What others are saying about Freetown Christiania
Hi Eugine,
I have just finished your book.
It was brilliant. Interesting reading indeed.
Gay Leverington
I love the book Eugine, thanks for sharing a part of life with us. I was hooked from the start and just couldn't put it down until I finished. When is your next one coming out???????
Chris Sheldrick
Hey Eugine, Awesome book. Engaging,descriptive - couldn't put it down. Thanks for sharing your story, will look out for any more books that you put out.
Emma Boyle-Shaw
Freetown Christiania
By Eugine Losse
Published by Ben Ashman (A.K.A Eugine Losse)
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Ben Ashman
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Eugine Losse
FREETOWN CHRISTIANIA
Table of Contents
Chapter 2 – A crazy little village
Chapter 22 – Taking from the government
Chapter 27 – For Queen and country
Chapter 34 – Cult, commune, what?
Chapter 35 – Fly like a butterfly
Chapter 40 – The Battle of Christiania
Chapter 42 – Sunrise red over Denmark
Squatting on the side of the freeway leaning forward onto my backpack, hugging it with my arms, squeezing it between my thighs, eyes closed, resting. Standing all day on the bitumen thumbing rides has left me exhausted. Today, yesterday, the day before and I’ve only managed three or four hundred kilometres out of Stockholm.
A truck roars past and I feel the vibrating road through my jaw resting on the backpack, which gets caught in the slipstream and lolls my body from side to side as I squat like a junky craving a fix of distance, a gram of movement, just a little bit of motion to see me through. I listen for the slowing of engine revolutions, the squealing of breaks, anything that indicates a car is stopping, but nothing, just the regular humming of freeway traffic. Standing up, opening my eyes, a fork in the freeway stretches out before me, a long, fast exit from the highway onto a smaller, alternate route. It has been hours since I was dropped at this nowhere spot, the rain has come and gone and an icy wind blows down from the Arctic. My thumb juts out through a hole in a sock, extended high for drivers to see. Sooner or later someone will stop.
Closing my eyes, feeling the cars swoosh by, wondering what Carmen is doing. Last I knew she was headed to Scotland, but talking about going to South America, I wonder if she made it. My lovely Carmen, with a voice so rich that when she sings people still themselves and listen, focusing on the beautiful sounds that float from her soul, all else forgotten. Flowing red hair, high cheekbones, thousands of freckles, she was willing to sleep under the stars and go where the cars took us, but I felt the need to travel alone, unhindered, free.
The squealing of old brakes! I open my eyes as an ancient, decrepit Volvo scrunches the gravel on the freeway’s shoulder and stops. It has a long, twisted gash in the passenger door which is framed with red rust and its pistons clang loudly as though they are ricocheting straight off of bare metal. The driver is a little younger than thirty with long, wavy hair, pulled loosely into a pony tail. He’s wearing only a singlet, despite the cold, the heater blasting hot air through the car.
The driver talks about his travels in India, describing the Himalayas and how he walked for months on end carrying only a small bag containing a change of clothes and a silk sleeping bag. We talk and talk as the countryside slips by until he drops me at an intersection to a road that leads to his grandmother’s house.
The Volvo clunks off down the road coughing a bluish haze from its half hanging off exhaust pipe. The clanging of its pistons slowly fades into the distance. A slight drizzle dampens my clothes, but I enjoy the isolation not caring that the few cars that drive past do not stop. After a while I don’t even bother to lift my arm or extend my thumb, caring only to kick stones across the freeway and smoke roll-ups, wondering if there are any wild deer roaming in the forest beyond the chain link fence.
An old lady stops and drives me a short distance to a truck stop. The sun slowly slips. Not quite a sunset, but rather the beginning of a long Scandinavian dusk with an orange glow that persists for hours across the sky. I’m freeway surfing, paddling with a thumb, anticipating the next wave, floating way out back of life’s gentle, rolling swell, peeking down the road waiting for the next wave to arrive. And it does, rising steeply out of the bitumen in the form of a dirty big truck, hissing air and belching fumes. The driver speaks little English so I have no idea where he is heading, but as long as it is forwards I don’t care. Distance has found me as the wave surges forward hauling all the steel in the world. The driver grins like a jester. It’s all smiles, steel, the road and a soft voice crooning from the radio in the truck’s massive dashboard as my body relaxes into the movement through another fix of distance.
Little more than an hour later we reach the docks at Holsenborg in the far south of Sweden. It has just gone midnight and I’m hoping that my wave doesn’t break just yet, but it does. The driver indicates I must leave the cab before his truck boards the ferry, something to do with the law. An icy sea wind blows over the exposed docks and I quickly have socks on my hands and my hat pulled down tightly on my head. A midnight worker tells me that the next ferry is due to leave in a few minutes so I strain my heart dashing to its point of departure, paddling like crazy to catch the next wave. I encounter a guard on the gangway wanting to check my ticket, which I do not possess, and I’ve no Swedish currency having spent my last on a stick of salami two days ago. The guard takes pity and allows me to pass regardless. My wave surges forward and I am surfing once again.
The ferry journey from Sweden across to Denmark will only take twenty minutes, so I find a row of seats and occupy them all by stretching out and resting against my bag. My hair is knotted and my clothes unwashed, holes in the toes of my shoes and an unshaven face, quite a contrast to the well groomed tourists pacing the decks and browsing the gift shops. It’s late, well past midnight when a tall skinny man comes along. He’s staggering and finding it difficult to stay upright atop the gentle sway of the moving ferry. Dressed in denim he has a half-grown beard, shaggy hair and a stuffed duck, the type won in fairground sideshows, tucked under an arm. With his free hand he points to my hat and slurs something in Swedish.
“Sorry bud, don't speak Swedish,” I say.
“Oh, you don't speak Swedish? Well, lucky I speak English,” he says. “I said: great hat.”
“Thanks, a friend gave it to me.”
He wobbles, holding his duck as though it aids him in the struggle to remain upright. He stinks of beer.
“It’s the colour of my football team. Where’re you going?” His bloodshot eyes have locked onto my bags.
“South.”
“Want a lift?” he slurs, looking back to me.
“Not with you, man, you’re drunk!”
“No, no, no,” he says waving his hand about to dismiss my concerns. “My friend, he's driving.” He staggers, as the ferry takes a sudden lurch. “Come on.”
I follow Duckman.
When I see his cohorts I curse the lead that I’ve followed. There are three of them, hooting around a table piled high with empty beer cans and an overflowing ashtray. All appear drunk and I wonder which of them is driving, the lanky guy with moustache and psychotic eyes, or the young guy in a leather jacket? The young guy is laughing, a hysterical laugh. I would not trust him behind the wheel of a car. Duckman tells me it’s the tall lanky guy who is driving, the psychotic who does not speak. A voice booms over the ferry’s public announcement system, first in Swedish, then Danish, German, and finally English, requesting passengers to prepare to disembark. I follow their staggering lead downstairs and into the ferry’s car park.
We sit like racers on the grid in the belly of the ferry. A hundred cars revving engines while waiting until the huge doors to swing open. Our ride races out into the late night, accelerating through the stampede until the swirling freshness of the ocean’s air is gone and we find ourselves deep in the country. Dance beats crank through the stereo loud enough to have to shout to be heard. "So, where’re you all off to?" I yell to the young guy in the leather jacket squashed next to me in the back seat.
“Don't know," he shrugs. "I met these guys in a bar earlier and they kidnapped me.”
“They kidnapped you?” I shout back.
“Yeah, well, you see it was my grandmother’s eighty-fourth birthday today and this morning I went to her place for a big family lunch. One of my cousins had some acid so we dropped it and the next thing I knew it was dark and I was in a bar in the city, without my cousin, dancing to crappy old disco music. I accidently spilt a drink on the guy with the duck; does he actually have a duck?”
“Yeah he does.”
“Oh, great, I though the acid was still playing with me. Is it dead? How come it’s so still?”
“It’s stuffed.”
“Shit, I’ve been thinking it was real, man that doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, I spilt a drink on him and the next thing I know I’m being pushed into the back seat of this car.”
“You don’t know these guys?”
“No idea, they scared the shit out of me at first, but they’re okay, just having fun I guess. My mum is going to be pissed at me for missing my grandmother’s birthday; did I tell you she’s turning eighty-four today? My mum’s going to be so angry when she finds out I’m in Norway.”
“We’re not in Norway.”
“What?”
“Denmark, we’re in Denmark. I think we’re headed towards Copenhagen.”
“Oh, shit, hey have you seen my shoe, I think I’ve lost one?”
I look down to his feet, “You haven’t lost a shoe.”
“I’ve lost something. I thought it was my shoe?”
Duckman, sitting in the front passenger seat, turns and yells: “Want a beer?”
“Sure!” Of course, may as well join them.
The night streams its blackness through the open windows and I can feel the power of my wave surging forwards carrying me on to my future destination. There is a sign on the freeway pointing south and it is not indicating the direction that we are travelling.
“Hey,” I yell to the driver. “Drop me off before Copenhagen, I'm heading south. I don’t want to go to the city.” Psycho looks at me in the rear vision mirror. He doesn’t blink.
“Where you going?” asks Kidnap
“South," I yell as a hash-pipe is passed across to me. “It’s too frigging cold up here!”
Giant blocks of ugly concrete, apartments, cascade past the car’s window. “Hey,” I yell above the music to the driver. “Hey buddy, stop the car, let me out. I’m not going to Copenhagen. South, man, I’m going south. It’s too damn cold up here!” He doesn’t respond, not even a blink.
“We’ve kidnapped you!” yells Duckman and laughs manically.
Kidnap enters into fits of laughter and passes me another beer. A nice bed in the country grass it might have been, but I can’t exit my wave as it carries me straight onto the rocks of the largest city in northern Europe. Grey apartment blocks, five stories high; traffic lights, the swoosh of cars. The lights and sounds, the smells, there’s no escaping the city. It has swallowed me once again.
After circling Copenhagen’s inner city, Psycho finally parks the car and immediately the police are accosting us. I waver on the curb, not understanding the argument between the Swedes and the police. Duckman is pointing his finger at a policeman seeming to believe that he’s controlling the situation. The duck slips from under his arm and he staggers while bending to retrieve it. The police leave, appearing to not want the hassle associated with drunken foreigners. A neon sign periodically colours itself red, Maxim’s Bar, we go in.
Opposite the bar dim lights glow red behind booth seats. The room is long, but narrow. At the far end is a raised dance floor lined with mirrors on which a topless girl slowly dances, barely managing to hide her boredom. A couple of men idle away their midnight hours perversely contemplating their bank balances and sipping overpriced spirits. Two of the men, a little older than the rest, must have money as a large group of girls flutter seductively around them. Duckman and Psycho make their way to the far end of the room towards a man sitting alone in a booth. They speak briefly then disappear through a hidden door.
Some of the girls smell new blood in the bar. “Buy me drink, buy me drink! How much money you have?” they’re blunt and not in the least attractive despite their pretty faces and taut bodies.
“None.” I don’t need to lie.
“You lie. How much money you have?”
“None.” She drifts away pouting contempt.
A second girl grasps her opportunity and sits close, her breath stinks of salt. “Where’re you from? What’re you doing here?” She's getting closer, shooting questions as a distraction. I can feel her hand brushing over my thigh feeling for a wallet that does not exist.
The dancing girls change, all as uninterested as the first. They take turns coaxing drinks, all very determined. Duckman and Psycho return from the back room, not looking happy. "We're leaving. The girls are too expensive here, we’ll find somewhere else.”
They walk out leaving Kidnap and me on a warm, spongy sofa. “This place is shit,” says Kidnap. “I’m going to buy some hash, you coming?”
“We got something better than hash,” whispers a girl in my ear. “We got something much better.” She places her finger to her nose and sniffs. Her eyes don’t coordinate.
“Yeah, sure I'll come.” I smile at Kidnap and swing my bag up onto my shoulder.
Up on the street with the wind blown trash and junkies hunched over in the gutter a cab is hailed. It races away, me and Kidnap in the back seat, keen to escape the city’s filth. The taxi turns a couple of tight corners then squeezes through an even tighter laneway before crossing a bridge over a wide canal and finally halting beside a dirt path leading into tree shrouded darkness. It is odd seeing so many trees down this dirt laneway in the middle of a city street. Kidnap pays the fare and I see on the dashboard that it has just gone three in the morning. This part of the city is asleep and the street is quiet. Old three and four-story apartment buildings in various stages of dilapidation stretch up and down the street, while a beautiful church with a spiral staircase winding its way around a tall steeple stands before us. Just across the road a vacant lot is covered in bitumen and cordoned off by a concrete wall and wire mesh fencing. Except for the magnificence of the steeple it is a pretty normal scene for most any city. Normal, that is except for this dirt path that meanders off past lush, wild trees and into pitch darkness. The path appears out of place within the city, as though it belongs in the countryside. A sign supported by thick poles spans the path on which large, irregular letters announce, Christiania.
My vision reaches little more than twenty metres beyond the sign where the dirt path widens and is swallowed by the dark. To the left is a large, three-story barn-like building constructed with aged wooden planks, out of place in the city. To the right is a wall covered with a big colourful mosaic made from irregular shaped tiles. The path takes a slight turn to the left and reveals a tiny light in the distance where it widens to become a dirt street lined with weary old buildings, three stories high on the left, one story high on the right.
Morning is only a couple of hours away and the street is almost deserted. We pass a bakery and a man shuffles away from its counter and out of sight. The air has become very cold, but my leather keeps me warm. Kidnap bangs his hands together as he walks. The light comes from a hut where two men are talking. One alters his posture acknowledging our approach. His hair is thick, falling straight down to his shoulders. A grubby parka defends his warmth and a black beret is pulled down tight to his ears, a Greenlander, a businessman. He’s working and his interest in us is nothing less than professional. Huge chunks of hash lay on a card table before him. Kidnap begins to haggle, mixing the gruff tones of Danish with the melodies of the Swedish language. He’s lifting the blocks to his nose and smelling the hash, comparing them to one another and offering prices. The Greenlander shakes his head refusing. Kidnap pauses for a second then nods before passing a flurry of Danish notes to the Greenlander, who bites off a piece of hash, clips it to a small spring scale dangled from his fingers and weighs it: 2.5 grams. He gives it to Kidnap.
Over the road and further into the village a large wooden shack shines a light through its windows. Woodstocks is written across its worn timbers, standing out against a painted background of flowers and trees. A shambling veranda leads around to a door where a couple of drunks slouch against the splitting timbers and grumble at us as we enter a room brimming with argument. Spittle arcs through the stale, smoky air as people jab fingers at one another and slosh beer across the floor. A montage of contorted, red faces display the anger, insult, disgust and revenge of the patrons. They stagger about from one argument to the next interjecting and shouting in an orgy of disagreement and I can only assume that these people, this Woodstock’s crowd, are very familiar with each other. The arguing that Kidnap and I have walked into is not among strangers but those who know each other well, like an extended family at a Christmas dinner, or rather, five or six hours of heavy drinking following a Christmas dinner. They are so ferocious in their shouting and finger pointing that I fear that blows will be struck, but are not. Faces turn red, fists are waved, but there is no violence. In fact, the more I watch the fracas the more I tend to think that the arguing is actually the manner in which these people entertain themselves. Underneath the hostility they seem to be enjoying themselves.
Kidnap buys a couple of beers and we exit the bar to drink on the veranda and watch the drunks outside. They scream and shout at each other like little children fighting over a toy, but with gruff voices and stunted movements. Another drunk staggers from the bar to piss on a bush. A woman follows him out and squats, pulling her pants down around her ankles. She continues to argue, tossing her arms around in the air, as she ejects a hot stream of piss.
Kidnap drops a block of hash on a worn wooden table and torches it with a flame from a lighter. He picks up the block as it smoulders with a wisp of smoke and crumbles it over a large cigarette paper. He rolls a tight cylinder with a torn piece of cardboard and places it at one end of the paper. Tobacco is added and the mixture is firmly rolled together before he runs his tongue across the glue and finally produces a joint. Holding it high he lights the excess paper and it flickers into life. He passes it to me.
The temperature has dropped very low and condensation catches our breath. Not far away a fire burns in a steel drum and people are warming their hands by it. The promise of warmth urges us to join the two men and a woman with their arms stretched over the flames. They listen to a tall, slender, angular man dressed in black who stands across the fire. My hands enjoy the flame.
The man speaks a monologue in Danish, the foreign language a perfect wash of ambience over the fire’s flicking flames. After some time he turns to me. “So you speak English then, eh?"
“Yeah.”
The fire's company switches its attention towards me as he continues, “I see you have a bag. You’ve just arrived, yes?”
“Only an hour ago.” I answer.
“This late in the night? Are you running from something?”
“Running?” I ask.
“Yeah, many people are running from something, sometimes they come to Christiania to escape.”
“Nah, I’m not really running. Except from the cold weather I guess. I just want to stay away from cities, although here I find myself in another one.”
He appears offended. “What, Christiania? This is not a city, man.”
“Yeah, Copenhagen,” and I point down towards the gates of Christiania and to the city beyond.
“No, man, Copenhagen may as well be a million miles away. Christiania is not Copenhagen. It is separate. Copenhagen ends as soon as you walk under that gate. He holds his hands wide apart for emphasis.
“How, what do you mean?”
“Well, the law for one, the law that Danish people live under, just over there,” He too indicates the street just beyond Christiania’s entrance. “It doesn’t apply here. Christiania is a free town, man. No law, no police, no government, no city.”
“What, anarchy?” I question.
“Anarchy, whatever, but yeah, if that’s the way you want to describe it. I guess, yes, anarchy.”
“Is it violent?” I ask. My father always used the word anarchy whenever he saw something on the news about civil wars in some far off country. He talked about anarchy as it was the most violent and terrible state of human existence.
“Violent!” laughs the man. “No, man, violence is for the straight world, governments are violent, police are violent, laws are violent. Christiania, we’re not violent, anything but violent. In fact if you were violent here in Christiania you would find yourself marched out before you could even put your bags down. Anarchy is the rejection of violence, man. Violence as a form of control is the exact opposite of anarchy. Out there in the city is the violence. Those straight people need violence to maintain their fucking straight world. The truth is they are controlled by violence.”
“No,” I say, yet interested.
“Well, out there in the straight world, let’s say you don’t pay your taxes, or you don’t register your car to drive on the roads. What happens?” It’s a rhetorical question and he doesn’t wait for me to answer. “The law says you are wrong, a criminal. The police come and tell you that you must go to court, you go to court and you get a fine and you decide not to pay the fine, what happens then?” Once again the question is rhetorical and he continues after only a short pause. “Well, then the police come again and say that you have to go to jail, but you don’t want to go so they grab you and try to handcuff you and you resist. Then they use even more force and before you know it you have two cops clamping your hands behind your back and slamming you in jail. This is violence, governments control people by violence. They legitimise themselves by their willingness to use violence. If you play by the rules and obey the law you are personally spared their violence. If you don’t, they believe that they have the right, the authority to commit violence against you. Even if you do play by their rules governments believe that they have the right to use violence against others in your name. Democracies are not benevolent my friend, they are institutions that think they have the authority to use violence against those who disagree.”
“Yeah, but you have to pay your taxes, don’t you?” Not that I really believe in paying my taxes.
“Why? I mean, I was born in Denmark, but I didn’t choose to be. Just because I am born here why I am then obligated to financially support the government? Why do I have to pay my taxes so the police can be paid to come and lock me up if I smoke a joint? Why do I have to pay my taxes so the government can drop a bomb on some poor schoolhouse on the other side of the world because it wants their oil? I don’t believe, and most people in Christiania don’t believe that we are obligated to pay for a government that exists because of the violence that it is willing to perpetrate against its citizens and other countries. Why should I accept the government’s authority to commit violence against its people and innocents on the other side of the world? No way, anarchy isn’t violent; it is the rejection of violence. Anyway, in Christiania we are a free town and life is different from out in the city. We have no laws to govern us or police to stop crime. When we see someone unknown, a stranger, arrive with bags in the middle of the night we take notice of them. So when I ask you if you are running from something it isn’t out of curiosity. Be sure that Christiania will be watching you.”
“Yeah, well I wasn’t planning on staying. I never knew Christiania existed until tonight. I’m heading south anyway.”
“Hey man,” he says. “Like Bob Dylan says, to live outside the law you have to be honest.”
With this he seems content and becomes silent, arms outstretched over the fire. One of the company gives me a look, as if to say, “Whatever, the guy’s crazy.”
The fire is in a gravel square ten metres on each side. On the closest side is another bar, it’s closed. Grass grows across the roof of the bar and its sign reads: Nemoland. To the right is a small children's playground enclosed by a chest-high wooden plank fence. Next to it is a theatre stage, five metres across with a half dome above it. I bid farewell to the fire’s company and heft my bag towards the stage. Kidnap remains by the fire warming his hands.
The stage is waist high. Wiping my finger across its surface I make a clean line in the dust. Already filthy I throw my kit up onto the stage and climb after. My night time falls and I sleep.
The morning sun wakes me, but fails to save my bones from the dawn's chill. In the early hours of the morning an old bum has also crashed on the stage. His face is gruff and covered chin to lip with a matted, unkempt beard. He too is stirring. His slight frame sits up, head lolling as if it is too heavy for his narrow neck and shoulders. A second bum arrives at the stage. This one is shorter and healthier with feathers and beads twisted into his beard. They smoke hash from a chillum. It’s such a fine day and already the sky is clearing to a hollow blue, a hopeful sign that the day’s warmth is not far away. There is no sign of Kidnap anywhere and I smile as I picture him trying to get back across the water to Sweden after the most bizarre eighty fourth birthday he will probably ever attend.
I have no water so my first action for the day is decided. Scouting around the stage I can’t find a tap and am forced to venture further. Gathering my bag I bid farewell to the bums and make way along a path to find a dull concrete building, two stories high. A bearded old man sits on a bench by the door lending his attention to the intricacies of carving wood. I request water and he directs me through the door. “Turn right and there you’ll find a bathroom…the water is in the tap." From beneath his slouch he peers up at me through shiny glasses, smiling with kindness in his eyes.
Having fished a bread-roll, cheese and salami from my bag I return to the gravel square to sit on a bench preparing food. The healthier of the bums I met earlier spies me and sits close by to talk. “This place, Christiania, is run by the Hell's Angels,” he says proudly. His tanned and wrinkled face twitches and contorts, making his matted beard dance around on his face like a small, wild animal. “And I am one of them. Here see my badge.”
He extracts a shiny silver medallion from a pocket in his leather jacket. Hells Angels is engraved across its surface with a serial number written underneath. “A while ago, Christiania was run by Bullshit.”
My face contorts to a question mark. The Angel explains, “Bullshit are, were,” he adds with a smile, “a biker gang, like the Hells Angels, only not so tough. A while ago there was a war going over the drug trade in Christiania, speed, smack, coke, that sort of thing. Half the junk in Europe once came out of this place. You see Christiania’s like a fortress, a place where the police can’t come, but now there’s no junk, none at all, Christiania has gone clean.” His brow deepens while he thinks for a moment before adding, “Thank those bloody mothers for that.”
“What’s that about mothers?” I ask, thinking they are another biker gang, but he’s already back on track.
“Back then when the junk was coming and going the Angels kicked some ass man. Some brothers were killed, but Bullshit went down. You see that bar, Nemoland?” He points with a yellow stained finger.
I nod.
“The leader of Bullshit is buried under the concrete foundations of that bar. The war ended when the Hells Angels killed him. Now Bullshit is gone and Christiania is to the Hell’s Angels.” The Angel speaks with obvious pride. “I’m old now, but still I’m an Angel!”
“I see.” I am nervous not to offend him, yet curious that he has no insignia on his jacket. “You don’t wear the Hells Angel patch?” I question him, brave before an old bum. It has been bothering me ever since he showed his membership badge that he seems to prize so much.
The Angel glares at me angrily. As he hesitates the air thickens between us, “Those bloody women!” He storms off a frustrated old man.
Nemoland is opening. A large, bearded man sweeps the outside area of the bar. Another giant of a man with booming muscles wheels a barrow laden with tools through the gravel square. Tattoos swirl around his arms disappearing under his T-shirt to emerge up the back of his neck: skulls and daggers, naked women and demons, a biker for sure. He halts at the edge of Nemoland to unload the barrow and I’m thinking he is another Hell’s Angel, but he doesn’t display the Angel patch either.
Life is teetering around. Mothers with prams and dogs of all sizes meander through the gravel square. I see that they’re not called Great Danes without reason as they appear more like horses than dogs. A couple of dreadlocked, tea cozzied, Rastafarians sit on a log by a sign that reads: Grøntsagen. A blonde lady walks out a nearby door carrying a brown paper bag overflowing with fruit, waving to a friend. Children chase after each other on old rickety bikes and a couple of bums lean against a tree sipping at their wine.
Journeying south is still on my mind, but the day is becoming quite warm and I have developed a fascination for this strange village in the middle of a city. My bag, even though it’s not large or heavy, is a burden to lug around. I need to find a place to stash it and remember the kindness of the old man carving wood who gave me water.
Still on his bench he is now among company. A ragged but happy looking bunch of middle aged men all supping from beers as the sun grows strong and bright. The new faces eye me cautiously, but the old man acknowledges my return with a slight smile, moving his carving knife to the bench beside him. His smile lends me courage to speak among the group of strangers. “I’m wondering if I could leave my bag in the building while I look around the village?” I ask as if I’m a little boy requesting a cookie from my grandmother.
“You want to leave your bags here, with us?” He repeats my question as though it has surprised him.
“Is it a problem?” I say. “Because if it is…”
“Noooo, no it’s no problem,” he widens his smile. “You’re Australian, yes?”
“Yes,” I reply, surprised that he can guess my origins so easily from my accent.
“Then of course you can leave your kit. It’s funny,” he chuckles. “I knew that the day would come that I’d have to repay an Aussie. I’ve been waiting a long while, but I always knew it’d come.”
“Sorry?” I haven’t a clue what he’s talking about.
“No matter, you see through the door to those stairs?” He turns and points through the door of the drab concrete building to the base of a set of thick wooden stairs. “You can leave your kit under the stairs, but be sure to take your money. I’m not responsible.”
One of the guys standing around spits out a swig of beer. “No, Neils is not responsible.”
Neils looks at the guy sharply, but I can tell it’s in fun.
“I am only repeating the Judge, they’re his words!” The guy defends himself from Neil’s glare.
I drag my bag towards the building and above its door I notice a sign. It reads: W.C. FIELDS. The letters are carved into the wood and I guess it to be a clubhouse sign. Inside a musty smell affronts my nostrils. Immediately to the left of the door is a table with six chairs. A couple of feet further in is a table tennis table and beyond that a huge kitchen with dirty dishes piled high. To the right is a snooker table and a game of table soccer. The floor is nothing more than a concrete slab so the place is cool and has a warehouse feeling about it. Despite all its contents there is plenty of room as each wall is no less than six metres long. A set of stairs leads up to a loft that takes up about a quarter of the total ceiling space. I hide my bags under the stairs.
The group of men are laughing and yelling at each other in Danish as I walk back out of the W.C. Fields Clubhouse. “Thank you, I won’t be long,” I say to Neils when I catch his eye.
“Hey Aussie, you need a place to stay?” says Neils, more a statement than a question.
“Well,” I reply unsure of how to answer. “I might be leaving,”
“Ha!” he rises and places a hand on my shoulder. “I owe you as much as a place to sleep.”
“Why?” It unnerves me that he feels he owes me something.
“Do I need a reason to help a fellow traveller? But I do have one, karma. Up in that loft, you can sleep tonight. If you want to that is.”
“Okay, thanks!” I say, then set off towards the gravel square. “See you later.”
“That you will,” he replies then sips at a beer and continues his wood carving.
A path leads up onto the roof of Nemoland where grass grows thick and lush, then follows a ridge away from the square and sweeps down to the banks of a lake, in the middle of which is a small overgrown island. Beyond the opposite shoreline Copenhagen looms. Buildings peer over a high wall like children sneaking a look into a forbidden garden. They are deleted as the path enters a canopy of foliage so thick it hides the sky. Roots from tough old trees sprout from the ground reclaiming the earth from the cracked bitumen that flays at the path’s edge like melting ice-cream.
A house, of sorts, is ten feet out from the lake’s shore. The home rests on a number of poles rising out of the water. Its middle circumference is wider than the top and bottom so it slopes up and down away from an outer edge as though it where a flying saucer. Its door, a huge drawbridge, is shut tight.
The lake is long and narrow, bulging like a keyhole around the small island. A footbridge cuts across to the far bank where several rustic wooden homes are nestled among the water reeds. The path winds around the trunks’ of trees and long the lake’s bank and out the front of red shack that might have originally been a railway freight car. A tall, skinny old man with wild silver hair each side of his bald patch, steps out of a darkened doorway, takes a brief look at me and bends down to search a pile of scrap metal.
I take a route away from the lake’s shore and up onto a ridge. Dotted throughout the trees and lush undergrowth are more houses, some are mere gypsy wagons with chimneys sticking out of their roofs while others are masterpieces of craftsmanship and love, one is almost entirely constructed by a jigsaw of different sized wooden window frames. The path loops around and delivers me onto a village street with three or four terraced shops in a row. One of the shops has a sign that reads Inkoopen, and sells all kinds of things like a general store, directly opposite children run all over a playground while huge dogs laze in the sun. Beyond the children’s playground several old, brown-brick, three-story buildings run parallel to the road for about eighty metres. Magnificent murals are painted across the buildings, some in the style of graffiti art, others with beautiful scenes of nature, plants and flowers in blossom. Walking among the paintings it’s as though I am within the halls of a giant art gallery and I wish Carmen could see it too, she would love it.
A market area presents itself, where a small crowd drifts among the stalls buying roasted nuts, falafels, clothes, and old books. The markets narrow into a paved road, each side lined with stalls openly selling hash and ganja. Bucket size tubs of marijuana buds and blocks of hash the size of small books sit neatly on card tables. Some of the vendors are set up more permanently with wooden shelters. A few even have heating stoves for the winter. A tall black man with a wild afro cat-calls his offerings. “Acapulco Gold, Acapulco Gold. Come get it here,” his table is arranged into sections of various grades and origin; hash from Afghanistan, hand rolled charis from India, Durban Poison from South Africa, and Acapulco Gold, a tightly budded strain which is priced as the most expensive. In a cookie jar are hash cookies and a bed of nails support two blends of pre-rolled joints, one for the papa bears, as his sign says, and one for the baby bears.
On the right side of Pusher Street the buildings raise up to three stories and on one of the walls are painted two big murals. The first is a big fist smashing a syringe to pieces, the second is a giant marijuana leaf. On the left I recognise the bakery from the night before. A sign above it labels it the Sunshine Bakery.
As I get closer to the main entrance of Christiania, a slow transition of the pushers becomes apparent. They are no longer smiling. The pushers at this end of the street are mostly young men with bulging muscles under their singlets and thick gold chains around their necks. Their stern faces are in constant motion moving from side to side, constantly scanning their environment. Big dogs are chained to tables protecting their masters’ territory. I try not to keep eye contact with them too long and quicken my pace.
Next to the last two pusher’s tables, one on either side of the street, are piles of paving stones. They are not new stones about to be laid down, but old, split and jagged as though they have been roughly pulled from the ground. Continuing along Pusher Street I recognise the rickety old barn on the right hand side and see the big Christiania sign where the taxi dropped Kidnap and me last night. On the reverse of the big sign that spans the entrance is written, You are now entering the EU. The contrast between the city and in the village is huge. Out there is concrete, chain link fences, bitumen, traffic, pollutants, crowds, advertising and city hustle. In here are dirt tracks, green foliage, beautiful art, rustic homes and the ambling pace of village life.
Returning to the W.C. Fields Clubhouse late in the day, I find the old man, Neils, sitting out the front on a wooden bench with a bottle of Tuborg beer in his hand. His hair is almost silver and wispy thin, his cheeks shallow with a tinge of pink. He has only a slight frame and sits slouched over his legs that are crossed at the knee. Like a favourite grandfather he is gentle in soul and tender in observation. Watching my approach to the clubhouse, he says, “Hi, Hi, how was your tour? Good I hope.” Picking up a beer from beside him on the bench he twists off the top, stands and hands it to me.
“I can’t believe that I’ve never heard of this place, it’s really amazing,” I say.
“Sit, sit,” Neils tells me as he shuffles to one side making room, “This is Poo,” he says indicating a lanky guy sitting in a chair wearing big black army boots, denim jeans and a sleeveless denim jacket. He too is old with slightly orange hair and a bushy beard that is well into the process of turning grey. “And Gunner,” a smaller, even older guy in a brown leather jacket raises his bottle in greeting from his chair next to Gunner. “And Larrs, over there.” Larrs, a much younger guy with shoulder length straight brown hair and a craggy face says “Hi,” as he raises a finger.
“So you never heard of Christiania,” says Poo sharing my excitement in discovering Christiania for the first time, “It is a good place, yes?”
“Sure is, but what is it?” I ask, pleased that Poo seems happy to discuss Christiania.
“It’s hard to sum up exactly what it is,” Poo says as he leans back in his chair and lifts his hand to tug at stray tuffs of beard.
“Tell him how it started,” suggests Gunner to Poo.
I sup at the Tuborg beer and it tastes great. The alcohol sooths my aching legs and it feels good to sit down after walking around the village for hours in constant fascination.
“Back in the early seventies, what year was it?” Poo asks for help.
“Was it ‘72?” suggests Gunner.
“Think so,” agrees Larrs.
Poo continues. “Anyway, back in the early seventies there was a housing crisis in Denmark, most of northern Europe, I think. The government was evicting squatters and bulldozing old buildings in the city. It was hard for people to find somewhere to live, especially for those without much money or a good job. So some people broke the fence to this old Military base.”
“Military base?” I say.
Gunner jumps in, obviously interested in Christiania’s military history. “Yes, the area was called Badsmandsstades Kasern then. Hundreds of years ago we Danish built a massive defensive base to defend against the Swedes. There are big ramparts and defensive canals all across the north of Christiania. On the city side, to the south, are big buildings and a wall that encloses Christiania in from the city. Where we are now and further down that way are the barracks and warehouse buildings used by the army before they left.”
Larrs takes up the thread, “All the gates were boarded up and the place was deserted, like a huge ghost town right in the middle of Copenhagen. People started breaking in and exploring around and then some magazine…”
“Head Magazine,” says Neils.
“Head Magazine,” continues Larrs. “Wrote a story about possible uses for this abandoned army base and people just started squatting here.”
“We came later though,” Neils says. “We weren’t here until the late seventies, was it ‘78?”
“Round about then,” Gunner says, “that was a great time for Punks at the Ark of Peace, in Christiania.”
“I should tell you that we’re old punks,” says Neils leaning towards me with a weary smile. “We were young in the Punk days. The W.C. Fields is a punk club.”
“An old punk club now,” laughs Poo and they all laugh with him.
“Back then it was very different in Christiania,” Gunner says returning to a more serious tone. “There was too much junk around, smack and speed. It was wild and amazing times for young punks, but people were dying, they were real dark day’s man.”
“All changed now though,” says Larrs. “No hard drugs in Christiania, no more overdoses no more people dying.”
“No more fucking biker gangs.” adds Neils.
Gunner is reminded about the biker gangs, “Yeah, wow! It was real scary around here while the biker gangs were at war over the junk trade. They were killing each other. But Christiania is strong and the people held together and it is the people that survived. The junkies and bikers are all history, Christiania is free of that shit now.”
“And then, of course, the government always wants to close Christiania down and evict everyone, says Poo. “I think at the moment the government’s policy towards Christiania is that we are a social experiment, but really they have always wanted to get rid of us and will always want to. We will always have to keep fighting. Last year the police staked out Christiania for eight months, can you believe it? They kept us under surveillance for twenty four hours a day for eight whole months! Then they sent in the riot police, but even they couldn’t get us out.”
The group of old punks smile and raise their Tuborg beers, “Skol,” they each say and take a deep swig.
“They try everything to get rid of us,” laughs Larrs. “They say we don’t pay for our electricity and water. We negotiate and start paying. They say the buildings are falling into disrepair, but when they come and look at them they find that they are well cared for.”
I’m curious, “But how is it run?”
“It just runs, Christiania just happens and everything just falls into place. Life is beautiful,” Larrs says smiling.
“We do have meetings. The Common Meeting is the main one. If people care what happens in Christiania they go and speak and then people argue and either agree or disagree. If most of the people agree then a decision is made. And we also have areas, like the Blue Caramel and Dussen over the lake, I think there are around ten of them in Christiania, and the people in each area decide what happens there. Like if somebody wanted to move in each person from the area would have to agree. And then, like I said, there is the Common Meeting where all the major decisions are argued about.”
Larrs interrupts, “Like whether or not to pay the city for electricity and water.”
“Or whether or not to go on a Love Sweden campaign,” giggles Neils like a little kid.
“Love Sweden campaign?” I want to know.
“About ten years ago a right wing government was elected in Sweden and they started a smear campaign, a hate campaign, against Christiania and started to put pressure on the Danish government to get rid of us. Sweden was saying that Christiania was the root of all evil in northern Europe. I’m pretty sure that it was at a Common Meeting that Christiania decided to send a Love Army to Sweden on the Love Sweden campaign. The Love Army marched through Malmo, Goteborg and Stockholm and conquered them all with cabaret, processions, music and love.”
I love it, and Gunner can see it. “You like that eh? You haven’t heard about the time some people in Christiania decided that the homeless kids should get toys for Christmas. People in Christiania dressed up as Santa Claus, about twenty of them, they went into the big department stores in the city with empty sacks, lifted toys from the shelves, filled up their sacks and took the toys out to the kids living on the streets,” Gunner starts to laugh and raises his voice to finish the end of the story. “Santa was on the news that night getting handcuffed and pushed to the ground by a group of really aggressive police.”
“I love that kind of stuff,” I say and take the final swig of my beer.
Neils hands me another.
“Oh, man, I just love Christiania,” smiles Poo.
Gunner holds his Tuborg up high and says, “Skol,” and we all take deep slugs of beer.
Stress first thing in the morning is never good, especially when the night before has been somewhat of a bender. My head is heavy and my bones are sore and stiff. I am barely able to open my eyes and someone is yelling, “Where is she? That little bitch! I’m going to kill her!”
The cold concrete floor of the W.C. Fields Club does little to sooth my hangover as I try to understand the drama being played out by a particularly agitated young guy known as Jacob.
Last night after sitting around with the old punks from the W.C. Fields Club I found myself drinking beers at Nemoland. A girl signalled with her hand a request for a sip of the beer I was cradling. She was German and could only speak a little broken English. I speak no German beyond saying that I can’t speak German, but we managed a basic communication. She carried a sleeping bag rolled into a loose wrap and I was able to understand that she had spent the previous night in a cheap hotel in Copenhagen, but now she was broke and without shelter. We smoked a joint together, shared a couple of beers and I gave her my coat when she began to shiver. The rest of her clothes were in a locker at the railway station.
We talked and drank tequila sitting around the fire in the drum in the gravel square. I was getting pretty vacant when the topic of food came up. The German girl told me she had not eaten all day. A small chunk of bread and piece of cheese remained in my bag from the trip down from Stockholm so I fetched it for her to eat by the fire.
As she ate the alcohol washed through my body and the heat from the fire began to draw my eyes closed. Knowing the German girl had no place to sleep my conscious would not permit me to leave her alone in the night. I had a place to sleep and felt compelled to share it with her.
"Follow me?" I instructed and I turned away from the fire and wobbled towards the big ugly concrete building that is the W.C. Fields Club.
I showed her to the stairs that lead up to the loft above the kitchen, which contains a huge television and dusty old chairs and sofas. The German girl crashed out on a chair and I went to sleep downstairs on the concrete floor as the loft smells as though a thousand sweaty labourers live in it. Actually it’s only two old punk guys and young Jacob who sleep up there.
"It's your fault you brought the thieving bitch back here," Jacob yells at me while I lay on the floor trying to keep the contents of my stomach from emptying on the floor.
"Oh, shit," is all I can think to say. The room spins as I attempt to edge myself up onto an elbow.
The problem, I soon discover, is that Jacob has had his favourite mamut stolen during the night, a slender, cylindrical piece of ivory used to filter joints. He’s really mad and blaming me. Not only has she taken his mamut, but she also smoked Jacob’s ‘good morning' joint. "And she smoked my fucking joint," he keeps saying over and over again. “That mamut is worth 400 kroner, and you owe me that,” he says, looking me hard in the eyes more than a little aggressively.
I know, thankfully, that the German girl is catching a train at nine thirty this morning from the central train station. I set off on a long walk into the city, hung over and not feeling particularly alive. In a daze I walk the half-hour to the train station. It takes only five minutes to find the German girl. “Hiya,” I say and of course she is surprised to see me.
During the walk to the train station my mind had been preoccupied with directing my stomach not to empty itself on the city streets, so I had not formulated an angle to approach the subject of the stolen mamut. My only option is to be blunt. “You smoked a joint this morning.”
She looks puzzled although I know she understands. “I catch train, must go.” she replies and picks up her bags about to turn away.
“Why did you steal the mamut? You could have just smoked the joint, that would not have been so bad,” I say.
“No,” she says. “Why you say this, I do nothing,”
I grab at her bag thinking that I’ll take it, with her following, back to Christiania and let Jacob sort through her lies. However, she is far too quick for me in my hung-over state and snatches the bag back out of my hands. “What you do this for,” she protests. “I do nothing.”
And for a moment I almost believe her. She senses my hesitation and suddenly seems more confident as though she’s gotten away with it. I remember thinking the night before that she was running from something she appeared so desperate. “Okay,” I say. “We go to the police.” I grab her by the arm and begin to drag her over to a cop by the station’s entrance.
“No,” she protests, desperation flaring in her eyes. “I give to you, I give you the mamut, I not go police.”
When I arrive back with the mamut in hand Jacob is over the moon. He looks at me as though tears are about to stream from his eyes and says, “We smoke a joint.”
One of the old punks, Poo, who sleeps in the loft and who had been observing the morning, says to me, “I know where there is work in Christiania, if you’re interested that is. I think they’re having a meeting about it tomorrow morning.”
The work is at a local Christiania restaurant known as Monsters. It’s actually called Morgenstedet, but the word proves too hard for me to pronounce. The Danish language sounds as if a table tennis ball is lodged firmly against the tonsils, similar to a gagging ooooo noise. When I try to pronounce the restaurant with its proper Danish sounds the old guys at the W.C. Fields Club laugh, so I’ve stopped trying and have settled with Monsters, which sits quite well with me and the guys only laugh half as hard.
Standing around a crate of beers out front of the W.C. Fields Club, Neils and Poo are attempting to convey directions to Monsters. With all their arm waving I am confused so I finally let out a resounding, “Ahhhhh!” as though I have all of a sudden understood their charades. I haven’t but am only getting increasingly confused by all their conflicting directions. They have told me that a meeting has been scheduled at Monsters to select someone to fill a vacant position, and if I ever hope to get there in time I think it best to do so without their directions.