Death Sentence

10

WHEN I WAS young, I had no intention of getting married. Marriage was an artificial construct that, at worst, was based on religion, i.e. a lie, and at best was a bureaucratic manoeuvre to improve your tax status, i.e. hypocrisy. This was the general attitude among us in the commune and we took every opportunity to voice it. Later, when I got married, it wasn’t for rational reasons – I simply couldn’t help it.

I remember the months after meeting Line as one long series of revelations. She surprised me again and again with her humorous nature and the convergence of our interests. When we made love it was with an intimacy and intensity I had never experienced before. I couldn’t believe a relationship could be like this. We could talk about everything, and we did; we usually had the same attitude towards political issues, but on the rare occasions we disagreed we could have a debate without the mood turning ugly. We spent practically all our time together, interrupted only by our respective studies and work.

Line was the youngest of four siblings; she had two sisters and a brother and it soon became clear to me that her family was very close-knit. Rarely a day went by without her being in contact with one of her sisters and at least once a week we’d have dinner with her father. I’d been invited over for dinner after only two weeks, and everyone welcomed me and treated me with the greatest kindness. The family was mourning for the mother, but they still had the generosity to include me in their group. Line’s father, Erik, was an engineer who worked for the government. He designed motorway bridges, an occupation that had also become his hobby. In Erik’s study in the villa on Amager were miniature models of over twenty bridges and he could tell the story of every single one of them – not without a certain amount of pride.

Line’s sisters were also dancers and resembled her so much that I always felt a little awkward in their company. It was like being with three versions of Line at yearly intervals; I could tell how she would age and that certainly wasn’t bad at all. Her brother had followed in his father’s footsteps and worked as an engineer for a consultancy firm in Lyngby. The first time I met him he had just accepted a posting to Africa where he would build a water purification plant, but he had postponed his departure by a month following the death of his mother.

I recall get-togethers with Line’s family as relaxed and yet lively and engaging. With so many children, their partners and grandchildren, there was an incredible maelstrom of people, but it never became superficial or meaningless. They accepted without question that I wanted to make my living by writing – something my parents never did – and when Line’s family asked how my work was going, they were referring to my books and not to whatever casual job I happened to be doing at the time.

Unfortunately I was struggling with the writing and I produced little in the first few months. I only managed some editing of In the Dead Angle and the scathing reviews it received did nothing for my motivation. If I hadn’t been with Line, I would probably have fallen into a black hole of self-pity and rage, but with her around, the negative feedback didn’t matter all that much. It was impossible to be upset for very long in her company; she could always make me laugh with a remark or one of her smiles.

Bjarne was almost as fond of Line as I was. Line was a superb cook while I regarded myself as being something of a wine connoisseur and Bjarne benefited from both. The three of us would often eat together and sometimes our after-dinner debates would last well into the night.

Mortis didn’t join in. He isolated himself, shut himself in his room to write, he claimed, and became increasingly sullen. His mood deteriorated to such an extent that even I, in my deep infatuation, couldn’t help noticing, and it was at that point that I discovered it was Mortis who had invited Line to the Angle party in the first place. I tried to talk to him about it, but I was probably more concerned with describing how lovely Line was and ultimately only succeeded in making matters worse.

He must have breathed a sigh of relief when three months after the Angle party I announced I was moving out of the commune and into Line’s flat on Islands Brygge. According to Bjarne, Mortis cheered up visibly after my departure. He resumed talking to me when I visited without Line, but the relationship between us was never the same again. My room was rented out and during the years that followed there was a high turnover of lodgers. They were all obsessed with writing, the original inspiration behind the commune, but the companionship was never as harmonious as it had been in the first few years.

The last lodger, Anne, fell in love with Bjarne’s gentle nature, and he fell in love with her. Like Line, Anne was a fantastic cook and Bjarne had to admit there was some truth in the proverb that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. You could tell Anne was rather too fond of food simply by looking at her. She was big, not obese as such, but because she was of medium height, her weight tended to look rather excessive and I think it upset her more than she ever let on. She was always happy and welcoming, one of those people who remembers what you told them and asks interested follow-up questions the next time you meet.

Anne’s entry ticket to the commune was that she wrote poetry, like Bjarne, but she composed hers as riddles, made up of newspaper, cartoon and magazine cuttings. They were hard to decipher because the reader had to solve them first, but as a result you tasted every single word and were rewarded with a feeling of having uncovered a secret once the entire poem was clear. It wasn’t until then that you could appreciate it in its entirety and, at that point, the meaning of the poem would change, like a thriller with a surprising twist. It was so satisfying that the reader would often start unravelling the next poem immediately.

The girls got on well and the four of us met up regularly for extravagant dinner parties where Bjarne and I were reduced to washing up and telling jokes.

With Anne’s entry into Bjarne’s life, Mortis once more found himself playing the part of gooseberry. He didn’t turn his back on Bjarne as he had with me, and he was fine with Anne, but I think he found it hard to witness all this happiness from the sidelines. He had a tendency to compare himself unfavourably to others and he also resented the pity he detected from his two flatmates. After a couple of weeks he had enough and moved to a studio flat in Vesterbro.

It turned out that Anne was fairly wealthy, even though she tried to conceal it. Her money enabled her and Bjarne to take over the whole flat and stop looking for lodgers.

The Scriptorium had become a thing of the past, but I didn’t miss it. It was only at dinner parties that Bjarne and I would retell the old stories and remember the special atmosphere that had reigned in the flat. Occasionally we might hanker for the inspiration, the free life and the parties, but we always knew that things could never be the same again.

With my invasion of Line’s flat, it soon became too small for us. I was meant to write there and Line needed room to exercise. Fortunately we were able to swap to a four-room flat in the same block, but it stretched us financially. I earned nothing from my writing and very little from my casual jobs. Line worked in different theatres and was offered better and better roles, but at the start there were times where she had no work at all. For the first year we survived on Line’s inheritance from her mother and even with that we both had to find extra jobs. However, having four rooms was a gift. I got my own study with books from floor to ceiling and we had a separate living room, dining room and bedroom. Apart from my study, all rooms were sparsely furnished with second-hand items we were given or bought cheaply at flea markets. This left plenty of room for Line to do her stretching exercises on the living-room floor with me as her always attentive audience.

Despite our modest surroundings I thought the flat was cosy. Line had a talent for getting a great deal out of very little and she never minded getting stuck in if she had to. If we needed a picture she would paint one herself, if a lamp needed hanging she would do it before I came home, even reupholstering soft furnishings posed no challenge for her. It was very much Line’s home, but I enjoy it and felt settled.

I made only slow progress with my next novel, however. I juggled several jobs that left very few hours each day for writing. It took me more than two years to write my second book, The Walls Have Ears, and it was, to put it mildly, awful. It had a hopelessly constructed plot about a hotel room which told the story of the events that had taken place within its four walls, ranging from suicide to drunkenness and fornication. To this day, I have no idea why my publisher accepted it, but he did and was left holding most of the first edition. Only one hundred copies were sold across the country.

Still, I made some money out of it. It wasn’t much, but the advance was big enough for me to take Line on a night out. We treated ourselves to a trip to Tivoli, dinner at D’Angleterre, the ballet and a club. All transport was by taxi until it was time for us to go home. At Line’s suggestion, we walked. It was four o’clock in the morning, but it was summer so it wasn’t cold and the sun was coming up. At Islands Brygge we sat down on the quay, embraced each other and looked across the water at the Copenhagen skyline. Line kicked off her shoes and snuggled up to me. Her breathing was steady and I thought she had fallen asleep. I was starting to get uncomfortable, but didn’t want to stir for fear of waking her.

‘Now would be a good time to propose,’ she suddenly said.

I grinned, but soon stopped when I realized she was right and that I really wanted to. At that moment, I couldn’t think of a single reason not to propose; on the contrary, I simply couldn’t imagine life without her.

I gave Line a hug and pulled her to standing. Then I went down on one knee and told her how much I loved her. She said nothing, but she smiled. She knew perfectly well the effect her smile had on me and it gave me the courage to carry on, tell her all the things I loved about her, every part of her body I worshipped, every one of her actions I admired. It must have been a dreadful load of sentimental nonsense, but we were both tipsy and it felt right.

I had no ring, of course, but I pulled out the Penol 0.5 felt-tip pen I always carried and drew a ring directly on her finger. It tickled, she said, and giggled while I finished the ring with the outline of a large stone in which the letter ‘F’ was embossed.

Line accepted my proposal with the words, ‘Of course, you idiot.’

* * *

Due to our hard-pressed finances, I had to borrow money from my parents to afford the wedding Line wanted. I had never liked asking them for help, but they were surprisingly willing. No doubt they were hoping I would finally get myself a ‘proper’ job to support my wife. I didn’t care what they thought; I just wanted to give Line her dream wedding, a wedding fit for a princess, with a church, a wedding breakfast in a hotel and the whole shebang. The total cost was close to 60,000 kroner, but the result was perfection. Her family outnumbered mine by far and their cheerful presence rubbed off on the rest of the guests, so even the most vociferous opponent of the tradition had to admit they had enjoyed themselves. Bjarne clearly fell under the spell: a few days later he plucked up the courage to propose to Anne.

So much for our attitude to the institution of marriage.

After the wedding I was convinced we would be together for ever and everyone who knew us was of the same opinion. We suited each other, they said, and we were both invited whenever her or my circle of friends held a party. I wouldn’t go as far as to say we were inseparable. We gave each other space and did many things independently of one another, but it was in the certain knowledge that at the end of the day there was always someone to come home to.

There was no jealousy between us in those days. Line’s work was much more sociable than mine; she worked in practically every theatre and came into contact with countless people. Being a dancer is a very sensual profession and viewed from the outside dancers may seem more uninhibited than most people, but I never feared she might be unfaithful to me. A couple of times I forced myself to imagine it, mainly as an exercise to inspire myself to write about that very feeling, but had to shake my head every time. The idea of Line involved in a secret affair just didn’t seem plausible. The wedding ring might have played its part. Even though I didn’t believe in the ritual, I had to admit it made a difference. We had given ourselves to each other and this declaration of trust bestowed a certain serenity on our relationship.

If there was any kind of jealousy between us, it was rooted in money.

The bigger flat was more expensive and Line’s income was the more reliable. I had various casual jobs, but I never earned enough to pay my fair share of the rent. It wasn’t something we discussed or made a big thing of, but there were times when my vanity reared its ugly head. It didn’t help that I found it very difficult to write in the years that followed our marriage. My jobs often involved antisocial hours or were physically so demanding that I didn’t have the energy to sit down in front of my computer or think creatively in my spare time.

The failure of The Walls Have Ears lingered at the back of my mind and my frustration at not producing anything grew day by day. For the first time in my life, I started to doubt if I was cut out to be a writer. Perhaps I had burned out before I had even begun? When I wrote, it was at odd hours fitted in between casual jobs and doing things with Line. I would often be under the influence of alcohol, a habit that had followed me from the commune and did nothing to improve the quality of my work. The next morning I would frequently delete everything I had written in a whisky haze the night before and yet I still convinced myself that I needed alcohol to get started. The only effect it had was to make me so drowsy that I struggled to hold down my casual jobs and found it even harder to sit down at my desk.

By contrast, Line’s career was taking off. She was in constant demand, she was cast in roles where she had solo performances and she was praised in several reviews. I attended as many of her performances as I could and I could see that she was good, not that I knew anything about dance. It provided me with an excuse to get out of the flat, away from my desk and it meant I visited theatres in Copenhagen I would probably not have gone to on my own. Sometimes Bjarne and Anne would come with me and afterwards the four of us would go out. Despite having danced the whole evening, Line was happy to carry on dancing and she always manage to drag me out on the dance floor, even though I often didn’t feel like it. It was her smile that did it. She knew how to smile – and I surrendered.

Every time.