“Come and sit down now, Denise,” her mother implored.
“Yes, come and sit down for a moment before you go out and sell yourself,” came the next tirade from her grandmother. “Eat your mother’s awful meal before you head out to find men to ply you with booze. But be careful, Denise, because the way you are, you’ll never find a decent man who’ll go for you! A cheap girl with fake hair and hair color, fake breasts, fake jewelry, and bad skin. Don’t you think they’ll see through you in a second, my dear? Or maybe you think a decent man can’t tell the difference between elegance and your cheap appearance? Maybe you don’t think that as soon as you open your bloodred mouth that he’ll immediately discover that you know absolutely nothing and have nothing to say? That you’re just a waste of space?”
“You don’t know shit,” snapped Denise. Why wouldn’t she stop?
“Ah! Then tell me what you intend to do about that before you’re out of here, as you so elegantly put it? Tell me, just so I know, because I’m dying to. What are your plans exactly? Perhaps to become a famous film star, like you rambled on about when you were young and much sweeter than now? Or perhaps you should become a world-famous painter? Just for the sake of curiosity, tell me what your next fad will be. What have you convinced your caseworker of this time? Have you maybe—”
“Just shut up!” shouted Denise as she leaned in over the table. “Shut up, you mean bitch. You’re no better yourself. Can you do anything else other than spit out poison?”
If only it had worked. If only her grandmother had recoiled in silence, Denise would have been able to sit in peace for once and eat the abominable brown mess, but that wasn’t how things went.
Her mother was shocked, digging her nails into the seat of her chair, but her grandmother was far from it.
“Shut up, you say? Is that all your feeble brain can come up with? Maybe you are under the impression that your lies and vulgarity can shock me? Well, let me tell you this. I think you’ll both have to wait to receive my support until you offer me an explicit and unreserved apology.”
Denise pushed herself away from the table so roughly that the tableware rattled. Should she give her grandmother the satisfaction of leaving them red-faced and empty-handed?
“Give my mother the money or I’ll take it from you,” she hissed. “Hand it over or you’ll be sorry.”
“Are you threatening me? Is that where we have ended up?” said her grandmother as she stood.
“Won’t you two stop this? Just sit down,” her mother begged. But no one sat down.
Denise could see all too clearly where this was leading. Her grandmother wouldn’t give her a moment’s peace. She had turned sixty-seven last summer and could hang on until at least ninety, the way she was going. A future of eternal criticism and arguments flashed before her.
Denise screwed her eyes tight shut. “Listen up, Grandma. I don’t see any great difference between you and us. You married a nasty, wrinkled Nazi thirty years your senior and allowed him to take care of you. Is that any better?”
This gave her grandmother a jolt, causing her to take a step back as if she had been doused in something caustic.
“Isn’t that the case?” screamed Denise, while her mother wailed and her grandmother walked over toward her jacket. “What is it we have to live up to? You? Give us the money, damn it!”
She snatched at the money, but her grandmother pushed it under her armpit.
Then Denise turned on her heel. She could hear the scene behind her when she slammed the door.
She stood momentarily with her back to the wall in the hallway, gasping for breath, while her mother was inside crying and spewing forth pleas. It would be to no avail; experience told her that. There would be no money before Denise made an appearance in a boring suburb with imploring eyes, cap in hand. She didn’t intend to wait that long.
Not anymore.
There was a bottle of red Lambrusco in the freezer of her minifridge, she recalled. There normally weren’t any facilities in these sorts of studio apartments besides a sink, a mirror, a bed, and a wardrobe made of laminated chipboard, but she couldn’t live without her fridge. After all, it was after a couple of glasses of chilled wine that her sugar daddies were at their most generous.
She took the bottle from the freezer and noticed how heavy it was. As expected, the Lambrusco was completely frozen, but the cork was still intact, and the beautiful bottle hid a myriad of interesting uses.
2
Friday, May 13th, 2016
Rose braked the scooter two hundred meters before the red light.
She suddenly couldn’t remember the way. Even though she had taken the same route for so many years, it didn’t look like it normally did today.
She looked around. Only ten minutes ago in Ballerup it had been the same, and now it was happening again. The coordination between her senses and her brain momentarily cut off. Her memory was playing tricks on her. Of course she knew that she couldn’t drive through the viaduct and up onto Bispeengbuen on a scooter, which was allowed to travel at only thirty kilometers an hour. So where was it she was meant to turn? Was there a road a little farther along that went down toward Borups Allé? Maybe to the right?
In desperation, she rested the tips of her toes on the tarmac and pressed her lips together. “What’s going on with you, Rose?” she said aloud, causing a passerby to shake her head before hurrying away.
She coughed a couple of times in frustration, feeling like she was about to throw up. She stared in bewilderment at the traffic, which resembled an endless chaos of playing pieces at war with one another. The deep humming of dozens of engines and even just the variety of colors of the vehicles caused her to break out in a cold sweat.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember what she could usually do blindfolded. For a moment, she considered turning around and driving home, but then she would have to cross the road, and how would she manage to do that? When it came to it, could she even remember the way home? She shook her head. Why on earth should she turn around when she was closer to the police headquarters than she was to home? It didn’t make any sense.
Rose had been in this state of confusion for several days now, and suddenly it felt as if her body had become too small for everything it was carrying. As if all the thoughts swarming in her head that she couldn’t cope with couldn’t even be contained in several heads. If she didn’t break down when she was feeling like this, coming up instead with all sorts of strange ideas to avoid it, she’d probably slowly burn out.