Transfer Window, by Maria Gerhardt
Transfer Window, by Maria Gerhardt
Transfer Window, Maria Gerhardt //
Translated by Lindy Falk van Rooyen //
96 pages, paperback
Released June 27th 2019 //
Transfer Window is a utopian vision of the wealthy suburbs north of Copenhagen as a luxurious hospice. Everyone wears white. New-age nuns grow organic cannabis on the beach. The internet and music are forbidden, but you can swim in the icy sea in the winter. In amongst it all come the crushing memories of life as a terminal cancer patient, otherwise our narrator and her friend Mikkel hang out, talking about the 80s and about how they would prefer to die. They also laugh at the mistakes of the healthy.
I etch lines in the wall, to the left of my mattress, in order to keep track of how long I have been here. I have two rooms, and a wall covered in pictures of those I love. I have a wall covered in pictures of those I left. I had packed twenty kilos and rung for a taxi, the day I ran into an old friend, who had run into you. Actually, he’d already gone past, but lingered by the window display at Illum, his eyes following you down Købmagergade. He could barely recognize you, he said, his hand on my arm, he said quietly: “Grief has made its mark in her face.”