Three Stories

Translated from the Danish by Paula Hostrup-Jessen

The Anatomical Drawing

When you cut me up, dear colleagues – he wrote in the letter accompanying the deed of gift he had drawn up for the use of the medical faculty and general hospital in Århus – please do me the posthumous service of looking for some things I’ve been pondering over while I was alive.

See if there’s a dark patch above my heart from a welding flame; that’s what I have often felt. It is shame having burnt itself into my heart – not about great crimes, but about all those petty offences that are the most humiliating of all. And it starts already in childhood. And never ceases.

Yes, I probably died of shame, even though I’ve had a long life.

See if there should be any traces of the ballistic path of a bullet fired at close quarters that has passed from front to back through my brain. I have never been hit by one, but have been afraid of being so – like my father was – and I’d be grateful if you would investigate whether such long-standing obsessions leave their mark. Why, otherwise, do we live? See also whether there’s a constriction in my neck caused by the effect my fear of being hung must have evoked. Indeed I have always believed some authorities must exist that wouldn’t hesitate to have me hung and have good reason for doing so.

See if, encapsulated in the stomach wall or the small intestine, there’s the nib of a so-called felt-tip pen, which I swallowed in a rage at the age of eight because I couldn’t spell my own name. It has never come out; perhaps it has migrated elsewhere in my body, as in other reported cases.

See if at the ultimate moment my hands haven’t assumed a friendly roundness, as if about to embrace my wife; it would indicate that my body has not been ungrateful.

Look into my eyes. Don’t look for me, but investigate with all the available instruments whether there might be a small crowd of people depicted inside – the ones I haven’t been able to forget.

If you can’t see them any more, then I think I must really be dead.

Record in the case notes which of my conjectures you can confirm or dismiss.

Draw what you can; measure what you can.

But first and foremost: sharpen your scalpels, gentlemen, so that you don’t make a mess of it.

Look at the Sparrow Hawk

He was just going to have said, ‘Look at the sparrow hawk,’ but suddenly it was not up to him to say anything at all.

His son Jens was staring at him, searching all over his face. The boy’s gaze hung on his lips, which were trembling like very fine rain. He couldn’t imagine what he could say. He must suddenly have lost the ability to coordinate his mouth, his lips, his tongue and one half of his brain.

He instinctively turned a half-circle in order not to meet the boy’s anxious gaze. He gazed out over the wet meadows, the raindrops hanging on the wires of the electric fence, the old elderberry tree in the hedge with clusters that were almost ripe, the starlings flying in and out and up above it; and at a cat that had stopped short in its tracks, not because of him, but in amazement at the starlings exposing themselves so blatantly to view.

Furthest away, the gravel pit gaping in the moraine slope and, along its top edge, a crawling bulldozer with raised bucket which didn’t observe Saturdays.

He could feel the boy’s eyes fixed on him. If only he could just turn round and look him straight in the face and shout, ‘It must have been a mouse!’

He pushed himself round; section upon section of the horizon coalesced. A white car was driving along the road beside the meadows – probably his brother. So he was still able to think.

His own car was parked there. They had just wanted to take a peep at the bird life that Saturday. For it was a Saturday, a Saturday morning.

‘Dad,’ said Jens, ‘you can’t speak any longer.’

The tears were running down his cheeks, filling the corners of his eyes.

‘That sort of thing can happen, Dad,’ said Jens. ‘Maybe it’ll stop in a moment.’ He looked at the boy, he looked away. Perhaps soon he wouldn’t be able to think any longer. Even the simplest form of recognition might cease. How would that feel?

Wouldn’t it be the beginning of a darkness?

Jens came over and held his hand, leaning his head against his shoulder. He pointed towards the meadow track.

‘We’ll go home, Dad,’ he said.

The boy looked up at his father, and his father gazed shyly down at him. The boy could tell he was thinking of his mother and was worried about what would happen when he got out of the car, dumb. Jens would be bound to tell her, whereas he simply wanted to be able to hide it.

If only she would take it calmly.

They walked back along the meadow track. A black Volvo station wagon was driving along the road. He stopped. It was Niels, his brother-in-law, with the whole family.

‘You’re shaking terribly, Dad,’ said Jens. ‘Perhaps it’s not such a good idea that they come.’

He looked demonstratively at his father with a big smile.

‘Is it?’

He let go of the boy’s hand, turned round and looked back across the fields, where the stream was flowing in big gentle eddies in its shallow bed. Close to the stream a couple of Hereford cows were grazing.

‘Shall I run home and fetch Mum?’ asked Jens. He strode into the long tall stiff grass beside the ditch, clasping his hands behind his head. He looked up just sufficiently to enable him to see slantwise under the peak of his cloth cap.

Jens tried to think through what had happened, and tried himself to say something without speaking. Where was the limit? How many sentences would he be able to keep together if the words wouldn’t form themselves?

Suddenly his father turned round and waved him on. He was walking in one of the deep ruts with a somewhat forced gait. He glanced at his watch, in his usual fashion. He coughed, in his usual fashion. When they got out on to the road his father began to rummage in his pockets for the car keys. He was busy rummaging for the third time, when he reached the driver’s door and turned to Jens.

‘Didn’t you take the car keys?’ he asked in irritation.

‘Dad!’ shouted the boy. ‘You can speak again.’

‘Didn’t you take the car keys?’ asked his father.

‘You can speak,’ said Jens.

‘Have you got the car keys?’ asked his father.

‘They’re here,’ said Jens, pulling the big bunch out of his pocket together with a handkerchief.

His father reached over the roof for the keys, let himself in and opened Jens’ door from the inside.

He started up.

He said nothing.

‘Isn’t it marvellous, Dad? You can speak,’ said the boy. And shortly afterwards, in a low voice, ‘I think so, at any rate.’

His father hesitated.

‘Yes, it’s not so bad,’ he said.

The boy glanced out along the road.

‘I don’t think you should mention this to anyone,’ said his father. ‘There’s no reason to. It’s best not to tell Mum either. She’d only be worried, and there’s no reason for that.’

The boy was silent a moment.

‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘I think it lasted five minutes,’ he added.

‘Is that all?’ said his father. ‘I thought it was much longer.’

‘Not more than ten minutes, at any rate,’ said the boy. ‘I didn’t like it much.’

‘Neither did I,’ said his father. ‘I wasn’t really afraid, it was just very strange.’

It Wasn’t Me, After All, Who Set Fire to Yellowstone National Park

On the way down Bill switched off the engine and let the bike coast along the straight stretch – a waterfall to the left, an eagle to the right, precipices galore, and plenty of spiked fir-tree tops. From the lay-bys, they stared at him in wonderment; either they stopped eating or else they raised a forkful of spaghetti and went on munching, though keeping their eyes on him. Incredible. Cunning. A noiseless motorbike, his trusty ol’ Harley.

He sang, though not in reality; he imagined he was singing. He was exuberant, really happy. Everything was so grandiose. He had decided on a lay-by at a height of five thousand six hundred and ninety feet. He wouldn’t return. He’d rent himself a house. He’d write and tell Esther to get lost. Well, he probably wouldn’t say just that, but something along those lines.

His euphoria didn’t make the decision come quite to the fore, but it was there. Things were just running along another track. He wondered whether loneliness was well and truly waiting for him. He must take care.

Then there was something underlying the euphoria and clarity of detail, which he wouldn’t for the time being investigate. Something resembling the dull twang of a bowstring – a dead-sounding twang, you’d call it – when the arrow fell to the ground before it was shot. But behind that reminder lay the threat of something terrible he couldn’t avert. Perhaps he was washed up.

Bill switched on the engine and braked down his speed. The threat broke through like an anxiety whose substance he wouldn’t recognise. It couldn’t be true. It was the worst thing that could happen. It was a blow to his ecological pride to think that before he left the lay-by – entirely from habit, of course – he had thrown away a fag end, which he had trodden on, to be sure, but might not have trodden on sufficiently. One of his old teachers had once told him that no matter how well you tread, the chance of a tiny spark still remaining is very great. There we have it: fire and destruction. He had trodden on it most meticulously. He remembered his having said to himself: that must be enough now. He had thought his meticulousness almost laughable.

A coupé had driven down the zigzag bends; the roof was open, and an elderly gentleman wearing a cloth cap smoked his pipe, the sparks flying up from the car, while the gentleman’s wife sat staring at him in a flowered cotton dress as he remained standing beside the cigarette butt, probably looking as if he had a terribly guilty conscience. It had been most unpleasant.

The coupé was registered in Connecticut, he noted. When it had disappeared he had stamped out the butt yet again, first looking round to make sure no one was watching. But the worst of it was that at least ten butts lay quite close to his own – so close that he could scarcely tell which was his. So he had tested the heat in them with his little finger; but he couldn’t register any difference, whatever that may signify. He gave it up, smiled at himself and called himself Thou fool, which is biblical.

Now that his anxiety had broken through again his countermeasures seemed futile. He had done everything humanly possible to smother any spark.

He heard Esther saying, what about not smoking in fire-hazardous areas?

Fire-hazardous areas. Why, all areas were fire-hazardous. Nothing was forbidden provided you took care. He remembered the sign at the car park quite well; in his mind it was an enormous sign. He had broken the law. But had there been a sign at all? He didn’t really know for sure.

He could turn about, but he didn’t want to turn about. He couldn’t understand himself, or the part of himself that demonstratively denied what the other part confirmed.

Why did he always have to be two people?

He was unaware of the fact that one of history’s touches of irony was working itself up. At the border between Wyoming and Montana the first fire engine came towards him with flashing lights. But even though he broke out in a sweat at the thought, he couldn’t imagine that the fire could spread to those parts in less than an hour. He nevertheless felt as if he were running away – from himself and from the incalculable consequences of his perfunctory dealings with reality.

Before the flat stretch of the Billing Road he had met yet another fire engine with flashing lights. The people in the lay-bys peeped out, trying to identify a possible area in the park.

He drew up at a gas-station for a cup of coffee. He stirred it nervously to make the sugar dissolve. Yet another fire engine passing by provoked comments from the gas-station attendant, who stood in the doorway scratching his head, while the waitress was scouring the sink with some evil chemical compound.

‘The birds and insects will come to suffer,’ she said.

‘Everything’ll burn in this drought,’ said the gas-station attendant.

He would have liked to have asked them if there really was a fire. He would also like to have said, ‘Perhaps it was me who set fire to the park.’

But maybe it was too early, even for him, to give himself away.

On the way to Billing he passed three fire engines and then four, all driving at top speed, with the first spectators following behind, in high spirits. They didn’t want to miss anything, obviously.

He heard Esther’s voice and her laughter; she was speaking to someone else, about him. He had made up his mind, he had, but that was of less consequence now there was something else on his mind.

The people in the lay-bys were beginning to point in more or less the same direction. It was over there the smoke was rising, doubtless.

He ought of course to turn about and ride back to the five thousand six hundred and ninety-foot lay-by, but he couldn’t face it; as usual he couldn’t come to terms with himself. And Esther laughed.

On the outskirts of Billing he drew up at a gas-station for another cup of coffee. He stirred the cup so violently that he stirred the coffee onto the saucer. The waitress was very quick off the mark. She picked up the cup and dried the saucer for him. He must have looked flustered, because she said: ‘Is there anything I can do for you, sir?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘You could tell me how to get to the police station.’

She pointed out the direction, telling him which streets to ride past and which to follow, and he set off.

He had made up his mind, or it had made him up. This time Esther didn’t say anything. He had shut her up.

He didn’t make straight for the police station, of course, but took a few turns in the town to try and find a suitable hotel. He reckoned he would need one.

At the police station there was a single officer on duty, who was busy enjoying a private conversation. He signalled to him to sit down, and after five minutes he replaced the receiver, saying: ‘Well, what is it?’

He jumped up from the bench.

‘You see,’ he said ‘I came over the mountains from the south on my old Harley and drew up at a lay-by at a height of about five thousand six hundred and ninety feet. There I drank some water and lay down under a tree and dozed off for maybe half an hour. Afterwards I smoked a cigarette; there’s not much vegetation up there, so provided I took care I thought it would be all right.’

(The duty officer listened carefully. No interruption or reproaches.)

‘I stubbed it out well before I left the place; I almost trod it out with my fingers so as not to do anything wrong. I know how dangerous that kind of thing can be. But now, after having met several fire engines, I’m wondering whether it wasn’t me who set fire to Yellowstone National Park. That is, if there is a fire at all.’

‘Indeed there is, sir, that’s what I’ve heard,’ said the officer. ‘We must reckon with a large fire with the drought we’ve had. But sir, every day, I should think, at least seventy five thousand, to make a guess – at least seventy five thousand butts are thrown on to the ground out of cars by people making a halt. They can’t all be guilty. So don’t you worry.’

Bill replied: ‘In other words, you’re not interested in a statement from me and my name.’

‘No, sir, it wouldn’t be worth much,’ said the officer.

Bill left. He was amazed and offended.

He felt most of all like leaving Billing and staying overnight in Glendive, which was a smaller town, but maybe with a nice little old-fashioned hotel and pressed sheets.

But his sense of responsibility didn’t let him. There must be some authority, or at least a newspaper, that would like to learn who might have started the fire. He would willingly lend his name to it, if no one else would.

He could ride over to the local paper. It was nearly six o’clock, but there was bound to be someone in the editorial office. Then he would have done his duty.

He asked a passer-by for the address of the paper and received an excellent description of the route from a bald middle-aged person carrying a briefcase.

‘But are you capable of riding?’ the man asked suddenly. ‘Hadn’t you better walk? You look as if you’re quite at odds with yourself. I know it well. Your mind is divided, and that’s no joke. You should walk there.’

‘I’m feeling perfectly all right,’ said Bill.

‘Yes, that’s what people always say,’ said the middle-aged man. ‘But deep inside you know something’s amiss. Well, I shan’t trouble you any longer.’

He looked like a homosexual.

Bill felt ashamed that he could think such a thing.

‘You’re really off, Bill’ he said to himself. ‘You’re immature.’

And then Esther came with her clear accompaniment.

‘Precisely,’ she said.

Bill didn’t feel worth much.

Starting up the Harley, he rode slowly along the given route. He saw the yellow-and-black sign on the newspaper office – not very big, but in excellent  repair.

He no longer felt like it at all. What did it matter, any of it?

But he went into the editorial office just the same; there was a steep flight of stone steps leading up to a very big gate or door of solid wood; it was from the good old days when there was sufficient wood in the world. The door creaked a bit, and was heavy; you had to push hard to get inside. The editorial office was to the right of the entrance; there was a green lamp burning inside, and behind a screen sat a young man working at a computer. He glanced up, noted the man who had entered, and simply said:

‘One moment, please.’

Immediately afterwards he was ready.

‘Well,’ said Bill, ‘it’s probably not so important, but it’s about that fire in Yellowstone Park.’

‘Yes,’ said the journalist, ‘it’s a very nasty business, it’s probably going to develop into a large-scale affair. There have been fires before, many times, but this one looks like being the biggest yet.’

Bill gulped, and said: ‘It’s not because I think it important; but what is important? I’ve just ridden through the northern part of the park, and I’ve got a feeling I may not have stubbed out my cigarette thoroughly enough. As you know, you can’t be too careful.’

‘Are you suggesting it could have been you who set fire to the park?’ asked the journalist with a smile.

‘You never know,’ said Bill. ‘My statement might well be of relevance for the investigations.’

The journalist shook his head.

‘It’s not that I am reluctant for my part to write a small article, if you’d like a bit of publicity. But you can imagine the headline I’d have to give it in order to get people to read it. And that’s what I’m here for. I’d have to turn you into a madman – just a suggestion, of course. And remember that the part of Yellowstone Park that’s on fire is in Wyoming, not in Montana. It’s no easy matter to make anything out of this in Billing. In fact it’s difficult, more difficult than you’d think.’

‘Yes indeed,’ said Bill, getting up. ‘I realise that getting to the bottom of things is quite superfluous in these parts.’

The journalist hesitated slightly, then said: ‘This is much too big a matter for a single person to feel responsible for, if we view it in a global perspective. Are you very uneasy? We have a service administered by Baptists. They’d be able to calm you down. Shall I call them?’

Bill shook his head. He smiled; he just smiled, then took his leave. He went out on to the steps; he walked slowly down them. It was of no consequence. But it was for him.

He was determined; he said ‘Shut Up’ to Esther, when she began to laugh aloud. He found his hotel and parked his motorcycle in the yard behind. He carried his suitcase into the reception, where a girl with Norwegian-blonde hair stood smiling. She was wearing a light, loose-fitting cotton dress; she seemed free and naturally attractive. She wore a little badge on her dress. Her name was actually Solveig.

‘Can I have a single room, Solveig,’ he asked, and she smiled.

Oh, how she smiled. ‘Facing the courtyard,’ she said.

And she went on smiling. To think she had the resources.

According to the key rack, there were fifty two rooms in the hotel.

But he would just deposit his luggage. He had to pop out for a while, he’d be back in three hours at the latest.

She smiled all the more.

He got going. He rode faster. Now there was at least one person waiting for him to come home. She was like that, he was sure. When he got out of Billing he could see the glow of the fire in the sky.

Fair enough. No, of course he shouldn’t say that.

There were pink, there were orange, there were blueish shades in the glow; it was ghastly. It would take years for nature to repair all that damage.

And it was he, or possibly he, who had been the cause of it all. Morally speaking, he was a failure. For even if it hadn’t been him, it could have been – that’s how he’d always see it. But he was also thinking of Solveig, who was so innocent. The feeling of spring gushed through his blood at the thought of that young and beautiful, lovely smiling creature, who was ignorant, as yet, of his own moral turmoil.

‘Precisely,’ said Esther.

He approached the border between Montana and Wyoming. A few miles further on, on the Wyoming side, there was a road running southwest, which he may have noticed but not paid any attention to. The road he had come by ran almost due west.

The traffic was largely travelling along the southwestern road, he noted. It was also in that direction that the glow of the fire blazed in the evening sky. The further he rode along the road he had come by, the more the glow disappeared from view.

The only possible explanation could be that the fire hadn’t started along his road.

He rode on. He had to ride a bit further to make quite sure of the facts. But one shouldn’t persist, one ought to trust one’s own judgment.

And now of course he had something to turn round for.

Finally he gave up. He had to go home to Solveig. He sped up; but he controlled himself – he had to get home alive, otherwise there’d be no point in it.

He rode into Billing when the clock on the Baptist church struck nine, so he’d soon be at the hotel. But a sudden anxious thought struck him. What if Solveig went off duty at nine? He had imagined that they could have stood at his open window gazing at the glow of the fire. It was of course wrong of him to imagine such a thing.

He parked the bike in the yard, he unzipped his leathers; he was hot, and flapped his arms to let the air in.

Naturally Solveig had gone, as he had feared, but probably also hoped – for what might not have happened?

A sleazy-looking night porter gave him the key to his room. Solveig had taken his suitcase up, but she presumably did that for all the guests. He didn’t count on anything.

When he had unpacked and taken a bath he went down into the restaurant and ordered a twelve-ounce steak.

There were people sitting behind him. He couldn’t avoid overhearing that they were talking about the fire, so some people were interested in the disaster, even in Montana.

How long it could burn, how many square miles would be scorched, which animals and plants would suffer the most. They talked quietly with pauses in between; they seemed to be experts. One of them, who had a hoarse voice, said: ‘We shouldn’t be too sorry, it was time Yellowstone National Park caught fire again. It’ll survive; it’s happened many, many times before.

‘That’s how nature rejuvenates herself.’

Is that so, Bill thought. Perhaps it was hard, in some cases, to think of it like that.

In that way he had almost done nature a service – given her a helping hand. But he couldn’t really boast of that either.

It might also have been too big a feeling to accommodate. The guests behind him went on discussing the fire.

He had better phone Esther and tell her where he was.

If she had missed him, she would cover it up well.

‘Oh, is it you, Bill,’ she would say.

And he would admit that it was.

‘The Anatomical Drawing’ appeared in Danish in the collection Rejsen til Ribe (1990); ‘Look at the Sparrow Hawk’ and ‘It Wasn’t Me, After All, Who Set Fire to Yellowstone National Park’ in Halvdelen af Natten (1997). The translations were funded by the Danish Literature Information Centre.