by John Schou
yearlong girlfriend, we would probably settle for her big apartment in another corner of Østerbro nearer to central Copenhagen, which was more appalling. But Alice never talked of marriage and neither did I, both of us believed we remained ever-young and our time schedule did not invite for different frames.
Mr. Smith, in contrast, had very tight frames. He rose from bed at 8 a.m. when his personal nurse arrived for the morning programme, which was secret to me but not to Juanita, who had to assist when no nurse arrived, which was not only the case in the weekends. At 9 a.m. sharp, he entered the elevator which brought him down to the kitchen for breakfast. Other people would have preferred the dining room in the North-East corner, from where there is an excellent view over the sea, Øresund. The house is the last before the sea and even has an own boat-bridge, but that has been empty since Mr. Smith bought the house many years ago.
On weekdays, to which Mr. Smith counted Saturdays, we met for a long breakfast. His working hours were then from 10 a.m. till 12.30 p.m. and 3 to around 6-8 p.m., interrupted by lunch and siesta. Sounds as pretty much, you may think, but it was occupation more than work and it was excellently paid. Also Juanita, the Argentine ‘girl for all,’ could not complain. I knew since all these earthly tasks were left to me. From the official accounts – I have no idea what else existed, – Mr. Smith was entitled to the luxurious house and the Bentley, even after the tax had been paid. We had luxurious clients and my boss was no Robin Hood when it came to the bill. This year, he had really earned too much, and he wanted a longer interruption, until I tore him out of his phlegm with the present case.
We had almost finished our breakfast as the doorbell rang. Juanita let the first two visitors into the music room. Shortly afterwards another couple arrived, so our guests were complete, only it was not quite 10. We have had all kinds of unsatisfied clients and other persons waiting, but these four heated each other up to unprecedented heights, knowing how important they were. Juanita became worried and asked me to protect the integrity of the house. I went all the way around the dining room, my office and the entrance instead of taking the shot way through Mr. Smith’s office, and rightfully so, since all four were standing in the entrance and then would have seen that the office was empty. To Mr. Smith, this was no object of concern, after all he had asked them to come at 10 o’clock and not 10 minutes before, but to me, as a man who tried to make peace with everyone (with the general success of Don Quixote), it was reason enough to try to poor oil over the heated tempers – and with the same success as if you are trying to extinguish fire, splashing gasoline over.
There were two women and two men, only one of the women younger than 50 – well, to be honest, around half of that. They were discussing loudly as I came: “How shameless to let us wait … finally somebody comes. Are you Mr. Smith?”
“May I answer with another question: do I look normal?”
“Almost trivial,” the elderly woman said.
“Well, Mr. Smith doesn’t, as you shall soon get the opportunity to judge. My name is Eric Gusto. May I ask about your names, so I can represent you properly, at best if I can get your business cards? Here is mine in exchange.” I had to kill 5 minutes and this was a good step forward. Only the younger lady took the trivial person’s business card but all four started to search for their more beautiful counterparts. I identified each person and spoke the name out.
“Why do you keep us waiting here? We have important matters to deal with,” the elderly lady, Mrs. Rasmussen said.
I started regretting that I had come to them. I was born in Canada, but my mother was Danish; the name is not usual here, so it did not surprise them as I started to speak with a distinct dialect. “I am glad you came early. I am certain that Mr. Smith will be available at 10 o’clock, which is in three minutes. Just one thing should be clarified in advance. Mr. Smith is Irish and his understanding of Danish is – shall we say – less than optimal. Can we then continue the conversation in English?” If Mr. Smith had heard me using these words, he would probably have fired me, although – or rather because – it was true. He subscribed the two largest dailies in Copenhagen, ‘Berlingske Tidende’ and ‘Politiken’ and believed that when he understood the headlines, with frequent use of a dictionary, he could add Danish to his mastered foreign languages, along with French, Spanish and German.
Similarly, almost all Danes believe they can speak English and are proud to announce it. “No problem,” said Mr. Olsen, whose little grey hair encircled his bald skull. He was in the age when short-sightedness slowly turns to the opposite, making people believe they no longer need glasses. He was, in comparison to his colleagues, of a more friendly appearance than his obviously younger colleagues. “Say, you are also not from here?”
“No, I’m from Canada. Do you know Vancouver?”
“Of course, I have spent many years there. Great – where in Vancouver?”
I was rescued from my lie by a buzzing tone. “I am sorry to interrupt. Mr. Smith asks where we are staying.”
“The same do I,” commented Mrs. Rasmussen.
I opened the door to the inner temple. King Theodore was seated on his throne, ready to receive the visitors. “May I please introduce Mr. Smith, Mrs. Rasmussen, Miss Brehm, Mr. Olsen and Mr. Andersen. They all speak English, so I suggest we continue in that language.”
Miss Brehm, probably stimulated by Mr. Smith’s ‘un-trivial’ appearance, was almost loudly laughing. “I’m sorry. Mr. Gusto said something very funny.”
“That is part of his job, being my jester if we have nothing serious to do. But today we have …”
“Why was it necessary to come here? Why not opposite, you might have come to the firm. I have lots of work waiting for me,” Mrs. Rasmussen interrupted. She had an angry-looking face, aggravated by thin grey hair, not set up in any way. Red framed and small glasses contributed, but it was difficult to say if it was her outer appearance or her behaviour that made her more unsympathetic to me.
“I was about to tell you,” Mr. Smith critically answered. “But your last question first: Due to a merciless disease, I am a prisoner of this house. Mr. Gusto, when he is not playing jester, is guarding me.”
“At least, they feed their inmates well in this prison,” Mrs. Rasmussen naughtily commented. Miss Brehm laughed again.
“That is my only comfort; do not take that away from me. But back to the subject. You know that Mr. Lockwood has some problems connected to his previous job as a high-standing governmental official in London. Do you also know that he has been threatened with death?” He did not mention how nearly this threat had been completed.
“Has it anything to do with his wife’s call yesterday evening?” asked Mr. Andersen, a well nourished man, though in comparison to Mr. Smith looking as he was close to starvation from hunger. He had dark-blond hair without any grey strains, in his age very suspicious of a hair colourer. He had also no glasses which did not exclude the possibility of contact lenses.
“Well, in some way, but contact between Mrs. and Mr. Lockwood was established within half an hour,” Mr. Smith answered. Please leave him in peace for the next few days what that thread is concerned. However, your presence here has something to do with it. I hope Mr. Lockwood emphasized that you are to keep no secrets for me.”
“Indeed he did,” Mr. Olsen answered. “I presume it has something to do with what we discussed yesterday evening as our first issue.”
“It may appear it has, but we have no certainty about it. Tell me about the conversation during the meeting.”
“Mr. Lockwood gave a very open presentation of his personal standing. When he was governmental employee in London, he tried to prevent that his country entered the Iraq war because it was based on information that was knowingly false. As this did not carry any fruits, he made various equally frustrating attempts to make aware of it within the Labour Party and then, finally, he delivered to a journalist the proof that the Prime Minster was well aware that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Ir
aq, even more detailed than it was shown in Denmark and Australia, not to talk about the United States, from where this witch-hunting was initiated.”
Mr. Andersen continued. “Then he told us that he was about to deliver a full confession on a press-conference the following day, that is yesterday. The lawyers of the firm had confirmed that Great Britain might request his expatriation but this was not to be feared according to Danish law – and actually, the government here could be expected not to follow any aggressive behaviour, since they had themselves no clean consciousness in the matter. So far, they have succeeded in covering this aspect here.”
Now Mrs. Rasmussen took over: “Then we stated, all of us, that we saw no reason to intervene in the case, and we also saw no reason, why it should influence Mr. Lockwood’s position as Chairman of the Executive Board – which is the most we could state as a support without intervening in a political matter. At least, we do not allow letting the current case disturb the excellent relation we have to our COE.
If the fourth person had opened her mouth beyond the before-mentioned laughing attacks, I have forgotten which words came out of it. She was a good-looking blonde blue-eyed woman, too young to be present in this company. I later learned that Miss Brehm was representing the employees at the board and her task was rather to listen than to speak – she thought. Here, however, she mentioned that Mr. Lockwood was much respected among the employees, whose number he had increased without compromising their wages.
“Then you even mentioned that the case might act as a positive advertising for our firm,” Mr. Olsen reminded. ”I did not believe it then, but the echo in the media afterwards was rather positive. Anyhow, we are selling our products and not mixing up in politics – which also was the opinion of Mr. Lockwood. After all, he did not intend the matter to develop and certainly did not call for it now. But after making these statements, we proceeded to quite unrelated matters.”
“And which were these matters?” Mr. Smith wanted to know. They did not refuse to answer it but it really proved impossible to consider any of these issues relevant to the current case. I was amused to find ‘price and quality of the toilet paper in the firm’ to be an issue discussed at the board, including such arguments as saving money, protecting the environment and preventing theft for settling for a cheaper product.
After having seemingly saturated Mr. Smith’s curiosity, he surprised them all with the question, “And how would you describe the relation between Mr. Lockwood and his family?”
Miss Brehm, finally seeing a chance to contribute with a comment, said: “It has definitely not been easy for Andrew to get a stepmother of his own age.”
“And which expressions have this given?” Mr Smith was entitled to know.
“We have no contact to any of the two and therefore no possibility to answer the question,” Mr. Andersen said, silencing Miss Brehm with a crippling glance.
“Then how come that Mrs. Lockwood is in possession of your private mobile phone number?”
“That is a different story.”
“I am looking forward to hear that, too.”
“Last year, Mrs. Lockwood was unable to contact her husband after a meeting in Germany, where also I was participating. She easily panicked and called my wife – that number is not secret – and she told her how to reach me. Then the situation was clarified, Timothy had forgotten to turn on his mobile after the meeting.”
“And why did Mrs. Lockwood then panic so easily?” Mr. Smith persisted.
“I can’t say. There was no obvious reason. It was long before the present