Authors: Mikkel Birkegaard
I was positively looking forward to going to Copenhagen.
BECOMING A WRITER
was never a conscious decision. It’s as if I was given no choice; all I can remember is writing, even before I actually knew how to. As a boy, I never drew cars or houses like the other children, but copied letters from newspapers and books. And I’d be convinced I had written a story, even if I had only copied a shopping list. Afterwards I would ‘read’ the story aloud to my parents, who listened willingly and were always encouraging.
Once I learned to write, it became my favourite occupation. Again, I would write when everyone else was drawing. I would imagine the drawing I could have made, but draw it with words. ‘The Red Indian on his horse sets fire to the fort with a burning arrow’ was one of my earliest works. I had a clear picture of the scene and could visualize it down to the last detail when I read my text. It frustrated my teachers and worried my parents so from time to time I would draw the occasional picture, mainly to reassure them. However, the alphabet always crept in: the elephant was an ‘a’, the house was an ‘H’ and birds ‘m’s against the blue-shaded sky.
After the first few years at school we stopped drawing pictures and my parents could heave a sigh of relief and start delighting in the top marks their son got in Danish. I wrote articles for the school newsletter and published my own stories, which I painstakingly transferred to blueprint paper, printed and handed out in the lunch break. It attracted a fair amount of attention, mainly because I did it all by myself.
At high school, I continued with my writing. I became the editor of the school’s weekly newsletter,
Posten
, in my first year and my sarcastic reporting style and acerbic editorials quickly made me one of the popular students. My appearance changed. I dyed my hair black, dressed in black and listened to The Cure. On special occasions I would wear black nail polish and eyeliner. I took up smoking, favouring obscure east European brands without filter, and my choice of alcohol was cheap whisky, usually J&B or King George.
To my great surprise I discovered that an inspired pen was extremely effective when it came to the opposite sex and I proved, on several occasions, that you could write the pants off a girl. Afterwards I would write up the conquest rather successfully as pornography and sell it. I always made sure that I obscured my ‘victim’s’ identity, but most of them worked it out anyway and some even felt honoured to be included in my library. It all enhanced my popularity and I attracted a small group of disciples. In best Cyrano de Bergerac style, we helped bashful students out of their painful state of virginity by writing love letters for them, or we forged letters from parents, in return for payment, obviously. There was nothing we couldn’t achieve with a
great
script or a poem, and this gave us the idea of forming a writers’ commune – a creative utopia where we would do nothing but read and write. We would devote ourselves to the written word with an earnestness and reverence worthy of monks. Our combination of pomposity and naivety makes me smile when I think about it now.
My parents assumed I would become a journalist. I had the talent and the grades for it and since I had shown an interest in the profession by writing school newsletters, their ambitions on my behalf were understandable. But it held no attraction for me. Journalism was too restrictive. I didn’t want to end up writing for
Ekstra Bladet
or some other tabloid. Control of the story and the word was crucial to us, and our view of literature as the finest medium of all left little room for compromise.
To my parents’ dismay, I and two of my writing buddies realized our dream of setting up our commune, the Scriptorium, as we named it, in a six-room luxury flat on Nørrebro near the Lakes in Copenhagen. This was before the area was renovated so the rent was still manageable even though the size and the location were at the top end.
My mother especially worried a great deal, but I think my father was so confident I would regret my decision and find my way into journalism eventually that he talked my mother into indulging my ‘fad’. The compromise we reached was that I would start a degree in literature, primarily to become eligible for a modest state-funded student grant. However, it didn’t quite cover our expenses, so my flatmates and I had to take whatever casual jobs we could get in order to pay the rent. In this respect we
weren
’t picky at all and we delivered letters, worked in shops and washed bottles at Carlsberg Brewery.
Much of our income was spent on cigarettes and whisky, which we believed fuelled our creativity. We often drank ourselves senseless during writing sessions lasting well into the early hours of the morning.
My two partners in crime were Bjarne and Morten. Bjarne was a huge, even-tempered bear of a man who wrote poems about nature and more spiritual subjects. He was impossible to provoke and often acted as a lightning conductor for the other two of us, whose tempers were more volatile. Bjarne and I had plenty of nicknames, but Morten was only ever known as Mortis because he was tall and pale and the subject of his writing was inevitably death in some form or other. His writing style was uncompromising and he was very sensitive to criticism. If we said anything negative about his work, he might not speak to us for days.
For my part, I experimented with different types of writing, but most of my output had strong sexual undertones. In this way we had, in our own opinion, covered the three most important subjects: life, sex and death.
When we weren’t writing, working or pretending to be studying, we partied.
Our parties were always popular and five or ten new faces would show up every time. This was quite all right with us, as long as they behaved themselves and brought a crate of beer, a bottle of spirits or something stronger. I don’t think our neighbours liked us all that much, but they never complained.
The most memorable party, for many reasons, was the
Angle
party, which we held three years after moving in. We had all tried to get our work published, but apart from Bjarne, who had managed to get a selection of his poetry published in an underground literature magazine – for no payment, of course – our efforts had been in vain. I had had ‘pretentious and lacking in structure’ thrown in my face after my first attempt at a novel, and Mortis was told that his texts were banal, naive and riddled with linguistic errors and clichés. It didn’t worry us or, more accurately, we refused to show our disappointment, and we reassured one another that we would never compromise our integrity.
The turning point for me came with
In the Dead Angle
, a genre study of a crime novel, in which I describe a murder from every possible angle, hence the title. Even though it was fairly flimsy and experimental, the publishing house, ZeitSign, liked it and offered to publish it. To this day I can’t imagine what the editor, Finn Gelf, saw in it, and I gather he was rather isolated in his view that it was any good, but at the time I was bursting with pride and delirious with success. I had cut a notch in the pistol handle of art, knocked my dent in the bonnet of literature and I felt close to immortal.
The critics slated
In the Dead Angle
and it barely sold two hundred copies, but when we held the Angle party, the publication date was still months away. I was thus blissfully ignorant of the reception the book would later get and simply wanted to throw the greatest party ever. There would be more guests, more alcohol and more drugs than ever before; plenty of girls and live music. Everyone was invited. And everyone came. The flat was swarming with people, of whom I knew only half.
That morning I had been to Nyhavn and had the book’s ISBN number tattooed round my upper arm, a ritual we had pledged to undergo with the publication of our first book. I had to take off my shirt again and again to show I had kept my promise, and most guests were duly impressed with the armband tattoo.
It happened in this sea of people, as it sometimes does when crowds gather, that suddenly a corridor opened up and I could see from the far side of the living room all the way to the front door.
Line was standing in the doorway.
She was wearing a short dress and high-heeled shoes, an outfit somewhat out of sync with the rest of the guests, who were dressed more casually, but she appeared oblivious to it. Her mousy brown hair reached just below her jawline and her face was rather ordinary with strong eyebrows, high cheekbones and a narrow nose. She looked nothing like a model and seemed out of place both as far as her dress and the party were concerned.
What knocked me out was her smile.
I know it’s a cliché and I would never have the audacity to write it in a novel, not even a romantic one, but that was what happened. She had a small wry smile that revealed a little of a row of perfect teeth and she exuded warmth and spontaneity. It took my breath away. Her gaze swept around the room and our eyes met for a brief moment before the crowd closed the gap between us.
During the time the commune had been in existence, we had all had our fair share of girls. We often scored at our own parties; it was a bad night if none of us got lucky. I wouldn’t go as far as to say there was competition between
us
, but it was a source of huge satisfaction to turn up for breakfast the following morning and introduce a girl with rumpled hair wearing only a man’s shirt.
When I saw Line that evening, I made a vow. She wouldn’t be another party trophy. This time my aim wasn’t a few days or a couple of weeks of casual sex. This was the real thing and it meant I had to be careful. I mustn’t sabotage my mission with crass remarks uttered under the influence of alcohol and drugs. On the contrary, I would try to avoid her. I might exchange a few words with her, so she would at least remember me, but my main aim would be to try to find out who she was and how I could see her again. I would woo her with a persistence and a chastity worthy of a Shakespeare play, but not until I was sober.
After about an hour I began to worry that she might have left. Perhaps she had even come to the wrong address – her clothes suggested it – and now she might be at her real destination, a couples’ dinner party at my neighbour’s with a five-course menu and matching wines. It was almost unbearable. I kept moving to keep my nerves under control, constantly checking if she was still around. It became increasingly difficult to maintain my cool exterior as host and harder still to focus on the conversations I got caught up in. If she had gone, all was lost.
I was more or less resigned to drinking myself senseless when I heard a woman’s voice behind me.
‘You’re not easy to find!’ The music was loud so she had to shout.
I turned around and came face to face with her smile. She laughed when she saw my reaction.
‘It’s OK, I have been invited.’
‘No, it’s just … I thought you had left,’ I stuttered and regretted it immediately.
‘Congratulations on the book,’ she said, holding out her hand. She had a drink in her other hand.
I took her hand. It was warm and dry and she gave my hand a quick squeeze.
‘Thank you!’ I shouted over the music. ‘Who are you?’ I asked before I could stop myself.
‘My name is Line and I’m a dancer!’ she shouted back, but thanks to the music I didn’t catch all of it.
‘A chancer?’
She started to laugh and it was impossible not to laugh with her. Then she placed a hand on my shoulder, pulled me closer and leaned into me at the same time.
‘My name is Line and I’m a dancer,’ she repeated, with her mouth very close to my ear.
I was aware of my face burning and I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead. She took a small step away from me without removing her hand from my shoulder and looked expectantly at me.
‘So … what are you waiting for?’ She looked me up and down.
I realized we were on the dance floor and she started to move, very slowly. I followed, encouraged by yet another one of her smiles, and we danced for fifteen minutes without speaking. Her blue eyes studied me. Every time I made to say something, she raised her eyebrows and leaned into me as if she wouldn’t want to miss a single sound I uttered. As a result, I couldn’t produce one word and she would move back with a grin. At last I had to
surrender
and laugh with her. I laughed from relief, so heartily that it brought tears to my eyes and everyone around started to laugh with us without knowing why.
When I had regained control of my voice and my body, I pulled her into me and hugged her.
‘I’m already crazy about you,’ I whispered into her ear.
Then it was her turn to blush and look away.
We were inseparable for the rest of the evening; we danced and laughed and talked. I had rediscovered my eloquence and told her of dreams and hopes I had never revealed to anyone, and she rewarded me with an intimacy and openness I had never experienced in another human being. In her company, personal space was reduced to zero and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to put my arm around her or hold her hand even though we had only known each other for a few hours.
Suddenly it was six o’clock in the morning and Bjarne started to clear up. Line and I sat alone on a sofa. The pauses between the words grew longer. I remember I genuinely didn’t want her to stay, something that surprised me a little, but I wanted the first time we slept together to be special. She may have been thinking the same thing because she leaned towards me and gave me a long kiss. She was sorry, she had to get to work, she said, but she would like to come back again if that was all right. I traced her fantastic mouth with my index finger and said she would most certainly have to.
But Line didn’t come back. Not the following day or the day after that. It was dreadful. I drove Bjarne and Mortis insane with my speculations about why she hadn’t contacted me.
Perhaps
she had only been toying with me, or worse: she had been in an accident. There was no end to my disaster theories. Mortis grew very irritated with me and it wasn’t until later that I realized why he was so touchy about Line.