An excerpt from Hafni Says by Helle Helle
A Nordic Council Literature Prize finalist, Hafni Says by acclaimed Danish author Helle Helle (Giramondo, 2026) is a marvellously inventive road-trip novel that explores the desire to be anyone but yourself, translated by Martin Aitken. It is the second novel by Helle published by Giramondo following they, with both books set in the same fictional universe, with recurring characters and settings. Read an excerpt from Hafni Says below.
She set off from home on a Tuesday morning. Her travel bag had been packed and ready, in plain sight on the kitchen table now that she owed no explanation. She had however written a note, away for some time. Approaching Hagerup her shoulders relaxed and a smile took shape. It came of its own accord, not from any attempt to rectify the increasingly downturned corners of her mouth. The ravages of time, the brow’s pigment spots. If only as a teenager she’d realised the benefits of sunscreen and hadn’t let herself get burnt to a frazzle in the first available suntrap.
She rolled along narrow country roads, past cottages, farms, ponds. Stopped at a little spot and ate a bun. A tour without restrictions. Her better half gone by the board. She says: I must admit, many’s the time he’d cycle off towards Sillebro Ådal and I’d be standing at the kitchen window wishing the wind would take him.
—
The tour took her on through Østrup Holme, Nybølle, Ågerup. In Roskilde she was able to park in Sankt Ols Gade, immediately behind the Hotel Prindsen. She changed from sneakers into heels, teetered into the hotel. The receptionist gave her a room overlooking the brand new car park, as he actually said, but she couldn’t check in until two o’clock. She stood there swinging her travel bag, and perhaps it was her persevering smile that did it, but he’d see what he could do. He put her on the second floor with a view of the high street, she could look down on shoppers milling at the clothes racks, it was everything she’d hoped for. She kicked off her shoes, squeezed herself onto the windowsill. Like that she sat for a while. In case of no minibar, she’d brought her own white wine and an ice pack. Tepid would do at a push. A bag of chips, some salted almonds. She turned the television on, starving already. But there was still an hour and a quarter to wait for the table she’d booked.
She popped out and found a Matas. Bought two baked eyeshadows and a lavender body oil. She took a long shower and relished not having to wipe down the cubicle after herself. Legs well oiled, she stepped into trousers, but getting them on proved impossible. She settled on a wrap dress instead.
—
And yet, as she crossed Stændertorvet, a darkness closed in on her. She ascended into it, the flagstones disappeared under her feet. The air was sucked out of her lungs and left the small muscles between her ribs aching and tight. She had to sit down on a bench with trembling hands and swallow the way she’s taught herself. Bells rang out from the cathedral, gradually her feet returned home to her shoes. She forced a smile back onto her lips and eventually it stuck. Still nine minutes until she could be sure of her table at the Raadhuskælderen restaurant, so she wandered over to the cathedral. But it cost money to get in, it wouldn’t be worth it.
Hafni won’t say the darkness situation is unfamiliar to her. She knows why it happens as well. Only it’s too hard to explain. She stepped into a nook and put her arms around Roskilde Cathedral. Freezing cold brick, even there in the sunshine. She says: You mustn’t think I’m losing my marbles. Never had she looked so much forward to a glass of snaps, and she knew already it would be a Linie Aquavit.
