Transfer Window E-Book

Maria Gerhardt

• Herausgeber: Nordisk Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Transfer Window is a utopian vision of the wealthy suburbs north of Copenhagen as a luxurious hospice. Everyone wears white. New-age nuns grow organic cannabis on the beach. The internet and music are forbidden, but you can swim in the icy sea in the winter. In amongst it all come the crushing memories of life as a terminal cancer patient, otherwise our narrator and her friend Mikkel hang out, talking about the 80s and about how they would prefer to die. They also laugh at the mistakes of the healthy.

Leseprobe

Transfer Window

Tales of the Mistakes of the Healthy

Published by Nordisk Books, 2019

www.nordiskbooks.com

Translated from Transfervindue, copyright © Maria Gerhardt & JP/Politikens Hus A/S 2017 in agreement with Politiken Literary Agency

This English translation copyright © Lindy Falk van Rooyen, 2018.

This translation has been published with the financial support of the Danish Arts Foundation

Cover design © Nordisk Books

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780995485259

eBook ISBN 9781838074210

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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Amager ChampionMaria Gerhardt, 2015

There is a place by the beach in Hellerup called Rosenhaven, where I sit when I cannot sleep. I wait for the sun, smoking cigarettes while I wait, smoking cigarettes, even though it’s not allowed. My legs twitch. Damaged nerves, they say. Bodily notifications. It is written in red, it is written in yellow, it is written in orange, yours truly, stage four. I don’t know how late it is, a watch isn’t allowed in here. My bag is packed with the absolute essentials, and I have a cord I can pull when I need help. Matches and money. Our currency is stamped with miracles. I wait for the sun, smoking cigarettes while I wait, smoking cigarettes, even though it’s not allowed. When I close my eyes I’m roused by the sounds. For a startled moment I forget that doom isn’t bearing down, doom is already here.

It looks like it’s burning out there, a boat, a family, one of each kind, two by two on the horizon. I pull the cord, and a kind employee appears within minutes. He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Come, let’s get you home, now,” he says. “There’s a fire,” I say. “Could it be a refugee family?” You hear about these things all the time, I wish that I could, but I’m too weak to help. He gently ushers me off the bridge. “It’s just a reflection on the water,” he says. “Come on now, let’s get you home.” I stand up slowly. I feel dizzy and I remember the kindly advice I received when I checked in last summer. Try not to have too many opinions about things, you’ll get worn out so quickly.

I remember searching the internet. I remember reading up on everything, without getting involved. Algorithms and acquaintances; people wondering when I’d make some sort of statement. I scoffed at their ignorance that it was for their sake I held my tongue. Death rules in diplomacy.

We have already said goodbye to our families in a beautiful ceremony. Children danced along the boardwalk on Strandboulevard, all dressed in white. Nuns greeted the guests at the door of the age-old chapel of Saint Joseph. The oldest of the Sisters laid a hand on my forehead. “We’ve always taken care of our sick,” she said. “This is not new, ‘tis how it’s always been.” Then we boarded one of the adapted Tivoli-trains, and took a tour of the grounds. The elders waved from the balconies. There was free sushi for the newbies. At sunset you guys had to leave, I cried down my new white shirtfront, but you were cool and collected, as always. We exchanged envelopes. “I can write to you,” I said. “I can always write to you.”

I’ve been here three hundred and eighty days. I have two rooms; one, where I sleep and another as a lounge. And I have a hook for my towel by the bathing bridge. We take dips in the ocean, all year round; it’s compulsory and an employee, stationed on the bridge, ticks us off our names on a list when we sputter to the surface and fumble our way to the sauna. One of the elders in the sauna was humming a tune, which I couldn’t place. For the rest of the day it whirled around in my head, like a virus. It might have been an old Swedish lullaby, which you used to sing for him. It hit me that it had been more than a year, since I’d listened to music.

We get home in time for the buffet breakfast and an employee kindly guides me to my usual table. He reminds me to take my morning oil. “Would you like to have some scrambled eggs?” he asks. “They’re hot off the pan, still moist and shiny.” I have no appetite. “There was a boat with a family burning on the horizon today,” I tell the kind man, who dims our special lamps for me. “No, it was just a reflection on the water,” he says. “You can ask them to explain it in science class today, there’ll be time for you to ask questions after.”

Music is prohibited in here. It wakes too many feelings. “Don’t listen to music on your own,” they say. There is Psalm-singing on Sundays, supervised by trained personnel, ready to catch you , if you break down in a song.

We eat our meals in a large hall. I always sit at the same place, a table with the ladies from card club and my good friend Mikkel. An employee, sitting at the head of the table, ensures that the conversation doesn’t become too dark. Often we talk about our childhood. I reminisce about the Eighties; Mikkel is about my age, so he usually joins in. I remember a sense of community founded upon the brilliance of our football team alone, the stem of my pride. My exaggerated self-worth. I honestly believed I’d helped them win by rooting for them in our living room, summoning the entire arsenal of my telepathic powers; balled fists, every muscle in my face clenched. My uncle arrived with a couple of guys from the club, that fine day in June when we whipped the Russians 4-2. There was a rush of revolution in our living room, and I felt a sense of self-satisfaction unparalleled before or since.