Justine

by Mondrup, Iben; Pierce, Kerri A. ;

  She grabs the roll and starts, eyeballing it as she goes, those beautiful eyes. She finds herself a spatula, rip, rip, tears off the piece she wants to use, it’s long, at least three meters, she wraps it around the paintings, slowly, until all the pictures are encased in a covering.

  Then I ask a harmless question, one that’s got no bite: “So who’s doing the framing?”

  Soon she’ll be out the door, heading home, back to all she has.

  “Hans’s Workshop,” she says. “Torben got a job there a couple of days a week. He’ll do my frames in the evening.”

  Should we get together someday, just you and me? I can’t ask that, or rather, I can’t bring myself to ask it.

  She busies herself with this, that and the other, the scent of breast milk is a cloud around her. When she bends over, her chest hangs like two udders.

  “It’s really annoying to have to be back so quick,” she says, turning around, “I really hope things level out soon.”

  “There aren’t anymore,” I say, she’s standing oddly halfway out the door, as if she’s forgotten something.

  “See you soon,” she says.

  “Maybe one more time,” I say.

  “I hope I have a little more time then.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Good luck with the exhibition.”

  “We’ll see each other before that.” She gives me a strange look. “It’s several months away, you know.”

  And now she’s gone.

  Could’ve been the beers. Could’ve been because she popped into my mind. Could’ve been because I was thinking about Ane and felt that Torben was an idiot. On the other hand, that’s always been my opinion, and recent events have done nothing to improve the situation. And the exhibition, which I’m supposed to be having soon, I thought about that, too. Could it be because that popped into my mind? It’s certainly possible.

  A minor detail. Even Torben’s a minor detail. Something else looms larger. And that I didn’t dwell on at all. It wasn’t a thought, but an urge, no, something stronger, an impetus, that’s what it was. That’s what the desire to sit in the armoire with my mother felt like.

  She lived in that armoire. A Kirkeby sculpture with a large poppy on the door, itself made of stone, located in a small housing cluster. She’s inside that house. It’s around ten, no, twenty steps to the door. There’s a crunch beneath my fire shoes. One step, two more, a braking vehicle, the ambulance, from the corner of my good eye. Two men with a stretcher dash, the door opens. At my seventh step I can no longer lift my legs, my stomach burns, my arms burn, so heavy. I need to shit. Right now. But I can’t shit now where my mother . . . no, Vita . . . my throat, burning. She gasps on the floor in a puddle of nothing I can do. Not even lift my arms. My legs twitch unevenly in piss and shit, seriously, I need to crap, but I can’t move, she shouts from inside the armoire everywhere.

  Should I do it in my pants, what’s the most important thing here?

  I topple to the side in the grass, a mighty big intestine in a teensy tiny worm that worms its way around the house and unseals the hole, explodes onto the grass, lies in the grass, stinks in the grass, until someone happens by and says: You’re me, so get the hell up! I have arms and legs, so I push myself up, peer through the window at a TV, and she’s sitting in front of that TV in an armchair, “Mama,” I shout and race to the door. They’re bearing the body out, it’s there beneath the sheet turning chalk whitey white with an oxygen mask is dissolving to dust, smothering, and smoke is pouring now from the door, from the gaping windows, too. I look again: She’s sitting in the armchair, studying the canvas, she turns her head fuming, glances toward the window, lifts a hand, rosy-colored cheeks and that particular hairdo from back then, so beautiful she’s a delta of melted skin become a single brown smudge on the way out of this world again.

  Out here is utterly deserted, the house has never seemed colder and harder, strutting its single level won’t ever collapse, now there’s no more key, no way inside.

  Yet in that part of the yard that’s invisible from the road since it’s behind the house, they’re sitting together, snuggling in the torchlight that flickers and flickers, and the shadows dance on their faces and in their eyes, which don’t see me, they’re consumed by each other, they kiss, they lean close, their garden chairs give beneath their weight as they lean over to rub noses, the short-haired woman and Vita.

  The pitchfork stands leisurely in the flowerbed, only the shaft is visible when the light flickers that direction, but the teeth are hidden by the soil.

  The women suddenly glance up, peer into the dark, appear transfigured and embrace each other, tilt to the side, and the short-haired one grimaces, puts out her hand and lands softly in the grass, flump, with Vita on top of her on her full breasts, they spread out in the grass like an island of flesh in green.

  They peer into each other, they don’t see me standing over them with the pitchfork in one hand.

  Now I wrap both hands around the shaft and heft the tool, which actually weighs a bit, above their body, up above us the sky is black, and I want to lift the pitchfork even higher, as high as it can go and higher still, before I allow it whizz through the air and pierce their heart.

  The pitchfork’s teeth pierce the clothes and the skin and bore into the double body which doesn’t flinch at all; no reaction; sedate as a jellyfish is slow.

  Now it’s like Grandpa, like the house, like . . .

  I excavate the ground with the pitchfork that’s not meant for this, its teeth simply part the earth between them, an endless task, I place it beside the body and walk over to Launis’s tool shed, there has to be a shovel or something else fit for digging, no one will discover anything, it’s smack dab in the middle of the night, fortunately.

  I pass my firesite, something has happened, the area has been blocked off by red and white plastic tape, suspicious things are going on, not that I know what they might be, my vision isn’t the best, but it has to be the police, and what’s that about?

  There’s also a tent that wasn’t there the last time, now I’ve got two things to think about, it’s just too much to cope with for a person with her hands full of too much of everything, I simply can’t take it anymore.

  All is quiet in Vita’s yard, the grass glints green in the light of the flickering torch, but nowhere is there a body, while the pitchfork, which has landed among the potatoes, lies there uselessly, the shadows are also gone, and all the chairs, it’s just that one torch and Launis’s shovel, which turns out to be a spade.

  In reality, the body is nowhere, not even in the house, which is locked like a bunker.

  I putter in the dirt, the spade’s handle is made of metal that easily enters the bedroom window after I wrap it in my shirt, no one needs to come here and see this, there’s nothing to see anyway, the whole scandal has been scrubbed.

  Fourteen

  Clothes. A stringy cassette salad. Empty tapes. DVDs. Me. On the floor.

  “Am I okay? I don’t think so.”

  A large and mournful and rather gratifying cassette salad is heaped on the floor in streams of images and sound. No point in trying to fix anything.

  “Are you okay?”

  It’s Bo. I didn’t close the door and he simply walked in.

  “You must be really down,” he says.

  “Can you tell?” I ask. “Can you tell how it’s all connected?”

  I can’t help it, but start crying all over again, mostly because of the ruined tapes. I actually could’ve used some of those recordings for my exhibit. That’s what I should’ve done. It would’ve been easier.

  “But why in the world . . . why did you destroy them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re not too bright.”

  “No.”

  “Were you drunk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that explains something.”

  “No.”

  Bo has suggested that I borrow his computer, he’s
so great, so I can look at my photographs. His workshop is the same size as Ane’s, but packed with things from floor to ceiling. In the midst of it all are two desks set across from each other and piled with paper. Bo sits down at one desk and puts his legs up, he’s about to tell me something, but then there’s a knock on the door, and in comes Åsa with another guy.

  “How’s everything going?” the guy asks. “Did you get ahold of the cans?”

  He’s tall and skinny with oversized pants, everything about him is too large, except for his head, which perches atop his skinny neck and seems way too small, though his nose, on the other hand, is enormous.

  “They’re over there.”

  Bo indicates some boxes.

  “Five boxes of peeled tomatoes. It’s just the paper that’s rotten.”

  “Super.”

  The skinny guy offers a bony hand in greeting, since hey, I’m here, too.

  “My name’s Heroine,” I say.

  His name is Olaf.

  “We’re running the kitchen again this Saturday,” Bo says, “in the courtyard at Amalienborg Palace.”

  “That’s a nice place,” I say.

  It’s like I’m a part of the conversation.

  “It’s not really the kind of place they like to see bag ladies, eh?” Bo asks.

  He turns around and closes his computer program.

  “Well,” he says, “you can just have at it.”

  I’m alone in a strange space, but luckily all the workshops are similar. I connect the camera, a moment passes in which I’m excited, and at the same time completely apathetic, the two feelings are on parallel tracks, it’s impossible to tell when I’m riding the one and when I’m riding the other.

  The photo program opens, thirty something pictures pop up on the screen, I immediately make two groups: self-portraits (staged photography) and self-portraits (snapshots), which means, since it’s only me in the pictures, that: 1. It’s me pretending to be something else, and: 2. It’s me being me.

  I try to divide the pictures between them, but they insist on leaving their assigned group and scattering. I decide to create a few sub-groups: 3. Self-portraits (unsuccessfully staged pictures turned snapshots), and: 4. Anti-self portraits (unsuccessfully staged pictures failed to become snapshots, loss of control), and: 5. Non-category.

  I shift the pictures around again, it’s like they’re multiplying, now they’re caught in so many layers that I can’t keep track of them, wait, wasn’t there also an opening I was supposed to go to. Didn’t I promise myself . . . I grab a couple of beers and head out.

  It’s a small place, a small basement gallery, nothing uncomfortable, just some people from the school and such, all standing out on the street and smoking, and there’s Jens Erik, he’s the one exhibiting down there in the bright space on a balmy evening.

  “Hey, Justine, come have a beer, they’re in the window.”

  Warm beer and Jens Erik’s works are a good combination. He’s taken photos of the graffiti found around Vesterbro’s streets and has made patterns of them. It’s kaleidoscopic, these mystical mandalas that draw the eye around the designs and “what beautiful movements,” says Rikke, she’s here, too. “You don’t even notice that the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ are actually in the patterns.”

  I think Jens Erik’s pictures are fantastic, and I can tolerate Rikke only at a distance. Two hip-hopsters are at the turntable, and now Jens Erik goes up and scratches until his beer bursts, the show gathers and becomes black vinyl, people rotate by, the crowd is at a comfortable distance, and here in the corner is my overlook.

  My plan was to hide from anyone who wanted to talk to me. I knew that they’d ask how it was going, and it’s going to hell, no one can fail to overlook that, not even myself.

  But see: Here comes Torben, goddamnit. He doesn’t see me, I’m invisible to him. Torben throws an arm around Jens Erik, who’s finished with the records, and says, as far as I can make out through the din, that it’s aces what he’s done, total aces. He jerks his head, jerks it back, he laughs and throws back his head. Ha. Ha. I stuff a couple of beers into my pocket, because being unable to cope with yourself is one thing, being unable to cope with this underground gallery for one second longer is another.

  “You’ve got some nerve,” says Torben, who’s managed to find me nonetheless, who slaps my ass with his eyes.

  “You’re an idiot,” I say.

  I take some photographs in The Factory’s workshop. The Salvation Army, the nursing gown, the rainwear, some glasses, the beard, all the nice costumes zip around the studio and want to enter the iris, but I keep them out because I’ve decided they can’t play. Now they’re heaped on the chair. I’ve decided, and it’s me who decides, that I’ll only photograph my body, and it’ll be as simple as possible. I’m wearing white panties and a bra, and I oscillate back and forth between the camera and stage and assume every possible position.

  Things between me and the camera and the stage are much better now, in any case much better than they were at first. I’ve stopped screaming and kicking things, but instead hurry to the camera, hit the timer, and then hurry back to the stage. My body is more tranquil now despite these quick releases. I can work with it, unfold it from within to sorrow, to sorrow and general unhappiness, and to jealousy. The picture I snapped just then was amusing. You can’t call it bliss, but I did laugh from somewhere on the inside. That was wonderful.

  And now I’ve just been to Bo’s to see the pictures on the computer again. They actually do look better.

  Why the hell didn’t Vita say she had someone else? I know she’d say it was none of my business, but it certainly was, it most definitely was my business. Every sticky detail touches on me, the drooping teats, the hedgehog hair, she wasn’t even attractive. Neither are you, she’d say, Vita. The cow. Hell yeah I am, in any case I’m better looking than that old hedgehog. Shit, I can see that with my own good eye. She sat on my couch. She sat in my garden and drank from my glass. She sat on you. You were someone else, but you looked like yourself. You were hers.

  What were you planning to do, stroll past my house hand-in-hand with her? Good thing I’m not there anymore, huh?

  Ane stands in the studio. She entered without knocking, just to find out if I’m finished with the camera, because she’d like it back so she can take some pictures of her work. She’s also different. There’s a new energy about her. Everything is in a flutter.

  “How’s it going?” she asks.

  “Vita’s with someone else.”

  She looks at me. I’m a mountain to be hurdled.

  “I know,” she says.

  “You do?”

  “She told me just after Christmas.”

  “But back then we were still together?”

  She looks like a tough hen.

  “What, did you talk about it?” I ask.

  “Of course we did. She doesn’t have many other people to talk to. Chill out, Justine.”

  What did she say to Vita? How did she say it? In what words? Where did she put the emphasis? And why are both of my eyes suddenly clear-sighted?

  Using eyeliner I draw a dotted pattern down my chin. Using lipstick I make two lines on each cheek. On my forehead I affix a red mark from an old exhibition. I look, and I look good. That’s some sweet war paint.

  The bus is stifling, and no one does anything about it. I have to squeeze between the people who stand pressed together in the center aisle, next to a man who mutters that it’s only the driver who can open the window. Now I hardly have any air, and what’s he standing there mumbling for, the big idiot.

  Luckily, we’re nearly inside the city. We drive past Christiansborg. At Kongens Nytorv we idle between cars and buses in a long line waiting to reach the actual bus stop.

  People get off. They wonder what’s wrong, no one knows anything. There’s probably a demonstration up ahead.

  Now three police cars drive directly across the square, weaving in and out of the planters and trees. T
he cars try to pull onto the sidewalk so the police can make progress. Now they somewhat make it through the congestion.

  I sprint with the others up Bredgade. It’s a contingent of the country’s free-roaming tramps speeding along with old strollers hung with raccoon tails, and some young people. We race toward the shouts and commotion ahead.

  Now there’s the smell of fire. From the church I can see down to the courtyard through a cloud of smoke. People swarm up the street to escape. It stabs at your nose and eyes, and I take off my T-shirt and hold it before my face.

  Suddenly, there are policemen right before me pushing their way forward with shields, flying bottles fill in the air. A rock whizzes over the police and lands next to me. And there’s Åsa in some policeman’s arms. He’s holding her away from him, so that her arms and legs operate like drumsticks in the air. She shouts soundlessly. I run toward the policemen, I’m a battering ram, I bash straight into a club.

  Fifteen

  Overhead is a concrete ceiling. Outside on the street a couple of people dash past. I have a headache and a lump on my temple.

  “Some people dragged you in here. They asked if they could leave you here.”

  I’m lying on the floor of Galleri Kold in Bredgade. That’s why it’s so white. The man talking is the director.

  “I’ll drive you to the emergency room, but I think we should wait until the street has calmed down a bit,” he says. “Can you wait that long or is it really serious? How are you doing?”

  I’m lying on a blanket. What he’s saying makes a lot of sense, I think.

  “Is it serious? Should I call an ambulance?”

  He crouches down.

  “Sorry for asking. But what is that you’ve got on your face?”

  “Nothing,” I say.