Manhattan Island, New York, 1856.

Flying over the unending metropolis along the American east coast, far from my native white lights in Taarbæk on the Øresund shore, I had been fantasising of some Nils Holgersson-like odyssey my nannies had long lulled me with. My Far (that’s “Dad” in our native Danish), worked for the UN, and thus he had bought that spectacular apartment, next to UN Plaza, high in the eldritch towers of Tudor City, on the assumption that the disgraceful structures of the Waterside ConEd powerplant were to be decommissioned and torn down.
It weren’t so much the estrangement from the inner gloom of my daily contemplation in a self-conscious Denmark than the properly hi-dive into my Far’s closer intimacy —as my definitive teeth began to invade my weird smile— that compelled me to stare the complicated ruin with its obscene towers just outside of my bedroom’s window on the twenty-fifth floor.
I wouldn’t yet comprehend the psychological geometry in our high-voltage family cell somewhat derisory in my Far’s planetary schedule, whereas two opposite œdipus repuled each other like overturned magnets, my Mor having shunned me from before my birth in a discombobulation of unaddressed biological and moral mishaps, the erstwhile flamboyant gen X girl letting the branch where I had bloomed wither.
Mor’s pregnancy of me, although consensual, had been painful and annoying, whenas my older brother had happened like a ray of sun, said she. Hence, ugly toddler me resenting being cheated on his life’s promise, I made for an odious smelly brat only my Far —when not on most-exotic missions— could tame by coddling my tiny feet, a tender habit he kept towards me all through my life until now.
However, my Far had been tracking a sound career in the diplomatic realm while Mor, otherly than pettily spoiling her son, roamed indefinitely in the marshly maze of autofiction. But Far excelled at handpicking nannies, well aware that my brother’s care would be off their limits. Soon, we also had security agents, and therefore the adults in the household kept their griefs to themselves, while I revelled in the company of the Cologne-scented warriors who took me to school —I wasn’t the only one as that at the International School.
It would become a common running joke to comment on my fast upgrowth; I was proud of the white lines above the hem of my jeans as my legs seemed to push the ground away. On the other hand, the secondary signs of womanhood wouldn’t thrive that much, but I was not envious of other girl’s boobs, I preferred to be called lanky.
Far encouraged me to the gym and dance extra classes for all the good reasons, and I developped a taste for cloakroom promiscuity, altogether with sharp vocabulary towards those who called my manners lustful. From kindergarten I had professed bisexuality, mind you, a simple way of not being cornered out as a sad dyke, although I became to understand that some girls just naturally can’t withstand all things masculine.
They were times of Walkmans and CDs, my buddys and me could sing at the top of our voice the full Radiohead albums. My closest chum was Elsie —though nowadays I have my doubts about the candour of her love, since she was the daughter of my Far’s secretary, but I concede she had all the good motives to fawn on me and our family, even later sleep with Far; she holds now a solid position as international lawyer in New York and we still cuddle when we meet— who lived in Hell’s Kitchen. She relished when I could take her along in a black car with a security detail across Manhattan, we rummaged in one another’s pantie, stealthily in the backseat.
The day we landed at JFK was just before my birthday. The end August sun felt enormous when we exited air-conditionned spaces, and it wasn’t any more breathable once on our terraces. Far joshed we were as far south from Taarbæk as Neaples, and we would come to like the pervasive sunshine. The brutal heat, and the menace of the towering smokestacks did that, like most Americans, we adopted a mostly controlled atmosphere lifestyle.
But on that first evening, Far took us in a full size limousine for dinner at Tavern On The Green, in Central Park, where I ate an enormous turkey Caesar salad with ginger ale, then vanilla fudge icecream.