This Should Be Written in the Present Tense

39

My savings account was empty. To keep my spending down I’d started taking a packed lunch with me to Copenhagen. I ate on a bench on Axeltorv looking across at Scala. They’d put tables and chairs out now, when the weather was nice people sat with burgers and ice-cream sundaes. I saw nothing of Hase. I’d sent him a postcard from the Bicycle and Moped Museum thinking it was better than the last one, but he hadn’t replied. I had a sandwich or a pitta bread with me and some water in a bottle. After I’d eaten I sometimes went into Scala and bought a bag of pick ’n’ mix, the smallest I could get away with. I walked up and down the Strøget and went round the narrow streets behind Rådhuspladsen, then along Vesterbrogade with my canvas bag hanging down at my side. It went dark brown in the rain. They sold cheap ankle boots next to the Føtex supermarket. I found a pair in my size and wore them straight away, they put my old shoes in a bag for me. Vesterbrogade seemed endless. I bought a big chocolate-covered marzipan bar at an overpriced kiosk. There was a hint of warmth in the air, it swirled between the buildings and rose up off the pavement. A man cycled past with a lamp, a woman called after him. I dumped the bag with my old shoes in it in a bin where the street came to an end. Then I went back along the opposite pavement. I turned right down Enghavevej to the bicycle shop and went up to Hase’s. I rang his bell, but there was no answer. I pushed the marzipan bar through the letter box, it landed on something that sounded like a newspaper.

Back on Vesterbrogade I discovered I’d got a blister on my heel, but it was too far to the bin I’d dumped my shoes in. I might not have liked rummaging around for them anyway. I limped along bit by bit. At Central Station I went into the chemist’s for some plasters. There was a long queue and I missed the four o’clock. I waited for the next one by the stairs to the platform. I bought a hot dog and a small bar of nougat that I ate on the train. I sat falling asleep with my head against the window. The curtains always had the same smell, fuel of some kind, or tar.

The sun was low at the end of the road when I hobbled home from the station with an ankle boot in my hand. The postman had been, there were three letters. One from the bank telling me I was in the red. One from someone I didn’t know saying Dorte had gone into hospital with what you weren’t supposed to call a nervous breakdown any more. She was feeling a lot better now and I wasn’t to worry. I could go and see her, there was an address and a ward number, and two hundred kroner in a square of tinfoil. And then a postcard in a thick envelope from Hase, it was from Prague, he was there with an old friend. He was coming home on the Friday and wanted to take me round Søndermarken on the Saturday if I felt like it. That was tomorrow. I sat on the step and felt unstuck. The ankle boot was on the doormat, I still had the other one on. I sat like that for some time, trying to separate things. If I smoked I would have smoked. I did want to go to Søndermarken.