Lunch

Let me tell you a true story about eating lunch in Denmark.

It's mid-October. A bright, sunny day. A deep blue canvass of sky with
puff-ball clouds; copper-yellow trees so bright and metallic you'd
think they were spray painted. I'm wrapped up against the autumn chill
and freewheeling along Randersvej. For someone who thought he'd lost an
essential limb when he sold the car back in September I've become a
born-again cyclist - evangelical in my belief that our salvation lies
with pedal-driven machines. The bicycle I'm driving (the one that looks
like an underfed donkey), rusty though it is, responds to the call to
duty and gallops along the boulevards like a thoroughbred. Even when
some fat lug in a Toyota makes a dash out of Thomas Funch Gade to get
to the orthopaedic hospital and cuts me up, I calmly pedal in reverse,
glide to the left and still have enough self-control to bring my fist
down on his rear bonnet. Yes, you can do things like that over here.
Pedestrians are top of the ecospherical heap, with cyclists a close
second, and, way, way down in bronze medal position, that twentieth
century icon, the motor car. Sometimes I have to rub my eyes in
disbelief I saw a woman standing on the corner of Carl Nielsen Vej
casually walk out in front of an oncoming car and the car GAVE WAY TO
HER! In England a driver would accelerate at the very least:
pedestrians have been fined in a county court for less. But in Denmark
drivers keep one foot over the brake pedal. And if they try moving up
the podium in search of gold BAM! You bring your fist down on their
bonnet, just to remind them who's boss.

Back to the journey.

Now I'm in third, racing along Norrebrogade, mouth open, brows raised
to stretch the skin. I go past the university, past the ugly art
museum, past the Arhus snooker hall where the expats hang out. I turn
right into Norre Alle. Now we're in the city centre proper. I do
another left past the Sex-Bio (slow down a little here), a right at Ole
Jensen's Pizza Parlour, and park up in Molle Gade.

I'll tell you why.

During the mid-eighties I had a friend whose silent chat-up line
consisted of pulling out his wallet and unravelling a string of credit
cards. This single act was enough to procure a great number of sexual
liaisons. 'Try it' he said to me once. 'It makes a guy seem
impressive.' Was I ever impressed ? Not in the slightest. A man's worth
is to be found in the size of his library card. And yes, you've guessed
- I'm a connoisseur of libraries. At the time of writing my collection
stands at eighteen. All the big English libraries, of course - The
Bodlean, Birmingham, the wedding cake at Manchester - but also a lot of
smaller, regional libraries, recalling fond memories of reading hours
past. I'm a self-confessed libraryholic. When I die I hope to be in the
British Museum's round room reading the original manuscript copy of
Beckett's 'Ping.' Some of the best sex of my life has been connected
with libraries. A student girlfriend who moonlighted as a librarian
once presented to me her appetite for sexual activity among books. I
couldn't believe it! Books made her come! In her cramped varsity
lodgings this girl, known forever in my affections as The Worm, would
surround herself with the classics of English Lit., whereupon she'd lie
spread-eagled between Chaucer and well-thumbed copies of Tank Girl
mouthing her favourite lines from Keats ("'Stol'n to this paradise, and
so entranced/Trembling in her soft and chilly nest... "Oh yes, take me,
big boy! Take me!') while I played Porphyro to her Madeline and
casually buried my glinting sword into her burning rose bush. Then
she'd roll over onto her stomach and ask me to raise her backside. 'But
Worm' I'd implore, 'what books should I use?' - knowing that each
volume in her collection was endowed with an even greater commemorative
currency than any of my own - whereupon The Worm would point to her
three-volume bound set of Icelandic Sagas and I would further service
my good fortune. (Was there, I now wonder, some symbolic association
about the books she chose for me to raise her backside ? Did they
represent some kind of Order of Sexual Worth ? I was well aware that
The Worm entertained many other avid readers in her lodgings. On the
Eng. Lit. scale of appreciation Icelandic Sagas, I suspect, come
relatively low of most students' lists. And this coded message about my
performance (if it was so) continued throughout our affair - never once
did I raise myself above the Icelandic Saga.)

But I digress.

Moller Gade is the home of Arhus city library. At first I was
disappointed. Very disappointed. Like the analogy of the wallet, a
city's library leaves an indelible imprint - shapes my perception of
the city as a whole. Forget the clubs and bars and architecture - if
the library stinks, the city stinks. Full stop. But the Arhus library
grows on you. It's a subterranean experience - you're forever going ned
(down). Just when I thought I'd never want to visit the place again I
found myself back inside, sniffing around. Also, the week I first made
the library's acquaintance there was a lot of building work going on.
This, I'm sure, contributed greatly to my initial, negative impression.
Building work means dust. And dust means impermanence. To a writer any
thought of impermanence is disturbing. Permanence is the sole reason
why writers write.

So, I'm in the city library, ostensibly to do some research for my
novel. But I'm having an off-day. I look at this, I look at that,
without any real verve. I wander in the avisen (newspaper) room and
flick through the International Guardian. I start browsing - which for
me is deadly - and, more to the point, I start thinking - all kinds of
things, about the role of the author, about the novel as medium,
gradually edging towards one central idea: that maybe my story doesn't
come up to scratch. From then on it's ned all the way.

I begin to question my prose style, the images that crop up in my
writing, the subject matter, my quasi-intellectual anti-intellectual
stance and so forth. In short, I'm a bit concerned about my position in
the overall scheme of things. The 'who am I?' 'What am I doing here ?'
rap follows on close behind. I start mumbling (aloud): 'Everything's
been written There's nothing left to say People don't get shocked
anymore What's the point of carrying on?' I go up to the woman sitting
at the information desk and ask her point blank: 'Would you want to
read a novel about an English novelist who turns into a fish?'

Fair enough. As any writer knows, these honest-to-god questions rear
themselves from time-to-time. You toss them around, give them an
airing, perhaps even an hour or so's serious thought, then get back to
the writing and say flick to everybody else. But with me, once I get
into this aporific frame of mind, I find it difficult to escape. The
thoughts begin to take over - they invade the narrative. Instead of
writing: "Billy walked into the room and shot Gary's balls off' I'll
write: "Billy walked into the room and, suddenly depressed, asked
himself: 'Why am I about to cause grievous bodily harm to Gary's
genitalia ?"' Perhaps, after a moment or two's meditation on the
subject, he'll go ahead and shoot Gary's balls off anyway, but he's had
to think about it for a while. And, as my agent keeps telling me,
people don't like to have to think too much these days. Or - worse -
have to read about other people thinking. Once I get to the English
fiction shelf I'm in serious trouble with my day-plan and decide I may
as well forget the research altogether. I read a page or two by the
younger Amis, a bit of Roth and J.G Ballard, search among the shelves,
see what signals I can pick up
about Danish reading habits (by the way, why are the Danes so obsessed
with Fay Weldon ? The woman occupies more shelf space than Graham
Greene and Dickens put together ? Is she some kind of national hero or
what ?) By twelve thirty I call time and decide to go for some lunch.
But, if you're an Englishman living in Denmark, eating lunch is fraught
with its own peculiar problems.

For most of the English population lunch is synonymous with the pub.
Between twelve o'clock and three o'clock the nation stops drinking tea
and drinks beer instead. The thinking goes something like this: the
more beer you drink the less conscious you are of the afternoon's work
ahead. This is good because working in England is badly paid and you
don't want to be reminded that you're getting short-changed for your
labour. Also, beer is made with pure water, unlike household tap water
which is full of copper nitrates. So, even though beer makes you fat
and destroys lots of brain cells it's better for you in the long
run.

Another reason why we - the English - drink beer in large quantities
is because it kills the taste of English food. We English eat a lot of
fish and chips at lunch time which, at a rough guess, is the equivalent
of eating half a pound of melted lard. Beer washes the grease around
your system so that it's not just your arteries that seize up. it's
your whole body.

Now you can understand my dilemma: I'm sitting in a small cafe in the
centre of Arhus, my body crying out for ajug of beer and a plate of
grease, and what am I offered ? Rugbr?d (pronounced Ruh-Bruhl.)

When God in His wisdom first created rugbr?d His mind must have been
on constructing roads. My Danish girlfriend tells me it's bread but I'm
afraid I don't believe her. It's sliced, brown concrete, packed into
polythene bags and mistakenly delivered to supermarkets marked 'Bread'
when really it should be delivered to the country's building suppliers.
The first time I ate rugbr?d I cracked a tooth. It took me three days
to digest haifa slice. The consistency of rugbr?d is such that it makes
eating snails seem positively mainstream (Ok, Ok, I know - all this
racist foodism. But I can't help it! I JUST CAN'T HELP IT!) I can't
even pronounce rugbr?l properly - the construction of an English thorax
makes it impossible to close the throat and let out air from the mouth
at the same time. Not only do the Danes eat rugbr?l, they place on top
pieces of sausage, fish, cheese - even chocolate! - each with its own
special accompaniment of pickles cucumber, pickled marrow, mayonnaise
or a slimy yellow substance called remolade. If you diversify its as if
you've broken some mystical food law stretching back to prehistory. I
once made the mistake of putting meat and cheese on a piece of rugbrod
and then placing another piece of rugbr?d on top. In England we call
this a sandwich. In Denmark they call it food heresy. The
Danish open sandwich simply isn't consistent with English thinking on
the subject. And after tasting rugbr?d I can understand why. Two pieces
of rugbr?d at the same time ? I don't think so.

Another thought: Is rugbr?d the reason why the Danes seem so
unflustered ? So centred ? So calm when they cross the road ? Is it
because rugbr?d is acting as a form of ballast, keeping them firmly
weighed to the ground ? Is this the true meaning of the Law of Jante ?
(the law that implies Danes never aspire to rise above the
average) i.e., because they're too filled with rugbr?d ? Yes, I think,
as I sit contemplating what to eat. Quite possibly I've found the
answer to these and other equally elusive questions.

'All this food' I say to the counter assistant, 'egg, sliced salami,
meat paste, fish fillets would it be possible to have any without the
rugbr?d?'

The assistant looks at me as though I've just arrived back from a
lifetime on
Plutovej and shoots me down with a caustic 'Nej.' She begins to reel
off all the things I can have on top of a piece of rugbr?d and I
suddenly feel as though I've walked into the Monty Python spain sketch,
dubbed into Danish. 'Rugbr?d and chips, rugbr?d and egg, rugbr?d and
beans, rugbr?d and rugbr?d, by which time I've walked out, bought a
piece of chocolate, and sat down outside the cathedral in order to eat
my rugbr?d-free lunch.