Salinger's Letters
Page 17
EIGHTEEN
All Adventures Come to an End
I’m the only one at the Factory with fixed working hours. I’m always at work on the stroke of 8 and leave at precisely 4.15 p.m.
We never arrive at the factory at the same time in the morning. Only once in the history of the Factory did we all meet in the morning on the sidewalk in front of the Factory. It was late January 2010. Turning the corner from Oster Farimagsgade I saw a sight I’d never seen before: Puk, Boris and Nora were standing on the sidewalk in front of the door to the Factory.
My first thought was that the door was stuck, the lock was broken. When I reached them Nora said quietly, ‘Salinger is dead.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ I asked evenly.
Puk said, ‘It was on the Internet last night. I’ve been up all night working.’
Boris pointed out, ‘He was 91.’
My first thought was of a dead plant, the plant Salinger had stolen from Freud’s garden in London was dead now; it had withered and Salinger died the next day.
My eyes filled with tears and a moment later tears were running down my cheeks.
Nora had a handkerchief ready. She smiled at me. ‘I’m glad you’re crying Dan. You were fond of Salinger and he deserves your tears.’
I dried my eyes. The other three looked at each other to see which of them going to tell me what they had agreed. The lot fell on Boris. ‘The rest of us talked last night. It turns out we all have pretty much the same reaction to Salinger’s death and it seems none of us knows why.’
He fell silent and looked at Puk and Nora.
It was Nora’s turn: ‘We decided once many years ago that we wanted the factory to last our whole lives. So we agreed never to rock the boat by seeing each other privately and risk draining all the energy out of our friendship.’
Puk took over. ‘That was my idea, back then. Now I have another idea. I suggest we become friends, personal friends. If you want to be friends with me, that is, and with the others?’
I replied, ‘Salinger would have understood perfectly.’
We celebrated the start of our new friendship by not going to work that day. We walked down Gothersgade, turned right into Kronprinsessegade and sat down in Café Sommersko.
We stayed there over coffee until lunchtime. After lunch we stayed on until we’d got hold of our families. And there, along with our husbands and wives and children and grandchildren and a dog concealed in a bag we all had dinner together for the first time.
Boris’ oldest son Carl raised his glass: ‘To Salinger’, he said.
The rest of us joined in, repeating in unison: ‘To Salinger.’
I turned and looked straight into Beate’s eyes.
And then for the first time in I thought of Ulla Ladegaard, my fairy tale therapist. I hadn’t thought of her since I had made her a promise all those years ago. I’m thinking of you now, Ulla, when you said love is what moves the sun and the stars.
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