But a few nights later, while the night doctor on call was pulling out the syringe, Victor suddenly walked into the living room. What the hell is going on here? he yelled angrily at the frightened doctor. There’s nothing wrong with her! Get out of here this instant and don’t ever set foot in this house again! After the doctor left, Victor gripped my shoulders so firmly that it hurt. You damned little devil, he snarled. If you ever do that again, I’m leaving you.
But he didn’t. He never did. He fought against his terrible rival with a constant vigor and rage that filled me with horror. Whenever he was tempted to give up the fight, he would call Dr Borberg, whose words gave him renewed strength. I had to abandon the night doctors, because Victor hardly dared to sleep anymore. But when he was at work, I visited other doctors and got them to give me shots without much difficulty. To protect myself, I would tell Victor about it in the evening. He called up lots of doctors and threatened to report them to the Department of Health, so I wouldn’t be able to go back to them anymore. But in my wild hunger for Demerol I always found new ones. I hardly ate. I lost weight again, and Jabbe was seriously worried about my health. Dr Borberg told Victor that if I kept this up, I would have to be readmitted, but I begged him to let me stay home. I promised I would change and then I broke my promises. Finally Dr Borberg told Victor that the only real solution would be for us to move away from Copenhagen. At the time we didn’t have much money, but we got a loan from Hasselbalch Publishing and bought a house in the suburb of Birkerød. There were five doctors in the town, and Victor visited every one of them right away and forbade them to have anything to do with me. So it was impossible for me to get the drug, and slowly I adapted to accept life as it was. Victor and I loved each other, and having one another and the children was enough for us. I started writing again, and whenever reality got under my skin, I bought a bottle of red wine and shared it with Victor. I was rescued from my years of addiction, but ever since, the shadow of the old longing still returns faintly if I have to have a blood test, or if I pass a pharmacy window. It will never disappear completely for as long as I live.
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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First published as Gift in Denmark 1971
This translation first published 2019
Copyright © Tove Ditlevsen & Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 1971
Translation copyright © Michael Favala Goldman, 2019
All rights reserved
The moral right of the translator has been asserted
Cover photograph by Sven Türck
Courtesy of The Royal Danish Collection
ISBN: 978-0-241-39175-4
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Part One
Chapter 5
1 ‘A man should not covet you, O stars’, adapted from Goethe’s ‘Trost in Tränen’.
Chapter 9
1 A member of the Civil og Beskyttelse, the civilian defense and rescue corps formed when the Germans dissolved the Danish police during the occupation.
Chapter 11
1 The Hilfspolizei, a Gestapo-backed pseudo-police force of Danish citizens that patroled and terrorized Copenhagen in 1944.