Almost no women, almost only men, but then again: there’s pussy at the bottom of every single beer glass, it’s just a matter of getting down in there. The poets sit over in the corner, shitting words without wiping their mouths afterward. I know them, some of them step on stage once in a while to speak words, as they call it, and they don’t know it’s just chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter ’bout shmat, shmat, shmat. The rest are old and dying, dried-up organisms, rustling folds of skin and toofull beards, and there you are, walking past the kidney-shaped table, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here comes my nineteenth nervous breakdown, my body stiffens, and only my hand has the good grace to close around the sharp edge of the ragged metal in my pocket.
You see me, you smile, my mouth falls open: confusion. You approach me. Smiling, sparkling eyes. What? Is it the sight of my elegantly wasted face that makes you so happy? And then you say it: Beautiful Delilah, sweet as apple pie, always gets a second look from fellas passin’ by … The better don’t allow me fool around with you, you are so tantalizing you just can’t be true, and you put your arm around me and kiss me, and you have no gut, no runny eyes, why? Was my memory that hazy? It really was very dark, black as night, black as coal, very dark in my head, and maybe I had visions or hallucinations, heard ghosts, I really imagined that you said I looked like Keith Richards, and I know I do, but honestly, I’m just a girl, and you shouldn’t say things like that. But all right then, come on, come, let us go out and watch the evening stretch out under the sky like an ethereal creature longing for light; let us go then, through half-empty streets, still cringing from ringing sounds and echoes of the day. Raise your glass to the good and the evil, let’s drink to the salt of the earth.
A FINE BOY
BY HELLE HELLE
Vanløse
Every evening after work I wanted that French hot dog so damn badly. I took the last metro train home; the grill was wedged in under the viaduct. Until then I had controlled myself. I wore a green uniform with padded shoulders and a belt at the waist. I was the thinnest I’d been since Jørgen left. He was a vegetarian, we were into butterbeans. Then he found someone else, a red-haired singer; I threw his duvet out the window. Afterward I lay on the floor for over a day, this had been toward the end of March. When that one and only you want inside you is no longer there.
It was raining. I cut across the square. The sliding door stuck, I stood there tugging at it. The girl inside came over and picked up a clump of wet napkins in front of the door. Then she opened it for me, walked back to the counter.
“A French hot dog, regular dressing,” I said.
“On the way.”
She put the hot dog bun in the machine. Picked a cigarette up out of the ashtray and sucked on it. I had the exact amount ready. Her hand was pale and delicate, hair in a thin ponytail pinned up on her head. She might have been nineteen or twenty, her smile revealed a slightly crooked set of teeth: “Can you believe it, it’s the first French hot dog all evening.”
“Is that right?”
She nodded: “Mmm. Strange, with this weather. Usually people come in and stand around.”
We both gazed outside, she sucked on the cigarette again.
I wanted a cigarette too; I fished around in my net bag. The floor was covered with napkins. I found the pack and shook one out, she shoved her lighter across the counter.
“Those are really pretty earrings,” she said.
“Thanks. I like them too.”
“I have nickel allergy, I can’t handle anything at all,” she said. She blew smoke in the air, I did the same. By coincidence we had both held back a mouthful for a smoke ring; we blew one at each other simultaneously, the rings met over the counter. We broke out laughing, her laughter was what you would call sparkling, it trilled out of her. Smoke caught in her throat and she began to cough. The bun fell out of the machine, she kept coughing while she filled it with dressing. She smiled while she coughed and shook her head at herself. She held the back of her hand over her mouth, the hand holding the hot dog bun.
The ponytail wobbled on top of her head.
Then the telephone rang. She pounded her chest with the flat of her hand and lifted the receiver. The hot dog bun lay on the counter, some dressing ran out of it.
“This is Christina,” she said, her voice unsteady after the fit of coughing. “Sorry, but I can’t, I didn’t bring them with me. They’re over at Vibse’s. No.” Someone spoke to her. She cleared her throat, she pounded her chest again. “We don’t close until one-thirty. And Mathias is with me, I can’t go anywhere,” she said, and a moment later: “Can’t I bring them over tomorrow morning? Hello?”
She stood a bit longer with the phone in her hand, then she hung up. Turned around for the tongs, hovered over the hot dogs without picking one up.
“Toasted or plain?”
“Toasted, please.”
The hot dog entered the bun. She handed it to me, walked to the sink, bent over, took a sip of water. I had opened the sliding door halfway, about to leave, when she called after me: “Could I get you to do me a big favor? It’ll only take a minute.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll give you something for doing it. Just stay here for five minutes. My boy is out back asleep, I can’t leave him here alone.”
“How old is he?”
“Five months. But he’ll just sleep. I’m only asking because it’s an emergency. I have to go get something.”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” I said, and joined her behind the counter. She was really small, not much over five feet. She pulled a white raincoat off the hook and put it on, felt around in the pockets.
“I’m back in five minutes,” she said. “If anyone comes in, give them a free Cocio. But nobody will.”
After she closed the back door behind her, I threw my hot dog in the trash. I reconsidered and pulled it out, packed it in a napkin, and stuck it back in the trash. Covered it with several napkins. Then I opened the back door. The baby carriage was just outside under a porch roof, protected by a dark rain cover. I peeked down through the hood’s opening and could hear breathing. I opened the door all the way to get some light down there.
He lay on his side with a pacifier in his mouth that shifted back and forth. His head was large and round, covered with thick, light-colored hair. He was a fine boy. I leaned over and touched his cheek; his eye twitched but he didn’t wake up. I tucked the duvet around him, rocked the carriage a few times, and went back inside.
A man stood at the counter. He was lanky and wore a windbreaker. He looked at me without any particular expression. I nodded at him. He nodded back.
“Where’s the whore?” he said.
I thought I must have misheard. I smiled at him. “Would you like a free Cocio? Since you’ll have to wait a little while.”
“Is she gone?”
“She’ll be here in a minute.” He hadn’t closed the sliding door, the wind whistled through the room.
I stepped back, leaned against the sink. The cash register was open under the counter, it was nearly empty. Broken buns and a bunch of fried onions lay in a pile on the floor. I grabbed the broom by the back door and began sweeping. I swept neatly and thoroughly. I looked around for a dustpan but couldn’t see one so I left the pile there.
“You’re good at that,” he said from across the counter.
“At?”
“She’s lucky to have you, else it would never get swept.”
“Oh, surely it would,” I said, and smiled a bit too boldly.
He didn’t answer. I pulled my sleeve up, as if to examine a watch I wasn’t wearing. Then the broom fell down by the back door, and I took the opportunity to duck under the counter. Something was still on the floor down there. I leaned forward—it was half a hot dog. When I stood up he was gone.
I perched on the stool with my net bag in my lap. The ponytail was soaked and shriveled when she came rushing through the sliding door a little while later, the rain jumpin
g off her coat. “Thanks so awfully much,” she panted, and stood with her hands on her hips. “It was really nice of you. Did anyone come in?”
“Just one man. He left.”
“Did you give him a Cocio?”
“He didn’t want one.”
“Didn’t you tell him it was free?”
“I did, yes.”
“What did he look like?”
“Normal. Lanky. Had on a windbreaker.”
She gathered herself and walked behind the counter. We almost collided, my net bag banged into her. I wanted to go home now, but before I reached the sliding door she cried out, then moaned from the back door: “He took Mathias, he took him along to the bar.”
“He took him?” I shook my head, kept shaking it. “He definitely wasn’t up behind here.”
“Maybe not, but he took him. He went around back, must have. He took him along with him.”
She stood with the carriage’s rain cover hanging from one hand, the little duvet from the other. “Please, can you go over there with me?”
“But why did he take him?”
“I had a key of his brother’s. That’s who called, his brother.”
“Was that what you went home for?”
“Yeah, now he’s sitting over in Jydepotten with him.”
“With his brother?”
“No, with Mathias. I have to close early. Hold this,” she said, and handed me the little duvet. “Could you fold it up into a package so it’s not so obvious?”
I didn’t understand what she meant. I rolled the duvet up and tucked it underneath my arm; apparently that was good enough, she didn’t say anything about it. She locked the door from the inside, I followed her behind the counter, she shut off the lights.
“Wait a sec,” she said, and poked around in the cash register, then: “No, I’ll count up tomorrow.”
We left the grill and walked quickly through the rain down Jernbane Alle.
“He’s never come by while I was working before. His name is Leif, he’s sick,” she said.
“But why did he take Mathias?”
She was about to cry, her voice shook: “To have something on me. How do I look?” She ruffled her hair, stepped under the awning at Jernbane Bakery, tried to catch her reflection in the darkened glass. “Don’t ever buy anything in here, I found a snail in a roll once. Shell and everything.”
“The duvet’s getting wet,” I said.
“We’ll hang it over something, come on.” She herded me along in front of her on the sidewalk. “Didn’t you even hear him? What were you doing while I was gone?”
“I just sat. And I swept underneath the counter. What’s the key to?”
“To a place out on Damhus Lake. I haven’t even been there, it was just because of this guy who called Vibse’s little brother.”
We turned the corner at Jydeholmen. We could hear music from inside the bar, something with funk bass. The door was open a crack, the smell of smoke and old carpets met us.
The man, Leif, sat up at the bar, his back to us. There was no baby in sight. She nodded at a round table off to the side, we sat down. I laid the duvet on my lap under the table. The duvet felt clammy, my uniform did too. Fortunately the radiator by the window gave off strong heat. The bartender came over to us: “What’ll it be?”
“Two beers and aquavit,” she said, and then to me: “I’m just about to faint. He spotted us.”
“Are you sure he’s the one who took Mathias?” I said, when the bartender had left.
“Yeah, it’s him.”
“Then why don’t you go up there and give him the key?”
“I need to sit for a minute. I’ve got to be calm.”
“Where do you think Mathias is?”
She shook her head, she had tears in her eyes. “He’s here somewhere. It’s so cruel.” I couldn’t help reaching over and putting a hand on her shoulder. Which caused the tears to run over. Meanwhile she smiled crookedly: “I used to run around with some real sickos, I was a big idiot.”
“What about your boy’s father?”
“He came from Køge. Originally,” she said, and wiped her nose with her arm.
The bartender brought the beer and two small glasses of North Sea Oil, the aquavit. We drank. It burned my throat. We both lit a cigarette, no smoke rings this time. I felt how tired my entire body was. My legs ached, I had been on my feet all day.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said.
“I’m Helle.”
“Helle,” she said. “That’s my sister’s name too. I’m Christina.”
“Yes, I heard. That’s my sister’s name too.”
“Really, it is? So we have the same name, that’s really strange. With a C?”
“Yes.”
“Really, that’s strange. My sister works on the Oslo ferry, she’ll be forty next month.”
“She must be a lot older than you.”
“Yeah, we have different mothers,” she said, and tears welled in her eyes again. She covered her mouth with her small fist.
“My sister is a reflexologist,” I said.
“I tried that once, it really hurt,” she said, from behind her hand.
We sat, nodded shortly. Took a few swigs of our beer.
“And I work out in Bakken,” I said then.
“I figured that out from your clothes, I’ve seen you walk by a few times. What do you do out there?”
“I sell tickets for the rides and stuff.”
“That must be fun.”
I shrugged my shoulders: “It’s only for the time being.”
“Me too,” she said. “I’m going to be a midwife. I’m starting high school equivalency classes next year.”
“That’s a really good plan,” I said.
He climbed down from the barstool, the windbreaker short on his lower back. He disappeared through the door to an adjoining room, maybe the bathroom was out there. She straightened up, took a deep breath. “I’m following him and I’ll give him the key, but he has to give Mathias back right away,” she said, and stood up. “Mathias is out there for sure, they have this little sofa, I’m sure he’s laying on it.”
“You’re a little bit black under this one eye here. There.”
“Thanks. That’s sweet of you. I’ll be right back,” she said, and left.
I drank my North Sea Oil. I lit another cigarette, avoided glancing around the place. I looked at the leaded window of lurid colors, blue, red, yellow, and green, I counted the panes, five times seven, thirty-five in all, minus the three black squares in the middle, thirty-two. I reached into my net bag for a piece of gum. Yanked my sleeve up.
I needed to pee but I wasn’t going out there, I wanted to head home, I wanted everything cleared up now. I stood and walked up to the bar to pay, the bartender wasn’t around, dishes rattled somewhere in the back. I leaned over the bar to take a look.
The boy lay sleeping on an overcoat on the floor behind the bar. Now I could see how big he was. Chubby arms and legs, round cheeks, pacifier moving back and forth. It seemed strange a boy that large had come out of such a small person. The rattling from the kitchen grew wild now, I leaned all the way over, I couldn’t see the bartender. Quickly I fetched the duvet and my net bag, went behind the bar, and picked up the boy. He didn’t wake, his head fell into place on my shoulder. It was a battle with him in my arms, the duvet hanging from my wrist.
We made it out of Jydepotten, and I walked across the street into the narrow alleyway beside the butcher shop. I leaned against the wall, I was completely out of breath. I wrapped the duvet around him. The boy had some real bulk to him—I figured out a way to hold him with both arms, the net bag wrapped around one of them. We stood like that for a while. The rain had stopped. The water puddles on Jydeholmen were like mirrors. I waited, my eye on the bar’s front door.
Much later I heard loud noises from the courtyard behind the bar, grunts and groans beneath that unmistakable pearly laughter, the moaning now from pleasure. I stoo
d holding the boy until it was all over. At that point I had almost no strength left in my arms.
I left the alleyway and returned to the grill. I walked around the back and laid the sleeping boy in the carriage, tucked him in. I returned to the street, paced up and down the sidewalk for quite a while, and at last I walked home. I took a long shower, using all the hot water. The next morning I was late getting up and had to rush out the door. I waited for the C train to Klampenborg. My pocketbook wasn’t in my net bag; it had been fat, Karen and I had secretly exchanged all the Swedish bills. Almost four thousand kroner. I might have left it on the bar, I kept on imagining that.
But I never looked into it. Two days later I quit at Bakken and returned the uniform, the only one I’d ever had. The week after that I enrolled in a writing program.
PART II
MAMMON
WHEN THE TIME CAME
BY LENE KAABERBØl & AGNETE FRIIS
Ørestad
Shit.”
Taghi felt the tires on the junker Opel Flexivan sliding and losing traction in the icy mud. If he drove any closer to the entrance they might get completely stuck on their way out. The marble sinks were heavy as hell, and right now a wet, heavy snow was barreling out of the black evening sky, forming small streams in the newly dug earth in front of the building. The walkway around the building lacked flagstones. Nothing at all, in fact, had been finished. The whole place had been abandoned, left as a gigantic mud puddle, slushy and sloppy, and they were forced to park out on the street.
Taghi backed up, swearing in both Danish and Farsi. It would be backbreaking work lugging all the stuff that far, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He wasn’t going to risk getting bogged down with all that shit out here in the middle of nowhere. No goddamn way.
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