The Dane was at his kindest and most attentive when he was in familiar surroundings with people of the same ilk, that much was obvious.
And this counted Marco out entirely.
The first time someone hurled abuse at him, telling him to piss off back to where he came from, he withdrew to an alleyway and felt confused, small, and alone.
“Fuck off back to wogland, you stink like hell!”
“What’s up, you fucking monkey, can’t find your tree?”
That kind of thing.
On days like that, it could be hard to get out of Marco why he was so quiet at the dinner table. But after a while Kaj and Eivind coaxed him into opening up, and they taught him some potent phrases in colloquial Danish with which to retaliate: “What are you doing here on the street, haven’t you got a home to go to?” “It takes one to know one.” “Find yourself a job to do, like the rest of us!”
It cheered him up a bit.
Respect was something you had to earn. The street taught him that. He only wished it didn’t have to be that way.
–
Weeks and months passed like this as Marco distanced himself from his past, and in spite of everything began to find faith in life and a future that consisted of more than just one aimless day after another. During these months in Kaj and Eivind’s tidy little ground-floor apartment he learned to look forward and make himself ready to lead a normal life. He accepted everything they suggested to him. He honed his pronunciation, extended his vocabulary, and learned elementary Danish grammar. And if he misunderstood a word or his accent was too thick, they jokingly called him Eliza, singing, “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”
“All of us live with a certain number of words inside us,” Kaj told him, time and again. And in Marco’s case the number of words was growing all the time.
In this small apartment on one of the humbler streets, Marco not only learned to trust people, he also realized that daily routines could make life easier instead of being the constant humiliation he had witnessed at home with the clan. Time became more amenable when his days were organized. And the desire to be part of a family grew stronger by the day in this apartment with its heavy brocaded curtains and porcelain displayed in every niche and cranny.
There could be boisterous evenings playing cards, with laughter that never ceased, but there could be more serious evenings, too.
“We’ve been thinking, Marco,” said Eivind, one such evening. “You’re here in this country illegally, and we’re concerned about your future. Without the proper papers the day will inevitably arrive when all this will come to an abrupt end.”
Marco knew this. Of course he did. He thought about it every night when he turned out the light. So that evening he made a solemn promise and defined his goal. He wanted to be the same as everyone else in the country as soon as possible. To that end he needed a residence permit, and there was no way the authorities were going to give him one. He, too, read the papers and knew the lay of the land.
He would therefore have to find himself another identity and the papers to go with it. This was imperative if he were ever to nurture hopes of leading a normal life with an education, a job, and a family. He needed this at any price. He’d have to find someone to get him the necessary documents.
Surely it was just a question of money.
–
The best paid job Marco found was putting up posters. To start with, the freezing cold made it hard work scraping the old ones off the poster columns and slapping on the thick paste, but once the leaves appeared on the trees and the warmth of spring set in, going round the city pasting up these colorful proclamations of coming events became Marco’s favorite activity.
He was out in all kinds of weather and did his job well. He donned his cap and didn’t cut corners by tossing half his posters in the nearest waste basket or pasting them all up on the nearest wall or billboard. Marco put his posters up in the designated areas, conscientiously scraping off the previous layers so the new ones would be less inclined to succumb to gravity. Few of the other poster boys could be bothered, so he had most of Østerbro and a good stretch up toward Hellerup to himself.
He found it fun, too. It was like scraping away layers of time. Often he found himself thinking how much he would have liked to have been part of all the events that had taken place. To have been in the audience at concerts, to have attended openings of art exhibitions, to have joined in the Workers’ Day celebrations. But such amusement was denied him, for no matter where he went, he ran the risk of being confronted by those who were searching for him. When Marco was out in the open he was always on the lookout, never able to simply relax and enjoy life like normal people. It was just the way it was, at least for the time being.
Perhaps a day would come when he’d be able to live like these people, for Marco had his plans. A day when he was more grown up and had perhaps changed his appearance. A day when the clan would no longer be driven by its thirst for vengeance. A day when they acknowledged he didn’t present a threat to them. But all this would take time.
For now, he would do all he could to secure his false identity papers. Hopefully it would be his final criminal act. Afterward he would earn his money aboveboard and begin to study. That, more than anything, drove him. It was the studying he was preparing himself for in his limited spare time.
At the libraries Marco found peace, for Zola’s people would never set foot in such places. He knew that for sure. And Eivind and Kaj had told him that as long as he just sat and read in the reading rooms without borrowing anything, he would never need to show an ID to anyone. It was perfect.
Every day, Marco skimmed the headlines in all the newspapers. Every day, he paged through a new book. Those around him took note of his presence, he sensed it clearly. They saw that he was unlike the other dark-skinned boys who were always making a disturbance and hanging out at the computers to play games on the Internet. When Marco visited the library, it was to read, and if he used the computer terminals, it was to search for answers.
In just over two years he would be eighteen and would apply for enrollment at the Frederiksberg Preparatory College, and from there he would go on to university, no matter what. He had read a study somewhere that found women had to make an extra effort on the job market in order to secure the right job, something the study had been highly critical of. Marco thought they should have mentioned it was even more difficult for boys with an extra dash of pigment in their skin. Especially those who had not been able to afford proper schooling.
But Marco was determined. If he took care of his money he would be able to study without a student grant. And he wanted to study medicine; he wanted to get ahead in the world and be somebody. Not like his family, but rather the opposite.
Marco wasn’t naive. He knew that all this at the very least required that he avoid the long arm of the law. Therefore, he needed to stay away from the kind of people who always paid under the counter, who more often than not turned out to be careless and ended up in court. It was what Marco was most afraid of: being turned in by those he knew and had trusted. For that reason, he was always cautious when dealing with any potential new employer.
Marco was ever wary.
At the same time, he kept a watchful eye on those who made a living from street crime. He saw them everywhere, like black shadows in the crowds. Suddenly they would step forward and pounce. Most often, their victims failed to notice, but Marco did. He knew the game from the inside.
Out here in Østerbro he never saw anyone from the clan. It didn’t surprise him much. Zola’s people operated in the city center, where the pickings were best, the crowds denser, so Marco stayed away. He also had to remember that Zola had many shady friends and business connections, not all of whom Marco would recognize by sight. He knew Zola’s net was expansive and fine-meshed. Zola could trawl the streets for allies and anyone whose work might boost his earnings with no questions asked. Most were from Eastern Europe, but thankfully they weren’t too difficult to spot. Criminal Poles, Balts, and Russians had a style all their own.