exhausted.
I went into my office, shaking my head, and spent a couple of hours answering emails and reading the ordinary post that had piled up in my absence, some of it work-related, the rest just junk mail. Along with yet another exhortation from the Faculty of Literary Studies to sign a petition protesting against NATO’s military operation. It went straight into the wastepaper bin. I called Irma’s numbers again. Her secretary said she could not understand why she was not back yet, but they were expecting her that day. Her mobile was switched off. I sent her an email, telling her about the woman in Bratislava. I gave her most of the details and demanded an explanation, for God’s sake. I thought briefly of phoning Fritz, but we found it hard to talk to one another. There were always long, weird pauses in our conversations. My older brother was a down-to-earth man who produced that basic staple of existence,bread, and he often found it hard to take my more high-flown academic musings seriously. His world and mine were poles apart. He was also a lot older. We had never had much in common. And I knew what he would say if I told him my story: You’d better talk to Irma about that.
I considered switching off my computer and calling it a day, instead of sitting there staring at my static-laden needle-felt carpeting and concrete walls, their drabness relieved by some lovely old Soviet propaganda posters. One of these depicted a brawny worker and a blonde woman. The overall-clad worker had his eye fixed steadfastly on the socialist horizon and his powerful fist curled around a hammer; the staunch, blonde land-girl gazed at him adoringly, her golden locks framed by a sickle. ‘Together we march towards socialism. The party leads the way’ it said in graceful Cyrillic script. It made you weep to think how much the world had changed.
I took a chance and called Lasse’s extension and surprisingly enough he answered. He had arrived home on the Sunday afternoon and – busy, conscientious bee that he was – he had of course popped into the office early on the Monday morning to make sure that none of his students were missing Uncle Lasse or needed his help. Some of them did, but he could meet me later, he said, once he had spoken to them, relieved their anxieties about their dissertations and sent each one off feeling confident that he or she was the greatest genius the university had ever fostered. He had a gift for it. But he would love to have lunch with me.
‘I’ve such a lot to tell you,’ he said, like a globetrotter returning from distant climes.
A couple of hours later he appeared, long-limbed and smiling gently, in the doorway of one of my favourite refuges in the Queen’s Copenhagen, the little luncheon establishment Restauranten nestling next to its leafy little tree on Gammel Torv. With one schnapps and one large draught beer already downed and the prospect of a herring on rye sandwich and one with roast beef washed down byanother schnapps and another beer the world did not seem such a bad place after all. The small, low-ceilinged premises were wreathed in cooking fumes and the smoke from the cigarettes of patrons who were almost buzzing with the expectation of tucking into the sort of good solid grub which had not yet been banned by the health freaks. I was sitting at a table by the window to the right of the door, looking out at the winter-wan Copenhageners hurrying past. The March light was lovely, though – grey, perhaps, but with a golden cast that said April was just around the corner. Sunshine glinted off the spokes of a freshly polished bike wheel and more optimistic souls were striding out briskly with their coats unbuttoned. The solitary tree outside the restaurant was covered in swollen, straining buds, reminding me of the sex life I no longer had. My back was still acting up, but it did feel a little better. I still had to be careful when standing up, and I held my head a little too stiffly, but
I went into my office, shaking my head, and spent a couple of hours answering emails and reading the ordinary post that had piled up in my absence, some of it work-related, the rest just junk mail. Along with yet another exhortation from the Faculty of Literary Studies to sign a petition protesting against NATO’s military operation. It went straight into the wastepaper bin. I called Irma’s numbers again. Her secretary said she could not understand why she was not back yet, but they were expecting her that day. Her mobile was switched off. I sent her an email, telling her about the woman in Bratislava. I gave her most of the details and demanded an explanation, for God’s sake. I thought briefly of phoning Fritz, but we found it hard to talk to one another. There were always long, weird pauses in our conversations. My older brother was a down-to-earth man who produced that basic staple of existence,bread, and he often found it hard to take my more high-flown academic musings seriously. His world and mine were poles apart. He was also a lot older. We had never had much in common. And I knew what he would say if I told him my story: You’d better talk to Irma about that.
I considered switching off my computer and calling it a day, instead of sitting there staring at my static-laden needle-felt carpeting and concrete walls, their drabness relieved by some lovely old Soviet propaganda posters. One of these depicted a brawny worker and a blonde woman. The overall-clad worker had his eye fixed steadfastly on the socialist horizon and his powerful fist curled around a hammer; the staunch, blonde land-girl gazed at him adoringly, her golden locks framed by a sickle. ‘Together we march towards socialism. The party leads the way’ it said in graceful Cyrillic script. It made you weep to think how much the world had changed.
I took a chance and called Lasse’s extension and surprisingly enough he answered. He had arrived home on the Sunday afternoon and – busy, conscientious bee that he was – he had of course popped into the office early on the Monday morning to make sure that none of his students were missing Uncle Lasse or needed his help. Some of them did, but he could meet me later, he said, once he had spoken to them, relieved their anxieties about their dissertations and sent each one off feeling confident that he or she was the greatest genius the university had ever fostered. He had a gift for it. But he would love to have lunch with me.
‘I’ve such a lot to tell you,’ he said, like a globetrotter returning from distant climes.
A couple of hours later he appeared, long-limbed and smiling gently, in the doorway of one of my favourite refuges in the Queen’s Copenhagen, the little luncheon establishment Restauranten nestling next to its leafy little tree on Gammel Torv. With one schnapps and one large draught beer already downed and the prospect of a herring on rye sandwich and one with roast beef washed down byanother schnapps and another beer the world did not seem such a bad place after all. The small, low-ceilinged premises were wreathed in cooking fumes and the smoke from the cigarettes of patrons who were almost buzzing with the expectation of tucking into the sort of good solid grub which had not yet been banned by the health freaks. I was sitting at a table by the window to the right of the door, looking out at the winter-wan Copenhageners hurrying past. The March light was lovely, though – grey, perhaps, but with a golden cast that said April was just around the corner. Sunshine glinted off the spokes of a freshly polished bike wheel and more optimistic souls were striding out briskly with their coats unbuttoned. The solitary tree outside the restaurant was covered in swollen, straining buds, reminding me of the sex life I no longer had. My back was still acting up, but it did feel a little better. I still had to be careful when standing up, and I held my head a little too stiffly, but
Similar Books
