She tried to concentrate, but her thoughts kept returning to Per and from there to Ole: she felt she never saw him anymore. He was asleep when she left in the mornings and never at home when she got back. He would roll in late at night, reeking of booze, and crawl into bed beside her without a word, while she lay with her eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. Things seemed to have been going on like this for years, but it must only be a few months since their relationship began to fall apart. She did not know whether it had already fallen over the edge of a precipice or whether it could still be salvaged. And whether she or he was prepared to rock the boat. They were going to have to have a talk. But now she had to concentrate on the matter in hand.
She brought her thoughts back to the meeting. The man from the prime minister’s office, who had introduced himself as Stig something-or-other, had a grating, high-pitched voice. He was one of those real high-flying, little political-science graduates, the same age as herself: already a department head and a man who loved playing the part of armchair politician and string-puller. Like her he was a child of the seventies, but he had distanced himself totally from that mixed-up era. Everything about him was perfectly tailored: both suit and opinions.
The meeting was being held in an anonymous office at Police Headquarters, and it was such an important one that Jytte Vuldom, Per’s boss, had even made the journey from Bellahøj for it. She, unlike Stig whatsisname, Lise found impressive. She had a good powerful voice, and she did not have to raise it to get men to listen. Lise could tell by the glance Per sent his boss when he spoke of the possible contract that this announcement had been cleared with her beforehand. It struck her that there was talk here of scare tactics. She saw where it was leading.
‘I would like to emphasize that the prime minister also considers it deplorable that this matter should have been made public. The information did not, of course, come from our office. Just for the record,’ said Stig Thor Kasper Nielsen, to give him his full name. He had assured them again and again that he had not leaked the story, but this had only had the opposite effect. Everyone now believed Stig Nielsen to be the source. But it was evidently important to him to scotch this rumour, so much so that he was protesting too much; or perhaps the fact of the matter was that he didn’t really have anything to say, or didn’t dare come to the point.
‘There’s no need to go on about it,’ said Tagesen. ‘I’m sure our excellent police force will arrange for the necessary protection.’
‘Naturally,’ said Vuldom, lighting another cigarette. ‘But, like everyone else, we have to get our priorities right. We have a big state visit in the offing, as well as a summit meeting, and both of these are going to stretch our resources to the limit.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Tagesen asked.
‘Exactly what I say,’ said Vuldom. ‘No more and no less.’
Lise could tell that Per was about to say something, but she also noticed how one look from Vuldom and he bit it back.
‘Well, let me just say this,’ Tagesen said, and Lise could tell that he was starting to lose his temper. He started fiddling with the buttons on his jacket. He tugged at his moustache. ‘You’re saying that you can’t commit all your resources to protecting Sara, because there are other things which are more important.’
‘I don’t think that’s what the chief superintendent is saying,’ said Stig Thor Kasper Nielsen. ‘I think the chief superintendent is saying that the timing is not of the best, coinciding as it does with a couple of state occasions.’
Lise knew exactly what he was getting at, and so did Tagesen:
‘No way,’ Tagesen said.
‘No way what?’ said Stig Nielsen.
‘We are not cancelling or postponing this visit. Because that’s what you’re telling us to do. That’s the message you’re saying the prime minister has asked you to pass on, isn’t it? Well we won’t hear of it, and neither will Sara Santanda. I spoke to her only yesterday.’
‘Well, if that’s how you wish to interpret it,’ said the man from the prime minister’s office, but Lise could tell that Tagesen had hit the nail on the head.
Per was about to butt in again, and again he received a warning look from his boss.
‘But I’m right, aren’t I?’ Tagesen said.
‘We wouldn’t dream of interfering with a private visit,’ said Stig Thor Kasper Nielsen, deliberately stressing the word ‘private’. ‘Politiken has every right to do whatever Politiken likes.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Tagesen. ‘We get the picture. So what about the invitation to Bang?’
The man from the ministry stood up, straightened his back and looked pointedly at his watch.
‘Look, it all comes down to the same thing, Tagesen. We’ve got a very tight schedule over the next couple of months, what with the state visit, the prime minister’s tour of the Jutland constituencies and, as you know, some very delicate budget talks. There simply is not a free slot in his diary. However much the government would like to show that we will not let ourselves be browbeaten.’
‘But that’s exactly what you’re doing. You know as well as I do how vital it is, for Sara and for us, that she should meet a member of the government. That we show that Denmark will not, in fact, be browbeaten by a gang of criminals.’
‘It is the government’s policy to pursue a critical dialogue with Iran. We believe that at the end of the day this will give the best outcome. We didn’t set the date. Our diary is completely full for the next year. It is not a question of politics but of practicalities.’
Stig Thor Kasper Nielsen ran his eye round the room. And as he did so, Lise realized how it felt when, as the saying goes, someone walks over your grave. That phoney word ‘practicalities’ hung in the air. A phoney word but so wonderfully sweeping, so useful. One of the main objects of the whole exercise was for a western government to publicly meet and embrace an intellectual who had been sentenced to death by a state that flouted all the international conventions. Such a demonstration would be reported on by newspapers all over the world. And the Danish government had said no. They would call it realpolitik, but Lise knew it had more to do with export figures and the government’s narrow majority in the house. A government which, her colleagues on the political desk said, was plagued by internal unrest and seemed to have run out of steam.
She couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
‘What a copout!’ she said, her voice almost breaking. The others stared at her in astonishment. Even Tagesen looked as though he thought this outburst was a bit much. She stopped before she could say any more. She was afraid she might burst into tears of rage, and that would, of course, be regarded by the others as typical feminine frailty. But she felt disgust and fury writhing like a viper in her bosom.
‘It’ll be okay, Lise,’ Tagesen said. ‘I’m assuming that we’ll get all the help we need from the police at any rate.’
‘Of course you will,’ Vuldom said. ‘Per Toftlund is one of my most experienced officers. We will do all we can with the means at our disposal, if the visit cannot be postponed.’
She let these last words hang in the air, but Tagesen was not about to help her out. Instead he said his goodbyes, shaking hands with Vuldom and Toftlund and vouchsafing merely a nod to the man from the prime minister’s office. Toftlund also got to his feet, but Vuldom asked him to stay behind for a moment.
‘Would you mind waiting outside, Lise?’ he said.
Vuldom waited until everyone had gone, then closed the door.
‘Well, that didn’t work, did it?’ she said.
‘Nope, I didn’t think it would.’
‘But…both we and the foreign ministry have been asking around, and those buggers in Teheran won’t get upset as long as it isn’t treated as an official state visit. All this talk of a fatwa is mainly for internal use. I don’t think we need to worry. And anyway…the Swedes and the Norwegians are in much the same situation. So: quick in and quick out, and there’s little chance of anythin
g going wrong, is there?’
‘Some world we’re living in,’ Per said.
‘I’ve received a subtle hint to the effect that certain people would prefer it if the visit were cancelled completely. But if there’s no way round it, then I’m expecting you to make sure we’re not left to carry the can.’
Per couldn’t help smiling. It sounded so funny coming from Vuldom, this expression common throughout the central administration for the way in which, whenever anything went wrong, the politicians would make sure that the responsibility was offloaded onto some civil servant, high-ranking or low.
‘I’m going to need more people,’ he said.
‘The bit about our resources is true enough. We’re still coping with people taking time off in lieu after the social summit meeting. But we’ll let you have as many people as we can spare from surveillance duties – on the day itself. Otherwise you’ll have to make do with what you’ve got. And who’s to say that a definite contract has been taken out on the subject?’
‘I’ve got a gut feeling about it.’
‘Is there anything you want?’
‘Yes.’
‘Within reason.’
‘The safe house on Nygårdsvej.’
‘You’ve got it, Per.’
Stig Thor Kasper Nielsen caught Prime Minister Carl Bang between two meetings and put him in the picture. He could see that Bang was not happy with the outcome of the Santanda meeting, but he would have to go along with it: Stig had the impression that the prime minister felt he had handled the situation as well as was possible under the prevailing circumstances. And that was, after all, the main thing. That same afternoon, Bang sought out Johannes Jørgensen in the long gallery of the Parliament building. The Defence Committee was in session, and the Foreign Policy Committee was scheduled to meet the following day, so there was some activity at Christiansborg, and it was only natural for the pair to exchange a few words. They walked along side-by-side, smoking and speaking – as custom dictated – in hushed voices. They chatted briefly about the Budget, turned on their heels and slowly retraced their steps. As so often before, Bang brought the conversation round to what was really on his mind by first going through the ritual of saying that what he was about to say was in strictest confidence, and Jørgensen played his part in the ritual by saying that, of course, he quite understood, but he knew right away that what he was about to hear would be good news, so there would be no need to tell anyone else.
‘No one from the government will be meeting…her,’ Bang said. ‘It will be a completely private visit. Arranged by a daily newspaper. I was wondering if you could see to it that no – how should I put it? – prominent member of the opposition will be able to spare the time…to see her.’
Jørgensen regarded the prime minister with open admiration. Bang was known for being an excellent tactician. In Danish politics you had to be, if you wanted to survive for any length of time as a minority government. It was a neat piece of work. The decision would not be his alone; instead he would get the big guns of the opposition roped into the affair. Thus spreading the responsibility. Jørgensen’s party had been in power last time round, and its members still had a big say in things. Bang knew that Jørgensen kept up with all his old contacts. In Danish politics you can easily be in government one year and in opposition the next. It was not a matter of politics but of practical necessity.
‘I think that can be arranged,’ Jørgensen said, ‘but there are always going to be a couple from the lower ranks desperate for a mention in the press.’
‘That doesn’t matter. Not from what I hear.’
Jørgensen broke stride momentarily, then fell into step again.
‘So you’ve been in touch with…?’
Bang cut him off sharply:
‘Unofficially, we have been given to understand that as long as no official representative meets with the person concerned, the relationship between our two countries will not be affected.’
‘It’s good to know that common sense has prevailed,’ Jørgensen said with a satisfied smile, but Prime Minister Carl Bang did not smile. With a curt nod he strode away, as if intent on washing his hands of the conversation.
Lise Carlsen let rip in the car. Per had to pull into the side until she had got all of the anger and frustration out of her system and was left, instead, feeling absolutely ravenous. It was always the same, whenever she lost her temper or got upset about something. She simply had to eat something.
‘You must have a really good metabolism,’ Per said with a smile that stirred something inside her.
‘He has a nice smile but teeth of steel,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘It’s a quotation. I don’t remember where from.’
‘Gromyko,’ he said. ‘In his speech nominating Gorbachov as the new general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. Back in the good old days.’
‘I doubt if one could call them that,’ she said, thinking of the dreary bureaucrats whom she had met in the east, the canny writers balancing on a knife-edge in their efforts to get round the censor and, not least, the persecuted authors who had been driven into exile – if, that is, they hadn’t ended up in the Gulags. ‘Good’ was not a word she would ever have used of those days.
‘It was easier to tell your friends from your enemies,’ he said.
‘I feel like pasta.’ All of a sudden she couldn’t face talking about anything at all. It wasn’t just Santanda’s visit; it was her relationship with Ole. Why couldn’t she say the word? Her marriage. It wasn’t working. She kept telling herself that they would have to talk, but if the truth were told, she really didn’t want that. It was over, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud, to herself or to Ole. And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time: her biggest story, her first major undertaking as chair of PEN, and now her marriage was on the rocks. And on top of all that, there was Per. But what was he? A catalyst or a lightning conductor? Or an excuse. If nothing else, she was grateful for his silence. He had his antennae out, she was sure, and knew when to hold his peace. Instead of talking, he drove to Nørrebro and drew up in a side street, in front of an Italian restaurant.
There were only three other people in the restaurant, which was furnished with the traditional red-and-white checked tablecloths and low lamps. Both ordered fettucine, along with a carafe of the house wine and two citrus mineral waters. The light fell softly through the little windows. There was autumn in its greyish cast, as if the light were being filtered through a fine blue cloth to strike the right note of melancholy. He broke off a piece of bread and made no comment when she lit a cigarette. That was his one, really annoying trait: that he always let her know, implicitly or directly, that he thought it was a dirty habit. Instead he started talking about safe houses, security scans, the press conference and the contract on Santanda.
‘How did you find out about that?’ she asked.
‘We have our sources, just as you reporters have yours,’ he said and was about to go on when she interrupted:
‘Can’t we talk about something else? Can’t we just forget all that for a while? Can’t we just pretend you invited me out to lunch because you fancy me? And not because it’s work?’
His eyes changed colour, or so it seemed to her. They became very soft.
‘We don’t need to pretend,’ he said.
Just for a second she thought she was going to blush. She had done that all the time until she was well into her twenties, and she still didn’t have it totally under control. So to distract herself she played with the tablecloth, stubbed out her cigarette and ran her fingers through her hair. He just looked at her, and she couldn’t help giggling and then they were both laughing out loud. Afterwards, while they ate, she regaled him with wryly amusing stories from her visits to Spain. It made a lovely break from reality. She recounted anecdotes from the paper and the arts world about egocentric writers and pompous critics.
She even allowed him to pay the bill then, a little lig
ht-headed from the wine of which she had drunk most, she got back into his car and let herself be driven.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, however, when she realized they were heading towards Østerbro. He never told her what he had planned for them. He merely drove her around, expecting her to blithely follow his lead. Suddenly she was afraid that he was going to drive her home. She didn’t want to go home. She wanted to stay here with him and hold onto this easy bantering mood. If she went home, she knew the darkness would descend on her; it would envelop her like a thick black cape, making her fear that she would never be able to pull it off again.
‘I’m going to show you Simba’s kennel,’ he said, making her laugh.
She rolled her window down and barked ‘woof-woof’ at a young man walking along the pavement with a big black Rotweiler. The young man didn’t hear a thing, but to her great satisfaction the dog pricked up its ears, and Per chuckled.
They turned off the main road into Sejrøgade. The large Irma supermarket with its distinctive blue sign still sat on the corner. He drove across Sankt Kjelds Plads and down Nygårdsvej. She didn’t come out this way very often now. From the apartment on Trianglen her route always took her into the city centre or over to the new trendy cafés in Nørrebro. Partly because of work. She wrote columns for the paper on life in the city. Articles which she endeavoured to endow with a light, almost dreamy quality. She frequently used a café as the backdrop to her fictional tête-à-têtes. These articles were written from a personal point of view, but much of what she wrote really reflected how she would like it – life, that is – to be, rather than how it actually was.
The Serbian Dane Page 12
