The Copenhagen Affair

by Amulya Malladi

  Are you in love with me? How long had it been since she felt an honest-to-god butterfly fluttering in her stomach at the thought of a man?

  Madly.

  How madly?

  Enough that I want to drive down to your street right now and take you away.

  And make love to me? Her heart was beating so incredibly fast that she had to put a hand to her chest to slow it down.

  And fuck you hard.

  Heat pooled inside Sanya. Oh my, was this sexting? She didn’t respond to his message. It was crude. It was not what she had expected. It was exciting and yet off-putting all at the same time.

  The phone rang, and she picked it up.

  “I’m sorry for my lack of finesse,” Ravn said.

  “Good night,” Sanya responded.

  “Sleep well,” he said.

  She did no such thing.

  Chapter 25

  Good Mandy

  “I can’t stand the humiliation,” Penny told Mandy.

  Mandy understood. It was bad enough that Lucky had rejected her; now she had to have her nose repaired again. The bandages on her face and her wrist, which was sprained from the fall, were a constant reminder of everything in her life that was not working.

  Mandy looked at Penny in despair while Ravn was on the phone in the dining room of Penny’s house. Penny had settled down in the sunroom, which faced the Charlottenlund forest. It was her favorite room, but in the past two weeks while she recuperated it had become a hated room, she told Mandy. The Queen Anne–style furniture seemed gaudy and unclean as the July sunlight streamed in from the glass doors and windows and danced on top of each dust bunny and flaw on the couch and the three chairs that surrounded the coffee table. Penny sat on a leather lounge chair, facing the forest. The coffee table had been moved close to her and was covered with a box of Kleenex, prescription painkillers, bottled water, and for now a teapot and a cup of green tea.

  “Are you in a lot of pain?” Mandy asked.

  “It’s not too bad,” Penny said as she flipped through the latest Elle magazine. “Princess Marie and Stine Lund both wore my designs to the opening of Giselle. God knows how long I’ll be able to sell. I don’t think they let you design in prison.”

  Princess Marie was married to the Crown Prince Frederik’s younger brother, Prince Joachim, and Stine Lund was an up-and-coming musician who had last year won the Danish X Factor contest. How Penny could find this news an omen for disaster, Mandy couldn’t understand.

  “Come on, you’re sulking,” Mandy said.

  “Look, Mandy, I know you care and, babe, I’m grateful you do. But I’m not a project of yours, okay?” Penny said.

  Mandy was offended. “What do you mean project? I don’t have any projects.”

  “Sure you do,” Penny said. “You’re always trying to save someone or the other. What was the name of that woman you picked up at Ruby’s the other day?”

  Mandy licked her lips. “You know, when Ravn and I first married and moved to Denmark, I didn’t have a single friend. I was so alone. I just think it’s hard for foreign women who come to Denmark. You Danes are not particularly friendly.”

  “But that doesn’t mean you pick people up everywhere you go,” Penny said, obviously happy to divert Mandy’s attention from her nose.

  “I don’t do that,” Mandy said, and pouted and turned to Ravn, who stepped into the room just then, his phone in his pocket. Mandy beamed at him. “Do I pick up people everywhere I go?”

  Ravn smiled and kissed his wife lightly on the lips. It was something he did often, Mandy thought with delight. Something he just did offhandedly. They’d been married forever, and he still kissed her as if he liked it. She was the luckiest woman in the world.

  “Yes, you do,” Ravn said. “But only because you have a big heart, and we all love you for it.”

  “See,” Mandy said triumphantly.

  “See what? He agrees with me,” Penny said. “And the latest one was a weal disaster.”

  Penny was referring to one of Mandy’s new friends, Rosaline, a Frenchwoman who had recently moved to Denmark with her Danish husband from Lille. Mandy wanted to help Rosaline, but her family couldn’t stand her because the woman was a complete snob and show off—and pronounced really “weally.” It had taken just one dinner at Mandy’s house for her to realize that she needed to get rid of her new friend even though she weally wanted to help poor Rosaline acclimate to cold, damp, and dark Denmark.

  “She was an odd duck,” Mandy admitted.

  “And let’s not forget that Russian woman,” Penny said, and both Ravn and she in unison said, “Olga Ivanovich.”

  Mandy made a show of weariness, but she enjoyed the attention they gave her. They were saying that she was kind, bighearted, and welcoming. This was how she wanted people to see her. Not as the girl she had been in Oregon. No, not that gauche girl, but this wonderfully sophisticated philanthropist.

  “She was a complete ho,” Penny said.

  “Penny,” Mandy protested.

  Olga Ivanovich had been married to a Russian diplomat. Mandy met her at some embassy to-do, and they had chitchatted politely over a glass of champagne for maybe five minutes tops. The second time they met had been at the Illum Bolighus department store in the city center, where Olga had dumped her three-year-old son with Mandy while she used the restroom. Mandy had played with little Andre and had bought him a Thomas the Tank Engine set, much to his delight. The third time they met had been at the local Irma grocery store, and Olga had brought her bag of groceries to Mandy’s house, where she had insisted they have a cup of coffee.

  Olga burst into tears even before the coffee was poured into cups. They never made it to the living room but sat in the kitchen, sipping coffee while Olga unloaded the whole story.

  “My life is falling apart,” Olga told Mandy, a veritable stranger. “My husband and I are having problems. He’s sleeping on the couch and . . . I have Andre, and it’s really difficult.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Mandy said.

  “My husband cheated on me,” Olga explained.

  “Oh dear,” Mandy said.

  “But that’s okay. I forgave him. But . . . see, I’m . . . oh god,” she said and burst into thick tears again.

  It took a while for Mandy to coax the story out of Olga, but it went a bit this way: A year ago, Olga’s husband had had a torrid three-month affair with a Russian opera singer who had been in Berlin while they had been living there. They had moved to Copenhagen with the hope of a fresh start to save their marriage, but Olga slipped when she met an older man. A much, much older man whom she was helping with his orgasms.

  “Excuse me?” Mandy asked, as she gracefully managed to not choke out the coffee she had just sipped.

  “Well, he’s older and has trouble with reaching orgasm, so I help him,” Olga said. “And I think I’m in love with him. But he’s married and I’m married. I don’t know what to do.”

  Mandy didn’t think this was a difficult issue. “Do you want to stay in your marriage?”

  “Yes,” Olga said to her. “I love my husband.”

  “Well, then, you should stop helping this old man,” Mandy suggested.

  “But I think I’m in love with this old man,” Olga said.

  “He’ll never leave his wife for you,” Mandy said. “Danish men don’t do that . . . actually, no man does that.”

  When Mandy had told Ravn and Penny about this strange woman with her strange story, they had both said that it underscored how Mandy needed to stop bringing home people she didn’t know.

  But Mandy loved to help—she loved being needed. She had purpose then. And now, as Penny lay injured while Mark was in Switzerland meeting with some investors, Mandy was more than happy to run Penny’s house, keep an eye on the au pair, and take care of the girls.

  “You’re like a sister to me, and you’re no project.” She looked at Ravn and added, “And you need to put her mind at rest. She’s very worried about her hu
sband and the business.”

  “Of course,” Ravn said. “Penny, there isn’t really anything to worry about. I’ll take care of you. You’re family.”

  Chapter 26

  Harry Wants to Be Married

  Ravn sent Sanya several text messages. She resisted responding to any of them.

  She had two tubes of Rainy Day Woman and Monk’s Deliverance in her underwear drawer, and she was staying away from them. Post-implosion Sanya was difficult enough for her to put her arms around, but post-implosion Sanya on Rainy Day Woman was a bit too much.

  The weather in Denmark was as moody as Sanya felt. July was always reliably warm, Sanya had thought, but not in Copenhagen. One day the sun was shining and the sky was blue, and the next day the clouds had gathered and the temperature had dropped to where Sanya was wrapping herself in a trench coat as she went out to meet Madeline, the University of Copenhagen professor she had met at Café Bopa a few weeks ago, for lunch at a French bistro, L’Education Nationale, in the city center. She’d advised Sanya to catch the 1A bus on Aarhusgade and get off at Nørreport Station, after which it was just a short walk.

  This would be Sanya’s first time catching a bus in Copenhagen, and she was a bit intimidated by the experience. She hadn’t wanted to ask Madeline about bus tickets and how one bought them, so she asked Harry.

  “Just take a taxi,” Harry suggested, not looking up from his computer. He was sitting in his office, poring over what looked like a hefty Excel sheet that seemed familiar to Sanya.

  She still hadn’t told anyone what she knew. Otto had called her and told her that he had looked at the shell corporations, Lala and Cirque Fernando, and he had found no connection between them. If she knew anything, he told Sanya, now would be the time to tell him.

  Otto was obviously not as good as he should be at uncovering information from financial data, Sanya concluded. But she didn’t help him. Conflicted beyond belief, Sanya decided that denial would be better than dealing with her situation. Also, she didn’t work for IT Foundry or ComIT. She was a jobless bum. This was not her responsibility.

  “I don’t want to take a taxi. I want to take a bus,” Sanya said indignantly to Harry.

  He looked up at her then, a bit confused, and seeming to say, Then take the bus, do what you want, you’re a grown woman.

  A foreign country was disorienting for her, but it was probably disorienting for him as well. It wasn’t like he spoke Danish. Sanya had always been independent and able to run her own life, but here she was needy, lost, and . . . well, let’s face it, Sanya thought, a little pathetic.

  “It’s okay; I’ll ask . . .”

  “No, I’ll find out for you,” Harry said and started to do a search on his computer.

  After a few minutes, he said almost triumphantly, “Well, apparently, you can go to the 7-Eleven at the corner and buy a pass that gives you ten trips. You punch the card in the bus.”

  Sanya leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. “Thank you.”

  “Why don’t we walk down together now and buy the bus ticket?” he suggested as he closed his computer.

  Sanya’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t want to be that wife, the wife who was suspicious as soon as her husband suggested anything out of the ordinary, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “I can buy it tomorrow,” she said, and then, when she saw his dejected face, said, “Fine. We can go now.”

  “We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Harry said as he pulled his computer toward him.

  “I just said I wanted to,” Sanya snapped.

  “You should hear yourself. I should record it and play it back to you,” Harry bit back. “I was trying to be nice.”

  “By buying me a bus ticket?” Sanya asked. Harry always had a bit of a short temper, but for the past several months he had reined it in for her sake. But now his impatience made Sanya revert to old habits, to give in to Harry, to please him.

  “Let’s go get my ticket,” she said softly.

  She slid her feet into her UGG boots because it was a tad nippy and wore a black dull-as-dishwater fleece jacket and waited for Harry to find his Armani or whatever leather jacket and Nike shoes. In other marriages men probably complained about their wives taking too long to get ready, but in theirs it was always Harry who needed more time, even though he looked so much better than Sanya did.

  Harry put his arm around Sanya as they walked, and she almost jerked away.

  What was up with him? Was he cheating on her . . . again?

  This wasn’t the usual Harry. She’d been with this man for two decades, and he wasn’t the let me put my arm around you while we stroll down to the nearest 7-Eleven kind of guy. In their early days if Sanya tried to hold his hand when they walked, he always unclasped her hand from his, saying it was uncomfortable to walk like that.

  “The weather certainly isn’t summery. You still like it here?” he asked as they walked down Østerbrogade, the main street in Østerbro.

  “I do,” Sanya said. “How about you?”

  “It’s fine,” Harry said. “It’s just . . . Otto is all up in arms about us backing out of this deal, and he won’t tell us why. This is business and we’re professionals. I can’t just go with Otto’s gut. So Lucky and Otto are fighting all the time. Ravn is dropping hints about taking us to court if we don’t move fast. But if Otto doesn’t sign off, we can’t finish fucking buying this company.”

  Sanya nodded but didn’t say anything. Obviously Otto had kept his side of the bargain. He had told Harry nothing about her involvement with his business.

  A young Danish man and woman passed by them. They were both holding hands. Young love and all that. The woman was talking enthusiastically about something while the man was walking with his iPhone in his hand, and he was paying more attention to it than her, even though he was holding her hand.

  Harry suddenly pulled Sanya’s hand and stopped. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  He kissed her on the mouth then. One of those quick, brush-his-lips-against-hers kisses. “I love you.”

  Say what?

  “What’s going on?” Sanya asked.

  “Why can’t a husband say . . .” He trailed off when he saw her raised eyebrows. “All right, I feel something, okay? I’m feeling . . . in love . . . I don’t know, okay? I’m not the one in therapy, so I can’t articulate how I feel.”

  “And that’s what therapy is all about, articulating how you feel?” Sanya asked a little tightly, but her heart had turned just a little. She knew what he was trying to do. He was making an effort.

  “Let’s not fight,” he said.

  “Okay,” Sanya said amenably. She didn’t want to fight, either.

  She leaned into Harry and pretended that they were good, a happily married couple with no problems at all, until they got to the 7-Eleven and Harry and she got into an argument over the fact that you could only buy a two-zone bus card and not a one-zone one, which Sanya thought was what she needed.

  “This is the system; just follow the fucking system,” Harry told her angrily as he thrust the two-zone ten-ride ticket into her hand while the pimple-faced teenager at the 7-Eleven stared at them in open fascination. “Sometimes, Sanya, stop questioning everything. You used to not be so . . . so . . .”

  “So what?” Sanya demanded.

  “So challenging,” he said.

  Chapter 27

  Omelets at L’Education Nationale

  “You have to have an omelet,” Madeline told Sanya at their corner table at bistro L’Education Nationale. “With their baguette and a glass of the house white, it’s the lunch.”

  A fixture of Copenhagen’s Latin Quarter since the early nineties, L’Education Nationale was an authentic French bistro popular with locals as well as the French expat community. More lively than romantic, the tables were covered with red-and-white-checkered tablecloths, and the menu offered dishes like pissaladière, a Provençal pizza; a traditional French charcuterie with a variety of rillettes and F
rench cheeses; and classics like coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon.

  Madeline wore a pale-green summer dress with pink flowers that matched her hair, which was streaked with pink and blue, while Sanya wore skinny jeans, black leather ankle boots, a white sweater, a scarf, and a trench coat. She was even carrying her purse, an old Céline bag she had bought a long time ago on sale, in which she had put an umbrella in case the weather turned.

  “You know it is July, right?” Madeline teased.

  “It’s not warm,” Sanya protested as she took the trench coat off and hung it on the back of her chair. “The wind is biting.”

  “The sun is shining even if it is a little windy. You don’t understand Danish weather,” she said to Sanya. “We crave the sun, so the minute it’s out we’re all chasing it. Go to one of the big parks today, and you’ll see many a topless lady, trying to get a tan even though the wind is a bit on the cool side.”

  “Is it a nude park?” Sanya asked.

  “Not really. But no one cares. Parks are family places.”

  “I grew up in Boston, so I know what a cold winter feels like,” Sanya said. “It’s just that after twenty years in sunny California, this feels cold and . . . even in Boston in July it was never like this.”

  “Your blood has become too thin,” Madeline said. “A few years in Copenhagen will fix it.”

  The waiter, a Frenchman from Marseille, suggested that Sanya choose the mushroom omelet, which she did. Madeline chose the ham-and-cheese omelet, and they ordered a bottle of the house white wine, a 2015 Château de Ricaud Bordeaux Blanc.

  When Madeline asked what Sanya’s plans were for her life, she said she didn’t have any, because she hadn’t been feeling well.

  “There’s only one way to get stronger,” Madeline said. “You need to build a life that doesn’t include your kid or your husband.”

  “I haven’t had the time,” Sanya said as smoothly as she could, but Sanya had realized, ever since she had opened up to Ravn, that she had missed living her life.

  “It happens to a lot of women,” Madeline said as she removed her napkin to make space on her paper table mat for their food, which arrived in record time.