The Marco Effect

8

Winter 2010 and Spring 2011

“How much time will it take?” asked Marco, pointing down at his clothes. The elderly man in the dry cleaners threw up his hands and shook his head. What was the boy thinking? he seemed to say.

“How long to get this clean?” Marco repeated, and began to take off his sweater.

“Now hang on a minute, lad.” The man threw his head back as though he’d just caught a whiff of smelling salts. “We don’t clean clothes while you wait. You can’t sit here in the shop in the buff, you can understand that, surely?”

“But I haven’t got any other clothes.”

There was a rustle from behind the racks of clothes packed in plastic, and a row of coats was pushed aside.

The man now peering out at him wasn’t quite as effeminate as the first, but nearly. Marco could spot old gay couples at a glance. On the streets they went about with their little handbags strapped to their wrists and tucked tight under their arms. Always genuine leather clutched in soft, well-manicured hands and often with contents of considerable interest for an experienced pickpocket. But these gays tended to be more careful than most, which was the downside with this kind of prey. Perhaps years of hostile looks had taught them to be wary and take care. Perhaps they were just more fussy about their belongings than most. Marco had never really sussed them out.

“He’s probably quite lovely, otherwise, Kaj,” said the man behind the racks to his partner. “Shouldn’t we give it a go? Look, he’s even got a book with him, so he can’t be that bad.” He flashed a friendly smile at Marco, revealing a pair of rather protruding canines. “But what about paying? Have you any money at all, young man?”

Marco produced his hundred-kroner note. He had no idea if it was enough.

“A hundred kroner?” The man smiled. “Well, let’s see if we can find something else for you back here for the meantime. People these days are so busy that they systematically forget to collect their things. Or maybe they just can’t be bothered. That’s why we always want payment up front. Pretty slipshod, if you ask me.”

Marco was given clean clothes from the back room and allowed to keep his money. If he came back in a couple of days, his gear would be ready, even if, as the men said, it was the dirtiest pile of laundry they’d ever had to deal with. And he could keep the clothes they gave him since they’d been hanging in the back room for over a year.

He saw the two men nudge each other and giggle as he went out the door. Perhaps he had made their day.

They had certainly made his.

–

Living on the streets was hard, especially to begin with. Marco was hungry round the clock. But he learned to maneuver without breaking the law, taking every little job that came his way. He started the first one at five in the morning when he offered to clean the windows of a bakery. In return they gave him an enormous bag of bread rolls. He wandered over to a coffee bar and traded the rolls for a cheese sandwich, a warm drink, and the chance to wash all the floors. And all of a sudden he was fifty kroner better off.

Soon his hustling between shops became a network of employers who would give him odd jobs to do. He ran errands, carried heavy shopping bags for people from the supermarket to waiting cars, split cardboard boxes apart and threw them in the trash, even though his lips turned blue and his hands trembled from the bitter cold that gripped the country like a vise that winter.

For weeks he slogged away in the snow and slush. From shop to shop and up one stairway after another. Often the jobs were difficult and laborious, and the customers demanding, like the madwoman whose week’s supply of groceries had to be lugged up to the fourth floor in a cardboard box. She never opened the door but shoved the money out through a malodorous letter slot. One time he lingered farther up the stairs until she opened the door to take in her groceries, half-naked, her skin pitted with filth.

“What are you staring at, you little freak?” she yelled, jabbing a crooked black fingernail at him.

It was a side of Denmark he had never seen before.

Marco balked at nothing and did his work well enough that the majority of those he helped out didn’t trick him. After a while he was raking it in, as Miryam would have said.

And all the money was his and his alone.

Work from eight in the morning until ten at night except on Sundays. Sixty kroner an hour for errands from the shops, seventy for putting up posters on the streets. It all added up. More than fifteen thousand a month, and he had neither rent to pay nor expenses for food and clothing. For the time being he wore what he’d been given by a woman who ran a pizzeria and thought he needed something less ill-fitting.

“You’re a proper Latino, sweetie,” she told him. “Don’t hide it. Put this on, it belonged to Mario. We sent him packing back to Naples last month.” And everyone behind the counter burst out laughing. As if any of them had ever been near Italy.

At night he bedded down on the street. This was nothing new to him. And yet he knew it couldn’t last long, for it wasn’t only the cold that was dangerous. Though most of his money was stashed elsewhere, there were still lunatics aplenty on the streets who would work him over for a lot less. His family, for example.

It was the gay couple from the dry cleaners who helped him away from such perilous sleeping arrangements. Perhaps they had seen him huddled in a corner of Nordhavn station, or maybe they had heard of his plight through others they knew. In any case, their faces were full of concern when they stopped him on the street one day in late January.

“You can do deliveries for us,” one of them said. “And in return you can stay with us until we find you something else.”

Marco recoiled instinctively, almost stumbling into a pile of snow. What they had in mind was definitely not on his agenda.

“Listen, young man. If we trust you not to do things to us that we don’t like, then you can trust us in the same way, don’t you think? You can’t stay out here in the cold at night, it’s asking for trouble.”

The one who did the talking was called Eivind. It was he who would later come to regret their arrangement the most.

–

Out here on the upmarket side of the City Lakes that curved through the western margin of Copenhagen’s center, Marco learned to view street life with new eyes. Whereas he had previously observed only objects ripe for theft, he now saw people of flesh and blood with jobs to do, errands to run and families to provide for, as well as plenty of people in whose lives all this was absent. Here he saw all facets of the city and its citizenry and realized that in most respects these people were no different from those he had seen walking the streets of other large cities. It was the empty, expressionless faces he noticed most. Unless their attention happened to be diverted by the display in a shop window, most people’s eyes were fixed far enough ahead to avoid dealing with anything close at hand. Positive distractions, however, like the sudden appearance of a friend or acquaintance, prompted folk to stop abruptly and immediately flash smiles at each other that neither the situation nor their frame of mind a moment before would have inspired.

When this happened, Marco stopped, too, and started his inner stopwatch. As a rule it took less than half a minute for him to predict when they would say their good-byes and part company with convincing excuses about how busy they happened to be just now. And when his predictions proved accurate to the second, he would laugh and shake his head, rather impressed with himself. But if these people with their distant gaze were distracted by something less positive, their reaction was often less than amiable. The homeless who sold their own newspaper made people automatically veer away, just as they did from the junkies, the winos, the crazies, the confused, unkempt, or outrageously dressed, or the man with the accordion outside the Netto supermarket whose music could make the paving stones sing and gave the street scene a splash of color.

The Dane was at his kindest and most attentive when he was in familiar surroundings with people of the same ilk, that much was obvious.

And this counted Marco out entirely.

The first time someone hurled abuse at him, telling him to piss off back to where he came from, he withdrew to an alleyway and felt confused, small, and alone.

“Fuck off back to wogland, you stink like hell!”

“What’s up, you fucking monkey, can’t find your tree?”

That kind of thing.

On days like that, it could be hard to get out of Marco why he was so quiet at the dinner table. But after a while Kaj and Eivind coaxed him into opening up, and they taught him some potent phrases in colloquial Danish with which to retaliate: “What are you doing here on the street, haven’t you got a home to go to?” “It takes one to know one.” “Find yourself a job to do, like the rest of us!”

It cheered him up a bit.

Respect was something you had to earn. The street taught him that. He only wished it didn’t have to be that way.

–

Weeks and months passed like this as Marco distanced himself from his past, and in spite of everything began to find faith in life and a future that consisted of more than just one aimless day after another. During these months in Kaj and Eivind’s tidy little ground-floor apartment he learned to look forward and make himself ready to lead a normal life. He accepted everything they suggested to him. He honed his pronunciation, extended his vocabulary, and learned elementary Danish grammar. And if he misunderstood a word or his accent was too thick, they jokingly called him Eliza, singing, “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”

“All of us live with a certain number of words inside us,” Kaj told him, time and again. And in Marco’s case the number of words was growing all the time.

In this small apartment on one of the humbler streets, Marco not only learned to trust people, he also realized that daily routines could make life easier instead of being the constant humiliation he had witnessed at home with the clan. Time became more amenable when his days were organized. And the desire to be part of a family grew stronger by the day in this apartment with its heavy brocaded curtains and porcelain displayed in every niche and cranny.

There could be boisterous evenings playing cards, with laughter that never ceased, but there could be more serious evenings, too.

“We’ve been thinking, Marco,” said Eivind, one such evening. “You’re here in this country illegally, and we’re concerned about your future. Without the proper papers the day will inevitably arrive when all this will come to an abrupt end.”

Marco knew this. Of course he did. He thought about it every night when he turned out the light. So that evening he made a solemn promise and defined his goal. He wanted to be the same as everyone else in the country as soon as possible. To that end he needed a residence permit, and there was no way the authorities were going to give him one. He, too, read the papers and knew the lay of the land.

He would therefore have to find himself another identity and the papers to go with it. This was imperative if he were ever to nurture hopes of leading a normal life with an education, a job, and a family. He needed this at any price. He’d have to find someone to get him the necessary documents.

Surely it was just a question of money.

–

The best paid job Marco found was putting up posters. To start with, the freezing cold made it hard work scraping the old ones off the poster columns and slapping on the thick paste, but once the leaves appeared on the trees and the warmth of spring set in, going round the city pasting up these colorful proclamations of coming events became Marco’s favorite activity.

He was out in all kinds of weather and did his job well. He donned his cap and didn’t cut corners by tossing half his posters in the nearest waste basket or pasting them all up on the nearest wall or billboard. Marco put his posters up in the designated areas, conscientiously scraping off the previous layers so the new ones would be less inclined to succumb to gravity. Few of the other poster boys could be bothered, so he had most of Østerbro and a good stretch up toward Hellerup to himself.

He found it fun, too. It was like scraping away layers of time. Often he found himself thinking how much he would have liked to have been part of all the events that had taken place. To have been in the audience at concerts, to have attended openings of art exhibitions, to have joined in the Workers’ Day celebrations. But such amusement was denied him, for no matter where he went, he ran the risk of being confronted by those who were searching for him. When Marco was out in the open he was always on the lookout, never able to simply relax and enjoy life like normal people. It was just the way it was, at least for the time being.

Perhaps a day would come when he’d be able to live like these people, for Marco had his plans. A day when he was more grown up and had perhaps changed his appearance. A day when the clan would no longer be driven by its thirst for vengeance. A day when they acknowledged he didn’t present a threat to them. But all this would take time.

For now, he would do all he could to secure his false identity papers. Hopefully it would be his final criminal act. Afterward he would earn his money aboveboard and begin to study. That, more than anything, drove him. It was the studying he was preparing himself for in his limited spare time.

At the libraries Marco found peace, for Zola’s people would never set foot in such places. He knew that for sure. And Eivind and Kaj had told him that as long as he just sat and read in the reading rooms without borrowing anything, he would never need to show an ID to anyone. It was perfect.

Every day, Marco skimmed the headlines in all the newspapers. Every day, he paged through a new book. Those around him took note of his presence, he sensed it clearly. They saw that he was unlike the other dark-skinned boys who were always making a disturbance and hanging out at the computers to play games on the Internet. When Marco visited the library, it was to read, and if he used the computer terminals, it was to search for answers.

In just over two years he would be eighteen and would apply for enrollment at the Frederiksberg Preparatory College, and from there he would go on to university, no matter what. He had read a study somewhere that found women had to make an extra effort on the job market in order to secure the right job, something the study had been highly critical of. Marco thought they should have mentioned it was even more difficult for boys with an extra dash of pigment in their skin. Especially those who had not been able to afford proper schooling.

But Marco was determined. If he took care of his money he would be able to study without a student grant. And he wanted to study medicine; he wanted to get ahead in the world and be somebody. Not like his family, but rather the opposite.

Marco wasn’t naive. He knew that all this at the very least required that he avoid the long arm of the law. Therefore, he needed to stay away from the kind of people who always paid under the counter, who more often than not turned out to be careless and ended up in court. It was what Marco was most afraid of: being turned in by those he knew and had trusted. For that reason, he was always cautious when dealing with any potential new employer.

Marco was ever wary.

At the same time, he kept a watchful eye on those who made a living from street crime. He saw them everywhere, like black shadows in the crowds. Suddenly they would step forward and pounce. Most often, their victims failed to notice, but Marco did. He knew the game from the inside.

Out here in Østerbro he never saw anyone from the clan. It didn’t surprise him much. Zola’s people operated in the city center, where the pickings were best, the crowds denser, so Marco stayed away. He also had to remember that Zola had many shady friends and business connections, not all of whom Marco would recognize by sight. He knew Zola’s net was expansive and fine-meshed. Zola could trawl the streets for allies and anyone whose work might boost his earnings with no questions asked. Most were from Eastern Europe, but thankfully they weren’t too difficult to spot. Criminal Poles, Balts, and Russians had a style all their own.

–

In no time at all the cityscape changed as warm, piercing sunshine brought Østerbro to life like a garden. Girls with bare arms, frisky children hopping and skipping. Only occasionally had days in Italy given Marco the same feeling of gladness. All of a sudden his aluminum ladder, his bucket of paste, and all his posters seemed so light upon his shoulder.

He waved across Østerbrogade to the kiosk owner who was leaning against the wall, taking in the sun as though he were home in Karachi. Then he deposited his gear behind the statue of the man who had given name to the square. It was out of the way there and would bother no one.

The poster column here was one of the city’s best, at least on Marco’s route. Squat and expansive, not too tall. Someone had told him the city had once been dotted with others just like it, but it must have been a long time ago.

It was a good spot, too. Gunnar Nu Hansens Plads. Bistros and coffee shops, the stadium, café tables in the middle of the square, cinemas just down the street, and throngs of well-to-do young people who were the target group for the events Marco’s posters advertised. Which was why the column had grown a two-centimeter-thick layer of notices, advertisements, and event posters whose collective weight now threatened to remove the entire mass from its mooring. It was just the job for Marco. He took out his scraper and set to work.

When he was down to the next-to-last layer, he noticed a “missing person” notice. He had seen many that were similar, taped to telephone poles around the district, only they were for pets, not people. Help! My cat has run away, or Has anyone seen my dog?

But this one was different.

MISSING, it read. IF YOU’VE SEEN MY STEPDAD, WILLIAM STARK, PLEASE CALL THIS NUMBER, ran the text above a photo of a man, and then a phone number and a date underneath.

Marco stared at the image. It was as if the man’s eyes and his shock of hair had suddenly become electric. At once, every fiber in Marco’s body suddenly tensed and began to tremble, for it seemed that all the crimes of his past lay embedded in these sorrowful and yet so accusing eyes.

Marco took a deep breath and felt shock and nausea kick in, for now he knew he had stared into this face before. He began to shake, unable to resume his work. It was a sight that would remain etched in his memory forever: the face, the red hair, the African necklace.

The necklace Marco was now wearing beneath his shirt.

At once he felt hot. He loosened some buttons and tossed his cap onto the ground, studying the poster once again with bated breath.

He looked at the date. The man had disappeared three years ago. It all fit. This was the man Marco had seen in the shallow grave in the woods. The man whose decomposed body he had touched with his own hands. The man he had at first sensed to be a dead animal. The man his father and Zola had buried in the underbrush close to Kregme.

WILLIAM STARK, the notice read.

Now he had a name.

Marco stood as if paralyzed. Have you seen my stepdad?

And he had.

In that brief moment as he stared at the notice, with despair and bewilderment pumping through his body, his concentration lapsed. Normally his eyes were darting around, always on guard. But not at just this moment.

Like a hand brushing against his coat, he sensed a shadow come from the side. A figure silhouetted by the sun taking a swift, seamless movement over the flagstones toward him. Marco turned abruptly to face the man who was about to strike. So lithe and silent was the attacker that it could be only one person: Hector, his cousin. (Perhaps he was even Marco’s half brother. Zola had never been choosy about his sleeping partners and neither had Marco’s mother.) Hector had more beard and seemed coarser now than the last time Marco had seen him, but there was no doubt it was him. Yet even the brief moment it took Marco to recognize him and react was too long.

Hector made a grab for the African necklace, but Marco turned and Hector latched on to his jacket sleeve instead. Instinctively Marco let himself topple off his ladder, knocking his cousin to the ground and wriggling out of his jacket as he fell.

And with that he’d broken free.

He knew every corner of this part of the city. Over on the other side of Østerbrogade lay his escape route, a lattice of possibilities, a cobblestoned web of streets. He heard his own pounding feet against the cobbles as he ran through Ålborggade, across Bopa Plads and down Krausesvej without looking back. There was always an open door somewhere, or a backyard that led to other backyards. In this rabbit warren Hector didn’t have a chance in hell of finding him if only he could gain a half-street lead.

It wasn’t until he reached Svaneknoppen and the gentle rhythm of Svanemølle Harbor, where people were readying their yachts for the summer season, that he dared glance back over his shoulder.

This was his turf. Here he would always be able to disappear among the boats. Hundreds of masts had already sprouted forth in the spirit of springtime, auguring renewed life in a landscape of container terminals that lined the old harbor front.

He stopped to get his breath back and assess the situation.

What had just occurred was the worst thing that could have happened. They had his jacket and his tools. They had everything. Without his tools he had no income. And what was worse: in his jacket pocket was his mobile with the numbers of many of the people he worked for. And worst of all, they now had Eivind and Kaj’s numbers, too. How could he be so careless? Why had he typed in Dry cleaners and Home in his list of contacts?

Marco drew his fist up to his lips. What was he to do now? He knew the ways of Zola’s pack. Soon they would be on the scent, they would find out where he lived, of that he was in no doubt. Hector would not hesitate a second in reporting back to his leader.

Now it had happened.

He’d been found.