Kerrigan in Copenhagen (26 page)

“Hairy lemon,” blurts Kerrigan. “Soap.”

“We do not have soap, sir. Just liquid soap in the lavatory.”

“No, no. This. Hairy lemon soap. Bought it at Sweny's Chemist. Featured in
Ulysses
. Joyce. You know, Leopold Bloom bought a bar on June 16, 1904. Poldy Bloom. Give us a touch, Poldy, Molly said. I'm dying for it. And he kissed her under the Moorish wall.”

Now she looks frightened, escapes with a wilted mouth as Kerrigan stuffs the lump back into his pocket. How to get rid of it? Cram it in the obsolete armrest ashtray. But they would know. Too large anyway. Already alerted perhaps. Witnessed. Their records show who sat here. Seat 7C, left two-seat aisle. Kerrigan, T. E. Too old for this. Could go to jail. Smuggling. Mule. Alert the captain to have a SWAT team waiting at Kastrup. Swat him like a fly. Journalists, too. UNKNOWN EXPATRIATE WRITER APPREHENDED AT KASTRUP. HASH COUP. Held in isolation for thirteen days.

He sips bubbly with his predicament. Could bury it in the remains of his runny scrambled eggs. Not deep enough.

The businessman across the aisle is sneering openly at him. Kerrigan says, “
Tyv tror, hver mand stjæler
.” Old Danish proverb: Thieves think everyone steals. And “Drunks fear the police, but the police are drunk, too.” And “You have the leer of the sensualist about you. I am the proverbial
l'homme moyen sensuel
.”

The man removes his gaze slowly. Very un-Danish to strike an attitude over another's vices. Must be a Swede. Or Norwegian. You're as sane as I. Aren't wolves dangerous? So are violins. You are so blind. Did she say that? Sin not against the breath.

Kerrigan thinks of the sniffing dogs that patrol American airports, trained to nose out the goods, tries to remember if he has ever seen such a beast in Kastrup. See here, I hold an SAS Star Alliance Gold Card. Many,
many
air miles to my name. Entrée to the gold lounge, where they serve complimentary champagne and Christian of Denmark cigarillos.

Disposable toothbrushes in the loo and gratis newspapers in five languages. Bright row of bottles of strong spirits at your free disposal along with an ice bucket, tongs, sturdy drink glasses (no plastic cups there) and savory snacks. They even distribute free volumes of Scandinavian literature in the original Scandinavian with English translation, including Strindberg's
Alone
, Brandes's
Thoughts on the Turn of the Century
, Hamsun's
Hunger, A Fragment
, Munch's
Notes of a Genius
, and Ibsen's
When We Dead Awaken
, which James Joyce reviewed at the age of seventeen.
We only see what we have lost / When we dead awaken. / And then what do we see? / We see that we never have lived
.

I know these things. I am the man and I was there and I will be there again, puffing a Christian, tippling bubbly in the company of great Nordic writing, and I will breathe easily and deeply again, as soon as this temporary obstruction in my lungs is overcome, and I have a press card issued by the Danish Association of Magisters Joint Committee for Danish Press Organizations that entitles me to cross police lines, though subject to the provisions of the Ministry of Justice Circular No. 211 of 20 December 1995. Freedom of the press. I instruct you to let me pass. But it stipulates on the card that one is subject to obey instructions from the police at the site of the crime. Such as:
Please empty your pockets, sir, and assume the position
. Maybe one of those good-looking policewomen. Hurt me a wee bit, please, so I at least get something out of this inconvenience. Just a wee bit. Tingling of the flesh, as old Poldy said in Night Town.

Now you're fucked, Kerrigan. All these years of surfing only to wipe out over a stupid bit of greed. Robbing a frightened backpacker of his stash.

UNKNOWN AMERICAN WRITER HELD FOR QUESTIONING IN KASTRUP HASH CASE.

Hashish
(Arabic), n. (1598), the concentrated resin from the flowering tops of the female hemp plant (
cannabis sativa
) that is smoked, chewed or drunk for its intoxicating effect—also called
charas
.

Female hemp.

You're so blind
.

Can't you take a joke?

Sin not against the breath
.

Everything will be all right. Optimism, said Voltaire, is a mania for insisting all is well when things are going badly.
Candide
. Fine novel that, published more than three hundred years ago, and Voltaire had to run for it. Police after him for every manner of sin in print, against God, the church, the priesthood, sexual propriety, king and country. Man will not be free until the last monarch has been strangled in the intestines of the last priest. Or the other way around. To protect himself he had the book published simultaneously on the same day in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, and London, and ran his bloody arse off to the little town of Ferney, just across the border from Geneva, where he built a chateau, convenient for a Swiss getaway, planted poplars along the entryway, and the town became known as Ferney-Voltaire and the town-folk called him Le Patron.

French cabdriver once when I insisted on being allowed to sit in the front seat bellowed at me, “
C'est moi qui est le patron, monsieur!
” Unlike the sweet waitress to whom I once said, “
Merci, madame
,” and she replied, “
C'est moi qui dit merci, monsieur
,” and slapped her ample rump as she passed me. Another missed opportunity that one remembers on the very lip of extinction. Die in prison of lung cancer.
Do you 'ave a leetle Franshman in you?

Kerrigan clicks the telephone out from beneath the armrest, swipes in his plastic, and dials her number. He wants just to hear her voice once before they lock him up. Ironic to be able to reach her like this, so near yet so far, years about to separate them. Time goes by so slowly. Long lonely nights. And this is why I sojourn here, alone and palely loitering.

She answers on the first ring. “This is Annelise,” she says in the Danish manner. He only listens, the rush of the jet in his ears, as she says, “Hello?” and he can think of nothing to say to her.

“Is it Terrence?” she asks. “Why are you breathing so heavily?” He hangs up.

Is it Terrence? You're so blind. Pilferers will be severely dealt with. Beware of the moving bollards. Why are you breathing so heavily?

Am I breathing heavily? Enough to be noticed?
Will they think he's nerdvous.

The chief cabin steward requests the passengers to fasten their seat-belts and place their seatbacks in an upright position, so Kerrigan feeling less than upright sits strapped in and upright, looking out the window at the shadow of the plane over the green sea (not snot but jade, like his Associate's eyes), moving landward, alongside a sailboat, over the fields of Amager, over a bunch of tiny cows in a field, a herd of tiny horses, over glittering miniature scale-model cars and roads and houses, finally larger, much larger than before, over the airfield where the great wheels bang down and roll along the tarmac.

Pilferers will be severely dealt with
.

He knows he must easily be subject to suspicion, a heavily breathing man with out luggage, not even a cabin bag, only his
Finnegan
satchel, in rumpled clothes, who has been sighted by a cabin attendant with a double-thumb-size lump of hashish in his hand—the word
assassin
originally was
hashishin
, thugs who smoked hash and went out on a rampage of killing—yet he does not dare discard it for fear he is being watched. He recognizes that this is unreasonable yet his mind is awash with fleet fishlike thoughts of scientific methods by which they can test the fingers and pocket lining for hash residue and the fear that his fate will be harsher if he tries to escape it. At least he was honest. Owned up to his sins. So lock him up but keep the key handy.

He can think of no more horrific fate than jail. To be forced into close quarters with no escape from confronting terrible types. Supposedly the Danish penal system is much more humane than the American where, in the year of 1999, 1.8 million people are incarcerated with the total ever increasing, more than half for nonviolent offenses under the new, tough, mandatory no-parole drug sentences, but Kerrigan doubts the Danish jails are all
that
humane, set up not to correct but to punish. Even the Danish minister of justice has been quoted as saying that no one ever became a better person by doing time. You are locked in a room, subject to the whimsy of brutal types who belong to secret societies,
and no escaping their rule unless you are one of the “strong” prisoners.

Kerrigan once had a tour of a maximum-security prison in Denmark and was in a group shown around by a very well-spoken prisoner with impeccable manners. The group was told about conjugal visits that could be with wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, or prostitutes—said to reduce the instances of violence in jail. They were shown cells that were only slightly worse than certain no-star hotel rooms Kerrigan had stayed in—toilet, shower, bed with bedspread, coffee table, minifridge, TV, writing desk, easy chair. The difference was that these rooms were locked, from the outside, between seven P.M. and seven A.M. You had to remain locked into about an eight-square-foot room for half of every twenty-four hours. Afterward the group was gathered in the prison conference room for a Q&A. Kerrigan asked, “I've heard that there are strong prisoners and weak prisoners. What actually transpires?”

The guide—obviously a strong prisoner—gazed at him with intelligent, unwavering blue eyes, thought a moment, and finally said, “What are you asking me? Are you asking if a fine is laid on the weak ones each time they have to use the toilet? That doesn't happen.”

Answer enough for Kerrigan. Negating the suggestion a mere formality.

Kerrigan knows that he would not do well in prison. If only he had his pistol with him, he could retire to a restroom and plug his brain. Keep his reason forever from stifling, unless of course he would end in hell or purgatory for such an act or, as the Buddhists were said to believe, would be immediately recycled as an insect: Oh, no you don't, buddy! No exit for you. Go immediately to worse shit, do not pass go, and collect nothing but more misery.

His pistol! If they apprehend him, search his premises, they will find it. Last exit closed. No excape, as his Dublin cab driver said. They could pin whatever they want on him. Yet isolation would be preferable to the society of criminals. God knows if the stories are true of what they do to each other, what they do to the weak, anal rape the classic method by which victorious soldiers demonstrate their power over the vanquished,
even as James Dickey indicated in the climactic scene of his novel
Deliverance
as standard practice. There are even jokes about this on TV sitcoms, and it is not funny. It would hurt. Very much. Not even masochistically pleasing, just goddamn downright ugly brutal pain, tearing of the rectum. Humiliation and pain. Miserable society that allows such practices. Some people even applaud it. Make jokes of it. Gloat.

Your honor, this man completely
forgot
he had hashish in his pocket. Therefore I call for immediate dismissal. Why is he breathing so heavily if he's innocent? Simple obstruction of the air passages. Temporary.

On the other hand, he knows a British fellow who was one of the hostages in Iran and who used his imaginative faculties to ward off ill treatment—he fed his captors “secrets” gleaned from the pages of a Tom Clancy novel. Perhaps the imagination can serve even there. Perhaps Kerrigan could start a writers' workshop, thus becoming a valued colleague of the stronger cons who would then refrain from bestial practices, come to him as a senior, request his guidance.

Kerrigan, in terror, confesses to himself that he is a physical coward.

After a long swift walk, Kerrigan presents his identity card to the uniformed man at the passport control booth. He glances at Kerrigan's card, looks at his face, regards his heaving chest, and says in Danish, “Ah, here's an American who has had to learn to master this horrible Danish language.”

“I try anyway,” says Kerrigan in Danish, and they both laugh.

“Welcome home,” says the Dane in Danish with a smile, and Kerrigan smiles, too, saying in Danish, “Thanks shall you have,” though he is wise to him: It's a test; they speak Danish to you cheerfully, but if you don't understand you reveal yourself as a possible thief of a national identity card for purposes of illegal entry into this social democratic king-dom's welfare.

No dogs on leashes are sniffing about the baggage area, and with a distinct sense of watching eyes all about him, his legs stiff and heavy, lungs laboring (
Why is this happening?
), he strategically positions himself behind a black man and walks through customs unmolested while the black man in front of him is stopped and questioned.

Saved by Nordic racism! You should be ashamed. But you're not.

The tall young professional fellow in the black T-shirt comes out behind him, and as they pass through the automatic doors to freedom, he gives a sidewise smile and a wink. “Hash and eggs, ey?” he says, and is gone.

Kerrigan leaves the train at Nørreport station, deliciously, deliriously relieved. A free man. Yet he cautions himself against optimism.
Ingen kender dagen for solen går ned
, he thinks. Danish proverb: No one knows the day before the sun has set. Like Sophocles,
Oedipus
: Count no man happy until he is laid in his grave. And remembers then what Kreon says to blind Oedipus when he objects to having his children removed from him: “Think no longer that you are in charge here. Rather think how when you were, you served your own destruction.”

The sun is brilliant. Rare day of spring. Soon time to blind his consciousness. Soon time for
en hivert
. Lovely Danish word, that, for a drink: A pull. Sounds better in the Viking tongue:
Hivert
.