Salinger's Letters

by Nils Schou

  Puk doesn’t mind having fun, but it’s not at the top of her wish list. Number one on her list is the desire to understand. She wants to understand everything.

  Puk writes her novels and essays as though it was child’s play. Every time she publishes a book there’s a photo of her on the front page of Politiken. She was the youngest member to be elected to the Danish Academy.

  I meet people everywhere who ask me what the real Puk Bonnesen is like. The answer is that she is precisely the person she seems to be. She has a good head, a sharp tongue and she’s always courteous and friendly.

  Puk gets an idea and before long she’s carried it out. In my case she had the idea that it would be interesting to learn everything about my depression, about Amanda. She’s never told me why and I’ve never asked. It makes my blood run cold to think that just one thought, one idea in the mind of a woman I didn’t know, changed the course of my life. It’s frightening and soothing at the same time. Or secure, as Puk would put it. Secure is her favourite word.

  Puk created the Factory, our collaborative venture. She also decreed that we, the four proprietors, should never be friends in private. Friendships come to an end; the Factory must never end. Our mutual relationship had to last for the duration of our lives. When Puk speaks we don’t just nod mechanically; we nod because we usually agree with her.

  I can only guess what Puk thinks of me. What I think of her I keep to myself.

  The reserve between us broke down one spring night thirteen years after we had founded the Factory. The living room phone in our apartment on Nansensgade rang and kept on ringing. I stumbled out of bed, half asleep, and answered it.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Dan?’

  ‘Yes, who’s speaking?’

  ‘It’s me,’ whispered an almost inaudible voice.

  ‘Who’s me?’

  ‘It’s me. Can you come?’

  I didn’t recognize the voice. My immediate reaction was that it was a wrong number.

  ‘Dan? Dan?’

  ‘Yes, this is Dan.’

  Then someone started crying on the other end.

  ‘Hello?’ I said. ‘Who’s calling? Are you sure you want to talk to Dan Moller?’

  ‘Yes,’ came the whisper.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Help.’

  Suddenly I was wide awake and fully alert. ‘Puk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Can you help me?’

  ‘Of course I can help you.’

  ‘It’s so awful.’

  ‘What’s so awful?’

  ‘Dan, come and help me.’

  ‘Are you at home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  It took me less than a half-hour to get by taxi to Frederiksberg Allé where she lives with her husband and two young daughters.

  Her apartment is near Sankt Thomas Square.

  I rang the bell downstairs and she buzzed me in.

  There was blood all over her face. One of her eyes was swollen shut. She didn’t say a word when I saw her. She knew I knew what had happened.

  I wrapped her up in some clothes and carried her down to the street as though she was a rug.

  We went back to Nansensgade by cab. Beate called Puk’s brother Michael, whose practice is on Osterbrogade and lives close by. He came at once. He examined Puk. She had received multiple fist blows to the head. He advised her to go to the hospital. At 5 a.m. she was admitted to Rigshospitalet to be examined for a fractured skull.

  Michael and I remained with her. Puk’s children were at her husband’s parents’.

  Puk was heavily medicated and fell into a deep sleep.

  Michael was the first to point out that he and I had been in a similar situation many years ago. It was long ago but we both remembered it clearly. It was when we had run into each other in the psychiatric ward at Rigshospitalet when we were both students living at Nordisk Kollegium on Strandboulevarden. I was a dental student back then and heavily medicated.

  Groggy from the medication I had told him about my depression, how one night on an acid trip the depression had become a person, a woman, Amanda. That conversation completely changed the course of my life.

  There are many encounters that do not take place by chance, but that meeting in the corridor of the psychiatric ward was as random as it gets. In spite of my drugged state I remembered every word we said. This was also because I later concluded that chance encounter was the turning point of my life.

  Before we turned to the subject of Puk he wanted to hear how Amanda was doing. Amanda told Michael about the Salinger Syndrome. Michael was a neurologist. Depression is frequently considered a neurological disorder, an electrical-chemical signal imbalance of the neurones. He had no trouble understanding Amanda’s account of the Salinger Syndrome: visual and auditory stimuli; difficulty processing all outside signals; imbalance of the how-to-please function. I didn’t need the post office image to get Michael to understand.

  Michael was now a physician-in-chief and I had become a writer. We had known each other a long time.

  He wanted me to tell him the truth about Puk.

  I snorted. ‘The truth? How should I know the truth?’

  Michael said: ‘She’s always kept a certain distance, you know that. Puk divides her world into compartments, separated by silent shutters. You know that.’

  ‘Yes, I do know that.’

  ‘Listen, Dan, it was no coincidence that you were the one she called.’

  ‘No,’ I sighed deeply.

  ‘I know Puk would hate this, but I need to hear what you have to say, truth or not. She looks like someone almost killed her. A man she loves. Give it to me straight. Are you going to talk to me or not?’

  ‘Michael, considering the fact that you once more or less saved my life I’ll try to help you out.’

  ‘Thanks, Dan, I would be very grateful.’

  Before I told him anything I had to make a slightly embarrassing confession. It came as no surprise to Michael. ‘You understand, Michael, I have no special views on your sister that could be of any interest. Apart from generalities I’m completely empty. Amanda’s the one who knows everything. She has ideas. She’s saved up countless experiences we’ve had with Puk including our own reactions. She can rewind the film and blow up every single detail in our life with Puk. Amanda never forgets a thing.’

  ‘So you have to ask her?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Take your time. Both of you.’

  ‘Puk is the person who’s helped me most in my work with the Salinger Syndrome.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Because her modus operandi is so unequivocal. She divides all external signals into two categories: ‘Useful’ or ‘Not useful’.

  ‘Sounds like Puk,’ muttered Michael. ‘She saves every piece of information that might be relevant and catalogues it. Later on when she needs it in that little mafia organisation she’s got going, she can pick and choose.’

  ‘Exactly. She’s the Marlon Brando of literature, the Vito Corleone of Danish letters.’

  Michael nodded. ‘So far so good. But that was no rival Mafia boss that smashed her face in.’

  ‘No. She did it herself.’

  ‘You mean she did that to herself?’

  ‘No, not me. Amanda thinks so.’

  ‘Tell Amanda she has to talk to me loud and clear. The world is complicated enough already.’

  Michael wants Amanda to tell him about Puk.

  ‘What can I tell you about Puk?’ I asked. ‘You’re her brother. You know her much better than I do.’

  Michael nodded. ‘I know this is the third time she’s been knocked around by a husband or a boyfriend. I just have no idea what goes on or how to keep it from happening again.’

  ‘Why don’t you call Nora? She’s a woman and she knows Puk far better than I do.’

  ‘Look, Dan. You and Amanda, you’re the one Puk called.’<
br />
  ‘What about Boris? Boris has known Puk much longer than I have, too.’

  ‘That’s it? You’re telling me to call up all her friends, her admirers, the whole damn entourage? Puk and all the little Puks?’

  ‘Yes, that was precisely what I was about to suggest.’

  ‘Come on, Dan. It’s up to you. You and Amanda.’

  ‘Stop trying to dump this in my lap.’

  ‘You and Amanda, buddy.’

  There was no way out; Amanda and I had to pull ourselves together.

  Puk was so well organised that she knew she’d need Amanda one day. Puk’s talent was bringing people together and watching how they brought out the best in each other. This meant she needed to collect information and be willing to see things as they are. Amanda is more than competent at both these tasks.

  Sitting with Puk’s brother by her bedside at Rigshospitalet it was time to pay my debt.

  All those years ago Puk had chosen Amanda and me. Puk had transformed my life; she may even have saved it.

  A mafia boss had done me a favour. A debt was owed. The time had come to return that favour.

  The favour consisted of doing what Puk did in her books. She deconstructed the world. She took the world apart, explained it and put all the parts together again. One of her most famous essays dealt with stupidity and boredom. Stupidity was not lack of intelligence. Boredom was the opposite of having fun. Stupidity and boredom were instruments people created as buffers between themselves and the world, a distance. She quoted Andy Warhol: ‘My greatest wish is to become a machine.’

  Now I had to deconstruct Puk. Take her apart, study all the parts and then put them together again. Two or three hundred things I know about Puk Bonnesen.

  To be eligible for the deconstruction process a fact had to be relevant to the current situation. The current situation was that she had been the victim of severe abuse. Blows to the head and body. Furthermore it was not the first time. The unpleasant truth was that virtually all of Puk’s lasting love relationships terminated in violence. The best brain in Danish literature had had more concussions caused by violence than her friends and family could bear to think about.

  Michael listened patiently to our ideas, Amanda’s and mine. What we actually thought of Puk.

  We recalled all the times people had asked us: ‘What’s the real Puk Bonnesen like?’

  The question was actually implied in the answer. There was no discrepancy between the Puk one met and the Puk behind the façade. There is no real Puk.

  She’s a successful author. She handles her talent and her career brilliantly. She’s a master of organization and thinks it’s fun to know everybody. She’s the brain behind the Factory. As she says herself she has two children with four different husbands. She loves appearing on television on entertainment programs as well as cultural ones. She takes pleasure in being called the most powerful woman on the Danish intellectual scene. Her newspaper articles are studied thoroughly by everyone with power and influence. She’s always obliging and friendly. She has friends everywhere. If she has any enemies they keep a low profile.

  But now her brother and I were setting by her hospital bed as we had done several times before. The unofficial queen of the Danish intelligentsia had had her face bashed in.

  Michael needed to know why. He had a hunch the only one who could provide an answer was Amanda, Amanda in collaboration with me.

  Michael and I had played indoor soccer together for hours at Nordisk Kollegium. I knew how stubborn he was.

  ‘I think you owe me a better answer than that,’ he said finally.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have had the brilliant literary career you enjoy today.’

  ‘What kind of answer do you want?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘No, honestly, I don’t.’

  ‘Remember you told me about the enzyme? That you spend your whole life in a little room in a laboratory studying the Salinger Syndrome?’

  ‘You want me to explain to you why Puk always ends up getting beaten up by her lovers? Based on the Salinger Syndrome?’

  ‘Well, I’m a neurologist. I could explain the world by means of neurology, couldn’t I?’

  Michael gave a knowing smile. He was a scientist and was fully aware this didn’t require a great deal of effort on my part. I had it all wrapped and ready on a shelf in the lab. All I had to do was reach up to the top shelf and take it down. To be sure it was not a full-blown theory on Puk and physical violence, but it was a contribution to a theory.

  The Salinger Syndrome model can be applied to anyone. All human beings constantly receive impressions from the outside world. How do they react? How do they process the impressions they receive? What signals do they transmit to the outside world in turn? Such signals are crucial in determining other people’s reactions to the individual. People need to transmit certain signals in order to receive what every human being longs for: kindness, attention and love.

  How does Puk Bonnesen go about getting what she needs from the surrounding world? What she wants is kindness, attention and love and what she gets is a face beaten to a pulp.

  What does Salinger Syndrome theory have to say about that?

  I knew the secret of Puk’s talent, as a writer and as an organizer. Her receiving/transmitting mechanisms worked perfectly. She was able to receive and process external information to an extraordinary degree. Her information filter was in perfect working order. Anything that could be used was neatly catalogued and set aside for further use. All superfluous information was immediately bounced back into space. She was in no danger of being weighed down by useless knowledge. No one can use her as a dustbin for all the problems they want to get rid of. I’ve never met anyone so many people want to confide in. She’s considered extraordinarily gifted. Countless times I’ve heard people say, ‘And then I told Puk . . .’ They think what they say remains within Puk, that she thinks about it, that it makes an impression on her, but I know what really happens. Puk examines what she hears for its nutritional value, its utility value. If she can’t find any she gets rid of it as soon as possible before it becomes a dead weight. Other people are weighed down by information rotting inside them. Not Puk.

  Puk’s receptors are always up and running and she has no trouble transmitting, back to her surroundings, out of herself. Just like everyone else, she transmits a signal that will get her what she needs: friendship, attention and love.

  What’s special about Puk, from the perspective of the Salinger Syndrome, is her balance. All the individual components that make up the Salinger Syndrome are in perfect balance. All the information she’s gathered and catalogued is transformed into outgoing energy. She uses the information to do people favours, to combine people, bring them together in combinations they would never have imagined on their own. It’s Puk’s way of showing kindness, of being attentive. Everyone who’s on Puk’s receiving end is happy, and is doubly friendly in return.

  Michael was demonstratively quiet, staring at me fixedly. I knew what I had just said about Puk wouldn’t satisfy him. If there was any way for me to sneak out of the hospital ward without saying another word it would be a relief, as he knew. I felt such strong affection for Puk lying in bed beside us and moving uneasily in her sleep that I couldn’t make myself go on.

  Michael took pity on me. ‘Ok, is this what you’re saying? That the Salinger Syndrome is brilliant when you apply it to your work? But the same system applied to your husband and children is a disaster?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  ‘When Andy Warhol wishes he were a machine he’s talking about art, right? When you’re in love with a machine it arouses emotions in people that drive them to violence in desperation.’

  ‘Yes, that’s pretty much it. If I wasn’t ashamed of thinking such things about my good friend Puk.’

  Michael raised his voiced. ‘She’s not your friend. Puk has no friends, just a large number of acqu
aintances. All her acquaintances know they’re only acquaintances. But we, her family, we’re desperate and unhappy because we’re only pawns in Puk’s great life work. And her life’s work may end up getting her killed some day.’

  ‘We all use each other, don’t we?’ I muttered.

  ‘Spare me your psycho-babble!’ Michael exploded. ‘I need to know the truth if I’m to keep Puk from ending up dead some day.’

  ‘Look, Michael. The Salinger Syndrome isn’t the truth. It’s my own hypothetical explanation of a narrowly defined type of depression. Puk isn’t even depressed. It’s just a theory and it may not apply to Puk at all. I could be wrong, although I don’t think I am.’

  Michael asked: ‘Are you in love with Puk?’

  That was easy. ‘My feelings for her are very strong and clear. I admire her, I’m in love with her, and I love her. I am simply physically attached to her. Almost dependent on her.’

  ‘Thank you, Dan, I needed to know that.’

  ‘I needed to say it, too.’

  FOURTEEN

  What a Real Poet Looks Like

  A portrait of Boris is a portrait of success. Boris Schauman is far and away the most successful author in Denmark. No one can touch him when it comes to media coverage, rave reviews, literary prizes, early membership of the Danish Academy, etc.

  The author he’s most often compared to is Ernest Hemingway. Boris had an aunt who was a friend of Karen Blixen, or Isaac Dinesen, as she called herself. As a child Boris frequently met Karen Blixen at the home of a clergyman in Helsingborg, a cousin of Bror Blixen, Karen Blixen’s husband. Boris read and admired Hemingway. Karen Blixen had met Hemingway many times when she was living in Africa. She told Boris tales of Hemingway, as she put it. Hemingway did his best to come across as a Real Man, the embodiment of masculinity. When Blixen was in the presence of Hemingway she always pictured him in a dress. Everything Hemingway wrote had to do with being strong, brave, invulnerable. Beneath the façade he was an anxious woman who drank too much to dull his sensitivity. At the end he suffered from paranoia and depression. He was treated with electric shock therapy and committed suicide by blowing his brains out.