Metro (2 page)

The reflections in the front window allow me to look at the girl, pulling her pink suitcase along the aisle between the seats. She entered the train by at door further down, and now she is coming towards me. For some reason, I seem to like that. I almost wish for her to come all the way to the front to sit here with me.

She doesn’t.

This is Denmark. We are Danes. We keep our distance. We do not pick a seat close to strangers if other seats are available. We do not talk to strangers in the trains. While using her fingers on the screen of her cell phone, she picks a seat in the compartment on the other side of the doors I entered the train by.

I grab my own cell phone from my pocket, not knowing why. I let it slide back down my pocket, feeling a little restless. Why is the train not moving?

My eyes return to the reflections in the front window. I can see all the way to the other end of the train and it’s empty. It is kind of strange now that I think about it. Usually, there are always people in the Metro, no matter what time it is. I can’t recall ever riding a Metro this empty. If the girl gets off at the next stop, I will be all alone. Certainly, that will change as soon as we get closer to the city. After all, it is Thursday, and the students have started their weekend of partying by now.

I spot a discarded newspaper on the seat behind me and swiftly grab hold of it. The front page contains a large photograph of me. It is blurry and not showing me from a particularly flattering side. My eyes are gazing directly at the reader oozing anger, maybe even insanity. They made sure to pick the frame from the surveillance recordings were I looked most criminal. I am wearing the same clothes as I am right now, same dark suit, even the same tie. The shirt might also be the same, but you can’t tell; all my shirts are white. A dark shadow of beard stubble is covering my cheeks.

THIS IS THE RAPIST
, the headline reads and Maja is damn right; it is me in the picture. But how can that be? I wasn’t even in the country Monday night. Yet, it is me in the picture standing inside the Metro near the doors, clutching the bar under the roof, staring right into the surveillance camera. It could have been this same train, and I would have been standing no more than a few meters from where I am sitting now. You can’t see anybody else in the picture. Maybe the train was empty that night as well. Only, I wasn’t on the train that night, and I have never ridden an empty Metro.

What is happening?

A doppelganger? Everybody has one. Isn’t that what they say? Only, it can’t be a doppelganger. The man in the newspaper has both the same tiny mole on the chin as I and even the scar in the eyebrow I got during my military service. It can’t be anybody else. No doppelganger could have both the mole
and
the scar—even a monozygotic twin wouldn’t have both. It can only be me. But how did I end up on that photo?

I look at my reflection in the front window, touching the mole…the scar. It is exactly as in the newspaper. The young woman is looking at me. I stiffen, feeling cold inside. What if there is a newspaper lying back there as well? What if she recognizes me? Young women are known to make false rape reports just to get the attention…or so I have read in the papers. If she does that, I am fucked for sure. Nobody will believe anything I say. Nobody.

I drop the newspaper like it burned me. I look down at my legs, pulling an imaginary dust bit from my trousers. I am sweating. Why is the train not moving? Why isn’t there anybody on this train?

A thought hits me out of nowhere, and I carefully turn to pick up the newspaper. Comparing the picture on the front page to my reflection, it is exactly the same… Only, I am not. I am mirrored, or the reflection is mirrored; and if the picture in the paper isn’t mirrored too, then it
can’t
be me in the picture. Both my mole and my scar are on the right side of my face, and both the picture and the reflection would have them on the left side.

I frown. The picture will probably turn out to be mirrored. It would be quite astonishing if there was a man out there in Copenhagen who looked so much like me that he literally could be my mirror image.

Then I see it. The suit, the buttons. The buttons are, of course, placed on the right side as they always are on men’s clothes. The buttonholes are on the left. If the shot was mirrored, they would be placed the other way around, like on women’s clothes.

The train beeps, the doors close, and the train starts moving. I glance back at the young woman. Now, she is sitting with her eyes closed, maybe even slumbering. The earplugs are back in her ears. My eyes follow the white cord along her neck to her ears and once again I can almost taste the metal of her earrings inside my mouth.

And then I remember. Her name was Ellen-Marie. My first love. Ellen-Marie. Of course. Ellen-Marie Lundquist. I was so in love with her. I don’t even think I was that in love with my ex-wife. Betina seemed more like a reasonable choice, a good woman to mother my children; but Ellen-Marie, fourteen years old… It was so intense. The feeling of her fine, soft hair between my fingers. It was magic. She trembled when I touched her. I even remember the scent of the tea she used to make those afternoons in her parent’s big, empty villa. The posters on the walls of her room, the hand that slowly found its way inside her shirt. She was far too young to wear a bra.

Noticing me staring at her, the girl shoots me a hard look. Embarrassed, I turn away. Maybe if she had been older I could try to start a conversation. God knows, I need a woman in my life. There have been no women, absolutely
no
women, since the divorce. I haven’t had the time nor the desire. No more women for me. I have been working, doing my job. I have traveled the world with my laptop and Armani suit. I need a woman I suddenly realize, but not a fourteen-year-old child with a vague resemblance of the first girl I made love to.

Besides, Ellen-Marie was a slut. I found her a few weeks later with another guy at a party and something inside me broke, something… I haven’t been thinking about for years.

“Next station Femoren.”

Once again, I have been so caught up in thoughts that I didn’t even notice the train stopping at Kastrup station. I am tired now. I could sleep right here in the train, but there is hardly going to be that much sleep for me tonight. I need to contact the police. Or maybe I ought to go home first, get some sleep—just a couple of hours—and then call my attorney early in the morning to get things fixed.

Through the window I see the suburbs on the island of Amager rushing by. The streets seem deserted in the dull lights from the street lamps. The houses are dark blocks with only the occasionally warm glow of a window to be seen. This part of Copenhagen is sleeping.

There is a single man standing at the platform at Femoren waiting for the train. His shoulders pulled up around his ears, he looks like he is freezing. It is always cold on the elevated stations with nothing to provide shelter from the wind. It is much better at the stations on the part of the Metro line where the tracks are underground.

The man is well inside the train before the dreadful truth occurs to me. He is the man from the newspaper. The rapist. My doppelganger. My mirrored doppelganger.

The train is still as good as empty. Nobody here, but the three of us. Still, he doesn’t sit. He stands by the doors where he came in. Right between me and the young woman.
The girl! The girl! She is just a girl.
My eyes flicker from the man to the girl. She is sitting as before, her eyes closed, listening to the music. The man, on the other hand, slowly turns his head until his glance meets mine in the reflection of the front window and we lock on to each other. I can’t move my eyes. I feel ice crystals forming deep inside my soul. I try to swallow and feel myself shrink on the seat as if I am actually getting smaller and smaller.

Please, get off the train at the next station
, I silently pray,
please, get off.

He sends me a smile, salutes me with a slight nod of his head, and finally I manage to break free of his glance. I am trembling. How can he be on the same train as I am? That is too much of a coincidence to be…a coincidence. I catch the newspaper to hide behind, opening it to a random page.

“Next station Amager Strand.”

My eyes are glued to the newspaper, but I am not reading. I can feel his eyes stinging my neck like needles. I am certain he is still looking at me, but I can’t find the nerve to look for myself.
Get off, get off, get off
, I continue to pray, while a drop of sweat runs down my nose to drip at the newspaper, darkening the paper where it lands.

Get off.

The train stops at the deserted platform and stays there for a minute. Then the doors close and the train starts to move. I risk one quick glance over the newspaper at the reflection in the front window. He is not there. A wave of relief washes through my body. He is not there. He got off the train at Amager Strand! He must have sensed that he was recognized. I close my eyes, slowly releasing my breath. I gently shake my head before I open my eyes.

I realize that I am still holding the newspaper, and even opening to a random page, I am looking at articles about the rapes. There have been five cases of rape in the last month. The rapes are extremely violent. The rapist mutilates the victims in a savage manner, as it reads. There are more pictures of my mirrored doppelganger. Should I call the police now? Tell them that the suspect has just got off the Metro at Amager Strand station? That he has a striking resemblance to my own reflection…that I am not him, of course, but…

I touch my forehead, trying to massage it. I can’t decide. I can’t think coherently, can’t make a decision.

Outside, the tracks are now lowered into an open trench with tall concrete walls at each side. I put the newspaper aside. I have to call the police immediately. I finally conclude that my case will be so much weaker if I don’t contact them right now. How am I to explain not calling immediately? I have to deal with them soon no matter what. And this could turn out to be my lucky night; the surveillance recordings from this very train must show the two of us riding the same train. That will be my proof of innocence.

I grab the phone. Do I just call 112—the Danish emergency number? I can’t remember the direct number for the police. All Danish police stations have phone numbers ending on 14 48, I know of course, but the four digits in front of those numbers? And which station should I call? I have no idea. I press 112, letting them guide me.

“Emergency Central.”

“Hello, my name is William Wilson. I am sitting in the Metr—” and then I see him.

He didn’t get off the train‚ he is standing exactly like he did before, looking at me with that ominous smile on his face. I can’t comprehend how this is possible. He must have been hiding somewhere, maybe he went down on his hands and knees. What do I know? It is impossible to say. However, now he stands at the doors, smiling at me like we understand each other, slowly shaking his head.

I turn off my cell phone and reluctantly slide it down my pocket. My hands are shaking. A large knife appears in his hand. He lifts the hand holding the knife, making damn sure I see the weapon, before he slowly turns his head to look at the young woman—
the girl!
—still listening to the music with her eyes closed. Lost in her own world. I want to shout “No!” Make him stop. Do something to protect her…but I can’t. My throat is locked, I am hardly able to breath; my body is paralyzed.

My mirrored doppelganger is looking at me again, raising the left eyebrow as he continues to smile. Only now, the smile is so wide, I see his teeth sparkle between his lips. His glance locks on to mine for what feels like an eternity, and I swear I try to shake my head, tell him to leave the girl alone, but I am unable to do anything. A harsh croaking sound deep in my throat is all I manage.

Inside I scream, yelling from the top of my lounges that he has to stop, I howl warnings to the girl, shouting
Run! Run! Run!
But on the outside I am silent as the grave, paralyzed by a force unknown to me. I am sidelined…degraded to play the role of a spectator.

And now he has turned towards the girl. He walks over to sit next to her. Sensing him near, the girl opens her eyes. At first she seems more amazed than scared, but that changes the moment she spots the knife. She stirs, pushing away from him, pressing herself up against the train window.

I can hear his voice, but not the words. He is talking to her. She nods her head as tears run down her face, turning her cheeks black with mascara.

I shut my eyes, trying to regain control over my body. I need to do something, I need to stop this. Maybe I can rush out of the train at the next station, raising the alarm.
That is the least I can do
, I tell myself, and I
can
do that. I must. I am no hero; I have never been brave or even cunning. I am a cautious man, a nerd of numbers, but I do know how to run. I can at least get help. I have to. I move my legs, getting ready to sprint for the doors as soon as the train arrives at the next station. A mixture of relief and hope fills me at being able to move my legs. I can do this, I am ready. I know what to do.