The Serbian Dane

by Leif Davidsen

  ‘I used to live around here,’ she said.

  Per parked outside a red-brick building. A gate led into a courtyard. The courtyard had been recently done up: there were benches, a children’s playground and lots of green bushes and trees. It was like a huge, walled town garden, encircled by blocks of yellow and red.

  ‘It was actually right here!’ she said. She pointed to the other side of the courtyard. ‘Over there! I shared an apartment with a girlfriend for a couple of years while we were both at university. It really is a small world. There was a factory next door. I think they made artificial limbs. But there are apartments there now.’

  Per made no reply. Instead, he entered the first door they came to and walked up three flights. He unlocked a brown front door on which stood the name ‘Per Hansen’ in small white letters.

  The apartment was small but spacious enough. There was a small spare room to the right and a bedroom straight ahead, a living room, a kitchen and a tiny bathroom. The place smelled clean, if a little stuffy. Like a summerhouse that has been opened up after having stood empty for some time. The furniture was of light wood and classic design. The parquet flooring was clean, and there was a radio, a television and video machine and lots of books.

  Per seemed very much at home here. The light that fell through the beige curtains covering the living-room windows was grey and already fading. Lise ran an eye over the book spines. There were titles in English, Danish and what looked like Russian. Thrillers and Danish classics. She pulled out one book but could not read the Cyrillic writing.

  ‘This is Russian, isn’t it?’ she said.

  Per eyed her. He tossed the key to the apartment up into the air a couple of times. There was something odd about the way he looked at her, she thought. She still felt light-hearted and a little giddy from the wine. She felt so carefree, and she didn’t want to lose that feeling.

  ‘That’s correct,’ he said.

  ‘And so are you,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, chica. This apartment is kind of special. We don’t normally show it to strangers.’

  ‘Oh, so I’m a stranger now? What’s so special about it? That there are Russian novels on the shelves?’

  ‘It’s an old safe house,’ he said.

  ‘What exactly is a safe house?’ she said.

  He took the book from her and put it back on the shelf. She felt his hand brush hers, and the moment suddenly stretched out, until he took a step back and said:

  ‘You ought to read more thrillers instead of all your highfalutin’ literary novels. You might learn something.’

  ‘Why, Per?’

  ‘Why should you read more thrillers?’ The bantering note was back in his voice. It sounded good.

  Lise pulled out the book again and held it up in front of his face.

  ‘No, hombre! What is a safe house? Why Russian novels?’

  ‘It’s an apartment which we pay for, but which no one knows anything about.’

  She took a step towards him. She caught the scent of him. He smelled of Italian herbs and an aftershave that was tangy but nice. Sounds like an advert, she thought, feeling rather foolish.

  ‘Come on, Per! We’re partners!’

  Again he took the book from her and put it back. Again that feather-light touch of his hand on hers.

  ‘It’s an apartment where we used to house Russian defectors…or people we wanted to talk to in private. You know. During the Cold War. And today too.’

  ‘So my income-tax money also helps pay PET’s rent? I’ve been living next door to a bloody listening post. This is like something straight out of John le Carré.’

  He gripped her arms gently. It felt good.

  ‘Listen, Lise. A defector turns up in Copenhagen. Or an agent. We need time alone with him. We need to talk to him. He stays here, snug and safe. It’s easy to guard. We know this patch inside out. There’s a clear view of the whole courtyard. The neighbourhood is perfectly ordinary. We’ve scanned the whole of the surrounding area. There are hidden alarms. We can keep an eye on it from the apartment opposite. It’s perfect for Simba. Because it doesn’t exist. This is not a listening post. It’s just a safe place to stay.’

  ‘I see,’ was all she said.

  He let go of one of her arms but held onto the other.

  ‘Come with me. I want to show you something,’ He drew her with him, his hand sliding down her arm until it was clasped round hers as he led her around the apartment, like an estate agent trying to convince yet another fussy client that it was worth buying. He led her into the kitchen and, awkward though it was, kept a hold of her hand while he opened the fridge, drawers and cupboard doors, showing her all the banal paraphernalia of everyday life as if they were rare antiques. She couldn’t help smiling at the stream of estate-agent patter that accompanied his presentation of cutlery, plates, coffee and teabags, pots and pans, powdered soups and dry goods. Cold meats and cheese in plastic packaging, juice and water, and in the freezer a neat pile of frozen dinners to pop into the brand-new microwave oven.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ Lise joked, but he wasn’t listening. He dragged her off again, to show her the perfectly unexceptionable bathroom with its white tiles, white loo and a shower cabinet that could have done with a new curtain.

  ‘A perfectly charming abode,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. Perfecto, isn’t it?’ he said without a grain of irony.

  ‘Perfecto, hombre. Every woman’s dream.’

  He didn’t hear her, drew her with him again. She felt the warmth of his hand in hers gradually spreading to the rest of her body. He led her into the bedroom. It wasn’t very big. A double bed and a wardrobe took up most of the space. The curtains were almost fully drawn. A single shaft of light fell on the bed, which was made up hotel-style. The bed linen was a pristine white.

  ‘What more could one ask for?’ he said at last.

  Lise stood there, holding his hand. Suddenly it felt awkward and all wrong. The silence swelled and lengthened, the way it does when there is a technical hitch on the radio and every second of silence feels like a minute. Lise pulled her hand away. She was conscious of a slight resistance, then he let go.

  ‘Yes, well, everything seems to be…um, I don’t know,’ she said when the silence seemed in danger of choking her.

  ‘Hm, we’re getting there,’ he said.

  There was another prolonged silence. She looked up at him, a sidelong glance meant to be brief, but she saw that he was looking down at her. Her stomach gave an agonizing, but delicious, lurch as she thought to herself: that’s enough now. I’ve gone way too far already. Now it’s up to him. If he reaches out for me it’ll be too late to back out, too late to think better of it. I’ll be stepping over a line I’ve never crossed before and a new phase of my life will have begun.

  Per took one of her hands and then the other. She saw the way his eyes left hers for a moment and slid towards the bed then back at her and felt her own eyes following his. He drew her to him.

  ‘Okay. Okay. It’s okay, I think…’ she murmured, letting go of his hands and wrapping her arms around his neck.

  Chapter 11

  Vuk got hold of a copy of the Yellow Pages for Copenhagen and ran an eye down the list of hotels before buying a ticket for the overnight Intercity train to the Danish capital. Train number 590 was scheduled to depart at 1.06 am and arrive at 7.00 am. He paid for a whole couchette to himself, boarding from 10.30 pm. He called the hotel from a phone box and booked a room. It all seemed a little unreal. Århus station was suffused with a yellowish light, and only a handful of silent people with tired eyes were wandering about. A bunch of young immigrants gave him the once-over, but they must have sensed some latent menace in him, because they left him in peace with his morning papers. He remembered the crowd of Turks who used to haunt Copenhagen Central Station when he was a boy. They had hung around in dispirited huddles, looking as though they were apologizing for living. But this lot were second-generation immigrants, cocky and aggressive-lookin
g. They drew strength, he could tell, from being part of an ethnic brotherhood. They were no longer prepared to put up with racism or the claustrophobic Danish mentality that demanded that anyone taking up residence in the country had to behave like every other Dane. These boys didn’t want to be turned into welfare cases. They channelled their anger outwards. To some extent he sympathized with them, but their war was not his, and he turned back to his paper. He wasn’t reading it; he was keeping a weather eye on his surroundings. The wastepaper bins were overflowing with the remains of hamburgers, bits of paper, french-fry trays and orange peel, but no bottles. Vuk had noticed some seedy-looking characters trawling the station, rummaging in the bins for them. Denmark had grown both richer and poorer in his absence. There were more new cars and more beggars. The contrasts were greater. Pasty-faced figures flitted like shadows around the station concourse. Three drunk men were knocking back bottles of Carlsberg Gold and arguing about a football match. Cracks were clearly beginning to appear in the welfare idyll. Could it be that the majority had finally decided to turn its back on the outcast minority?

  At midnight he made his way down the stairs to the platform and located his carriage. The train appeared to be half-empty. Alone at last, he gradually began to relax. Both bunks were made up, and there was a washbasin in the couchette. He washed and put on his smart clothes. It had been a long journey, but he was sure that he had covered all his tracks.

  He had taken a long road for a shortcut, and not only so as to merge with the crowd in Denmark and become indistinguishable from everyone else. He also wanted to make absolutely certain that he was not being tailed by Kravtjov or his Iranians. They might not have been following him, but Vuk had not survived four years of war by taking unnecessary risks. Playing safe was a time-consuming business, but it paid to be careful and thorough. So he still did not allow himself to sleep. That would have to wait until he got to the hotel. He gazed out of the window and watched the darkness hurtling past. The roads were deserted. Only occasionally did the long beam of a lone car’s headlights sweep an inky road. Denmark seemed deserted at night. All alone in the railway compartment, he pressed his forehead against the cool windowpane.

  On the ferry across the Big Belt he drank a cup of coffee and ate a cheese sandwich. The few other passengers in the cafeteria kept themselves to themselves. He went out on deck and was met by the glorious scent of sea air and diesel. It was chilly now, and low clouds were drifting over a half-moon. The island of Füne disappeared from view, and he gazed in amazement at the long low bridge that stretched out from its shoreline. The bridge was strung with lights, and on the tiny islet of Sprogø majestic floodlit pylons reared into the air. Work on the bridge had really progressed while he’d been away. When he left it had still been on the drawing board. He had never imagined it would be so huge. He could see boats around the feet of the pylons and lights winking on their tops. He found bridges more awe-inspiring than cathedrals. They were the churches and temples of today, the largest constructions built by modern man. He smoked a cigarette and drank in the sight. He couldn’t get enough of it. This was probably the last time he would take a ferry across the Big Belt. And it was unlikely that he would ever drive over the completed bridge. He was impressed by the fact that a nation as small as Denmark could build such a construction across this stretch of water. Along with a tunnel dug under the seabed. He felt sorry and a little sad when the voice over the Tannoy summoned him below decks to the train. He could have done with more time to just sit there looking at that view. Here was something permanent, something that would outlive him and the senseless war he had left behind. He was grateful for the sight and took it as an encouraging sign – a good omen. Confirmation that he had chosen the right route.

  The hotel lay in a side street off Istedgade. He knew the Vesterbro area well and had picked it deliberately. People in Vesterbro didn’t ask too many questions and were suspicious of most forms of officialdom. They asked only to be left alone, as they left others alone. An east wind was blowing, bringing with it the taste of autumn: an edge that almost moved people to button up their jackets. But the sun still had the upper hand. The street was already teeming with life. Life of another sort than that on the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. The buildings here were shabbier, the cars smaller, and the abundantly stocked shops seemed poky and cramped. Turkish, or possibly Arabian, women walked by with their heads veiled, and the porno shops were closed. But the main difference was the bikes. Vuk loved the sight of all the bikes, and best of all were the women: so easy on the eye with their strong brown legs, transporting everything from shopping to children on their shiny new cycles. To Vuk, the bikes represented the very essence of Copenhagen. He stood for a while, just watching them. A young man went by carrying a bottle of beer. The bottle had a gold top. What was it called again? Elephant Beer, that was it. The young man drank the beer down, tipped the foaming dregs into the gutter and belched. He hung onto the bottle.

  Vuk walked on, with his suitcase in one hand and his holdall in the other. He was wearing beige chinos, a dark-blue shirt and a new brown leather jacket. On his feet he had a pair of sensible, brown lace-up shoes. A scruffy-looking young man with long greasy hair tried to stop him with an outstretched palm, but Vuk didn’t so much as look at him. He walked through the hotel door and one flight up. The reception desk was to the left. Behind it stood a youngish man in a short-sleeved shirt teamed with a blue and red checked tie. It was a good, reasonably priced hotel and as a result was much favoured by executives from small but flourishing businesses in Jutland.

  Vuk put down his bags.

  ‘You have a room for me. Carsten Petersen, Jutland Technoplast,’ he said.

  ‘One moment,’ the desk clerk said. He had a computer sitting on the desk but referred instead to a ledger in front of him.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said. ‘Booked yesterday evening.’

  ‘It was a bit of a last-minute thing,’ Vuk said.

  ‘Well, these days sometimes there’s just no way round it,’ the clerk said. ‘How long were you thinking of staying?’ He handed Vuk a key.

  ‘A couple of days. Maybe closer to a week. It depends how quickly I get things sorted out.’

  ‘Room 311. Up the stairs and to your right.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Vuk said, lifted his bags and made his way up the stairs without a backward glance. The Danes were such a naïve nation. They recognized one another by their language, and if you spoke it without an accent they would not dream of asking you for your passport or ID. Vuk had guessed that in this respect things would not have changed, and fortunately he had been proved right. Otherwise he would have made some excuse to leave, found another hotel and checked in for a couple of days as a British citizen, but he didn’t want to do that just yet. He had no desire to leave an electronic paper trail behind him if he could help it. His plan was to switch to another small hotel after three nights at most, so that he could pay in cash without anyone thinking too much of it.

  His room was small, but comfortable, with a double bed, a bedside table, a little desk and a television. He dumped his bags on the floor, locked the door and stripped off. Then he took a hot shower. His head was buzzing, and suddenly the tiredness hit him full on. He lay down on the bed and instantly fell fast asleep.

  Vuk slept for six hours, then spent the rest of the afternoon strolling around the city. In his blue jeans, light-coloured shirt and leather jacket he passed largely unremarked, although he couldn’t help noticing the long looks sent his way by some of the girls. He had forgotten how direct Danish girls could be. He bought a scout knife and a whetstone in a shop specializing in outdoor pursuits. In a toyshop he purchased an old-style skipping-rope with wooden handles, and in an ironmonger’s a small roll of fine steel wire. He carried his purchases home in a carrier bag from the ironmonger’s. A good-looking young man on his way home from the shops.

  Copenhagen looked just the same. The city, blue and golden in the late afternoon light, wrapped itself a
round him like a favourite old sweater. The Town Hall Square alone was almost unrecognisable. They seemed to be in the midst of clearing up after some really serious road works. At one end reared a long, black rectangular box. It looked like an outsized anti-tank barrier, behind which the inhabitants of a besieged city could take cover from snipers. But behind it sat the familiar yellow buses: these too he always associated with Copenhagen, bowling gently along its streets. They always seemed to be half-empty, except for that one hour in the morning and in the afternoon. Also new were the green-clad bicycle messengers, zooming this way and that, jinking in and out of the traffic. He walked down Strøget. The long pedestrianised shopping drag was, he would have said, busy but not crowded. The pavement was littered with paper and takeaway leftovers, and a lot of people were eating as they walked. No one paid him any heed. He had been a bit worried as to whether he would still be able to fall in with the distinctive rhythm of this city, but it felt like only yesterday that he had walked these streets. He blended with the crowd and, like them, was soon able to pick out the foreigners in their midst, be it an American businessman or a group of Swedish tourists.

  But when he got to Kultorvet he received a shock. The building was still there, but where was the library? He could see the bookshop, but the Central Library and its reading room were gone. Two young girls happened to bump into him as he stood there, momentarily distracted.

  ‘Sorry,’ one of them said when she saw his face. It was an ice-cold mask. He was not used to being touched suddenly and without warning. The war had left its mark on him, causing him to instantly sense the presence of an enemy, but he promptly pulled himself together and gave them a big smile that lit up his face and made them smile too.

  ‘I was standing dreaming,’ he said.

  ‘No, we should have looked where we were going.’