the danish girl

SOME TIME AGO, when I was an undergraduate, I lived in Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark. I don’t actually remember much of what I was doing in Copenhagen in those days, other than hanging out in night clubs on weekends and confessing to various Danish women that I loved them, “jeg elsker dig.”

One Danish girl did take me seriously enough to arrange a second meeting, which I was not brave enough to attend. I’m not even sure I told her why I loved her. It sounds absurd doesn’t it? But my Danish was primitive, and perhaps it was just the nicest thing I knew how to say to a member of the opposite sex.

I got to thinking about this long-lost Copenhagen night club girl a few weeks ago, on a trip to the Scandinavian city with my daughters. We were over by the university and happened to walked right by that same exact night club, and I only briefly remembered the girl. There were others from that time that began to flit in and out of memory. A Norwegian called Ingrid who was studying economics. Åsa, a Swedish designer. There was an Icelander named Ester, who lived with a fellow Icelander named Jón, who had a very taciturn expression and never said much. Lena from Jutland. What had become of all of them?

THAT WAS THEN and those were my memories of that time, but I certainly never visited any castles when I studied in Denmark. But it was to one such castle, the impressive Fredericksborg, situated in the Danish town of Hillerød, where I took a train with my daughters during the first warm days of May. Fredericksborg was built by King Christian IV in the 17th century. My teenage daughters love castles, you know. They love castles and they love royal costumes, and they love pageantry and jewelry. The castle at Frederiksborg is now an art museum and it is impressive. There are floors of paintings, portraits, clicking wooden clocks that ring and chime, dangling chandeliers, hand-carved beds, mirrors and tapestries, and a movable celestial globe and astronomical clock from 1656.

These were once the possessions and likenesses of noblemen and noblewomen, courtesans and artisans, consorts and escorts. The ceilings and walls are adorned with frescos of angels and gods, characters from antiquity, the stars and the heavens, pineapples and other exotic fruits. The clocks tick, tick, tick, ringing out every 15 minutes, on the half hour, then the hour. Through the warped window glass, one can see the baroque castle gardens on the other side of the lake, nestled in the sun.

One exhibit tells of the origins of the Danish flag, and the 13th century Battle at Lyndanise in Tallinn between the Danes and the Estonians. My daughter noticed the three lions of the Danish coat of arms in the castle. “That used to be on the 1 kroon coin!” she said. “When I was small, we didn’t have the euro, you know. We had kroonid.”

WHILE WE WERE in the museum, I started to became aware of a vague female presence. She was a younger woman, with curly hair, dressed in a sweater and skirt, and I cannot really say any more about what she looked like. That hair was familiar to me. There is something about girls with curly hair, and sometimes I think I continue to fall in love with different versions of the same woman who looks just like this.

Something about this person was so familiar to me, though, and I noticed that when we passed each other, we would look away, as if to ignore one another, and then look back, only to smile. It’s funny how these things work, how people just recognize each other. There was something so comforting about her presence in a haunted old castle, that I badly wanted to know her name. Even if it was something average and Danish, Sine or Stine, Mette or Jette, whatever it was, I wanted to know it.

I felt a little bit like that Shinagawa monkey in the Haruki Murakami story, who steals women’s names. I didn’t want to steal the name of the lady of Frederiksborg though. No. I wanted to cherish it forever. All I needed to know was her first name and I could build her into a breathtaking and beautiful illusion. I would devote myself to her name, pledge my very soul, rechristen cities in her name, rename navy ships, bastions, fortresses. I would write great novels and epic poems, and then affix her name to the cover, or perhaps some reference to her appearance. Something to remember this moment by. Something to last.

ALAS, SHE DISAPPEARED into the museum ahead of me, and I never saw her again. In the gardens I looked for her too, and in the town, and on the train back to the city. I kept waiting for her to walk in with her curls and look at me like she looked at me in the castle, but it never happened. She was just gone and maybe it was better that way. No need to fall in love. No need to troubleshoot a long-distance relationship. No need to worry about what went wrong. No need for anything other than the memory of an ancient castle with chiming clocks and celestial globes and gardens.

Farewell, my Danish girl. Jeg elsker dig. Thanks for the memories!

An Estonian version of this column appears in the June 2022 edition of the magazine Anne & Stiil.

use your illusion

People at the Viljandi Folk Music Festival, July 2021

I CAME TO VILJANDI years ago because I was really in a hard place. I felt that I needed to leave Tartu, where I was living, to create some space for myself. I really felt like the rabbits in Watership Down, who have to avoid the predatory bears and foxes and weasels to stay alive. Viljandi became a sort of rabbit hole for me then, a place where I knew I would be totally safe.

At least, I thought I would be safe, at first.

Back then, I was exhausted. I remember I drove into Viljandi one night, probably in November, that now infamous November when I turned 37, and I sat down in the Green House Café. It seemed like such a relaxed and welcoming environment, and I remember thinking, I could just sit in this chair here in the corner forever. There was no place else I wanted to be or to go then.

Of course, Tallinn was always an option. Tallinn promised some kind of job and some kind of career. But Tallinn also required some major startup capital just to get going, several months worth of rent money, which was hard for me to put together, because I was totally broke, and also educational issues. The school system in Estonia is complex. Kid A, who lives next to one school, has to travel across town to go to another school, where there is space, while Kid B, who lives next to that school, has to travel across town to go to the school next to Kid A.

It makes no sense to me either.

IN TARTU, this situation was somehow more ideal, because most of the schools were located within walking distance. But Tartu is also a bit like Los Angeles, in that you have to drive everywhere. Multiple times a day in Tartu, I had to drive to take a kid to swimming lessons, or to pick one up from kindergarten, or to take another to her zoology course after school. There were a lot of logistics involved. So, to imagine living that kind of life in Tallinn was more challenging, especially since my kids had a habit of going on their own adventures and calling to have me pick them up from, say, McDonalds at 7 pm after their zoology course. How did they get there? We walked! But now should I expect them to hike across Tartu in the dark in December? No. Imagine these incidents happening in a place like Tallinn. Imagine your child getting lost in Kopli or Lasnamäe? It just didn’t seem like the kind of setup I needed in my life at that moment.

In this sense, Viljandi emerged as a strong contender as a place to live. It had affordable rents, multiple cafes to work from (if you are a remote worker like me), lots of green space around, and it was entirely walkable. My child could walk to school, and to all of her activities, and even to the cinema or supermarket, all by herself. It really was, in some ways, the perfect place to live, at least for someone in my situation.

I NEVER COMMITTED myself fully to Viljandi in my heart though. It always seemed like a temporary base camp from which to launch future expeditions. Yet the fact is, my kids are tied to this place, and one of them was even born here. Viljandi, in this sense, will never leave our lives, even if we did move very far away. As you see, there were a lot of moving pieces that led to the decision to live in Viljandi. I suspect for anyone who comes to live here, they have their own reasons, both practical and personal. I am not by any stretch some kind of cosmopolitan, who absolutely must dine at the finest restaurants and pretend to be someone of importance by attending various showy public events. I think some people in, say, Tallinn, would feel less of themselves for living in a small provincial town. I couldn’t care less what people think of me. I don’t even do these things in Viljandi. I rather prefer how exiled I feel living here. The loneliness suits me at times though in winter it can really get to you, and you can get severely depressed. You won’t even know you are depressed, that’s how depressed you can get in winter. Not sad, mind you. You are not actually sad. Just somehow detached from your own feelings, detached from the joys of living this life.

Viljandi’s community is both a blessing and a curse. In Tartu, I did not know my neighbors very well. I still get this anonymous feeling when I go to Tartu, that people give each other space, distance, room, because in their minds Tartu is a big city, and such anonymity is normal. In Viljandi, I cannot walk down the street without bumping into multiple people who know me very well, almost too well. Sometimes they know more about me than I know about myself. This has real value. If you have a problem, for example, your car won’t start, you can always go ask the Krishna devotee upstairs and he will come down with a fist full of krokadiilid and get your car going. If your child doesn’t come home, there are at least five acquaintances who saw her heading toward the Castle Ruins. Having eyes everywhere is really helpful. It creates a social safety network. On the other hand, let’s be honest, having people around you all the time, who involve themselves in your business, can be tiring and make you yearn for the anonymity of a larger city. It seems at times like people in Viljandi even know what color underwear I have on, even when I don’t. This is why it is a relief to leave Viljandi at times, to get away from all of those prying, curious eyes.

WHEN I THINK BACK to that decision I made, to move to Viljandi, I have to say it was an emotional decision as much as it was a practical one. Obviously, I could have gone to Rakvere, or even Pärnu, or Kuressaare, and enjoyed many of these things that I enjoy here. I had strong personal reasons though for setting up a new life here. My best friend was going through his own strife, and we were supporting each other in a way. He was living here then, and he sort of pulled me back into Viljandi, though he has since left. I also was really in love with someone at that time, which was a unique and compelling feeling I had not felt often in my life, and still do not feel often, or encounter, at all in my daily life. I suppose I just do not feel love that often or am bereft of romantic love. After dealing with complicated situations, hers was a light that shone as bright on me as the north star. She also left Viljandi behind, very long ago. So that was also bubbling away inside of me. The illusion that life could be different. It was an illusion, of course, but even those of us with the strongest constitutions can be led on by an illusion. My daughter’s best friend in Tartu had also moved to England, and life felt so hopeless then. Viljandi promised at least some kind of new experience, some way out of what was going on, and a way toward something new.

At that moment in time, staying awhile in the Green House seemed like the best decision I could make.

I DO NOT REGRET coming here at all. These have been very creative years for me as a writer, and I have to thank Viljandi and its dreamy landscapes for it. Someday I will probably pack up and hit the road again, but Viljandi has fulfilled at least some of its promises. It has been supportive.

An Estonian version of this article, translated by Triin Loide, appears in the 27 May 2022 issue of Sakala.

what i meant to say was merry christmas

“BIG UP TO YOUR MAN,” said one US Post Office client to the other. “Thank you,” the other client responded from beneath the awnings of her black monkish raincoat. Her voice was gentle and yet restrained and I could see that she had yellow hair and blue eyes, and clean, unmanicured hands, but that’s all I could see. “Yeah, I saw that in The New Yorker‘s ‘Must See’ last week,” said the first one. When she dropped The New Yorker just like that, before these eyes, I did move closer, to bask at arm’s length in such radiant cosmopolitan awe-some-nim-i-ty. She was a lean client, toward the end of the first half of her projected lifespan, I guessed. American in accent, Anglo in features, in figure, in husband. Curly in hair. She wore black rubber boots that had a smidgen of tan mud on them. “Nigel’s English, you know,” she said, “so we’re planning on having a traditional English Christmas out here before we go back to Manhattan.”

She fumbled with her USPO package, troubled by the flaps, the creases, and I offered to help her, but what I really wanted to say was, “You read The New Yorker and know people who appear in it, who are spending their holiday right here, in this town? Why, I’d love to be in The New Yorker, too. A must see. I’ve got some great manuscripts at home, and you know, I’m big in Estonia.” “Estonia?” “That’s right, they just love me over there. Well, some of them at least. Anyway, introduce me to your society friends, I need a book contract, right now. Got ’em all pipelined up — Montreal Demons. Christelle. My Estonia 3. That Italian book I’ve been tinkering with for years. Look, you’ve got to help me. I’m getting spent out of this town. Heh. So is everybody else who isn’t ultra-ri … Oh, excuse me, I didn’t mean that at all, what I meant to say was, Merry Christmas. Do you know Gay Talese?”

Actually, what I said was, “Can I help you with your package?” And she said, “No, thanks, it wouldn’t be much help anyway. I have about ten more to send. Ha ha.” And I said, “Ha ha,” too. That was all. I guess I looked as local as she looked unlocal. The messy stubbly unshaven face, the tan jacket with the dirt on it from crawling beneath the Christmas tree before I sawed it down, the frayed cuffs of my aged jeans. I looked about as ready to greet New Yorker society as I did to greet the pilgrims on Saint Peter’s Square. I looked like one of the old timers who hang out here in the country store and swap stories about wild turkeys and deer. You know, the ones who live here all year round. So I got my packages from the postal worker and was on my way. “Oh well,” I thought and sighed as I stepped out the door. “File under ‘Missed Opportunities.'”

after midnight

"Now I know why Sylvia Plath put her head in a toaster." — “Now I know why Sylvia Plath put her head in a toaster.”

THE FIRST BEFORE MOVIE I saw was Before Sunset, and then I went back and watched Before Sunrise, and cringed at how young Ethan Hawke looked in it, and remembered him in White Fang, which was four years before that. I also cringed because I thought that Julie Delpy was so beautiful in both films, and how easily I fell like a sucker for her French “Celine,” the “European girl in transit.” Then — wait a minute, what the? — I did fall for the “European girl in transit” — And I am married to her, just as Ethan Hawke’s “Jesse” is now.

I confess that I wanted to see the latest film in the trilogy Before Midnight was because I had read early reviews that mentioned painful topics like middle age and transatlantic living, and, oh, how I yearned for that cold realism after all of those sun-tinged memories of romantic yearnings and recalling of baroque alleyway discussions and emotional self immolation of what could have or might have been. Jesse and Celine. They followed their hearts and it led here, to a hotel room in Greece, where they are about to argue about everything and be very mean to each other and threaten to destroy everything in the name of their discontent, as the married often do.

Celine is ever more voluptuous and incisive and weary-euro-trashy-eyed and Jesse looks like those 40-something zombie hipsters I saw at the monkey forest in Bali in April, with the tattered ironic t-shirts and deep grooves in their foreheads and children with pleasant, retro names {“Now, Hank! Now, Cora!”} crawling up their limbs. When I saw the Monkey Forest Hipsters, staring off into the nothingness like jungle wraiths, my only thought was, Oh my God, that’s what I am going to look like in 10 years.

But there were even more suspect parallels in the film. Jesse has written two books about his romance with Celine. I have written two books about those first years with my “European girl in transit” in Estonia, and then someone at the hotel in Greece pulls out their copies of the local translations of Jesse’s This Time and That Time and asks Celine to autograph them,and she demurs and says, “Oh, that’s not really me in there,” {and it isn’t, I know, and at the same time it kind of is} and in their ensuing total conflict Jesse recalls how he promises to never use her likeness or their children’s in his work and at the same time quips, “That’s a good line, I’m going to use it,” when Celine nails him with one. Meantime, he’s taking a leak and arguing at the same time and I am cringing and cringing and cringing more because I have seen it all before …

I also saw in Celine’s character the obsidian residue of the women’s movements of the seventies and the eighties, and what it’s done to the brains of the women of our generation. To comply with Jesse’s wishes is to be subservient. To be subservient, is to violate one’s feminist principles. More than once, Celine mocks this role to Jesse. And he’s trapped, because the same seventies/eighties pseudo-psychological rubble and debris has left him all mopey-eyed, hovering over his 14-year-old son, considering a move to Chicago, because he must do his best to be a good father and these are crucial years, and in the meantime, the son doesn’t seem that interested in him, and is more excited because he had a teenage fling with a local Greek girl, making it the true “best summer of his life.” Double-you, tee-eff, indeed!

So this conflict is, in some ways, just as much between Celine and Jesse as it is between who Celine and Jesse feel obliged to be. Who we feel compelled to be. Women raised to think that they don’t need men, and yet, they still wind up living with a man. Men raised to think that they must be perfect fathers, to the point that this epic attempt at parental mastery becomes self harm, because — uh, oh/oh, no — nobody is perfect. So what do we do with ourselves then? We can’t undo our paths or the ideas that time has bred into us or the bigger choices that we have made. We’re all sort of like Celine sitting alone along the water in Greece. You could still turn away from it, but toward what, and for what?

I watched this film in the early morning hours on the North Fork, with the wind making the wood of the house bend and creak and hurt. At the end of it, the European girl in transit on the couch across from me said that she didn’t care for the slow pace of its beginning, but that the second half, the argument half, was very good. I was restraining the tears of catharsis and cringing some more at my emotions. Then I went to sleep and slept well and dreamed about the dialogue and situations. It was good to watch a film together. It is so infrequent in these busy days of life’s big demands that we have any time to do simple things like that.

foreign and far away

A short story of mine, “Pretty, Jittery Indian Girls,” was selected for inclusion in Writers Abroad’s 2013 anthology Foreign and Far Away. It’s the story of a lonely businessman who gets in big, big trouble when he meets and falls for a poor Native American woman he meets at a bus stop in North Vancouver. To me, it addresses the still complex relationships between Europeans and Native Americans and the fine line between pity and affection.