“This is the first time you’ve been here, and I sense in you a certain distrust of my abilities. That doesn’t matter, it’s how it usually is with newcomers. Basically it’s healthy. A person must be uncommonly gullible not to doubt me to begin with.”
The Countess did not really know what to say to that. She was content to shrug her shoulders and hold up her hands in mock surrender. She was privately sure that the woman always used this self-deprecating introductory speech. Anyway she had a little account to settle now that she was here. She asked, “A few days ago you insisted on the phone that I should hold on tight to Steen Hansen, as you put it. What good would that do?”
“How in the world should I know? But you have obviously encountered a person by that name, I see?”
“It’s a very common name.”
The other woman did not conceal her irritation. The Countess met her eyes with scepticism in her own. They sat that way for a few seconds, staring each other down, until Madame said, “Today you have told a secret to the one you love. You regret having done that. He loves you too, but you can’t really work that out together. You’re like the old joke about how porcupines mate. The punch line is: very, very carefully. Well, shall we get started? What do you have for me?”
The Countess felt anger rise inside her and restrained herself only with great difficulty. She felt exposed. Her mouth tightened, and her eyes narrowed. Only then did she discover that her doubt about this woman’s supernatural talents had suddenly shrunk considerably. Silently she produced from her bag Jeanette Hvidt’s scarf and a belt that belonged to Pauline Berg, and handed them over. She asked, “What should I do?”
“Listen.”
“May I speak to you while you are in trance?”
“I am not in a trance, and of course you may. I can always ask you to be quiet if you are disturbing me.”
The Countess nodded. How hard could it be? It was nothing more than a very ordinary chat with the dead. With each hand Madame rubbed the belt and the scarf in turn between her fingers, while she looked around the room. Shortly after that she said, “There is a woman who was killed in a bookshop.”
She said the sentence declaratively and completely without reflection over its odd meaning.
“And another woman who has been a ballerina. Several women . . . all of them women. The two you are seeking are in a . . . ”
She hesitated and rubbed again; shortly after that she continued.
“I am sensing a white chapel, but something is wrong. Jeanette and Pauline are in a white chapel. They are together, and they are alive. There is something about bombs . . . the chapel has been bombed I think, during the war. It’s gone. A Cockney knee trembler for fourpence . . . back then the neighbourhood was poor, today it’s affluent. I see expensive glass facades, but that makes no sense to me. I also perceive that there is a name coincidence, something or other, that gets mixed up, some roots . . . around the chapel and in relation to some girls’ names . . . diabolical delusions. Yes, now a man is coming. Ugh, he is repulsive, definitely one of the worst I have encountered. He is both very well-known and completely unknown. The others disappear, they don’t want to be with him. So now we might just as well stop.”
Madame set down the objects. The Countess was deeply disappointed.
“Was that it?”
“Yes, you should look for a white chapel or a crypt. The two women are there.”
“Why did you stop?”
“He did not want to help, it was quite obvious.”
The Countess made a resigned gesture and then asked Madame a series of clarifying questions about the mysterious white chapel. With no further result. For want of anything better she returned to the man who had obviously scared the other spirits away.
“Why can’t you use him?”
The woman stared out into space and let her eyes run appraisingly up and down, as if she was looking at her own reflection. Then she concluded firmly, “No, he is evil.”
“Is he still there? Or whatever you say.”
“Yes, and I’m sure I’ll have a lot of trouble with him. He is not the type you can get rid of easily.”
“Couldn’t you try to speak . . . sense him anyway?”
“Yes, if you wish, but no good will come of it.”
This time she was content to touch the objects fleetingly. For a while she said nothing, then she said, “He has rattled off a poem. A vulgar poem . . . what is it they’re called? Oh, well, a hateful, mean satirical song, which he maintains is about him. It’s hard to understand, old-fashioned and not Danish. There was a politician, who saved a prostitute, and then otherwise it’s like the children’s song with the ten little Indians who get fewer and fewer. I think anyway. He has killed someone, there is no doubt about that. Let’s stop here.”
“No, keep going.”
The woman took a fountain pen and a pad from the coffee table and started writing. When she was finished, she said definitely, “Now we’re done.”
“What does it say?”
“A rhyme: it is the last four lines of his old poem, which is rewritten. Or perhaps translated, I couldn’t work that out. He wants to be in the newspapers again.”