The New Matilde

In the shop a heavily tattooed man with muscular arms is reading a tabloid newspaper in an armchair. He gets to his feet and smiles at me.

"How can I help you?"

"I just wanted to know... Do I have to book an appointment? Or is it possible to get a tattoo right away?"

"That depends..." He glances at a clock on the wall. "We're about to close in half an haor, so..."

"I just want a tiny thing. Can you make a small red rose?"

"I should think so. Flowers... that's this one."

He grabs a black binder with photos from a shelf, putting it on the low table in front of the armchair. He shows me a couple of small roses and I choose one of 6-7 centimeters.

"We can do that one now," he explains.

"How much is it?"

"I can do it for... let's say a thousand kroner."

"Okay."

"I just need to go outside for a smoke before we start," he says, picking up a pack of Marlboro Reds from the table, turning toward the door.

"You can smoke while you tattoo me. It doesn't bother me."

The tattooist shrugs.

"Great. I'll just close the shop then. Where'd you like your rose?"

He lights a cigarette from his pack, locking the entrance door from the inside.

"Here. On my foot." I place my left foot on a chair, careful to keep my balance in the heels, and point to my instep.

"I'd like it right between the straps of the sandal."

"Are they new, your sandals?"

"Yeah. Totally. I just got them yesterday."

"They're cool. And a rose would look great right there. It's just... that it's an extremely painful spot to get a tattoo."

"It is?"

"Yeah. I'll be working right on top of tendons and bones. If I give you the rose on your shoulder or thigh, it won't hurt as much. Is this your first time?"

"To get a tattoo? Yeah."

"It can be very painful."

"It's okay."

I sit down on the couch and take off my heels. The tattooist puts on gloves before cleaning my foot with alcohol. Then he puts on the rose stencil, leaving a print. He shows me where the rose will be tattooed.

"Yeah. That's just fine," I say.

He starts working with his machine, scratching my skin.

"I'm just drawing the lines," he explains.

It hurts a bit, but I soon get used to the pain. I find the phone in my bag and start checking Facebook. Thomas sent me a friend request that I confirm.

In fact, it doesn't hurt nearly as much as I had imagined. I've just spent a couple of minutes wondering whether that was all as the tattooist butts out his cigarette, saying:

"I'm going to add the colour so now it'll probably hurt a bit."

I'm soon to find out that "a bit" is a major understatement. I'm unable to suppress a moan.

"You want something to bite into?" the tattooist asks with a friendly smile.

"I just need a cigarette. Wait a second!"

I find my Marlboro pack and lighter in the bag, lighting up and inhaling deeply.

"Okay! Go on!" I say, exhaling.

Countless small pricks into my foot hurt like crazy. With my eyes closed I focus on what's going on between my fingers, in my mouth, throat and lungs, trying to ignore what's happening on my left foot. Slowly I pull the smoke into all parts of my lungs before exhaling.

Much too soon I have finished my cigarette and I crush it out in an ashtray the tattooist got me. He continues working with his small, intensely painful, pricks to my foot.

I grab the phone, entering Facebook, but I'm absolutely unable to concentrate on my friends' holiday trips, cute kids and cake recipes. The pain in my foot is insistent and intense.

"Can I buy one of your cigarettes? I'd like to try something stronger than my own," I ask.

The tattooist interrupts his work, picking up his Marlboro Reds pack from the table:

"You can have one for free. It's all inclusive," he says. "By the way, I absolutely don't get why women always want to smoke that light shit. These are real smokes.."

He offers me one from the pack, taking one himself and lighting our cigarettes, before getting back to my tormented left instep.

The cigarette is much stronger, but also with more... flavour, I suppose it's called. I could get used to Marlboro Reds I think, inhaling against the pain in my foot. I'm all mouth, throat and lungs, sucking on the cigarette, keeping the smoke in my mouth for a second before inhaling, pausing with the smoke in my lungs, and exhaling slowly. Repeating the same procedure over and over.

As I butt out the strong Marlboro cigarette in the ashtray, the tattooist is draping plastic film over my left instep which is sore and red... and decorated with a rose. I carefully swing my legs over the edge of the couch. The room seems to be all smoky now and I have a feeling like I'm inhaling smoke with every breath I take. But it smells differently when you're a smoker yourself. It's not unpleasant, more like spicy.

"Don't wear shoes for the next couple of days. And leave the film on until tomorrow. At least."

"Okay."

I put my bare feet on the cold floor tiles to find out that one of the broad straps of my Birkenstocks would cover my tattoo. So it's back into the heels. The tattooist gives me some cleaning fluid and I pay with my card. I wish him a nice weekend, limping on my high heels - a bit light-headed and almost high from the prickling sensation in my foot and the cigarette smoke - down the deserted main street of Frederikssund toward the train station.

I find a seat on the train, take off the heels and start surfing the phone. Around Ballerup I catch myself reaching for the cigarettes in my bag. I sense a restlessness in my body, longing for the nicotine buzz. Finally, at Copenhagen Central, I get out of the train to smoke, standing barefoot on the September cold pavement of Tietgen's Bridge while contemplating, with a certain pleasure, my new, red rose under the plastic film, the stilettos in my hand and the smoke, slowly rising from my Marlboro and being carried away by the wind.

3.

Sunday

The sound of the door phone wakes me up. I look at the alarm clock. Disoriented. It's almost half past ten. My head aches and my throat feels like clogged up with slime. I try to clear my throat and end up having a major coughing attack. I sit up in bed, rubbing my eyes. My T-shirt smells of smoke. I was on the balcony until late, practising my smoking skills and watching some very inspiring Youtube videos on sexy ways to in- and exhale.

Another ring.

I get out of bed, stumbling toward the door on my sore left foot.

"Hello?" I answer the door phone with a voice that I find it hard to recognize as mine.

"We're bringing the old dresser," my mother says in her happiest voice.

Fuck! Today's the day they're bringing the old dresser from their garage in Hillerød. I had forgotten all about this.

"Come in," I say.

"Aren't you coming down to help Svend carry."

Svend is my mother's husband.

"Yes... No... Why don't you come up here first."

"As you wish."

I open the downstairs door by pushing the button on the phone, then open the apartment door. Because of my unwillingness to discuss my new smoking habit with my mother I'm in a hurry. I quickly open the balcony doors which makes it rain on the floor. But that's of little importance now. I spent part of Saturday night in front of the mirror posing, trying to look cool while smoking a cigarette. So the apartment has stinks of cold smoke.

In the bathroom I panically brush my teeth before finding a clean T-shirt in my bedroom drawer. I spray a little perfume on my neck and feverishly start chewing a piece of gum.

"Hello? Anybody home?"

I hear my mother's voice from the hallway. The red jeans I pick up from the floor have a smoky smell. Or maybe it's just me.

"I'm here, mum. I just need to get dressed," I yell.

"Hello," she answers.

I find a pair of clean jeans in my drawer, sitting down on the bed to put them on.

"Matilde!" my mother exclaims in an extremely alarmed way.

"I'm coming. I just need to..."

"You're not saying you actually bought these?"

"What, mum?"

"These... stilettos. Are you aware what they do to your feet, Matilde?"

She found the sandals that were lying around on the hallway floor. Another subject I would prefer not to debate with my mother this morning. I limp toward the door where I see her at the door to the hallway, accusingly pointing one stiletto heel at me.

"They really damage your feet."

I look down at my naked feet and see the plastic film over the tattoo on my left instep. A third issue that I would like not to take up with my mother right now. Backwards I pull into the bedroom and pick up a couple of worn socks from the floor. I carefully put them on.

My mother walks into the living room, discovering the open balcony doors.

"Matilde! I'm going to close those doors. It's raining on your floor."

She's at the balcony as I enter the living room in my socks.

"No, Matilde. You're not telling me, that that lovely Aluminia cup has been used as an... ashtray?"

She's picked up a cup from the balcony, now filled with rain and five Marlboro butts.

"Did you have a visitor?"

"No, I... Yes. A friend of mine came yesterday. She went to the balcony to smoke and she needed some kind of ashtray."

Svend is waving from the door to the hallway.

"What friend is that?" my mother inquires.

"Not someone you know. A colleague. From the school."

My mother takes the cup inside, putting it on the window sill while closing the door. She walks over to me and hugs me.

"Well, you really smell of... perfume," she says, pulling away. "And look at those nails. It's almost... it's very... spectacular."

I'm holding up my fingers for my mother and Svend to see my red nails. Svend also walks over to me, hugging me, while my mother has already left for the kitchen.

I can hear her washing the cup in the kitchen sink. Then she is back in the living room with a cloth for the water on the floor.

"Those high heels, Matilde. They're so much not you. And you'll never learn to walk in them anyway."

"I know. A mistake. Okay? They were on sale."

"They look expensive."

"They weren't."

"So? How much were they?"

"I don't remember. Can we please let it lie?"

"I could really do with a cup of coffee," remarks Svend who is always good at calming things down.

"Sure."

I put the kettle on in the kitchen while my mother is snooping around my stuff in the living room.

"Did she smoke in here as well?" she yells from the living room.

"Who?"

"Well, your friend... your colleague?"

"No... yeah, maybe a little."

"She must have done because there is a stench in here like in some old pub."

"Really? I don't think so."

"Doesn't she know that it's very rude to smoke inside when visiting a non-smoking home?"

"No... Yes, of course she knows. But we had some wine. Okay?"

Returning with my small tray with coffee, cups and milk, I see my mother on top of one of my chairs fumbling with my curtains.

"Honestly, mum! What are you doing?"

"I'm helping you take down the curtains to put them in the laundry. The smoke is in the curtains, you know."

"Mum!!"

Svend gives her a helping hand down from the chair which he takes to the table. We sit and things calm down. My mother and Svend tell the latest from their life in suburban Hillerød where nothing ever happens. About which you can then talk endlessly.

While having my coffee, black as I've preferred it since yesterday, I sense this unrest. I feel hoarse and keep trying to clear my throat to loosen the slime as I long for my Marlboro Lights that are hidden on the desk under some papers.

"Well, are we going to get that dresser?" I say impatiently and get up, taking a couple of purposeful steps towards the hallway.

"What's with your foot, Matilde?"

"Nothing, mum."

"Yes, Matilde. You're limping. Does it hurt?"

"No," I lie. "Well... a little. I twisted my ankle a bit. But it's nothing, mum."

"Can I please see your foot?"

"No. It's nothing. Let's get that dresser," I insist while walking with a demonstrative, though quite painful, non-limp toward the key rack in the hallway.

The two others get to their feet and we're heading down the stairs. On the third floor my mother has new, though unsolicited, advice:

"You can't possibly leave the house in your socks, Matilde! It's pouring outside. Get back up and find a pair of shoes."

I don't want to go back up, so instead I start rolling off my right sock. Then I remember why I put on socks in the first place. There is a biting pain as I tear off my left sock and the plastic film underneath. I put the socks into my pocket and continue downstairs to the pouring rain outside and the Citroën Berlingo with the dresser.

Svend and I carry it into the house. The stairs have enough room for us to be able to carry it between us. My mother is behind us. As we're on the fourth floor there's a scream from the landing below:
"Matilde! What is that on your foot??? Have you had a tattoo? Please tell me that you can make it go away, Matilde!"

I answer without turning around.

"Mum! It's a tattoo. I can't make it go away and I like it. It's a red rose that suits my new stilettos, which I also like very much."

"You're going to regret that, Matilde... A tattoo... That's so much not you."

Svend and I reach the landing at my apartment, putting down the dresser. I turn toward my mother who is five steps below me:

"Mum, I'm 28 years old and it's completely up to me if I want a tattoo. And I do want one. Actually I'm going to have a lot more. Because I think they look cool."

My mother is like petrified, taking it all in.

"But, Matilde, you have to..."

Sometimes you have to drown bad news in other bad news. I decide it's Take Out the Trash Day.

"And let me tell you that it's not some ficticious smoking friend who smoked in my apartment, leaving a stench like in an old pub. That was a lie. It was me. Because, apart from being a liar, I'm also a smoker, which I have been for some time now. And I like it. Because cigarettes taste so good and I intend to keep smoking them."

I finally made my mother shut up. Completely.

"And if I appear to be a bit... jittery and grumpy, its due to the fact that I haven't yet had my morning cigarette. So now I'd like to get this fucking dresser inside, so I can smoke."

I signal for Svend to lift at his end and we manage to get the dresser into the living room, putting it down on the floor.

"Thanks a lot for the dresser. Now I very badly need a smoke."

I march into my bedroom, picking up my cigarettes and lighter. Back in the living room I light a Marlboro, inhaling with ostentatious pleasure, realizing that I'm enjoying it both for my mother's reaction and the physical sensation of smoke spreading all over my lungs. When exhaling I take care that the smoke is as widely distributed in the room as possible.

"And it's my decision how I use my cups. They're mine," I continue in a short break between ex- and inhaling. From the kitchen I fetch the light blue Aluminia cup that my mother washed. I sit down at the table and flip ash into the cup before drinking the rest of my coffee and pouring more coffee for myself.

"That's the way it is!" I say.

My mother and Svend are looking at me.

"But, sweetie... Matilde honey... You have to...," my mother begins.

I suck a large mouthful of smoke into my lungs before answering:

"Aren't you getting it? You don't get to tell me what I have to and don't have to."

Small bursts of smoke leave my mouth as I speak, exhaling.

For a moment all three of us are quiet.

Svend breaks the silence:

"May we see you in your new sandals, Matilde?"

I get the stilettos from the hallway and sit down, tightening the straps with the burning cigarette between my lips.

"They're very... elegant," says Svend.

I get to my feet and walk a few painful catwalk steps through the living room while posing with my cigarette, spreading as much smoke as possible.

"And just so you know: I got my high heels from my boyfriend Thomas, who is really sweet and just loves watching me while I'm chainsmoking."

"Oh, you have a boyfriend, Matilde. You haven't told us."

"No. I haven't. Because I don't want you to interfere with everything I do. But now you know."

I sit, gulping down the rest of my lukewarm coffee.

"Would you and... Thomas like to come to dinner in Hillerød. How about next Sunday?"

I sigh.

"I don't know. Thomas has a very interesting job. He's travelling all the time. I really don't know if he'd be able to find time to come to Hillerød - of all places - next Sunday."

"No. Of course. I just hope he's able to find time to be with you, Matilde."

"You can count on that. We're spend a lot of time together."

From a bowl in the window sill I pick up the large earrings my mother characterized as "slutty" when I bought them last year, putting them into my earlobes, holding the cigarette with my lips. Nobody says a word. Then I find my make-up purse with my crimson lipstick and carefully apply a thick layer to my lips, thus completing the picture of The New Matilde.

Svend starts rattling the Berlingo carkeys.

"We'd better get a move on. We need to get to the plant nursery to buy something for the garden."

I get to my feet, hugging my mother in a measured way, holding my burning cigarette with lipstick on the filter close to her face.

After hugging Svend goodbye I stand in the door, waving with my cigarette and exhaling a huge plume of smoke onto the stairs where my visitors start their descent from the fifth floor.

4.

Monday

The alarm clock sounds at 6:30 as usual. But I stay in bed until after seven. When reaching for my Marlboros I find out that there is only one left. For a short moment I consider saving it. I do, however, feel like smoking so I light it, sensing a feeling of well-being spreading throughout my body. I totally relax while smoking it down to the filter laying in my bed.

All of a sudden I'm in a hurry. I rush into the bathroom, brush my teeth and spend like three minutes in the shower going through today's programme. Eight lessons of teaching, team meeting in class 8.b, parents' meeting in class 7.a at five, dinner with sweet Thomas at seven. I'm not going to make it home before our dinner date to change so I bury my nose in the butterfly dress to find out that it smells smoky. I decide to camouflage it with some perfume.

I put on my slutty earrings and apply my crimson lipstick. At the shoerack I conduct a feverish search, though in vain, for the flip-flops I used before buying my Birkenstocks. I'm in a real hurry now and get into the heels. As fast as I can, I step down the many steps while reminding myself that I need to buy cigarettes before work. Then I remember that smoking is prohibited all over the school, inside and outside. I wouldn't be able to squeeze in time to go to a store anyway.

I enter the school as the bell is ringing and head for an English lesson in class 8.b on the fifth floor. My teaching is rather uninspired and tired today. But the class likes me so I get away with it and survive on my charms. In the short break between this morning's two English lessons with the same class the girls gather around me, admiring my nails, earrings, lipstick, heels and - last, not least -tattoo.

After the second lesson I happen to run into Kate in the corridor.

"Hi, Matilde! Did you have a nice weekend?" Without waiting for an answer she continues: "And it was so nice to meet your boyfriend. He is so nice! Is it a new thing?"

"Yeah, we..." I begin.

Kate grabs my arm and lowers her voice:

"We're going for a smoke, Matilde. Then you can tell me all about him."

"What do you mean? We're not allowed to smoke at the school. And we can't make it outside. I've got to teach right after the break."