Tine Høeg
from Hunger
Translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra
MARCH 23RD
water scanning
to check if there’s free passage through my fallopian tubes
Mia?
a glossy-haired nurse gets me from the waiting room
the clinic’s on the fifth floor, the windows just washed
tea candles and orchids
a poster of an immense oyster and a bulletin board with pictures of
all the babies that’ve come into being at the clinic over time
12,760 since 1983 it says on the website
we’ve been trying for a year I tell the midwife
and the waiting lists at the state clinics are so long
or sure you know that but that’s why we’re here
can you scoot your butt forward a bit?
and I am thirty-five I say. And my boyfriend’s forty-one
so we’d like to find out if something’s wrong
but I actually had my eggs checked four years ago
’cause I was thinking of getting some frozen,
I mean it was way before I met him. And I always
knew I wanted kids I say
but it all seemed all right, at least there were lots of eggs
well that’s good
and he actually’s got two kids already I say
I mean from before
okay says the midwife and adjusts her latex glove
they got help with the first out at Hvidovre
but then they had another afterward I say
a girl, she just turned eight
and she just came on her own
so we do know he’s able to
I’m just going to start scanning you
I mean there isn’t anything wrong with him I say
it might feel a bit chilly
she measures two egg follicles of ten and twelve millimeters
the water scan goes swimmingly. Radiographic dye runs through my tubes and squirts out into my uterus in small spurts each time the midwife presses a button, I’m able to watch it on a screen. It’s the most beautiful tube scan I’ve seen in a long time she says. And your endometrial lining’s also quite lovely and even. Why thank you I say
not used to being complimented on my inner organs
they want to inseminate me with Emil’s sperm at
the exact moment of ovulation
we’ll see to the timing says the midwife
and help get the sperm all the way up into your uterus
and then we hope that’s all it takes
biking home I see a woman trip over a curb and then another woman drop her groceries and rush over and crouch beside her, then others come over to help and I start to cry, moved by all the thoughtfulness that there is in the world. We’re all connected. We want to help each other. A few minutes later some prayer beads fall on the bike path in front of me, I tear my mitten off with my teeth and pick them up, dark brown beads on a string. Hey! I step hard on the pedals, draw even with the man who dropped them, the string dangling, excuse me? Excuse me! At first he looks confused and then his face lights up. You dropped this. Thanks he says and slows down, thank you so much, and my chest almost bursts with happiness when I reach him the beads and he takes them wobbling
everything trembles with meaning
tea candle, orchid, oyster, prayer beads
I need to store up these details
in a few days maybe: conception!
MARCH 25TH
scanning again, the follicles now fourteen and twenty millimeters
they want to inseminate tomorrow
MARCH 26TH
Emil’s set three different alarms
the sperm sample’s supposed to be collected at home and dropped off at the clinic between eight and nine, and it can’t be more than an hour old. The container’s tall and narrow, rocket-shaped. Why didn’t they make it a little wider he asks, holding it up before him, what if I miss?
we assist each other in the bedroom, he’s brought a plastic mixing bowl
to catch it if need be
the sperm test has to be kept body temperature
I sit in the metro, the container nestled between my breasts
Emil’s very quiet
after sperm washing the count’s nine million the nurse tells me
and it has to be a million before they’ll inseminate
so that’s good she says
meanwhile he’s walking around down on the street. There’s no access
for family members due to corona
I have to certify that I’m me. That Emil’s Emil. That I want
to have his sperm up in me
after the insemination we go for a walk in Nørrebro. Emil bought a lucky bird in a thrift shop while he was waiting, a small smooth green one of glass that turns out to be a whistle. He also finds a bottle cap on the ground with the name Blue Moon. The title of the very first number on our very first playlist
it’s almost too much I laugh
it’s windy and cold
we buy steaming hot pizza on Stefansgade, eating it with our mittens. Emil’s still quiet. We sit on a bench at a playground and watch a mother, a daughter, and a dog playing in a sandbox
I’ve been so nervous he says then
I was worried that my sperm’d be awful
that it couldn’t be used at all
and then I’d lose you
I was almost resigned to it he says
yesterday I thought: this is our last happy day
tomorrow it’ll crash and burn
and again when you were up there. I was walking around down here
and almost couldn’t take it
baby I say
I had no idea, why didn’t you say something?
because I didn’t want to worry you. All I wanted was just
to be happy and to hope with you
but then aren’t you relieved?
yeahhh he says
there was nothing to worry about I say
he shrugs his shoulders
nine million’s perfectly fine I say. That’s what she said
eh he says, it’s not really that much
MARCH 27TH
I’m uneasy. Before I felt mostly excited. But now the fear of disappointment. If my period comes. Or if the test’s negative. I’m restless. The test is April 9th. How can I wait that long? Nothing else matters. The chances for a pregnancy are fifteen percent. That’s not very much, I know. If I were ten years younger it’d be double that. I picture worst-case scenarios. That it’ll be years of struggle. That something’s wrong with me, even though it all looks normal. That my eggs are bad. They can’t assess their quality unless we end up having to do in vitro. With artificial insemination they can only see the follicles. First we have three free insemination attempts
MARCH 28TH
We argue. I think we each need some alone time. Get our thoughts under control. Understand what we’ve embarked on. Be alone. Just a few hours. But I end up doing the opposite. Tugging, pushing, forcing myself closer to get it to be good again. I’m such an idiot. The only thing that’ll help is distance
I’m taking hormones
vaginal suppositories morning and evening
progesterone
which is meant to keep my endometrium intact
as I tend to spot bleed
the suppository is white and greasy
it looks like a bullet of coconut oil
the hormones dissolve but don’t get completely absorbed and some of the white stuff comes out again as a clumpy discharge, it’s thick and wet in my panties. I have to call the clinic and ask whether it might be harmful to have intercourse while taking them. Could the hormones affect Emil?
no, I wouldn’t worry about it says the secretary
okay I say, that’s good to know
well you guys have a real good weekend she says
no wait, I mean I’d also just like to hear, what about um, oral sex?
what?
oral sex I say a little louder
for instance would that also be okay?
sure says the secretary on the phone, I can hear she’s smiling
but wait to insert it till afterward
it’ll be a little less messy
MARCH 29TH
Emil licks me in the morning before I put in the suppository, I’ve just gotten out of the shower but I taste weird he says. Medicinal, metallic. Like the lemonade we had to spit out the day the blender broke down. I taste of something gray and hard, alien. We laugh a bit at the situation but it also makes me sad. I could move in down here is what Emil usually says
to be in the midst of change, to lose control of the body
who am I?
inferiority these days
mistrust of Emil, where does that come from?
the relationship. My big fear:
how can I live, exist
if I no longer turn him on?
if I’m not the object of his gaze?
APRIL 2ND
Easter dinner on the isle of Ærø with Emil’s family
I turn down schnapps and he appropriates my beer on the sly, a gleeful and word- less connection between us. I’ve been sneezing a lot, I google “sneezing first tri- mester” and find a long thread on mybelly.com by women who’ve had the same experience, and one contributor explains that it’s because the hormonal changes affect all the mucous membranes
a small jolt of joy now with each sneeze
lots of people, no time to write, but this conversation
this morning in the living room when I colored Easter eggs with the kids:
can’t you call him Dad when you talk to us? asks Felix
because it’s really confusing that you call him Emil
there’s no way I can call him Dad I say and start laughing
you can call him Daddy says Selma and all three of us laugh
yeah shouts Felix excited, Daddy!
APRIL 9TH
test negative
APRIL 23RD
one day until the second insemination
the last two weeks: scannings, waiting
huge argument at the art museum earlier today
the clinic let us know that it’d be good if we had intercourse in the days before and after insemination so that my uterus is awash in sperm and we can be sure to hit the ovulation
we had it yesterday, and we should again today to hedge our bets
but I’m the only one who’s making certain we have it
Emil didn’t make a move this morning
and then when we got to the museum I panicked
because the whole day could pass without it happening
you’re getting yourself into a state he said, you’re hysterical
we did it yesterday!
but what if I ovulate today?
sperm can survive a long time he said. And it’s not even four
we can just do it before we go to sleep
but they said today
well then we’ll just have to go out and find a fucking bush!
we were sitting in the Asger Jorn room shouting at each other
he was wearing a glitter jersey and a sequined face mask
we’d taken the train there to see the MOM! exhibition
APRIL 24TH
second insemination at 11:45
early morning with the collecting container, the plastic bowl
a struggle for Emil to achieve ejaculation
I watch his rising panic as he casts a sidelong glance at the clock, works away at it savagely, the test needs to be delivered before nine, it takes a half hour to get there, I get an urge to cry, disappear, it’s so awful, I do my best to help him, peel off my panties, wriggle a little
try turning around he says
so I can see you better
yeah like that
APRIL 25TH
I’m totally fucked up on hormones
fire in my breasts, gooey underwear
this feeling of hunger that needs sating
fury, a volcano
tonight
we’re exhausted on the couch
emotionally drained
a week of fighting, arguments
and now we’ve got to screw again, there’s no way around it
this time there were only four million sperm cells left after the washing
it’d be good if you had intercourse again tomorrow too
the midwife said yesterday. We’ve given up several times
neither of us has any desire
Emil touches himself, the skin totally abraded
it’s okay I say. You don’t have to, Emil
we done good I say
good enough
but he keeps working it, won’t give up
what can I do I whisper, is there something I can do?
help me he says, you’ve got to help me
he presses my mouth against his nipple
his respiration grows more intense
you’ve got to make sure I can enter you he says
when I give the word
you’ve got to move farther down
I scoot lower, on full alert
now he says. Now!
he pushes into me
places his hands on my hips
and then finally
with a long plaintive sound he comes, and I’m flooded with concern for him, his cry becomes a cry in me, a weeping that blurs into his orgasm and I get an urge to shield him, protect him. This sexuality between us is growing twisted, constricted
it makes me so unhappy
that we’ve got to go through this
squeeze the sperm out that way
I press my face into his shoulder
try to stifle the tears, push them back down my throat
don’t want to cry now, don’t want to botch this up any more than it already is
MAY 2ND
it’s Sunday
I need to get cracking on my third novel
I had my first writing day on Thursday
I want to write an occult stepmother horror story
I have no desire to write a diary or whatever this is
I’m sitting on the couch in our sixth-floor apartment in Amager
the living room full of Legos
Selma sitting on the floor drawing
Felix playing a game on his iPad in the hall
Emil cutting his hair in the bathroom
our dishwasher’s kaput
dirty dishes everywhere
I want to write an occult horror story, not this
it’s a week since the second insemination
six days till I take the test
May 8th
Emil doesn’t think about the date
I don’t think about anything else
I can’t imagine it being successful
I’m aware of all the changes in my body
even though I try not to be
I had a glass of red wine yesterday
I can’t picture it
can’t deal with the disappointment again
I thought I was knocked up last time
I felt very pregnant
you can get yourself to believe so many things
you can google yourself pregnant
this time I don’t notice anything
no achiness, no tightness in my breasts
I’m just angry and sad and unhappy by turns
I’m taking hormones, progesterone
it’s as if someone’s holding a torch to my feelings
I envy the other three
I envy them for being in family with each other
suddenly I can see how much Selma looks like Emil
and then I’m on the brink of tears
they’re each other’s flesh and blood
connected in a way
I’m utterly excluded from
they constitute a whole
I am alone
that’s a crucial difference between us
in what we’re going through now
he already has kids
I feel a hunger
that I don’t know will ever be satisfied
I ate brunch with Rikke earlier
salade de chèvre chaud, pancakes, chocolate croissants
she’s a city planner
and one of my few girlfriends
who hasn’t become a mother
ruby red grapefruit juice and black coffee
such an appetite she said
I’ve been hollowed out by all my physical and emotional labor
it’s me who has to take hormones, two tablets orally the first five days of each period to ripen my eggs, like a battery hen you pump toxins into to make it grow faster, it’s me who has to be scanned and when the egg follicles are big enough it’s me who has to be injected in the belly to trigger ovulation, and thirty-six hours later it’s me who has to be inseminated with Emil’s sperm and afterward me who has to insert suppositories into my vagina morning and night to strengthen the mucosal lining and get it to latch fast to the embryo
it might be a good idea if you could leave off
thinking about it all the time said Emil recently
and I had an urge to scream or laugh. How would that even be possible?
for you maybe. But not for me
I’m a birthing machine to be stuffed full of sperm
I’m going out of my mind, I don’t know who I’m turning into, some needy dog-woman, some bitch, I make scenes, I’m furious and pathetic and beside myself, as though all of the yearning that’s lain dormant in me for so long is exploding on us, and then the terrible shared task of driving the sperm out of him the way you drive a herd of heavy, sluggish heifers
stubbornly, persistently we struggle
the mechanical aspects of intercourse
I hate it. Scheduled, joblike
forcing the sperm out of him
and into me
find my egg and latch onto it god dammit
fertilize and free me. This thought:
if it doesn’t work I want to die
if it doesn’t work I must die
no other options exist
how many of those suppositories do you have left? he asked yesterday
twelve
that many? Then it’s a while yet before you take the test
we’re supposed to go to a party that day being held by his friend Sylvia
I’ve thought it over again and again
imagined the evening both if the test is positive
and if it’s negative
if it’s negative I’m going to drink till my liver’s pickled, dance my feet till they’re bloody, scream into the night and piss myself on the ride home, I am an animal, I’m ready to fight but I have no fangs, no claws, there’s no outlet for my adrenaline and it’s prolonged by my having to wait, rest, be calm, not stress
and Emil doesn’t have even a clue about which day the test is
maybe that’s good
only one of us can be crazy if everything isn’t to go to hell
I need him to be calm and cheerful
not dark like me
not now
he has to be a rock, a sun
Mimi, says Selma now
that’s what the kids call me, it’s their name for me
yes?
it’s just because I made something pretty
and then by accident I made something ugly
can I see?
no not yet
Mimi?
yes
it’s just because she says yes?
it’s just because. Now I forgot
she doesn’t just look like Emil but also Katrina
that day I stood on the balcony and watched the four of them come walking
around through the courtyard
a community of cells
two organisms arising from another two organisms
and me on the balcony
observing from on high:
the family
you ought to have kids early is what they say
but what if you don’t have someone to have kids with?
I didn’t meet Emil till I was thirty-three
I’ve been aware of biology, time, death ever since I turned twenty-five, I had my eggs checked, considered freezing them, and with guidance from a fertility clinic decided to become a single mom if there wasn’t a man in my life when I turned thirty-five
the language we use for a single woman
in her thirties who wants children
throbbing ovaries
the panic before closing time
the way she’s ridiculed makes me so angry
you better get going then
an older male colleague told me
at the bar of a party four years ago
someone had just broken up with me
otherwise your eggs will rot you know
THANK YOU GREAT DEITY
FOR THE AMAZING ADVICE
what do you know about me?
what do you know of my longing?
it’s also the way we talk about her:
hypercritical, egotistical, spoiled
she’s waited too long
and now she’s between a rock and a hard place
ha-ha that’ll teach her
spend it while you can
that awful fertility doctor on the radio who said that when women in their thirties told him they wanted to be solo mothers because they couldn’t find a partner, he had to point out that that couldn’t be true when there were eight hundred and fifty thousand single men walking around Denmark. “A living nightmare,” that’s what he said it’d be like for him to have a child by himself, and I had to turn it off be- cause he was so patronizing it made my brain hurt and because the whole premise of the discussion was this notion that picky women are to blame for the fertility crisis, I don’t buy it, it makes no sense, I’ve been with a wide variety of men, have never been stingy, always open, but things end up on the rocks and love’s fucking hard and every day I think what a miracle it is I met Emil even if it isn’t easy right now, and who was it, a politician some years ago I think, who said that the tragic thing about the rise in solo mothers and childless men is that it’s the poorly educated who miss out, that we see sperm as a commodity, that we should remember that men too have value. But that picture of the woman as a cynical ego-tripper who ought to be spreading her legs for a poor childless construction worker is simply beyond me, I can’t accept it. They’re not egotistical man-haters is what Ditte Giese wrote at the time. Now they’re hoping that love can come later because they can’t, on purely reproductive grounds, wait any longer, yes exactly, and I don’t want to write about it anymore, I’m beside myself, furious, unpredictable toward Emil
he’s got to deliver his sperm
but it’s my body that’ll be ripped apart if it succeeds
and my soul that’ll be torn ripped if it doesn’t
my love is vast and cruel and full of despair
I spend hours on Instagram
tormenting myself
with the women he follows
young artists and musicians
I grope them with my eyes
imagine his gaze upon them
and long to die
stare myself blind and stupid and ugly looking at their perfect bodies
their marvelous, mesmerizing faces
unique talents and musical genius
hands, mouths, thighs
I masochisturbate to the thought of them
what sort of lunacy is that?
I don’t even want to be with him the whole time
but I cling to him like a child, begging for affirmation
what do the rest of you do? What are you like in a relationship?
how is it that loving doesn’t drive you apart?
I have a mental breakdown every other day and end up letting him in on all of it, flinging open the doors to my inner circus, come see, come see! I present my craziness to him, sitting across from him with my tail between my legs and asking: would you like me to be as slim as her there? Do you want me to be able to play guitar? I drive myself nuts with Brigitte Bardot and Audrey Hepburn in the bookcase, all the photos and faces, all the monstrous aesthetics. I’ve chosen a man who loves beauty. Beautiful furniture, beautiful women, beautiful ceramics and he showers me with so much love but it’s never enough, I want to be the only woman in the world, I’ll have to kill all the others, and I strive so hard, changing clothes, dressing up, I want to be a stewardess from the sixties, a pale blue alien, a queen, a hooker, I want to be all the women in the world, I want to be the one and only, to be an icon, a magnificent work of art, unattainable and magic and ever mutable, I want to devote my life to satisfying your gaze, I want to be a walking sex bomb who detonates daily, I want to suck your cock and whisper for you to fuck me
fuck me, fuck me
I squirm on top of you like a little Lolita
so you’ll never go to bed hungry
a little Lolita of thirty-five who transforms her body
into an amusement park to hang onto your desire
terrified of turning into the sad day
perhaps it’s part of
the terror of not becoming a mother?
perhaps the jealousy will vanish when I’m pregnant
the humiliation of aging
why’s it humiliating to age?
the humiliation of begging to be inseminated
I require your desire in order to have a child
the little Lolita wants to be MOM
I WANT TO BE MOM
stuff me with sperm, Daddy
now Selma comes over and shows me a drawing of a squirrel
light brown with green eyes
I used the sparkly marker for his tail