In front of the altar the priest awaits you. He’s learned some Slovenian words for the occasion, but who cares, you’re not marrying the priest, if you marry at all. You come back down to earth; now beneath your shoes there’s red coconut matting, the ceiling is high, that’s what cathedrals are for, to make people yearn for the heights, for the heavens. They are playing the wedding march and you’re still weighing your options. You stand on the right; on the benches behind you are your people and on the benches behind Goran, his, and they all know what’s going to happen, everyone does, apart from you. Near the ceiling a bird flies silently; the windows in the cupola, which seems to be sinking beneath the evening light, are open, and the bird too is seeking a way out. If you wrote that down somewhere no one would believe it, what a stale metaphor they would say, but the bird really is there and it really is seeking a way out. If it finds one, you think, if it finds one that will be a sign and you will say no, and try to salvage what can be salvaged. If it doesn’t, you’ll say yes and all the mothers in the church will cry, moved, and all the men outside the church will then shout she’s ours…
The priest is saying something, Goran is swaying almost imperceptibly, people are clearing their throats, flashes are flashing. When the priest asks you, Nuša, do you take… you forget to look at the bird and you say…
[DENMARK]
CHRISTINA HESSELHOLDT
Camilla and the Horse
…and the blood of love welled up in my heart with a slow pain.
First we go into an expensive Italian restaurant across from the strip club and drink a bottle of wine to kill time, it soon becomes clear that the waiter is attracted to my husband, who’s getting older but is still hot-blooded. The waiter’s getting older too, he’s been photographed with both Sophia Loren and Helmut Kohl in this restaurant, and that arouses my husband’s interest. By now it must be nine o’clock, and we cut across the intersection to the opposite corner. We go in. I start by asking whether it’s okay for me to be there even though I’m a woman. I do that to ingratiate myself and make contact. It’s perfectly okay, and we’re also the only guests. The girl behind the bar is from Romania and strong with short hair. My husband thinks I’m good at making contact and taking things easy. You have to be careful not to praise me too much, because it really gets me going, and then I can cross the line and become totally unstoppable. There are so many hookers I can’t even tell you how many; we’re the only guests and weren’t planning on buying sex, I tell the bartender this several times. That’s perfectly okay too, we can just drink, three drinks are included in the price of admission, I take the strongest one and down it fast. Up on stage the show begins, a mulatto girl makes the expected movements and gestures with and around a pole until she’s naked. I think about the circus and great fatigue, wearying routines, because I’d rather not say “like a tired circus animal.” As soon as she’s leaving the stage she gets self-conscious, she bows her head and presses her costume against her stomach.
Meanwhile, at the bar: a woman has taken the stool beside me, another Romanian (from here on I’ll refer to her as my darling), I ask her if she’s familiar with Herta Müller, she asks for titles, I mention The Fox Was then Ahead of the Hunter, it’s not an easy title in German, not for me, with my German; her German isn’t so great either, she’s taking courses and claims she speaks German that’s 85% correct. I don’t know how to respond, “the modal auxiliaries, you know,” she says. Those I know. But then I realize that I’ve completely forgotten how articles and nouns are declined, and that nothing I’ve said has meant a thing. In effect I’ve spoken German that is 0% correct, so I switch to English. I’m sitting with my back to my husband, he’s very interested in hearing what we’re talking about, and once in a while I turn around and give him a summary. Then he nods and puts some additional questions. I ask my darling if she sends money home to her elderly parents, because you always read about that, but no, they didn’t help her, so why should she help them. “Is that a bit harsh?” my darling asks. It seems harsh to me. It seems that way even to my darling. Each time we slip my husband into the conversation, she treats him with great respect, he gets all the time he wants. This makes me jealous, I really want her full attention.
“Do you want to buy him,” I ask, “for 300 euros?”
She looks at him to see if he’s amused, and he is.
“Oh, that’s expensive, that’s expensive,” she says.
“He’s a little old, but he’s good,” I say, “he fucks like a stallion.”
“Ah, a stud-boy,” she says.
“Some boy,” I say.
“Prince Charles,” she says to him, and he likes that.
My husband leans back on his bar stool and laughs, my darling laughs, I laugh. It occurs to me that I’m using her time and I ask if she wants to be paid for talking to me.