Falling Sideways (29 page)
“Mmm.”
“If Adam didn’t, then do you … No, I really do
not
believe that Jytte—”
“My God, she knew,” he said. “I knew she was involved with Adam and she
knew
she was getting the sack …”
“The sack? You fired her? Without—”
Calm voice. “I only suggested to her the other night, when I drove her home, that Adam needed to have peace for his studies and that I trusted I could count on her, otherwise—”
“You might have told me.”
“I had every intention of telling you. But it all went much faster than I would have guessed. She’s a nasty piece of work.”
Silence. Then: “What now?”
“Call the police. I’ll be home right away.”
“Do we really have to involve the police?”
“No police, no insurance. Do you know what I paid for that bracelet?”
Kampman detoured to Strandboulevarden on his way home. He parked the BMW in the shadows beneath a cluster of linden trees on the parking island across from her window. It was dark in her room. The little vent window on top of the tall casement was open, perhaps ten feet up from the sidewalk. And there was that sturdy red mailbox fixed to the wall beside the window ledge.
There was no way she could be home yet.
Karen sat in the living room with a glass of wine, her bare feet propped on the ottoman, when Kampman let himself in.
“That took a while,” she said.
“Traffic. Did you speak to the police?”
“They’ll send someone out tomorrow afternoon. They wanted one of us to come in to them, but when I told them who you are, they gave in. They’ll come sometime tomorrow afternoon.” She sipped the wine.
“Did she have a key?”
“Yes. I asked Adam to have one made, and he knew it was for her, so I presume he gave it to her. It would make sense. Nothing unusual about that.”
“Then we’ll need the locksmith, too. To change the lock cylinders.”
Karen began to cry. “I just can’t believe that girl would do this. She seemed so sweet.”
“Appearances deceive, honey.”
Depression had descended upon the room like a Copenhagen autumn twilight and long since had begun to bore Jes. He was tired of participating in the group consolation over Adam’s father’s bullshit treachery. Even the huggy consolation had given way to solipsistic gloom. He didn’t want to trample on their wounded young hearts, but he sat on the floor, back to the wall, holding a beer bottle between his knees, trying to think up a gentle way to get them to see the comic elements at work here: Adam hunched forlornly on the sofa, his fly straining to burst on the two safety pins he’d clasped it shut with; Jytte biting her fingernails meditatively over the prospect of no longer having to work for a bastard of a ligustrum privet fascist. I mean, get a life. And at the slow rate they drank their beer, how did they ever expect to break the morbid spell?
He considered fishing his
Sayings of Jalâl
notebook from his knapsack to clown them out of it: “People of the book, do not go to excess in your religion of gloom. Do not grieve for an ungrateful people, be they Muslim, Jew, Christian, or bloody bastards.”
“Woba golves,” he said experimentally.
No reaction. It was so silent in the room, he could hear the water bubbling in the radiator pipes. Another of gloom’s details. But then it gave him an idea. “Time for a bit of music-sick,” he said.
“Do you have any Thomas Helmig?” Jytte asked.
“Certainly not. You’ll hear this.” He slid on Dylan’s
Blonde on Blonde
, clicked forward to “Visions of Johanna.” “Behold the glories of the English language at its best in the mouth of a world-class poet. Not to mention depression-ripping ironics, Adam-sick. As we sit here stranded, doing our best to deny it—”
“What’s wrong with Thomas Helmig?” Jytte asked, drawing her feet up cozily beneath her.
“You are comparing Grand Prix melodies with art.”
“Thomas Helmig has beautiful language.”
“Anything to compare to these visions of Johanna? You can’t hardly
do
that in Danish. I mean, listen to Mark Knopfler’s words, listen to Counting Crows, listen to—”
“There are lots of fine songs in Danish! C. V. Jørgensen!”
“He’s good.”
“Good? He’s a genius! He’s a poet!”
“He serves a purpose.”
Jytte sneered. “What do you mean,
purpose
?”
Jes could see he was getting her piss to cook, and that was much better than depression. “To show us that Danish can handle rock. To an extent.”
“Why, he’s
just
as good as this! Better!”
“Can’t you hear he’s an attempt to transpose Dylan to Danish? To co-opt him to a Danish setting? Even his voice, for chrissake. His crowded lines, even his nasality.”
“And Kim Larsen!”
“He’s good.”
“And Lis Sørensen!”
“Now
she
is
good
. Oh, Lis, Lis, Lis,” Jes chanted ecstatically. “I want you
sooo bad
!”
“This is boring,” Jytte said.
“Boring!”
“Yeah, I think it’s boring. You can’t even understand what he’s mumbling. We don’t have to listen to American music all the time.”
“Why not? Music is the best thing that’s come out of America. Or you can listen to Danish copies of it instead. Or British copies. If you want some original Danish music, listen to Poul Dissing and Benny Andersen. ‘Nina comes naked from the bath / while I eat a cheese sandwich …’ ”
“What’s wrong with that!”
“Nothing. I
love
it! I’m just saying we’re not going to get any further in Danish by imitating. The language is too small. Help me out here, Adam.”
“Hov!”
Jytte was now sitting straight up, her blue eyes blazing. “Danish is
our
language.”
“Right, like crowns are
our
money. Why live in a big world when you can stay closed up in a tiny one?”
“Don’t tell me you
like
the EU!”
“Not particularly, but I like isolation less. Someday the Danish Language Council is going to wake up and see that they can’t decide what’s Danish and what’s not. Language doesn’t come from the tower to the streets. Language comes from the streets up. Case in point: Until like last month, you couldn’t find the word
fuck
in Gyldendal’s
New Danish Word Book
, but show me one Danish kid who hasn’t been using the word since like they could speak! I mean, just
look
at English. Look at how many more words it has!”
Jytte was on her feet now, shouting, and Jes
loved
it. “That’s just because for every word in English they have the same word in Latin or French, too!”
“It’s because English isn’t afraid to
grow
!”
“You’re only half Danish anyway. You grew up speaking English to your father, right? Or not even English—
American
.”
“Poor me. The new Danish pariah. People with two languages. The poor two-languaged children.
Quel problème!
”
“Two-tongued, maybe,” Adam said suddenly, glaring at him.
Jes was startled, but then he perceived the lad was defending the damsel against his attempt to get her blood circulating again. He rolled with the punch, laughing self-deprecatingly as though found out. “The sleeper awakes. Speak again, O toothless wonder-sick.”
“Fuck you-sick!”
“Fuck-sick you too-sick!” Finally it was getting fun again. Dylan was singing “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat,” but Jytte was not ready to take it for fun yet.
“French is a more beautiful language than English,” she said. “And Italian is, too.”
“Italian is good for operas, and French is dead for all practical purposes. Committed suicide trying to construct long French substitutes for IT and TV terminology. But French literature, of course, is quite another matter.”
“Spanish is a more important language,” Jytte said officiously, and Jes looked at her with a smile. He had gotten more out of her than he would have dreamed. She’d already dropped at least two masks, but the real Jytte, he was convinced, was still concealed somewhere under this jingoistic one. He could have gobbled her up. Maybe he would. Such transparent defense could only be a vestibule leading to very, very hot pants.
“And where did you come from, little goose, little goose?” he said.
“Don’t you call me ‘little goose’!” she snapped, chin raised, eyes clear and cold, and he saw suddenly that he had gone too far for her. But he couldn’t resist another little dig.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I meant little goose-sick.” He kissed his lips at her.
Still glaring at him, she said, “I think I’ll go now.”
“I’ll walk you,” Adam said.
“No.” She was slipping on her shoes.
“Let her go,” Jes said. “She’s homesick-sick.”
“Let me walk you, Jytte.”
“No. No, thanks, Adam.” She kissed his cheek.
“Why go, anyhow?” Jes said. “Can’t you take a joke? I was just fucking with you. Don’t be so self-serious. It’s a mortal Danish sin. Stay and we’ll have a party, celebrate that you don’t have to work for that asshole tomorrow.”
She was looking at his T-shirt, a small, bemused smile on her mouth. “Fuck it,” she read out. And, “I think I want to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
Jes watched Adam follow her to the door. He sure did like her butt in those dirty beige jeans she was wearing, but he was beginning to wonder where she was coming from. He was about to call after her,
Who sent you?
thinking of William Burroughs going mad in Paris and Tangier, but realized it would be lost on her. Dylan was now singing “Just Like a Woman,” and Jes snorted.
Breaks just like a little girl …
But she hadn’t broken. He couldn’t figure out what had happened. Who can read the heart of a Jutland girl? What was she so fucking uptight about?
“Night, Jytte,” he called as she hugged Adam and closed the door behind her without a word.
Fuck it
, he thought, and glanced at his shirt in the mirror over the CD player. TI KCUF. He liked that. TIKCUF.
Now Adam was depressed again. Fuck depression, anyway. The lad was sitting on the floor in a corner, head bowed, elbows on his knees.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, man? Come on, forget your troubles, come on, get happy, for chrissake. Tikcuf. Tikcuf it all.”
Adam looked up. His eyes were wet. “I was just remembering something,” he said, thick-mouthed. “When I was, like, ten years old once. There was a picture of my father in the newspaper because he had got some big promotion. Director of something or other. I was so proud of him, and I told him that. ‘God, Dad, I am
so
proud of you.’ And he looked at me, really cold, really, and he said, ‘What are you kissing my ass for?’ ”
And the kid started weeping. Literally weeping snot. Jesus.
“Hey, Adam, listen to me. Do yourself a favor. Don’t waste your tears on the man. Fuck him. He’s not worth it. Don’t be sad, be
mad
. Don’t let the bastards getcha. Come on, have a beer. Fuck
him
, anyway!”
Trying not to consider the distance from his earflap chair to where Kirsten slept, across the archipelago of carpets, down the hall, in their antique four-poster, Breathwaite sat up in his library, reading. Sweet woman who still desired him, and what could he give her now? How discreetly but indefatigably she tried. Until his pale response, his limp hugs, his chaste caresses, finally succeeded in fatiguing her. It seemed to him now only a matter of time before she gave up, too.
How long can a woman of passion do without? Please realize, sweet Kis, that it is not by choice that I have chilled. I am not able.
And it seemed she was ready for a surrogate. Came home from work today excited about the puppies her boss’s golden retriever had had. “Freddy, they are just
so
cute! If you just
saw
one, you would melt.”
“Mmm.”
She caught the drift, read the tone, and he saw she was getting sad again. The swangler. He modified, in hopes of dispersing the clouds of sadness. “Of course if we ever did get a dog, it would definitely have to be a golden. They’re more like another species of human than a dog. Lovely creatures.”
“They are
so
beautiful, Freddy. It’s almost like holding a
baby
!”
“Let’s think it over, shall we?” he said, and saw she
knew
what that meant. And went to bed. And he sat there wondering why he was such a fuckless fuck.
But the muscle of his heart was too soft at present to bear such thoughts. He discharged the matter by reassuring himself that Kirsten had to be protected against herself, against her sentimental enthusiasms. All she saw was a cute puppy; she failed to perceive all the trouble involved, the housebreaking, the vet expenses—and not to mention what she was not yet even aware of: that they would have to be looking for a new apartment, and not every apartment allowed dogs. Or that
she
, rather, would have to be looking for a new apartment. Another thought he did not wish to follow just now.
No.
Staring into the air, redolent with Cohiba smoke, he thought again of those people on the bridge. Had he been hallucinating? Or just suggestive in his weakened state? Already he could feel his memory evolving the moment from a glimpse to a scene. He pictured them going into a dance on the dusky sidewalk, lake gleaming behind them, singing some Tin Pan Alley love song. Life as a musical comedy. Or Dennis Potter weird. Lars von Trier’s dancers on the lumber train of falling darkness. Like the “Lonesome Polecat” dance in
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
, which Breathwaite remembered from when he was about eight. Was he going nuts?
He turned his attention instead to the new issue of the
New Yorker
that had arrived that day. He read a short story by V. S. Naipaul about a doomed affair between a man and woman of two different classes in England, attracted to each other because of the distance between them, which, once breached, destroyed the illusion of the otherness that had drawn them in the first place. There were some other levels in it that he could not quite grasp, could not quite follow to a satisfactory conclusion.