Hannah stuck a cigarette between her lips. Andreas reached down to feel in his pockets, but the poet was quick to strike a match. The smoke shrouded her face. Erased it for a few moments. Andreas stared at the small white particles that moved like some dancing organism in front of her. She waved the smoke away and poured a large draft for a man at the bar.
Normally you could set your watch to Sebastian. Hardly an evening went by without him stopping in, if not precisely at ten then never more than a few minutes past.
This evening the expected guest didn’t show until twentyfive minutes past. Andreas spotted him at once. As always, he wore an Iceland sweater and a deep-blue windbreaker. His dark hair had fallen over his eyes, and he ran his hand through it as he stepped in out of the murk. Stooped shoulders and a dragging gait. The usual preoccupied expression on his face.
“He’s here now,” Andreas said, turning to the others. “He just walked in.”
The poet raised up on his barstool and scanned the bar. “Well I don’t see him. Where is he?”
Andreas pointed toward the door. Sebastian must have slipped into the crowd, because he couldn’t see the author now.
“He was right here just a few seconds ago.”
The poet snorted and sat back down. Andreas squinted and tried to make out the figures. Most of them melted into the haze. Until he showed up again. Sebastian. There was no mistaking him. It looked as if he had fallen into conversation with some people at one of the tables. Without so much as glancing at the bar he unzipped his jacket, ran his fingers through his hair several times, and seemed to let himself be drawn deeper and deeper into the conversation. Slowly the clouds of smoke enveloped him, blurring him out.
“He’s here,” Andreas said. “I see him.”
“Then what in the world is keeping him?” the novelist said. “You’d think he’s trying to avoid us.”
“He
is
turning thirty-nine, poor guy,” the man in the checkered shirt said, laughing.
“Yeah, that’s just it,” the poet said, and asked Hannah to turn down the music. “Come on, boys.” He lifted his arms and prepared to conduct. “One, two, three:
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Sebastian, happy birthday to you.
”
The three men sang the birthday song at the top of their lungs, and soon the rest of the bar joined in. Except Andreas. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like singing. Actually, he never had.
Sebastian came into sight through the haze. He gazed stiffly at them. Possibly he considered turning and walking off. That would be just like him, to get up and leave, but no, he nodded to the people at the table and shuffled up to the bar. The men kept howling. Louder and louder.
When Sebastian mounted the one available barstool without batting an eyelid, the men fell silent.
“Happy birthday, old boy,” said the man in the checkered shirt, slapping Sebastian on the back.
“Happy birthday,” the novelist said, and poured whiskey into a glass.
“Happy twenty-five.” The poet burst out in loud laughter. The other two joined in, swept up in the moment.
Sebastian didn’t show any response. He laid a hand on Andreas’s shoulder. The hand was slender and cool. Bad circulation, perhaps, or else the raw cold outside had turned the thin pianist-like fingers quite red and stiff. The cold penetrated Andreas’s shirt and raised the hair on his body. In the six months they had known each other, this was the first physical contact they’d had. Maybe the hand on the shoulder was a spontaneous act, to show that he liked Andreas’s writing, or maybe he was just pleased that Andreas hadn’t joined in on the song. Who could know. Sebastian was not often easy to read.
He removed his hand and turned, smiling at Hannah behind the bar. That classic, boyish smile that was always written about in interviews. The perfect rows of chalky white teeth.
A true Hollywood smile
. The front teeth were broad and a bit longer than average. It was a splendid unit, that set of teeth.
“Happy birthday, Sebastian,” Hannah said with a gleam in her eye. She raised her glass. Andreas noticed that she had color in her cheeks. Sebastian nodded and held his smile. That’s all it took. That’s how easy it was for him.
The man in the checkered shirt pulled out a present and laid it in front of him.
“How touching,” Sebastian said. “It
is
touching, isn’t it?” Still smiling, he looked at Andreas. “On such close terms with the editor, indeed, indeed.” He began loosening the ribbon. His fingers were still freezing, almost blue. Though it was warm inside. Very warm.
Several women had bare arms and shoulders, and Andreas took his shirt off, which left him wearing only an old, dingy T-shirt with faded-out printing on the chest.
I Love New York
, it had once said, but now it was unreadable. As far as Andreas knew, Sebastian always kept his outer clothes on. He had never seen him wearing anything other than the Iceland sweater and the blue windbreaker that he always unzipped when he came in the bar and zipped up when he left.
“Would you look at this,” he said, and lifted a small elephant made from dark mahogany out of the box.
“I was thinking it could sit on your desk,” the editor said.
“On my desk, a cute little elephant on my desk, huh? That was what you thought?”
The editor cleared his throat. “Yes, that’s what I was thinking.”
Sebastian looked at Hannah.
“You get presents?” she asked, and leaned over the bar. Her low-cut blouse exposed the upper part of her breasts and made the pale skin appear even more radiant than usual. Sebastian gave her the elephant.
“Those tusks are really long,” she said. She held it up in front of her.
“Do you know how many sets of teeth elephants go through in a lifetime?” he said. “Six. When the last set wears out they starve to death.”
The editor grinned and nodded with satisfaction. “It’s a brilliant novel. The best you’ve written.”
“There
is
no novel,” Sebastian said, thin-lipped.
“What are you talking about? I have the second set of page proofs lying on my desk.”
“There will be no novel.” He held his glass out to Hannah, who filled it. She set the elephant on the bar, but Sebastian grabbed her wrists and closed her hands around the small wooden figure.
“Put it on your nightstand and think of me,” he said.
“I’d rather read your novel.”
“Do you read novels, sweet girl?”
Hannah smiled mischievously and set the elephant aside. She leaned forward again and nearly blinded them with her luminous breasts.
“I read almost everything,” she said. “But a novel about elephants is probably not something for me.”
Her cleavage was like a dark and warm cave between two snowdrifts. Andreas reached over and picked up his glass. The smoky whiskey burned his throat.
“It’s not about elephants,” the editor said.
“Small cute elephants.” Sebastian smiled and stepped down off the stool. “Small cute elephants to hide under your pillow, to rock yourself to sleep. Small cute elephants can go everywhere, they can be hidden between your legs, Hannah, they can rock you to sleep.”
He left the elephant where it was, sent the bartender a kiss with his fingers, and, without uttering another word, turned to go.
“There’s shooting down on Blågårds Square,” a man at the door yelled.
Sebastian disappeared into the crowd.
It was the second time that week. Andreas had seen it on television. Gangs at war, they said. It had happened just outside his apartment building’s door, but he hadn’t heard a thing.
People grew uneasy. Several stood up from their tables and gathered around the bar. Hannah blew smoke down over the elephant and turned the music off. It was for the best, given all the confusion. People were quick to turn panicky, even though nothing had happened. Several chairs were overturned and candles blown out. Perhaps it was like being on a boat about to capsize, knowing that you’ll be one of the few to survive. Andreas couldn’t help smiling. He looked toward the door, but the dim lighting and all the jittery customers made it impossible to see if Sebastian was still inside.
Like Andreas, the three other “birthday guests” were still seated at the bar. They were silent. Dejected, perhaps. But not scared. Andreas considered saying something about Sebastian—or the shooting. Hannah poured them more whiskey. He smiled at her. She smiled back. Wasn’t it times like these that you should go for it? He drank up and stepped down off the barstool. Put on his coat and turned to go. That was how it should be. So simple.
He had to push his way through the crowd. The sweat from all the bodies. A woman’s hair brushed his face. The smell of paraffin and smoke. There were sirens outside. The blue flashes lit up the dim bar.
He waited until the sound of the sirens had disappeared before leaving. It was drizzling, but it didn’t feel as cold as it had earlier. The water puddle at his feet reflected a blurry moon. He looked up, but he couldn’t spot it anywhere. Empty racks stood at the vegetable shop across the street. A few cardboard boxes lying in front of the shop were getting wet. Everything seemed normal, except there were no people. He turned and peered down the street at Blågårds Square. He was alone out here unless someone was hiding in a doorway. There were no police cars, either—maybe they’d already left the area. It had been a false alarm, no doubt about it. He considered going back inside the bar to assure everyone that the danger was past, but he decided not to. It seemed as if the panic had created a certain mood, a common bond among them. He wouldn’t be the one to break the illusion. Instead he headed toward the square.
Something must have happened, for even though midnight was more than half an hour away, all the cafés and restaurants were closed. The shop windows weren’t lit up as usual, either. Several streetlights had gone out. On a Saturday evening. Even the World Cup never left Blågårds Street deserted.
The square seemed lifeless too. The naked, dark trees surrounding it stood stock-still. Andreas walked over to Apoteket, where the intellectual alcoholics sat in the summer and listened to jazz under the linden trees. There was not a person in sight.
He eyed the ball court, which was lined by a low granite wall. Dark statues sat silent along the edge—he knew each one, but now they were indistinguishable from one another. He’d forgotten that the court was iced over in winter so the kids could skate. Now it seemed almost radiant in the dark. Andreas wanted to feel the ice under his feet. He walked down the stone steps and caught sight of someone out in the middle.
He saw at once who it was.
The rain had made the ice extremely slick, and he almost slipped. He jerked his hands out of his pockets and regained his balance. Idiotic. He headed toward the middle. The court couldn’t have been more than twelve meters wide, but it felt much bigger.
When Andreas reached him, Sebastian smiled his smile. “The story about the sick mother,” he said. “You’ve got something there.”
“The sick mother?”
“Yes, that’s the best one.”
“I haven’t written any story about a sick mother.”
“‘The Elephant’s Tusks.’”
“I thought that was the title of your novel.”
“Why did you think that?”
“I don’t know.”
Andreas looked over at the redbrick buildings at the end of the square. It could be called a ghetto of sorts, and almost all the people living there were immigrants.
“Who got shot?” he asked, and looked again at Sebastian. His teeth were the same color as the ice under their feet. Gleaming white.
“It was deserted when I got here,” Sebastian said. “There’s nobody here at all.”
Andreas looked down at his sneakers. His toes had begun to freeze.
“‘The Elephant’s Tusks’ is a good title, but there are a few things I’d like to discuss with you.”
Andreas nodded. He crossed his arms and slapped his body for warmth. “What about the other stories? I don’t remember the one about the mother.”
“The one about the mother is the best one. No doubt about it, the best.”
Andreas felt his lips stretching into a smile. This was what he’d been waiting for. Why couldn’t he remember the story about the mother, then, and that title? Sebastian took his arm and led him across the ice. Apparently his leather boots were better suited than sneakers for slippery surfaces.
They walked together back toward the bar. The drizzle was letting up. Blågårds Street still looked dark and deserted.
“Did you hear all those sirens too, just awhile ago?” Andreas said.
“No,” Sebastian replied. “It’s been quiet the entire time I’ve been outside.”
At the corner of Baggesens Street, right beside the bicycle shop, at number 10, Sebastian took a key from his pocket and opened the door.
“Are you living here? I live right across the street, number 13.”
“Yes, I know.” Sebastian turned the hallway light on and stepped inside. “Come on.”
“Won’t we wake your mother?”
“No, she’s a heavy sleeper.” He pulled down the zipper of his jacket. Andreas could feel his socks, wet now.
The apartment was on the top floor. The dark hallway smelled old and dusty. It was easier to get their bearings after Sebastian opened the door to the living room, but the smell persisted. It was a strange odor. Andreas took off his shoes. “You don’t have to do that in here,” Sebastian said.