Salinger's Letters (17 page)

A million voices down below whispered to us: ‘Help me! Help me get out of purgatory.'

Help came swiftly this time. Back in Copenhagen Nora was walking down Gothersgade when she got the message. Nora was the obvious candidate for this job. She crossed the street and entered the Botanical Gardens. She squatted on the grass. Cupping her hands in front of her face, she exhaled gently in puffs and gusts, murmuring: ‘Marilyn, Marilyn, Marilyn.'

Her words wafted over Copenhagen, drifted west over Denmark and continued across the North Sea, becoming a hurricane as they crossed the Atlantic. Hurricane warnings were issued for the greater New York area and Hurricane Marilyn slammed into the city. The hurricane tore into the millions of pictures of Marilyn Monroe on posters, billboards and objects. The pictures whirled together forming an image that filled the sky above New York. Marilyn waved goodbye. In the city below not one single image of her was left. She was out of Purgatory now and a moment later passed over into the land of the dead.

At that moment my fifteen minutes of fame were up. Amanda, Warhol and I were free to take the elevator down to the street without being noticed.

Amanda took my hand as we walked down the street.

Andy took leave of us at Union Square. ‘My fortune teller informs me I'll be dead in a few months. When I am, I'd like to ask you a favor, Dan.'

‘Of course.'

‘Put me in a little corner of the Salinger Syndrome. Include a sub-section on the Warhol cure. Love your depression. That's my advice, Warhol's advice: Love Amanda. She's given you everything. Give her what we all need, kindness, attention, love.

Andy raised his hand in farewell and disappeared into the crowd.

At that very moment, standing there in Union Square, looking after Andy Warhol, it happened, what I had prayed for my whole life. I got my own eyes. It was a calm, peaceful experience. The eyes I was seeing with were now my own, and the voice I spoke with when I opened my mouth was my own too.

‘Amanda, I love you.'

‘I know,' she said and put her arm around my neck and kissed me.

‘How long have you known, Amanda?'

‘None of your business,' she said and kissed me again.

 

 

I'm the only one at the Factory with fixed working hours. I'm always at work on the stroke of 8 and leave at precisely 4.15 p.m.

We never arrive at the factory at the same time in the morning. Only once in the history of the Factory did we all meet in the morning on the sidewalk in front of the Factory. It was late January 2010. Turning the corner from Oster Farimagsgade I saw a sight I'd never seen before: Puk, Boris and Nora were standing on the sidewalk in front of the door to the Factory.

My first thought was that the door was stuck, the lock was broken. When I reached them Nora said quietly, ‘Salinger is dead.'

‘Where did you hear that?' I asked evenly.

Puk said, ‘It was on the Internet last night. I've been up all night working.'

Boris pointed out, ‘He was 91.'

My first thought was of a dead plant, the plant Salinger had stolen from Freud's garden in London was dead now; it had withered and Salinger died the next day.

My eyes filled with tears and a moment later tears were running down my cheeks.

Nora had a handkerchief ready. She smiled at me. ‘I'm glad you're crying Dan. You were fond of Salinger and he deserves your tears.'

I dried my eyes. The other three looked at each other to see which of them going to tell me what they had agreed. The lot fell on Boris. ‘The rest of us talked last night. It turns out we all have pretty much the same reaction to Salinger's death and it seems none of us knows why.'

He fell silent and looked at Puk and Nora.

It was Nora's turn: ‘We decided once many years ago that we wanted the factory to last our whole lives. So we agreed never to rock the boat by seeing each other privately and risk draining all the energy out of our friendship.'

Puk took over. ‘That was my idea, back then. Now I have another idea. I suggest we become friends, personal friends. If you want to be friends with me, that is, and with the others?'

I replied, ‘Salinger would have understood perfectly.'

We celebrated the start of our new friendship by not going to work that day. We walked down Gothersgade, turned right into Kronprinsessegade and sat down in Café Sommersko.

We stayed there over coffee until lunchtime. After lunch we stayed on until we'd got hold of our families. And there, along with our husbands and wives and children and grandchildren and a dog concealed in a bag we all had dinner together for the first time.

Boris' oldest son Carl raised his glass: ‘To Salinger', he said.

The rest of us joined in, repeating in unison: ‘To Salinger.'

I turned and looked straight into Beate's eyes.

And then for the first time in I thought of Ulla Ladegaard, my fairy tale therapist. I hadn't thought of her since I had made her a promise all those years ago. I'm thinking of you now, Ulla, when you said love is what moves the sun and the stars.

 

 

 

 

 

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