Metro by Steen Langstrup

Metro
    It is Maja, so I answer the call. Using my other hand, I loosen my tie before grabbing hold of the suitcase to pull it along. I am in the airport in Copenhagen, it’s in the middle of the night, and the place is deserted. My steps echo.
    I am on my way to the Metro station.
    “I’m back,” I say in a tired voice, not recalling where I have been. I have worked around the clock ever since my divorce. It’s my fourth business trip this week and it is only Thursday. Well, actually, it’s past midnight by now; so it’s Friday. “What’s up, Maja?”
    Maja is my secretary and I guess she is not calling to deliver good news. No, I know for sure, she is calling with bad news; otherwise she wouldn’t be up at this time of night. There is no need for her to say it, but of course she does.
    “Something’s happened, William.”
    “What?” I pull my suitcase down the long hallway leading to the platform. Up ahead I can see the illuminated red letters and numbers on the sign by the tracks:
    VANLOSE 4 min.
    Underneath this, sliding across the screen is a message stating that the elevator on Flintholm Station is out of order.
    I am alone. Through the glass walls of the station, I look down at the parking lot in front of the airport. It too looks deserted under the pale yellowish glow from the street lamps. I turn my eyes to the tall shadow of the Hilton. Only a few of the windows in the hotel sparkle in the dark of the night.
    “I’ve been calling all day, but I couldn’t get connected to your cell phone,” she says, her voice crisp in my ear. I hear anxiety in her voice—anxiety and fatigue.
    “Why didn’t you call me at…” I hesitate. “Sorry, I have no idea where I’ve been. Berlin? Was it Berlin today?”
    “Madrid, William. You are returning from Madrid. You started the morning in Berlin and then you went to Madrid. Yesterday you were in London, and Monday and Tuesday you were in Miami.”
    What would I do without Maja? Sometimes it seems she is the only person who cares about me.
    I reach the platform, releasing the handle of the suitcase to rub the tiredness from my face. I feel the stubble scratch the palm of my hand.
    I spot my reflection in the glass walls. I look okay, considering that I have been up and working since early morning.
    “Why didn’t you call me in Madrid? I’ve been at the head office all afternoon and most of the night.” I know because that is what I do in Madrid—like everywhere else; I visit the local departments, checking on their efforts to comply with the company plans. Are they moving towards the goals set forth by the management? If the departments are having trouble doing this, it is my job to spot it and get them back on track. Of course, this is done in cooperation with the executives of the local departments, but…Madrid…it is all blurring inside my head. I can’t seem to distinguish Madrid from Berlin from London from Miami… “Why didn’t you just call…?”
    “It’s too personal. I didn’t want them to…I figured you would prefer this to be kept from spilling out all over the place, before…”
    “Personal?”
    I frown, staring at my black suitcase while my thoughts skip to Betina and the kids. I haven’t seen them the last couple of weeks. I try to avoid them, can’t be bothered. Ever since the divorce, I have been living in a rented room. It wasn’t supposed to be anything but a temporary solution; now I have been staying there for more than a year and I haven’t done anything at all to find myself another place. All I do is work. Betina got the house, the car, the kids, everything. I didn’t care. I didn’t need all that.
    All that mattered to me was my job, she could have the rest. So here I am, living in a garret in an old villa in Frederiksberg. I have a bed, a closet to keep my clothes in, a table and a single chair on which I sit in front of my laptop—working, always working. I have no TV, no radio, not even a couch. I have a small