Copenhagen Tales

by Helen Constantine

  for me . . . But don’t get me wrong, I for one really do

  not believe our affair was a completely negative

  experience . . . ’ And then the classic remark that she

  hoped we could still carry on being friends. That bit

  I definitely had to read again, no matter what, because

  she actually thought I was a great guy, on no account must

  I get that wrong.

  Once she sent me three postcards. All that, and she was

  holidaying with her parents for no more than a week. And

  seven months after we first met I took fifteen pictures with

  a little disposable camera, just the two of us. Abroad, or

  else out in the country. By the Brandenburger Tor. And in

  front of the Arc de Triomphe. Or hand in hand in front of

  a summer house my cousin lent us. And even when I was

  almost dropping with fatigue I still always contrived to

  stay up another hour staring at those pictures, with my

  music centre playing all the records from back then. Until

  seven in the morning. Even later.

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  Is There Life after Love? n 161

  And yet strangely enough I always managed to make

  sure the place was clean. Every second day I washed down

  the floors and windows, hoovered and wiped away every

  speck of dirt. And shaved. And brushed my teeth. And

  called 118 to check she was still living where she’d always

  lived. And when I was told she did and I was asked if

  I wished to be put through at the cost of one-and-a-quarter

  krone I always keyed in 1 for ‘yes’, and always waited until

  once more I was told the call wasn’t wanted.

  One day I decided to check the calendar to see how

  long it was since she’d broken up with me. And when

  I counted back I don’t know how many weeks and months

  I discovered that not even once in five-and-a-half months

  had I fixed to meet up with another human being. No

  family, no old friends, nothing.

  A sensible person would have been shocked, and if I’d

  been fully compos mentis I would have grabbed the phone

  and called up just about anyone still prepared to see me.

  Or anyone in my family. Instead I did something else.

  I took the car and drove into town and parked right in

  front of her flat in Sølvgade. And then I settled down to

  wait until she came out the door and walked off in the

  direction of Østre Anlaeg.

  And three days later that’s precisely what she did.

  Because I could see the whole thing. How they left her

  block of flats hand in hand having a laugh at something or

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  other, and she flung her arms round him. I saw them right

  there, walking off down the street toward the gates into

  Kongens Have. And they entered like all other young

  people newly in love—for at that point they hadn’t yet

  spotted me—and twice I dashed out of the car to grab hold

  of them.

  And failed miserably. Because they were no longer

  there. They’d gone off some place else. And this just had

  to stop. Stop right now. Let it go! It was all more than five

  months back. Relax.

  By the sixth time I sat waiting there I could tell I’d been

  detected. They knew I was there. Except they made out

  they couldn’t see me. They came out from her entry as

  always and set off down the street. Only now there was

  space between them. They weren’t touching. Not in public.

  They weren’t going to do that to me, despite everything.

  And if at long last something or other came up which

  distracted me a little bit for a couple of days and made me

  think of something else. If, just once in a while, I managed

  to repress the urge to spy on them. Or listen to the records.

  Then suddenly some disaster happened which sent me

  right back on their trail.

  Because even if I didn’t want it, it still happened just

  the same. I left off lurking there in my car. Even I realized

  it was embarrassing, and restrained myself and managed

  to stop. It couldn’t go on. But then it would happen just

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  Is There Life after Love? n 163

  the same. I was sitting on a bus going up Vesterbrogade

  and I saw them together, hand in hand, walking in the

  opposite direction. She was laughing at something he’d

  just said, and she kissed him on the cheek, and I couldn’t

  help noticing that this friend, or fiancé, or whatever he

  was, was holding something in his hand. A string fastened

  to a little creature. A puppy. A boxer pup, I think. It was

  enough to make you throw up, and it hurt like hell, and

  I got off at the next stop and started running back the way

  they went.

  But I didn’t manage to catch up with them. They were

  gone, and never would I find them, and most likely they’d

  gone further into town to find some café where they could

  be together. Or to a concert. Or a restaurant. It was the

  middle of the afternoon in the middle of summer and it

  was right now I could have been with her, we could have

  been walking side by side, hand in hand, and instead I was

  running wild round Vesterbro like a drunk, or a junkie or a

  madman.

  And next morning when I woke and turned towards

  her I saw . . . no one there. And every night I went over all

  the times we’d been together and something had gone

  wrong. First I’d replay the scenes the way I remembered

  them:

  ‘Do you have to tread on me, you mean cow!’

  ‘You asked for it, you idiot.’

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  ‘What did you just call me? Are you calling me an

  idiot?’

  And afterwards I’d go back over the scenes and play

  them the way they might have panned out if we had both

  been less hot-tempered:

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘All is forgiven.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to . . . ’

  ‘I know, of course you didn’t. Come here . . . ’

  And finally I’d play them the way we both in reality

  dreamed they should have happened:

  ‘Don’t you think we really should do it?’

  ‘Do what, my love?’

  ‘Move in together . . . ’

  ‘Yes!’

  And sometimes both voices were shouting so loud that

  the person in the flat above started stamping on the floor.

  I’m not too sure how long this lasted. I only know it

  never stopped. Even though life went on. Though maybe

  that was precisely what it didn’t do. And even if it did go

  on, it was the same old routine.

  Right up until one day something happened which

  never in my wildest dreams I had ever imagined. The

  phone rang, and straight off I knew who it was.

  ‘Ulla . . . ’, I said, just that. And she sounded so strange,

  almost light-hearted, and so very strange, for she said,

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/>   Is There Life after Love? n 165

  ‘I’m so sorry I haven’t rung you for ever so long.’

  But so much had happened, she said, it was almost

  overwhelming, as if her cup were overflowing, and next

  moment she sounded alarmingly grateful when I asked her

  the question I’d asked her every single day for over three

  months, back in the spring, because she replied,

  ‘Of course we must meet up, Anders! That’s why I’m

  calling . . . ’

  She was so animated and excited that I could still feel it

  long after putting the phone down. She was very, very

  happy. Only it wasn’t me who had made her so happy.

  And it wasn’t him either, that jerk with his ridiculous

  boxer pup. It was something else. She was in such high

  spirits, higher than ever before—even higher than when

  she and I were together.

  What on earth can make a person so happy? It was as

  though her joy redoubled, and kept on redoubling until it

  hit me at the other end of the line. That’s how powerful it

  was. And so happy . . . Never before had she been like that.

  And for the first ten minutes I was infected by it, and

  I started whistling as I wandered around the flat, truly over

  the moon to be seeing her again. And then something

  flashed through my mind, and for the rest of that weekend

  one sole question haunted me:

  Who on earth is making her so happy?

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  Her happiness was unclean, it was besmirched, and as

  such it would be wrong and despicable to respect it. I had

  to back off, I thought, it was vital to back off—because

  actually I knew only too well what the reason was. Yet

  when the day came I still went and bought that stupid

  bunch of long-stemmed red roses, and kept on at the girl

  in the shop to make the bouquet bigger, and more impres-

  sive, and more expensive. More red roses, please. And then

  I realized this was worse than anything I’d ever been

  through before. For my hands were already shaking before

  I left the shop, even though it was still early morning and

  there was a long while to wait before our meeting.

  She was sitting there already, down in the corner in

  front of a bottle of sparkling water, and she lit up in a big

  warm smile the moment she clapped eyes on me. But the

  smile gradually faded as I came reeling over to her table,

  and she quickly turned her face away when I wanted to

  kiss her on the mouth, as though she could already smell

  everything I had been drinking in order to work up

  enough courage to actually show up for that meeting.

  She pulled back when I wanted to hand her that very

  beautiful bouquet which I’d bought before popping into

  that bar a little further down the street.

  ‘I’m just so happy to see you again’, I began, but she

  shook her head and said,

  ‘That’s not at all what I meant’.

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  Is There Life after Love? n 167

  I placed the bouquet before her. And tried hard to look

  as though I so totally shared her joy. As I headed for the

  bar. While desperately trying to exercise some control over

  this thing which long ago had turned into a nightmare,

  because of course I’d noticed she had put on a bit of

  weight. Not much, but just enough to show.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked when I came back

  to the table with a tray containing six beers and six small

  glasses of Old Danish. She looked straight into my eyes

  and was close to tears.

  ‘What on earth are you trying to prove?’

  ‘Would you like to hear a joke?’ I replied, for some-

  thing had to happen if this meeting wasn’t going to go

  down the plughole. We had to start talking about some-

  thing other than us.

  ‘Have you read Jacob Rendtorff ’s article today? . . . You

  haven’t read it, have you?’

  ‘In Information?’

  ‘You really must. He defines what life is. You haven’t

  read it, have you?’

  She looked at me as though we’d never met before, and

  I looked away and swiftly knocked back another Old

  Danish. And I was already spluttering with laughter even

  before explaining that his definition of life was:

  ‘A fatal illness which is sexually transmitted!’

  But she was not amused. She whispered,

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  ‘Please don’t humiliate yourself like this in front of me.’

  And she was anything but happy now, that was obvi-

  ous, and actually quite terrifying, but desirable too. In a

  way.

  So I shouted for the waiter who of course did not react.

  Which was why it was such a good thing I hadn’t paid for

  just two but six beers before returning to her table.

  Very pointedly and very slowly I put one of the bottles

  from the tray up to my mouth and asked,

  ‘Why freak out like that? Are you ashamed of

  something?’

  And then I downed the bottle in one. It felt like a punch

  to the solar plexus, and I noticed there wasn’t room for all

  of it, since something wet was dribbling out of the corner

  of my mouth. But better this than capitulating, I thought,

  so I wiped it away with the back of my hand, and when she

  didn’t answer I said,

  ‘You do know you’ve hurt me, don’t you? You do know

  this is killing me?’

  I stared at her, and then I also asked her,

  ‘Have you any idea what you’re doing?’

  And when she didn’t react at all, but just sat there

  weeping and muttering,

  ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. You really

  should . . . It’s too mean!’

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  Is There Life after Love? n 169

  —I simply took a beer in each hand, stretched up

  my arms, put my head back and poured beer all over

  myself . . . over my mouth, my neck, my hair, my chest,

  my shoulders—my entire body . . .

  ‘Look—’ I said, with all the anger and impotence

  I could muster, and then I picked up another beer from

  the table and poured it all over my face without making

  any effort at all to hit my mouth,

  ‘Look what you make me do!’

  ‘I thought you’d be glad to know’, she said and looked

  at me in such a way it made me lower my eyes. For the

  second time that day.

  So once more I caught sight of her little bump—and

  something must have shown on my stunned face, even

  though I did everything possible to mask it. For she

  reached across the table and tried to take my hand.

  I actually think she was trying to comfort me, for a brief

  second. But that was the moment it got really bad, for

  I caught her hand and squeezed it and held her tight and

  attempted to smile whilst begging her to forgive me,

  though I also wanted her to sit on my lap.

&nbs
p; She tried to hit me to make me let go of that hand, and

  she started to shout for help while all the time I tightened

  my grip, for I couldn’t let her go now. Most definitely not

  now. And in the end the waiter came running up and he

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  dragged me out of my chair so I had to let go, and he

  shouted,

  ‘Couldn’t you have this argument in the bedroom

  instead?’

  That’s what he said. In all seriousness, and as though

  he was blind. It was pretty obvious that was the one thing

  we couldn’t do, so did we really have to put up with that

  kind of comment?

  I shoved him out of the way and reached out a hand for

  her again . . . And she walked off. Just like that: off she

  walked without saying goodbye. And when it dawned on

  me that was what she intended and she wasn’t pulling my

  leg I prized myself free of the bar and ran after her, hell for

  leather. But she was already far away, and even though

  I stood right there outside the wine bar shouting after her

  she carried on down the street as though she was deaf.

  There I stood, out there in the street, thinking what a

  crime it was. You can’t do a thing like that. No way can

  you do what she’d just done. You just can’t. Yet it was

  exactly what she did do. And I couldn’t move.

  And then for some reason, and I don’t honestly under-

  stand why, I remembered a joke. Standing out there on the

  street as though turned to stone, I suddenly remembered

  the story about a little girl, no more than four, who is

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  Is There Life after Love? n 171

  playing out in the back garden. At a certain moment her

  seven-year-old sister comes running up and shouts,

  ‘Sister, little sister . . . There’s a dildo on the veranda!’

  And the four-year-old looks up at her sister in surprise

  and says,

  ‘What does “veranda” mean?’

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  A Bench in Tivoli

  Katrine Marie Guldager

  As far as sex goes, Heinz normally solves the problem with

  a porno film or a magazine. From time to time he visits a

  porno shop in Istedgade. Today, for once, he doesn’t look

  over his shoulder and walks straight in. The shop assistant

  is a young woman who looks up apathetically from her