23

Instead of going on to Copenhagen I got off at Ringsted and walked up to the smørrebrød shop. Dorte was standing on the step round the back having a fag. A smell of roast meat was coming from inside. She threw out her arms when she saw me.

‘Hello, love, what a nice surprise. What brings you here?’

She gave me a hug, holding the cigarette at arm’s length, and kissed me on the cheek.

‘We haven’t got lectures today,’ I said.

‘How come?’

‘We just don’t have them every day.’

‘Well then, come in. It’s lovely to see you. Are you in the dumps?’

‘Not really.’

‘Yes, you are. I can tell.’

‘No, I’m just tired, that’s all.’

‘I can see that. Your eyes are all wrong.’

‘I’m not sleeping very well.’

‘Is it the trains?’

‘No, I quite like the trains.’

‘You like the house all right, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Well, you look gorgeous no matter how tired you are,’ she said and kissed me again, then we went into the kitchen, she got a cup out for me and poured me a coffee from the Thermos on the table.

‘Do you fancy a cheese sandwich?’ she said.

‘No, thanks.’

‘Are you slimming?’

‘Sort of.’

‘What do you think of this, by the way?’ she said, extending her fingers towards me. Her nails were coral-coloured, they looked nice against her hands.

‘It looks nice against your hands,’ I said.

‘Yes, I think so too. That’s nice, though,’ she said, indicating my own fingers with their short, plum-coloured nails.

‘I’ve got fat fingers,’ I said, and fluttered them about.

‘You have not.’

‘I have too.’

‘Your hair suits you when you put it up like that,’ she said.

‘Above the ears, you mean?’

‘A bit piled up, with stray strands. I like that. How come you aren’t sleeping?’

I shrugged.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Can you keep up with your studies?’

‘Mm.’

‘Do you like the course? Are you getting on all right with it?’

‘Yes, fine.’

‘Fine means not fine at all.’

‘No, it doesn’t. Fine’s fine,’ I said and gulped a mouthful of coffee. She did likewise, then wiped the outline of her lipstick with her finger.

‘Well, I’m pleased.’

‘Mm.’

‘Do you remember the time I lay awake in Lübeck?’ she said. I remembered it well and nodded. She’d been on a coach trip with a new man. He was tall and ruddy, she fitted under his arm when they walked along the street. She’d never had one as tall as him before, but fortunately he had a paunch as well. I can’t be doing with a man with no belly, she always said. The coach left from in front of the train station in Næstved, it turned out she knew some of the people who were going. They all stood with their luggage, chattering in the early-morning light. She had her cobalt-blue trouser suit on and a scarf that billowed nicely about her neck in the wind. They all seemed so happy and excited. Every time she said hello to someone new, her laughter increased. She threw her hands in the air and laughed and laughed at her own excitement. They’d booked a room with a balcony, she thought they might sit out with a bottle of prosecco and some Twiglets. She got the window seat on the coach, there was a little carton of juice in the pocket in front of every seat, she could hardly sit still.

‘Oh, look at this! There’s juice,’ she said. And then shortly afterwards:

‘Look at the roundabout there! Look at that girl!’

And the next moment as they left the town:

‘Look at all those birds. I’ve never seen so many!’

‘They’re called seagulls,’ said the woman in the seat behind, and some people began to laugh. Dorte laughed even louder then and twisted round in her seat half standing up. She put her hand on top of the woman’s on the headrest.

‘Are they really seagulls? I think I’m dyslexic with birds.’

After she sat down again and had been quiet for a second with a smile still on her face, her boyfriend leaned over and said:

‘I think you should settle down now, don’t you?’

It was as if all the life drained away from her. She couldn’t say how it happened. The corners of her mouth drooped. Her arms went limp. She turned her head away and looked out at the fresh green fields and trees and the roe deer as they ran. Nothing had ever seemed so sad to her. And they hadn’t even got as far as Mogenstrup. Her hands lay dead in her lap on top of her cobalt-blue trousers. She thought: I’m nothing but an empty frame. After Bårse, her boyfriend looked at her with a smile.

‘Aren’t you going to have your juice, Dorte?’

She couldn’t answer. All she could do was shake her head, the slightest of movements.

‘Eh?’

‘I can’t,’ she whispered, and turned very slowly away, stared out at the blue sky, the white trails left by the planes, the life that wasn’t going to be hers after all, woods all to no use. On the ferry crossing from Rødby to Puttgarden she cheered up briefly when she bought a lipstick and the girl in the shop complimented her on her choice.

‘Such a lovely colour, that.’

‘Yes, it’s nice,’ she managed to say with a little smile.

But the three days they were in Lübeck she hardly said a word. She poked at her schnitzels, and raised her glass without drinking whenever anyone said cheers. Both nights she lay stretched out on her back with her eyes wide open, it was like they wouldn’t close. She hadn’t a thought in her head, only emptiness. She didn’t fall asleep until they were on the bus home, they were on the outskirts of Oldenburg and it was only for fifteen minutes, but when she woke up she wanted a cup of coffee. A big one, and black. Preferably her own at home, followed by a good film and a foot bath. All by herself in her own cosy flat, and as soon as she found time she was going to change all the furniture around. When the thought came to her that the sofa would go better by the window, she realised she was starting to perk up again.



I stayed in the shop for a couple of hours and helped her carve the roast and do the salad and oranges. She was trying out a new special as well, a kind of pastrami roll, I arranged fifteen of them on a tray. The rest she’d make as she went along. She stepped out the back with me when it was time for me to go. We stood chatting for a bit while she had a smoke, and then we gave each other a hug. She coughed over my shoulder.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ she said. ‘Are you slimming too much for some roast?’

‘I don’t suppose I am,’ I said, and she wrapped a piece of meat in greaseproof and put it in a carrier bag for me, along with two oranges, a packet of rye bread and three hundred kroner. I gave her a kiss on the cheek.

‘I haven’t even asked how you’re getting on with Hardy,’ I said.

‘Oh, fine,’ she said. So she wasn’t.

‘I’m glad,’ I said.

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