The Copenhagen Affair

by Amulya Malladi

  “Hi,” Sanya replied.

  “You must be Sanya,” the woman said. “I’m sorry for being so forward, but I saw your name on your Dankort.”

  Sanya stared at her blankly.

  “I’m Mandy,” she said and held out her hand to shake, the one not holding the bread. Sanya shook it absently, still waiting for the strange woman to explain who she was.

  “Mandy Ravn,” she elaborated. “Anders Ravn’s wife.”

  Her name meant nothing to Sanya.

  “May I join you?” she asked. Sanya sure as hell wanted to say no, but before she had a chance, Mandy cheerfully sat down, and Sanya had no choice but to sit down as well.

  Maybe Sanya still looked confused as to who Mandy was, because she continued, “My husband is the CEO of IT Foundry. Your husband, Harry Kessler, is here to acquire his company.”

  Did this woman really just have to name my own husband for me? Sanya nodded and smiled like a fool.

  “You went shopping, I see,” Mandy said brightly. “Birgitte has great clothes.”

  “Birgitte?”

  “Yes, the woman who owns Birgitte Green,” Mandy said and pointed to the logo on the cloth bag that held her dress.

  “Right, of course,” Sanya said.

  “Is it for the dinner tonight?” Mandy asked.

  Sanya nodded. Obviously Mandy would be at dinner, and that’s when it struck Sanya there would be a person seated to her left and one to her right and one across from her . . . Oh boy.

  “You’ll love Cindy,” Mandy said and smiled. “This is my life here in Copenhagen, you know. I keep losing my wonderful friends. I was so close to Amaya, the Spanish ambassador’s wife, and then they were sent back home. This is how it works with expats.”

  “We’re here for just one year,” Sanya said in warning. Don’t make friends with me, and actually I’m not really here, I’m still under the covers in my bed at home in Los Gatos.

  “We’ll make the best of that year,” Mandy said, and then looked at her watch in a deliberate move. “Oh, I have to go. I have to pick up my daughter—I just rushed in to pick up some bread. It was nice meeting you, Sanya, and I look forward to tonight.”

  After Mandy left, Sanya drank her coffee quietly. Two men in suits came to sit at a table in the corner. It appeared like they were having a meeting. For Friday afternoon, the place was pretty packed. Maybe they left early from work on Fridays, Sanya thought. And as soon as she thought about work, she realized she hadn’t texted Harry yet because Mandy had distracted her. She sent him her whereabouts and her need for transportation back to the apartment. He texted back saying he was in a meeting; could he pick her up at four thirty? Always scared now of Sanya suddenly losing her mind, he offered to come earlier if that’s what was needed.

  Do you know where Emmerys is? Sanya asked. He wrote back, Yes, the one on Strandvejen?

  Of course there was more than one Emmerys. Why does everything have to be so complicated?

  In desperation, Sanya turned to the man who had just arrived and was settling down at the table next to hers. “Excuse me, is this the Emmerys on . . . Strand . . . vejen?”

  The man looked at Sanya for a moment, and she immediately noticed the scar on his right cheek. It was a deep, old gash, starting from the base of his ear and ending midcheek. “Yes,” he said.

  His skin wasn’t as dark as Sanya’s, but he was tan. His hair was jet black. He wore a suit. A dark suit with pinstripes. His tie was bright orange and so were his socks, which peeked out from between the hem of his pants and his black leather shoes. They would’ve seemed incongruous on anyone else, but they entirely suited the man with the scar.

  “Thank you,” Sanya said, a little dazed that she was intensely curious about this stranger.

  “It’s pronounced Staandvahen,” he said as he got comfortable in his seat and picked up his cup of espresso. “We roll our r’s, and our j’s are h’s.”

  Sanya nodded. She sent Harry a text message to confirm her location, and when she looked up, the man was watching her keenly. He asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Of course,” Sanya replied immediately. It was her standard response because Harry asked it so often.

  When Sanya had been in the psychiatric ward, unable to speak, Harry had told her that he blamed himself for neglecting her. Not your fault, Sanya had wanted to say. It’s physics.

  “I can’t lose you,” he had said. “I know who I am without you. I don’t like the man I am without you.”

  Even though Sanya’s senses were numbed, what he said had crept through her consciousness, and she had wondered what she was without him. After so many years of togetherness, she wasn’t sure what was him and what was her and what was them. When she looked at their living room in Los Gatos, she wasn’t sure whose taste it reflected. Their identities had intermingled even though they’d lived separate lives together for so many years.

  Harry had promised, as he held her listless hand in the hospital, that he would be more careful with her. And that’s why he asked so often if she was okay. Sanya wasn’t sure if it was going to be enough to heal the wounds within, to survive the onslaught of an honest Sanya, a Sanya who was permitting herself to feel not just what was safe and allowed but . . . everything.

  “You have this look on your face,” the man explained.

  “What look?” she asked. His scar was compelling, and Sanya felt an urgent need to connect with him.

  She took a deep breath. Her therapist in California had said to take deep breaths when she felt the next moment was going to be a mountain. I need to find a therapist in Copenhagen, she thought, then, I’m not ready to be without one.

  “I’m fine,” she said, breathing evenly. “I imploded a while back, but I’m fine now.”

  The man smiled then. His teeth were crooked here and there. Normal. It made Sanya smile as well.

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “How did you get that scar on your cheek?” The question was out before Sanya could weigh it, measure it, check it. For the first time in what felt like a hundred years, Sanya was curious, and what a thing to be curious about.

  “I was in an accident,” the man said.

  “A knife fight?” she asked with eyes wide. He looked like someone who could be a character out of Carmen. A Spanish soldier fighting for his lusty lover.

  The man laughed. “Nothing that romantic,” he said. “I fell into an open well when I was a child and got hurt.”

  “How old were you?” she asked.

  “Ten,” the man said.

  “Were you scared?” Sanya could see this man as a ten-year-old in a well, alone, a big bloody gash on his cheek.

  “Of course,” he said. “But not for long. My parents heard me scream, and they came running to pull me out.”

  “How did they bring you out of the well?” she wanted to know. It was suddenly imperative that she construct this incident in her mind, as close to reality as possible.

  “My father put down a ladder and then helped me up,” the man said.

  “Do you like your scar?” Sanya asked.

  The man nodded without hesitation. “It’s a good scar,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” Sanya agreed.

  Another man in a suit walked in and waved at the man sitting next to Sanya. The man rose, folded the Danish newspaper he was reading and placed it on the table next to his empty cup of espresso. Sanya’s latte had been served in a tall clear glass. His espresso was in a small white cup on a saucer. His biscotti and his sugar packet were untouched. It was as if these details were the first things Sanya had seen in many months in color, not in black and white.

  He left with the man in the suit without saying anything to Sanya, but it wasn’t rude. Her intimate conversation with a stranger had been . . . comfortable. Yes, that was the word, she thought as she watched him walk out through the doors of the café.

  Sanya had finished her latte and contemplated calling Harry to check where he was when he came into the ca
fé. Before Sanya could draw his attention, a woman screeched his name. A redhead with glossy, curly hair. She had a large Emmerys box atop her table. And instead of wondering how she knew Sanya’s husband, or why she was so elated to see him, Sanya found herself wondering what was in the box. Cake? Pastries? One of those twisty cinnamon rolls with chocolate on top?

  Before she knew it, Harry was introducing Sanya to the redhead, Penny. She had a Danish name, Per-ni-la, but everyone called her Penny, she told her, because the Danish name was too difficult to pronounce, especially for everyone in London. That’s how she made sure Sanya knew that she had lived in London and her husband was British and couldn’t pronounce her name properly, either.

  “I look forward to seeing you at dinner tonight,” Penny said.

  Great, another person who was invited to that blasted dinner. But the panic Sanya had felt with Mandy was gone. Her mind was still on the man with the scar on his cheek.

  “And we have to get to know one another,” Penny continued. “You must come to our annual party at our summer house in Sweden. It’s by a lake. We stay overnight and go skinny-dipping in the lake.”

  Penny looked at Harry when she said skinny-dipping. Women always showed interest in handsome Harry. Sanya had long ago learned not to pay attention, and that old habit came into gear.

  “Got to get home. Pastries for the kids,” Penny said, holding up the Emmerys box.

  “What kind of pastries?” Sanya asked.

  Penny looked confused. “Just something chocolate, you know.” She left hurriedly, as if running away from Sanya.

  “Do you mind if I have a cup of coffee before we leave?” Harry asked.

  He got himself a black coffee and a second café latte for Sanya. Now that Penny had gone, they could talk about her.

  “Penny is Anders Ravn’s cousin,” Harry explained. “Anders Ravn—”

  “Is the CEO of IT Foundry, I know,” Sanya said, and explained how she had met Mandy just a short while ago. “She sat exactly where you’re sitting. This is a very happening café.”

  “Apparently, it’s the most popular bakery on the street, for bread and business meetings,” Harry said. “I met Penny last week at the IT Foundry office.”

  I didn’t ask for an explanation, Sanya wanted to say.

  Harry drank his coffee, eyeing his wife carefully. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course,” Sanya said with more verve than she had in a long time.

  Harry went completely into defensive mode. He did that, Sanya thought, maybe because he was not sure what her new effervescence meant, and probably it meant nothing good considering how she had been for the past four months. “You don’t have to come to dinner tonight, if you’re not feeling up to it. Your eyes . . . they . . . you look tired.”

  Her eyes looked wild was what he wanted to say, but he was too polite to tell his crazy wife she looked crazy, Sanya thought, as she controlled a giggle that almost escaped her and would prove his point.

  “I am tired,” she agreed, even though she was exhilarated.

  “I can make your excuses for tonight,” he continued.

  “I bought a little black dress,” Sanya told him, and pulled out the dress from its bag to show to Harry. Cracked-up people didn’t buy new dresses, right? “The saleswoman wanted me to buy a little white dress, but I got what I wanted.”

  Harry smiled. “The dress will look lovely on you.”

  “I didn’t tell the saleswoman at the store, but the little white dress made me look like I was ready for the funny farm. This dress hides my belly . . . and . . . I think it also hides . . . you know . . . the rest, in my head,” Sanya said.

  “You have the sexiest belly in the world. I love your belly. You’re a woman with a woman’s body,” Harry said. “And thank god for that.”

  Sanya’s excitement turned into confusion, and she felt like Ingrid Bergman in George Cukor’s version of the movie Gaslight.

  Just a few years ago when they were at an office thing, one of the partner’s wives, Elizabeth, had been wearing a skin-hugging dress.

  “How is she my age and looks like that? I mean, she has no belly at all,” Sanya had said.

  “She works out. If you worked out, you’d have a flat belly as well,” Harry said.

  “Do you want me to have a flat belly?” Sanya asked as she sipped her champagne, watching Elizabeth as she mingled with guests in her nearly two-dimensional body. What she didn’t say was, Will that make you happier with me? Will that make you want me more?

  “Sure,” Harry said and then shook his head. “Look, if you want a flat belly, go get one. I don’t understand women sometimes; you look at other women with envy, but you don’t want to do anything about your situation.”

  Sanya had been hurt, and instead of saying, You’re a piece of shit and the correct answer is: You’re perfect as you are, Sanya, she said, “You’re right; maybe I should get a trainer.”

  Harry had smiled and patted her shoulder. “That’s the spirit. Lose some weight, build some muscle, you’ll feel better.”

  Sanya never got a personal trainer or the flat stomach; and she never discussed it with Harry again . . . until now. And now Harry was saying, sexy belly? Love it? Woman’s body? He’d never said such words before. Who was this Harry? Was Harry changing, as she was? Or was he faking it for New Sanya’s benefit?

  Chapter 5

  Dinner at the Ambassador’s Residence

  The American ambassador’s residence was famous, they learned from the ambassador’s wife, Cindy. It was called Rydhave, where ryd means “clear” and have means “garden.” Perched on a hill along Strandvejen north of Copenhagen, it had a lovely view of Øresund, the strait that separates Denmark from Sweden, a view the guests enjoyed as they had their drinks in the patio upon arrival. The villa even had a bomb shelter, a leftover from when it was owned by a German foreign minister during World War II, when Denmark was occupied by the Nazis.

  “We use the bomb shelter for storage. My skis are there,” Cindy said as her guests nibbled on delicate blue crab beignets and drank Napa Valley Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut.

  The guests also included the Ukrainian ambassador and his former trophy wife, Anya, who met all the stereotypes. She was a “former” trophy wife because when he’d married her he’d been forty-eight and she had been twenty-two, but now he was sixty-eight and she was no longer quite so shiny a prize.

  Her blond hair was tied up in a loose knot, and soft, sexy curls surrounded her face. Anya had big breasts and the cutest Eastern European accent, mixed with a little French lilt, which she explained was a remnant of the French finishing school she had gone to. Her father was a Russian prince of some sort, wealthy in both currency and history. She had no children, though Mister Ambassador had three from his former marriage, and that was “more than enough” for her.

  The dinner seating was typical Danish style—in Mandy’s translation, “One boy, one girl.”

  Sanya sat across from Anya, who sat next to Harry. Penny flanked Harry’s other side. Sanya was sitting in between an empty chair, which belonged to Anders Ravn, who was late, and the Ukrainian ambassador, whose name eluded her. But she figured she could just call him Mister Ambassador, and she could call the American ambassador Mister Ambassador, too. She was all set.

  The dinner table was lavish with beautiful white calla lily decorations in Waterford vases, artfully arranged to not impede the line of vision between the guests and placed atop a thick Fadini Borghi patterned design white tablecloth. The white plates were decorated with big blue flowers that Sanya recognized as being the well-known Danish Royal Copenhagen plates; and next to the plates were oddly shaped Georg Jensen silverware that Sanya was familiar with because they had the same ones in the apartment.

  The servers wore white gloves as they poured water from Erik Bagger (another famous Danish designer) carafes into crystal water glasses. Cindy informed them that the water and wine glasses were designed by Frederik Bagger, the son of Erik Bagger, who
had recently started his own design company. They had chosen his glasses for the residence to support him, as they knew him very well.

  “Frederik and his partner, who is also CEO of the company, Michael—they’re both very good friends of our older daughter, Sharon,” Cindy explained. “Such ambitious and hardworking boys; and the designs are actually very good, aren’t they?”

  Everyone around the table agreed that the designs were indeed very good.

  The wines served were a 2008 Littorai Thieriot Vineyard Chardonnay from the Sonoma Coast, where Mister Ambassador was from, and a 2007 Domaine Armand Rousseau Père et Fils Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze Grand Cru, an expensive burgundy that Cindy adored and was serving even though it wasn’t American. The white was matched to the first course and the red to the second.

  Harry was successful in the Bay Area, but he was not the man who got invited to dinner at an ambassador’s residence. The invitation probably came because of Anders and Mandy Ravn, who flew in these circles and wanted to take care of Harry, their new buyer. Here in Denmark, Harry was finally a big fish in a small pond, and Sanya knew that Harry wanted to be a big fish in any pond.

  “Your husband is very handsome,” Anya told Sanya as she openly flirted with Harry, who seemed comfortable basking in her attention.

  Sanya was thankfully being left alone. The Ukrainian ambassador was speaking mostly to the American ambassador at the head of the table; and even as the first course, venison bouillon with delicate slivers of venison steak and chives, progressed there was no sign of Anders Ravn, Sanya’s dinner companion.

  It was becoming patently obvious that Sanya was not part of any of the discussions around the table.

  “If I’d known he was going to get held up in a meeting, I wouldn’t have seated you next to him,” Cindy stage-whispered across the table.

  “You know how Ravn is,” Mandy said, obviously taking offense. “He always wants to be on time, but duty calls.”

  “Ravn is never on time,” Mister Ambassador, the American one, said.

  “I agree,” Mister Ambassador, the Ukrainian one, concurred. “I waited for him for over half an hour at the golf course last weekend.”