Am I Cold

by Martin Kongstad

  I read Charlie the one about Spot the Dog again, and as always he fell asleep just before the turning point with the crocodile.

  Tue Nissen had set a table outside.

  ‘So, tell me,’ I said.

  ‘What do you know about white Rioja?’ said Tue, pouring a glass of Predicator. It presented itself becomingly and tasted like a superior white Burgundy.

  ‘Extraordinarily good, don’t you think?’ he said.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ said Helene.

  ‘Sustenance, yes,’ said Tue.

  We had the lobster and the foie gras. Tue drank half a bottle of white wine in fifteen minutes and opened the champagne. The froth subsided in our glasses.

  Tue Nissen stared obliquely into the air for a moment as though looking for a place to begin.

  ‘Have you ever been to Deia?’ he said.

  ‘No. Isn’t it a kind of reservation for rich bohemians?’ I said.

  ‘The house we’d rented was far too big, the terrace was enormous and commanded an incredible view of the Mediterranean,’ said Tue. ‘There are so many restaurants there you’re spoiled for choice.’

  ‘We were walking through the town,’ said Helene. ‘Charlie was in his buggy.’

  ‘Deia’s mostly Germans and Brits,’ said Tue. ‘People in the money, a lot of creatives, and we’d just been talking about how samey it all was when we passed this family with two kids. I happened to make eye contact with the father and nodded.’

  Tue Nissen had tears in his eyes. He glanced at Helene.

  ‘You know me, Mikkel,’ said Tue. ‘I mean, you were on the first row when I met Helene, weren’t you? I’m mad about women.’

  ‘But?’ I said.

  ‘I fell in love.’

  ‘With the father?’

  ‘I can’t even begin to explain the turmoil.’

  ‘What did you do about it?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, nothing. I was exhausted after the travelling. So I fantasised. It makes you hyper-sensitive sometimes, doesn’t it? Hallucinatory, almost.’

  ‘I noticed him, too,’ said Helene. ‘He’s not that tall, but rugged-looking and sinewy, and he’s got chestnut-coloured hair and these amazing green eyes. He looks like a sort of cat.’

  ‘We found a splendid seafood restaurant and I was knocking back the wine,’ said Tue.

  ‘You weren’t making sense on the way home,’ said Helene.

  ‘I woke up with a hangover and he was the first thing I thought about,’ said Tue.

  ‘I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to come to the beach with us,’ said Helene.

  ‘I pretended I was in a deeply inspired writing phase and hid behind my computer.’

  ‘There’s only one beach in Deia,’ said Helene. ‘Anyway, I ended up having lunch with Aurelien and Julie and invited them to the house for dinner.’

  ‘I’ve never made such dreadful food in my life,’ said Tue.

  ‘But we’d got lots of drink in, and of course they had to stay the night,’ said Helene. ‘We put the children to sleep together in a great big bed, and Julie’s a real old-school Britpopper so we put some Oasis on.’

  Tue put his glass down.

  ‘I was sitting opposite him and my leg was burning under the table. At one point the girls were at the stereo fiddling about with some music and I looked at him, which got the both of us flustered, and we started talking about his job as an investment adviser with NatWest.’

  ‘We wanted to dance,’ said Helene. ‘If they were going to talk about work, we thought they could just as well stay at home and keep an eye on the kids.’

  ‘They went off together in high spirits and I took out a bottle of rum. Aurelien has also only ever been into women, and he was as terrified as me.’

  Tue was drinking champagne like it was beer.

  ‘After we’d polished off half the bottle I suggested we go outside on to the terrace. The night sky was incredible, stars everywhere.’

  ‘We looked for them all over the house,’ said Helene. ‘Then after a bit we went out to the terrace and there were our men, snogging. I noticed Tue had taken his shoes off, and he never goes around in bare feet.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘We put “Wonderwall” on again and tried to sing it all away.’

  ‘How did it end?’ I said.

  ‘It didn’t,’ said Helene. ‘Julie slept with me and the next day we held a meeting. Aurelien and Tue hired a car and went away for a week, and she moved in with me. We cried and comforted each other, but what can you do? It was out of our hands.’

  ‘We drove around the island, staying at the loveliest little places, playing tennis and drinking wine on the beach, talking and talking,’ said Tue.

  ‘The last nine days we all stayed together,’ said Helene. ‘And it was fun, the way it often is after a funeral.’

  ‘I’m moving to London,’ said Tue.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m leaving the house as it is and I’ll be paying all the bills,’ said Tue.

  ‘Because you want to be with Aurelien?’

  ‘I have to find out what it is,’ he said.

  Tue Nissen smiled and began to cry.

  ‘I’ll get the cognac,’ said Helene.

  At 3.18 the next afternoon I was back in Tisvilde.

  The asphalt was melting and I relished the breeze as I walked along Nordhusvej and assured myself that the black cat that crossed the gravel track in front of me had white paws. The groceries had come and were being lugged inside, and as I crossed the lawn it occurred to me that Helene hadn’t asked about Diana and me. Presumably, she wasn’t up to what she assumed would be a tale of joy and happiness.

  ‘Now’s not the time to run aground,’ said Andreas Møller.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Rie Becker’s coming in on the train in two hours and you reek of booze. Have a cold shower and meet me in the bar in fifteen minutes!’

  Andreas Møller ran his way methodically through every conceivable question that might be put to us, and assigned us well-defined roles, with me handling the idealistic side and he the dogmatic. Rie Becker was bringing a photographer with her and I knew he or she would be going straight for the dancing, the kissing and the nudity, so for a balanced view the accompanying copy would have to be sober. We had to get Jesus in there somewhere, the notion of the great community, love rather than sex.

  He adjusted my cravat as we walked to the station, and the change in him was almost creepy. Maybe the white shirt reminded me of school uniform, the way the monied classes went all tremblingly formal when something important was about to happen. His shoes were polished and shiny, his back straight and his language bucked up, tight and economical in the way of an army officer, little darts expelled from the foremost part of his mouth.

  He bowed for Rie Becker and asked about her trip.

  ‘I’m sorry about last time, Mikkel,’ she said. ‘I’ve felt so bad about slagging off your friend Jan’s canvases like that.’

  ‘He was asking for it,’ I said.

  It was plain that Andreas Møller’s conviviality was pure manners, but there was nothing wrong with the effect. He spread a cloth over the table, on to which he placed a small vase of wild flowers, large wine glasses and a chilled Sancerre.

  ‘If you’d prefer tea or something else, all you have to do is ask.’

  Her eyes were framed heavily by kohl and appeared small and blinking, her skirt was thigh-length tartan, her jewellery obtrusive and silly, all infantile colours.

  Andreas Møller began, and judging by Rie’s note-taking it wasn’t his CV or his theological diversions she had come to Tisvilde for. After fifteen minutes there were seven words on her notepad.

  ‘Who is Master Licker of Ørby?’ she enquired.

  I fed her a small selection of sex stories from the camp so as to preclude any further questions of a more sensational bent, which seemed to work well enough. She began asking about what we were trying to achiev
e, and we were able to expand at leisure upon our thoughts as to setting up a large-scale commune, the ideas behind the daily sermons, and our hopes of finding a kind of love that was both great and accommodating, and after about an hour of conversation Andreas Møller swept his arm across the view of the camp in front of us.

  ‘Look at what a good time everyone’s having,’ he said.

  People were milling about, and Rie Becker’s photographer feasted on broad summer smiles and the effortless interaction of tanned naked bodies.

  ‘They’re here for more than just partying,’ said Andreas. ‘Can’t you tell?’

  ‘Are they here for Jesus?’ said Rie Becker.

  ‘We are all of us drawn towards eternity,’ said Andreas.

  Rie Becker put her notepad down on the tablecloth.

  ‘Jesus is in the house and he’s feeling horny!’

  ‘There’s your headline,’ I said.

  ‘Now I think I’ll knock off for the day and party along with the Saviour,’ she said.

  Andreas Møller stood up and extended his hand.

  ‘Nice meeting you,’ he said.

  I spent all Saturday under the duvet with the Sisters of Mercy, and the next morning I followed them to the train. Cars were in convoy on their way out of the town, rear windows jammed with luggage. Another summer in Tisvilde had drawn to a close. It was hot, but cloudy.

  ‘I never thought the sun would stop shining,’ I said.

  ‘You’re our boy, Mikkel,’ said a Sister.

  ‘I’m forty-two,’ I said.

  We hugged for several minutes without feeling sad.

  I bought the paper and sat down on the bench outside Vin og Grønt.

  A Bengali was sweeping shards of glass together in front of Le Petit Fer à Cheval, and Thomas was smoking a rollie and waiting for the bread van from Aurion.

  Rie Becker had got a front-page teaser. The headline ran:

  They’ve got it all and more in abundance – free sex and champagne in Tisvilde.

  A collage of snapshots broke up the copy: Kreuzmann dancing, out of his head, paranoid fashion girls on their way from the Portaloos, men snogging, the Sisters of Mercy with their tits out.

  Rie Becker had gone with the shabbiest of journalistic approaches: the tongue-in-cheek reportage. Falsely objective and cynically exposing its subjects to ridicule. It was a total massacre and improbably well written.

  My phone rang, but I couldn’t be bothered with Moritz.

  Lisa sat down next to me on the bench. She had bought a packet of Tuc, a bottle of French mandarin juice and the English version of Elle for the train home.

  ‘Thanks for letting me be a part of your dream,’ she said.

  ‘It may be mostly Diana’s,’ I said.

  ‘I really hope you two stay together,’ she said.

  ‘Me too,’ I said, and then burst into tears.

  ‘It’s so romantic, her going all the way to Amalfi just to meet you.’

  I had no idea what she was talking about.

  ‘Nikolaj’s found somewhere for me to go to rehab,’ she said.

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ I said, distracted.

  ‘Do you want to come?’

  ‘No, I’m just going to try not to get drunk for the next few months.’

  She looked at me like I was a lamp-post.

  Nikolaj Krogh and a couple of jazz musicians were dismantling the bar, others had set about taking down the fairy lights, cleaning the barbecue and carrying bags of rubbish away. The garden looked naked and forlorn.

  A dozen tents lay flat on the ground with holdalls and guitars on top of them, and I didn’t hear what anyone was saying when they hugged and said goodbye.

  By two o’clock everything was back to normal. Kreuzmann was sitting on his own in front of his tent at the far end of the garden and I was whipping some mayonnaise in the kitchen.

  ‘Claudia rang,’ said Mille.

  ‘What did she want?’

  ‘It’s that photo in the paper. She’s never seen him dance before.’

  We had just got lunch together when Claudia appeared.

  ‘Where is he?’

  Ten minutes later she came back with the tent under her arm and a tight grip of Kreuzmann’s hand. He didn’t seem surprised.

  ‘Thanks for everything,’ he said.

  I ate some shrimps without bothering to savour the taste, and Nikolaj Krogh finished reading the article and tossed the paper down in front of him.

  ‘No one can ever take this summer away from us,’ he said. ‘All those magic moments. You made it happen, Mikkel!’

  ‘Have you seen the ad?’ said Mille.

  It took up the whole of page three in the arts supplement. A big, grainy, black-and-white photo of Nikolaj Krogh with his hands on Diana’s breasts.

  Dusk – The Clothing of Emperors. Grand Opening, August 7th.

  ‘It’ll be nice to see the kids again,’ said Mille.

  Nikolaj Krogh smiled, and something at least was different about his smile, if nothing else.

  ‘Fancy some coffee?’ he said.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said.

  The wood pigeon began on cue as I lugged my bag down the infinite driveway. What sunshine is for the black earth, as Grundtvig wrote.

  COPENHAGEN, AUGUST 2008

  Anyone venturing out on the town on a Sunday night should be warned.

  The usual upholstery of partygoers has all unravelled and gone, and what’s left are the desperate, the misfits and the chronically inebriated, the sad and the sleepless. All who are out have reasons not to go home, and the reasons are not always cheerful.

  It was half past one and I was seated in Andy’s Bar with a Blå Nykøbing and an Arnbitter, hopelessly scribbling words into my notebook. I hadn’t meant to end up there. When I’d put down my bag in the flat on Klerkegade at half past six, I was determined not to go out. Regrettably, however, it transpired that prohibition provokes the spark of its antithesis, and since it seemed pointless to waste an hour or two pretending to stand firm, only then to acquiesce, I decided to acknowledge my weakness straight away.

  I never tired of looking at the Albert Mertz reliefs that Gunnar, the former owner of Andy’s Bar, had bought at auction from Wivex, the old dance hall, and I loved the painting of the dizzy blonde with her knickers round her ankles, the one that Gasolin’ had used for the cover of Gas 3.

  ‘Hard at work, are we?’

  Mosbeck, all of a sudden, in his tweed jacket.

  ‘Can I get you one?’ he said.

  Where did he appear from, and why was he being so friendly?

  ‘That article today was an all-out attack, wasn’t it?’

  ‘She caught us on the wrong night,’ I said.

  ‘She knew full well,’ he said. ‘And yet she decided to go with the story and turn you into a couple of pillocks going on about Jesus and doing the upper crust a service. Fly no higher than your wings can bear. That’s the song we sing in this country, isn’t it? Rather depressing, if you ask me.’

  It transpired that as consultant physician at the Rigshospitalet, Mosbeck had been thinking about reforming the health service. He and an architect had delivered a proposal to set up a new department of alternative medicine, only to be obstructed and ridiculed.

  ‘You showed guts, going to the papers with that project of yours,’ he said. ‘But it does place your own relationship under a certain strain.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘If you can’t live up to your own ideals, you can hardly expect others to.’

  ‘I’ve had my problems, but I’m over them.’

  ‘Where’s Diana now?’

  ‘She’s in Budapest.’

  He smiled faintly, positioned his beer and asked whether I’d like to hear a story about a man called Donald Crowhurst, and before I could object he had begun.

  In 1968, the Sunday Times announced a competition. Who would be the first person ever to sail single-handed and non-stop around the world? The paper
had its eye on the stunt’s immense publicity potential, with its steady flow of stories about one man’s battle against the elements, and elected for the sake of balance and excitement to make the competition open to anyone. Nine European men entered, among them Donald Crowhurst.

  Crowhurst was a thirty-five-year-old British businessman and father of four, happily married and a devoted family man. He was also a dreamer. His small electronics company wasn’t doing as well as he would have liked, but he was convinced that an invention of his, a marine navigation system he called Navicator, would make him rich if only it received due attention in the press. Moreover, he was intent on bringing honour to his family by winning the five thousand pounds sterling offered in prize money for the fastest circumnavigation.

  Crowhurst lived in Bridgwater, a small market town in Somerset, where he was well liked for his cheerfulness and optimism. He was in no doubt that he would win, regardless of his relative lack of experience on the sea, including the fact that he had never at any time sailed farther than the Bay of Biscay. His wife admired him for his grand designs, and since it was highly unlikely that Crowhurst would be able to raise sufficient funds to build the kind of boat that would be necessary for such a venture, she willingly lent him her full and enthusiastic support. But she underestimated his enthusiasm.

  Crowhurst got the backing of a local factory owner, who paid a boatyard in Norwich to construct a high-spec tailored trimaran for Crowhurst’s voyage.

  The rules required that all competitors depart no later than 31 October and in order to get the trimaran ready in time, certain corners were cut in the construction process. A fortnight prior to deadline, Crowhurst drove to Norwich to collect his boat. The champagne bottle used in the launch ceremony failed to break, an omen Crowhurst took with a smile. Nor was he discouraged by the fact that the journey from Norwich to his departure point, Teignmouth in Devon, took almost two weeks rather than the expected three days.