Am I Cold

by Martin Kongstad

  ‘White wine heated up in a saucepan.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him, Mikkel! I made him a proper Thai soup with chicken, coconut milk and lemongrass, and he wolfed it down.’

  Camilla’s three-litre box of Sunrise beckoned to her from the kitchen.

  ‘Can we talk about the old days on Istedgade some time?’ I asked.

  ‘I need to get out of the city,’ said Søren. ‘Let’s go to Tisvilde, eh? I’ll behave myself.’

  ‘It’s upper crust there,’ I said. ‘It’ll be full of kids.’

  ‘I love kids, you know that. I could teach them to spit.’

  I knew I was behaving like a traitor, but I was afraid if Søren came with me he would ruin my reputation.

  ‘Come on. Your old mate needs a break,’ he said. ‘They’ll love me. The stories I could tell them.’

  I went out on to the balcony and gave Nikolaj Krogh a ring. He was in transit at Frankfurt airport and I told him what was nearly the truth, seeing no need for him to know Søren T-shirt was celebrating his twenty-fifth anniversary as a substance abuser.

  He was unconditionally accommodating. ‘Will we be seeing Diana, too?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s going to Berlin.’

  ‘You’ll have to talk her out of that. Diana’s made a big impression on Mille.’

  I played Diana the Minefield Elite radio montage about the pianist Klaus Heerfordt on the boom box. It was an original cassette from Danmarks Radio’s store. She laughed and cried.

  ‘Brahms was there, in our icy rooms!’

  We kissed until our jaws locked.

  ‘Søren’s coming to Tisvilde with me,’ I said.

  ‘I would have liked you to come to Berlin.’

  I looked into her bright blue eyes.

  ‘We want to be together, don’t we?’ I said.

  Oddly enough, it was a sentence I’d never uttered before.

  Diana ran her fingers through the hair at my neck. I was immediately filled with yearning. I had no idea why.

  ‘Come on!’ she said, and we went to find Jan.

  He had a white facial mask on and was listening to Albinoni.

  ‘This is the most amazing music,’ he said. It was easy to get your head round, certainly. No effort required.

  ‘I’m going with Mikkel to Tisvilde,’ said Diana.

  Jan sat up with a snort.

  ‘You don’t normally make bad decisions, Diana.’

  Helene displayed her annual smattering of summer freckles and was playing badminton in the garden with Charlie. The lawn was lush and thick, the big rhododendron was in bloom and the garden furniture was made of dark wood. I shelled fjord shrimps with Tue and drank Mosel from Fritz Haag. Helene was in a bathing suit and it was unfair, of course, to compare her with Diana.

  Helene was still slim, but more square and practical these days. Tue was wearing designer sandals and had a little paunch beneath his untucked shirt. The neighbour had got a barbecue going and the smoke smelled of firelighters. Tue heaped mayonnaise on his open shrimp sandwich.

  Charlie played with his soldiers in the grass and Tue went into the kitchen to get the veal fricassee. I’d already worked out that he’d chosen the dish because it goes with both red wine and white.

  ‘Bernhard believes in your book,’ said Helene. ‘He talked about it at our Monday conference. He says you’re expanding your idea.’

  ‘I’m going to war against coupledom,’ I said.

  ‘So I’ve heard. Have you thought it through?’

  ‘No, it’s from the heart,’ I said.

  ‘But you realise you might piss people off?’

  Tue carried the fricassee to the table and picked my brains while Helene went inside to put something warmer on, as women do.

  ‘Will it be based on your own life?’ he asked.

  She came back in a fleecy jogging suit.

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  ‘Am I in it?’ Helene asked.

  ‘There aren’t any names,’ I said.

  ‘Is there cucumber salad in it? she said.

  ‘Yes, Danish literature is crying out for cucumber salad,’ said Tue.

  ‘Mikkel overheard us arguing about cucumber salad,’ said Helene.

  ‘Any couple would recognise the example,’ I said.

  ‘But we’re not any couple,’ said Helene. ‘I’m the mother of your child.’

  ‘I think we’ll survive the cucumber salad,’ said Tue.

  ‘How are the curators going to understand my work if I don’t understand it myself?’ said Ida Marie.

  For once she had joined us on the rooftop terrace.

  ‘Only fools talk of content,’ said Jan. ‘John Kørner’s paintings aren’t good because of their message, but because he interferes with it.’

  ‘How on earth can I paint souls?’ said Ida Marie.

  ‘I always loved paintings of real people,’ said Diana. ‘Faces and conversations and friends dancing. I would love to do that some day.’

  ‘People are so boring,’ said Jan.

  I went off into the summer night.

  Up on the first floor on Flensborggade they were singing along to Elliot Smith. I followed an impulse and went to Jolene’s. And there I was, bright-eyed at the bar, when Levinsen came sidling up in a military shirt and narrow black tie.

  ‘What have you done with Diana?’

  ‘She’s at home.’

  ‘Problems?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  My composure seemed to stress him out.

  ‘Can I tell you something?’ he said. ‘She flirts with me.’

  I took a sip of my beer.

  ‘How do you feel about that?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t,’ I said.

  His eyes narrowed.

  ‘People should know what a good bloke you are, Vallin!’ he said.

  When I got home, Diana lay reading my manuscript. Every now and then she laughed a bit, or seemed taken aback. Then all of a sudden she got up and put some music on, and I had absolutely no idea how my words could trigger a desire to listen to ‘Daniel’ by Elton John.

  ‘I can’t wait to find out what happens to Søren T-shirt and Signe,’ she said.

  ‘What about the rest of it?’ I said.

  ‘I skipped all that.’

  On the Friday morning Peter Kiest phoned from Berlingske Tidende and was more cheerful than was called for.

  ‘How’s it going, you old libertine?’ he said.

  He was doing a piece for their MS lifestyle section about unusual couples, ‘Coupledom 2.0’, and had heard down at the Byens Kro that I was with Diana.

  ‘From what I hear you’ve got an open relationship going on. Is that something you’d be willing to share with our prim lady subscribers?’

  ‘When do you want to meet?’

  ‘Yesterday! How about this afternoon?’

  We got Dóra Dúna to open up Jolene’s especially for us and the photographer stalked about.

  ‘I’ve not actually got anything to say about relationships,’ said Diana. ‘Is it okay if I just sit here and look good?’

  Peter Kiest came swanning in fifteen minutes late and leaned his old Raleigh up against the window. Stubble doesn’t become a man in his condition: worn-out leather shoes of middling quality, a streak of dried-up dressing on his lapel. He did a little sidestep as he got off the bike.

  ‘Are you a proper journalist?’ said Diana, extending a ladylike hand.

  ‘They don’t come more proper than this. I’ve known your husband here for years.’

  Diana looked at me with eyes wide.

  ‘You mean Mikkel?’ she said. ‘He’s cute, isn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t suppose we could get a beer,’ said Peter Kiest. ‘I was at an opening at young Asbæk’s yesterday and all I saw were the drinks. No expense spared, I can tell you.’

  He got himself into a weakly plotted tale of his subsequent night of drink and debauchery, but there was nothing left of it by the time he reached what didn�
��t happen at the bar at Wessels Kro.

  ‘Anyway, Vallin, have you completely dumped journalism, or what?’

  ‘It was mutual.’

  ‘Rumour says you’re writing a book.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Join the club. I’ve been working on mine on and off for four years. At some point I’m going to have to take that sabbatical and get the bloody thing finished.’

  Indeed. It was a dark and stormy night …

  ‘Still, it can’t all be fun now, can it, as Rasputin said.’

  ‘Boney M!’ said Diana.

  He produced a greasy little Dictaphone, placed it in front of us and altered his tone of voice.

  ‘So what’s wrong with coupledom today?’

  Diana looked at me.

  ‘Relationships haven’t kept up with the times,’ I said. ‘Coupledom is reactionary, as the sixties lot would say. My feeling is that love will grow out of it and find new forms, and when it does we’ll all have sex lives again.’

  Peter Kiest chewed on his blue Bic and jotted down some notes on a crumpled notepad.

  Dóra Dúna stood behind Diana, massaging her shoulders.

  ‘You’ve been with women as well, haven’t you, Diana?’

  ‘I love girls, don’t you?’

  ‘And you two just met recently, is that right?’ said Kiest.

  ‘We’ve known each other for two and a half months,’ I said.

  ‘But it’s hardly a revelation, is it, that two people who just met have more sex than a couple with two kids who need fetching while the spaghetti boils over?’

  ‘Why become a couple at all, if all it comes down to is picking up kids and cooking pasta for dinner?’ I said.

  ‘You’re a dad yourself,’ said Peter Kiest. ‘How often is your son with you?’

  ‘Every other weekend.’

  ‘Mikkel Vallin, you’re with this beautiful, younger woman, and you’ve eliminated the drudgery of everyday responsibilities from your life. What if I said it’s easy enough for you to say?’

  ‘Would it be any less true?’ I said.

  ‘Diana, I’ve heard you’ve never had a steady partner, is that right?’

  ‘I’ve never wanted one,’ she said.

  ‘So you can’t promise Mikkel anything?’ said Kiest.

  ‘I can promise Mikkel I’ll always be nice to him.’

  ‘But what if you suddenly want to go to bed with someone else?’

  ‘What if?’

  ‘Would you act on that urge?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Even if it made Mikkel jealous?’

  ‘It wouldn’t, I know.’

  ‘Tell me about your younger days in Budapest.’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’ said Kiest.

  ‘I’d rather just be here.’

  ‘But everyone comes with baggage from their past, even you.’

  ‘I had nothing with me when I came to Copenhagen. Let’s have some spumante, shall we?’ said Diana, and then stalked off to the bar. Kiest eyed her bum without the slightest inhibition.

  ‘You’ve found yourself a ball of fire there, Vallin.’

  ‘Diana’s like nobody else,’ I said.

  ‘You understand I’ve got to have a go at you, don’t you? Free sex! Our lady subscribers are going to choke on their tea.’

  He finished his beer and went back to rote journalism.

  ‘Are we talking a new movement here, Vallin?’

  ‘These thoughts aren’t just mine. The movement has been out there for a long time, and I commit an offence against its autonomy by even attempting to put it into words.’

  ‘What do you have to say about this movement, Diana?’ said Kiest when she came back.

  ‘I think we should stand in front of Anika Lori’s DJ booth for the picture,’ she said.

  Helene called seven times as we posed.

  There is something admonitory about the main entrance to Frederiksberg Park. Frederik VI with his hand on his hip and one foot splayed out to the side like a conceited ballet dancer, the sombre baroque gateway, the old herons that lurk by the bushes, the genteel poverty of the English lawns. A good place to meet and deliver bad news.

  Helene was in frumpish lady’s shorts and a short-sleeved blouse of indeterminable hue. Porridge-coloured, perhaps. ‘I was working late at the office last night,’ she said. ‘When everyone had gone I sneaked into Bernhard’s office and found your manuscript. So you finally found a cause, Mikkel.’

  ‘Yes, and high time too,’ I said.

  ‘But you realise you’re a laughing stock, don’t you?’

  ‘Who’s laughing?’

  ‘Anyone who can put two and two together. Old lech plus too much drink equals distorted self-perception. It’s not original, you know.’

  ‘Was there anything else you wanted, apart from throwing mud at me?’

  ‘Actually, no. But let me spell it out to you, Mikkel. Our family dinners stop as of now,’ she said.

  ‘Charlie will be upset,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t you dare use Charlie against me!’ she said, going from zero to a hundred in nothing flat. Her voice rocketed off range.

  ‘What you’re writing is a public report from inside my home. How dare you! Have you gone completely mad? How can you play spokesman for some embarrassing drunken idea when you’re incapable of mustering even a minimum of responsibility for your own child?’

  She became increasingly hideous as she berated me. The area of upper lip between her mouth and nose swelled, her eyes grew small and her cheeks hollowed. I had written something that made her look ugly.

  A well-heeled elderly couple sought cover behind their picnic basket.

  ‘I’ve got a very good relationship with Charlie,’ I said.

  ‘You have occasionally noticed he exists, Mikkel. Since you got back from Italy you’ve been on your own with him a total of six days.’

  ‘I was thinking I’d like to take him somewhere,’ I said.

  BORNHOLM, JULY 2008

  I was eating an open roast beef sandwich from the ferry’s cafeteria and staring out at the horizon until I realised that sea and seagulls have never done a thing for me. Charlie had fallen asleep with his head in my lap. On the table was a half-eaten kids’ pizza and a Coke in a plastic beaker. Charlie had put his toy men away in his little blue suitcase. The two of us were on our way to the Gæstgivergaarden in Allinge. Three days of fairground, beach life, local vegetables on the barbecue and live music in the evenings. Helene and I were tipped off about the place when Charlie had still been a baby, and we’d loved it, even if we hated being there together.

  I got the day’s Berlingske Tidende out of my bag. The photo editing had accentuated mine and Diana’s blue eyes, making them stand out bright against the shocking pink figures on Anika Lori’s DJ booth. ‘Couplehood 2.0.’

  ‘Artist and writer couple Diana Kiss and Mikkel Vallin allow each other the ultimate freedom!’

  I read the interview for the third time, and it was almost quite good. The main thrust of my thoughts had been retained, but Kiest had angled it all rather more sharply than I thought necessary. We are a new movement, I read myself saying. Diana came across like a flitting muse, with me the great agitator whose declared aim was to destroy all Danish couples and introduce gang-banging on the village green.

  He seemed to have fast-forwarded past my idealistic visions of love without limits.

  We checked into our hotel room and were back in the seventies. Framed LP sleeves of Gas 2 and Stakkels Jim on the wall, an old Gibson repro in the corner.

  ‘Nice interview, Vallin,’ said Henrik, one half of the couple who managed the hotel. ‘We’re thinking of setting up a communal shagging room in the basement. Red Burgundy and wife-swapping. Have we got a concept or what?’

  Charlie wanted to go outside and play football on the little lawn by the clothes line and I wasn’t going to refuse him anything on this trip. He soon hooked up with Giovanni
, a little terror his own age with thick brown hair, whose parents nodded obligingly and looked like the sort of people you ended up on a street party committee with. Lars was the type of man who attracted bewildered women. Solidly built, narrow-eyed and good at repair work. His wife, Suste, played the scrumptious little dolly bird and was effortlessly flirtatious by nature. Lars looked like a former spliff-head from a well-to-do suburb with the usual accoutrements: Jaco Pastorius, retro racing bike and knowledge of basic frisbee techniques.

  We acted like we were acquaintances, which can easily become a strain, but thankfully they didn’t ask whether I’d been to the parties on Anemonevej or whether I could remember Gulv Knud from the Musikcaféen.

  The evening’s band got under way with the sound check. Five young guys in lumberjack shirts. The lead singer’s rockabilly quiff and tattoos didn’t quite align with the tameness of their music.

  Lars was, of course, a carpenter, Suste an out-of-work actress. They were a good match, as they say. He was rather dull, she rather dizzy, and this classic combination had held for seventeen years and counting. They bought their apartment in a large detached in the Dyssegård district at just the right time and were parents to teenage twins as well as Giovanni. We had dinner together.

  ‘How much do you know about wild garlic?’ said Lars.

  ‘We were wondering about it yesterday, whether it was still in season,’ said Suste, then started to laugh. ‘We sound like a parody, Lars.’

  To reassure her, I told them wild garlic was in season in the spring and that the chef here had almost certainly harvested lots and made pesto out of it.

  Suste was curious and outgoing. Lars was more inclined to do everything he could to avoid confrontation. I’d hoped to avoid talking about the article, but they’d seen it and she peppered me with questions as Lars stared out over the red-tiled rooftops, shredding the label of his beer bottle.

  The lead singer had a waistcoat on and his shirt wide open, and his arms were soft and muscular as they are only on men under thirty. His voice had a rough edge to it and he sang with feeling, and it was obvious the women in the audience who were spoken for were trying not to ogle him for too long at a time. Suste had progressed to talking about divorce and had drunk herself categorical, she wasn’t going to put up with anymore bollocks and tossed her head, but when this failed to trigger any kind of reaction from Lars she gave up the confrontation and turned her attention to the stage.