‘The Little Matchgirl. I know it’s a bit sentimental but
I actually think it’s suitable for tonight. Am I wrong?’
She rolled her eyes.
‘I don’t know it. How too embarrassing.’
Aksel smiled and said that all the same the story was
part of our common heritage. He thought about the word
‘actually’. Why had he said ‘actually’? It was unnecessary.
But he had acquired the tendency, this bad habit, of
moderating his language all the time. His wife had said it
came from perpetually pandering to the electors. Aksel
had defended himself, though he was old enough to
remember a time when politicians had dared to stand up
to people. That was the time before television dictated the
terms. TV had laid an egg, out of the egg came the fickle
population, the wandering tribes of the opinion polls, the
beast in the dark, King Kong atop the Town Hall tower. In
the sixties you betrayed them by talking over their heads,
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today the betrayal consisted in agreeing with everything
they said. But that was easy to say if you happened to be
sitting in Trørød, home and dry.
Aksel watched the little tuft land in his lap. All it took
was a onceover with the machine. The change was
astounding.
‘What’s it about, Aksel? The story?’
‘Oh, it’s just a, what can I say, a melancholy mood-
picture. Reminds us to, well, think of those who have less
than most of the rest of us. Probably rather ill-timed. As a
boy I lived in . . . ’
He stopped short, for Suzy had returned. She gave
Josey a knowing look.
‘I’ll be quick, Suz.’
Suzy pulled up a chair so that she was sitting sideways
to Aksel.
‘Up in the control room they’re saying it might be a
good idea to try a different story. What do you say, Aksel?
It’s entirely up to you.’
‘I was just saying to this nice lady that I . . . Look, I’ve
done my homework on it now.’
He laughed at his own reflection, thinking that the
change truly was astounding. Hadn’t they said his intelli-
gence resided in that little tuft? They were so high-spirited
in the office, especially Per, who had a past in advertising.
Aksel had nothing against an easy-going manner. It came
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A Tricky Moment n 49
with the young, who got younger and younger. Age, he
thought, is the great handicap. You mistime things, or
rather, what timing you have no longer fits the bill, you
get there too late, too early, or not at all. You resort to
copying, but timing can’t be copied, you lag so far behind
they say you’re past it.
He closed his eyes and thought about an old advert for
beer. He felt as thirsty as the man in the poster. Could he
really manage to read the whole text in eleven minutes? He
repeated that he’d done all his homework, actually.
‘Yes, I’m aware of that’, Suzy gave him the kind of look
you bestow on a child desperate for praise. Her voice
confirmed it.
‘But up in control . . . up in the control room they think
it’s a bit, you know, rather bleak for New Year’s Eve. We’re
on at 9.30. It’s a tricky moment.’
For the last phrase she had switched to English.
‘Is it a tricky moment?’
‘Yes, it truly is. It’s really rather, well, tricky.’
Aksel wondered how to interpret this. What was the
sense of ‘tricky’ in Suzy’s mouth? Awkward, perhaps?
Tense? Dangerous, challenging? Maybe something quite
different. Something generally agreed. He had considered
saying no to the offer. But you don’t turn down TV. That
was inscribed on page one of the handbook. Even if it was
ten seconds after midnight. You turned up, danced to their
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tune, adjusted your calendar, your rhythm and your lan-
guage, all for ten seconds on the News. In Borgen the joke
was you got your daily exercise by running after a cub
reporter from the local paper. In that regard he was in
good trim. He had driven from Copenhagen to Hirtshals
to explain an EU directive with the North Sea breakers as a
backdrop. The item had been scrapped in favour of an
extended weather forecast.
He thought about the phrase wear and tear. Excellent
phrase. Television had that effect, the medium wore you
out. You had to watch your step. Suddenly word goes out:
We don’t bother with him any more. Metal fatigue set in at
his age. But metal fatigue was only the next worst thing.
The worst was: Seems things have gone a bit quiet around
Aksel Frederiksen . . .
‘Okay, I’m amenable, there’s plenty of other stories to
choose from. It’s just that this seemed fine, the right
length. It was eleven minutes, wasn’t it?’
He found the note in his pocket. It was sitting right
next to his mobile. Trørød, Sverigesvej 18. The house was
red with a thatched roof. But what the devil was his
driver’s name? In any case not Meinertsen. He smiled
and shook his head. He had gone to school with someone
called Meinert. Which must be why it kept popping up.
‘They suggest dropping Hans Christian Andersen.’
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A Tricky Moment n 51
Suzy leaned into the mirror and straightened her three-
cornered hat.
Josey rolled her eyes. ‘Isn’t everyone sick of him?’
‘Aksel is a really good singer.’ Suzy winked at Aksel.
‘Oh, please!’
‘No, you have a good voice, Aksel, you truly have.’
‘Listen, I’m bloody well not doing any singing. I mean
to say, if you want to get me to sing Lene will skin me
alive.’
‘Lene?’
‘My wife. She’s staying up late with the children in
Trørød.’
‘Okay.’ Suzy leaned into the mirror and studied her
lips. ‘We have eleven minutes, max twelve. Actually rather
a prime time, we’ve two million viewers watching.’
‘No more?’ Josey applied rouge to Aksel’s cheeks.
‘People are a bit on and off. We’re between a movie and
a comedy show.’
Aksel pushed the note back in his pocket, aware he was
thinking of the wrong house. To start with it didn’t have a
thatched roof.
‘What do you say, Aksel?’
‘To what? Fair enough, I’m with you about dropping
The Little Matchgirl, if that’s what you reckon.’
Suzy lowered her voice. ‘They say it’s for your own
sake, Aksel.’
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‘Who?’
‘The people up there in control.’
Aksel laughed. ‘But I can’t just get up and sing like that,
at random.’
‘You’re not goin
g to. Finish here with Josey, and then
I’ll see you out in the lobby. Raul will come for you. And he
is a genius.’
Aksel stared at his reflection. He thought he had too
much rouge on his cheeks and the mascara was too thick.
Josey said to bear in mind the powerful lighting.
‘I look like an old tart.’
Josey tossed her head back and laughed. She had a
great set of teeth. Very large, almost too large for the rest
of her face. Still it suited her. Gave her a fresh and confi-
dent look. Yes, like something out of Bakkens Hvile.
‘“Grandma”, cried out the little girl, “oh take me with
you, I know you will be gone when the match has burned
down!”’
He gazed at Josey in the mirror.
‘But that’s been dropped. I do understand. Most likely
would have been terrible. Everything considered.’
Josey pressed her cheek against his.
‘Saved by the bell.’
She too had switched to English.
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A Tricky Moment n 53
He went into the lobby and sat on a yellow sofa and
dreamed of a cup of coffee. Despite having sworn to forego
coffee. With coffee came the need for nicotine.
A young man arrived, hauling along a clothes rack.
Aksel guessed it was the person called Raul, and that Raul
was in his late twenties. Wasn’t there a footballer called
Raul?
‘You a size 56, Aksel?’
‘Yes, that’s about right.’
Raul eyed the rack.
‘This was all I could find. Most of it’s with the drama
department, they’re working on Summer in Tyrol.’
Aksel leaned back. His fatigue had gone to his forehead
now. Probably that was what had blanked out the driver’s
name. The trouble was that when he finally managed to get
to bed now he couldn’t sleep. In the old days he’d slept like
a log, but that time was long past. Now everything went
spinning round. Everything that had broken loose.
‘Can’t I get away with just taking off my tie?’
‘That would definitely help.’
‘Do you mean that, Raul? I think in that case I might
keep it on.’
‘I’ll just call Suzy . . . ’
Raul disappeared into the studio. He was wearing very
large trousers. The arse trailed along the floor.
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54 n Bjarne Reuter
Everything had gone very quiet. At the end of the
corridor a so-called person of different ethnic origins was
struggling with a trolley stacked with furniture. Apart
from that it was remarkably empty. And quiet. Aksel
noted the place seemed a bit shabby. Excellent word,
shabby. And the lad had all of Russia in his trousers.
‘Here time is running out, and you can see it’, he
muttered.
The words dissolved into letters which disappeared in
the gloom of the corridor. Meinert had shared the same
desk with him at school. Lived in Algade 42, second floor
on the left . . .
‘And you never got your espresso’, Suzy sat down in
the yellow sofa.
‘No, but I quite see why the canteen is closed. And just
as well. Your coffee has never been any good.’
He laughed loudly and considered bumming a fag off
her, only of course she didn’t smoke. Or else used to smoke
like a chimney and had taken a cure, but still had a hash
problem, three children and an illegal immigrant husband
on social security.
‘Aksel, honestly and truly, it’s just so cool you’re giving
us a song, and we’ve got hold of the pianist, Tim Lauber-
man. Up in control they say it would be terrific if you tried
out this one.’
Suzy passed him a piece of paper.
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A Tricky Moment n 55
Aksel sank back into the sofa.
‘No, you’ve got to stop it now. You can’t mean it. Suzy,
you can’t be serious.’
‘They say you can do it, it’ll be just the ticket.’
‘I bloody well can’t . . . ’
‘You know the tune, I bet.’
‘Yes, but by God I hadn’t imagined . . . ’
‘Aksel, it’s so sweet. So truly sweet. It’s a goosepimply
kind of song.’
Aksel shook his head and looked around imploringly.
Suzy had pulled out her mobile, saying she had twenty
messages on standby. She turned her back, keyed in a
number and got connected to someone.
‘Ditte, it’s me’, Suzy sighed. ‘Sure, I went to Field’s but
I didn’t get them. Someone beat me to it. I hate the
place. Was it chocker? I tell you, it was chocker. Have to
run, say hi to the others. Tell Freddy it’s his treat next time.
Bye.’
Aksel rubbed his forehead. Felt something or other
oozing out. Presumably his powers of resistance.
‘Sorry Aksel, did you say something?’ Suzy put the
mobile in her pocket.
‘I don’t believe I said anything, but don’t you think
there’s a, what can I say, a certain discrepancy? To put it
mildly.
‘A discrepancy, Aksel?’
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‘Yes, a discrepancy between me and the words.’
‘Sure. And the, well, discrepancy’s what makes it so
totally fab.’
She laid her hand over his, but removed it again
quickly. He was thinking he couldn’t remember when he
had last taken such a whipping.
‘A man bloody well can’t sing that song,’ he muttered,
‘you’re too young to remember Grethe Thordal.’
He wished he’d said something more. Something more
convincing, but his voice withered in the empty foyer. He
thought of the teenage Grethe Thordal singing about how
she looked forward to her first ball. His hand crept into his
pocket to check the bit of paper with the address was still
there. He saw his plastic grandchildren sitting at the deco-
rated table. Masters of aloofness. He had mentioned this to
Lene: ‘It doesn’t matter what I do, I could even stand on
my head. It’s this aloofness. As though I am a stranger.
Even though I’ve only damn well known them since they
were born.’
Suzy patted her hair, and appeared to be thinking of
something else. Aksel pinched his eyes. But why argue
with the receptionist? At bottom she couldn’t care less.
Would rather get home to the kids and the benefits
handouts.
He felt a latent resistance. Said to himself, I truly can’t
stand Suzy’s type. Possibly it’s unfair, but I find her
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A Tricky Moment n 57
attitude repulsive. You only have to look at her. Thinks
she’s streets ahead of me just because she’s twenty years
younger. Could twenty years accomplish that? All right,
thirty. But she was the type you always got stuck with.
Because Suzy was man
ufactured in the great media factory
which that punk girl from the Red-Green Alliance called
the Planet of the Apes. Cheeky bitch, that girl from the
Red-Green Alliance. Green hair, ring in her nose, unbe-
lievably sharp at the repartee, turned everything back to
front and hit the target every time. Never ran after the local
paper. Maybe there was still time to get Josey to dye his
hair and move his wedding ring up to his nose.
‘Suzy, might I say something? I think you ought to
drop the idea of . . . ’
‘Aksel’—she sat down next to him—‘listen up. It’s no
big deal. They suggest you sing only the first and last
verses. There’s no need to learn it off pat, on the contrary,
it’ll be ten times better if you’re just standing there with the
words in your hand. Wasn’t that what you said yourself?’
‘Yes, but it has to be a girl who sings it. It’s a girl’s song.’
Suzy looked up at the man they called Raul. He said it
had taken one hell of a time digging out the clothes, but it
was always extra hassle when they were doing karaoke TV.
Aksel looked at the man’s trousers and remembered a
tent for two he’d once had.
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‘Drama has taken most of it’, sighed Raul, sinking onto
his other hip, ‘and they’re not parting with anything at any
price. I’m so fed up with them.’
Suzy bent forward.
‘Trust me, Aksel, you’re in good hands, Raul knows
what he’s doing. It’s going to be great.’
‘What’s going to be great?’
‘Your costume.’
‘I’m not putting on women’s clothes, Suzy, I’m not
putting on a dress.’
Suzy looked at her nails.
‘Shit! Broken again. My little fingernail keeps breaking.
What’s your suggestion, Raul?’
‘I found a blue number which I think looks rather
fetching.’
‘Not blue, the decor’s blue. Got a nail file, Raul?’
‘How about white?’
‘White would be perfect.’
Aksel gave a loud laugh. ‘Am I allowed to say anything?’
Suzy looked at her stopwatch. ‘Of course.’
‘You’ve a bloody cheek.’
He fumbled in his pocket for the note with the Trørød
address. Was so tired that his words didn’t match up. The
word dementia came into his head.
Suzy was filing away at her little fingernail. Raul said he
was familiar with the problem.
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Copenhagen Tales Page 5