Lime's Photograph (32 page)

“What if we got the chance to go through your drawers, you mean?” I said.

Now she laughed outright.

“Yes. Good grief. That wouldn’t be at all pleasant.”

I leant towards her.

“Have you got the addresses and everything?”

“I can write the letter for you, Peter. And then you can just sign it. If you’re sure you want to, that is?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“People don’t always come away from the archive in a happy frame of mind.”

“Why not?”

“Because – and now I’m speaking against the very nature of my job – the truth isn’t always essential. One doesn’t have to lie, but sometimes it’s not necessary to be free with the truth. Some things are actually better left unsaid. It’s just like a patient’s case notes. Is it really always best to know everything?”

I saw something else in her face. A shadow passed over it. In her job she was used to concealing her true motives, but I thought I could see exasperation or confusion in her eyes. I put my hand over hers.

“You want me to look, don’t you?” I said.

“It’s your decision.”

“But you want me to, don’t you?”

“It could be interesting.”

“And if I find something that could be of interest to you and your review, then you’d like to know about it.”

“Peter,” she said. “Our review has to be submitted in a couple of days and the waiting time to be processed by the Gauck Authority can be several months. So it’s not really a matter of urgency.”

“But anyway?”

“But yes anyway,” she said and smiled again.

I let go of her hand and looked into her eyes.

“OK. It’s a deal. But on one condition.”

“What time and where, Peter,” she said and laughed aloud. I seemed to have that knack with her. I could make her laugh, and I got the feeling that she didn’t really find all that much to laugh about. There was pain behind her confident bearing, but I could tell that she did everything she could to conceal the blow she had suffered at some point.

I went into town and bought some summer clothes, a shirt, a tie and a pair of shoes, got the hotel to book a limousine and picked Clara up at her address on Vesterbrogade, in the west of the city. She had changed into a light-coloured summer dress and was nicely made-up. She nodded with irony, but I could tell she was also a little flattered when I got out and held the door for her. She was wearing a simple gold necklace with a small snake charm on it.

“You look like a million dollars,” she said in English.

“And you like a billion,” I replied, making her laugh at my extravagant compliment, but the summer evening seemed to set a light and breezy tone.

I wasn’t familiar with any particular restaurants in Copenhagen and had first thought about going to the Tivoli Gardens, but I followed the advice of the hotel and made a reservation at the Regatta Pavilion north of the city. It proved to be a good choice. We had a table in the corner of the restaurant, with a view across the lake. First we followed the waiter’s suggestion and had a drink on the terrace. It was the kind of evening which the Danish Tourist Board could have sold all round the world. A beautiful, unusually warm evening with the scents of mellow, late summer drifting from the lake and mingling with the appetising aromas of the kitchen. Bagsværd Lake was as glossy as
a old-fashioned silver platter, only the boats of various sizes being rowed back and forth broke the smooth, looking-glass surface. People were out strolling in couples, alone or with the ever-present canine companion, and you could hear laughter from the lakeside where a group of youngsters had installed themselves on a rug with their picnic hampers. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one the Royal sent out there, because the other diners were mainly solemn men in dark suits talking business-English, but Clara and I sat undisturbed, facing one another in our corner, and continued the conversation we had begun on the terrace as the lake slowly turned red in the evening light.

We had got off to a rather awkward start, as if suddenly we didn’t know what to say to one another, like a couple of teenagers on our first date. But it also seemed as though we both knew that silence didn’t have to be uncomfortable. The lovely, summer’s evening made it easier. And the fact that we were, after all, of an age where we didn’t have to cover up our insecurity with words. When we got the menu, we chatted easily about what to order, the wine, how nicely the restaurant was decorated, and we invented stories about the businessmen in their sober outfits.

“Maybe one of them is a spy you once stalked during the cold war,” I said.

“You don’t have to say ‘once’,” she said. “I’m not out of a job. We have certain elements in this country, we still have a particular kind of Russian in the embassy, we have Kurds who are in the PKK, there are other risks to national security.”

She smiled as she said those last words, as if they sounded out of place in the idyllic snapshot of Denmark we could see through the window.

“I wasn’t trying to pump you for information about your job. I’m not terribly interested in that cloak and dagger stuff.”

“It’s not always that easy to be terribly interested in.”

“How did you end up in the NSS?”

She broke off a piece of bread, put it in her mouth and chewed before answering.

“After police college I served on the west coast, in Esbjerg, but then I was lucky enough to get a job with the Copenhagen police. There weren’t so many women in the force back then, so maybe that helped me a little. Then there was a chance of promotion to the national force and I took it. The job was interesting, and I got to learn Russian for free.”

“So you caught the tail end of the cold war, the golden age of spying.”

“Just the final breath. The KGB were the last ones to notice what was about to happen, and when they did notice, and tried to overthrow Gorbachev, it was too late.”

“Three cheers for that.”

“Yes. Three cheers for that,” she said, but with no great conviction.

A further, lingering lull in the conversation was saved by the arrival of our starters, and we talked about countries and our travels as we ate. Then the main course came, and we finished our bottle of wine and ordered another one, even though all my warning bells were ringing. She had never travelled to the east for her job, but had often been to the US and to New Zealand, which she liked a lot. It was one of the few countries I had never visited. She asked me about my work. She didn’t say so directly, but I could tell that she found it a bit sleazy. Lying in wait to capture the famous, as it were.

“I fulfil a need,” I said.

“So does a prostitute,” she said.

I couldn’t help laughing.

“OK. Then the press must be the pimp, because without them and the people who buy newspapers and magazines, I’d be out of a job.”

“You look at it as just doing a job?” she asked.

“I don’t really know. Like so much else in life, it’s more complicated than that. I’ve always enjoyed the hunt, the preparation, reconnaissance, planning, meticulous attention to detail … more than taking the photograph itself.”

“I have to confess to that tendency as well,” she said.

“Yes. The hunt can become second nature. Besides, we’ve got a sort of unwritten pact with the people we pursue. There are times when they use us. In a divorce, in a dispute over money, to get attention. Especially if they think their star is fading. But they want to call the shots.”

“And they don’t get the chance.”

“No. They don’t.”

“It’s not my place to judge you.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I think about it quite a lot myself. Lately, that is. We’re part of the global village. We supply gossip to the people sitting round the global pond. Millions buy our photographs. And pay us handsomely. It’s more the hypocrisy of it all that offends me.”

She laughed again. She had a subtle, dry, ready laugh.

“When Diana died in the car crash, there was an editor on one of the Danish celebrity magazines who promised never to publish – what is it they’re called – paparazzi photographs again. We learnt a brand-new word. It was an act of sheer penitence. As if he was personally responsible.”

“I bet he didn’t stick to it,” I said.

“Of course not.”

“Well, there you are. The world’s full of hypocrites,” I said. “There’s too much money involved.”

“The deity of our times.”

“Money always has been, hasn’t it?” I said.

“I only read those magazines at the hairdresser’s,” she said with feigned indignation.

“Don’t we all,” I said, and raised my glass and we drank to that.

I asked her about New Zealand again and, as she told me about a little rented house on the coast, she suddenly began referring to “we” and “ours”, becoming aware of it herself when she saw my expression.

“It’s not ‘we’ any more,” she said, taking a gulp of her wine.

“Well there’s no ring at any rate,” I said.

“No, but you’re still wearing yours.”

Everything disappeared for a moment and the air seemed to grow cold, and she understood, and put her hand on top of mine.

“That was a stupid thing to say, Peter. I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK,” I said.

“I flushed mine down the loo the evening Niels came home and informed me that he was moving out, but I won’t bother you with all that.”

“I’m happy to be bothered if you want to talk about it,” I said.

“It’s a thoroughly pedestrian, commonplace story. There are thousands like it.”

“Most stories in this life are pedestrian, but it doesn’t make them any less unique or painful if you’re involved,” I said.

Showing her good manners, she placed her knife and fork together on her empty plate where the sirloin steak had been and we lit cigarettes and smoked as she told me the story in a low voice. She was matter-of-fact, but I could see it still hurt.

She and Niels had started going out when they were students. They had got married when she was 21 and was about to start at the police college. They had met at a party thrown by one of her old school friends who was on the same course as Niels. He was 25 and reading political science and economics, having changed courses after a couple of unsuccessful years reading law. And that was fine, because as a trainee police officer she was earning a salary. They had been happy, she said. Very happy. Made for one another were the words
she used. Like all couples, their relationship had its ups and downs, but it had survived her period of service in Esbjerg while he stayed in Copenhagen working at the Ministry of Finance; his first job, which he had been very pleased to get. When she looked back over the years, it seemed as if a lot had happened and at the same time nothing at all. They had moved from a small flat to a bigger one and eventually, through his political connections in the Social Democratic party in Copenhagen, he had managed to get them a cheap, sought-after flat in the upmarket Østerbro area of the city. They mixed with like-minded people, they saw more of his family than hers. Clara was an only child, her mother and father had her late in life and they had died within a few years of one another when she was in her early 30s. Her father had been employed by the state railway all his life and her mother had worked in a kindergarten. Niels’s parents were grammar school teachers and, even though he never said so, she sensed that he found her parents a little boring and parochial. They had a few friends in common from the early days of their relationship, but as time passed they saw only his friends from the Ministry. She couldn’t talk about her work, and in any case she had the impression that he thought most people in the police force were mediocre. She found him patronising to the few colleagues she did invite home now and then. He loved talking shop, but when she tried to talk about her job in a general way, as was necessary because of security considerations, he quickly lost interest. Even when he was promoted to the Prime Minister’s office, and was given high security clearance, she still didn’t feel he listened to her when she wanted to discuss difficult situations at work.

But she considered herself to be happy. She loved her husband. She felt loved by him. They liked travelling together, but they also had separate interests. She liked reading fiction. Niels never read anything except specialist literature to do with his work. They were both very
engrossed in their jobs and worked long hours, but they tried to spend the weekends together. After he was given responsibility for EU-related legislation he travelled a lot, often staying in Brussels, but she trusted him, felt secure with him and never dreamt of questioning him. There were still aspects of her work that she couldn’t talk about, and there were political deliberations within the Prime Minister’s inner circle that he was expected to keep to himself. At the start of their marriage, which they regarded as an intimate friendship, they had agreed that they wouldn’t have children. They had neither the financial resources nor the time for children in the early years. As they got older, there wasn’t room in their lives. They lived well, had good friends, could afford to travel far away on holiday, surrounded themselves with beautiful things, were attractive and healthy and loved one another. Their friends thought of them as a golden couple. They had even received several offers to feature in articles about commitment in the 1990s, but they always declined – even though they felt they had things to say that would have been of relevance to others.

She emptied her glass and I refilled it and poured myself one as well. It had been a long story, and now it was getting dark outside. The waiter asked if we would like pudding, but she shook her head so I ordered two coffees.

“But Niels and Clara didn’t live happily ever after,” I said.

“What a penetrating mind you have.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s OK. You’re quite right. We didn’t live happily ever after. Or till death us did part or whatever the hell it is people still promise one another. We might very well believe that when we stand at the altar, but our brains must surely tell us what a hopeless undertaking it is.”

“Let’s hope not,” I said.

“So, there’s an old romantic behind that tough façade, is there Lime?”