A selection from The Russian Guest

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1 :: My name is Sørine Bentsdatter. I was born in 1684, in the village of Brønshøj. My father was a pastor, my mother died in childbirth.

When I turned six my body decided not to grow anymore.

I don’t care for the term “dwarf.”

As a rule, I don’t care for dwarves at all.

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2 :: The fine gentlemen have brought me up here to Copenhagen Castle. They’ve set me on a carpet that feels as if I’m treading on seaweed. Now they’re looking at me in that jovial manner they favor—their heads tilted, their lips twitching—but I stare right back at them. I always stare back, because they’re uglier than I am. The only difference is that they don’t know it.

“Do it again,” says the finest of those gentlemen.

His name is Callenberg. He’s a smug cavalier with red cheeks. His legs are bound with silk. I put my hands on my hips and stare at his multiple chins, which are quivering with mirth.

Callenberg spreads his legs and smiles. I move across the soft floor, duck my head, and walk between his legs. I do it four or five times, back and forth, like some sort of obsequious cur. And now they’re all applauding; now they’re cackling contentedly in their perfumed chicken yard. Of course I could have bumped my head into Callenberg’s nobler parts, but that would have been foolish. And you can say any number of things about a wench like me, but I’m no fool. “Splendid.” Callenberg draws his legs together with a satisfied grunt.

The courtiers once again stare at me with a condescending expression—the same way that everyone looks at me, with a despicable mixture of contempt and joviality. But they could just as well have been staring out the window. They could just as well be gazing up and down the length of the Blue Tower, because they don’t see me, those people. How could they see me when they’re as blind as bats?

All at once I catch sight of my figure in the mirror. I’m small and withered, with deep furrows on my brow. My eyes are tiny and green, my lips thin and sardonic. My nose and my ears are a bit too big, my hair is long and graying. The veins dance up and down my bowed legs, but there is nothing ridiculous about me. That’s something they’re all going to learn.

Callenberg sits down on a scissors chair and snaps his fingers. A moment later a glass of clove wine is brought to him along with a plate of Flemish chocolates.

His hands are fat and pink, his nails look like shiny seashells. That’s how a human being is. Loathsome and vain, with habits that increase in cruelty the more the person eats.

“Ask the dwarf what sort of tricks it can do.”

The First Secretary turns to me. When he speaks, he does so slowly, as if he were talking to an idiot. I choose to ignore him. I’m familiar with the fine gentlemen. I have more experience with them than I would care to admit. I know how they think and how they behave. They can’t fool me with their vulgarities.

“Can the dwarf perform tricks or read fortunes in salt?” Callenberg asks. “I can both read and write,” I tell him. Callenberg tilts his head back and laughs. He would howl with laughter no matter what I said, because dwarves are so droll, dwarves are entertaining in the same way that parrots are entertaining. We are creatures who serve only one purpose: we exist so that human beings can feel superior.

Callenberg rubs his hand over his chins.

He is the Lord Steward at the castle. Not just the Lord Chamberlain but the Lord Steward. That’s the sort of thing that the nobility care about. Their whole raison d’être lies in titles. The higher the title, the greater the reason they have for existing.

“I can both read and write,” I repeat with annoyance. “I also know German, Latin, and a little French.” “And where has the dwarf learned these things?” I let my eyes survey the chamber. Exquisite portraits of Frederik IV hang on the walls. The drapes, which are a golden peach color, flutter in the breeze. There are chromium-plated mirrors with sullen looking angels. The strong scent of Hungarian cologne permeates the wallpaper. All very elegant, for those who have a taste for elegance.

“I suppose the dwarf is also knowledgeable in Russian?”

The Lord Steward looks at me with a condescending expression. Then he snaps his fingers and a chamberlain opens the lavishly embellished doors.

“Tell the dwarf to come back tomorrow.”

The First Secretary nods. He has a weak chin and a timid face—the sort of face that confirms the amount of time he has spent in submission to his master’s fury.

Callenberg disappears down a long passageway lined with Venetian mirrors.

The last I see of him are his hands behind his back and his thin legs beneath his stout body. After that he is swallowed up by the castle—and by the specters of all the kings who refuse to let go of the past.

A few minutes later I’m escorted down several narrow staircases intended for the servants. The stairwell feels damp and clammy, and I very nearly slip on the high steps. Two dead bats are lying on the stairs. The archways are draped with cobwebs.

The footman opens the door to the kitchen. In front of me is a vast room that goes on and on, as far as the eye can see. There are people everywhere: master cooks, footmen, errand boys, and pastry chefs. They’re rushing back and forth, armed with marzipan and mackerels and mulberries. I stare at the wooden spoons that are almost as long as I am tall. And at the pots containing saffron, the tubs holding Iceland cod and whiting in brine.

We start walking.

The kitchen makes me uneasy. There’s a strange mood in there, as if the kitchen were waiting for something. I pass two assistants who are making a pigeon pâté. A royal taster is sampling a sour burgundy. They are all in their own meaningless world; they are all waiting.

The footman leads me over to a back door and opens it impatiently. When I turn around to ask him a question, he gives me a swift kick. Involuntarily I gasp with pain. Then the footman points to the moat and the high castle bridge. He points to the slum quarters, the flatbed wagons, and the flea market. When he slams the door, I angrily wipe my mouth and start walking.

It’s still a hot summer day. The towers of Copenhagen are sweltering in the sun, and the barges gleam like silver in the canal.

I head across the High Bridge to Færgestræde. A horse-drawn cart loaded with wine barrels almost forces me into the water. A moment later I vanish into the crowd among the coaches, soldiers, and loudly shouting fortune-tellers.

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3 :: I live on Vintapperstræde in the Middle of the king’s city. It’s a narrow lane where violence hangs in the air. Not even our watchman dares make his rounds in that section of town. There are six distilleries, four taverns, and a couple of miserable whorehouses. But I take pleasure in the atmosphere; it keeps me on my toes. The human being is an animal that fights to survive. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the part of town where I live.

I share a wretched cellar room with my poor scoundrel Terje. His path through life has taken him from pub to prison, with involuntary stays at Bremerholmen. We’ve been together for four years. Before that I lived with another scoundrel who was also fond of misshapen females. In a way I’m in charge of my own curiosity cabinet. Each morning I haul myself out of the cabinet, brush myself off with a damp cloth, which is enough to turn the stomachs of many goodfolk—and then I listen to their comments.

They say that I have an ancient face, that I’m descended from a demonic race. They think my head is deformed, that my fingers are stunted, that all the parts of my body are out of proportion. But who decides what is out of proportion?

According to other wise folk, I belong to a noble race that has lived on earth longer than human beings—a race that has mysterious powers and can see into the future. That may be true, but I don’t really care. I have the same problems as everyone else. I eat, I shit, and one day I will die.

When I step inside my cellar room, I find Terje curled up on the straw pallet. He is unwell, as usual, his body burrowed in day-old vomit. He is shaking with fever and a cold sweat. His face looks like mauve porridge speckled with yellow beard stubble. The Scoundrel looks up at me, his expression reproachful.

“Where the devil have you been?”

I ignore him and go over to one of my stools. I have three of them. The Scoundrel made them for me so that I could reach things in the larder. I don’t live in dwarf lodgings like other dwarves. I have no use for a dollhouse with sweet little dwarf doors. With a few objects to help me, I can manage to get by in the world—without extra assistance. There’s no reason to feel sorry for me. Right now I open the larder, which once again is half-empty.

A rat leaps out with a scrap of cheese in its mouth. A moment later it darts through the wood shavings on the floor. I look at my scoundrel. “I have work at the castle.”

Terje laughs scornfully and spits into the straw. He’s one of them—a human being. He’s tall and redhaired, with a chest like a Scanian rebel. He is usually quite handsome, but ever since Candlemas he has been sick with consumption. Now he looks shrunken and withered; his smell has taken over the whole room. I ought to be used to it. There are all sorts of different smells in the world when you live between the legs of goodfolk.

I go over to Terje and study his face. I see the dull look of his eyes and his hair, which sticks out in greasy tufts. Then I wipe the fever from his brow. Sickness is Our Lord’s way of rooting out His children. The Devil is more merciful. The Devil has always been more merciful.

“Don’t you want to hear anything about the fine people in the castle?” I ask.

“No.”

“They have chairs made of gold in the offices, and there are mirrors on the walls—even on the inside of the doors.” “ What for?” “So they’ll have a good view when they scratch themselves on the ass.”

Terje laughs hoarsely. I stretch out my hand to him, but he knocks it away. Then I go over to my little box. It’s filled with herbs and healing salves: amanita, swallowwort, and mustard plasters. There is also a secret compartment containing tinctures. I open the box using a rusty nail that hangs around my neck. Then I select the herbs for a miracle-working elixir. And as I work, the voices come to me. They’re like birds flying around my head, birds that demand to be heard.

I turn around to look at the Scoundrel.

“You’ll be dead by tomorrow,” I say.

Terje nods, slowly and sadly. Outside the dogs are baying, and a drizzle settles over the city like a delicate silk coverlet.

When Terje croaks, he’ll be the third scoundrel that I bury. Scoundrels don’t last very long, especially when they’ve been thrown in irons at Bremerholmen. But they’re needed in the house, particularly for a wench like me.

“What the hell did the king want with you?” Terje has a malicious look on his face. I ignore him and pour beer into the birchwood tankards. “He probably wants to use you for a footstool.”

I slap his face. Terje puts his hand to his cheek but is wise enough not to say anything more. He makes do with giving me a glare, but a glare that doesn’t seem to belong to him.

I go over to the fireplace. The elixir is brown and bubbling; a bittersweet scent spreads through the room. I light another candle. There is only a small peephole in the cellar, because who would want to look out at Vintapperstræde? And who would want Vintapperstræde to look in at us?

“Sørine?”

“Yes?”

“You’re a good sort.”

I smile sadly. A few minutes later Terje starts to snore. It’s a familiar sound. I don’t like to admit it, but I’m fond of the sound. Terje’s snoring makes me feel calm. I don’t know why.

I put the box of herbs away and take out my diary. Writing is my solace. When I write, I have control over the world. Then all that exists are the letters of the words and myself. Then I can speak the truth about human beings. I can study those peculiar creatures as if I were a mathematicus. And that’s a necessity, because they would never dream of doing it themselves.

I learned to read and write at an early age.

My father brought in a castigator when I was eight years old. He was an elderly man with bloodshot eyes. Like all castigators, he was more interested in chastising than in teaching. I had my lessons at the parsonage, in a dank little room where I was supposed to stay so as not to frighten the parishioners. Slowly I began to catch on. I was taught the Bible and Luther’s catechism. It was tedious reading, but the words fascinated me; they were like building blocks. Words could become sentences, sentences became pages, and pages became gospels. When I write in my diary it’s my spirit that hovers above the waters. Then I’m the one who gives names to the world. Then I’m the one who becomes Our Lord.

I cast another glance at Terje and take off my homespun jacket. It’s much too hot in the cellar. There are bugs everywhere, laying eggs in our hair and in the goat milk. I have always preferred winter. It’s less filthy, more callous.

I decide to lie down in the straw for a moment. My body aches all over—in the bones, in the joints, and in my crooked legs. I close my eyes and say a prayer. It’s a prayer that I’ve often repeated. The next morning Terje is dead. a spider’s web of slime fills the Scoundrel’s throat. His mouth with the three teeth gapes open all the way down to his guts. His lips are blackish blue. I study him with curiosity. Terje’s gaze is fixed on eternal heavens. The Devil, not God, has come to get his soul, because the Scoundrel belongs to the Evil One. It’s in Hell that a man will quench his thirst. It’s in Hell that he meets buxom gypsy women and enjoys the most fiery liquors. Hell can only be a solace after Bremerholmen and consumption.

I try to roll Terje onto his side, but he’s too heavy. So I stick a hand under his body, down into the straw, down to the mice and the rats and the vermin. And there, as I thought, I find a little leather pouch. It contains no less than twelve gold rigsdaler. A fortune to me.

I give the Scoundrel a reproachful look and try to close his mouth, but it keeps falling open. As if Terje is trying to say something, as if there’s a drinking song that he wants to sing before he loses his audience. Or maybe it’s just something that he wants to complain about—the way everyone complains in this rathole called Copenhagen.

I shove an angry hand under Terje’s jaw.

Suddenly something gives way. I let loose a sob. No more than one protracted howl, before I pull myself together again.

I look around the cellar. Soon I have to go up to the castle, but first I need to find the night-soil man so that he can come and get Terje. It usually costs three skillings, unless the body is especially heavy.

The cellar has changed. You would think that something had been removed, but instead something has been added.

When I step out into the street, I sense that Terje is going with me, that he’s lurking near my left shoulder, and that he’s looking at the world with a more blissful form of disgust.

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4 :: I met my scoundrel when he was working at torvet, the marketplace square, with the executioner. He had just started as the executioner’s assistant and was carrying out his work with great zeal. There was plenty of variety for a restless soul like his. Some of the poor wretches were beaten with the bat; others were flayed or broken alive on the wheel. It was hard work, but well-paid. A branding paid four rigsdaler, decapitation by sword brought ten daler, breaking on the wheel paid twelve, while drawing and quartering on the post and wheel paid no less than fourteen rigsdaler. A man could live well on wages like that.

I couldn’t stand Terje’s occupation. The performances at Torvet were sheer barbarism, but as any knave knows, people must have their entertainment.

Even the respectable townswomen turn up when the body of some poor wretch is put on the post and wheel. And when the executioner holds up the severed head, they cheer along with the most bloodthirsty rogues.

I don’t know what’s wrong with goodfolk. Do their own lives have meaning only if other people suffer? Is that what it means to be a human being on this earth? I find all forms of bloodletting abominable. Nothing in my soul wishes to watch the dismemberment of poor folk.

I should say that Terje was not a bad scoundrel. He took no joy in the suffering of others. Beneath his hard surface was a sensitive scoundrel, but you had to know him well to realize that.

One day Terje had finally had enough of his work at Torvet. It started one November night when things began to haunt him. A pauper appeared before him and began zealously pursuing him—not just at night but also in the daytime. More of the executed appeared, all of them threatening the torments of Hell. The apparitions showed him their split-open skulls, they pointed to their broken wrists and crushed hips.

I tried to help the Scoundrel as best I could. I brewed elixirs and whispered incantations, but I was up against forces that I couldn’t control.

One fine day in January a shadow settled over Terje. It crept inside of him at night, and from that moment on he suffered from consumption. And something else took hold—something that grew even bigger with his visits to the taverns. The Scoundrel turned into a real scoundrel. The goodness was sucked out of him until only a hull remained—the hull of a person who was barely even alive. I turn around one last time in Vintapperstræde. I suddenly know that I’m not coming back, and that I’ll never see this pit again. The realization fills me with incomparable elation—and fear.

I walk along my street, heading for the castle, wearing a hat, a homespun jacket, and short men’s trousers. The farther I get from home, the more people stare. I always make my face into a mask—a mask to show the goodfolk that I’m anything but adorable and that I don’t want to be picked up and shown around. That I would prefer to be keelhauled than to be chucked under the chin. That I refuse to hide under bureaus because children find it so charming. I can’t abide toddlers. The only thing we have in common is our small size. That’s the mask that I wear. It’s my salvation.

I turn another corner. Two calves peer at me from their stall. The street is littered with piss and paper. Mostly piss. “A little turd,” shouts a shopkeeper.

“Look at the little turd.” I swing my cane and manage to avoid slipping. Who knows what the day will bring. Nothing good. That much I do know.

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5 :: I’m being escorted through the narrow, claustrophobic passages inside Copenhagen Castle, up and down stairs that put a strain on my deformed limbs.

The passages are lit by meager wax candles that go out at the slightest provocation. The candles have been stuck in holders along discolored walls. Here only servants are admitted. No member of the royal court would dream of frequenting this desolate part of the castle, where the inhabitants are sweaty and where knives sit loosely in the sleeves of toadies and flunkies.

We pass footmen, master cooks, carpenters, and chamberlains—all of them with faces rigid with importance. Most of the court puppets cast sidelong glances at me and smirk. Afterward they rush onward with their tankards, documents, and ivory trays.

The footman accompanying me is the same one as before. His face has a chronic stupor to it; a paltry little wig sits askew on his head. He opens the door to a chamber, and to my surprise I see an enormous cake, the biggest one I’ve ever seen in my life. The cake is shaped like a big church with red spires and golden cupolas in the form of onions. It’s decorated with candied fruits, marzipan, and icing, but it doesn’t look like the churches here at home. In front, in an elaborate courtyard, rest snowbanks made of whipped cream and macaroons. Little marzipan soldiers are lined up next to opulent sleighs.

The door shuts behind me, but I hardly hear it. I keep staring at the huge monstrosity of a cake. It’s not yet finished, but the monster is taller than I am. Looking closer, I see that it has been adorned with all the details: gables, archways, and gilding. Even the doors look real, down to the last door handle, hinge, and doorframe.

At that moment Callenberg appears with some of the courtiers. They offer no greeting, just look me over with an expression of curiosity. I put my hands on my hips and stare them down, like the milksops they are.

“Put the dwarf inside the cake,” says Callenberg.

Before I manage to say a single word, a servant lifts me up. I try to scratch his face, but the servant is too strong. He laughs and drops me into a big hole. I land on my feet and can just barely see over the edge.

The men laugh like idiots. I stare back at them and try to climb out of the hole, but the servant pushes me back inside.

“Careful!” says the pastry chef. He’s a thin man with a battlefield of warts on his face. The cake smells like glue, and I wonder how much is decoration and how much is actually edible.

“Tell the dwarf to crawl down inside the cake.”

The footman turns to me and repeats the command, but I don’t care for his tone of voice. At that instant Callenberg nods. The footman shoves my head down. I try to resist, but it’s pointless.

Now the hole is covered with a lid. The world disappears, and I find myself in the heart of the world’s most ridiculous cake, inside a hole big enough to hold only a dwarf. I gasp for breath and pound on the cake. There’s no air. I feel nauseated. I’m going to die. And as if that weren’t bad enough, I’m going to die inside a cake!

In a sense it would be appropriate to be buried under candied fruits, to be weighted down by God’s marzipan-infested hand. My life is worth nothing. I’m a parrot without plumage. No one will remember me the day after I’m dead. At most they’ll remember my body. They’ll remember my height, my back, and the ape-like appearance of my hands. But they won’t remember me.

Because there is no me. I am my body—I have no soul. There is no place for me in God’s kingdom. But there is a place for me in the void. In the void I’m allowed to take my place.

“Can it breathe?”

“Jump up!” a second voice commands.

I crouch down as I wait for the moment when there will be nothing more to wait for. Then the lid is torn off. The world is back—the world and the Lord Steward. Slowly I stand up. My body is still asleep. It feels good to breathe the air again; it’s something to which I’ve grown accustomed. I peer over the edge of the cake. To my surprise more courtiers have arrived and more footmen. Some of them are snickering loudly, others are staring arrogantly, as if confronting a phenomenon of nature that they cannot comprehend.

“Get up on the roof, poppet.”

I gape at the Lord Steward.

“Crawl up between the towers. Do you hear me?”

I sigh. I’m just about to explain to him that not even a dwarf can fly, that I can only get up there if he brings me a stairway, but I decide not to say a word. I just look at the Lord Steward, at his fat body and double chins that quiver with every consonant he speaks. And suddenly I know that something has gone wrong. I’m important to the Lord Steward. I’m his last hope.

The royal house has use for a dwarf.

The royal house has use for me.