Bo Michaëlis - Copenhagen Noir

“But maybe it’s dangerous when a guy thinks he can walk on water,” I said softly.

“What do you mean by that, Søren?”

“Cut the Søren shit. I nearly fell for it, but… how stupid do you think I am?”

“I wouldn’t know. But you look like a half-brained overweight cab driver, I can see that much.”

“And you look like a sick cream puff. But I’m disappointed in you, Erik. Overplaying this way. Even if I’ve put on a few pounds since back then.”

“What could he be babbling about?” he emoted, speaking to the stucco rosette on the ceiling, hamming it up. Then breaking out in a horse laugh, bending over, slapping his knee. “Of course, Klaus, damnit. It’s you. Now I remember you! But I thought you were dead and gone…”

“You recognized me the first second. And you still didn’t say a thing…”

“Let’s say that, then.”

“Yeah, let’s.”

“Listen, my friend. That girl who biked right in front of you. I just wanted to get home. I couldn’t get a cab, I didn’t want to go into town with the others. Tap on the window, see a middle-aged fat guy who looks familiar. What’s his name? I’m thinking. But I meet people all the goddamn time. I’m sorry, Klaus, but you’ve been out of the picture for fucking twenty years !”

“Fifteen,” I replied childishly. “And now I’m the one who has to piss.”

Along the way I took the opportunity to explore the apartment, the rooms. The bedroom was no exception to the strange sense of disintegration that filled the apartment: clothes were scattered all over, shirts, suit jackets, wardrobe doors stood wide open revealing rows of suits, the big double bed was unmade. A large ceiling fan whirled around for no reason, weekly magazines and pages of dialogue lay on the floor. The office was a cave of relics from a long, successful life. A big framed film poster from one of his most famous roles, a few small paintings from a wild, well-known Danish artist, and high shelves, completely filled up. But the shelves held more than books: photo albums, piles of gossip mags, scrapbooks, a pith helmet, bits of kinky eroticism, including an enormous phallus. In one corner, a southern French village of wine in unopened gift boxes and solid wooden crates. A desk globe inside of which I envisioned a cosmos of liquor bottles, a brand-new set of golf clubs parked against an easy chair. A couple more Bodils stood in a windowsill. Despite everything, it hadn’t amounted to more than that. A gigantic desk with a laptop. Along with a horde of photos framed behind glass of Rützou alongside diverse beauties and famous colleagues, the desk was flooded with manuscripts, invitations, bank statements. I picked up a random letter from the bank-he was loaded, the bastard. Then I found another letter. The sender’s official name and logo was up in the corner. I picked it up…

When I returned, he abruptly said: “It’s your fault that I’m sitting here. In a tux and bow tie.”

“Really?”

“I preferred the stage. Sensing the audience in the theater, sitting in the dressing room, going out for a beer afterward with everyone. Film felt very lonesome to me. No, not lonesome, fragmented, you might say. You know: you show up, say your lines, walk off, and that’s it. You might meet with the actors at the premiere.” He inspected his well-groomed hands, the whiskey glass he had set down the chess table, a short and stout rook, golden brown. “But then you simply vanished that time, called in sick or whatever it was that happened…”

“When?”

“Playing the innocent, are we? That leading role in the Carlsen film was yours. Have you repressed that, man? You must think I’m senile. You disappeared off the face of the earth, so they called me instead.” Rützou flung out his arms again, theatrically, and there was nothing else he needed to say: that film was his breakthrough, the roles started pouring in afterward.

“You’ve performed at the Royal Theater between all the films, I know that much, Erik. Even at Kronborg! I think I’ve seen you in commercials too. And some really bad family films.” The kids loved them.

“Everything except the old bawdy films,” he laughed. “They were before my time. But you’re right.” He stifled a belch. “But anyway.”

“You raked in the roles and the money, man.”

“I have.” He nodded solemnly. “I have,” he repeated. “And ladies.” He tasted the word, stretched it out, lay-deeze. “But… what happened, really, back then?”

“Uh… yeah.” Another cigarette. “It was… it was nerves,” I admitted, after a second. I had nothing to lose. Maybe I even needed to talk about it; I had never told this to anyone, not even my wife back then, definitely not the kids. “The pressure was too much. I couldn’t handle it. The thought of playing that part, I couldn’t wait for it to start, I was so happy, and I was dying of fright. Not just performance anxiety, but real anxiety. The long and short of it is, I crashed.”

“And when you finally got up again, it wasn’t so easy to find parts,” he added sympathetically; that is, malevolently.

“No, it was easy enough, at first. Certain bit parts. Like the deranged bar type, and the disgusting apartment caretaker. Always halfway drunk. The guy nobody likes.”

“Oh yeah,” Rützou said. “It’s so tiresome playing yourself all the time. Don’t misunderstand me. It’s why I have always taken various parts. Hamlet one day, beer commercials the next. But listen, Klaus. You could have worked your way back, slowly. But you gave up.”

“Yeah, I did. It wasn’t fun anymore. And I couldn’t bring in enough to make a go of it, financially.”

“Financially! Bah! I have a good friend, a well-known writer. He’s not exactly swimming in money but he writes anyway. Because he can, won’t do anything else.”

“Does he have a rich wife?”

“No, Klaus. He’s got balls!”

I finished off the whiskey, hissed: “I’m groveling at your feet, Erik. You are the greatest. And the ride’s on me.” I got ready to stand up. “Thanks for the drink.”

“Plural, if I may say. You have put away two very serious drinks. Downed them. Doubt you can drive. You want to destroy your glorious taxi career too?”

“I was close to a Bodil for best off-meter driving, right?”

“Ooh, I had forgotten how screamingly funny you can be. Listen: you can still get it, Klaus.” He reached for the bottle of whiskey on the chess table between us, some expensive brand I’d never heard of. The Bodil stood there too, tall and elegant, as if it was silently listening. “Stay for a while, let’s have a nightcap.”

I sank down in the chair, held my empty glass out like some beggar. He had hit my weak spot. I’ve never been good at saying no. If I lost my driver’s license, then… Usually I drank only after work and on off-days. Except for the few drops of aquavit in my thermos.

“What can I still get?” I said, mad at myself.

“The lady here.” He stuck the statuette up in my face. I pushed his hand away, but he kept sitting there waving it around. “A special-award Bodil. For all you could have accomplished…”

Of course I wanted to smack him, but I had driven a cab for so long and met so many extremely drunk people or just plain brain-dead types that I had learned to control myself. People had vomited all over my gearshift and my clothes, they had put a stranglehold on me from the backseat, they had tried to run from the fare, even that stoned-out floozy from Skovlunde without any money who invited me up, yeah, I hadn’t even smacked her when she screamed that I’d raped her when her boyfriend suddenly appeared in the apartment, a big dude. I hit him, sure, but in self-defense. The judge couldn’t understand what I was doing in her apartment, and my wife couldn’t either.