Memorial, 29 June E-Book

Tine Høeg

• Herausgeber: Lolli Editions
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 134

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Celebrated for her signature insight and precision, Tine Høeg returns with a wry, haunting, and riotously funny novel about how loss is bound up with the urge to create Asta is invited to a memorial. It's been ten years since her university friend August died. The invitation disrupts everything – the novel she is working on and her friendship with Mai and her two-year-old son – reanimating longings, doubts, and the ghosts of parties past. Soon a new story begins to take shape. Not of the obscure Polish sculptor Asta wanted to write about, but of what really happened the night of August's death, and in the stolen, exuberant days leading up to it. The story she has never dared reveal to Mai. Moving between Asta's past and present, Memorial, 29 June is a novel about who we really are, and who we thought we would become. It's a novel about the intensity with which we experience the world in our twenties, and how our ambitions, anxieties, and memories from that time never relinquish their grasp on how we encounter our future. In prose that shimmers like poetry, masterfully translated by Misha Hoekstra, Memorial, 29 June is an urgent yet tender reminder that sometimes pain is where the love is, and that grief, however thorny, should never go unspoken.

Leseprobe

Memorial, 29 June

Praise for Memorial, 29 June

‘This is clever writing. Høeg clutches achingly at the bonds of youth gone by and pulls the strings of her story with ease. Hoekstra conveys in a buoyant translation.’

– Martin Aitken, literary translator

‘With an uncanny ear for line breaks and an eye for emotional vulnerability, Tine Høeg draws a tender portrait of the friendship between Mai and Asta, confirming that the past tentacles into the present, whether we want it to or not.’

– Anna Stern, author of all this here, now

‘Memorial, 29 June is a breathless read, delivered in pin-sharp prose. An understated novel of repressed love, grief and longing – and a subtle essay on the creative process. Høeg deftly reveals Asta’s hidden and written stories in tandem, from the first glimmer and restlessness of beginning, through urgency and self-isolation and denial, to the defining moment of declaration. Gorgeous.’

– Sonia Overall, author of Eden

‘Intimate and diamond-sharp, both in style and wit. Høeg takes us to the raw, tender, and absurd intersection in a writer’s life of what is, what once was, and what still could be.‘

– Saskia Vogel, literary translator and author of Permission

‘Tine Høeg’s play with words is both sensuous and powerful... The novel delivers writing that is both tender and poetic, which you become addicted to.’

– Børsen

‘A fluid, minimalistic, carefully crafted, and precise – right down to every single line break and full stop.’

– ELLE

‘Language is fun with Tine Høeg – with a dark background. Her second novel exerts a poetry through leaving the words almost bare. It is vulnerable and strong at the same time. Just like the youth it treats narratively.’

– Information

‘Tine Høeg has written the finest art novel about the gap between different life phases – one which all embittered romantics can throw themselves headlong into... It’s enchanting reading.’

– Weekendavisen

‘A brilliant acquaintance... Tine Høeg is a bloody special writer, and it is bloody special to be able to write so tenderly and warmly and fluidly and despairingly and funnily about both the specific and the universal, and about different ages, and about both female and male experience.’

– Berlingske

for my best friend

I get an invitation to a memorial gathering, 29 June at Blossom

to-day or today?

sorry, I know you’re writing

I’ll stop pestering

you coming over tomorrow?

Bertram misses you

was it tonight you had a date?

Your boyfriend’s a cad for being so late

two old men playing pool

the one comes over and stands before me

well I say

he isn’t my boyfriend

I’m sitting on a high bench against the wall

I’ve bought two beers and almost finished mine

then he’s a cad and a fool. Cheers

cheers I say

he keeps standing there

you look goddam gorgeous

he smiles

a small tuft of hair poking up oddly from the centre of his scalp

one doesn’t leave such a lovely lady waiting

I smile back

it annoys me not to be able to touch the floor

Jørn, the other man shouts

it’s your turn!

they try to impress me with their play

measuring angles, aggressively chalking their cues

Wrecking Ball on the stereo

and a table of young teens in the corner

boarding school kids maybe, playing dice and

singing along. Tinsel’s draped above the bar

it’s the end of April

I’ve just turned thirty-three

the third stage of youth

I read that somewhere

I finish the bottle and weigh

drinking the other beer too

then he arrives

in a way-too-warm jacket, his hand feels dry

we met on Tinder

he’s a documentary filmmaker

prefer shadows to sun, Burroughs

to Bake Off and I’ve read more books

than most, he wrote in his profile

awful

but then there was a photo

where he squinted a bit with one eye

young man

Jørn’s there right away pointing his beer at him

and I’m chuckling

because the documentary filmmaker’s

forty-three and divorced with two kids

you’re simply ill-bred

the documentary filmmaker looks confused

you don’t let a dish like this sit and grow cold

my laughter rings out loud and strange

and I feel suddenly irresistible

toothsome and savoury

and I hop down from the bench

have an urge to turn everything up

the music, my feelings, to kiss him

and buy a long line of shots, make something light up

but then

hours of plodding dialogue

I ask and ask

and when I say something his gaze drifts

and focuses on something somewhere behind me

so I’m tempted to turn and check out

what it might be

he crosses one leg over the other and looks at me

so what about you and kids?

I take a pull on the beer he’s bought

it’s wheat beer

I don’t like wheat beer

it tastes foul and yeasty

what do you mean?

well is it something you’ve thought about?

I take another pull

you want to have kids?

yeah

the boarding school kids shriek with laughter, one of them

has said something funny, the pool players have gone home

the bartender flashes the lights off and on

or no

last call!

I push back my chair

maybe

fine he says and grabs a handful of peanuts

because I just need to be straight with you

I’ve had all the kids I’m going to

he throws them into his mouth

so it’s just not in the cards

he chews and chews

for me

to have a kid with you

I’m a writer

I’m working on my second book

a novel about the Polish portraitist Lysander Milo

I’m sitting at the computer with earplugs in

the flat next door is being totally renovated

Milo worked in a cement factory

in Bydgoszcz in the sixties

one day he vanished, age twenty-three

and in a big basement room they found more than

a hundred busts in cement, sculpted in secret

depicting a cross-section of the factory workers

a few years later Milo turned up in Warsaw

he had a huge breakthrough

before he disappeared again for good

Bydgoszcz

how do you even say that?

I massage my temples

the workmen have been at it for three weeks

tramping up and down the stairs

starting early in the morning with their steel-toed boots

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

and the radio blasting, today they’re drilling into something

I page through photos of the busts

they’re eerily beautiful

I saw them by chance last winter in Berlin and

was captivated. The faces rough and simplified

yet at the same time inscrutable

soulful

I could stare at them forever

live people in cement

they study me as much as I study them

I take a deep breath

the drilling grows louder

the coffee in my mug moves almost imperceptibly

I visit Mai almost every day

but tell me more about your date she says

we’re watching Peppa Pig on the sofa, Bertram between us

she lives alone with him

the flat smells of fabric softener

it’s one huge shambles

what went wrong, was he ugly?

no

so what then?

it’s just that I detest dating I say

it leaves me cold, anyway

I left you some Bolognese in the freezer

you’re a peach Mai says, did you kiss?

no

you shag him?

God no

oh how boring and she fumbles for her phone

what time is it, will you eat with us?

I’ve actually got to go I say

I need to go home and write while it’s quiet

about that concrete sculptor?

it’s cement I say

when are you going to be done?

I don’t know. A long time yet

it’s an obnoxious question, Mai

we’ll have to throw a big party!

she moves Bertram’s arms as if he’s dancing

he doesn’t take his eyes from the screen

and tonight we’ll have pizza

she kisses his hair

because Mummy’s lazy, can you say pizza?

I don’t talk to him enough

you’re supposed to talk to them all the time

simply constantly

so they get a big vocabulary

and do singing games so they develop a rhythmic sense

he’s not even two I say

he’ll talk when he’s ready to

and we read to him all the time

you do she says

Bertram places a chubby hand on my thigh

Asta’s got to go home now says Mai

can you say Asta?

Asta?

I run into Hannibal from my old floor

at the end of Holmbladsgade

hilarious he says

it’s been a dog’s age

you live out here now?

his acne’s gone, else he looks the same

and congrats goddammit

he punches me on the shoulder. With your book!

I saw you in all the papers, I’d no idea

you wrote, did you do that back then too?

ehh I say and point

what’ve you got in the bag?

it’s actually a nappy pail

he scratches beneath his cap

I’m going to be a fricking dad

here in September, it’s totally bizarre

putting up fibreglass mesh

steel beams and fireproof insulation

he talks on and on excitedly, his girlfriend’s

a midwife so it was destiny sort of, they’ve just

torn down a wall, it’s a real science

and how goes it with you on that front?

not much to report I say

but I’m totally okay with that

it’s not something I go around searching for

of course not he says

I guess you’ve got lots of other irons in the fire

hey by the way, are you going to Blossom?

I can’t alas

downer. What about Mai?

I think she’s doing something else too I say

well

yeah

he raises the bag and smiles

I should probably be getting home with this thing

Pierre 41, schoolteacher

perched on a unicycle

Karl-Kristian 39, butcher

standing with an arm around his mum

Søren 37, hedonist and consultant

I’ve been swiping all evening

I ought to write on my novel

but I swipe and swipe

Sebastian 42, self-employed

doing a side plank at the water’s edge

Lasse 36, mischievous sports masseur

Marco 44, optician. No anal

ingen anal, keine Anal, pas d’anal

geen anale, sem anal, brez anal

I hurl the phone away, I feel loathing

for all humanity

I pick up the phone again and delete Tinder

I have an urge to cry

or rake someone over the coals

but I don’t know whom

you asleep?

not yet

you see the invite?

why didn’t you say something?

what invite?

from Sif, on facebook

didn’t see anything

what’s she inviting to?

a memorial get-together

for August at Blossom

because it’s ten years now

all of us from the floor

you still awake?

At first I kept thinking I saw him

Mai adjusts the folding top

at the supermarket for instance or

cycling across Knippelsbro, can you

check if there’s any sun on his face?

he’s fine I say

it could’ve been something about their hair

or their shoulders she says

their way of moving

we’ve gone for a walk in Bispebjerg Cemetery

to show Bertram the cherry trees

in bloom. He’s sleeping like a stone

can you remember that time in Ikea

Mai takes a puff on her e-cigarette

when it suddenly smelled of his cologne?

yes I say

it was like a bit resiny she says

we’re quiet for a while

I think you ought to be careful I say then

about opening that door again

what did it say on it again?

on what?

on the kitchen door she says

those newspaper headlines

I don’t remember

yes you do she says. You remember everything

is that a mother and daughter I see walking there?

a shabby man on a bench smiles at us

no Mai laughs

yes the man says, he’s got red hands

he sits and fiddles with a plastic bag

we’re friends I say

no he says suddenly sharp

the mother’s got the eyes

and the daughter the hair

and the grandchild in the pram

you’re mother and daughter he says

and once more, louder

you’re mother and daughter

he stands up, now he’s furious

mother and daughter!

we pick up the pace, I glance over my shoulder

he’s swinging the bag in a circle over his head

we break into a run

mother and daughter he shouts

and the grandchild in the pram!

Golonka, babki

I’m in a good mood

I’m googling Polish food

and have ordered ear defenders

designed for roughnecks on oil rigs

kapusta, piernik

a wonderland of splendid names!

sernik’s a cheesecake, kluski a kind of dumpling

I glance at the time

I’m supposed to guest a TV book show

this afternoon. I really want to finish

a lunch scene at the cement factory

four hours later I’m standing before the mirror

angry and desperate

I’m in a mad rush

I have greasy hair and I’m wearing slippers, I got lost

in recipes and culinary traditions, I’ve written one line:

there’s no kluski in the clear soup

I’m not going to make it to the studio

it’s totally unrealistic

I’ve got to call and say I’m sick

there’s no kluski in the clear soup

sure, I could read that to the audience

a cracked tooth, it has to be something acute

a stomach ache

something no one wants to catch

And I can see you’ve already had a go at it

the makeup artist takes hold of my chin

I try to smile, my back’s wet with sweat

I cycled here at full tilt blasting Believe

by Cher to pump myself up

she inspects my face critically

then lets out a deep sigh

well all right, she turns

and rummages in a drawer full of brushes

we’ll just have to spackle it over

and I suppose you’re scribbling away at something new?

the makeup artist rolls across the floor

I’m draped in some kind of cape

I really loved your first one

she tugs the stopper from some liquid eyeliner

but such a pity for her

at the end, is this a sequel?

not really, I clear my throat

I’m writing my way into a Polish sculptor

okay she says, now hold your head still

from the sixties

okay she says again, look down

isn’t that a bit of a slog?

not at all I say

the process is actually quite rewarding

I’ve got a ton of material

on Poland. And the time period

and cement

she wrinkles her brow

I mean he started by working in cement

ahh she says. Look up

and then it’s tremendously liberating

to write about someone else I say

to be transported completely out of your own head

I’m beautiful when she’s done

I don’t look like myself

my gynaecologist for instance, her nail polish is always flaking

I tell the host a short time later

we’re seated in two designer chairs talking about

how as an author you gather

and store details for later use

the audience laughs, the cameras whirr

now I don’t want to leave the stage

but actually it was Mai’s gynaecologist

it’s something she told me

I can’t stand Bertram’s smell

in the afternoon

when we come home

that institutional smell

reminds me of back when

I was a teaching assistant in Tårnby

The Time Machine

imagine if I’d become a teacher

wasn’t the preschool called that?

where you were working

yep

who comes up with those names?

I’ve fled to a café for some peace and quiet

next to me sits a guy

watching a movie about flying cars

it’s extremely distracting

I scroll through my manuscript

I only have seven pages of real text

on the other hand I’ve got twenty-four

about social conditions in Poland

a folder on cement plus essays

and analyses of Milo’s portraits

I study a bust of an older man

with deep-set eyes

and a look I can’t fathom

shifting back and forth

from mournful to mischievous

how could anyone form such a face from cement?

the elegance in those coarse features

I google my old halls of residence

a sudden impulse

the building hasn’t changed

my chest hurts

the guy with the cars is eating cappuccino foam

with a teaspoon excruciatingly slowly

But how’s it going with yours?

I’m having drinks with Monica

we know each other from a writing workshop

she just had her first chapbook accepted

and traded Jensen for her middle name

the collection’s called Methuselah, Methuselah

I’d rather hear more about yours

I say and sip my mojito

when’s it coming out?

well offhand we’re thinking October

she smiles and touches up her lipstick

but it depends a bit on how long it takes

to settle on the cover, I’m talking with a photographer

who’s really obsessed with heather. Hey

she waves a hand before my face

anybody home?

sorry I say

I think I know that guy over there

where?

behind you. Don’t look

she turns with her glass

the tall one?

yes

who is he?

someone I knew once