“It’s strange having someone in the apartment,” he said, speaking into the air while he set the cups down. “It’s two years now since Connie died. We had two wonderful children,” he continued, calmly. “Tina and Jørn. I don’t see Jørn very much, but that’s because of his new wife. Tina lives in Perth, Australia. Would you like to see some pictures?”
He edged past the coffee table and over to the bureau, opened the lowest drawer, and returned with a photo album.
“Here, this is their ranch. Greg breeds horses. And here, that’s William, and this is Bill and Evan, and what’s his name, the little one, Ross, yes, his name is Ross.”
They went through the photo album, it was filled with photos, of horses and red-haired boys, two, three, four of them stood together, smiling at the camera. Adina followed along indifferently, the back of her eyes ached, and suddenly, without warning, she began crying. The tears streamed down, she couldn’t take it anymore.
“There, there,” Henry said, and grabbed her shoulders with both hands.
She shook her head and wiped under one of her eyes with her index finger.
“You know what?” he said, looking at her seriously.
“No.”
“There hasn’t been anyone but you after Connie died.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I say. I haven’t had other women except you since Connie died.”
“You’re saying that you’ve been true to me?”
“Yes.”
She started to giggle. She laughed through her tears. Henry looked hurt, which only made it worse. Her laughter turned hysterical, she doubled over, unable to stop. Everything that happened had been so horrible, she’d been all alone in the world, and now here he was, talking like this. It wasn’t funny—it was absurd. Henry, with his friendly eyes and sheeplike expression, his wrinkled forehead. She threw her arms around him and kissed him on the forehead.
“Thank you, Henry. Thanks. That was beautiful, what you said. Too bad I can’t tell you the same thing.”
“No, obviously you can’t. Do you think Olek will kill you?”
“Yes.”
Friday, 9:45 a.m. Mysundegade 3, Loft, 1620 Copenhagen V
Karol: We tossed for her. Ryszard went first. I was number three, but I couldn’t. She just laid there. Over there on the mattress, on her stomach. Yeah, that’s where we sleep. She didn’t even turn over. And I just couldn’t. I asked her if she wouldn’t give me a handjob. She didn’t answer me, so I just sat down beside her. I thought about my son. His name is Krzysztof. After Krzysztof Oliwa of the New Jersey Devils. The hockey player, you know. He’s also from Tychy. It was Witold’s turn after me. He already had a hard-on and he told me to get away.
Ryszard: She just took her clothes off and then I fucked her. Her name? I don’t know. I didn’t marry her.
Witold: She was on time. Asked where she was supposed to lay down. We asked her if she wanted some salami and vodka first, but she didn’t. So then Ryszard went at it and we sat there and watched. He smacked her and yelled at her. Karol didn’t like that so he pushed him off. I turned her over when it was my turn. I like missionary best.
Jan: She wouldn’t say her name. I was sorry about that. There aren’t many Polish women up here you can talk to, you know. I asked her if she was going somewhere, but she didn’t answer. She had a big bag with her. Time? Little after two, I think. No, that picture doesn’t tell me a thing. I don’t remember her face.
Friday 2:47 a.m. Abel Cathrines Gade 5, Fifth Floor, 1654 Copenhagen V
The yellow light from the floor lamp softened Henry’s face, and suddenly she remembered her grandmother, her babushka in the mountains. They visited her in the summer and at Christmas, and she always sat in her armchair and watched TV, her big pale face, the deep wrinkles, her knitting.
They had watched High Noon, Henry’s favorite western. He said he’d seen it a thousand times and he hummed along with the title song, Do not forsake me, oh my darling, on this our wedding day … Adina had cried during the film. It was so beautiful and sad. Why didn’t he leave with Grace Kelly, why did he have to be so proud? They drank beer afterward, and Henry made sandwiches, piled high with lettuce and tartar sauce on the roast beef, onion and jellied stock on the liver paté. She lay on the sofa, she’d had enough. Vesterbro was a thousand miles away. She walked over and peeked down at the street. Kofi was still standing there, dealing. He looked purple in the yellow light.
“Do you know what I dream about?”
“No,” she mumbled.
“Moving to Australia. I’ve saved up twenty-seven thousand, and when I have forty I’m leaving. What about you?”
“I just want to get as far away as I can.”
“Australia! That’s as far away as you can get.”
“It is?”
“You don’t know where it’s at?”
“No,” she lied.
The globe stood on a low table in the bedroom. He flicked a switch on the wall, and the inside of the globe lit up. Henry got down on his knees. She knew where Australia was, why was she playing dumb?
“See, here we are.” He put a finger on the small, blurry speck that was Denmark. “And here,” he said, turning the globe without letting go of Denmark, “we have Australia. And here we have Perth.” He put a finger on the city. “You simply can’t get farther away. It’s on the other side of the earth.”
“And here,” she said, and reached between his arms and put her finger on a spot between Warsaw and Vienna, “is where my family lives.”
“What’s the name of the city?”
“Krosno.”
“Are your parents alive?”
“No.”
They sat for a while without speaking, squatting in front of the glowing world.
Friday 12:32 p.m. Skelbækgade, Driveway into Den Hvide Kødby, 1717 Copenhagen V
It was sprinkling, and Marek was sick and tired of it all. He had asked around at massage clinics, questioned Thai masseurs, tattooists, pushers, stood on street corners, in back rooms, gambling joints, checked with Pakistani taxi drivers, no one has seen anything, he had bounced around among the street whores, he had found a Polish girl with her head between her legs and a rubber hose tight around her arm in a basement stairway on Colbjørnsensgade, it’s not her, he’d put his nose to the ground, bribed a med student who opened the drawers for him at the morgue under the National Hospital, it isn’t her either, to hell with it all, he thought, why shouldn’t she be allowed to disappear, crawl in a hole, die someplace warm, he was freezing and Ludmilla was hungry and hysterical, he gave her a shawarma and some candy, no, he didn’t want her brown envelope. No, he didn’t know what would happen to her. Shut up. He grabbed her by the chin, hard, shut your goddamn mouth, and then it didn’t matter anymore, he had a bad taste in his mouth and he himself had caused it, he bought a pack of mints. Finally, the wind whipping his coat, a Nigerian whore on Skelbækgade reacted when he showed her Adina’s picture, seen this girl? She wore a T-shirt, Ivory Love with sweeping gold letters, long nails with screaming pink polish. He had to dish out a hundred euros.
“I saw her yesterday. She was standing at this bridge by the station. What’s its name … Dybbølsbro. Looked like she was going to jump. Didn’t do it, but she looked desperate. Stood there with a big bag and no coat on. And it was raining!”
“What time?”
“In the afternoon. Around two-thirty. Maybe three. Then she was picked up by this guy. Don’t know his name, but he is real wicked. A bastard. Uses his hand. Always takes his wedding ring and Rolex off. Don’t wanna pay.”
She scrounged around in her bag, found her cell phone, pecked on it, her nails clicking on the case. She held the display out to him and he saw the rear end of a car: XZ 98754. It looked like an Audi 4.
Friday 12:51 p.m. Abel Cathrines Gade 5, Fifth Floor, 1654 Copenhagen V
Henry stood in the kitchen holding a bag of fresh bread under his arm. His windbreaker was wet and sme
lled of rain. They had slept in bed with their clothes on, she had dreamed about High Noon, and in the dream she had been Grace Kelly wearing a bonnet and a laced-up, lace-trimmed dress and all the time that song, Do not forsake me … But then she woke up and felt his erection against her back. She lay still and fell asleep again, they had slept way too long. He stood up and smiled at her, and then something snapped inside her. She couldn’t take it, the big friendly face, the same slightly baffled expression as when he came inside her every Friday afternoon, leaving a pathetic little blob of semen in the condom. The punctual little postman with the gray sideburns and the kind eyes—she had the urge to scratch them out and rip that cheap dream apart. She lunged at him, punching him, tugging and pulling at his big square body, she was furious, hammered at his arms and chest.
“What do you want from me? You want me to be your cheap little whore the rest of your life? Is that what you want?” she screamed. “You want me to be your little hole?”
“No. Adina—”
“And all that shit about Australia … and Gary Cooper … and … and … it’s all just a bunch of lies and bullshit!”
She screamed and shouted. But then he grabbed her. Grabbed hard. His arms closed tight around her, clenched her. A brutal look came over his face, a coldness she hadn’t seen before. She was surprised at how strong he was; she pulled and pushed and scratched and bit. He hummed, Adina, Adina, Adina, as if she was a child. He gripped her even tighter as he hummed. The floor fell away under her, and she was sucked down in it.
Friday 3:25 p.m. ColonWelfare, Vognmagergade 11, 1148 Copenhagen K
The owner of XZ 98754, Audi 4, Gregers Ege, walked alongside the impressive instrument with its hoses and buttons, talking about it. Marek had spelled his way through the English version of the questionnaire out in the reception area, and he believed he had checked “yes” to a bloated sensation in stomach area and headache and checked “no” to bleeding ulcer and taking Prednisol. Gregers Ege realized that colon hydrotherapy, colon irrigation with the new hygienic and 100 percent odorless technology, crossed a line of modesty for many patients, but ColonWelfare used the open system, LIBBE, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Marek could insert the funnel-shaped plastic gizmo into his anus himself, Gregers Ege showed him. No one would at any time touch him or see him naked; he would be covered except for the area in question, and he would be lying comfortably on the form-fitting examination table and he could see what came out of the closed tube right there. Gregers turned the plastic gizmo in his hands, lost himself in its small molded end. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. There was a pale outline of a watch and band on his suntanned wrist. Marek grabbed hold of it with his left hand and rammed his right elbow into Gregers Ege’s throat. The man went into shock. Marek maneuvered him down onto the formfitting table, strapped him in securely, grabbed several disposable wipes and stuffed them in his mouth, pulled his white coat up and his pants down, and shoved the plastic gizmo in his anal opening. Marek showed him the photo of Adina, stuck it under his nose. Gregers squirmed and jerked his head around when Marek connected the hose, turned it to the max, all the way up in the red. Gregers’s eyes went wide, and when Marek ungagged him it shot out like a cannon: It was the first time, I’ll never do it again. You want money? Is it those fucking whores … ? They take people’s license plates or what? Marek had only one question, Where did you let her off, but first he asked Gregers about something else. How much did you pay to fist-fuck her? He got answers to both questions. Two hundred and fifty kroner in the parking lot at Sjælør Station. And, the end of Istedgade at Enghave Park and the community building. She staggered along Enghavevej, down by Prima. He saw that she had taken his watch when he looked to see what time it was. Three-fifteen p.m. on his car’s display. It was pouring, and she didn’t have a coat on.
Friday 12:55 p.m. Abel Cathrines Gade 5, Fifth Floor, 1654 Copenhagen V
“Adina, are you okay?”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know what got into me, I …”
“Henry?”
“Yes.”
“When I’m all alone at night, all my customers run together … They turn into hundreds of mouths that moan, snort, scream, slobber, spit in my face. But with you, there was something … a tenderness, I don’t know … And then it ends like this anyway.”
“Adina. Come over here.”
“No. It’s best I leave. We can’t change our lives.”
“You don’t think so?”
“No.”
Pause. “We’re doing it.”
“What?”
“We’re going to Australia. Perth. I’ll empty my account. We’ll leave tonight. Will you go?”
Friday 4:10 p.m. Hawaii Bio, Oehlenschlægersgade 1, 1620 Copenhagen V
Marek sat in the back room of the Hawaii Bio, wishing he was somewhere else, far away. Yvonne smiled with a cigarette between her lips; one of her eyelids drooped a bit. She held his hand in hers. The knuckles on his right hand were bruised and bloody, his fingers tingled. He couldn’t remember what he had done to his hand. Had he beaten up Gregers Ege, or was it Ludmilla when she’d started screaming and wanted to go home? Why hadn’t he delivered her? He didn’t know why. She had taken some of his Rohypnols and was totally out of it when he’d left her. Just as well. Yvonne brushed the palm of his hand with iodine from a green bottle. Suddenly he felt a tenderness for her. Did she have a life outside of this, did she have a grandkid who would get the ugly little stocking cap with the purple border?
Zdrow bidၺ, krolu anjelski.
Why was he thinking about that now? He always saw his mother’s face when he thought about that psalm.
He pulled his hand away, raised his fist to the corner of his eye. There was a tiny wet streak on the back of his hand.
He reconstructed Adina’s route. Mysundegade yesterday around noon, Dybbølsbro at two-thirty, Sjælør Station two-forty-five, Enghavevej three-fifteen. Then: gone. At the most she had a few thousand and a red-hot Rolex. She was still in town.
“Yvonne?”
“Yes, Marek.”
“Did Adina have any regular customers?”
“What do you mean … regular?”
“I mean … did somebody treat her nice? Have you heard of anyone who was nice to her?”
“Nice, I don’t know … Hey. There is this one guy, comes every Friday at four o’clock. Wait a minute … he didn’t come today.”
Friday 4:50 p.m. Abel Cathrines Gade 5, Fifth Floor, 1654 Copenhagen V
Henry had left again. Adina lit up her last cigarette with the next-to-last; she didn’t know what to do with herself. She trudged back and forth between the sofa and the window and ran her fingers through her short hair. Henry had cut it. It felt all wrong.
Kofi was gone. Another African was dealing down on the street, someone she didn’t know.
Henry! He had nagged and begged and pleaded and had been down on his knees. At last she had said she’d go with him. Why not? And then there was no stopping him. He helped with her hair and went out for henna and was down at the bank to withdraw his entire savings. She added her seven hundred to show her solidarity. That much for Australia. He had packed two suitcases and called his son, they talked a long time. They argued. She got a headache and lay down on his bed, rested there in regret, it was all way too far out. He went off to get the tickets, Melbourne via Frankfurt, departure at eight p.m., a taxi was reserved. But when he returned he came up with the idea that she should have a nice dress to travel in. She tried to talk him out of it. But he smiled and said, I saw one with a big rose on it. It will look nice on you, you’ll be wearing it when we get to Melbourne, and out he went.
Where was he?
A girl came out of the laundromat and walked over to the African, one of the young kids from Skelbækgade, thin as a curtain rod. She stood freezing in a purple leather jacket with a fur collar, and he stuck a bag of brown h in her hand. The taxi arrived. Where the hell was he?
Friday 4:57 p.m. Abel Cathrines Gade 5, Fifth Floor, 1654 Copenhagen V
Olek kicked the door in and rushed into the living room directly to Adina. She was standing there with the cigarette and Olek slapped her. He was half a head shorter than her, but he punched her in the stomach and she collapsed on the sofa, still holding the cigarette between her fingers. The glowing end fell off onto the cushions. Olek beat her systematically, first in the face, then the body, her breasts, arms, and stomach. She didn’t scream, but every breath had its sound. She moaned and groaned after each punch, and he continued punishing her. He worked with both hands and covered her body with blows. Only when he grabbed her by her short red hair and pulled her down on the coffee table did she begin to scream, and he threw her to the rug.
“Get your clothes off!”
Marek had screwed the silencer onto his Zastava CZ-99, 9mm pistol; now he stepped over to Adina.
“Goddamn, Olek. Your mother will go crazy if she finds out you came along.”
“I don’t give a shit about that.”
“You probably don’t. But get out anyway, let me do my job.”
Her one eye was closed and yellow, her ear and lips were bleeding. Olek spat in her face. She had stopped screaming and lay panting hysterically. Her lungs rattled, her wide-open eyes looked wild, green with bits of gray. Marek spread his legs, bent his knees a bit, took off the safety, and pressed the silencer between her lips. The metal clicked against her teeth. For some reason he changed his mind and aimed under her left breast. But then another click came from behind him. Another weapon, another safety off.
Copenhagen Noir Page 6