Corona she gives me, I go out to put on my worn-out
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
144 n Jakob Ejersbo
health sandals—left lying on top of a box behind the
curtain. She hovers in the kitchen door, saying:
‘Thanks for the help, it was so brilliant you took the
trouble.’
‘No trouble at all’, I answer, thinking this is the
moment to say I’d like to use the toilet. I turn away to
sneak my own bra out from behind the Fjällräv and stuff it
down one of the side pockets without her catching sight of
it, but I’m standing a bit awkwardly. And just as I’m about
to haul my Fjällräv out of the cubby hole it suddenly
strikes me that I have to visit the toilet without my ruck-
sack, otherwise I’ll have no reason to go back to the cubby
hole to put her bra back in the bag. This makes me so
jumpy that I go and tip the whole bag of clothes out into
the corridor, and I can feel my cheeks going red hot as
I start shoving the clothes back in the bag.
‘Oh my, those old clothes!’ says Kirstine, like it’s some-
thing she’d forgotten. ‘Perhaps I could ask you to do one
more thing for me . . . I mean, so long as you happen to be
going that way’, she says tentatively.
‘Yes, what is it?’ I ask, standing there fumbling with the
rucksack so she doesn’t see the colour in my cheeks.
‘It’s just that bag of clothes’, she answers, pointing.
‘I forgot to take it with me to the clothes bank on my
way to work this morning.’
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
The Bra n 145
‘I’ll do it, no bother’, I tell her, bending down to fasten
my sandals with her bra hugging my breasts like it was
made for them. I can feel the colour draining from my
cheeks, as I take a deep breath.
‘Should the boots go too?’ I ask in an off-hand way, as
I hoist my Fjällräv on to my back.
‘Yes, if you can cope with it all,’ she says apologetically.
If I can cope? You bet I can.
‘Yeah, there’s a basket on my bike—no problem’,
I answer, and she thanks me again. On my way downstairs
my heart is thumping like crazy. On my bike too, and after
pedalling a short way I pass a laundrette. I can’t wait, and
anyhow I really do need a pee now, so I get off and lock the
bike. Luckily there are no customers. I go out to the toilet
and sit down for a pee. I’m so impatient I try to pull the
boots on while I’m still sitting there, and that makes me
slide so far across the toilet seat I nearly piss over the side,
which makes me laugh. So I have to wait a bit and dry
myself before pulling on the boots. In the bag I also find a
pair of knickers which match the bra, and—wait for it—
right at the bottom of the bag is a natty silk shirt. It’s
actually a tad worn, but I tie the ends together in a knot
just above my belly button, so my little potbelly sticks out,
and it looks so cool—like something from the ’60s. I can’t
tear myself away from the mirror, so I light up a fag and
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
146 n Jakob Ejersbo
dig out the sunglasses I borrowed off Henrik, and then just
stand there looking dead sexy.
I bike off in the direction of Nørrebro with a smile on
my face, and I don’t know what to say . . . I mean, I just feel
so on top of the situation.
There’s a really cool looking girl on the pavement who
quite openly turns round to watch me go by—I really have
to force myself not to look back. Sitting outside the Blue
Dog are two guys whose eyes follow me all the way as
I cycle past—they try to hide the fact but they’re not cool
enough. It feels fabulous.
I decide I absolutely must upgrade my wardrobe—
Henrik will just have to get used to it. I’m not going
round looking like a bag lady the whole time.
By now I’m nearly at Flora’s coffee bar where I’m to
meet my friend. She’s sitting out front. I park my bike, and
I’m practically on top of her before she sees who I am.
‘Wow!’ she bursts out, as she gets up to give me a hug.
‘You look bloody amazing!’ And I smile. Carry on—I can
take it.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/8/2014, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
The Naughty
Boy
Hans Christian Andersen
Once upon a time there was an old poet, such a very kind
old poet. One evening, when he was sitting at home, there
was dreadfully bad weather outside; the rain came pouring
down, but the old poet sat warm and snug by his stove,
where the fire was burning, and the apples roasting.
‘They’re won’t be a dry stitch on all those poor things
who are out in this weather!’ he said, for he was such a
kind poet.
‘Oh, let me in! I’m freezing and ever so wet!’ cried a little
child outside. It wept and rapped on the door, while the rain
came pouring down, and the wind shook all the windows.
‘You poor little thing’, said the old poet, and went to
open the door.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
150 n Hans Christian Andersen
There stood a little boy; he was quite naked, and the
water was streaming out of his long yellow hair. He was
shaking with cold; had he not come in he would most
surely have died in the dreadful weather.
‘You poor little thing!’ said the old poet and took him
by the hand. ‘Come inside, and I’ll warm you up! I’ll give
you wine and an apple, for you are a sweet boy!’
He certainly was. His eyes looked like two bright stars,
and even though water was running down his yellow hair,
it still curled so prettily. He looked like a little cherub, only he was so pale with cold and shaking all over. In his hand
he held a splendid bow, but it was quite ruined by the rain;
all the colours on the beautiful arrows were running into
each other because of the wet weather.
The old poet sat down by the stove, took the little boy
in his lap, wrung the water from his hair, warmed his
hands in his own, and heated up sweet wine for him; so
then he recovered, he got rosy cheeks again, and he
jumped down on the floor and started to dance round
the old poet.
‘You’re a merry little boy!’ said the old man, ‘what is
your name?’
‘My name is Cupid’, he replied, ‘don’t you recognize
me? There is my bow, I shoot with it, you know! Look,
now it’s clearing up outside, the moon is shining!’
‘But your bow is ruined’, said the old poet.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
The Naughty Boy n 151
‘That’s bad’, said the little boy, and picked it up and
looked at it. ‘Oh, it’s dry already, and not the least bit
damaged! The string is quite taut! Now I’l
l try it!’ Then he
strung the bow, fitted an arrow, took aim and shot the
good old poet right in the heart. ‘Now you can see my bow
wasn’t ruined!’ he said laughing at the top of his voice, and
he ran away. What a naughty boy!—to shoot the old poet
who had let him into his warm living room, and who had
been so good to him, and gave him the tasty wine and the
best apple.
The good poet lay on the floor and wept; he really had
been shot right in the heart, and so he said: ‘Ugh! How
naughty that Cupid is! I am going to tell all good children
to watch out and never play with him, for he will hurt
them!’
All the good children, girls and boys, to whom he told
the story, took care to be on their guard against the bad
Cupid, but still he tricked them, for he is a cunning fellow!
When students leave their lectures he runs alongside them,
with a book under his arm and dressed in a black gown.
They don’t recognize him at all, and they take his arm and
think he is a student too, but then he thrusts his arrow into
their chests. When the girls are preparing for confirma-
tion, and even when in church taking communion, even
then he is after them. Yes, he is constantly after people! He
sits blazing in the big chandelier in the theatre, so people
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
152 n Hans Christian Andersen
think it is a lamp, but later they know different. He runs
around Kongens Have and Volden! Yes, once he shot your
father and your mother right in the heart! Just ask them
and hear what they have to say. Oh yes, he is a bad boy that
Cupid, don’t ever have anything to do with him! He is after
everyone. Imagine, he even shot an arrow into dear old
Granny, but that is long ago, and it is over now; but it’s
something she will never forget. Shame on you, bad Cupid!
But now you know him! Remember what a naughty boy
he is!
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
Is There Life
after Love?
Jan Sonnergaard
It was that time just before winter turns into something
resembling spring, and Ulla and I were walking along
Nørrebrogade after a not specially successful and pretty
expensive dinner at a restaurant out in Frederiksberg.
Arguments, silences, and snide remarks had become the
order of the day, every day, and long before then I should
have realized which way the wind was blowing. Even more
when she started on about the cook she knew from the time
when she . . . and now this cook had just left her husband
and kids in order to move in with . . .
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
156 n Jan Sonnergaard
‘I know the type’, I cut in, Lord knows why, ‘the type of
woman who runs from one man to the next leaving only
death and destruction in her wake.’
And then it was as though all movement stopped, and
my banal remark was left dangling in the air like a toxic
cloud, and she gave me a look that could only mean I had
just plunged a dagger into her stomach.
‘Are you trying to make me feel guilty or what?’ she
said, on the verge of tears, and I should have said, Sorry,
that was a stupid thing to say, and I should have been
shocked and flustered and should have broken off mid-
sentence. Thunderstruck, I should have asked if she was
considering doing the very same thing. To me. But I just
looked at her stony-faced, without saying a word.
She was just a fucking tart. Just a tart. A fucking tart.
That’s what she was. And nothing else. She was nothing
better than that. A fucking tart. And a traitor, not someone
to grieve over. The opposite. She was the type of person
you should be only too pleased not to number among your
acquaintances. You don’t go making friends with traitors.
You string them up, and then you cut them down.
So that’s what I just can’t understand. Why our break-
up so completely knocked me for six. I can’t think what
made me do it, but I kept constructing different scenarios.
So I’d phone her up and plead,
‘Can’t we see each other—all the same?’
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
Is There Life after Love? n 157
The first few times she agreed, plainly with no great
enthusiasm, and we’d meet for half an hour, an hour, and
just once for an hour and a half. In bars, always in bars,
even though I’d have much preferred meeting just about
any other place. More private. My own place. Or hers. Or
her parents’. But it always ended up being bars. Or restau-
rants. Every single time, and in the end I couldn’t stand it
anymore, that it had to be so anonymous and public. Why
did we always have to meet up in places neither of us
knew? Why always so cold? Can’t you see how impersonal
it is? And cold.
Later on she wriggled out by suggesting parties she
never turned up to. Even when the invitation expressly
specified I was not to show up until ‘after dinner’. Or she’d
invite me round to her flat and when I arrived she’d not be
there.
‘Why weren’t you there?’
So I’d demand over the phone after a couple of days
with no word of explanation from her, and even though
I never got a proper answer it invariably ended up with me
asking, ‘So when can we meet again?’—even though I had
every reason in the world to be livid with her, even though
I ought to have slammed the phone down and forgotten all
about her, and even though I knew perfectly well I’d be
better off with absolutely anybody else. But always it ended
up with my forgiving her and pleading,
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
158 n Jan Sonnergaard
‘Just once more.’
The thing is I kept seeing her before my eyes, with her
dimples, and her long blonde hair, the way she used to
look when things were good between us. Especially at
weekends I felt I just had to phone her, and also I began
sending her letters or postcards saying things like, ‘It
doesn’t have to last this long’, or ‘Remember the time we
had lunch with the Hara Krishnas at Govinda’s on Nørre
Farimagsgade?’—and once I also wrote saying we could
easily meet up in some bar just round the corner from
where she lived. That way she wouldn’t need to walk so
very far.
But she kept putting me off. It would have been simpler
to arrange an audience with Queen Margrethe. If it was me
wanting something her lips were sealed seven times over.
‘Couldn’t we meet—this Friday?’ I asked after I’d at
long last got hold of her direct number at her new job. And
she said she didn’t wish to. No more did she try to
sidetrack me, or avoid the is
sue, or lie. Very quietly she
announced she didn’t wish to.
‘Why not?’ I asked, and there was a three-second
silence at the other end. Then she said,
‘I think I’d rather not tell you’, and it was as if it went
on resounding in the room whole minutes after she’d
rung off.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
Is There Life after Love? n 159
So I clammed up. When I was out. In the morning.
And when I was home. At night.
Where either I listened to the same three records over
and over again. Or late night programmes on the radio.
There were just those two alternatives. I never ever listened
to any of my own records, just the ones which weren’t
mine. For I had to get away, far far away, since I couldn’t
stand being at home. Especially not to eat. I had to get out.
Out into town. To places with lots of people.
To libraries, or museums, or parks, or streets, or alleys.
Until dark. Or to Govinda’s on Nørre Farimagsgade. Or
the Italian restaurant just round the corner on Smallegade.
Or the wine bar a little further on. As though there was
something comforting in everything being so anonymous,
and so few people who knew me. And like as not I’d want
to be in some other place next day. But wherever
I happened to finish up I’d always be sitting there hoping
that next moment . . . next moment she’d come through
the door, in precisely this library. This restaurant. This
bar. This coach on this train on my way to my father’s in
Slagelse. Or Funen where my mother lives. And she would
fling her arms wide and hug me tight when she saw it truly
was me sitting in this very coach, over by the window.
But it was air. Nothing but air.
All I had left was the music. The same records and CDs
as back then. All the time I kept listening to the same
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
160 n Jan Sonnergaard
records and CDs as back then, and most of all the last three
which I’d been going to give her on the first of June, her
birthday.
Most of all I’d listen to just those three records which
were so specially meant for her. And the letter . . . I’d tell
myself I needed to read her letter all over again. ‘There is
nothing wrong with either of us, and there’s no reason to
doubt it. The chemistry just isn’t right. At least not
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