Copenhagen Noir

She kept walking without knowing where she was going. First she thought she might be able to find the bridge again and cross it on foot, but she quickly lost all sense of direction. What kind of a city was this? There were no people, none at all. It was almost as if the buildings owned the city and the streets, as if they had decided that they didn’t want any dirty living creatures crawling around.

A strange singing tone stopped her. For a moment she wondered if she were hearing angel voices, because she was so close to death. But then a light popped out, an entire snake of light, and she saw that it was a train, even though it zipped through the air above her, on a track supported by concrete pillars. There was water underneath the track, long shiny-black sheets of water reflecting the train light. Why couldn’t it run on the ground? Chaltu wondered. It was as if someone had erected a bridge just to remind her of the one she couldn’t get across.

There were people up there, she noticed. They were being carried through the dead city and they looked warm and cozy and cheerful in the belly of the snake train.

The wet snow was denser now, and the wind drove it against her head so she could no longer feel her face. When she noticed the building still under construction, with the fence knocked down and the empty, dark windows, she realized it might be a place she could stay without being discovered. No one could be living there.

And it was dark and quiet in there too, but there were so many windows. She thought the whole world must be able to see her. And it was almost as bitter cold as outside. There were no blankets, no furniture, nothing soft whatsoever. Some of the inside doors were missing. The wind whistled through the main hallway, and the wet snow slid quietly down the enormous panes of glass.

A violent contraction came-it felt as if God Himself had grabbed her with His giant hand and squeezed until she was close to breaking apart.

“Stop,” she whispered desperately. “Stop.” If only it would hold off again. If the contractions would stop; if the baby would just stay in there and leave her alone-then maybe she could cross the right bridge to the right country instead of dying in the wrong one.

She crouched down on the tile floor beside a toilet bowl because she felt least visible there. But the sounds from inside kept coming, and what good did it do to hide?

Here there is no one, she told herself. The building is empty, it is unfinished. No one can hear you now. But suddenly there was someone. She hadn’t even heard him come in. She just opened her eyes and there he was. Her heart took a long, hovering leap and ended up stuck in her throat.

He was just a silhouette in the dark, a darker outline, and the glare from the flashlight blinded her even more. A moment earlier she had thought she would die either from the cold or from her baby. Now another possibility had shown up.

“Leave me alone,” she said, but of course he didn’t understand her.

The man said something, and she realized he wasn’t the only one there.

“Don’t kill me,” she said.

And he didn’t. To her amazement he took off his coat and put it around her shoulders.

His name was Taghi. She understood that much from his words and gestures, even though they shared almost no common language. And he was trying to help her. This was so strange that she could barely comprehend it. His hands were friendly, his tone of voice reassuring. And he said one word she understood.

“Doctor,” he said in English. “We will get you to a doctor.”

“No,” she answered, the word scaring her. “No doctor.”

“It is okay,” he said, slowly and clearly. “It is a secret doctor. Okay? You understand? Secret doctor okay.”

She couldn’t answer. The next contraction hit her, and she was only vaguely aware that he brought out a cell phone and called the okay secret doctor.

Nina was staring at the vending machine when the telephone rang. For a measly five kroner you could choose between coffee with cream, coffee with sugar, coffee with cream and sugar, bouillon, pungently sweet lemon tea, and cocoa. Unsweetened and uncreamed coffee had once been options, but they had been eliminated sometime in the mid ’90s, if those who had been here even longer than her were to be believed.

It’s Morten, she thought, without taking the phone from her white coat. And he’ll be pissed with me again.

She was tired. She had been on duty since seven that morning, and the Danish Red Cross Center at Furesø, commonly known as the Coalhouse Camp, was every bit as ravaged by December flu as the rest of Copenhagen, with various traumas and symptoms of depression thrown in, plus an epidemic of false croup among the youngest children in Block A.