Last Summer

By Tage Skou-Hansen

Small countries were ever so nervous, she said. They had to bark at everything like little dogs. But if you stamped hard on the ground, they rolled over with their legs in the air. They simply wanted to have their tummies tickled.
(...)
Helene put a new cigarette in her holder and placed her cards on the table. What did he want to go home for? For he hadn´t any friends in Denmark any longer. She reminded him of their last visit after the non-socialist parties had formed a government. Did that make much difference? Didn´t they look after their own kind just like the Reds? The Danes didn´t know the meaning of shame, they simply went on demanding more and more. They knew perfectly well that they weren´t nearly as clever as they thought they were. They simply didn´t do anything about it. The only thing they reproached themselves for these days was the fact that they weren´t good at selling themselves. But once the cards were played, they were played, and Denmark was becoming a county in Germany.
    She trotted out all those things on which they usually agreed, and suddenly they were in the midst of a blazing row. Each throwing stones at the other from their separate glass houses. He felt he had been seen through, but it didn´t dawn on him for an instant that he was feeling homesick. Not until he heard himself defending the old country, as though it were unspoiled and alive and still kicking. They spent a couple of days becoming friends again.
    Herman went around with the television pictures from Europe in his head. Restless and at odds with his surroundings. How could those people undergo such a determined conversion? Had the change within them really taken place long ago, without their noticing it, or at least without their registering it? And had they simply not really discovered it or had sufficient courage until Gorbachev gave them their opportunity?
    Why did he get so mad with Helene? Turn on her at the drop of a hat? Was it anything but his usual quick temper? Was it true that he felt different now, both about Denmark and Argentina.

Translated by W. Glyn Jones