Anne-Line, or Anneli, as she liked to call herself, had never really managed to navigate life, as her father used to put it. When men walked by, she seemed to be looking left when they were standing on the right. When she bought clothes, she listened to what she wanted to hear rather than what the mirror showed her. When she chose what to study, she considered short-term over long-term financial gains. As time went on, she ended up in a situation she couldn’t have imagined and certainly hadn’t wished for.
Following a string of pitiable relationships, she was one of the 37 percent of Danes who lived alone; as a result, over the past few years, she had eaten too much and more often than not of the wrong sort of food, ending in a permanent state of disappointment about her amorphous body and almost unbearable tiredness. But the worst of all these miscalculations in life was the job she had ended up with. When she was younger, a sort of idealism had convinced her that working in the public benefits sector would aid society and also give her personal satisfaction. How could she have known back then that in the wake of the millennium there would be a series of reckless and badly thought through political decisions that now resulted in her being caught in a so-called collaboration between incompetent middle management and just as equally unrealistic political decision makers lacking in solidarity? Neither she nor her colleagues had had a chance to keep up with all the memos, directives, and analytical measures that had been thrust on them, leaving her working in a social security system that was totally misgoverned, often administered contrary to the law, and with a system for distributing social security benefits that could never work in practice. Many of her colleagues were suffering from stress, just like Anneli. She had had two months off work, lying under her duvet with dark, depressing thoughts and a total inability to concentrate on a single objective. When she finally returned to work, it was almost worse than before.
In this morass of political mismanagement, she not only was supposed to take care of the usual clients but had also been put in charge of what she regarded as a ticking time bomb in the system: a group of mostly young women who had never learned anything and who in all likelihood never would.
When Anneli went home from work she was dead tired and irritated. Not because she had been doing useful work but precisely because she hadn’t. And today had been no different. In other words, it had been a terrible day.
She was shortly due to attend a routine mammogram at Copenhagen University Hospital, following which she intended to buy a couple of cakes to take home, put her feet up, and snuggle under a blanket before heading out to meet the girls from the office for their weekly yoga class at eight o’clock.
The truth was that Anneli hated any form of physical exercise and especially yoga. Her body ached all over afterward, so why on earth did she do it? When it came to it, she didn’t even like her colleagues and knew for certain that the feeling was mutual. The only reason they didn’t leave her out was that she could help with anything they were unsure about at work.
That was another side to Anneli.
—
“Have you ever experienced any discomfort in this area lately, Anne-Line?” the doctor asked as she examined the scan.
Anneli attempted a smile. She had taken part in this research project for ten years now, and the answer had never really changed.
“Only when you flatten my breast out like a pancake to take the scan,” she answered dryly.
The doctor turned around. The normally expressionless face looked worried, sending an unexpected shiver down Anneli’s spine.
“There’s actually a lump in your right breast, Anne-Line.”
Anneli held her breath. Bad joke, she thought in a moment of confusion.
Then the doctor turned back to face the screen. “Look here.” She outlined a large mark with her pen before quickly typing something on the computer to bring up a new image.
“This scan is from last year, and there was nothing there then, Anne-Line. I’m afraid we’ll have to escalate this from a routine check to treating it as an acute situation.”
She didn’t understand. The word “cancer” seemed to float past her. Such a shitty word.
—
“How come you’re late?”
The four women smiled condescendingly, but she was used to it.
“Where on earth have you been? We’ve been twisting our bodies into all sorts of impossible positions.”
She sat down at their regular table in the coffee shop and attempted a smile. “I just had so much to do today. I’m totally exhausted.”
“Have a cake; that’ll put a smile back on your face,” said Ruth. She was the one who had worked at the social security office for twenty-two years before finally giving in and had now been working as an office assistant for a taxi company for six months. In many ways she was a bit peculiar, but she was certainly more competent than most.
Anneli wavered for a moment. Should she take this band of irrelevant people into her confidence and explain why she hadn’t been able to find the energy to stretch toward the sun and free her mind to the sound of so-called world music? If she blurted it out, would she be able to control her feelings? She definitely wasn’t going to start crying while the others were watching.
“Jesus, you don’t seem well. Is anything wrong, Anne-Line?” asked Klara, the most approachable one.
She looked around at her colleagues, sitting there without makeup, their cake forks in full swing. What damn good would it do her if she ruined this lovely harmony with the harsh reality of her news? She didn’t even know what sort of bloody lump she had.
“It’s just those awful girls,” she said.
“Oh, them again!” One of them nodded, looking bored. As if Anneli didn’t know that no one should waste their energy on that subject, but what the hell else was she meant to talk about? She didn’t have a husband at home she could complain about. No children she could boast about. No new exclusive curry-colored sofa she could show everyone a photo of and tell them just how expensive it had been.
“Yes, I know it’s my problem, but it still makes me feel sick, okay? There are those in need and then there are those who are just full of it, sitting there blowing hot air, all dolled up in their boots, makeup, and hair extensions. You just can’t find fault with those girls. Everything matches: bags, shoes, clothes. It’s all bling, bling, bling!”
The description made the youngest of the group smile, but the rest of them just shrugged their shoulders. They were the diametrical opposite of the girls: the grey public servants who, when they finally did let their hair down, did no more than apply a little henna to their hair or wear black ankle boots with neat little studs. Of course they didn’t care. Why would they? No one cared in this society anymore. They just turned a blind eye when it was time to act. How else could everything have gone so wrong?
“Don’t take any notice of them, Anne-Line,” said Ruth.
Don’t take any notice? Easy enough for her to say now that she’d managed to escape that crap.
Anneli moved her hand slowly up to her breast. It suddenly felt as if the lump was huge. How hadn’t she noticed it before? It was hopefully just a side effect of the checkup.