Am I breathing heavily? Enough to be noticed? Will they think he’s nerdvous.
The chief cabin steward requests the passengers to fasten their seat-belts and place their seatbacks in an upright position, so Kerrigan feeling less than upright sits strapped in and upright, looking out the window at the shadow of the plane over the green sea (not snot but jade, like his Associate’s eyes), moving landward, alongside a sailboat, over the fields of Amager, over a bunch of tiny cows in a field, a herd of tiny horses, over glittering miniature scale-model cars and roads and houses, finally larger, much larger than before, over the airfield where the great wheels bang down and roll along the tarmac.
Pilferers will be severely dealt with.
He knows he must easily be subject to suspicion, a heavily breathing man with out luggage, not even a cabin bag, only his Finnegan satchel, in rumpled clothes, who has been sighted by a cabin attendant with a double-thumb-size lump of hashish in his hand—the word assassin originally was hashishin, thugs who smoked hash and went out on a rampage of killing—yet he does not dare discard it for fear he is being watched. He recognizes that this is unreasonable yet his mind is awash with fleet fishlike thoughts of scientific methods by which they can test the fingers and pocket lining for hash residue and the fear that his fate will be harsher if he tries to escape it. At least he was honest. Owned up to his sins. So lock him up but keep the key handy.
He can think of no more horrific fate than jail. To be forced into close quarters with no escape from confronting terrible types. Supposedly the Danish penal system is much more humane than the American where, in the year of 1999, 1.8 million people are incarcerated with the total ever increasing, more than half for nonviolent offenses under the new, tough, mandatory no-parole drug sentences, but Kerrigan doubts the Danish jails are all that humane, set up not to correct but to punish. Even the Danish minister of justice has been quoted as saying that no one ever became a better person by doing time. You are locked in a room, subject to the whimsy of brutal types who belong to secret societies, and no escaping their rule unless you are one of the “strong” prisoners.
Kerrigan once had a tour of a maximum-security prison in Denmark and was in a group shown around by a very well-spoken prisoner with impeccable manners. The group was told about conjugal visits that could be with wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, or prostitutes—said to reduce the instances of violence in jail. They were shown cells that were only slightly worse than certain no-star hotel rooms Kerrigan had stayed in—toilet, shower, bed with bedspread, coffee table, minifridge, TV, writing desk, easy chair. The difference was that these rooms were locked, from the outside, between seven P.M. and seven A.M. You had to remain locked into about an eight-square-foot room for half of every twenty-four hours. Afterward the group was gathered in the prison conference room for a Q&A. Kerrigan asked, “I’ve heard that there are strong prisoners and weak prisoners. What actually transpires?”
The guide—obviously a strong prisoner—gazed at him with intelligent, unwavering blue eyes, thought a moment, and finally said, “What are you asking me? Are you asking if a fine is laid on the weak ones each time they have to use the toilet? That doesn’t happen.”
Answer enough for Kerrigan. Negating the suggestion a mere formality.
Kerrigan knows that he would not do well in prison. If only he had his pistol with him, he could retire to a restroom and plug his brain. Keep his reason forever from stifling, unless of course he would end in hell or purgatory for such an act or, as the Buddhists were said to believe, would be immediately recycled as an insect: Oh, no you don’t, buddy! No exit for you. Go immediately to worse shit, do not pass go, and collect nothing but more misery.
His pistol! If they apprehend him, search his premises, they will find it. Last exit closed. No excape, as his Dublin cab driver said. They could pin whatever they want on him. Yet isolation would be preferable to the society of criminals. God knows if the stories are true of what they do to each other, what they do to the weak, anal rape the classic method by which victorious soldiers demonstrate their power over the vanquished, even as James Dickey indicated in the climactic scene of his novel Deliverance as standard practice. There are even jokes about this on TV sitcoms, and it is not funny. It would hurt. Very much. Not even masochistically pleasing, just goddamn downright ugly brutal pain, tearing of the rectum. Humiliation and pain. Miserable society that allows such practices. Some people even applaud it. Make jokes of it. Gloat.
Your honor, this man completely forgot he had hashish in his pocket. Therefore I call for immediate dismissal. Why is he breathing so heavily if he’s innocent? Simple obstruction of the air passages. Temporary.
On the other hand, he knows a British fellow who was one of the hostages in Iran and who used his imaginative faculties to ward off ill treatment—he fed his captors “secrets” gleaned from the pages of a Tom Clancy novel. Perhaps the imagination can serve even there. Perhaps Kerrigan could start a writers’ workshop, thus becoming a valued colleague of the stronger cons who would then refrain from bestial practices, come to him as a senior, request his guidance.
Kerrigan, in terror, confesses to himself that he is a physical coward.
After a long swift walk, Kerrigan presents his identity card to the uniformed man at the passport control booth. He glances at Kerrigan’s card, looks at his face, regards his heaving chest, and says in Danish, “Ah, here’s an American who has had to learn to master this horrible Danish language.”
“I try anyway,” says Kerrigan in Danish, and they both laugh.
“Welcome home,” says the Dane in Danish with a smile, and Kerrigan smiles, too, saying in Danish, “Thanks shall you have,” though he is wise to him: It’s a test; they speak Danish to you cheerfully, but if you don’t understand you reveal yourself as a possible thief of a national identity card for purposes of illegal entry into this social democratic king-dom’s welfare.
No dogs on leashes are sniffing about the baggage area, and with a distinct sense of watching eyes all about him, his legs stiff and heavy, lungs laboring (Why is this happening?), he strategically positions himself behind a black man and walks through customs unmolested while the black man in front of him is stopped and questioned.
Saved by Nordic racism! You should be ashamed. But you’re not.
The tall young professional fellow in the black T-shirt comes out behind him, and as they pass through the automatic doors to freedom, he gives a sidewise smile and a wink. “Hash and eggs, ey?” he says, and is gone.
Kerrigan leaves the train at Nørreport station, deliciously, deliriously relieved. A free man. Yet he cautions himself against optimism. Ingen kender dagen for solen går ned, he thinks. Danish proverb: No one knows the day before the sun has set. Like Sophocles, Oedipus: Count no man happy until he is laid in his grave. And remembers then what Kreon says to blind Oedipus when he objects to having his children removed from him: “Think no longer that you are in charge here. Rather think how when you were, you served your own destruction.”
The sun is brilliant. Rare day of spring. Soon time to blind his consciousness. Soon time for en hivert. Lovely Danish word, that, for a drink: A pull. Sounds better in the Viking tongue: Hivert.
What’ll it be, sir?
A pull of beer, please. You mean a hivert? Yes, please.
He crosses Kultorvet, the Coal Square, where the outdoor cafés are folded out to the late-May sunlight. Can hear Happy Jazz playing from with in the White Lamb, singer and chorus: I’m the sheik of Araby, your love / belongs to me / (He’s got no pants on!) Written by Harry B. Smith and Ted Snyder in 1921.
On Amagertorv, he pauses to observe the tabloid headlines mounted on placards outside a newspaper kiosk, all apparently dealing with the same heinous crime, like some medieval ballad: BABY CORPSE FOUND IN STREAM AND BABY CORPSE FOUND IN PLASTIC BAG AND BABY LIVED TWO HOURS IN BAG IN STREAM … Why do we so relish this gore?
A little girl outside a bakery window says in Danish to her mother, “I w
ant my cake now, Mommy! I want it now!”
Kerrigan pauses and looks down at her. “So do I,” he says, “And I’ve been waiting much longer than you.”
The girl closes her mouth and gazes up at him with large blue eyes. The mother’s mouth is mirthful. Kerrigan, the hero of the moment, smiles at Mommy, whose cleavage is lovely as this spring day. Known in Danish as a kavalier gang—cavalier passage. Such a beautiful thing, the passage between the breasts that bear the milk of human kindness, two tiny miracles.
A woman cycles past illegally on the Walking Street, but Kerrigan doesn’t mind for she wears a miniskirt and each pumping turn of the pedals flashes the peachy cream of inner thigh, visions of eternity, the immortality of humankind. Write an ode to women’s inner thighs. She sees him looking and smiles. And that is another reason why he loves Denmark. Write an essay: “Why I Love the Kingdom of Denmark,” by Terrence E. Kerrigan. Women don’t mind if you take a discreet peek. Yes, I’m beautiful, her smile says. Thank you for noticing. Did you enjoy the look? And you’re a noble gent yourself, despite the rumpled clothes and cheek stubble—manly that. And I can tell your jeans must’ve cost. Hundred dollars I bet. Ceruttis, no? You’re a luvlie man. Love your green tie. Nice Italian jeans there—don’t want you to think I was looking at your bottom. May I squeeze it?
Of course, madame, yes, and you are a vision in a dream of all the lovely weightless lightness that causes the heart to soar with poetry. Light as a bird, not as a feather.
A man slouches by with two rottweilers on leashes held short. His sleeveless muscular upper arms adorned with dark-blue tattoos, bracelet-like. Viking designs perhaps. Or Celtic. It seems to Kerrigan this man must be very afraid in his heart and therefore perhaps dangerous.
A hand-lettered sign near the Amagertorv fountain proclaims that ALLAH IS THE ONLY GOD while a representative of the Association for the Advancement of Islam stands ready to field questions, and from farther down the walking street, a group of marching fools appear bearing placards that pronounce:
NO SEX NO CRY! And FAMILIES FOR PURE LOVE! And NO MORE FREE SEX! And SEX IS NEVER FREE!
The Association of Families for Pure Love descends upon him like a flood, hollering, “Yee-ha!”
Will you please shut up! he thinks.
The Pure Lovers recede toward the King’s New Square, and Kerrigan eyes a pregnant girl who bears her belly proudly. Must be triplets. Touch it for luck? You are so beautiful with your swollen nose and lips so all abloom and stuffed with the life growing inside you. Oh how I would love to lie with you, touching with most gentle respectful affection your body swollen with the gift of life to the world, you beautiful humble life-giving goddess!
There a young man keeps a small beanbag of some sort constantly in the air by the deft manipulations of his feet and knees, and two women walk past, one with a sleek midriff and crumpled-up face. O city of the hundred vices! Kerrigan sees a poster plastered to a trash basket that says LA PETIT GAGA and another advertising a play by Hans Christian Andersen about a mother. The cunt giveth and the cunt takeThaway.
The walk has once again winded him. Why is this happening? Has he sinned against the breath? He cannot get air into the bottom of his lungs. He reverses direction, heading back up Købmager Street toward the Coal Square, and looks up as he approaches the central post office to see a green bronze statue of Mercury leaning out from high up on a roof across the way. Always astonishes him when he accidentally glances up to see it there—long, lean body, seeming to be about to leap into the air, to fly, sculpted by Julius Schultz in 1896, another gift to the city from Carlsberg. Drinking beer and smoking cigars benefits art here!
He wants to think about his Associate and whether or not it is important whether or not she said that thing, particularly in light of the fact that he might be dying, but a plan is hatching in Kerrigan’s skull for a nonlaborious exercise in point of view that will allow him plenty of sitting. He once had a professor of creative writing who complained about manuscripts that kept shifting point of view from character to character, saying, “It’s like going to the theater and being forced to change your seat every five minutes.”
Kerrigan’s plan is to drink a pint of beer in every café on the Coal Square, moving full circle around, clockwise perhaps for the sake of symmetry, to see what variety of wonders this exercise in point of view—pint of view rather—might reveal to him, changing his seat after every pint whilst keeping his consciousness from pinching. And then, when he has done that, perhaps he will have a new perspective on his Associate, whom he longs to see.
Stepping onto Kultorvet, the Coal Square, he gazes around at the trees and cafés and bustling people. This square was established in 1728, after the first great fire which raged for sixty hours and destroyed nearly 30 percent of the city.
He stops first at Vagn’s Beef and Sausage Wagon to fortify his stomach from among the wares offered:
Wienerpølse
Vienna sausage
Knækpølse
Elbow sausage
Medisterpølse
Medister sausage
Hot dog
Hot dog
Fransk hot dog
French hot dog
Ristet pølse
Fried sausage
Almindelig pølse
Ordinary (boiled red) sausage
Settling on a Vienna sausage on a tiny bun, the ends hanging out on bothsides, center piled high with mustard, ketchup, chopped raw onion, and paper-thin slices of pickled cucumber, he bites. A treat! His cholesterol sings marvelous hymns in his blood, and he munches happily as the sexy woman in the flower stall wraps a bunch of pink carnations in white paper for a smiling, snub-nosed woman who clearly intends to brighten her rooms somewhere while a wiry blond fellow in the fruit stand alongside sings out, “Hey ten delicious plums for a tenner! Ten Danish plums for a tenner!”
Another bite, tangy mustard on the palate and onion sweetening the breath for an earthy kiss perhaps. Nibble those drooping ends with their little stubs of fried string. Yum. You are what you eat: Kerrigan pictures himself as a hot dog consumed by a lovely young maiden with out mercy. There’s a fantasy for his giant Norwegian headshrinker, who once called him mini-Terry, giving him an erection of irritation and humiliation. Aren’t wolves dangerous? So are wiolins.
Now the flower lady is calling out, “Hey ten pretty roses for a tenner! Ten pretty roses for a tenner!”
Before starting his cycle of Coal Square cafés, he weaves through the benches at the southeast corner of the square where derelict Inuits loiter, drinking export beer with gold foil at the neck.
“Any surplus today, friend?” one of the Inuits asks, and Kerrigan tosses a five-crown coin into the man’s hat.
He enters the Biblioteksboghandel—the Library Bookshop (now, alas, replaced by a candy shop), so named because the business school alongside it used to be the main branch of the Copenhagen library, now moved to Krystal Street, alongside Café Halfway.
He drifts down to the basement and rummages among cut-rate offerings—novels, poetry, history, coffee-table books about airplanes, war machines, Madonnas, art, masks … There are how-to’s and opera books, travel guides, a wall of cheap classics that he feels as though he has read and would not admit to not having read, though in truth he has barely ever more than scanned a good many of them. Read a few, though, more than a few, yes. He takes down Lucretius, reads on the back what is said to be the only existing biography of Lucretius, by St. Jerome: “Titus Lucretius, the poet, born 94 BC. He was rendered insane by a love philter and, after writing, during intervals of lucidity, some books, which Cicero amended, he died by his own hand in the 43rd year of his life.” Then he takes down a slim paperback volume of Matthew Arnold, looks to see if “Dover Beach” is included. It is. “Dover Beach” is an essential poem for him. Written in 1867, two years after the end of the American Civil War, three years after the loss of the southernmost Danish province to Germany. Where ignorant armies clash by night. He reme
mbers reading it to Licia, and her false blonde enthusiasm for it. Dover Bitch more like it. Dover Cunt. But he will not turn against Arnold’s masterpiece because of Licia. No.
Kerrigan buys both books, two ten-crown bargains, buck and a half, that fit into either rear pocket of his Italian jeans (Don’t want you to think I was looking at your bottom, said the lady from the Isle of Man) and goes back out onto the Coal Square. Still smacking his lips with the memory of his sausage, he starts his café carousel at the Rice Market, little tucked-in section of four or five tables with a slung-jaw Turk happy to provide him with a pint glass of amber lager.
Who can be happier than a man with a pint and a cigar (no inhaling today and I did not have sex with that woman) at a table in the early afternoon sunlight with a book of pre-Christian Latin poetry, purchased for a pittance, on the table before him?
Here in this very café he once sat with the Danish novelist Lotte Inuk, whose real name is Inuk Hoff Hansen, christened Inuk because by chance born in Greenland, and who in addition to writing also reads tarot. She read Kerrigan’s cards and the last card she turned down was of a man lying on his face with seven swords buried in his bleeding back.
“This is not an unalterable future,” she told him. “And please remember that the swords are meta phors for devotion to quests for something base.”
What does he quest for that is base? he asks himself, but is distracted by a gal in rust-colored pants clinging just so to her big powerful butt! He gazes with devil-slit eyes upon it, imagines horns upon his own head, a love philter emptied in the beer that drenches his parched mouth. Let me die of love, then. Let me die of dedication to the beauty of the feminine species. Let me, as the Danish poet Karsten Kok Hansen once advised me, “Love love love as though your life depended on it ’cause it does.” Or as the Frenchman gesturing to the fork of a woman’s thighs once said, “Rien sans lui.”
Kerrigan in Copenhagen Page 20