Justine (16 page)

The photo program opens, thirty something pictures pop up on the screen, I immediately make two groups: self-portraits (staged photography) and self-portraits (snapshots), which means, since it's only me in the pictures, that: 1. It's me pretending to be something else, and: 2. It's me being me.

I try to divide the pictures between them, but they insist on leaving their assigned group and scattering. I decide to create a few sub-groups: 3. Self-portraits (unsuccessfully staged pictures turned snapshots), and: 4. Anti-self portraits (unsuccessfully staged pictures failed to become snapshots, loss of control), and: 5. Non-category.

I shift the pictures around again, it's like they're multiplying, now they're caught in so many layers that I can't keep track of them, wait, wasn't there also an opening I was supposed to go to. Didn't I promise myself . . . I grab a couple of beers and head out.

I
t's a small place, a small basement gallery, nothing uncomfortable, just some people from the school and such, all standing out on the street and smoking, and there's Jens Erik, he's the one exhibiting down there in the bright space on a balmy evening.

“Hey, Justine, come have a beer, they're in the window.”

Warm beer and Jens Erik's works are a good combination. He's taken photos of the graffiti found around Vesterbro's streets and has made patterns of them. It's kaleidoscopic, these mystical mandalas that draw the eye around the designs and “what beautiful movements,” says Rikke, she's here, too. “You don't even notice that the words ‘fuck' and ‘shit' are actually in the patterns.”

I think Jens Erik's pictures are fantastic, and I can tolerate Rikke only at a distance. Two hip-hopsters are at the turntable, and now Jens Erik goes up and scratches until his beer bursts, the show gathers and becomes black vinyl, people rotate by, the crowd is at a comfortable distance, and here in the corner is my overlook.

My plan was to hide from anyone who wanted to talk to me. I knew that they'd ask how it was going, and it's going to hell, no one can fail to overlook that, not even myself.

But see: Here comes Torben, goddamnit. He doesn't see me, I'm invisible to him. Torben throws an arm around Jens Erik, who's finished with the records, and says, as far as I can make out through the din, that it's aces what he's done, total aces. He jerks his head, jerks it back, he laughs and throws back his head. Ha. Ha. I stuff a couple of beers into my pocket, because being unable to cope with yourself is one thing, being unable to cope with this underground gallery for one second longer is another.

“You've got some nerve,” says Torben, who's managed to find me nonetheless, who slaps my ass with his eyes.

“You're an idiot,” I say.

I
take some photographs in The Factory's workshop. The Salvation Army, the nursing gown, the rainwear, some glasses, the beard, all the nice costumes zip around the studio and want to enter the iris, but I keep them out because I've decided they can't play. Now they're heaped on the chair. I've decided, and it's me who decides, that I'll only photograph my body, and it'll be as simple as possible. I'm wearing white panties and a bra, and I oscillate back and forth between the camera and stage and assume every possible position.

Things between me and the camera and the stage are much better now, in any case much better than they were at first. I've stopped screaming and kicking things, but instead hurry to the camera, hit the timer, and then hurry back to the stage. My body is more tranquil now despite these quick releases. I can work with it, unfold it from within to sorrow, to sorrow and general unhappiness, and to jealousy. The picture I snapped just then was amusing. You can't call it bliss, but I did laugh from somewhere on the inside. That was wonderful.

A
nd now I've just been to Bo's to see the pictures on the computer again. They actually do look better.

W
hy the hell didn't Vita say she had someone else? I know she'd say it was none of my business, but it certainly was, it most definitely was my business. Every sticky detail touches on me, the drooping teats, the hedgehog hair, she wasn't even attractive. Neither are you, she'd say, Vita. The cow. Hell yeah I am, in any case I'm better looking than that old hedgehog. Shit, I can see that with my own good eye. She sat on my couch. She sat in my garden and drank from my glass. She sat on you. You were someone else, but you looked like yourself. You were hers.

What were you planning to do, stroll past my house hand-in-hand with her? Good thing I'm not there anymore, huh?

A
ne stands in the studio. She entered without knocking, just to find out if I'm finished with the camera, because she'd like it back so she can take some pictures of her work. She's also different. There's a new energy about her. Everything is in a flutter.

“How's it going?” she asks.

“Vita's with someone else.”

She looks at me. I'm a mountain to be hurdled.

“I know,” she says.

“You do?”

“She told me just after Christmas.”

“But back then we were still together?”

She looks like a tough hen.

“What, did you talk about it?” I ask.

“Of course we did. She doesn't have many other people to talk to. Chill out, Justine.”

What did she say to Vita? How did she say it? In what words? Where did she put the emphasis? And why are both of my eyes suddenly clear-sighted?

U
sing eyeliner I draw a dotted pattern down my chin. Using lipstick I make two lines on each cheek. On my forehead I affix a red mark from an old exhibition. I look, and I look good. That's some sweet war paint.

The bus is stifling, and no one does anything about it. I have to squeeze between the people who stand pressed together in the center aisle, next to a man who mutters that it's only the driver who can open the window. Now I hardly have any air, and what's he standing there mumbling for, the big idiot.

Luckily, we're nearly inside the city. We drive past Christiansborg. At Kongens Nytorv we idle between cars and buses in a long line waiting to reach the actual bus stop.

People get off. They wonder what's wrong, no one knows anything. There's probably a demonstration up ahead.

Now three police cars drive directly across the square, weaving in and out of the planters and trees. The cars try to pull onto the sidewalk so the police can make progress. Now they somewhat make it through the congestion.

I sprint with the others up Bredgade. It's a contingent of the country's free-roaming tramps speeding along with old strollers hung with raccoon tails, and some young people. We race toward the shouts and commotion ahead.

Now there's the smell of fire. From the church I can see down to the courtyard through a cloud of smoke. People swarm up the street to escape. It stabs at your nose and eyes, and I take off my T-shirt and hold it before my face.

Suddenly, there are policemen right before me pushing their way forward with shields, flying bottles fill in the air. A rock whizzes over the police and lands next to me. And there's Åsa in some policeman's arms. He's holding her away from him, so that her arms and legs operate like drumsticks in the air. She shouts soundlessly. I run toward the policemen, I'm a battering ram, I bash straight into a club.

I
‘m lying there gently rocking. It's a little cooler today. And firm. Now I touch ground. And there. There on the beach is Torben. He looks like himself. Just so. He steps close. Now I can see that his nose resembles a moonscape. He bends over me. I can see right into his brain. He laughs in my face with breath like old fish. I want to roll away from beneath him, but he falls on top of me. Heavy. Not just heavy, but reeking and heavy, I'm being pulverized by bad air.

Somehow I've freed my leg and can bend it, I drive my knee straight into your crotch, you howl, fall back. I stand up and jump over you, I kick your body, that makes you turn over so I can really see you lying there beneath me. You grab your bulge with both hands, don't go unzipping this time, you, it won't work.

You snort, just as loudly as you snorted that evening. Oh certainly, of course I wanted to, no doubt about it, that was the whole idea. She'd hear it and taste it, how she'd regret it when your dick squelched in and out the evening it burned, because “now I remember, you sorry shit, I remember it all. I said no, when it came right down to it, I said no, I didn't want to after all. Just because I was drunk didn't mean that I was horny. I couldn't do that to her, not to her, not to Ane. It took you by surprise. And me too. Otherwise, I'm always up for it, the fact is, I can't stop. But suddenly I couldn't anymore. And I told you that. But you acted like you didn't understand. You struck me. You struck me hard. You hit me so she heard it. I said NO. You slammed me to the ground, started pounding, pounded it right into the hole. Oh, the pain was horrendous. I'll pummel you. I'm pummeling you. Now you're lying there, Torben. There. I can put my foot on your chest. You pathetic pig. I spit in your sniveling face. You perverted, pathetic pig. Do you feel the pressure? Goddamn it, you're going to know how much I hate you. You're to blame for so many things. You're to blame for the house. And for Vita. Did you know that? She was in the armoire. Now the armoire is no more, and where does that leave Vita, do you think? Your fault. You did it. If you hadn't come, none of it would've happened. You brought me to it. I'll hit you, burn you, I'll never forgive, I'll never forgive myself. Never, never, never, I've already started to pay. Dearly. And now, goddamn me, you'll pay too. Are you whimpering, you salivating asshole? I'll tell you what you've done, in case you don't remember: You raped me in the ass. You burned me down. You razed it all, oh no, and Vita, oh no. Take
   
that
for
   
that.
I'm grinding my heal in your mouth, Torben, take that, grinding your teeth into your maw.”

W
hen Ane went into labor, I borrowed Vita's car and sped to her place. By the time I made it to her apartment, she way lying in the entryway and wailing with blood seeping between her legs and down her thighs. I called an ambulance, which arrived ten minutes later. The medics said it was a good thing I'd called and carried Ane downstairs. It took two men. On the ground they put Ane on the stretcher on all fours, she panted hysterically.

“I need to shit, I need to shit,” she said.

“No, you don't, you're about to give birth.”

“Yes, I do, I need to shit.”

“Don't push right now. You hear me? No matter what, don't push, you hear?” the ambulance driver shouted.

He looked like someone who knew what he was talking about.

We drove with sirens on to the hospital, Ane was wheeled into the maternity ward with me loping along behind her while I tried to figure out where Torben might be. During the next hour, the midwives and the doctors determined that the boy had the umbilical cord wrapped around his throat, and that he was breached, and so Ane was given a C-section.

She lay snuggled in the recovery room afterward. The baby, a big, beautiful boy, was doing well, the nurse said. She dressed him and handed him to me, so that I could hold him until Ane woke up. An oversized romper and a cap that kept sliding over his face. As soon as Ane came to, she took him. He just slept. Ane lay there with eyes dark and said nothing.

“Do you know where I can find him?” I asked.

To her there was only the baby.

“I think you should try to get some sleep. I'm sure he's on his way,” I said.

At six in the morning I drove all around Nørrebro and looked in at Café Louise. Torben was sitting at the bar, well, there's sitting and there's sitting, he was bent over an ash tray together with a yellow-haired girl, and it smelled of piss.

“I
hope you're better today,” George Kold says.

He sets a cup of coffee in front of me.

“You cried out during the night.”

“I cried out?”

“Yes. Or rather howled. I got up to see what was the matter. You just lay there on the floor howling.”

While I was lying here, they've been cleaning up outside, they're still driving the street sweeper around, I can hear the brushes. Now I sit up. A throbbing. George has gone to the back to make more coffee. Both my eyes can see. They focus on him. They're sharp. The lump is nothing more than a tender swelling on my temple, and I shake my head, no sensation, just a rotating faintness, my brain is full of memory loss.

Down on Bredgade they're in the process of removing a torched Mercedes, otherwise all is quiet, which is also the case when we head out of the city and onto the highway, there are hardly any cars.

“Here. Take my glasses,” George says.

How can a simple pair of sunglasses feel so entirely wonderful?