Helle Helle - This Should Be Written in the Present Tense

‘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.

One day when I was browsing on Larsbjørnsstræde one of the assistants from the big vintage shop was standing on the corner crying. It was the girl with the white hair and the shoes. She turned aside as I went by, but I could still hear her sobbing even though she tried to control herself. I crossed over to the other side and went into Janus. I’d seen some Mexican drinking glasses upstairs, but on closer inspection I wasn’t keen. I looked out of the window and could see she was still there. One of the other assistants came out and stood with her for a bit. Then they went back inside together. I tried on a baggy jumper and ended up buying it. It would go with a pair of leggings once I started wearing leggings. I’d been to that vintage shop lots of times, you could hardly cross the floor for lace-up boots, and their clothes were all jammed together on the racks: men’s shirts and suit jackets, and discarded pyjamas. Every time you pulled an item out, two others came with it. There was a sour, dusty smell about the place, which I liked. I bought a pair of leg warmers there once and wore them on my arms in the evenings in the front room when I was cold. The two assistants stood flicking through a notebook at the counter when I came in. I rummaged through a bin of underskirts while I waited for them to say something. I found a light blue one with white trim. Eventually, the one who’d been crying said:

‘But there were four of them.’

‘I know, that’s what I said,’ said the other. They looked down at me as I pulled the underskirt out. I looked at the size and examined the trim, then put it back.

‘It can’t ever have been five,’ said the one who’d been crying.

‘No, you’d be dead otherwise, wouldn’t you?’

I carried on browsing through the racks and bins, but unfortunately they didn’t say anything more after that. I could feel them looking at me. After a while I decided on a pair of woollen gloves and put them down on the counter. The one who’d been crying entered the amount into the till. I handed her a twenty-krone note and she said:

‘You do Danish, don’t you?’

‘Not me,’ I said.

‘Oh, I thought I’d seen you on the Amager campus.’

‘I thought so too,’ said the other one from behind a pile of shirts.

‘I recognised you from your cheeks.’

‘Sorry,’ I said, and put the gloves in my bag. ‘It must have been someone else. Bye.’

‘Bye, then,’ they said.

I went down the stairs and out into the street. I walked back towards the Strøget, then went into a shop on the corner, through the shoes and upstairs to the women’s department. I took a random tweed coat off the peg and went into a fitting room. I looked at my face from all sides in the two mirrors, smiling and not smiling. After that I tried the coat on, it didn’t look bad at all. But then on the train home I decided to give it to Dorte. I’d never wear it anyway. I once heard her speak highly of tweed on a trip to Gisselfeld, a rare Sunday outing with my mum and dad to look at the old oak trees. We had coffee in a lay-by on the way back.

When I got off the train, the guy from the ticket office was sitting on the bench by the platform. The office was closed now, he was listening to his Walkman.

‘Finished for the day?’ I said as I went past. He was in his shirtsleeves, he took off his headphones and smiled.

‘Sorry?’

‘I said I see you’ve finished for the day.’

‘Oh, right. Actually, I’ve locked myself out,’ he said.

‘You haven’t? But you’re closed now, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah. I meant the flat.’

He jerked his head and pointed up at the first floor at the same time.

‘My keys are inside. My girlfriend’s off now though, I’m just waiting till she gets in.’

‘On the train?’

‘Yeah, she works in Vordingborg.’

‘So you’re the ones who live upstairs?’

He nodded.

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh, I see now. You haven’t got far to work, then. Aren’t you cold like that?’

‘It’s not too bad.’

‘You can wait at mine if you want, I only live over there,’ I said, and pointed in the direction of the house. He nodded.

‘I know. It’s okay, she’ll be here soon.’

‘All right. See you, then,’ I said, and pulled the handle of the waiting-room door. It was locked, I wasn’t thinking. I shook my head at myself and smiled at him.

‘School for the gifted,’ I said in English. He nodded and looked a bit puzzled.

When I got round the corner I remembered the coat. I went back and took it out of the bag.

‘You can borrow this while you’re waiting,’ I said.

We sat on the bench together, with him in the tweed. He lent me the headphones and I listened to one of his favourite tracks. I listened without saying anything, now and then he gave me a nod and raised his eyebrows, and I nodded back. His hands were small and rather broad. The sleeves of the coat stopped short of his wrists. When the train appeared from between the trees he stood up. We were still joined by the Walkman, so I had to stand up with him. I removed the headphones and handed them back, he took off the coat and did likewise.

‘Thanks for your help. See you, then,’ he said.

‘Yeah, see you,’ I said and remained standing by the bench as the train pulled in. I turned, then folded the coat and put it carefully back in the bag. She came up to him, I could hear them behind my back.