descriptions of her characters, who we feel for as though we had stumbled directly into their lives, is a credit to her brilliant insight into the human condition.”

  — Jordan Anderson, Music & Literature

  “This collection is for those who delight in the eccentric and the atmospheric; Aidt inspires readers to read between the lines.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A major literary event.”

  —Los Angeles Review of Books

  “Unusual, laconic language and . . . extraordinary plots. . . . You are faced with a universe that unmistakably is that of Naja Marie Aidt.”

  —World Literature Today

  ALSO BY NAJA MARIE AIDT

  Baboon

  Copyright © Naja Marie Aidt & Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 2012.

  Published by agreement with Gyldendal Group Agency.

  Translation copyright © K. E. Semmel, 2015

  Originally in Denmark as Sten saks papir

  First edition, 2015

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Available.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-940953-17-5

  Literary quotes within the novel are sourced from:

  Epigraph: “The Tenth Elegy” by Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. by Stephen Mitchell. / Blade Runner (Film), screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples. / The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara, edited by Donald Allen. California UP, 1995. Poem used: “Jane Awake.” / The Essential Haiku Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa, edited and with verse translation by Robert Hass. Ecco Press, 1994. / “Ode to Celery” from Landesprache (1960) by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, trans. K. E. Semmel. / “I laugh as if my pots were clean” from My Life by Lyn Hejinian. Green Integer, 2002. / “All Souls” and “Death Fugue” from Poems of Paul Celan, trans. by Michael Hamburger, Persea Books, 1988. / “Ninth Elegy” by Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Stephen Mitchell. / “We Two, How Long We were Fool’d” from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Norton Critical Edition, 1973.

  This project is supported in part by a grant from the Danish Arts Foundation.

  This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

  Design by N. J. Furl

  Open Letter is the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press: Lattimore Hall 411, Box 270082, Rochester, NY 14627

  www.openletterbooks.org

  And we, who have always thought of happiness rising, would feel the emotion that overwhelms us whenever a happy thing falls.

  Rainer Maria Rilke, “The Tenth Elegy” (trans. by Stephen Mitchell)

  Contents

  Rock, Paper, Scissors

  Author’s Acknowledgements

  A man cuts across the street in the city center. It’s drizzling. The traffic is earsplitting and intense, from shouting to dogs barking, from roadwork to the wailing of ambulances and the cooing of doves, from children screaming in their strollers to the metro rumbling beneath the streets, from hyperactive teenagers to the muttering homeless, from buses to street hawkers. Thomas crosses the street, a thin leather portfolio tucked under one arm, an umbrella under the other, and on his heels a plump, blonde woman hustles to match his pace. When she’s almost at his side she clutches his jacket, her cotton coat flapping behind her like a tail or a kite, and glances about wildly. A car races toward them at high speed. She gasps and lunges ahead, and at last they’re safe on the sidewalk, and Jenny lets go of Thomas. She says, “Can’t you use the crosswalk like a normal person? You almost got me killed.” Her eyes are wide and bright.

  “Have you been crying?”

  “I wasn’t crying.”

  “It looked like you were crying back there.”

  “Maybe I was crying on the inside. I was dying of hunger.” She raises her chin defiantly and begins to walk. Thomas follows. They head down a side street, away from the noise, a long, narrow street, poorly lit. It’s 6:30 P.M. and darkness expands around them. The air is cool. A raindrop pelts Thomas’s cheek, and before long they’re seated opposite one other at a table in a small restaurant. Thomas’s eyes roam across the objects between them: a green ceramic bowl filled with olive oil, a breadbasket, salt and pepper shakers, a carafe of water, and two mismatched glasses. Jenny’s chubby white hand fidgets with a napkin. Then she leans back and looks at him. “What did you think about the lawyer? Should we hire him?”

  “Do we have a choice?”

  “I guess not. Why were you so late?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I was hesitant.”

  “Hesitant? Why hesitant?”

  He smiles at her and lights a cigarette. “Does it even matter now?”

  “Do you have to smoke?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you even allowed to smoke here?”

  “Yes. What are you going to eat? You want a glass of wine?”

  “I want a Bloody Mary. And pasta with pancetta. And a salad. Remember the olives we had the last time we were here? You think we can get them again?”

  The waiter, a stooped older man with wavy black hair, takes their orders and disappears into the kitchen. When the door swings open, Thomas sees two young men, one hunched over some steaming pots, the other grappling with a frying pan. In the warmth of the kitchen, their faces gleam with sweat. But it’s cool in the high-ceilinged room they’re in. Thomas shivers. A middle-aged woman behind the bar polishes drinking glasses. The restaurant isn’t even half full. “Remember when Dad brought us here the night of the accident, after you’d been to the emergency room? We sat over there.” Jenny points at a table next to the window. “I think it must’ve been this same waiter, back when he was young. You were pale as a sheet. How old were we?”

  “I was eleven, you were nine.”

  “And we got to order whatever we wanted. All I ate was chocolate cake. Three slices.” She laughs suddenly and loudly. “Ha! You were pale as a sheet, though nothing had happened. Nothing serious. Bumps and bruises. Just a few bumps and bruises.”

  The waiter sets steaming plates before them. The bartender places a red drink, a pallid stalk of celery poking out of it, in the middle of the table as if it were meant to be shared.

  “Just a few bumps and bruises,” Thomas repeats slowly, pushing the drink toward Jenny. “That’s one way to look at it.”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Eat your food. Cheers.”

  She raises her Bloody Mary so that the lamplight shines through the red liquid. “Ha! Just a few bumps and bruises!”

  “That actually looks like blood,” he says, pointing at the glass with his fork. Then he bores into his oxtail and shovels the sauce with his knife. The waiter limps back carrying a half-empty bottle of red wine along with a plate of olives. But Jenny isn’t happy. “They aren’t anything like the ones we had last time. Plain, tasteless. I bet they got them at the local supermarket. Try them yourself. Everything gets worse over time, everything, everything. Doesn’t it?” Thomas refuses to try the tasteless olives.
He takes a swig of wine, and says: “Dear Jenny, you’re always complaining. Everything doesn’t get worse over time, everything gets better. We’re rid of Dad, for one thing. Think about that. And he’ll never come back. Except in our most terrifying nightmares.”

  “How can you be so mean? You’ve always been mean. It’s a constant, neither worse nor better with time. But everything else gets worse. Love and marriage. Our bodies fall apart. Hideous! Things get uglier. Doors, buildings, chairs, cars. And silverware.” She pokes her fork at him. “Yup, even silverware gets uglier and uglier, and people get uglier and uglier. Just think of Helena and Kristin’s twins, how they dress so tastelessly you wonder if it’s a joke. They sent a photograph at Christmas, Kristin must have taken it—she’s such a terrible photographer—and . . .” She stops abruptly, sets down her fork, and smoothes her shirtsleeves. Then she looks directly into his eyes. “You’re also getting uglier. You really are. You were handsome once. You looked like Mom and her brothers.”

  “Can we talk about something a little more uplifting?” Thomas smiles at Jenny, but she shakes her head, and says: “I don’t know. I’m not doing so well. You think we can save a few odds and ends from Dad’s apartment before it’s cleaned out?”

  “There’s nothing there, Jenny. Just a few ugly, ugly things.” He smiles again, and now she too smiles, despite herself. Her teeth are yellow, her mouth wide and red. A sudden gleam in her green eyes.

  “I want the toaster. It’s special to me.”

  “Then take it. No one will know. What do you want with an old toaster?”

  “Come to think of it, did he have anything personal in his cell?”

  Thomas lights another cigarette and shakes his head. The bartender’s playing some strange music, a kind of languid disco.

  “A notebook and a stack of porn mags. His watch.”

  “What was in the notebook?”

  “Nothing. Doodles and some phone numbers.”

  “He didn’t even have a photo of us?”

  “Don’t be childish, Jenny. Of course he didn’t have a photo of us.”

  “I want dessert. And coffee.”

  Jenny orders ice cream and coffee for them both. She devours hers greedily, starting with the maraschino and then working her way through the layers of ice cream, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. One moment she resembles a little girl, the next a broken, overweight prostitute. A charming prostitute, Thomas thinks, surprised. He imagines how she’ll look in twenty years. The skin of her cheeks will be slacker. Her hair will be thinner. Maybe her hands will shake. Casually he glances at his phone. No messages.

  “How’s Alice?” he asks.

  “She’s got a new boyfriend. Again. I don’t like him.” She licks the last of her ice cream off her spoon. “You should see how he gropes her in public. He’s reckless.” She looks out the window. It’s pouring now. Runnels of water stream down the enormous panes. “It’s not easy having kids, Thomas,” she says dreamily, still holding her spoon. Then she collects herself. “Well, anyway, I’ll go pick up the toaster tomorrow.” She tries to smile, but he can tell she’s on the verge of tears. He takes her hand and squeezes it, feigning solemnity:

  “Take the bus right to his door, Jenny.”

  She can’t help but laugh. A moment later, she squints at him, giving him a hard glare. “Okay,” she says. “Listen. This is how it was: We sat right over there, at the table by the window, and Dad said: ‘Order whatever you want.’ He didn’t care, he said. At first I didn’t believe him, but he was serious. You remember that? He snorted and groaned. Sweat dripped from his temples down his cheeks. Remember how sweat used to run down his temples? Who’d called him anyway?”

  “You know. Someone from the emergency room. I waited for hours. Do we need to discuss this?”

  “Yes, we do. Dad visited you in the emergency room, then what?”

  “Jenny . . . let it go.” Thomas stares resignedly at her.

  “Come on. Then what?”

  “Something had happened. I sprained my left arm, banged my head, and injured some vertebrae.”

  Jenny leans back smiling patronizingly, almost gleefully.

  “It’s true,” Thomas goes on, annoyed. “And the first thing he said to me when he walked into the room was, ‘What the hell have you done now?’ He didn’t care that I’d been hit by a car. He thought it was my fault.”

  “Did you walk in front of the car, or what?”

  “No, and you know it.” Thomas feels anger surging in him, his voice growing shrill. “It was speeding, it turned the corner, it hit me, I landed on the hood. You know all that. Maybe the sun blinded him. It was spring.”

  “Who was blinded by the sun?”

  “The driver! But it wasn’t my fault.” Thomas sighs loudly. “I was going to buy bread . . .”

  “Yes.” Jenny flares her nostrils and turns away, eyebrows lifted. “I waited for you in the hallway. Waited and waited. But you never came.”

  “Like it was my fault!”

  “I’m not talking about fault. I’m just saying you never came. I was so hungry my stomach hurt. I just sat there, squatting, leaning against the wall. Remember how dark it was in that foyer? How deep it was? The bulb on the ceiling, the brown walls? Ugh, they were really brown. When you were alone in there, it was like they were alive. There were shadows and . . . black holes.”

  “Black holes?”

  “Yes. Black holes. I was so scared.” Jenny’s eyes are moist now.

  Thomas shrugs. He signals the waiter, orders another coffee.

  “I was scared, Thomas,” Jenny repeats, earnestly. “Look at me.”

  “He was wasted,” Thomas said.

  “No, he wasn’t. You’re blowing things out of proportion again.”

  “Yes, he was. He was wobbly on his feet. You think I couldn’t tell when he was drunk? And you could too. He stank. Listen, Jenny. I had a concussion, a black eye, a scraped head, and a sprained arm, and all he did was stand there wobbling and blustering like an idiot. He stared at me, he stared out the window, he sat down, and he stood up again. He hobbled around the room in that uneasy way that made us nervous, and that—”

  Smiling, Jenny shakes her head.

  Thomas points at her. “It made you nervous, no matter what you say.”

  “But I wasn’t even there!” she interrupts him.

  “No, but I was, and he just walked over to me and grabbed my arm. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, despite the fact they wanted me to spend the night at the hospital. It was embarrassing, but he didn’t care. He yanked me out of the bed and shoved me into the elevator. I remember that shove clearly, because I had so many bruises on my back. Then we went home and picked you up—”

  “In a taxi,” Jenny interrupts.

  “He didn’t say a word the whole ride.”

  She straightens up when the waiter pours her coffee. She says, “I remember that. The taxi. How we drove here and could order whatever we wanted.”

  “And why do you suppose that was? Was it a punishment or a celebration?”

  “I don’t know. What do you mean by ‘punishment’? I ate as much chocolate cake as I could, but you,” Jenny points at him. “You just sat there moping—and what did you order again? Soup?” She snickers. “Soup! It made him angry. But c’mon, it’s so weird to order a ridiculous bowl of soup, the cheapest thing on the menu, when for once you could have whatever you wanted.”

  “I was sick!” Thomas sets his cup heavily on the saucer. Then he lowers his voice. “Can we just drop this? Why do you want to talk about this?”

  “Drop what? You had soup, you didn’t touch it, he got angry, and then you fell off the chair.”

  “I fainted, Jenny. I was nauseated, I was freezing, I was in pain, my head was spinning, I couldn’t eat that fucking soup.” His voice is a savage hiss, but Jenny laughs again, lightheartedly.

  “You fainted because you were hysterical! Don’t you think? That’s what I think.”

  Thomas shakes his head
, stares at Jenny, lights a cigarette, and blows air through his nose.

  “Okay,” Jenny says. “We won’t talk about it anymore. But the chocolate cake was really good. And you were so pale when you came to. Ha! He almost had to carry you to the car, though he didn’t want to. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, you threw up on the living room carpet when we got home. All because of a few bumps and bruises.”

  “It was a concussion!” Thomas practically shouts. “A concussion for God’s sake.”

  They stare at each other a moment, then each loses focus. Thomas zones out, his eyes resting on two men bent over their pasta. One of the men dabs his mouth with his napkin; the other says something, and the two laugh at the private joke. Thomas smokes greedily and drains the last of his cold, bitter coffee. Jenny gnaws at her pinky nail. She goes to the bathroom. Thomas thinks of his father’s kitchen, the toaster. The smell of the kitchen, the sound the cupboard next to the stove made when you closed it, how it stuck when you tried to open it. And the toast that would pop up, almost always too burnt at the edges, was like coal against his teeth, like tinfoil. He asks for the check. Jenny returns and begins to rummage in her purse. She fishes out a tube and slathers her hands with cream. A faint odor of menthol spreads around them. Then she begins to talk about her night shifts at the nursing home. About her modest salary and Alice and her friends who eat all her food. “What am I going to do?” she says, raising her hands only to let them drop heavily to her side. Thomas is exhausted, doesn’t say much. He pays, and they say goodbye outside the restaurant. Jenny is under a red umbrella, and Thomas is under a black one. Rain lashes the sidewalk with such force that it bounces off as if it were coming from both above and below. She offers him a key. The word Dad is etched onto a small piece of blond wood attached to the key ring. “I’m going out there tomorrow,” she says.

  “Say hi to Alice!” he calls out as she walks away. She raises her arm dismissively but doesn’t turn back. Maybe she’s begun to cry. For a moment he feels a prickling jab of tenderness for the plump, swaying body disappearing around the corner. Then disgust. Then tenderness again.