Free The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff Page B

from the burnished beams. Why he tripped in the sennep- yellow shoes Greta had first given him that April afternoon when she needed a pair of legs to paint. Why he allowed the narrow slip-dress to bind his stride: Einar was playing a game. He knew it. Greta knew it. But he also knew nothing, nothing about himself.
    Outside in Rådhuspladsen, a tram clanged by, its bell friendly and sad. Three Norwegians were sitting on the rim of the fountain, laughing and drunk.
    “Which way?” Henrik asked. He seemed shorter on the street, out on the open plads that smelled of the nearby cart selling coffee and spice biscuits. There was something hot in the secret pit of Einar’s stomach, and all he could do was look around at the fountain and the bronze lurblowers and the steep pitch of the roofs of the buildings surrounding the square.
    “Where to?” Henrik asked again. He looked to the sky, his nostrils trembling.
    Then Einar had an idea; Lili had an idea. And as strange as it might seem, it was like that: floating somewhere above Rådhuspladsen Einar watched Lili, with her determined upper lip, whisper to Henrik, “Come.” He heard her think: Greta will never know. What Lili was referring to—Greta will never know what?—Einar didn’t find out. When he, Einar, the remote owner of the borrowed body, was about to ask Lili what she was referring to; when he, Einar, floating above like a circling ghost, was about to lean in and ask—not exactly the way a driver at a fork asks himself which road to take, but almost— What won’t Greta know?, just then Lili, with her forearms flushed with heat, with chiffon in her fists, her half of the walnut brain electric with the current of thought, felt a warm trickle run from her nose to her lips.
    “My God, you’re bleeding!” Henrik cried.
    She brought her hand to her nose. The blood was thick, running over her mouth. The music from the Rådhuset was ringing in her nose. With each drop she felt more cleansed, empty but cleansed.
    “What happened?” Henrik asked. “How did this happen?” He was yelling, and the blood seemed to run a little heavier in gratitude for his concern. “Let me get you some help.” Before she could stop him, he was running across Rådhuspladsen to some people getting into a car. He was about to tap the shoulder of a woman holding open the door. Lili watched Henrik’s finger slowly unfurl. Then she realized.
    Lili tried to call “No!”—but she couldn’t speak at all. Henrik was tapping the black sturdy back of Greta, who was on the street putting Helene into the Royal Greenland Trading Company’s official car.
    It was as if Greta never saw Henrik. She only saw Lili, her blood bright across Rådhuspladsen. Greta’s face tightened, and Lili thought she heard Greta whisper, “Oh no. For God ’s sake, no.” The next thing Lili knew, Greta’s blue scarf, the one Lili had been secretly borrowing, was pressed to her nose, and she was collapsing into Greta’s arms, hearing softly, like a lullaby, “Lili, are you all right? Oh, Lili, please be all right.” And then, “Did he hurt you?”
    Lili shook her head.
    “How did this happen?” Greta asked, her thumbs rubbing circles into Lili’s temples. Lili couldn’t say anything, could only watch Henrik, frightened of Greta, run across Rådhuspladsen, his legs long and swift, his spiraled hair swaying at the tips, the handsome slap of his foot on the cobble eerily similar to the flat punch of Einar’s father’s hand to his cheek when he discovered Einar in his grandmother’s apron as Hans’s lips pressed toward his neck.

CHAPTER Six

    That summer, the dealer who sold Einar’s work agreed to display ten of Greta’s paintings for two weeks. Einar arranged it, requesting the favor— My wife is becoming frustrated, he began in a letter to Herr Rasmussen—on a sheet of letterhead, though Greta wasn’t supposed to know about that. Regretfully, she unsealed the letter Einar asked her to post, using a