Pp. 71-80

(Emma is bringing home the urn containing her grandmother’s ashes. She is accompanied by her new acquaintances, Inga and John).

The country lay bathed in sunshine. Undulating meadows, grazing cows and green deciduous trees frothing vigorously to the sky displayed their charm along their route. They stopped at a stall selling peas and berries by a picnic area on the edge of the forest, one of those small unattended stalls where you simply put your money in the kitty and in addition to the deal can delight in the sense of your own unforced honesty. Emma was perfectly well aware that Dagny Dombernovsky would not have been keen on a funeral cortege that turned up bearing three punnets of strawberries and a bag of peas, but never mind. Inga and John sat in the back commenting on what they saw and dropping the emptied peapods out of the window one by one. What was there really to get upset about?

Jesper Espersen the undertaker’s office door was locked, although according to the notice showing the opening hours it should have been open. They asked the taxi to wait and went round the back to look for some member of the staff. They found a courtyard in which a shiny hearse was parked rather casually. Alongside the wall there was a row of well-tended evergreen potted plants. After knocking on doors and windows and shouting hello, they settled down on the benches and attracted the attentions of an affectionate cat that took a fancy to John and in the most cat-like manner rubbed against his legs and finally settled down at his feet, good heavens. Inga caught sight of a garden hose hanging on the wall. She took a punnet of strawberries and carefully washed the fruit. Back at the table she offered one to Emma and John in turn, taking every third one herself. Thus sat the strawberry eaters, each in convenient silence. Emma started to feel quite at ease. For a long time – watching a swallow darting back and forth between the rafters and the blue sky that puffed itself up more and more – she even forgot why she was sitting there.

Jesper Espersen turned up about eleven o’clock on his bicycle with a bag of goodies from the baker on his carrier. He had his jacket slung over his shoulders and the dreadful tie sticking up out of his back pocket. Swinging his leg nimbly over the bicycle, he dismounted and said hello. Not with a single word did he refer to the fact that this was neither the day nor the time they had agreed, but he accepted a strawberry and invited them inside. They politely refused and he dodged inside himself to fetch the urn and a couple of papers that had to be signed. While Emma was signing, John was handed the urn (with a screw top, how simple), and without any great to–do Jesper Espersen reminded them of the formalities if they wanted to scatter the ashes over the sea, after which he shook hands with them all and said that the buns had still been warm when he went for them. Of course, they were understanding; they had a taxi waiting as well of course.

The driver raised an eyebrow, but he obviously felt safe with them all three on the back seat. Emma sat in the middle with the urn on her lap. She caressed it gently and reassuringly and sensed that Dagny Dombernovsky (in the form of ash) was settling down and in fact also feeling quite good. They drove all the way home in silence, John dozing and Inga lost in thought. When Emma got out of the car on arriving, it was with a sense of having brought a new-born baby home. A frail and precious bundle.

Emma tried various places for it. There was no doubt that Dagny Dombernovsky should have a place among the living. Television, tables and window ledges were out from the start. She tried the top of the bookcase, but that seemed to be rather risky and tragically out of the way. On the other hand a place inside the bookcase seemed far too casual, almost a sign of indifference. Putting it beneath the mirror would be too decorative. Finally, she decided on a place on the writing desk and reminded herself to be careful when going to the drawer containing stamps. She removed a lamp and replaced it with a sumptuous bunch of flowers that Inga had eagerly picked in the garden. Following Emma’s instructions, John found a bottle of dry sherry in the kitchen, and they raised their glasses in silence. As she stood there, Emma was quite pleased with her choice of urn. Unostentatious and pleasing, it was entirely in keeping with the sitting room; in fact, it was just to Dagny Dombernovsky’s taste. Emma had to admit that she had every reason to be satisfied.

The arrival of Dagny Dombernovsky brought with it a splendid sense of peace. The wind had settled, and the promised heat wave arrived on time. It really was as though everything was falling into place, and the July days were transformed into intricate machines of well-oiled cog wheels that engaged in each other, gently and securely, enjoying their pointless progress towards August. Emma could well have found her life perfect during the following time were it not for tasks waiting to be handed in and repeated telephone calls from Birthe Bentzon, the office manager. There was no way round it: Emma had to spend some hours each afternoon at the kitchen table with her computer while John and Inga spent their time playing badminton and sunbathing and regularly interrupting her with questions. Was there an extra pair of beach sandals anywhere? Where could they buy some new shuttlecocks? And they pestered her about hiring bicycles, playing pool in the café or having lunch with Søs Guldberg at her invitation. Did you know, said Inga, that her best friend is married to the Minister of Health? Wrong, said Emma: The Minister of Health is her best friend and her husband dances like a dream. Really, said Inga. I’ll try to remember that.

A couple of days later, Emma moved her work down into the guest house, which was empty as John and Inga had chosen instead to install themselves on the ground floor, where there was a more comfortable double bed. Emma herself preferred the little guest room on the first floor, which had a balcony and caught the morning sun. She spent the early morning up there, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee. With a view of the top of the spruce tree and the sea and with the newspaper’s Olympian view of the world, she felt like another Zeus. Or the ox-eyed Hera.

Later in the morning they all met down on the beach and walked along the water across to the Helene Spring Hotel and Seaside Hostel, the existence of which, to her delight, Inga had remembered. The chalky white building on the top of the cliff and the walk up there by way of a steep flight of wooden steps obviously had the picturesque qualities that harmonised with her romantic relationship with her old native land. With a dogged and exaggerated imagination she called the place purely and simply the Hostel and had come to an arrangement with the waiter that she should have a regular table with a view. Here, they spent a relaxed hour or so eating brunch served in individual portions. To begin with they politely exchanged nibbles (I’m sure you don’t mind if I just pinch this), but quickly realised that the ritual was superfluous, and so they simply reached out for the titbits they personally liked best on each others’ plates. Inga was mad keen on scrambled egg, John was fond of anything fruity and cheesy, while Emma’s favourites were the tasty, crackly little sausages that produced a cheerful little sound as they surrendered to her bite. They dispersed after the meal. Inga drifted around in the High Street or looked for chanterelles up in the Plantation. In view of the pleasure it gave her to put on a pair of fashionable rubber boots and take a basket over her arm, Emma hadn’t the heart to point out to her that it was nowhere near the chanterelle season let alone that it was not raining. John and Emma went home to have a game of two-handed whist.

Emma preferred to sit in the shade, John in the sun. They reached a fair compromise that allowed sufficient sunshine to slip through to bathe Emma and John and the games table in a flickering pattern of light and shade. Emma went in for the cards and John for the refreshments.

There was a striking similarity in their style of playing. Neither of them was eager to win; they weren’t over zealous at counting the cards and making probability calculations; they didn’t arrange their tricks in orderly piles. On the contrary. They played in mutual contemplation of the variable nature of the game. Silently or chatting about the progress of life in general or the game in particular, they considered, how, in accordance with the rules for two-handed whist, their mental currents revealed themselves at the card table, while with unerring certainty the game came closer to the end that was already implicit in the beginning. They reflected on how the possibilities that had been devised for that end put each other out of the game one by one, and how, as the possibilities became more limited, they the players came to resemble, or perhaps even took on the nature of, pieces in a game. Yes, exactly. How the game so to speak played them. Now you are winning, said one of them. Or: Perhaps it would have been better if you had done it this way. Ah, yes, shall I retrieve it? I don’t know. Then try.

During these games, Emma learned a couple of things about John. The first was that he had a philosophy of life and that it was emblazoned in Coca-Cola lettering on a T- shirt he possessed in two different colours, petroleum blue and mottled pink: Surf the wave. And if Emma tried to surf the wave one day, he said during a game with clubs as trumps, pointing to himself dressed in the pink version, she would probably agree with him that surfing was the perfect image for the most attractive state to be in, physical as well as mental. That was to say the state in which by means of a small number and reasonably simple manoeuvres you keep yourself afloat and allow yourself to be propelled on the surface of huge forces of which you yourself are not in control. In this way, with a minimum of exertion you could get through life, which might otherwise turn out to be a rather bothersome affair – he knew all about that. But don’t get me started.

And the second was that in his personal life John relied generally speaking on three waves that he reckoned would bring him to the end of his life in good shape and in an orderly manner if he didn’t make a mess of things. First, there was sweet Inga whom he honestly loved both for her wonderfully long legs and her singular charm and in spite of her despotic nature, the worst manifestations of which could fortunately be avoided thanks to that wonderful little pill called prozac. In second place there was the fortune Inga’s father had made from rope and pineapples, in this world a rather unusual wave on which he and Inga rode together anywhere and in any way they fancied. And Bombay Sapphire. Love, money and self-medication was how he summed it up. I’m not gonna ask for more.

Emma was impressed. She played an ace of spades, which John took with a miserable three of clubs, a move that decided the game in his favour, 14-12. You lost, he pointed out, guessing that she had thought he had no trumps or that she had been distracted by the conversation. Of course, Emma grinned and said that by the way the T-shirt suited him. And so it did (and the blue version even more so).

During the following game, Emma acknowledged her own innocent vice and even gave it a name. The minimal hedonism of thought, she said, looking quite honest. She compared the involuntary stream of consciousness (you can’t avoid thinking; it’s impossible, she said didactically) with the surface of the ocean and the thinker’s

attentive but relaxed self-assuredness with the ditto body of the surfer. It was in the meeting between these two concepts, she said, that she personally found the point of least resistance, where the experience of being was only a constant, pleasant thrill that never became too much or too little, never too exciting or too dull. But, to keep the metaphor, in contrast to John’s surfing, which seemed to be based on drive and variety, she on the other hand sought the greatest possible immutability and monotony and saw a very obvious advantage in this mental sport: You are not dependent on other waves than those you nevertheless always have within you, she said, tapping her forehead to make her point. Everyone can do it, at any time and in any place, although as with everything else it is true that only practice makes perfect. And you happen to be looking at a practitioner now, she concluded without any trace of false modesty.

Emma had spoken in a soft, subdued voice, now and then allowing her free hand to float gently at some point in the air, and meanwhile quietly and calmly taking one trick after another. 17-9, she said; you lose. John looked sleepy, but his smile was curiously bright when he said that although he hadn’t quite understood what she was saying, it was clear that they fundamentally understood each other. And, he added, if she should fancy it one day, he would be delighted give her a lesson in wave surfing, the real stuff. Perhaps they could give each other lessons. Here, they both laughed. A flattered smile remained on Emma’s face as the laughter ebbed out and John came closer, and... Oh well.

There wasn’t even the slightest hint of fumbling. John gallantly helped Emma out of her dress and knickers before deftly divesting himself of T-shirt and shorts and carrying her into the house and up into the guest room, where it was warm and where the dust floated lazily in strips of sunlight. For the following hour or so they took it in turns to demonstrate comprehensive proficiency and dreamy indulgence. When their movements subsided, the sun had gone from the room, and sitting each at their own end of the bed they looked at each other with a smile.

Copyright: Adda Djørup Translation: Walton Glyn Jones