‘Erm, I meant: you write successful novels.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? “I write successful novels?” Are there people who write unsuccessful novels?’
‘Yes, of course!’
‘No! They write novels that aren’t successful, but they don’t sit down and write an unsuccessful novel!’
She looks at me. She doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say. I don’t know how else to say it, so I say what I didn’t want to say:
‘My book was rejected by twenty publishers.’
But it doesn’t help. Why did I think she’d understand me? Because she has the same rain jacket as me? Because she’s a journalist without a desk? A mother who can’t assert herself? A woman with a brain?
And still, I can’t give up. I don’t want to: not on her, nor the hope that I’ll manage. I want to manage.
‘Oh, really?’ she says. ‘Well, they’re really going to kick themselves now.’
‘How was it?’ Sven asks.
‘You would have left.’
‘No one ever wants to meet me.’
‘Because they’re afraid of you. You don’t walk into traps, and you don’t need understanding at all costs. Now she thinks we understand each other. Because I didn’t walk away!’
‘Keep it in mind for next time.’
‘But I already had it in mind — I realised it after her first question! I don’t have the guts to walk away. I can’t just accept things.’
‘You believe in understanding.’
‘And what’s needed is resistance. Now I’m the example that it’s possible to manage!’ I laugh manically.
The newspaper sends a photographer over.
I can’t put on make-up. I’ve never learned how to and have to ask Bea, who learned from YouTube videos, but can’t do it either because the videos are sale pitches, and Bea doesn’t order the product at the end. Bea is frugal and saves her money rather than buying brushes, eye shadow, and eyelash curlers. That’s a good thing — and a bad thing. I have terrible posture and a face that looks completely different in the mirror from how it feels on the inside. Unlike Bea’s, which doesn’t need make-up, but like my mother’s when she went to the drugstore at the age of fifty to buy something for age spots and rings under her eyes, and showed me her concealer the next time I saw her, saying: ‘It cost 29.95, and I look like a clown!’ ‘Mum, that’s because you’re doing one step instead of three!’
The photographer says I should smile.
I can’t smile without looking dopey, and I’m putting up resistance, so I don’t smile.
‘You look scared,’ the photographer says. ‘I’m not going to do anything bad to you.’
‘I’m no good at smiling.’
‘Yes, you are. I can see you are — there you go!’
She’s outwitted me. I should tell her to delete the photo: it’s up to me. She’s the pro, and she should know that looking dopey is no better than looking scared: but it’s her photo.
I don’t want to come across as pretentious or difficult. Who am I, after all, the Princess of Windsor? It doesn’t matter what I look like. Why am I here in front of the camera in the first place? Because the interview needs a photo. And I need the interview for publicity; being noticed is the first requirement to telling the truth, and I won’t let you stop me, not in this case either. I’m going to show you.
And to be honest, I look in real life exactly like I do in the photo: amateurly made up, not able to manage but not resisting either, hiding my terror with fake dopiness, looking stiffly unpretentious, and old.
The photographer sticks her head around the door of my broom cupboard when we’re done.
‘This is where you write?’
I nod. ‘People normally put a washing machine in here.’
She nods too. ‘I’ve set up a darkroom in my broom cupboard.’
‘Isn’t it too cramped?’
‘No, no. It’s just for decoration these days anyway.’
‘You need plasterboard screws.’ I knock on my wooden board.
‘Yes, that’s right. It’s all a bloody balancing act.’
Ulf calls to congratulate me on my prize.
‘I read about it in the newspaper.’
‘Oh. Really?’
‘Well, congratulations.’
‘Thank you.’
Silence.
‘I think it’s quite something,’ Ulf says. ‘A huge leap.’
I still don’t know what to say.
‘It still feels unreal for you,’ says Ulf. ‘Just like it was for us. Just one commendation by the German Architectural Prize, and we had ten times as many commissions.’
I don’t reply.
‘Are you going to do a reading tour?’
‘Well, I have a few dates.’
‘You make it sound like you don’t want to.’
‘No, no! It’s wonderful. I like talking about my book. I’ve been getting plenty of positive feedback.’
Now it’s his turn to be silent.
‘I don’t know what to say. You’re the one who phoned.’
‘Ahh, yeah, of course. I didn’t want to pretend that I hadn’t heard.’
‘That’s nice of you.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Really, Ulf. The prize doesn’t mean that much. Well, better to win a prize than no prize, of course. But it’s just the fucking literary business. It’s a trap to pay it too much attention. You can’t let the value of your work be determined by the public.’
I almost say: ‘Everybody knows that.’
‘But if you want to live off writing, then you have to,’ says Ulf.
‘You’re talking about money.’
‘I’m talking about opportunities to work. To publish. Or in my case, to build.’
‘Yes, of course. But it’s what you build or publish that matters.’
‘I don’t understand. You want to be a writer, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course. But some prize won’t turn me into one.’
‘Did I say it did?’
‘Sort of, yes. Up to now, my writing was seen as a problem.’
‘What you wrote, yes.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m talking about! It’s the same thing.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
I can tell. And I don’t want to come across as arrogant, don’t want to make myself out to be a victim, and don’t want to fall into any of the usual traps. So, what should I do? There’s not
