that point she took the key.
“Is that official enough for you?” she asked.
One might’ve expected her to make an exception in this type of situation. Nope. Her key is still in my pocket, and there’s also one to Ane’s studio. They jingle.
I look through the kitchen window at a box on the kitchen counter. Green tops stick out. It’s Thursday and she’s obviously not been digging in the garden. Today she’s at the studio minding the sensitive casting process, as she calls it. Anything can go wrong at this point. Vita is a sculptor. With a large sculpture at the Kastrup Airport outside terminal three. She entices everyone. She rolls out distance like a carpet that can’t be stepped on.
Ane doesn’t answer. I let it ring a time or two. She said that I should just let it ring. If that doesn’t work, I should call again, because now that she’s nursing she can’t always reach the phone. She sets it down in various places. That’s mommy brain for you, she says. C’mon. Pick up. Now she’s picking up. Nope. That was just the answering machine. Now she’s picking up.
She’s spent the day with the baby, who got through an entire feeding without any problems, she says. Now he’s down for a nap. I tell her I’m in the city nearby. I don’t mention the fire.
At the door she already notices my hands.
“Oh no,” she says. “You’ve burned yourself.”
She’s been waiting for tragedy to rain down like fire, and now it’s happened.
“I can’t help it,” she says. “All I really want is for you to have a chance at a normal life. Why did something like this happen to you? Honestly, Justine. Can it get any worse?”
Now we’re in the kitchen of her apartment. The baby is awake and on its stomach across her arm, she rocks it soundly up and down.
“I just don’t get it,” she says. “It’s just too disturbing. Let me see your hands. They’re completely burned. Who wrapped them? Don’t you think you should have someone look at them?”
It’s not all that bad. In some ways, it’s actually quite wonderful that my hands hurt.
“Could someone have done it on purpose?” she asks.
The baby closes his eyes. I shouldn’t have come here. I knew that beforehand, and now Ane tells me that Torben is on his way home. He had a gallery meeting.
“I mean it,” she says. “You can stay at The Factory for a couple of days until you find some other place. There’s a kitchen in the hall where you can cook.”
“Star-crossed love is a costly thing,” I say. “She disappears, before long she’s completely white.”
“That’s a strange thing to say. Why did you say that? Did something happen with Vita?” she asks, putting a hand to my cheek.
I’m not a little child. Take that hand away, no, leave it there.
Ane disappears into the bedroom with the baby. She peppers me with questions while I sit in the kitchen waiting on answers, on her, on an exit.
“Thanks for not asking if you can live here,” she says, handing me a sleeping bag.
It’s Torben’s.
“You can have it. He won’t need it anymore. After all, he’s a father now.”
The Factory is enormous. Its roof resembles a toppled Toblerone piece. I’ve been here before. And this is the first time. That doesn’t sound quite right, but that’s how it is. I’m the selfsame who’s different now.
Here mid-break there’s no one, or hardly anyone, around. Light streams into the expansive hall through skylights high overhead. On the floor is something that might have been a wooden sculpture, now sawed to pieces. The chainsaw is still plugged in. Crates and pallets are scattered around, angular islands in the large space.
Ane occupies a long hallway with studios to either side. Here it is. She’s propped her works against the wall with the backs out so they’re not in the way. All the paintings and drawings that she’s still working on. Empty spots along the wall show where the paintings were hung, and long runnels of paint merge together on the floor.
The idea was for her to escape the baby when the time came, so that she could get some work done. The time never came, the baby cried and had an upset stomach. He always had to be on her arm. Torben didn’t want to hear her say it was colic. Recently, he looked at me and said: “Well hell, all babies cry.”
She’s prepared the space for me. The broom is against the wall in front of a pile on the floor. The table has been cleared and there’s a mattress leaning against a file cabinet. I unroll Torben’s sleeping bag. What a smell, I can’t sleep in that. I try the mattress out in the middle of the room and also next to the door. It’s best beside the wall, I think. From here I can survey the whole future. It casts itself rather unsteadily down to the corner store with beer thoughts that make my teeth water.
The Factory is still deserted. I’m a small body in a large building. My hands are unwrapped now. I thought it was worse. These are just beer-filled blisters.
I light a candle and lie down. Now I’m lying and falling, touching upon dream, reality, dream, reality. What’s the difference? It’s dark. Am I asleep?
There’s Grandpa’s house in flames again anyway. And here I come dancing along the rooftop, devouring red wood, licking the paint off with a bubbling tongue, window panes shatter. And now I hear it. Yes. It’s really there. An itty bitty voice. I press my ear to the wall. It’s just the flames’ crackling, rather like suppressed laughter. Justi-hi-hi-hi-hi. Ouch. It’s growing hot. It bites my flesh, I turn and run and run and of course don’t get anywhere. So, it’s a dream then.
Now I wake with my eyes. Light. Am I really awake? Oh; one of the candles has tipped over next to my head. Is it burning? The flame plays with paper sucks in wax, Torben’s sleeping bag crackles. Holding the pillow before my face, I slap at the flames with a cushion. Black becomes gray, and now it’s turning blue outside.
Behind a wooden board in the hall are several large photographs. A girl I don’t know well, her name is Helene, has taken some self-portraits. She’s a painter. In these pictures, though, she’s obviously the photographer. Anyway, she’s the one in front of the mirror. She’s in her underwear. One hand holds out the camera that’s taking the pictures. The flash is a white sun burning a hole through her body. She’s unconcerned, her face beams. There are quite a few photos, a whole series of them, and in each one Helene is thinner. The bright eyes disappear in picture No. 7. She’s standing in front of the mirror and looking at herself in obvious disbelief. In No. 12 and No. 13 she’s holding a piece of paper with a date on it. No. 14 was taken on May 4, 1998. Here a sallow-skinned Helene leans against the wall inspecting a rump that’s no longer a rump. Then comes the last picture, which was taken nearly six months later. Here Helene is different. She’s in the same pose on skinny legs beneath an enormous body that hangs over the waistband of her panties like over-risen dough. She’s smiling. A terrible smile. That smile gives me a bad feeling inside.
I let go; the pictures smack against the wall. That smile’s a state
