Sisse, really beat her up, wipe the smile off her lips, stop the
sound of her bell-like laughter that haunted me in my
most confused dreams. One day a girl phoned and told
the clinic her name was Tina (I have an uneventful steady
job as receptionist in a dental practice). Was I looking for
Sisse? Did I want to know where she was? A house in the
inner city, she said she didn’t have the exact address, and
hung up.
I trudged around in the rain after work, through the
dark afternoons. I was looking for my unmanageable sister
who is always hungry and is never satisfied.
It was quite a big building, old and dilapidated, with
rain streaming from countless holes in the gutter and
downpipe. I spotted the house around six in the evening,
and knew straightaway it was the one. The atmosphere
about the house was precisely as gloomy and despairing
and hermetically sealed as I had imagined it when the girl
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
188 n Naja Marie Aidt
Tina phoned. I went in through a large door. It wasn’t
locked, a dusty staircase greeted me.
I got a shock when an insane bellow drowned out the
noise of the rain dripping outside and the sound of my
clothes as I moved. I could tell how scared I was, I started
to sweat. I could so easily have turned round and walked
back, I’ve walked away from so much over the years, but
something made me stay and keep on going in the direc-
tion of the sound. I opened several doors and walked
through several wrecked rooms. Old engine rooms or
something of the sort.
The noise of people shouting and talking, and bangs
and crashes of varying strength mingled with that bellow
which at times filled the whole house and gave me goose
bumps on my arms. No one took any notice of me when
I suddenly appeared in the doorway and was in amongst
them. There were probably seven or eight of them, maybe
more, and an upturned table in the middle of the room,
and milk and juice and yoghurt in puddles on the floor.
They must have just had breakfast. There was a sour smell,
tobacco hung in the air, and faces glowed white in the half-
light. I looked for Sisse’s face. She was almost unrecogniz-
able. She was squatting against a wall smoking a joint.
‘Crap weed’, I heard her snuffle to no one in particular.
I wanted to jump over to her and grab her. I wanted to
pop her into the pocket of my warm quilted jacket, carry
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
As the Angels Fly n 189
her off from that place and put her in a doll’s bed, rock her
to sleep away from all that racket. But I couldn’t move.
A crazy guy naked to the waist with a live snake round
his neck suddenly smashed a guitar against the stone wall.
His long hair was drenched in sweat, and sweat ran down
his chest. He bellowed, he was the one who had been
bellowing. The snake lifted its head stiffly away from his
body every time the sound swelled in his throat deafening
everything else.
Including my beating heart, my pinched breath.
Someone casually righted one or two fallen chairs.
Another lay down to sleep under a window. A young girl
with a skull tattoo on her bare shoulder began kissing a
little bald-headed fellow with great passion. He was utterly
hairless, even his eyelashes were gone. He grabbed her
breasts and squeezed. She put her head back and closed
her eyes. Sisse passed the joint to another girl.
‘Crap weed’, said Sisse.
The girl nodded a long while, inhaling deeply.
The crazy guy with the snake tossed the guitar into a
corner, it landed with a hollow thud. The one who had lain
down to sleep picked it up and started playing. Bent over the
fingerboard, his long hair hid both his face and the guitar.
‘Great box this . . . ’, he mumbled, ‘great box—is it Joe’s
or what?’
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
190 n Naja Marie Aidt
‘It’s bleeding well not Joe’s, you impotent little tosser’,
shrieked the nutter with the snake, moving threateningly
towards him.
‘Crap weed’, said the girl who now had the joint, and
stubbed it out on the floor. Sisse nodded long and thought-
fully. While this was happening the bald man pulled away
from the kiss and shouted at the crazy one:
‘Give me Plexus, dammit Steen! It’ll flip if you don’t let
it go now, let go of that snake, man . . . you’re fucking sick
in the head!’
He ran across the floor to Steen who was just reaching
out to grab hold of the long-haired guy with the guitar. He
stopped in his tracks, hesitated, turned to the bald man,
and with both hands round the snake tried to pry off its
body which was looped round his neck. The bald man
quickly pulled the animal free while murmuring to it in a
monotonous but surprisingly gentle voice. With the snake
in his arms he swept past me and out of the door, which
banged shut behind him.
I stood rooted to the spot, freezing in my winter
clothes, and still no one noticed me. Sisse glanced my
way, and for the fraction of a second her eyes met mine,
then slid away. She hadn’t recognized me. And then he
started his bellowing again, the one called Steen, and lifted
the guy with the guitar high in the air on the ends of his
arms.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
As the Angels Fly n 191
‘You lousy little swine, you haven’t understood shit,
and for that I’m going to bloody smash your filthy little
poofy face in . . . ’, he shrieked and dashed him to the floor.
He grabbed the guitar and hit him. Hit and hit and hit,
it seemed never-ending as he just went on thrashing the
other guy who resembled most of all a skinny dog, not
once did he try to defend himself, blood spilling in a thin
stream out of his head all over the dusty wood floor. No
one so much as raised an eyebrow.
Finally he stopped. The man lay unconscious on the
floor, his face smeared with blood.
‘Chill out, man’, said the girl with the skull on her
shoulder, picking a carton of orange juice off the floor.
‘What the heck, no more juice?’ She shook the carton up
and down. ‘You go over the top . . . ’
Steen took deep gulps of air and wiped the sweat from
his forehead. He walked with echoing steps in pointy boots
over to the door. I could smell his skin and hear the
panting of his breath at my ear. I thought I was about to
die. From fear; like in a nightmare where you think, Now
my end has come . . .
Sisse sat with her eyes closed. I thought she was asleep.
But then the little bald fellow came back in, with the snake
hanging long and yellow over his stomach. He took Sisse
by the arm and shook her.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28
/8/2014, SPi
192 n Naja Marie Aidt
‘You coming upstairs?’ he said. ‘Hello! Coming up to
see the stars?’
She got up with difficulty, and before I could react they
were out of the door.
‘Over the top, man . . . ’, said a dull voice, as very care-
fully and with knees like jelly I started moving towards the
banging door. I could hardly breathe.
Out in the street I burst into tears. Night had fallen.
Weeks could have passed since I’d entered that house, it
could just as well have been a different day, another
evening. But I looked at my digital watch, and it showed
18.32. I was tired as never before and dragged myself
home, where I went straight to bed without undressing
or putting on the light, and at once fell into a deep and
troubled sleep.
After that day I never again tried to call on Sisse. She
didn’t call on me either. And spring came, the way it
always does, and we were into April before I was reminded
of my sister again.
And by then she had already flown.
*
Lacerated. I guess we were all lacerated. Whatever our
names were. But Creepy looked after me so well. I was
his favourite doll, he said, because I jerked him off at
incredible speed under the starry sky. I didn’t lack for
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
As the Angels Fly n 193
anything and was even allowed to hold Plexus once in a
while, he said we looked great together when he let it coil
round my bare body. It felt a bit cold, or rather neither
cold nor warm, just curiously nothing. But that didn’t
matter. Because I wasn’t freezing anymore. Creepy picked
bags out of the shrine many times a day, and at night too.
I felt flattered too when he asked me if I wanted to take
part in that film. I wasn’t the least bit scared.
‘It’s top notch stuff, an American order, I’ll be breaking
the bank if you agree.’
‘Yeah’, I said, ‘that’s okay with me.’
He smiled and prepared a sumptuous fix for me.
‘Nothing’s too good for you’, he said.
He made me a present of his best cross, handmade and
solid silver, and said it would bring me luck with my
scenes. We left shortly after. The butterflies in my stomach
were just incredible because of all the coke.
It’s very hot in California, I remember that, hot and
dry, my skin wasn’t used to the light. Plexus came along,
Creepy smuggled him in a suitcase. Of course Plexus came
along.
And my scenes. Or scene, because there was really only
the one. Out in the desert, masses of sand and sun, masses
of light and many voices all moving about. They spoke
Spanish and English, I didn’t understand what they were
saying. Creepy was proud of his masks, there were two, for
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
194 n Naja Marie Aidt
the men; mad twisted monster masks. Not that they both-
ered me. Not that anything bothered me. I wasn’t scared at
all, just let the yellow sand run through my fingers, shut
my eyes against the sharp light and waited until my turn
came. My turn came. Plexus looked at me with his snake
eyes and flicked his tongue through the bars of his cage.
And then it started. The cameras were rolling, I was
well doped, Creepy had jabbed something into my arm
whispering that it was the best, the best of the best. ‘You’re
on Barbie doll, ready for take-off.’ He gave me a lopsided
smile. He kissed me. He had never kissed me before.
The men in the masks took turns to fuck me, tied my
hands and feet and whipped me with a short-handled
whip. They cut me in my breasts and around my crotch,
small bloody gashes in the flesh. I was mostly aware of the
sand, that kind of sand gives a special sensation. It’s
everywhere and gets into everything. Dry dusty taste of
sand, crunchy between the teeth, little grains in my eyes . . .
And then. And then they started stabbing. I could see
how they raised their knives. Did I scream? I don’t think
so. I already knew. And it happened so fast. So incredibly
fast. Until I took off, took off and flew. Up above the yellow
desert and the lifeless, perforated body. The snake in the
cage, Creepy bent over the body, the men stripping off
their masks and lighting a cigarette. Wings grew out of my
invisible body, I could feel myself. As a light, light creature,
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
As the Angels Fly n 195
weightless and filled with happiness. I had become an
angel, I who had always dreamed of flying. Soon all be-
came all bright and fantastic, and here I am, and it has
been like this a long time. I just fly and fly through the
most brilliantly coloured spaces. There’s nothing to stop
me anymore.
*
‘She’s dead!’ my mother screamed down the phone, and
the waiting room was full of people.
I took a taxi to Gammel Køge Landevej and stroked her
dry permed hair. She screamed like a newborn baby. Kaj
made coffee and lit her a Cecil. Then I called up the duty
doctor who came and gave her a tranquillizer.
She was dead. She was dead. The police said so. When
my mother had dozed off I called them up, and they went
over it again. That she was dead. That some guy or other
had brought her home in a coffin. An accident, he claimed.
An assault, said the police in San Diego, it was there in the
report.
‘But we aren’t so sure’, said the man at the other end of
the line, ‘we mean to get to the bottom of this case.’
His voice was from Jutland and soft and I didn’t cry.
I just felt stiff all over and very tired.
They’d closed her eyes when I had to go and identify
her, and I was glad of that, I didn’t want to see her starry
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
196 n Naja Marie Aidt
green eyes gazing greedily at me. She wasn’t laughing. But
there were ugly cuts almost everywhere on her body, and
there was sand in her hair, coarse yellow sand, and in her
ears; she didn’t actually look scared or anything, her
mouth just had nothing left to say.
It is summer now. I am sitting here behind my counter,
and my coat is white and clean. We gave her a decent
burial. My mother has been taking sedatives and worse
since then. And Kaj has moved out. Otherwise nothing
much has happened.
We sometimes look at the faded Polaroids from the
time Sisse and I were small. ‘She was such an angel when
she was little’, my mother always says, ‘such a real little
angel child. Oh, she truly was . . . ’
There simply weren’t enough sweeties in this world for
Sisse. That’s how I look at it. That’s how I can sit here
today smoothing my cool white gown. With tight lips and
not a hair out of place. Without shedding even a
single
tear. For all I really did love her, the little devil. But lonely, it does get lonely at times.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
The Trousers
Benny Andersen
Yes, yes, I’ll get to the point, after all I’m in a minority of
one so I don’t have much choice. The majority never have
to explain themselves, it’s enough that they’re the majority.
Not so many details, you say, but on the spur of the
moment it’s not so easy to tell what’s important and
what’s not, I mean my grocer for instance has a glass eye,
what’s that got to do with it, and yet not long ago I bought
a half-pound of butter off him, and when I’m about to
butter my sandwiches for the day all at once the butter
lump starts glaring right at me. He’s got a bigger size eye
now, but it was such a shock I switched to margarine, and
that’s how I retrieved a taste from childhood, margarine
on black bread, and a whole lot more came back to me,
and I think that’s what made me buy the trousers.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/8/2014, SPi
200 n Benny Andersen
You see, as a boy I was sold short as far as clothes go,
I got my brother’s cast-off gumboots, jumpers, socks with
knobbly darning, coats, books, toys, I made an unholy fuss
every time, but there was no way out, I had to be good and
accept my place in the pecking order. But now I’m getting
on and live alone and can buy my own clothes, now I go
rummaging through boxes of second-hand clothes, I feel
naked in a tailored suit. At junk dealers and auctions I buy
shoes and clothes which belonged to other people,
watches, braces, trousers, hats, it’s a big relief to slip into
a pair of trousers worn into shape, sat into shape, some-
times also pissed into shape. It calms me down. All my
worries settle in the turn-ups, easy to tip out once in a
while along with the grit and other rubbish that normally
collects there. Yes, I’ve noticed, nobody wants turn-ups
these days. Why don’t they abolish gutters as well, let all
the dirt fly all over the place? With turn-ups you know
where the dirt is.
So what with this taste of margarine in my mouth
I realized I had to get me some cast-off trousers, I needed
to recapture the feeling. Then yesterday I found a pair in a
Copenhagen Tales Page 16