LITMIR.BIZ

      I

      The Russian Guest

1.

      MY NAME IS SØRINE BENTSDATTER. I WAS BORN IN 1684 in the village of Brønshøj. My father was a pastor, my mother died in childbirth.

      When I turned six my body decided not to grow anymore.

      I don’t care for the term “dwarf.”

      As a rule, I don’t care for dwarves at all.

2.

      THE FINE GENTLEMEN HAVE BROUGHT ME HERE TO Copenhagen Castle. They’ve set me on a carpet that feels as if I’m treading on seaweed. Now they’re looking at me in that jovial manner they favor—their heads tilted, their lips twitching—but I stare right back at them. I always stare back, because they’re uglier than I am. The only difference is that they don’t know it.

      “Do it again,” says the finest of those gentlemen.

      His name is Callenberg. He’s a smug cavalier with red cheeks. His legs are bound with silk. I put my hands on my hips and stare at his multiple chins, which are quivering with mirth.

      Callenberg spreads his legs and smiles. I move across the soft floor, duck my head, and walk between his legs. I do it four or five times, back and forth, like some sort of obsequious cur. And now they’re all applauding; now they’re cackling contentedly in their perfumed chicken yard. Of course I could have bumped my head into Callenberg’s nobler parts, but that would have been foolish. And you can say any number of things about a wench like me, but I’m no fool.

      “Splendid.” Callenberg draws his legs together with a satisfied grunt.

      The courtiers once again stare at me with a condescending expression—the same way that everyone looks at me, with a despicable mixture of contempt and joviality. But they could just as well have been staring out the window. They could just as well be gazing up and down the length of the Blue Tower, because they don’t see me, those people. How could they see me when they’re as blind as bats?

      ALL AT ONCE I catch sight of my figure in the mirror. I’m small and withered, with deep furrows on my brow. My eyes are tiny and green, my lips thin and sardonic. My nose and my ears are a bit too big, my hair is long and graying. The veins dance up and down my bowed legs, but there is nothing ridiculous about me. That’s something they’re all going to learn.

      Callenberg sits down on a scissors chair and snaps his fingers. A moment later a glass of clove wine is brought to him along with a plate of Flemish chocolates. His hands are fat and pink, his nails look like shiny seashells. That’s how a human being is. Loathsome and vain, with habits that increase in cruelty the more the person eats.

      “Ask the dwarf what sort of tricks it can do.”

      The First Secretary turns to me. When he speaks, he does so slowly, as if he were talking to an idiot. I choose to ignore him. I’m familiar with the fine gentlemen. I have more experience with them than I would care to admit. I know how they think and how they behave. They can’t fool me with their vulgarities.

      “Can the dwarf perform tricks or read fortunes in salt?” Callenberg asks.

      “I can both read and write,” I tell him.

      Callenberg tilts his head back and laughs. He would howl with laughter no matter what I said, because dwarves are so droll, dwarves are entertaining in the same way that parrots are entertaining. We are creatures who serve only one purpose: we exist so that human beings can feel superior.

      Callenberg rubs his hand over his chins.

      He is the Lord Steward at the castle. Not just the Lord Chamberlain but the Lord Steward. That’s the sort of thing that the nobility care about. Their whole raison d’être lies in titles. The higher the title, the greater the reason they have for existing.

      “I can both read and write,” I repeat with annoyance. “I also know German, Latin, and a little French.”

      “And where has the dwarf learned these things?”

      I let my eyes survey the chamber.

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