The Quiet Girl Read Free Page B

So he began to hum. The woman sitting beside him edged away. You couldn't blame her. It was the rugged beginning of Bach's Toccata in D-Minor. Not the Doric, but the youthful work. He fingered the lottery ticket. The Danish Class Lottery was sophisticated. The prizes were big. Chance of winning, one to five. Percentage of return, sixty-five. It was one of the world's best lotteries. The ticket was a comfort. A tiny concentrated sphere of possibilities. A small challenge to the universe. With this ticket he dared She-Almighty. To reveal Her existence. To manifest Herself as winnings. In the midst of April's drab, statistical improbability.
 
 
    3
    To people with ordinary hearing and consciousness, Copenhagen and its suburbs stretch out horizontally from the center. To Kasper it had always seemed that the city lay inside a funnel.
    Up at the edge, with light and air and sea breezes rustling in the treetops, lay Klampenborg, Søllerød, and, just barely, Holte and Virum. The downward spiral began already near Bagsværd and Gladsaxe, and far, far down lay Glostrup. A claustrophobic echo reverberated across its deserts of meager plots; Glostrup and Hvidovre preempted Amager, as if singing directly down into the drainpipe.
    The great Polish nun Faustina Kowalska once said that if you pray fervently enough you can adapt yourself comfortably in hell. Earlier Kasper had thought that was because the saint had never been in Glostrup. Now he had lived here for six months. And he had grown to love it.
    He loved the bar-and-grills. The jitterbug joints. The Hells Angels clubs. The coffin warehouses. The Cumberland sausages in the butcher shops. The discount stores. The special light over the gardens. The existential hunger in the faces he met on the street, a hunger for meaning in life, which he felt himself. And once in a while this recognition made him unnaturally happy. Even now, at the edge of the abyss. He got off the bus at Glostrup Main Street, unreasonably happy, but very hungry. It was impossible to keep walking. Even Buddha and Jesus had fasted for only thirty or forty days. And afterward said it was no fun. He stopped at the Chinese restaurant on the corner of Siesta Street and cast a discreet glance inside. The eldest daughter was working behind the counter. He went in.
    "I've come to say goodbye," he said. "I've gotten an offer. From Belgium. Circus Carre. Varieté Seebrügge. After that, American television."
    He leaned across the counter.
    "Next spring I'll come and get you. I'll buy an island. In the Ryukyu chain. I'll build you a temple pavilion. By a murmuring spring. Moss-covered rocks. No more standing by deep-fat fryers. As we gaze at the sun setting over the sea, I'll improvise."
    He leaned in over her and sang softly:
The April moon glows
on drops of dew
her dress is damp
she pays no mind
she -plays and plays
her silver lute
alone at home
she fears the night
    Two truck drivers had stopped eating. The young woman gave him a serious look behind soft, curly coal-black eyelashes.
    "And what," she asked, "must I do in return?"
    He lowered his head so his lips almost touched her ear. A white ear. Like a limestone cliff. Curved like a cockleshell found on Gili Trawangan.
    "A plate of sautéed vegetables," he whispered. "With rice and tamari. And my mail."
    * * *
    She set the food on the table, glided away like a temple dancer at the court in Jakarta. Returned with a letter opener, laid a bundle of envelopes beside him.
    There were no personal letters. He opened nothing. But he sat for a moment with each letter in his hand before he let it drop. He listened to its freedom, its mobility, its travels.
    There was a postcard inviting him to an exhibit of modern Italian furniture, where even the spumante couldn't disguise how uncomfortable the pieces would be; a chiropractor would have to escort you home. There were somber-looking envelopes from collection agencies with return addresses in the Northwest. And tickets to a Doko E