The first catering event where Kerim tended bar didn’t go very well. He rode to the site in the back of a large laundry truck with another immigrant, both of them Turks, both of them in tuxedos, propping up the large hot-boxes containing the evening’s hors d’oeuvres to keep them from toppling over as the vehicle caromed down the streets of Copenhagen. The other waiters and servers arrived by their own means and loitered in the makeshift kitchen while Kerim and the other Turk did all the work setting up the bars. There were two, one on the main floor and one in the VIP area up a flight of narrow stairs overlooking a dance floor.
The building was a small museum that was never intended to host functions such as this one. It was the second night of a conference of international custody lawyers employed by a law firm called Siffin Huss Hageborg, and given their presumed sympathy for foreigners they were surprisingly all stingy tippers who barked orders at Kerim in Danish. All this Kerim did for an EU passport.
The final straw came at the close of the night: after loading the caterer’s truck back up with all the uneaten quiche and spanakopita and empty liquor bottles, and all the cocktail tables the museum had rented from the caterers, Kerim went to toss an enormous bag of rubbish in a dumpster down an alley next to the museum only to return and find himself abandoned. The caterers had left without him. He would have thought at least that national brotherhood would have led his fellow Turk to alert the driver that one of the crew was missing.
Kerim waited for five minutes on the sidewalk under a streetlamp to see if by chance the truck would return for him. Then he went back into the closing museum to find a payphone so he could call a cab.
He did find a payphone but a blond man in a brown overcoat, the last of the well-to-do stragglers from the party, was using it, and apparently unsuccessfully.
“I think it’s broken,” the European said to Kerim in Danish. “It won’t accept my money.”
Kerim looked around the corridor. “Do you have a cellular phone?”
The blond man winced, pulled his sleeve up off his wristwatch, then looked around the empty corridor as well. There was not another soul.
“The batteries have died. I’m sorry.” He grinned at Kerim, not too concerned about their situation. “Are you Danish?”
“No. I am an immigrant. From Turkey.”
“Ah. I thought you looked foreign.”
“The caterers marooned me.”
“Bastards. That is a shame. I would offer you a ride, but…” Again he looked at his watch and raised his eyebrows in what Kerim thought was an exaggerated display of amazement at the time.
Kerim went out to the street again, cursing. On his way back through the empty museum lobby he saw the lights being switched off by a janitor with those white threads going up into those tiny earphones everybody in Copenhagen seemed to own. Kerim tried to jig and wave to get the janitor’s attention but the man just ignored him, people listening to private music can do that. It was astonishing that there was no security guard around.
When he pushed open the exit door to get back to the street Kerim saw a man in a leather jacket struggling to keep upright a drunken woman in evening apparel. She was heavily bundled against the cold in a fur coat and wore dazzling earrings that Kerim wondered at the value of. Her hair was curly and dark red. She was either ill or drunk and tilted against the streetlamp and the leather-bound man was working rather hard to support her and keep her from falling. She was mumbling something over and over again in a language Kerim didn’t understand.
“She’s drunk,” the man in the leather warned Kerim. “Don’t stare too long…” He glared at the Turkish bartender for a second or two.
“Are you waiting for a ride as well?” Kerim asked.
“A car is coming for us, yes, so what?”
The woman had drool running down her chin and had recently vomited, it seemed. She looked at Kerim with unfocused eyes.
Kerim took a few steps down the front steps toward the streetlamp. “She looks in a bad way.”
“It’s no business of yours.”
Kerim shrugged and held his hands up: I won’t cause trouble.
Just then they were joined by the blond man from inside, the man with the dead cell phone. “What a party!” he cried, startling Kerim with his joviality as he burst through the door. He held Kerim’s eyes with his own as he passed him coming down the front steps.
“How is my wife?” the blond man asked. He put out his gloved hands to hold her face for an examination of her eyes. “Darling, you’re sobbing. You’ve once more made a fool of yourself, my sweet slice of apple pie. Next time I shall confine you to cranberry juice!” He said this in Danish, shaking a finger and chuckling with some theatricality and, Kerim thought, some cruelty given the lady’s state. The blond man seemed to be stone cold sober and a little mad, and Kerim for his part could remember serving drinks to none of the three of them, the intoxicated lady included. Perhaps they were VIPs at the upstairs bar; Kerim had been downstairs.
The man in leather grimaced. “Lars, if he doesn’t come with the car soon I shall drop your apple pie to the sidewalk.”
“Don’t be a discourteous ass. Here, let me hold her.” The blond man, Lars, took hold of her arm and guided her to the flagstone steps where Kerim stood with the museum’s front entrance now dark behind him. “Maria, sit with me here. Maria, Maria. Look at me. I will take care of you. But this excessive drinking of yours, must stop now.” Kerim couldn’t work out the awful manners of these Europeans.
Lars looked up the steps at Kerim, who was lighting a cigarette and trying to keep himself out of the situation. Lars was nodding, with a little sorrow in his eyes like Well, look at this place we are all in. The more Lars looked, the more Kerim tried to look down the street for a cab. Lars then looked at the leather man and gestured with his skull toward Kerim.
“How about a smoke for us, chum?”
Kerim tried to weigh the tone of the Danish words as he gave Lars a cigarette.
“What’s your name?”
“Kerim.”
“You are Turkish or Armenian or what?”
“Absolutely Turkish, all my blood.”
“Good for you. You are stranded here?”
“In Copenhagen?” Kerim pointed to the sidewalk where he stood.
Lars guffawed and shot a few words to the man in the leather in some completely different language, not Danish, before replying to Kerim: “No, Kerim, are you stranded here at the museum.” Lars grinned and gestured with a crooked thumb, the universal signal for Got a light?
“Yes.” Kerim leaned over to light Lars’ smoke. The flame made Lars’ drunk wife flinch a little as Lars kept one arm around her. “Uh. The caterers forgot me, I must have slipped their minds.”
“What a shame.” Lars had said the exact same thing inside but seemed to have forgotten their exchange earlier. Lars addressed his buddy who stood under the streetlamp still. “Jens, what do you think? Should Maria and I give the Turk a free ride home?”
Jens, evidently a big softie for immigrants, said, “Probably not. Where’s he going to sit, in the trunk?” Lars laughed again, and nodded his head, not in response to the question but like any other young hoodlum approving of some mischief, graffiti, pissing in the street. “Forgive Jens, Kerim. He’s a big bastard who wouldn’t know a good deed from a kick in the nads. And he’s not in charge here, are you, Jens? Is he, Maria? Couldn’t we all pile in? Jens? Shouldn’t there be room?”
Jens looked unsettled but seemed to regain composure by pulling his leather jacket tighter around his chest. “Should be room, I suppose.”
Kerim was very flustered. “That would be very kind. I have some money, I could pay you, you know.”
Lars closed his eyes and waved his free hand in gracious dismissal. “Don’t think about money, Kerim. You served our law firm well tonight and your bastard friends shorted you, and I am in a good mood. Plus the cigarette. And I’m trying to teach Jens here how to be a gentleman to the help.”
Jens made a Who, me? gesture with his opened hands.
Lars said, “Don’t forget these life lessons, Jens. Here comes Lukas with the car, could you get the door and help me with Maria?”
A white sedan pulled up to the curb, driven by a large, handsome, snappily dressed man with a shaved head, footballer, possibly the dumbest-looking European Kerim had ever laid eyes on. Jens pulled the backseat door open and he and Kerim helped the boneless woman into the car. She wasn’t unconscious, just very drunk. Lars finished his smoke, flicked it with contempt against the front door of the museum, and climbed in next to Maria. Jens got in on the other side, and Lars said a few words to Lukas the driver, who looked out the window at Kerim standing there for a few moments, less than welcoming, before removing one hand from the steering wheel to reach over and unlock the front passenger door. “Please, have a seat, sir.” Kerim got in and they drove off.
After several blocks or two Kerim got disoriented very quickly. This was not his city. He thought they were near the water – a safe bet in Copenhagen – but he could not be sure. Lars broke significant ice by saying, “The caviar was excellent, Kerim. Did you prepare the hors d’oeuvres?”
“No, the caterers…”
“Everyone I spoke to was raving. Jens ate like a pig, he loves fine dining. Right, Jens?”
“Yes, I love the nightlife.” The sarcastic voice came from right behind Kerim’s seat.
“Jens is a gourmand. So, Kerim, apologies about being blunt, but what brings you to Denmark?”
Kerim reached up to touch his bowtie as he tried to think of how to answer Lars’ question without giving away too much. “Well, a job, mainly. I haven’t got much money, and my brother is in Brussels, and we’re trying to secure EU passports.”
“Are you a terrorist?”
Kerim didn’t have to turn his head to see the spittle flying in the backseat from Lars’ mouth. “You shit, Jens. What an obnoxious question! You know something, you are really getting on my tits tonight. Kerim, I’m very very sorry.” Lars said this, reaching across the cab to put a hand on Kerim’s shoulder. The gloved hand felt kind. Lars shook his head with incredulity at Jens’ thoughtless words. He seemed afraid of Kerim’s response.
“Yeah, man. I’m going to blow up the Eiffel Tower. Could I borrow a book of matches?” It wasn’t very witty but for a second language it was the best Kerim could do.
“What? What’d I say?” Jens was acting the innocent, good-natured, sausage-eating boor. “Sorry, Kerim, I didn’t know. Besides, you never can tell with immigrants these days.”
Lars began to lecture. “Jens, those stereotypes are very ignorant and harmful. Denmark is a progressive country. This chap probably broke his back working to entertain my wife’s law firm for a few hours, and his people just shit all over him, leaving him to fend for himself. Lukas, pull the car over.”
“What are you doing?” Jens bellowed, trying to out-do Lars’ reasonable, authoritative tone. Lukas glided the car to a halt on an unpopulated street with shuttered storefronts and tumbleweeds of newspapers floating by on the sidewalks.
Maria began sobbing again and tossed her mass of red hair against her husband’s shoulder. Kerim looked back at the three of them and it was utterly dark back there in the backseat except for Maria’s bejeweled earrings reflecting the pale greenish light of the Copenhagen streetlamps. He was about to tell Lars not to fret about it, it was okay, they could let him off up here, when Lars ordered Jens out of the car. Jens protested in that non-Danish language he had heard earlier and Lars must have responded to him with total finality because Jens did get out of the car. He was left standing on the sidewalk with his arms raised up in a posture of incomprehension. He shouted a few words and his forehead was bunched up in chastised anger as he took several running steps after the sedan, but Lukas stepped on it.
“Totally disgusting behavior, Kerim,” Lars said.
Lukas grunted in agreement, which surprised Kerim.
“You know, Lars, you didn’t have to do that—"
“Yes I did, he’s a child. He won’t get anywhere in the firm with that kind of narrow-minded behavior. I took him on board, I’m trying to help him to be a man. He’s a shit. He’ll have plenty of time to learn the rules of being a gentleman on the way home. Also, there’s plenty more room back here now.” Lars was smiling, Kerim could hear it in his words.
“It was rude, but understandable. I’ve heard far worse in Copenhagen since I’ve been here.” Kerim just wanted this night to be over, he was tired from the hard work and ready to be rid of this bizarre collection of Danes. “I don’t need a ride back to the caterer’s, if you just take me to Nørrebro that should suffice.”
A pause as everyone inside the car besides Maria mentally calculated the route from wherever they were to Nørrebro, where the immigrants lived in Copenhagen, and how long it would take.
Lars broke the silence. “Kerim? Can I say something? I’ve been thinking about what you said, about your passport problem. I may be able to help you.”
“How?”
“Well, actually, my wife. She may be able to help you.”
“Maria?”
“Yes.”
“She can’t even stand.”
“Yes, but once we get her home and sobered up, and maybe things have calmed down, she could give you some advice about paths to citizenship and so on. This is the kind of thing she does, you know. She’s an immigration lawyer, she handles international custody cases for Siffin Huss Hageborg.”
“I don’t think she’d want to talk to me…”
“Kerim, I’m just offering you some help. Where are you staying?”
“At a youth hostel.”
“Nonsense. You’re coming home with us. We have a large house, some food and a bed. Tomorrow, the three of us will go for breakfast. I can give you some clothes, it’s really no problem. Maria will make some phone calls, talk to some people on your behalf. I like you, I’ve always wanted to do something like this.”
Kerim was doing the whole No, don’t be silly routine while the desperate immigrant inside was doing some serious, hard calculation. He turned around in his seat to look at Lars. Maria was now fast asleep in the backseat, in the space created by Jens’ absence. Lars looked at Kerim earnestly, nodding slightly as the car bounced out of a slight dip in the road. “Would it hurt to just talk about it? It’s late and it would be great to get out of this car.”
Everything about Kerim’s time in Europe had been crap up until that moment. The lines, the crowded rooms, the teenagers hurling beer bottles, the Danish women sneering at him on the streets or in the cafes, the politicians on the front page acting like they were all insects. Kerim looked over at Lukas the driver, who now that Jens was gone seemed to have changed, like maybe he didn’t like Jens either. Lukas didn’t look back at Kerim but kind of shrugged his big shoulders and closed his eyes for a second, as if to say Why not? Lars doesn’t hand out favors every day. Lukas didn’t look so dumb after all.
***
When they carried Maria into bed and went into the adjoining living room, Lars took off his coat and began to show Kerim around. They were in a well-to-do neighborhood, one that Lars had given the name of but Kerim had not quite caught. It was a modestly-sized home, Kerim supposed, but was very well outfitted. Kerim saw the thoroughly modern kitchen, where Lukas, at complete ease, began casually cutting up some fruit and offered Kerim some. They looked into the garage where Lars’ gray Renault Megane was kept. Lars explained it was a low CO² model, apparently gauging Kerim’s European car savvy. Kerim was then taken by Lars upstairs to a guest room where he was given a set of clothes and shown to a shower. The clothes were not bad, Kerim thought after he showered and put them on.
He went back downstairs and lingered in the living room gently snooping about. Lars entered minutes later with a drink for Kerim and asked him how the shower was as they sat down together on opposing leather sofas. Lars still had on his dress shirt but it was untucked into his tuxedo pants and he was wearing only socks. Kerim thought he was one of the strangest Europeans he’d ever met.
“The shower was very good, very good. But there’s something I don’t understand.” He put his drink down on the glass coffee table.
“What don’t you understand?”
“You must think I’m very stupid.”
“Nonsense, Kerim. I don’t think you’re stupid. How is your drink?”
“That woman in there is not your wife. Maria.” Kerim gestured to the closed bedroom door.
“We’ve been married for over ten years, sir.”
“I don’t see any pictures of you together in here.”
Lars paused, looking confused and wounded. “Kerim, I’ll show you. There’s a picture in our bedroom.” Lars disappeared into the dark bedroom again, where there was more drunken mumbling from Maria, but perhaps slightly more lucid. As soon as Lars closed the door, something whipped over Kerim’s head, from behind, and Kerim was jerked backwards by the neck by a great force behind him. It had to be Lukas. Lukas the footballer. It was a garotte. Kerim’s eyes tried to escape his skull and in spite of the fear flooding his system there was a part of Kerim that thought this might all have been a joke. He tried to wedge several desperate, pathetic fingers between the cord and his throat. He was not laughing as he thought of his head as one giant, horrendous erection that was going to explode. He tried to get up from the couch but Lukas was climbing on his big legs over the back of the sofa to move with Kerim and overtake him. Kerim was staring forward and trying to batter the huge killer behind him with light blows. Together in one last effort for life Kerim lunged and together they toppled into the coffee table, smashing it into splinters. He would never see his brother Kadir in Brussels, nor even the Turkish waiter who’d left him to swing in the wind. The last person Kerim saw was Maria, staggering out of the bedroom with her hand over her mouth in horror at the sight of the strangulation happening on the living room floor, and then Lars grabbed her and hurled her back into the darkness of the bedroom and slammed the door closed.
When the Turk was dead, Lars came back out and surveyed the situation. He put his finger to his own lips, thinking. Lukas was shaking his hands out, they were very numb. “We’ve got to get better at this,” he muttered in Russian.
“He’s dead?” Lars asked of Lukas. It was just an official question because there had been mistakes before, the life hadn’t been completely squeezed out of certain subjects and it had turned out to be a fucking headache for the man who went by the identity of Lars Nestvaed whenever he was in Denmark. That name might have to be retired now. Maybe not.
“Yep. Dead as a doorknob,” Lukas said, in English.
“Okay, now he goes into the trunk.” He forgot that Jens had made the joke, earlier, not Lukas.
Once they had eliminated the only witness, the two Russians prepared Maria for the boat ride to Klaipeda, Lithuania. She had to be drugged again and put into clothes that wouldn’t make her stand out from the other women in the shipping container. She had to blend in. They didn’t care if the other women lived or died, as long as this one survived to the other side of the Baltic.
-- Jesse Hilson is a journalist and cartoonist living in the Catskills in New York State. His work has appeared or will appear in Maudlin House, Rejection Letters, Hobart, Expat Press, APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL, Excuse Me Mag, Exacting Clam, Don't Submit!, and many other publications. He has published two crime novels, Blood Trip and The Tattletales, and a poetry chapbook Handcuffing the Venus De Milo. He is the founding editor of Prism Thread Books. His writing has been excerpted and performed on Empty Room Radio and L'etranger on Radio Panik Brussels 105.4 FM. He can be found on X and Instagram at @platelet60