The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood ; Youth ; Dependency

by Tove Ditlevsen

  The days pass steadily and evenly, and I’m always with Jabbe and the children. Being alone in my room makes me sad, and I have no desire to write. The kids get used to me, and now they run to me just as often as they run to Jabbe. Jabbe tells me that I should go out and meet people. She wants me to visit my family and my friends again, but something is holding me back. Maybe it’s my old fear that someone will find out what was happening at my house. One morning I wake up particularly depressed. I hear rain falling outside, and my room is filled with a gray, dreary light. The pharmacy window in Vordingborg appears with a clarity in my mind’s eye as if I hadn’t seen it only once, but a hundred times. I see the pile of paper on my desk. Just two, I think, two every morning, never more than that. What harm could it do? I get out of bed, shuddering with discomfort. Then I sit down at my desk, take out a pair of scissors, and cut out a rectangular-shaped piece of paper. I write it out carefully, get dressed, and tell Jabbe that I’m going for a morning walk. I signed Carl’s name, and I’m sure that, wherever he is in the world, he’ll cover for me, if it comes to that. When I get back, I take two pills and stand there looking at the bottle. I have allotted myself two hundred. I remember my suffering in rehab, and faintly I hear Borberg’s voice inside of me: You will soon forget. Suddenly I become frightened at myself, and I lock the pills inside the cabinet. I slide the key far under my mattress without really knowing why. When the pills take effect, I’m filled with bliss and initiative, and I sit down at my typewriter and write the first couplet of a poem which I have thought about working on for a long time. The first couplet always comes easy. When I’m done and I think the poem is good, I feel a strong urge to talk to Dr Borberg. I call him on the phone and he asks me how things are going. Good, I say. The sky is blue and the grass is greener than usual. There is a pause on the other end. Then he says sharply, Listen, what have you taken? Nothing, I lie, I just feel good. Why do you ask? Forget it, he says with a laugh, it’s just my suspicious nature.

  I go down to the kitchen and help Jabbe peel potatoes while the children swirl around us. It’s Sunday, so Helle is home from school. We have coffee at the kitchen table, and afterwards I go with the children into the nursery, where I read aloud for them from Grimms’ Fairy Tales. After lunch I feel so depressed and preoccupied that Jabbe asks me worriedly, Is something the matter? No, I say, I just need a nap. I go up and lie down, staring at the ceiling with my hands under my head. Two more, I think. That couldn’t do any harm, compared with how many I used to throw down in the old days. When I go into Carl’s room, I see that the key is not in the cabinet. Where in the world could I have put it? I have no idea, and suddenly I’m gripped with panic. An anxious sweat breaks out under my arms, and I turn the room upside down. I’m looking frantically and I realize that it’s Sunday. I’m pretty sure the pharmacy is closed. I empty all the desk drawers onto the table, turning them over, knocking their bottoms; but the key isn’t there. I need those pills, just two more, and I can’t think any further than that. I go downstairs. Jabbe, I say, something terrible has happened. The key to the cabinet is lost, and I have some papers in there that I need right away. It can’t wait until tomorrow. Practical Jabbe says that we can just call a locksmith. She did that once when she was locked out of the house. They work around the clock, she says, and she looks in the telephone book and finds me the number. I run upstairs to the telephone and explain to the man that a key to a desk has been lost. Inside the desk there’s some vital medicine that I need right away. Then he comes over and picks the lock. There you are, ma’am. Your sorrows are over. That will be twenty-five kroner. After he leaves, I take four pills and think, with the clear, observing part of my consciousness, that now I’m caught again, and that it’ll take a miracle to stop me. But the next day I take just two in the morning, like I had originally decided. And when the temptation to take more strikes, it seems to be enough to just hold the bottle in my hand. There it is and it’s not going anywhere. It’s mine and no one can take it away from me.

  A few nights later I’m awoken by the telephone. Hi, says a cottony voice, this is Arne. Sinne is in London, and when she comes back we’re getting divorced. But that’s not why I called. Victor and I are here at my house having a drink, and we want to come and visit you. It’s crazy that you and Victor have never met. Can we come over? No, I say, irritated. I’m sleeping. He continues, Then how about tomorrow, in broad daylight? To get rid of him, I say okay. When I’m back in bed, after having pulled the phone plug out, I remember that tomorrow is Jabbe’s day off. Hopefully they won’t call back. In the morning I’ve forgotten all about it. I take my two pills and go down and eat breakfast with Jabbe and the children. After Jabbe leaves, the phone rings again. It’s Arne and he’s even more drunk than he was the night before. We’re sitting here in Green’s having a quiet beer, he says. We’ll be over in half an hour. After I hung up, I went upstairs and took four pills to help me get through this. Then I dressed the little ones and went for a walk with them down the street. It was July and I was wearing a blue summer dress I had bought one day when I was out with Jabbe. On the way home, a taxi passed us, and in the rear window I saw Arne’s drunk, round face next to someone else whom I couldn’t make out. The car made it to the house before us, and the two men stepped out, their arms full of bottles. Hi, Tove, shouted Arne. Here I am with Victor. I greeted them, and the man named Victor kissed my hand. He seemed pretty sober, and the sight of him made all my irritation disappear. I let go of the children’s hands, and they ran into the house. I couldn’t see Victor’s eyes because of the sun, but his mouth had the most beautiful cupid’s bow shape that I had ever seen. His entire person radiated a kind of disheveled demonic vitality that absolutely fascinated me. I brought them inside, and Arne immediately passed out on Carl’s bed. I asked Helle to take care of the little ones for a while, and I took Victor up to my room. He sat down and looked at me without saying anything. I sat in another chair, and my heart was pounding. I was filled with a mixture of happiness and panic at the same time. Panic like when I was a child and my mother was sobbing: I’m leaving; and my brother and I didn’t know what would become of us. Victor knelt down in front of me and started caressing my ankles. I love you, he said. I love your poems. For years I’ve wanted to meet you. I turned his face up toward mine, and I said, Until now I always thought all that talk about love at first sight was a lie. I took his head in my hands and kissed his beautiful lips. Below his tired eyes there were deep smoke-colored shadows, and two wrinkles ran down his cheeks as if they were tracks made by tears. He had a face full of suffering and passion. Don’t leave me, I said intently. Don’t ever leave me again. It was strange saying that to someone I had just met for the first time, but Victor didn’t seem at all surprised by it. No, he said, pulling me close. No, I will never leave you again. Then we went downstairs to the children, who knew Victor from previous visits, while I was at Oringe. Look here, Helle, he said. Here’s ten kroner. Now run off and buy red candies for all three of you. After we ate, Helle looked enchantedly at Victor and said, Mommy, can’t you marry him so we can have a daddy in the house again? Victor laughed and said, I’ll think about it.

  I’m head over heels in love with you, I said, when we were lying back in my bed. Will you stay overnight? I will, for the rest of my life, he said, smiling with his blindingly white teeth. What about your wife? I asked. We have the law of love on our side, he said. That law, I said, kissing him, gives us the right to hurt other people. We made love and talked for most of the night. He told me about his childhood, and it was a lot like Ebbe’s childhood, but it was still as if I were hearing it for the first time. I told him about the five years of craziness with Carl and about my time at Oringe. I didn’t know a person could get so sick from being an addict, he said, surprised. I just thought it was like when the rest of us drink beer. That it’s just something you need to be able to cope with life. Eventually he fell asleep, and I lay there observing his face with its elegant nostrils and exquisite mouth.
I remembered the time I said to Jabbe: Imagine having feelings for someone. Now I could, and it was the first time since I had met Ebbe. I wasn’t alone anymore, and I felt like it wasn’t just drunken babble when he said he would stay with me for the rest of our lives. I took my chloral and snuggled close to him. His blond hair had the scent of a child’s who had just come home after playing in the grass and sunshine.

  8

  From then on, Victor and I were almost always together. He only went home when he needed his wife to wash and iron a shirt for him, and I laughed and said that in years to come I might be fulfilling that role. Victor had a four-year-old daughter whom he adored, and he often talked about her. He played hooky from work every other day, and when he did show up, he and I talked on the phone every hour. He was an economics major, just like Ebbe, and he was also more interested in literature, just like Ebbe. Victor would pace back and forth in my room, pretending to be Prince Andrei from Tolstoy’s War and Peace or d’Artagnan from The Three Musketeers. He would fence with an invisible sword and act out huge battle scenes where he played all the roles himself. His lean figure would move around the room while quotations flowed from his lips until he collapsed, exhausted and laughing, onto the bed. I was born at the wrong time, he said – a couple of centuries too late. But if I were born then, I would never have met you. He took me in his arms and we forgot everything in the world around us. Our passion was barely satisfied before it was aroused again, and the children were once more left in Jabbe’s care. That’s the terrible thing about love, I said, that you lose interest in other people. That’s right, he said, and then it always hurts so damned much in the end. One day he came over happily and told me that his wife had asked for a divorce. So he moved in with me, taking nothing with him but his clothes and his books. He didn’t care about material things. About the same time I got a call from a lawyer who had been asked by Carl to arrange our divorce. He explained that Carl wanted the house sold so he could get half its value. Then we’ll sell it, said Victor. We can find somewhere else to live.

  But a shadow was falling across our happy days, though Victor hadn’t noticed it yet. I was taking more and more methadone for fear that I would get sick if I didn’t. I lost my appetite and lost weight, and Victor said that I looked like a gazelle who had decided to be eaten by a lion. I took the pills arbitrarily and never really knew how many I needed. Once in a while I wanted to call Dr Borberg and tell him all about it. I was tempted to tell Victor too, but I resisted, for fear that I would lose him.

  Early one Sunday morning we rode our bicycles out to Dyrehaven to have coffee in a little out-of-the-way café where we had become regulars. I had taken four methadone before we left, but I forgot to take the bottle with me. We sat there, staring into one another’s eyes, and the waiter smiled at us forbearingly. Who knows what he’s thinking, I said. Victor laughed. I’m sure you know, he said, that nothing looks as foolish as other people in love. He just thinks we’re amusing. Victor placed his hand over mine. You look like an odalisque, he said, and he had to explain to me what an odalisque was. The sky was unbroken blue, and the birdsong had a particular spring joy to it. On the red checkered tablecloth a goldfinch sat eating crumbs, and the moment was planted in my memory like something I could always take out and experience again, no matter what might happen. We took a walk in the woods holding hands, and I told Victor about my marriage to Viggo F., and about how back then I couldn’t bear seeing young couples in love. The time flew by and Victor suggested we go back to the restaurant and eat lunch. Suddenly I felt a cold shiver run through me, as if I was being attacked from behind, and I knew what that meant. I dropped Victor’s hand. No, I said, I’d rather go home. No, let’s not, he said, surprised, and slightly uncomfortable. We’re having such a great time; there’s no need to rush home. I stood still and put my arms around myself to try and keep warm. My mouth started watering and I felt like I was about to throw up. I blurted out: You know what, I have some pills at home that I really need to get. I can’t stay here without them. Can’t we go home? Worried, he asked me what kind of pills they were, and I said that the name wouldn’t mean anything to him. Then you’re still an addict, he said uneasily. I thought that having me would be enough. As we rode home, I told him that I was going to slowly cut back, because I wanted to quit. He was enough for me, it was just a physical dependency that made me need the pills. I also told him, while I was quickly pedaling, that I would call Dr Borberg and ask what to do. Do that as soon as we get home, he said, with an authority that I had never heard from him before. We got home and I took four pills. Then I called Dr Borberg. I’m in love, I said. We’re living together and his name is Victor. I certainly hope he’s not a doctor, said Borberg. Then I told him about the fake prescriptions and that I wanted to quit, but that I couldn’t do it by myself. He was quiet a moment. Then he said flatly, Let me talk to Victor. I gave Victor the phone, and Borberg talked to him for about an hour. He explained to Victor what addiction meant, and what he would have to contend with if he loved me. When Victor put down the phone, he was a changed person. His face radiated a cold, hard will, and he put out his hand towards me. Give me those pills, he said. Scared, I ran and got them and he put them in his pocket. You get two each day, he said, no more, no less. And when there’s no more left, that’s it. No more fake prescriptions. If I find out that you write even one more, I won’t have anything to do with you ever again. Don’t you love me anymore? I asked, sobbing. Yes, I do, he said. That’s why.

  The following days I was miserable. Then it passed and we were both happy again. Now it’s over once and for all, I promised Victor. You mean more to me than all the pills in the world. We sold the house and moved into a four-room apartment in Frederiksberg with Jabbe and all the children.

  In the middle of fall, Helle was sick one night. She came into our room and crawled up in bed with us, shivering with fever. She had a sore throat, and I took her temperature, which was over 40°C. I asked Victor what we should do, and he said he would phone the night doctor on call. Half an hour later the doctor arrived. He was a tall, friendly man who looked down Helle’s throat and wrote a prescription for penicillin. Children get fevers more easily than adults, he said. But just to be safe I’ll give her a shot right now. When he opened his bag, I saw syringes and ampoules, and my craving for Demerol, which I thought had been buried far away, returned and uncontrollably consumed my entire consciousness. Victor always fell asleep before I did, and he was a heavy sleeper. The following night I crept out of bed and carefully lifted the phone receiver in the living room. I dialed the doctor on call and then sat down on a stool with my legs tucked under me while I waited. I left the door open so he wouldn’t ring the bell. I was half terrified that Victor would find me out, but what compelled me was stronger than my fear. When the doctor arrived, I said I had an earache that was killing me. He looked in the ear that had been operated on and asked me, Can you take morphine? No, I said, it makes me throw up. Then we’ll try something else, he said, and he filled a syringe. I prayed to heaven it was Demerol. It was, and I got back into bed next to my sleeping Victor, while the old bliss and sweetness flowed through my whole body. Happily oblivious, I thought I could do this as often as I wanted. There wasn’t much risk involved.

  But a few nights later, while the night doctor on call was pulling out the syringe, Victor suddenly walked into the living room. What the hell is going on here? he yelled angrily at the frightened doctor. There’s nothing wrong with her! Get out of here this instant and don’t ever set foot in this house again! After the doctor left, Victor gripped my shoulders so firmly that it hurt. You damned little devil, he snarled. If you ever do that again, I’m leaving you.