“Well, it’s weird. But somehow it fits you.” She unfastens the child and puts him in the stroller. “I just came by to see if you had enough room.” Her gaze sweeps the space, moving from paintings to work table. “You can stay here as long as you want.” In one smooth motion she’s at the table, rummage, rummage. “So, is there anything new on the fire?” She flips papers, takes something out, covers it up, rolls it all together.
“Do you need the studio?” I ask.
“No, not at all. I’ve already told you that.”
She gives me a look that implies both consideration and vexation.
“How are you doing?”
She turns her back to me and tries stuffing the roll into a cardboard tube, but it’s too loose and bursts apart.
I make for the elsewhere of the kitchen and wait a bit before returning.
She’s finished packing. The baby is awake and the pacifier slides wetly in and out of his mouth.
“I finally got him to take it. Did you see?”
She bends aside so I can see the baby’s face.
“It’s funny,” she says. “It really does seem to help a bit.”
Now it’s choking him. She pulls on the pacifier to persuade him to take it again, but he refuses. So she steps over the mattress, takes a seat at the table, and starts liberating her breasts.
“There’s been a lot of turnover out here lately,” she says.
The boy’s big irises scream: Help. With a hand she supports his head and forces it onto her breast. He has no choice but to accept the nipple that’s swollen and pearled white. The boy coughs and milk streams out.
“But you’re next to Trine Markhøj. You know Trine pretty well, right?”
Burp. Ane holds the baby out from her, milk splatters the floor.
“Take him,” she says.
She tucks her breasts back into place. The boy’s a disaster, a baby elephant that’s shat itself.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say.
He goes back in the carriage and Ane starts rocking.
“You have to do it with some force. That makes him fall asleep faster,” she says.
Back and forth, back and forth, she doesn’t take up much space without the kid. Her gaze makes a final sweep and lands on me.
“I should go.”
Good.
When did the whole thing with Ane and Torben start? Let’s see, it was probably back during the Berlin trip with Ole Willum, a teacher at the academy of arts. We were staying in the academy’s apartment on the attic floor of a large estate out by the Spree. The gable fronting the water had two large glass doors, but the balcony itself was missing, all that remained of it were the iron fittings to which it was once attached.
Torben leaned carefully out and groaned. He was afraid of heights, he said, and didn’t want to get too close to the windows. When it came time to choose where we’d sleep, he chose one of the other rooms.
Ole Willum had a show at a small gallery in the city and we were supposed to head out there after unpacking. Torben, a couple of other guys, and Rose, she was always hanging out with the boys, turned up quite a bit later than the rest of us. They were already in high spirits, and were carrying two bags of Weißbier bottles. Ane and I each grabbed a beer and went outside. With a loud laugh, Rose swung her bottle so that it splashed Ane.
“Oh, sorry, little Ane,” she said, giggling again and shoving Torben who shoved her back.
Inside the gallery the rest of the students were walking around and experiencing the installation. Willum had created three universes that he’d taken from Björk songs, a red space, a blue one, and a white, each equipped with diverse effects, furniture, and some curtains.
Ane gave Rose a dirty look.
“So, aren’t you going in to see the exhibit?” she asked.
Rose didn’t hear her, but kept fooling around with Torben and the others.
Willum said our task during the trip was to create a book. The actual content could be whatever we wanted, but the point was to translate an art project onto the books’ pages, just like he’d translated Björk’s “All Is Full of Love” to the show’s white space and her “Come to Me” to the red.
That evening Willum invited two of his friends, an artist couple, to the apartment. The woman, her name was Leise, had done several art books. She showed us her latest, a print series that more or less gave the identical impression of being somewhat dark, somewhat moist, somewhat hairy, somewhat bulbous. The book was entitled Durch. Leise explained that the impressions had been taken the moment a baby emerged from its mother’s womb. She’d attended twenty-five births, and the instant the baby bubbled forth from between its laboring mother’s legs, Leise had pressed the paper to its bloody cranium.
Torben, who was well plied with Weißbier by that time, bent over and inspected the book.
“Does it smell?” he asked.
His nostrils vibrated. Rose snatched the book from his hands and tossed it onto the sofa. He headed for the bathroom and Rose followed.
After Leise and her husband left, Willum and some of the others sat in a circle around a candle on the floor. Outside was blue black. A tall girl lay with her arms hanging out the terrace doors.
Suddenly, someone was shouting: “It’s Torben, it’s Torben.”
Rose pointed out the slanting roof window and we took turns peering out. There on the neighboring roofline a figure was hunched against the sky. It was crawling along the roof’s long ridge.
“No fucking way, that can’t be Torben,” Ole Willum said. “How the hell did he even get up there?”
“He crawled out one of the attic windows,” Rose shouted.
She forced her way to the window and opened it.
“Torben! Come back in! Right now! You’re going to fucking fall from way up there! You’re drunk!”
The shadow that was Torben continued along the roofline until it reached a point directly above a window bay and stretched itself to full Torben height. Abruptly, it slid out and down, landing on the bay. Rose shrieked and raced through the attic to the window out of which Torben had first disappeared, flailing and kicking to get her shoes off, and was on her way out when Willum intervened.
“I’d never actually tell anybody! I’d never do that! I was just talking!” she yelled to Torben.
Torben was slumped against the bay window. People on the floors below were hanging out of their windows, some hollered that they’d call the police if it didn’t quiet down. Willum shouted back that it was all under control, just some performance art.
Two hours later Torben was back. Rose had finally persuaded him to crawl in and climb onto the sofa with her. She lay there with a beer. After announcing that he wasn’t taking responsibility for someone getting hurt, especially not while they were plastered, Willum went home. Torben sat nodding with a cup of coffee in his hand, and Rose fell asleep on the couch. The others went to bed. Ane and I had planned to sleep on the floor next to the doors facing the river, where it glistened, but Ane wanted to help Torben climb into his sleeping bag first.
The next day Torben was up first, he poured coffee into two vases. Rose was still asleep in her clothes on the couch. Ane wanted to head out immediately. She was going to do something with animals in her book and had bought herself a weekly zoo pass. Before I’d even finished brushing my teeth, she’d left, and she’d taken her sleeping bag with her. Rose woke up and called for Torben, but