Copenhagen Noir

“Happy birthday,” the novelist said, and poured whiskey into a glass.

“Happy twenty-five.” The poet burst out in loud laughter. The other two joined in, swept up in the moment.

Sebastian didn’t show any response. He laid a hand on Andreas’s shoulder. The hand was slender and cool. Bad circulation, perhaps, or else the raw cold outside had turned the thin pianist-like fingers quite red and stiff. The cold penetrated Andreas’s shirt and raised the hair on his body. In the six months they had known each other, this was the first physical contact they’d had. Maybe the hand on the shoulder was a spontaneous act, to show that he liked Andreas’s writing, or maybe he was just pleased that Andreas hadn’t joined in on the song. Who could know. Sebastian was not often easy to read.

He removed his hand and turned, smiling at Hannah behind the bar. That classic, boyish smile that was always written about in interviews. The perfect rows of chalky white teeth. A true Hollywood smile. The front teeth were broad and a bit longer than average. It was a splendid unit, that set of teeth.

“Happy birthday, Sebastian,” Hannah said with a gleam in her eye. She raised her glass. Andreas noticed that she had color in her cheeks. Sebastian nodded and held his smile. That’s all it took. That’s how easy it was for him.

The man in the checkered shirt pulled out a present and laid it in front of him.

“How touching,” Sebastian said. “It is touching, isn’t it?” Still smiling, he looked at Andreas. “On such close terms with the editor, indeed, indeed.” He began loosening the ribbon. His fingers were still freezing, almost blue. Though it was warm inside. Very warm.

Several women had bare arms and shoulders, and Andreas took his shirt off, which left him wearing only an old, dingy T-shirt with faded-out printing on the chest. I Love New York, it had once said, but now it was unreadable. As far as Andreas knew, Sebastian always kept his outer clothes on. He had never seen him wearing anything other than the Iceland sweater and the blue windbreaker that he always unzipped when he came in the bar and zipped up when he left.

“Would you look at this,” he said, and lifted a small elephant made from dark mahogany out of the box.

“I was thinking it could sit on your desk,” the editor said.

“On my desk, a cute little elephant on my desk, huh? That was what you thought?”

The editor cleared his throat. “Yes, that’s what I was thinking.”

Sebastian looked at Hannah.

“You get presents?” she asked, and leaned over the bar. Her low-cut blouse exposed the upper part of her breasts and made the pale skin appear even more radiant than usual. Sebastian gave her the elephant.

“Those tusks are really long,” she said. She held it up in front of her.

“Do you know how many sets of teeth elephants go through in a lifetime?” he said. “Six. When the last set wears out they starve to death.”

The editor grinned and nodded with satisfaction. “It’s a brilliant novel. The best you’ve written.”

“There is no novel,” Sebastian said, thin-lipped.

“What are you talking about? I have the second set of page proofs lying on my desk.”

“There will be no novel.” He held his glass out to Hannah, who filled it. She set the elephant on the bar, but Sebastian grabbed her wrists and closed her hands around the small wooden figure.

“Put it on your nightstand and think of me,” he said.

“I’d rather read your novel.”

“Do you read novels, sweet girl?”

Hannah smiled mischievously and set the elephant aside. She leaned forward again and nearly blinded them with her luminous breasts.

“I read almost everything,” she said. “But a novel about elephants is probably not something for me.”

Her cleavage was like a dark and warm cave between two snowdrifts. Andreas reached over and picked up his glass. The smoky whiskey burned his throat.

“It’s not about elephants,” the editor said.

“Small cute elephants.” Sebastian smiled and stepped down off the stool. “Small cute elephants to hide under your pillow, to rock yourself to sleep. Small cute elephants can go everywhere, they can be hidden between your legs, Hannah, they can rock you to sleep.”

He left the elephant where it was, sent the bartender a kiss with his fingers, and, without uttering another word, turned to go.

“There’s shooting down on Blågårds Square,” a man at the door yelled.

Sebastian disappeared into the crowd.

It was the second time that week. Andreas had seen it on television. Gangs at war, they said. It had happened just outside his apartment building’s door, but he hadn’t heard a thing.