It is hot and muggy in the attic apartment on the fourth floor. Despite all the open skylights, there isn’t a breath of wind. The house is a hundred years old; the thick walls and the metal roof hold the heat like a vice. An occasional car can be heard driving by far below, otherwise it is desolately quiet. People usually say that Dalaplan is Malmö’s dullest neighborhood, and August is proof of that. The Malmö Festival draws people toward the center, leaving the streets outside empty. It is the third Monday in August. We have signed the divorce papers. It went quickly. When we were finished, we hugged, cried, and said we would always love each other. Or was it only me who said that.

Now I am divorced, weigh more than ever, and am generally dissatisfied. Štefica Cvek in the Jaws of Life.

I sit at the kitchen table under the sloped ceiling, trying to write small sketches for the writing school I have decided to attend – an attempt to gather thoughts and feelings.

Blip.

— Hi Tanja, is everything good with you? Hope so! I was having dinner with my new neighbor today, and I think I saw your name in the stairwell: Flensburgsgatan 3a? In that case, we’ll be neighbors in a week or two. I signed the contract for the apartment right across from Oishi a few weeks ago and am now preparing for the move. If it’s true, it’s fantastic. Looking forward to tea, coffee, beer, etc. in the courtyard! Have a really nice weekend. All the best / O

We hadn’t heard from each other since he moved to London, where he taught at St Martins. The last time we sat in my courtyard in a conversation that lasted twelve hours; a courtyard I had avoided since E and I happened to play chess during a communal cleaning day. It couldn’t have been more embarrassing—him and me with a box of white wine in the middle of the day at an improvised table with a chessboard, while people cleaned all around us.

— Well hello! Yes! The conversation continues! Welcome!

The first time after he moved in, we were supposed to have dinner together with K at my place. O arrived two hours late. He had two bottles of Barolo with him anyway. Like an innocent child, he hugged us both. That we had been sitting and waiting for two hours and that my polenta with ragù di verdure had turned into a shoe was never even mentioned. K thought even then that we were both too intense and boundless and left us after a few hours. We continued our conversation deep into the night.

One night, I was brushing my teeth when I heard someone pulling at the handle of the front door. I stopped brushing and listened. A faint rustling, a small movement—then silence. The handle moved again, slower. I looked through the peephole. A short, middle-aged man in a cap was moving between the doors on the attic floor, pulling them one by one. A large bag hung over his shoulder. He moved with a collected, almost solemn calm. When he turned around, I recognized O. I didn’t open the door. Called K instead, who confirmed that O was heading to his place.

Another evening, we walked around the house together, looking for someone who could help him with the electricity he hadn’t had for three days but didn’t want to bother anyone about.

On New Year’s Eve, he wrote several times saying he would be late. A death in England. Phone calls. A custody battle. He was still later than the messages had said.

The pizza crusts were hard by the time I started eating. He touched neither the food nor the wine. His thoughts were spinning—or rather, a single thought, over and over again. Then it hit me.

— What have you taken?

— Just cocaine and a glass of wine.

At least he was sincere. The familiar feeling of homelessness took over me.

That January morning, I waited for him at Copenhagen Central Station and hoped until the very last moment that he would make it. He arrived two hours late, completely unaware that we had missed the train. For a whole month, we had planned this trip to Hamburg.

— Tanjita! he shouted as happily as a child when he caught sight of me.

I was on the verge of tears. The whole idea of setting off on this journey with him felt completely absurd.

The rest of the day we sat at Jernbanecafeen in a new marathon conversation. Like Tom Waits and Iggy Pop in Coffee and Cigarettes, only with beer and without cigarettes.

For an entire week, I didn’t hear from him. K finally went into the apartment and found him dead. Beside him lay Lidl bags with food he had bought.

I sit at the kitchen table on Flensburgsgatan. This winter has been extremely long and cold. Under the attic roof, the hundred-year-old walls do little against the cold. It doesn’t matter how much I turn up the radiators; my hands are cold, and I find it hard to hold the pen.