We spoke for another hour. Mostly about the book fair, interviews and foreign interest in In the Red Zone. There had already been offers from Germany and Norway, a good indicator of further foreign sales. My breakthrough novel, Outer Demons, and its successor, Inner Demons, had sold reasonably well outside Denmark, but since then there have been no takers. The future prospects of In the Red Zone sounded promising, and the more Finn talked to me about contracts and expectations, the more hopeless it appeared to be to try and stop the huge machine that had been set in motion.
On the way out, I picked up my post from reception. Ellen had put a small stack of letters and a single packet in a black plastic bag with the company’s logo.
‘I hope it’s a hit,’ she said, smiling.
‘So do I,’ I replied and returned her smile. Ellen is one of those thoroughly decent people who do their job without complaint and is always kind. I have never heard her speak ill of anyone and she has an aura of authority and professionalism that is a great asset to the company.
‘We need it,’ she whispered, looking around embarrassed.
I leaned over the counter. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We need a bestseller,’ she whispered. ‘It’s been a while since we’ve had one and I think money is a bit tight.’
‘Finn didn’t say anything about that.’
Ellen shook her head. ‘He would be the last person to admit it,’ she said. ‘Or he’s just pretending he isn’t worried to protect the rest of us.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘If your new book doesn’t sell, the future looks bleak. That’s why he’s making such a big thing of it. He would do anything to promote that book.’
Getting this far hasn’t been easy.
My intention of switching off all emotion and letting the words flow unstinted has proved harder than I expected. There is nothing wrong with my memory, but my subconscious tries to manipulate the images that emerge when I add the words. The timing appears slightly better, the dialogue more polished or the mood lighter.
However, this kind of fraud won’t go unpunished. I feel there is someone in the room with me, hiding in the shadows. A critic looking over my shoulder, constantly aware of the errors I make and upsetting my concentration every time I’m disloyal to the project. Then my body fills with dread, a nervousness that doesn’t cease until I go back and rewrite the chapters where I was insincere, passages where I omitted details or toned down my behaviour.
It’s not until I have corrected discrepancies and lies that I’m permitted to carry on, even more naked now and in the certain knowledge that it can only get worse.
10
WHEN I WAS young, I had no intention of getting married. Marriage was an artificial construct that, at worst, was based on religion, i.e. a lie, and at best was a bureaucratic manoeuvre to improve your tax status, i.e. hypocrisy. This was the general attitude among us in the commune and we took every opportunity to voice it. Later, when I got married, it wasn’t for rational reasons – I simply couldn’t help it.
I remember the months after meeting Line as one long series of revelations. She surprised me again and again with her humorous nature and the convergence of our interests. When we made love it was with an intimacy and intensity I had never experienced before. I couldn’t believe a relationship could be like this. We could talk about everything, and we did; we usually had the same attitude towards political issues, but on the rare occasions we disagreed we could have a debate without the mood turning ugly. We spent practically all our time together, interrupted only by our respective studies and work.
Line was the youngest of four siblings; she had two sisters and a brother and it soon became clear to me that her family was very close-knit. Rarely a day went by without her being in contact with one of her sisters and at least once a week we’d have dinner with her father. I’d been invited over for dinner after only two weeks, and everyone welcomed me and treated me with the greatest kindness. The family was mourning for the mother, but they still had the generosity to include me in their group. Line’s father, Erik, was an engineer who worked for the government. He designed motorway bridges, an occupation that had also become his hobby. In Erik’s study in the villa on Amager were miniature models of over twenty bridges and he could tell the story of every single one of them – not without a certain amount of pride.
Line’s sisters were also dancers and resembled her so much that I always felt a little awkward in their company. It was like being with three versions of Line at yearly intervals; I could tell how she would age and that certainly wasn’t bad at all. Her brother had followed in his father’s footsteps and worked as an engineer for a consultancy firm in Lyngby. The first time I met him he had just accepted a posting to Africa where he would build a water purification plant, but he had postponed his departure by a month following the death of his mother.
I recall get-togethers with Line’s family as relaxed and yet lively and engaging. With so many children, their partners and grandchildren, there was an incredible maelstrom of people, but it never became superficial or meaningless. They accepted without question that I wanted to make my living by writing – something my parents never did – and when Line’s family asked how my work was going, they were referring to my books and not to whatever casual job I happened to be doing at the time.
Unfortunately I was struggling with the writing and I produced little in the first few months. I only managed some editing of In the Dead Angle and the scathing reviews it received did nothing for my motivation. If I hadn’t been with Line, I would probably have fallen into a black hole of self-pity and rage, but with her around, the negative feedback didn’t matter all that much. It was impossible to be upset for very long in her company; she could always make me laugh with a remark or one of her smiles.
Bjarne was almost as fond of Line as I was. Line was a superb cook while I regarded myself as being something of a wine connoisseur and Bjarne benefited from both. The three of us would often eat together and sometimes our after-dinner debates would last well into the night.
Mortis didn’t join in. He isolated himself, shut himself in his room to write, he claimed, and became increasingly sullen. His mood deteriorated to such an extent that even I, in my deep infatuation, couldn’t help noticing, and it was at that point that I discovered it was Mortis who had invited Line to the Angle party in the first place. I tried to talk to him about it, but I was probably more concerned with describing how lovely Line was and ultimately only succeeded in making matters worse.
He must have breathed a sigh of relief when three months after the Angle party I announced I was moving out of the commune and into Line’s flat on Islands Brygge. According to Bjarne, Mortis cheered up visibly after my departure. He resumed talking to me when I visited without Line, but the relationship between us was never the same again. My room was rented out and during the years that followed there was a high turnover of lodgers. They were all obsessed with writing, the original inspiration behind the commune, but the companionship was never as harmonious as it had been in the first few years.
The last lodger, Anne, fell in love with Bjarne’s gentle nature, and he fell in love with her. Like Line, Anne was a fantastic cook and Bjarne had to admit there was some truth in the proverb that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. You could tell Anne was rather too fond of food simply by looking at her. She was big, not obese as such, but because she was of medium height, her weight tended to look rather excessive and I think it upset her more than she ever let on. She was always happy and welcoming, one of those people who remembers what you told them and asks interested follow-up questions the next time you meet.