The Copenhagen Affair

by Amulya Malladi

  He didn’t ride in on a white horse but a red-and-black Harley Davidson. Sanya didn’t even know Harry knew how to ride a motorcycle.

  He and Ravn’s friend had come to the summer house as the sky started to turn a warm blue, bathed in the light of the risen sun. They had not taken a boat, as Sanya and Ravn had, but had taken the narrow wooden bridge to the island that was designed for pedestrians, bicycles, and motorcycles.

  Sanya and Ravn had fallen asleep on the bench, wrapped in each other and the woolen blanket.

  Harry’s eyes flickered.

  “Good morning,” she said, and rose, disentangling herself from Ravn, waking him in the process.

  “Good morning,” Harry said, and walked toward her.

  Sanya eyed the man with him.

  “Tandhjul,” Ravn said, getting up slowly, the blanket falling to the ground. “Sanya, this is my friend Tandhjul.”

  She nodded at the man, who looked like a biker, just like the ones from the movies. This was the friend who had been there for Ravn when he had attempted suicide.

  “Good morning,” she said to the man.

  They all stood and looked at each other. They had many things to say . . . well, maybe all of them except Tandhjul.

  “Let’s go inside,” Ravn said, making a peace offering. “I’ll make us some coffee.”

  Tandhjul pulled out a paper bag from the saddlebag of his motorcycle. “I brought breakfast,” he said. “We had to take a leak, and there was a bakery at the gas station.”

  Sanya looked at Tandhjul in disbelief and then at Harry, who shook his head, as if saying, Don’t ask.

  They went inside the summer house. Sanya brought the blanket along, for security. She sat on a barstool, still wrapped in the blanket, and watched Tandhjul put Danish pastries and croissants on a plate.

  Harry stood next to her, saying nothing, as if preparing himself to say something but afraid of what he would say, afraid that one word out of place might make her take off.

  They drank coffee. No one but Tandhjul had the stomach to eat. The morning sunlight sliced through the room.

  “This man loves his wife,” Tandhjul said to Ravn when he finished his wienerbrød, a popular Danish multilayered pastry.

  “I love his wife, too,” Ravn said, not insolently but matter-of-factly. “And she loves me.”

  Harry drew in a deep breath and looked at Sanya, who said nothing and showed no emotion.

  Maybe the implosion wasn’t a hundred years ago. Maybe she was going to have one again . . . now, Sanya thought. Maybe the new isolated system that had just formed was erratic, unstable, and it was going to fall apart and yet another new one had to be created.

  Sanya didn’t think she could handle yet another breakdown, and she willed herself to walk away from the abyss, the dark hole she knew she would have to live with for the rest of her life. So she calmly drank her coffee and waited for the storm inside to pass, for the sun to shine through and warm her insides. For the first time since that day in the meeting room when she started to cry, she felt—no, she knew she would be okay. She could handle this.

  “I’m sorry,” Harry said to her, as if Tandhjul and Ravn had not spoken.

  “What are you sorry about?” Sanya asked.

  “I’m sorry I slept with Tara. There were two other affairs. They lasted about three months each or so. Tara . . . that’s been on and off for two years,” he continued. “I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for the most part, and I get it; I get it that somewhere down the line you stopped wanting to be with me. I get that. I don’t want to harp on here about history and say we’ve had twenty years and don’t throw that away. They were not all shitty, but they weren’t all great, either. So, here’s what I will say to you. I love you. I know the man with the scar feels like the right thing, and who knows, if you had a chance he might be the right thing. But I’m a sure thing. I know I’m the right man for you.”

  Everyone remained silent for a long moment.

  Tandhjul nodded appreciatively and clapped. “That was good, dude. That was real good. Honest and no bullshit.”

  Ravn looked at Sanya and smiled. She smiled back.

  “I did fall in love, I think, with Ravn,” she said to Harry. “But it isn’t that kind of love. It’s about recognizing yourself in another.”

  “Before you go into marriage counseling,” Tandhjul said, “dude, the police are looking for you. I checked my Twitter feed when we bought breakfast, and Børsen has released a story about your connection with that asshole Mark. Didn’t I tell you not to go into business with him?”

  Well, Sanya thought, that solved the question about Bjarke’s loyalty, as she had wondered if he’d somehow block publication of the story.

  “What?” Harry asked. “How did the newspaper get the story? We went to the police but . . .” He saw Ravn look at his wife, and he turned to her. “You went to the newspaper.”

  Sanya nodded and then asked, “What did you go to the police with?”

  “Some fact and some innuendo,” Harry said. “I figured out the connection between Lala and . . . you told me he was a Degas fan. What I don’t understand is, if you say you love him, then why did you turn him in?”

  “Because I have integrity,” Sanya said, and then added angrily, “which is more than I can say for you.” Harry was taken aback by her sudden change in mood.

  “What?” Sanya demanded. “You think you can just show up and talk about how you cheated on me, and what am I going to do, forgive you?”

  Harry sighed. “No. That’s . . . no . . . Hey, just a minute, you spent the night here with Ravn.”

  “And?”

  “And I’m not asking any questions,” Harry said quietly, and raised his hands in defense.

  “Fire test,” Ravn said, and Harry glared at him.

  “Like hell,” Sanya said, and let go of the blanket and straightened her spine. “Harry, I kissed someone recently . . .”

  Harry’s eyes moved to Ravn, and his look said, Sweetheart, I think you did a lot more than kiss. But he didn’t say it out loud.

  “No, not him, another man in the city,” Sanya said, shaking her head.

  “Jesus, Sanya, we came to Copenhagen ten weeks ago; how many men could you have met?” Harry said.

  “This was a young musician, a bass player,” Sanya said. “I did it because it was fun. I’m not being provocative; I’m trying to tell you that I’m not the old Sanya anymore.”

  “I think that’s pretty clear,” Harry said.

  “Can we go now?” Tandhjul interjected. “I think we should leave them alone to solve their problems and try to keep you out of jail.”

  “I’m not going to jail,” Ravn said. “I’m probably going to get into some trouble.”

  “You’re already in trouble,” Tandhjul said. “I think you need to ask your lawyer to meet you at the police station.”

  “Or I could run away,” Ravn said, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “Take Sanya with me.”

  Harry seemed to want to say something, a hundred things, but he watched Sanya instead.

  “I’m not running away,” Sanya said, and let out a laugh. “And neither are you.”

  “Then what are you doing?” Harry asked.

  “I’m contemplating,” Sanya said.

  Ravn poured fresh coffee into their cups, and they all sipped silently. Tandhjul ate another Danish pastry.

  “Where’s Lucky?” Sanya asked.

  “On his way to California,” Harry said.

  “And you?”

  “I’m waiting for you,” Harry said.

  To be honest, Sanya never thought he’d come. She really had been expecting police sirens, not Harry on a hog.

  “It’s not good enough, Harry,” Sanya said.

  “I quit my job,” Harry said. “I called the partners and asked them to buy me out.”

  That silenced Sanya. She couldn’t believe it.

  “Wow,” Ravn said. “Even I wouldn’t do that for my wife.”
r />   “Shut the fuck up, will you, Ravn?” Harry said.

  “What’s your plan now?” Sanya asked Harry.

  “I have no plan.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sanya said. “Are you doing this to manipulate me?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Harry said honestly. “But I’m also doing this for me, for us. You keep talking about Old Sanya and New Sanya. Well, when you changed, I changed as well. I had an implosion as well. And this is the new Harry. He wears jeans and he doesn’t have a job. He may not wake up every morning at six and go for a run, and who knows, you might even catch him eating a burger and drinking a milkshake at a fast-food joint.”

  Sanya looked at Ravn, and he raised his hands as if in defeat.

  “Sometimes soul mates don’t meet at the right time,” Ravn said.

  “Oh, I don’t believe in soul mates,” Sanya said.

  “Is it fair to say that you’ve been using me to crawl out of your depression?” Ravn asked.

  “She’s a nice-looking lady,” Tandhjul said. “I wouldn’t mind being used by her.”

  “I don’t,” Ravn said with a smile. “Tandhjul, I think you’re right; it’s time for us to leave. I’ll call my lawyer. The Mercedes I borrowed from you is parked on the other side of the island. Maybe you can give me a ride on your motorcycle; we’ll get the boat back later.”

  “Hey, Ravn,” Sanya said as he walked to the door, picking up the car keys that he’d left on the fireplace mantel when they had come in. “Try to stay out of prison.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve been doing this for years,” he said, and walked out of the little cottage with a swagger that made Sanya laugh.

  “This has been the weirdest morning,” Tandhjul said, following him.

  “Hey, Tandhjul, how much for the hog?” Harry called out.

  “You want to keep it?” Tandhjul asked, surprised, and when Harry nodded, he said, “Take it. Ravn will pay for it. He owes me.”

  They heard the motorcycle engine start, and once the sound disappeared Harry sat down on the barstool next to Sanya’s.

  “I don’t want to go back to California,” Sanya said. “So if you want to go, you’ll have to go alone.”

  “If you don’t, then I don’t,” Harry said.

  Sanya looked at him. “I know you don’t have a plan, but I have a plan.”

  “Tell me,” Harry said.

  “I just came up with the plan . . . like now, so I don’t know if it’s a good plan, a solid plan,” Sanya said.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Harry said.

  “Why don’t you and I manage the ComIT Europe branch together, here? Instead of buying a company, why don’t we build a company? ComIT can invest, and we can then slowly acquire new consultancies as needed,” Sanya suggested.

  Harry nodded slowly. “And you want to do this from Copenhagen?”

  “Yes,” Sanya said. “I love Copenhagen, even with the weird weather. People here have work-life balance. They have free health care. They pay their students to go to university. Don’t get me wrong, there’s also stuff that’s really unpleasant here, just like anywhere else . . . but I feel at home in Copenhagen.”

  “I can’t promise I can pull it off. But I can run it by the partners and—”

  Sanya shook her head and interrupted him. “No, we’ll strategize, you and I, and then we will run it by the partners together. Equal partners from now on, Harry. And we will live in separate apartments, to start out at least.”

  “What? Why?” Harry asked.

  “Because I want space,” Sanya said. “I want to be independent again, find out who Sanya is, outside of being your wife and Sara’s mother. And I need time to forgive you, Harry, for cheating on me; and I need to forgive myself as well for allowing it to happen, for not paying attention. We both need to heal and grow.”

  “But what does it mean, Sanya, to live apart?” Harry asked. “Does it mean we’ll date other people? Are we getting divorced? What does it mean?”

  “Fuck if I know,” Sanya said.

  “Maybe we need to think this through and plan this out and . . .”

  “Oh no,” Sanya said, shaking her head. “No, no. No more of Harry Kessler’s incessant planning and maneuvering. I don’t know what this new relationship, this new system of ours will look like. But I do know that if we want to save this marriage and me, I need to figure out who I am and you need to figure out who this new Harry is.”

  Harry poured himself a cup of coffee and nodded as he drank it, as if he understood, but Sanya wasn’t sure. His whole body was tense. He didn’t like the idea of staying apart. He didn’t understand it. Maybe she was wasting her time, Sanya thought. Maybe he’d never get it, get her, this new her. It wouldn’t be easy to let him go, but she’d rather be alone than be lonely in a relationship like she had been before.

  “You and I, we need to date. We need to learn to have fun together outside of raising our child or working. We need to go on vacation. I don’t know, spend a weekend in Paris. Something. I don’t want to plan our life in its entirety before living it. I want spontaneity. I want . . . no, I need adventure,” Sanya explained.

  Harry continued to nod and then slowly, as if letting what she had said sink in, he let his shoulders drop and relax.

  “I’m game.” And then he added, almost gleefully, “You know what? I have a hog, a spare helmet, and a fully loaded credit card. If we leave now, we could have dinner in St. Germain with a view of the Eiffel Tower. Is that spontaneous enough for you?”

  Maybe, just maybe, Sanya thought as hope sparked within her, Harry does get it.

  After all, she had never ridden on a motorcycle or gone to Paris.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I lived in Denmark for fourteen years, and in and around Copenhagen for nearly eleven of those before moving back to the United States in 2016, where I now live in Orange County. I love Copenhagen and I miss the city. I miss the food, the ambience, the outdoor café culture, my friends—I miss my life there.

  This book is my love letter to Copenhagen. I have described various restaurants, cafés, museums, and bars that Copenhagen offers—but some of these may have closed or changed in the time it has taken for this book to be released from when it was written. For example, you used to be able to buy cannabis in Christiania, but that changed after a shooting incident in August 2016, and Pusher Street is now closed. In addition, I have embellished here and there for effect but without, I feel, taking away anything from the real location.

  I have many people to thank for helping me bring this book to my readers—both in Denmark and in the United States.

  Thanks to Alice Verghese for reading this book in its initial terrible draft and still encouraging me to finish it, and to Fatima Aller, because of whom I will always have a home in Copenhagen.

  To my friends in Copenhagen who used to be colleagues: Annette Lindorf Thurø, Oliver Brunchmann, and Soumitra Burman—thank you for your continued friendship, which I’m convinced will last despite us living in different continents. (You should all come and visit. I have better weather.)

  Thanks to Julie Timmer, Loretta Nyhan, Amy Perschini, and Jeanne Fredriksen for being early readers, and to Denise Roy and Tiffany Yates Martin for editing this book—your critique means that this book is now actually readable.

  Thanks to Rayhané Sanders, who is the best agent any writer would want. I’m lucky to have her even though I feel undeserving. I have great respect and affection for Lake Union’s editorial director, Danielle Marshall, who doesn’t mind that I go into “neurotic writer” mode—without her support, there would be no new published Amulya Malladi books.

  Love and gratitude to my husband, Søren Rasmussen, who patiently read every draft and put up with me when I didn’t bathe or eat, and when I generally snarled at everyone around me during the periods of time when I wrote and edited this book (which were holidays and weekends—yes, he’s a saint).

  Enormous thanks to Isaiah and Tob
ias, my sons, for their patience and support. When they get older, they’ll probably talk to their therapist about how often they heard their mother say, “I’m in the middle of a sentence” very loudly when they disturbed her while she wrote. Since art needs pathos, I feel I’m helping them to become artists. You’re welcome, kids.

  And last but not the least, my gratitude to Valerie Soulier, who I sometimes failed to appreciate when I had her and whom I now miss immensely.

  AUTHOR Q&A

  Amulya and her husband Søren have been together for twenty-two years and married for nineteen years. Amulya started to write this book when she was depressed and wanted to laugh. And as she reads everything she writes out loud to her husband, she thought it would make him laugh as well, which it did. Since this book is about depression and marriage, this Q&A is more of a conversation between Amulya and her husband.

  SØREN: We’ve been married a long time. What do you think about our marriage?

  AMULYA: It’s been good. It’s been bad. And it’s been everything in between. It’s my only marriage. I have nothing else to compare it to, either, so I can’t benchmark. Overall, it’s been like life—some ups and some downs and still alive.

  SØREN: You wrote this book when you were depressed. What does depression mean to you?

  AMULYA: I am what they call a high-functioning depressive. Unlike Sanya, who stayed under the covers, I didn’t. I went out and worked and was a mother, a wife, a friend . . . and I was also terribly sad, miserable, and the whole world was covered in gray. I couldn’t write. I had no creative outlet. It wasn’t much fun.

  SØREN: You are high functioning. Even I didn’t know until much later how bad things were. I learned a lot about depression from your experience. Now I think I can detect if something is wrong before it goes wrong. Going through depression, what was the most important lesson you learned?

  AMULYA: I learned two things. First, the opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality. It’s being able to see all the colors of the rainbow, feel everything (good and bad), and live life to the fullest. The second thing I learned is that you can’t make me happy. That no one can make me happy. I have to make me happy. I have to make a choice every morning if on that day I will be happy or indulge myself to go into this gray state of feeling nothing. It sounds really simple, but that’s the truth. I control my destiny.