A Fairy Tale

by Jonas Bengtsson

  It takes a couple of seconds before I recognize the man from the hotel restaurant in the suit and white shirt. Now he looks as if he has been in a fight with wild dogs.

  “I’m sorry,” the man says. “This is all wrong. I’m so very sorry.”

  He scratches his head with the key.

  “But this happens to be my room.”

  “Which number is your room?”

  “212.”

  “This is 112, you want the next floor.”

  The man stands there for a moment, swaying. Then he starts to walk down the corridor. After a couple of steps he bumps into the wall and collapses on the floor. When he has managed to get back on his feet, he continues to the next door and again tries to insert his key into the lock.

  My dad puts on his trousers, lights a cigarette, and takes a couple of drags before he chucks it into a half-empty cup of coffee.

  The man in the corridor is still trying to unlock the door. He’s now closer to the wall than the keyhole. My dad takes him by the shoulders and steers him down the hall and up the stairs.

  On the fifth step the man lies down and hugs his knees.

  “We could always roll him up in a rug,” my dad says to me, and grins.

  Then he gets the man back on his feet and pushes him in front of him. When we reach room 212, my dad takes the key from the man’s hand and unlocks the door. The room is filled with bottles, big bottles that have had babies and made a lot of little bottles. In between lie densely written, scrunched-up sheets of paper. My dad opens the window to air out the room and helps the man into bed; he takes off his shoes and throws the blanket over him.

  We wake up late the next morning. The street below us is buzzing with cars and people. We walk to the bakery to buy breakfast, which we eat on one of the benches by the lakes that divide the city in two. When we’ve had enough, my dad takes out the bag of stale bread and we feed the ducks. Today we play Hit the Swan. It’s a game we’ve invented because the swans think they’re better than the other birds and because many of them hiss at us and demand more bread. For that reason we’re allowed to throw stale bread at them. You get maximum points if you can deliver a soft underhand throw so that the bread lands and stays between the wings.

  We walk back to the hotel and up to room 212. The door is open; the man is sitting on the bed. He’s wearing a shirt and tie, but no trousers.

  “Let’s get you dressed,” my dad says, picking up his trousers from the floor and tossing them over to him.

  It takes the man ten minutes to tie his shoelaces. He does what my dad tells him without protest, without saying very much; he brushes his teeth, splashes water on his face.

  My dad looks in the man’s wardrobe, rummages through his suitcase which, like the floor, is filled with crumpled notes.

  “Do you have any other clothes?”

  “I used to, but . . .”

  “Not anymore?”

  “No. I don’t really know what happened to them.”

  We walk down the street. A couple of times my dad has to grip the man by the shoulders and point him in the right direction. In daylight he looks even worse than last night. We reach a small dry cleaner’s; the man behind the counter is talking on the telephone. His shirt sleeves are rolled up; on his forearm he has a tattoo of a lady in a bikini. He looks at the man in the filthy suit and carries on talking into the handset. I think he’s hoping we’ll get bored and leave, but we stay put until he hangs up.

  “How long would it take you to clean a suit?” my dad asks.

  “Next week at the earliest.” With his eyes he says: Preferably never.

  My dad leans across the counter.

  “I don’t know this man very well. We just happen to be staying in the same hotel. But I know what it’s like to be in trouble.”

  The man behind the counter scratches the tattoo.

  “This guy was sent over here by his boss in Jutland. He was to meet an important customer and come home with signatures on several contracts. But he runs into the wrong woman and ends up getting a beating in an alleyway. He has lost the contracts and most of his money. He has been drinking these past few days, drinking up the last of his money to get over it.”

  While my dad speaks, I can see the man in the suit straighten up. He is starting to believe my dad’s story.

  “Now he’s scared to go home to Jutland. And as for the meeting with the big customer . . . just take a look at him, he’s not a pretty sight.”

  The guy behind the counter nods. The suit will now take just over an hour to dry clean. We wait in the shop; I can see the man’s naked knees stick out from behind the curtain. When the suit is done, my dad is told to put his wallet back in his pocket.

  “This one’s on the house.”

  We leave the dry cleaner’s. The man is wearing his suit; once again his shirt is white and freshly ironed. He walks down the street holding his head high. His suit gives off a little steam in the cold air.

  When we moved into the hotel room there were bags along all the walls. I played on the floor where hangers from the wardrobe became ships racing each other across the carpet.

  My dad would say: “Be careful with that one,” pointing to a bag. “I think that’s the one with the china.”

  I wake up at the sound of the door opening. My dad has been up early and yet another bag has gone. Slowly the room has been emptied. He has a comic for me and a pile of newspapers for himself.

  We eat sandwiches and spill fried onions on the bed.

  “I thought we’d get a bit more money for that stuff,” he says.

  I no longer have to be careful where I play.

  The walls are dark red; the lights are hidden behind coloured sheets of glass or plastic palm trees. Outside the sun is shining, but it could be midnight in here.

  My dad helps me up on the bar stool; my feet dangle high above the floor.

  “You don’t have to be a big guy to do this job,” the man behind the bar says. “The last thing I need is yet another dumb knucklehead pumped full of steroids. No shortage of those.”

  Around us, chairs have been put upside down on the tables with their legs in the air. At the back of the room there’s a small stage.

  “You wouldn’t believe how many guys I’ve had to fire. How many survive only a week or even just a single night. Men with big muscles, but tiny brains and even tinier dicks.”

  Then he remembers that I’m here.

  “Sorry,” he says. “What the hell, we’re all boys.”

  He puts a glass in front of me and fills it with orange juice.

  “Sure you don’t want some vodka in there?”

  He laughs and is about to say something else when we hear the door open and footsteps. Two men spill in through the curtain. Their voices are slurred; they lean on each other for support.

  The man behind the bar puts down his tea towel.

  “Let’s consider this your job interview. Can you get them out of here?”

  My dad nods, takes a drag on his cigarette, and leaves it in the ashtray. He steps down from the bar stool and walks up to the men.

  “Gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you,” he says. “Unfortunately we’re not open yet.”

  “The door was open, so you have to be.” The man who is talking is standing with his legs apart and his chest puffed out.

  “I’m very sorry.” My dad continues towards them with his arms out like a goalie ready to catch a ball. “If you want to look at naked ladies at this time of day, you need to go down to Istedgade. The girls down there take off all their clothes and give lap dances as well.”

  The man stays where he is until my dad is only a metre away from him. Then his shoulders slump. The men follow my dad, who holds the curtain open for them.

  “Come back tomorrow,” I hear him say. “You’ll be more
than welcome.”

  The door closes behind them.

  My dad takes his cigarette from the ashtray. The man behind the bar chuckles.

  “I don’t bloody believe it.”

  He takes my dad’s glass from the counter and tips the contents into the sink.

  “Christ Almighty, you were born for this job. I think I can take a vacation now.”

  He takes another bottle from the shelf. Sets out two small glasses and fills them to the brim. The liquid looks like apple juice.

  “You wouldn’t believe what I charge for this. One single glass and the bottle is paid for.”

  They clink their glasses.

  “Do you think you could tie your hair back?” the man asks. “Put some Brylcreem in it, brush it back?”

  My dad nods.

  “Then you’ve got yourself a job.” They shake hands on it. “I’ll get you a dark suit, don’t you worry about that.”

  That first evening I follow my dad to work. He smells of soap, and he’s wearing his new suit.

  One of the other bouncers is already standing outside the strip club, a big black man. The streetlights reflect in his bare scalp. He fills his suit completely; one wrong move and it would split.

  “I’ll take good care of your dad,” he says, and lifts me up so I dangle in the air. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll take care of him.”

  I’m sitting in the windowsill looking down on the street. I can see one of my dad’s shoulders, or sometimes his back, when he takes a couple steps out onto the sidewalk. I see people come and go, see taxis pull up in front of the strip club and men get out. My dad holds the door open for them. Other men come alone; they walk down the street in thick coats. Some are allowed in, others are told to move on.

  A young couple with backpacks stop below my window. They stand in front of the hotel for a long time, looking from the number above the door back to the piece of paper the girl is holding in her hands. I can’t hear what they’re saying; their words are drowned out by the traffic. The young man shakes his head and they carry on down the street.

  I keep my eyes on my dad. Whenever he disappears from sight, I start counting. I get to nineteen; I get to twenty-four. I lean out the window, but I still can’t see him. When I get to thirty-two, I can see his elbow. Then more of him. He has one arm around a man’s shoulder; his other hand around the man’s wrist. My dad straightens out the knot of his tie. The man leans against my dad for a little while before he’s sent down the street with a pat on the back.

  The young couple returns; now the guy is in front, there’s distance between them. Their backpacks appear to have grown heavier since the first time they were here; they enter the door to the hotel without speaking to each other.

  I look at my dad. As long as I keep my eyes on him, nothing bad can happen.

  The door opens, my dad’s footsteps across the floor become the sound of raindrops on the roof of a bus that will keep driving all night long and not stop until it reaches a distant country. We get out and feed giraffes; we give the apes tiny pieces of bread from our packed lunches.

  My dad turns over in his sleep. I can smell beer and tobacco and I know that all’s well now.

  Some nights my dad doesn’t get back until the sun comes through the curtains, dyeing the room orange. Then he brings me breakfast. Other days he wraps me up warm and we walk down to the lakes and eat bread from the bakery. Some days I have school, other days we go for long walks across the city. When we cross Rådhuspladsen, I don’t look up at the clock on the town hall. The hours pass too quickly and soon my dad will have to go to work. I’ve brushed my teeth and I’m lying in bed. My dad tells me the next part of the fairy tale about the King and the Prince. Every day I hope that he’ll forget what the time is, I hope that his eyes will grow heavy, that he’ll fall asleep in his shirt so that I can take off his shoes. It never happens. He kisses my forehead, takes his suit jacket from the back of the chair, and I hear the door slam shut.

  One night when my dad gets back, he curses all the way through the room. He closes the door to the bathroom behind him and stays in there for a long time. The sound of the tap becomes a huge waterfall; our little boat is heading for the precipice.

  I wake up before my dad. The city is still quiet, the sun’s on its way up. With sleep in my eyes I go to the bathroom to pee; I turn my head and see my dad’s shirt. It’s on a hanger on the shower curtain rail. The shirt is wet and crumpled and it’s still dripping. On the front and at the end of both sleeves there are big pink stains so it looks like someone spilled fruit punch on him.

  We celebrate Christmas Eve while the sun is high in the sky. We sit on the bed eating roast duck. We have caramelized potatoes in one foil tray and red cabbage in another.

  My dad dragged the Christmas tree up the hotel’s back stairs. We dance around it and sing Christmas carols. Then I open my present; it’s wrapped in several layers of paper. It’s a remote-controlled boat. Tomorrow we’re taking it out for a sail.

  My dad puts the blanket over me. He’s going to work now. I ask him to please stay. Please, just a little bit longer. Please tell me again what’s starboard and what’s port on a ship, I think I’ve forgotten.

  He says that more men want to see women take off their clothes at Christmas. He doesn’t know why; perhaps they’re lonely. But they tip him generously. He kisses my forehead and closes the door behind him.

  My dad has the next couple of days off and we sail the boat from when we get up in the morning till the sun sets, interrupted only by a lunch break or to go to the nearest newsstand to buy new batteries. I learn how to turn the boat against the wind so it won’t keel over.

  When we return to the hotel room, my nose is running and my cheeks are burning. Even in my sleep I can see the boat. I’m now standing on the deck; the boat hasn’t grown bigger, I’ve just grown much smaller. I sail past a giant duck at great speed and nearly crash into an enormous beer bottle floating on the black-and-green water.

  We’re woken up by shouting and people running down the hotel corridor. My dad and I hurry out of the room, still wearing only T-shirts and underpants. We follow the flow of people. When we reach the landing, we see that everyone is on their way up, not down. We follow them; the second-floor hallway is packed with guests. Everyone is talking at the same time. My dad takes my hand, we push our way through. The door to room 212 is open. My dad tells me to wait outside; I hear the sound of a bottle smashing against the wall.

  “Leave me alone,” someone shouts from the inside. The voice is strangely thick, but I’m almost certain that it belongs to the man in the suit.

  My dad stands in the doorway.

  “That one,” the voice calls out. “I’m only talking to him.”

  My dad enters the room and I lose sight of him. I’m pushed around by people craning their necks in order to get a better look. They whisper to each other. A few minutes pass, then a man in orange clothes appears in the doorway. He asks everyone to move aside, first politely, then more forcefully. He’s carrying the foot-end of a stretcher. People retreat along the corridor. When the stretcher passes me, I can see the man lying on it; he’s wearing the jacket from his suit, but no trousers. His sleeves are pushed up; he has bandages around his arms. My dad holds his hands, doesn’t let go even though the corridor is narrow. I follow them down the stairs. They lift the man into the ambulance, they close the back doors, and the ambulance drives down the street. My dad puts his arm around my shoulders. The ambulance disappears around the corner.

  My head feels as if it’s rolling loosely around the bed. I don’t want to wake my dad; he has barely had any sleep since he got the job at the strip club. I drink water from the tap, it tastes of metal, my tongue is too big for my mouth. I sit down and look out the window, I watch cars drive by, I’m hot and cold at the same time.

  I feel a little better after I’ve had a bath. My dad hums
while he shaves; today’s the last day of the year. My dad has been pointing it out to me on the calendar in the hotel reception, only four days left now, three days, two days.

  We sit on the bed and eat marzipan wreath cake. We wear paper hats and we pull crackers. Inside them are small plastic cats, one red, one blue, and one yellow. I put them on the bedside table.

  We walk down to the lakes. We’ve got three fireworks and I’m allowed to light them.

  On the way home I throw fun snaps. They make a loud bang when they hit the ground.

  We’ve just walked through the door to the hotel when I start to feel ill again.

  The pattern in the carpet in the corridor starts to twist.

  I lie down on the bed between the paper plates with marzipan cake. The glasses with orange juice are still standing on the bedside table; the orange colour moves up the wall and spreads across the ceiling. I’ve never seen anything so orange.

  I’m sweating and shaking. My dad fetches me a glass of water from the bathroom. I manage to swallow a couple of mouthfuls before I throw up; small lumps of marzipan and juice land on the bed and the carpet.

  We haven’t used the telephone in the hotel room since we arrived, but now my dad makes a call.

  “I can’t come tonight,” he says into the handset. “My son’s ill.” Then he listens to the voice down the other end. “Yes, I do know what night it is. No, the money’s not the issue, I only have one son.” Then he listens again, looks over at me. “Okay, yes, I’ll ask him . . .”

  My dad kneels down by the bed and looks me in the eye. “Would you like to see where your dad works? See the place at night?”

  I make no reply, I’m afraid I’ll throw up again.

  “If you can last tonight, just for tonight, you’ll get that bicycle. We’ll buy it for you the moment the shops open again. What do you say?”

  I see the bicycle: it floats right above my dad’s head and it’s incredibly blue. I nod.