A Fairy Tale (27 page)

T
he paintings are leaning up against the cardboard boxes in the basement. There are many more than I would have believed. Kasper must have hidden them somewhere behind the boxes.

“This isn't bad,” he says, holding one up. “We should take them outside where there's more light so we can see them better.”

“Just pick two.” I don't remember painting most of them, but I can see that something that started as a hand has turned into a back.

“What do you think?” Kasper asks me. “I like these two, but it's for you to decide, obviously.”

I just nod. He wraps the paintings in brown paper. Tapes them carefully.

“Now don't screw with me,” he says.

“I'll take them to the gallery tomorrow,” I say, avoiding his gaze.

“I don't believe you.”

Kasper follows me up to the street and flags down a cab. He carefully places the parcel with the paintings on the back seat, then he gives the driver the address and money for the fare. Tells him not to stop, not even for a red light if possible.

The owner is sitting
on a deck chair outside the gallery; his sunglasses cover most of his face.

He holds open the door for me.

“I enjoyed meeting you. I still have bruises on my chest.”

I'm not entirely sure what he means.

“You were ranting, but you also kept jabbing me in the chest with your finger. Stab, stab, stab.”

“I'm really . . .”

“Don't worry about it. Or at least not much.”

When I put down the pictures, he shakes my hand.

“I'm Michael, you probably don't remember that. Shall we take a look at them?”

He rips off the brown paper, fiddles with the leather string around his neck while he studies them, offers me a French cigarette.

“To be honest, I'm not really an expert on this type of thing. Most of the stuff I exhibit is conceptual. This is very . . .” He shakes his head slightly and takes a drag of his cigarette. “It's not really contemporary . . . but it's not bad, either.”

The telephone rings, he answers it and speaks English down the handset. Preparations for a party or an exhibition. He asks who is coming and says he hopes they'll bring better wine this time.

When he has hung up, he returns to my paintings.

“I'll keep them until the exhibition opens. I hope that's all right.”

It sounds like a question, but I can tell from his voice that he has spoken to Kasper.

He carries the paintings
out into a small room at the back, leans them up against an economy-sized pack of toilet paper and a photocopier, and takes a fresh pile of catalogues with him.

“The whole point is that all the artists are unknown. Some are just a little more unknown than others.” He grins. “But your pictures will obviously be up on the wall. Say hi to Kasper, won't you?”

He closes the door behind me. Through the window I see him pick up the telephone.

I sit behind the bar; the clock on the wall is plastic. Black hands against a white clock face. It's early afternoon. The bar is practically empty.

“A bunch of the regulars were in for the breakfast special,” says the middle-aged barmaid behind the counter. “They're at home sleeping it off now. They'll be back soon for happy hour.”

I follow her gaze down the dark room. A man is slumped in front of one of the tables; a half of stout is standing in front of him.

“That's Leif. I'm not even going to . . .” She puts a shot glass and a premium beer in front of me. “The breakfast special is long over, but what the hell, I'll throw in the schnapps for free.”

Petra wakes me up.
She says I reek of booze. When she was a child and her dad brushed her teeth, his hands would smell of tobacco and his breath of vodka. She likes the smell. Then she falls silent, having caught herself talking about her family. Which she's promised herself never to do. As a punishment because I never tell her anything about mine. I wait a couple of moments before I tell her about the gallery and the exhibition.

She leaps out of bed.

“Fantastic!” she shouts.

She sits down and gets straight up again.

“What do you wear to something like that?” she asks.

I lie down; I hide my head under the pillow.

“I'll get something, obviously. I'll get a new outfit for the opening. Your girlfriend has to look smart.”

The small bedroom falls silent. Kot stares at us from the doorway.

“Am I your girlfriend?” Petra lingers slightly over the word. As you do over the most precious thing you have.

“Of course.”

The answer comes more easily than I'd have imagined.

Kot stretches lazily and strolls out into the kitchen.

“I'll get myself a new dress. Will you be wearing a tie?”

I
'
m standing in the break room pouring coffee from the pot when Erik comes in. He walks right up to me, delighted to have news to deliver. There's no talk about robots taking over our jobs tonight. I've had a few days off. Erik tells me what happened while I was away, in small snippets spread across the ten minutes that make up the coffee break. He tells me how uniformed officers came for Kasper, that they must've had something on him. That they didn't handcuff him, but escorted him out with an officer on each side. They must've been watching him for some time, Erik says. God knows what he's been up to. Erik looks expectantly at me, hoping I'll suggest something. I drink coffee until he starts talking again. He tells me they summoned our shift to the break room, but said nothing except that they were investigating certain irregularities.

When the break is over, I walk back to the pigeonholes and I don't put on the headphones. For the rest of the shift I listen for the sound of footsteps coming down the aisles, expecting to see officers who would like a word with me. Or the supervisor pulling me aside. But it's a night like any other, only without Kasper standing behind me.

I leave work early
in the morning. I've only just gone through the archway when my hands start to shake.

I sit down on a bench outside Hovedbanegården, drinking apple juice from a carton. I feel like a beer and a schnapps, like getting a little too drunk and waking up in Petra's bed with her sitting on the edge trying to blow smoke rings.

Then I remember the paintings in the basement. I don't know why, but suddenly they seem very important. Like entries in a diary I don't want anyone else to read.

I take a taxi to Kasper's apartment. I wait until the courtyard gate opens as a woman with a bicycle lets herself out. In the courtyard I find a brick. I walk down to the basement door. The wood is old and crumbling and quickly gives way. I walk down the passage; I squat in front of the door to Kasper's basement room. There's not much light, but I feel my way along the wooden wall with my fingertips until I discover the crack where Kasper keeps the key. I unlock the padlock and open the door. No one has been here yet. The room is still crammed with boxes, but it can't be long before the police talk to the caretaker. I carry the paintings upstairs and leave them on the sidewalk, leaning them up against a wall. It's the first time I see them in daylight. The colours are much brighter than they appeared at night when I painted them.

I order a cargo van from a telephone booth; I can barely see the pictures while I speak.

It starts to rain while I wait for the van. I could take off my jacket, drape it across the canvases, but there are too many of them. I'd have to take off all my clothes.

The driver helps me
lug the pictures into the van; he promises me he'll drive carefully.

I tell him it
doesn't matter. He thinks I'm joking and slows down even more.

When I've got the last pictures inside my room, I can barely open the door and I have to hurl myself onto the bed.

I move them around. I put some of them outside in the hallway. Elsebeth hasn't been up here for a long time, so I don't think she'll mind. I clear a small space in front of the bed so I can swing my legs out in the morning, and I clear a path to the desk so I can put down my keys.

I fall asleep with the radio in my ears.

I dream I help Kasper escape from prison. He's wearing stripey clothes and his cheeks are sunken. As soon as he comes out into the daylight, he turns to dust and is blown away. No, Petra says, not like a werewolf, but possibly a vampire.

Karlsson sits in his
deck chair with his eyes closed. I've opened the hatch slightly, the chain is on. I had to shout a couple of times, drown out the noise of the city, before he heard me. He comes over and unlocks it, then he walks back to his chair with his shoulders slumped. He already knows. Or he guessed as much when Kasper failed to show.

“Perhaps they don't have anything on him, we might see him again in a couple of days. He's always been careful,” Karlsson says, but doesn't sound as if he believes it.

I take the cherry brandy out of the bag. We share it. He's too despondent to roll his own so we smoke my cigarettes.

Karlsson talks about building a bomb. One big enough to blast a hole in the prison wall. We just have to find out which cell he's in. It's doable.

When the cigarette package is empty and there's no cherry brandy left, I get up.

“You're always welcome to visit me,” Karlsson says. “Even if Kasper isn't here.”

I walk across the roof; I know I'm not going to see him again.

P
etra has highlighted her eyes with thick black eyeliner. She has changed her outfit three times. Even Kot seems agitated. It marches from the kitchen and into the bedroom and back, sits down on the kitchen table, licks its paw and jumps down restlessly again.

“Aren't you going to wear something more festive?” Petra asks, looking at my T-shirt and jeans.

Her high heels click against the sidewalk, the sun shines in her eyes.

Outside the gallery people are smoking and holding glasses of white wine.

It's a struggle to get through the door; the gallery is packed. Everyone is well dressed in a casual way. Suit jackets over oil-stained trousers. T-shirts with holes so big you can see half a nipple. They talk in loud voices, they laugh, they hide their cigarettes in the palms of their hands so they don't set fire to each other. Petra asks if I see my paintings. I look around, shake my head. She drags me along past the DJ playing electronic music, the same small drum being hit again and again, mixed with monotonous Indian chanting.

We reach the second small room.

“Maybe we should come back a bit later,” I say over the din. “In an hour or six months.”

“Are they in here?”

I stand on tiptoe. I look around and shake my head.

“Maybe we should . . .”

Petra drags me past more people, into the last room. I can't see my pictures here, either. I'm bigger than her and when I start pulling her all she can do is follow. She nearly topples over in her high heels. Then I spot them: my pictures hang on either side of the door, slightly too close to the door frame.

“That's them, isn't it?” Petra asks.

I leave her in front of the paintings while I push my way back to the table with the white wine. I take two glasses, one for each of us. I want to give one to her, but she hasn't finished looking at the paintings so I'm left standing with the glasses.

Then she presses herself against me, kisses my cheek. The wine sloshes over and runs down my hands.

“Now we can go,” she says.

Once again we have to work our way slowly between people who are sweating, smoking, and drinking. The door is in sight when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

“I'm glad you came,” Michael says. “We need to take some photos.”

I briefly consider saying no, but I don't get the chance. We're pushed out in the street, lined up in front of the gallery.

A girl with dyed black hair and piercings is placed in the middle. On one side of her they put a tall guy with clothes that are too short. He keeps adjusting his glasses. On the other side they put a young man with dark skin and a ponytail. He's wearing a poncho of a thin material, silk possibly.

I stand to the far left, a part of the composition.

Some of the guests have drifted outside with us. They stand behind the photographers, out in the street. I hear cars sound their horns, but no one moves. The cars will either have to wait or drive up on the sidewalk to get past.

We're told to smile. We're told not to smile. Could you move forward a little? Turn to the side. Pull your hood over your head. It's all right if you smoke. At the end the photographers take a lot of pictures with Michael squatting in front of us or standing between us.

“Remember to include the background. Get the gallery's sign in the picture, for Christ's sake.” Then he laughs. “I'm being serious.”

Michael asks everyone to come back inside; he wants to say a few words.

People move out against the walls of the gallery; Michael stands in the middle of the floor holding a glass of white wine. He promises to be brief and adjusts the tie he isn't wearing.

“Being able to showcase brand-new talent is fantastic, as is being able to say that I was the first to exhibit them.” He grins at the girl with piercings on her face and the tall, skinny guy. “Even if it isn't strictly true. Surely it's okay to exaggerate a little.”

Then he turns to the man with the ponytail and the poncho.

“Alonso, I'm delighted you were able to come to Denmark, we don't see you often enough.” They raise their glasses, they smile at each other.

“And Mehmet Faruk.” He looks for me in the crowd, but gives up before he finds me. “His paintings hang in the last room; make sure you don't miss them.”

Petra squeezes my hand.

I follow her outside. She got up early to work in the kiosk; she's tired, but insists that I stay.

That I have a good time.

She wants to sleep for a couple of hours and then wait for me. She'll wait even if I come back late. She doesn't mind late.

I promise her I'll have a good time. I promise her I'll get drunk. She refuses to see me again unless I stink of alcohol.

I kiss her goodbye and watch her walk down the street and disappear around the corner.

I go back to the table with the wine. I take two glasses and stand holding one in each hand as though I'm waiting for someone. I drink from both of them, I catch snippets of conversation, the guests discuss other exhibitions, other galleries.

“He's from Chile,” I hear someone say; they're talking about the man in the poncho. “His father was tortured in prison. He uses it when he paints. It can be hard to see, obviously.”

When I've emptied the glasses, I go back to the last room. I want to say goodbye to my paintings before I find a bar where I can get drunk. A man is looking at them. He's wearing a brown tweed suit and he wipes sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, but he doesn't take his eyes off the paintings.

“Do you like them?” I ask him.

He looks at me, then apologizes in English with a German accent. I'm already regretting the question, but I repeat it in German.

He takes a step back so he can look from one picture to the other.

“Did you paint them?” he asks, in German this time.

When I confirm this, he asks me more questions, simple as well as technical: what kind of paints I use, how long each painting takes me. I try to answer him. He tells me my German is good, then he asks if I'd like to have a beer with him somewhere other than here.

We step inside the
cool twilight of the bar. I order each of us a large draught beer.

“I wish I could pay,” the German says. “I should be paying. You shouldn't be buying your own drinks, not tonight. But I've lost my wallet. Perhaps it's back at my hotel room. I don't really know.”

I take out some money and put it on the counter; we sit down in a booth.

The man swigs a big mouthful of beer, holds out his hand and shakes mine.

“Ulrich,” he says. “And I know your name.”

He takes off his jacket and folds it. His shirt has circles of sweat under the armpits.

“I don't know if I ever answered your question. But I think your paintings are really good.”

He cleans his glasses with his shirt.

“Of course, that's just my opinion. I'm a lawyer. Or rather, I was. But I've wanted to work with art for a long time.”

The more beers I order, the better my paintings get.

When I start ordering schnapps with the beers, my paintings are the best he has seen for years.

It's past midnight when Ulrich slams the palm of his hand so hard against the table that the people near us turn around.

“I want to see some more,” he roars. “You must have some more paintings.”

I get up; I suddenly realize how much we've drunk. Ulrich bumps into parked cars along the street and triggers a couple of car alarms. We pass the street where Petra lives. I know she's waiting for me; I consider making up an excuse so I can go up to her. Then I hear a loud metallic sound: Ulrich has accidentally torn the side mirror off a car. He picks it up, he tries to put it back again, all the time on the verge of falling over. I support him while we cross the bridge.

I let him in and ask him to be quiet. He lifts a finger to his lips, putting his feet on each step with exaggerated caution like someone miming that they're tiptoeing.

I turn on the light. Ulrich remains in the doorway, looking at the paintings that fill my room. He says a German swear word I don't know and now seems much more clear-headed.

“We need some light,” he says.

I hold the bedside table lamp for him, aim it at the pictures while he moves around, squats down in front of them.

“Didn't we pass some pictures in the hall?”

He drags them in, leans them up against the bed, holds the lamp up to them.

We sit on the
bed, he has seen all the pictures, we share the last of my cigarettes.

“You're good,” he says, smoothing his tie across his knee. “I can't remember where my hotel is. Would it be all right if I slept here?”

He doesn't wait for an answer. He lies down on the floor next to my bed, folds his jacket, and uses it as his pillow. He falls asleep in seconds; I can hear one of his nostrils giving out a faint squeak.

I wake up alone in the room and swallow a couple of Kasper's Dutch headache pills.

I had some banknotes and coins lying on the table under the window. Now they're gone. On the back of a train ticket the man from last night has written that he's very sorry, but that he'll get the money back to me somehow.