Falling Sideways (19 page)
His phone rang, and he took it quickly, his heart lifting as he heard Birgitte’s voice.
“You’ve been calling, Harald?”
“Why did you leave without telling me? We were supposed to meet.”
A long silence ensued, and he was about to speak again, but she said, “I was confused.”
“Birgitte, I need to see you.”
“I can’t.”
“Birgitte, I need to see you. I
need
to see you.”
Silence. Then: “Why?”
He rose from the table, walked away into the doorway of a clothing shop alongside the bar, whispering, “Birgitte, please, we’ve just got to talk this through. Please, meet me. Just half an hour. For a cup of coffee. I’m so worried about you.”
Silence. Then: “Just half an hour.”
“Just half an hour.”
The only decent piece of furniture he had was the coffee table, a curved trapezoid slab of raw beech hardwood, low to the floor above an antique red brown Turkoman carpet he’d inherited from his mother. He had arranged half a dozen pillows around it and lit half a dozen candles in a silver-plated candelabra, set the table with antique mocha porcelain and hundred-year-old cognac glasses, also inherited, and a sterling silver bowl in which he’d placed the little olive tree his last girlfriend had given him at the end of the fortnight they’d lived together. It looked like a bonsai tree in the candlelight. He hoped this little island of elegance might distract her from the seediness of the rest of his tiny apartment.
What she said to him at the door after climbing four flights up, slightly winded, was, “I never thought you would be such a Bohemian,” and suddenly he saw his apartment in another light, through her eyes—or her diplomacy. She slipped off her shoes at the door, and he heated water for Nescafé espresso. His heart leapt as she sat back on the pillows, her skirt crawling up her slender thighs so he could see the shadow between them. And one of her opulent breasts tipped downward beneath her furry sweater, a nippled nod. She smiled at the candles. “So romantic.”
He cracked the seal of the split of VS Courvoisier he’d invested in. The scent of the cognac chuckling into the crystal snifters lifted to his nostrils as Al Green sang softly from the stereo. “Let’s Stay Together.”
He could see in the sheen of her burgundy eyes that there would be no pretense, no contest. She knew why she was here. Optimism sang in his blood as he reached across gingerly to touch her toes, took her foot in his palm, and began to massage it. She watched him curiously for a moment, then hummed the pleasure of her acceptance, and he bowed forward to tenderly kiss her toes.
“No!” She pulled her foot away. “I haven’t showered.”
“Birgitte,” he whispered, “Birgitte, goddammit,
je t’adore
,” and pressing his lips to the salty arch of her foot, he murmured, “God, God, I have wanted you so long.” And they tumbled together on the carpet, his heart pounding at the wall of his chest, and nothing in the world existed beyond the glow of this candlelit oval in the dark of night.
Afterward, she lay with her cheek on his naked chest, and he stared up at the dim, crackled ceiling, thinking about the fact that when you’re married, all the uncertainty of being single, of wondering whether you will have sex tonight, is gone; because when you’re married you pretty well know for sure you’re
not
going to have sex tonight. The thought tickled him, and he considered sharing it with her but feared she might misunderstand and think him cynical. He was not cynical. He was in recuperation from a loveless marriage. At this moment, hearing Al Green’s baritone on repeat, he was as happy as he could ever be.
Birgitte excused herself to use the toilet, and he watched her naked, graceful body as she crossed through the candlelight to the little water closet. He considered how slightly disappointing it always was to see a woman naked, how their faces always sort of decomposed as masks fell away, barriers removed themselves. It was the barriers that excited, the masks. Or something deeper at the heart of what they were, of what the beautiful allure of their bodies seemed to be, to stand for, that which drove them to paint themselves, their faces, their fingernails, toenails, to adorn their bodies with jewels. He felt a desire to devour then that he knew could never really be fulfilled. And so there was nothing to do but try again in order to experience the ecstasy of hope that this time, this time, it might succeed, might happen, a moment of ecstasy that became permanent.
She emerged from the WC, looking around for her panties, but he reached up to her thigh. “Wait, wait, no.” He caught her hand and drew her down, turned over, and put his face between her thighs, kissing the silken skin along the glowing flat plane that led to the dark plant of her delta. “So beautiful,” he whispered, and again, whimpered, “So beautiful!
Angel!
”
She groaned, murmured his name. “Harald! Oh, Harald!”
“Birgitte! Birgitte!”
Yes!
Midnight, and he pleaded with her to stay the night.
“I can’t, darling,” she said.
“Darling? That’s me?”
She nodded, smiling, and he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face into the flesh of her neck and moaned, “Jesus Christ, I cannot let you go.”
She laughed, happy, looked into his eyes a long moment, then kissed him deeply on the mouth.
And then she was gone. He stood at the door, listening to her footsteps on the stair—pretty little feet!—descending, retreating from him, and finally the click of the door below, closing.
He sat up alone by his window, gazing out over the rooftops of North Bridge, sipping cognac, thinking,
I will marry her. I will. She will be mine forever. This time it will last. This is the woman of my life. To whom I will be faithful until I die. This time I will.
“What happened with your marriage to Vita, Harald?” she had asked him as he lay on his back and she traced a fingertip through the hard creases of his abdomen.
“Yeah,” he said, hands behind his head. “What happened?” And he tried to explain to her as the words he discovered in his mouth now explained it for himself: how he had married a woman he did not really love because she loved him. Or at least she wanted him. At the time he did not know what to do with his life, so he decided—not necessarily with full consciousness—it was better to be loved than to be lonely. Or at least better to be wanted than to be lonely.
It took very few years for him to realize that this was not the case, and it took even fewer years for her to perceive that he didn’t love her. When she came to that realization, they already had two beautiful daughters, and her love turned cruel. To his surprise, battling to maintain his identity against her cruelty strengthened him, but at some point, he realized it was a battle to the death. She grew violent; finally he responded with violence; then there was nothing to do but file for divorce, which was the last cut to her pride.
The pain he had caused her hurt him far more than her violence or her cruelty ever could. To compensate, he gave her everything he had won in the dozen years they were together, everything that his newfound strength had gained for him. Which made her hate him even more. So she took not only the two houses, selling one and keeping the other, and all his money, but their two little girls as well, his little angels, and now he was at her mercy when she would allow him to see them beyond the alternate weekends the court had granted.
Well, he still had his strength, his passion. He knew he would never love again. “Women like that,” he said. Birgitte smiled quizzically at the statement. “Most women,” he modified. “For a while.” As a result, he had had several women passionately involved in trying to make him love them. When they realized it was a hopeless cause, they left him, right about the time he was ready for them to do so.
“A regular Don Juan,” Birgitte said, not without admiration in her tone. Then, caressing his flat hard navel, she added more gently, “It sounds so terribly lonely.”
He sipped his cognac. “Yes and no.”
“What is yes, then, and what is no?”
“Well, the yes is that now …” He looked into her eyes. “Goddammit, Birgitte, I …” He shook his head, shed a tear into his fingers while her fingers played in the hair at his neck.
“How long can a man run from love?” he said. He touched her face. “You,” he said, and peered deeply into her eyes. “Are you the woman of my life?”
Kampman ordered his limousine at six forty-five P.M., early for him, but it was Thursday, and he had a standing appointment every third Thursday evening. He shoved his dinner plate to the corner of his desk, knife and fork assembled at five o’clock on the bone china, swallowed the last of the wine (one glass a day), and clicked off his desk lamp. The entire headquarters floor of the Tank was quiet. And that’s how it was to be on top. First in, last out. He stood there in the dark of his office, in the silence, and felt a sense of contentment, of power, rise within him and with it an agreeable tingle of anticipation.
Slowly and evenly does it.
Breathwaite and Jaeger were now in place. Marianne he would speak to in the morning. The others would follow.
I am in charge. I make the decisions. I steer the ship. I take care of things.
And with that, in the shadows around him, the pleasurable fear of what lay before him this evening.
The black company Mercedes waited at the curb on East Farimags Street outside the Tank. Karl, the chauffeur, stood beside the rear fender, his jacket buttoned, tie knot flush to his throat. He touched his cap. “Evening, Mr. Director.”
Kampman nodded. “Evening, Karl. Everything well? Family?”
“Excellent, sir.”
Then he was settled back in the black leather upholstery, glass partition between them. Silence. Karl would survive the cut. Breathwaite was in place—that was the biggest single savings, five and a half mil. More, actually, with the new agreement to let his son come in for two years. Family charity. Saved him a good quarter mil more. Jaeger would take over what they still needed of Breathwaite’s function—without a raise for now, later with a cut. Kampman was pleased with the day’s work. He was even more pleased to be free of the oversize, pompous oaf. Much too long in the tooth. No one should be allowed to stay more than ten years, a dozen at best. Jaeger would soon be up for review. If young Breathwaite was quick enough and less oafish than his father and didn’t smoke, he might be good to take over Jaeger’s functions at half the price. But the key now would be the secretaries. There were forty of them in the Tank, earning between a quarter mil and 350,000. And big envelopes of time during which they did nothing but hold meetings that in fact were sessions of the coffee club. Gossip sharing, but also sessions of strategy planning, on how to milk the Tank for more—on Tank time.
Paid
Tank time.
Each of thirty of those secretaries was attached to one case handler, consultant, or department head, a completely unnecessary luxury in the age of the personal computer. With the implementation of role-efficient procedures, each of those thirty could serve three or four, and the other twenty, who were serving two or three, could be serving four or five. A minimum savings right there of thirty million or more. In the next round. And the next round after that to slice away unnecessary case handlers, consultants, and department heads. Then unnecessary departments. In five years’ time, the Tank would be sailing at racing trim, and Kampman would have earned his negotiated bonus before moving on.
As Karl signaled left on Bernstorffs Way and turned onto Tonysvej, Kampman felt the glitter in his own eyes as he contemplated the remainder of the evening.
“Have a good night, Mr. Director,” Karl said, holding the limo door for him.
Kampman nodded. “Remember me to your family, Karl.”
One side of the double garage door was up, and the space where he normally parked his silver BMW stood empty. He stepped into the space. Only Karen’s orange Toyota was there. He let himself in through the garage entry, which opened onto a vestibule that gave access to the kitchen. He stood there amid the row of family Wellingtons, rain capes, hats, and garden workclothes. There were voices from the kitchen. Annoying.
Adam and the new au pair girl, Jytte, were seated at the kitchen table, a cozy-draped teapot between them.
Kampman smiled at Jytte. “Overtime?”
“Karen asked me to stay on and watch the twins. There was a meeting she forgot.”
“Well, no need to keep you up so late. Adam can watch the twins, can’t you, son?”
Adam’s mouth jerked into a smile. “Uh, sure, Dad, I could do that.”
Jyttle looked skeptical. “I don’t know. Karen asked
me.
…”
Kampman chuckled. “It’s okay. Believe me.” He turned the heat of his smile on her. “I can drop you off on the way to my meeting.”
Adam poured another cup of tea, spooned in sugar, and watched his father touch Jytte’s elbow to guide her out the kitchen door. It pissed him off, that touch.
Fuck you, Dad
, he thought.
Keep your hands off of her.
His father glanced back with a smile. His nose twitched. “Beer,” he said. Adam saw that Jytte was watching. Her eyes seemed to question him, to challenge him to defend himself.
“I had a beer with a friend.”
“Fine. Who?”
“A fellow I met.”
His father did not pursue the matter, but Adam could see he was not done with it. He didn’t want to tell him who it was. He didn’t want to tell him anything. Not until he had his thoughts better organized.
“Tell your mom not to wait up. I’ll be beat when I get back. I’ll probably sleep in the basement room so I don’t disturb her.”
Adam listened to the rustle of their movements through the boot room, heard Jytte say something, but could not make out the words. Sound of his father’s voice and the smacking of the door. Then the whir of the garage door on its automatic switch, the Toyota ignition, and the growl of its engine backing out the drive.
Have a good day, son?