‘Your best friend,’ she said. ‘Ha, cuckold! With your best friend who you always sit with and cling to when you’re drunk!’ The red bunion went up and down and he lifted his gaze curiously to her face, which was just as red as the bunion. ‘So it was him?’ He got up and walked over to her. She was coughing like she had a fly in her throat. He was awake and fresh. ‘How?’ he said hoarsely. ‘Where? When? Do you have any hickies? Tell me all about it, my love, tell –’

The book with the thousand jokes fell on the floor.

‘Oh,’ she said happily. ‘You big boy! Oh –’

Two Women

When Britta was depressed, nervous, and restless like this, so not even a complete reorganization of all the furniture in the house, or the preparation of a complicated dinner, could help her, there were only two things that could alleviate her suffering: a visit to either the beauty parlor or the doctor. Sometimes both. The beauty parlor first, of course.

It was Monday, and she was the only customer. When she walked into the pretty shop, where everything, even the hairdryers, was painted in delicate pastel colors, and the aroma of perfume and expensive soap met her like a gentle narcotic, it occurred to her that this kind of salon probably meant the same to women as bars meant to men. Just the fact that they always had artificial lighting, she thought, already feeling better, even this early in the afternoon.

No one came to help her with her overcoat, and, slightly uneasy in the silence, she hung it on one of the pink hangers in the closet herself. Then a blue figure came rushing from the back, and Britta smiled in relief when she saw that it was little Mrs Mikkelsen, who usually did her hair. But the woman didn’t smile back. She seemed pale and – Britta had to fight the urge to run back out the door – her eyes were all red, as if she had been crying. This makes no sense, thought Britta, I’m the one with the problems. I’m the one who has been crying, not her; I’m the one with bad nerves who doesn’t know a soul who understands –