Copenhagen Tales

by Helen Constantine

  little shop where I often go. They were dark brown with the

  makings of a saggy seat and the knees bulged like they’d

  been sitting on a horse, but I’m not really looking to see

  whether they fit or look nice, I’m looking to see if they have

  some personality, if they’ve got a bit of atmosphere about

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  them. Naturally they’d been cleaned after the previous

  occupant, but I could still detect their own special whiff of

  something sad and loyal which greatly appealed to me, and

  excited me too, I could hardly wait to get home before

  putting them on. I tell you, every time I pull on a pair of

  old togs like that their atmosphere seeps into me and makes

  me behave different to how I normally do, it takes me to

  parts of town I’ve never been before, makes me speak to

  total strangers who the clothes presumably know.

  These particular trousers took me off to the port, but not

  the end of the port where I normally go, they walked me out

  along the harbour road, the smart shops finished, little dives

  appeared, but the trousers kept on going right to the very

  last one. You couldn’t tell what it was like, the curtains were

  drawn so it looked pretty drab and dreary from outside, and

  so who’d want to go in? But there was nothing for it, that

  was the place the trousers had settled on.

  Well, it wasn’t so bad inside, even though there weren’t

  exactly tablecloths on the tables, it was special green lino

  for rolling dice. Nice people, bit loud-mouthed but not

  specially drunk, coats on and their hats beside them so

  they had to shift them every time the dice looked like

  rolling into them, they should have put them on the

  floor, there was a right old to and fro of hats and bottles.

  I kept my coat on and ordered a lager and a stout. I was

  well pleased with the trousers. I was a bit on edge at the

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  start, but now I patted them and enjoyed being able to sit

  down without them getting tight over my knees the way

  new ones do.

  Now there was a lady sitting on her own in a corner,

  attractive woman, in her thirties I’d say, dark coat and a

  fur hat, like a Russian hat, bit full in the face, dark eyes,

  dark as stout, and a mouth looking like it wanted to wail,

  but I wasn’t sitting there watching her, mind, that chapter

  is over and done with. The last one I had was called Ruth,

  and one day at my place when we were lying on the sofa

  doing it, she came out with the perfect words for the

  occasion: ‘Your ceiling needs painting, Karl.’ So that fiz-

  zled out of its own accord, because it was not Ruth or

  anyone else I was interested in, it was a frightened little girl

  from long ago, something about wet trees and wet

  benches, small hands in big pockets and big hands in

  small ones and a treat of gob stoppers and toffee bars,

  that’s what I couldn’t forget, all the rest was just padding

  on an old sore. Naturally I sent Ruth packing, though

  I should be bloody grateful to her for that remark, it

  couldn’t have been put more clearly. After that I started

  going for my beers in different places, consumption grew,

  and I don’t much care to be noticed. Stouts and schnapps,

  the spirits to wash the slimy thoughts down. Yes, I’m

  coming to the point, but it all has a part to play in what

  happened. You should be a damn sight more worried

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  about whether I might have missed something out—I am.

  How it went with the lady, that was all to do with the

  trousers, either they sighted her or she sighted them. She

  looked across at me, but I think she looked at the trousers

  too, and then she came over all nervous, set about rum-

  maging in her bag for a lipstick, put it away again, lifted

  her glass, put it down again, looked round for the waiter,

  but looked at me—or the trousers—once she’d caught his

  eye. I can only see one explanation for her nervousness:

  there was something between her and the trousers, maybe

  she’d been expecting the trousers, but not with me inside.

  And then the strangest thing happened—promise not to

  interrupt me now—the trousers started to get all tight at

  the knees, they made me get up and go over to her. I know,

  probably you don’t think it so very strange, you’re thinking

  ‘the old tomcat’, but that’s because you haven’t been

  listening to the details, they’re what matter. It was the

  trousers that wanted to go over to her, and for reasons of

  public decency I had to go too. And so there I sat. The

  trousers couldn’t speak, I had to put their case for them,

  and I sat there trying to decipher what they wanted.

  Yes, naturally the first thing I said was: ‘What’s yours?’

  Idiotic really, she was sitting with a glass of liqueur.

  ‘Thank you, I have something already’, she said. Now

  here’s the thing, I mean I take it as a sure sign. She could

  either have said, ‘Leave me alone, how dare you’, or else

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  ‘Thanks honey, what can you afford?’—but she said what

  I’ve just said, and I reckon that must be proof she knew

  those trousers very well. As soon as I sat down she put her

  hands on the table and kept them lying there all quiet.

  Now let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on here,

  I thought, but take your time—if these trousers are after

  something they’ll soon let you know. And so I sat quiet as a

  mouse feeling something stealing over me. Something was

  wrong somewhere. Someone had got hurt, her perhaps, or

  the bloke in the trousers, or both. A clamminess was

  coming off the trousers which gave me goose pimples all

  along my thighs.

  I stared at her hands which were lying just opposite

  mine. The finger tips lightly touched the green table top.

  My own clumsy parsnips were lying the same way, and

  their square yellow cracked nails were staring right into

  hers, and they were delicate and transparent like the petals

  of a flower when you hold it up to the light. Then she

  pulled her fingers in, and that made my own fingers go

  utterly crazy, they stretched out for hers, crept across the

  table and reached in under hers to open them again, but it

  was still those trousers behind it all, and she didn’t take her

  hands away, didn’t open them either, though she let my

  fingers stay there, half inside hers—and not until then did

  I look up. Her eyes were round and black now, I thought at

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  first she was looking at me, instead it was at something just

  behind me.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ It was a shrill jarring voice like

  a lit
tle lad trying to sound grown-up, so you could have

  knocked me down with a feather when I saw a giant of a

  man step up to the table. I retrieved my two fists. Her

  hands hopped into her handbag and hid there.

  ‘Nothing at all, it was just—’ She tried to smile, pre-

  sumably she wanted to say, ‘It was just those trousers’, but

  doubtless he wouldn’t have taken it in the right spirit.

  I kept my own mouth shut, I got no instructions from

  the trousers.

  From the very first I couldn’t stand his face, but that

  has to be taken in the right spirit too, because I have

  friends who look at least as obnoxious without it vexing

  me, the same suspicious little foxy eyes in a great big

  stinking mug, the same smug crooked mouth, I’ve never

  understood what pleasure women can get from a noodle

  like that, and yet they’ve been good mates of mine, and

  I do believe he and I could likewise have enjoyed a few jars

  together if we’d just met up and I hadn’t been wearing

  those trousers.

  ‘Has he been bothering you?’

  ‘No, not at all, we were having a chat, it doesn’t mean a

  thing.’

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  Chat? We’d barely said a word. Quite honestly I was

  touched at the way she was covering up for me, even if it

  was the trousers she was concerned for, though equally

  she’d said it didn’t mean a thing. I was touched and

  relieved and at the same time bloody sorry for the way

  women humiliate themselves before men and get scared of

  them because they’re big and cocksure and jealous. I stood

  up. He barred my way.

  ‘Off already?—and just as I arrive, how strange is that’,

  he said sweetly.

  It helped a bit to be on my feet, even though he was still

  a head taller than me. But over the course of time I’ve

  discovered that the worst thing you can do when faced

  with tall people is to tip your head back and address their

  nostrils, they just love it, and then they adjust their nose,

  sniff in blissfully, and slap you on the back like they’re

  letting you off some old debt. I just eyed the knot in his tie

  which was positively plump, the exact opposite to mine

  which looked like a strangled intestine, and I said:

  ‘Yes, now you say it, it is rather strange. I’ll go away and

  have a little think about it.’

  So then he stepped aside. The dice players had gone

  quiet, all I could hear was her trying to smooth things over

  behind me:

  ‘I promise you, he was ever so polite.’

  ‘Yes, he even gave you his hand, I noticed.’

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  I waded out into the cold. The wind was up, the

  trousers flapped around me. I hurried away from the place.

  Somehow autumn had suddenly come. Before, when

  I was plodding along out there I hadn’t bothered my head

  too much about it, I was more excited about where we

  were going, me and the trousers. But now I noticed. You

  know how it goes, how it can be autumn for a long time

  without you paying attention to the fact—yeah, even

  though you know it full well, and in fact if anyone hap-

  pened to ask you, ‘What’s the season right now?’ you’d

  straight off say ‘Autumn, of course.’ But suddenly one day

  you actually see it, the leaves trampled flat on the wet

  paving stones, the wind up your trouser legs, you get a

  peculiar sinking feeling in your heart, oh no, autumn’s

  here, and you wonder how come it’s only struck you

  now though you’ve known it for weeks, only in a distracted

  sort of way, but now you too are riding along with it and

  you can’t so to speak hop off while it’s moving, even if

  you’d like to. You’re one of those slippery leaves yourself,

  trampled shapeless, and there’s not a damn thing you can

  do about it. Incidentally it’s much the same with spring,

  now I think about it—okay then, we’ll stick to autumn. As

  I said, I was walking along gawping at the fallen leaves,

  I must have been feeling pretty low, because all I remember

  is cobbles and paving stones, fag ends, dog shit, silver paper,

  an incredible amount of silver paper there was, the sort you

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  find wrapped round chocolate, toffee bars and such, it’s one

  of the saddest sights you can ever get to see, all that dis-

  carded crumpled silver paper trampled on by wet shoes.

  I was walking along there, feeling pissed off about that

  whole business, and then I thought what’s the bloody use,

  best not get involved, they’ll work it out those two, forget it,

  it’s not like you to go on like this and go to pieces, stick to

  your own worries, that might cheer you up some. Which is

  what I did, thank you very much, and it was easy, all too

  easy, sliding around in dead silver paper. She was scared of

  me you know, the little thing. I didn’t want her to get hurt,

  but the only thing that could calm her down was toffee bars,

  I force-fed her with toffee bars, but there weren’t enough

  toffee bars in the land to calm her down, poor mite. How old

  was she, about seventeen, and I was twenty-odd. I’d known

  a good few others, but never in that way, there was none of

  that, I wanted to make her happy, she was like a little sister,

  I only ever had brothers, a sister to look out for, buy some

  nice clothes for, be nice and polite to, take along to the

  pictures when there’s something worth seeing, make her

  smile once in a while—and stop interrupting me, or I’d

  rather shut up.

  Well, it didn’t work out. And the worst about is I saw

  her later. It was enough to drive a man to drink, if he

  wasn’t there already. I was out to pick something up

  myself, on my way in to one of those places with a red

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  neon sign over the door and a smart-arse obnoxious

  doorman just inside, and then I step aside for a couple

  on their way out, a fat slob with a girl, it was her, thank

  God she didn’t see me. She was laughing at the top of her

  voice about something or other, but I could have done

  without that laugh. It was no longer a case of toffee bars, it

  was no longer a case of anything at all. There just aren’t

  enough toffee bars in the world.

  Well, so here’s me walking along pondering this and

  that with my hands in my pockets and my chin in my

  collar-ends. I wasn’t looking where I was going, because

  I all at once came to a stop right on the edge of the quay.

  The wind was going full blast, the water was spraying up at

  me. It was cold standing so near the edge, but I stayed

  there anyhow, I’m not sure why, the whole thing was a bit

  strange. Your ceiling needs painting. And then what, when

  it’s been painted?

>   I’d come a good way along the quay. No one lived here,

  just locked warehouses and the bare scaffolding of cranes

  with the wind whistling in them. A single darkened coal

  freighter lay creaking at its moorings, otherwise all ships

  were lying safe and sound deeper inside the harbour,

  where there were lights and people and bars. Those two

  would be home by now, and they’d be rowing about me, or

  about the bloke who was in the trousers originally. Most

  likely he was beating her, he looked the type, the big oaf,

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  210 n Benny Andersen

  because he couldn’t get at me. And most likely she was

  wailing, trying to make herself small, warding off his blows

  with the fur hat and her bag. Though possibly she also felt

  she deserved it for what she’d done to the other bloke, not

  letting him near her, so he took off and stayed away for

  several days. No doubt that had happened many a time,

  and each time he had come back, but women want to see

  how far they can push it, it’s like they need to make some

  kind of calculation, how beautiful they are, how indispens-

  able. But finally she miscalculated and went a step too far,

  and so then he walked out here like me, and presumably

  hopped into the drink.

  But that was all stuff I didn’t want to think about any

  more just now, and I had no desire to ponder my own fate

  either, so how was I going to entertain myself, try to think

  ahead maybe—think of new margarine sandwiches, new

  drinking companions who have so many of their own

  troubles you don’t fancy coming out with your own—or

  there might just be something worth seeing at the pictures,

  except that’s another thing I’ve quit doing. I can’t focus on

  what’s happening up on the screen anymore. It’s down

  among the audience things happen. There are so many

  people round me who’ve got each other to sit with, a big

  hand and a small hand meet in a bag of liquorice all-sorts

  so it splits and the sweets go rolling under the seats like

  dice, a toffee bar is broken in half and gallantly he leaves

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  her the bit with the silver paper on—no, I don’t get much

  out of the film, and much too much out of the other stuff,

  so far better stop at home with a coloured bottle or two,