Helle Helle: This Should Be Written in the Present Tense

‘I didn’t think you could let jeans out.’

‘Oh, yes. You can put a gusset in.’

‘That’s kind of you.’

‘I can’t very well do without them here, but once I get home they’re yours. Proper Levi’s they are, from Bilka.’

‘Thanks.’

‘We could do a Bilka trip one day.’

‘Yes, we could.’

‘I’d like that.’

When I reached the stop, the bus had already gone eight minutes earlier and there was an hour and a half until the next one was due. The gulls soared silently over the fjord. I started to walk, I wasn’t bothered.

All through April I stayed in Glumsø. I slept when I could. I ate, and sat at my table. In the afternoons I’d go for a walk. I walked further and further along the road before turning back. I never came across anyone I knew. The grain was growing in the fields now, skylarks ascended in bursts, the plum trees were in blossom. A new charity shop had opened next to the bookshop, I was there every other day, rummaging through the bins. It was mostly tablecloths and pillowcases they got in, not at all like in Copenhagen. I bought a length of material with lemons on it, but ended up throwing it out. Knud stood on the step in the sun in his breaks, he waved across at me. They’d already started clearing out and packing. They’d taken an old bookcase apart, it stuck up out of the skip in the car park. I put my rusty garden chair out under the apple tree in the front garden and sat there turning brown to match. Sometimes I saw a face looking at me from the window of a train.

There was an intense exchange of postcards with Hase, starting with one he sent me from Søndermarken. Seeing as how you never came , he wrote. I’ll be coming soon , I replied. Do , he wrote back, I’m looking forward to seeing you again, I’ve got an extra bike and a trench coat, we’ll go to Hvidovre and watch the lights come on. I’d rather sit on the back , I wrote, then I can hold on to your trench coat, I’m not keen on cycling in the city. Sounds good, but Hvidovre’s not the city, you’ve a lot to learn , he wrote, and then after that: I’ve met someone you should meet, she lives in Vanløse, that’s not the city either. She wants to look at our work with us. She’s nearly a proper writer, she goes to a writers’ school. You’d never believe it, but I met her in Scala. What work? I haven’t got any work , I wrote. She can meet with us on May the tenth , he wrote, she’s got room in her diary then. It would mean a lot to me if you came, I’ll buy you a beer, a big one.

It turned out she preferred coffee. We sat at the same table where I bumped into Hase the first time. His hair was long now, it suited him. He tucked it behind his ears whenever it fell down in front of his eyes, it made his face seem narrower. His eyes were a very bright blue. I hadn’t noticed they were that blue before. It might have been because he’d got such a tan. It had been sunny every day for three weeks.

‘You’ve got a tan, Hase,’ I said.

‘That’ll be the sunbeds,’ he said with a laugh, and she laughed too. It was a giggly laugh and I joined in.

‘Ha, ha,’ I said.

‘No, actually I’ve been sitting in the courtyard reading a lot lately,’ he said.

‘It’s lovely that courtyard,’ I said.

‘Yes, it is,’ he said. ‘Then last Saturday I was at Nyhavn all afternoon with an old friend of mine.’

‘Your trumpeter friend?’ I said.

‘Do you play the trumpet, Hase?’ she said.

‘He couldn’t if he tried,’ I said with a laugh, and Hase laughed too, he shook his head, his hair fell out from behind his ears again.

We were going to go through the fugue poem. Hase had made copies for us and we sat reading it to ourselves. She sipped her coffee while she read. Then she needed to go to the bathroom. She smiled and got up. She took her bag with her.

‘How come you don’t like her?’ said Hase.

‘I do like her.’

‘I think she’s very perceptive.’

‘She’s a bit smarmy. With that hair, and everything.’

‘It’s just her style.’

‘I wouldn’t call it that,’ I said, and he sucked his cheeks in and leaned back against his trench coat. I tried to concentrate on the poem, I put a couple of exclamation marks in the margin with my marker pen and underlined something else. She came back from the bathroom. She’d put lipstick on, a dark red. She giggled as she sat down again.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’m not a poet myself.’

‘No,’ said Hase.

‘What are you, then?’ I said.

‘I write prose.’

‘Short prose,’ said Hase.

‘Other things as well,’ she said.

‘You mean short stories?’ I said.

‘No, short prose. And other things as well,’ she said. ‘But I really think this poem has a lot going for it. You’ve worked hard on the cadence. You should cut down on the adjectives, though.’

‘Yes, the pale hand is probably overdoing it a bit,’ said Hase.

‘That’s one example,’ she said. ‘Try seeing what happens if you use hand on its own. It might be enough. Usually you can make do with a lot less.’

‘There’s got to be some flesh, though, surely?’ I said.

‘Not if there’s no need,’ she said. ‘That’s how I work, anyway. I’m always asking myself why does this have to be there, why does that have to be there? And if I can’t find a reason, it goes.’

‘Oh, right,’ I said. Hase nodded.

‘I suppose that’s the best advice I can give. Lots of things sound good, and anything can go into a text. Anything you like. But there has to be a reason. Anyone can have a funny little man in a hat wander in.’

‘Or a budding writer. Or a woman on a moped,’ I said. Hase looked at me.

‘Exactly,’ she said.

‘I’m not sure I agree with you on that,’ I said. ‘Sometimes things happen.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But that’s only in reality. And here we’re talking about fiction.’

She was meeting someone on Havnegade at four o’clock, so it was a brief appraisal. We both got up and shook her hand, Hase went to the counter and got two large beers. I looked out onto Axeltorv. There were flowers in the hanging baskets now, they looked like the ones in Haslev. People sat around chatting or stood looking at the water sculpture. Hase put a glass down in front of me. It was filled to the brim.

‘Just the two of us now.’

‘Yes.’

‘Now we can have a beer and catch up.’

‘Yes,’ I said and took a big sip. Now that we were on our own again I felt relieved and more at ease.

‘This ought to end at the Tivoli Gardens,’ I said, putting down the glass, and he smiled at me over the rim of his own.

‘It’s all in your hands,’ he said.

I wrote too much about that doorway. Where I stood with a picnic basket full of kitchen utensils. Where I looked out at Knud. There he was, walking down the middle of the road to the station with my tartan suitcase. I followed on behind him, the air was warm and mild.

He put the suitcase down on the platform, then turned and raised his hand in a wave. I raised mine too.

‘Thanks for your help. Best of luck,’ I shouted.

‘Write,’ he shouted back, running sideways towards the office, a customer was waiting inside. He kept waving, and then he disappeared through the door.

There was a rumble in the distance. The lilacs were in bloom. This should be written in the present tense. I didn’t write.