saying? What is it you want? . . . Are you out of your wits,
man? Do you mean to . . . Have you come here to . . . ? No,
no, no, I apologize!’ he promptly checked himself with a
breathless little laugh, extending a reassuring hand when
he saw the startling effect his outburst had had on the
stranger. ‘I got quite . . . I thought by God for a moment
you . . . Well, do forgive me. The thing is . . . in these times, when excitable thoughts are bound to surface . . . ’
And now that he had regained his composure he
started to pace back and forth over the carpet, speaking
with broad gestures as though rehearsing a public address.
‘As I say—we deeply appreciate the fact we can count
you amongst our ranks. In such times as these the country
needs every one of its sons who are true to the constitu-
tion. For now has come the moment for all truth-loving
men to join together, all those who by precious ties—ties of
patriotism and the goal of liberty—inextricably belong
together. We know the current situation. We are starting
from scratch. There has been an infringement of the
constitution—a clear and incontrovertible infringement
of the constitution! But we will fight the battle with lawful
weapons, which will, which must, which have to prevail.
We stand firm upon our sacred rights and the truth. And
in this battle each one of us is called to do his duty to the
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
Twice Met n 35
full. You too—my dear friend!—will honourably play your
part in our ranks. Support us to the best of your ability in
our struggle on the ground. Become a member of our
constituency organization, support our papers, attend
meetings regularly, give your mite—be it never so
modest—to our funds . . . And you shall see, victory will
be ours one day!’
Shortly afterwards, Reinald slunk down the stairs. As
he stood in the street a carriage rolled out of the gate.
He looked after it for a long time, with a rueful smile.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
A Tricky
Moment
Bjarne Reuter
Aksel stared at the back of his driver’s neck. Of all necks
his driver’s was the one he knew best. His knowledge was
based on seven years’ study, which included the man’s eyes
in the rear-view mirror. His eyes, and the back of his neck.
Constants to rest the mind: watery blue eyes, powerful
neck. Thus proving there was nothing new under the
sun, but for the fact that Aksel could not remember the
man’s name. His name would obviously turn up again, it
had to be lurking somewhere. Like a shoe absentmindedly
kicked under the bed. Nothing to fret about, least of all
now Aksel had so much else to occupy his head. The text,
for instance. Not that he needed to learn it by heart, still he
would like to get a feel for the right tone of voice. As he’d
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
38 n Bjarne Reuter
said to his secretary: ‘You don’t want to screw up when
reading Hans Christian Andersen. Balance of trade figures
and inflation projections maybe, but not Andersen.’
The driver mentioned something about the weather,
and Aksel answered in the affirmative. This by and large
was the sum total of their exchanges: the weather and
the Super League. On a good day both might even be
combined. They had always called each other by their
surnames. How this came about was lost in the mists of
time, but it felt natural.
But what was the man’s name? . . .
The ministerial car drew up in front of TV City where
the Christmas glitter was beginning to wear off. Aksel said
as much to the driver, who asked what time he should be
back. Though he could equally well stay around and wait.
‘Don’t wait, I don’t know how long they’ll want to keep
me, but you’re on no account to wait for me.’
The driver said his evening was ruined anyway.
Aksel looked at his watch, uncertain whether to take
the remark as a reproach or a sample of dry humour.
He opened the car door.
‘Well, see you soon then, in any case next year.’
The driver nodded: ‘Happy New Year, Frederiksen,
and regards to the family.’
Aksel gave the driver his genial smile to make up for
the name which for some reason still escaped him.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
A Tricky Moment n 39
She was standing by the desk, waiting for him as
agreed. Aksel hadn’t seen her before. She looked depend-
able. Even sported a little three-cornered hat on her head,
and a bunch of streamers in her breast pocket.
‘My name’s Suzy, welcome and thanks for taking the
trouble to be with us.’
He put his arm round her.
‘You do realize, Suzy, before an election we’d all sell
our souls for the sake of sixty seconds.’
Her smile became a trifle forced. He realized he
shouldn’t have put his arm round her. It was a relic from
a bygone era. Something he needed to remember. To quit
doing. They were so touchy these days. Nice enough, but
on their guard. The more belly they bared, the more
buttons they unbuttoned, the more on their guard. There
was a certain logic to it.
He suppressed a yawn, and was rewarded with a shiver.
He said to himself: you are just as clapped out as this
building. Looks like something from Walter Ulbrecht’s
time. Not so surprising if a name slips the mind now and
again. The fatigue in his head had spread to the rest of his
body. He thought of his couch back in the office, and also
of the people sitting at home. The people he should be
with. Except they weren’t sitting at home. They were in
Trørød. He had jotted down the address, to be on the safe
side. Why hadn’t he written down his driver’s name?
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
40 n Bjarne Reuter
On the way down to the studio he greeted two people
he recognized as they hurried by in the other direction. He
needed to sit down and put his feet up, preferably with a
pick-me-up, but that of course was out of the question.
Suzy said something about a New Year’s Eve mood, but
Aksel couldn’t make out whether or not she meant it
positively. He had seen her before. On children’s TV.
Maybe she was older than he’d first assumed. She looked
the sort who goes in for aerobics. Big muscles, strong legs.
Well upholstered. A strapping lass with a tired smile.
‘I believe’, he said, ‘I believe I know the text pretty well,
but then that’ll turn out not to be the case. When we get
started I’ll no doubt have forgotten it all. I said something
to my driver about that. We should form the Amnesia
Party.’
‘The Amnesia Party?’
‘It was just an idea, a silly notion, they come and go
these notions. So it’s okay if I read out the story?’
‘Of course.’
Suzy walked fast. Aksel had to shift gear to keep up
with her.
Dentist’s receptionists, he thought. The place is crawl-
ing with them. You never get to see the dentist.
‘I’d prefer people to see that I’m reading. To be more
myself, you know—Suzy—warts and all.’
She smiled and opened the door into the studio.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
A Tricky Moment n 41
‘Now we’ll see what the bigwigs have to say.’
He took a seat in the chair she indicated, while the
lights came on. At least he had remembered the book. His
secretary had underlined a few things which should help
him through the text. A beer wouldn’t come amiss, espe-
cially now the rest of the population were sitting in party
hats getting blotto. Eleven minutes, he thought, eleven
piddling minutes. Would it do any good? Change any-
thing? Deep down he very probably fancied it could. The
bright young things in the office had said it was an offer he
couldn’t refuse. Was he called Frandsen, the driver?
Aksel sat back, shut his eyes, and thought of all the
phone numbers he knew off by heart.
‘Something to drink, Aksel?’ Suzy was standing there
with a bottle of mineral water.
‘That would be great. Or a cup of coffee, though
I suppose the canteen’s closed?’
She sat down beside him. Aksel was quite certain he’d
seen her before. On children’s TV. Something about
brushing teeth.
‘Were you on B&U, Suzy?’
‘Have I been on B&U? No, never.’
‘It was something about remembering to brush your
teeth. Along with Jimmy.’
‘Jimmy?’
‘Jimmy Stahr’.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
42 n Bjarne Reuter
She smiled and said they’d had a little think about his
clothes.
‘My clothes?’
‘They say it might be an idea to consider something
other than a lounge suit.’
His driver wasn’t called Frandsen, though something
very like Frandsen.
‘I think I look rather becoming in my Christiansborg
uniform.’
He had wanted to say something different, but was too
tired to think clearly. Precision had gone out the window.
Absentmindedness, he thought, is a persistent prob-
lem, a condition in its own right, impossible to shake off.
The entire time we’re somewhere else. He told himself that
was worth remembering, might be useful in some other
circumstance: modern man could be defined as an indi-
vidual who for reasons unknown exists in different places.
You stand with your feet far apart. Your left leg is here.
Your right’s somewhere else. The splits! Excellent expres-
sion, the splits. That isn’t the main problem, though,
seeing that in actual fact you’re nowhere. Interesting
thought. Make a note about not being anywhere. Physi-
cally of course he was present. He was demonstrably
sitting in TV City, but his thoughts were in Trørød. Yet
if the truth be told he was also still in his office. Or with the man whose name he’d forgotten?
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
A Tricky Moment n 43
He pulled a face. The splits can make us disloyal. He
would make a note about disloyalty. Disloyalty towards
one of his staff whose name he couldn’t remember . . .
‘Yes, that’s what you’ll do’.
‘What I do?’ Aksel looked up. ‘So sorry Suzy, you were
saying something about I should . . . I didn’t catch the last
bit.’
‘I know what!’—Suzy clapped her hands—‘I’ve got a
suggestion, we go down to the girls in make-up. Josey,
she’s from Minnesota, she’s a total miracle worker. What
do you say?’
‘Why of course. Is there a particular hurry?’
‘No, no rush. This way.’
He hastened after her, stumbled over some cables and
tumbled into the neon-lit room.
‘Two secs, and she’ll be here.’
Aksel gazed at himself in the mirror, turned round in
his chair and started rummaging in his pockets for the slip
of paper with the Trørød address. He’d been there before,
dammit. That was when Lene’s grandchildren were small.
‘My wife has three grandchildren,’ he mumbled.
Was the driver called Mouritsen? No, he was called
something else. Aksel steadied his nerves by proving that
at least he could remember the grandchildren’s names.
Children were given the most peculiar names these days.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
44 n Bjarne Reuter
Was the driver called Meinertsen? No, nobody could be
called Meinertsen. In that case Mikkelsen?
‘Bloody hell, my wrist hurts!’
He had said it out loud. ‘Two hundred New Year cards.
It affects the wrist.’
Was memory located in the wrist?
Another girl had turned up in the mirror. Somewhat
older than Suzy. Dark and pretty. She introduced herself as
Josey and apologized for her accent.
Aksel gave her his genial smile. He had practised that
smile. He had been advised to do something about his
teeth. Especially the lower ones. The know-alls reckoned
his lower teeth were too aggressive. In our day people were
fitted with a brace to straighten their choppers and make
them like everybody else’s, but it was far too late now. He
had seen his own smiles on video. All five of them. Per
from the secretariat had come straight out with it: You
look like you’ve got a belly-ache, you screw up your eyes
too much, try lowering your head a touch, try to look more
appealing, don’t turn up the left corner of your mouth, it
looks like a nervous tic. Can’t you push out your lower lip
a bit? Think of your childhood, think of that old dear who
sends you sweets at Christmas. Think of your summer
house, your dog, your lunch pack, and all the happy
memories from the Nordic Council.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
A Tricky Moment n 45
Aksel had managed a smiling compromise between
the doorstep salesman, the child molester, and the bluff
docker.
‘I have an accent myself’—Aksel pushed out his lower
lip a bit—‘although it’s a dialect. But it goes, did you know
that, Josey? And it’s your fault. Well, not yours, but the
fault of television. My wife says there’s still a little trace of Kolding left when I get excited. One’s own speech risks the
splits.’
Josey smiled. Pityingly. Aksel thought he ought to learn
to keep his mouth shut.
‘Can I ask you something, Aksel?’
He set his briefcase on the floor.
‘Ask away. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Your sideburns, may I take a bit off them?’
/> She placed her hands on his cheeks. Her touch re-
minded him how tired he was. But he was a workhorse,
wasn’t he? Was he called Finsen, the driver?
‘They make you look—I won’t say older but . . . ’
‘My wife likes them.
‘That’s the odd thing’, said Josey, ‘it’s the wives who are
more conservative. People think the opposite. I suggest we
put it to the test.’
The battery-operated machine was already at work.
First the left side, then the right. It went so quick.
She blew away the hairs and studied him in the mirror.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
46 n Bjarne Reuter
‘Now if we trim you just a little bit above the ears it will
be spot on. And it will save you a haircut.’
‘One is a creature of habit.’
She took a spray and moistened his hair. Told a joke
about an actor who had begged her to make him ten years
younger.
‘Half an hour later, well, he was ten years younger.’
Aksel laughed. He had nothing against being ten years
younger.
‘And it’s New Year’s Eve after all.’
Josey flashed him an enviable smile. So confidence-
inspiring, so professional and warm. Aksel tried to guess
how many percentage points a smile like that was worth.
‘You have good hair, Aksel.’
‘I have dead hair, Josey. It was Josey, wasn’t it?’
‘I’m really called Josefine, and you certainly don’t have
dead hair. I’m just taking the ends off, and a bit each side,
to give you a more sparky look. I won’t touch the rest.’
Aksel took the book out of his briefcase. He had seen
Josey before too. Was it at Bakkens Hvile music hall? That
couldn’t be ruled out. He definitely wanted a sparky look,
whatever that meant.
‘Might one be allowed to read a bit while you trim?’
‘All you want. That little thingummy you have under
your lip—shall we hold on to it or what?’
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
A Tricky Moment n 47
‘I did have a full beard for many years. That’s the last
stubborn bit left over. In the ministry they call it my . . . ’
He stopped short, stared into the mirror and went over
all the phone numbers he knew off by heart.
‘Your what?’
‘My wisp.’
They didn’t call it his wisp, but something much more
amusing.
‘So what’ll you be reading?’
Copenhagen Tales Page 4