The Lover From An Icy Sea Page 29

  Kit craned his neck; glanced back; was somehow not surprised to see a small congregation in tipsy attendance at what he imagined to be the location of the wet T-shirt set. He suspected their conversation and thoughts at this instant would not be on Heidegger, Husserl, Hegel, or even Kierkegaard, but rather on the smörgåsbord of tasties just beyond morally and ethically—not to say legally—acceptable reach to all but the most jaded. Then again, maybe he was merely imputing to the workings of other men’s minds the peculiar gear work of his own—a grinding of wheels and cogs that rarely rested from the calibration, data-entry and cataloguing of women’s faces and bodies—not to mention his penchant for always thinking of them as edibles. Maybe these people really were discussing Kierkegaard.

  In any case, he’d never know. The captain’s voice—now tied, it seemed to Kit, to a considerably more sober frame of mind than the one in which that same captain had first greeted them—came over the public address system to ask all passengers to kindly return to their seats, buckle up and prepare for landing.

  The captain’s request seemed to rouse Daneka from her brooding, and the sound of her voice spared Kit any further contemplation of his own sorry feet of clay.

  “Now once we get our baggage, darling, we’ll go directly downstairs and grab a train to Øresundsbroen, then take a high-speed ferry via Ystad to Bornholm—you know, the island I told you about. You’ll be happy to know, by the way, that Ystad is in Sweden. The ferry actually lands at Rønne—you know, where my mother lives. But I think I’d rather get a car and drive directly to Svaneke if you don’t mind. It’s located on the other side of the island, and it’s where I have my little cottage. We can visit my mother tomorrow. It’s only ninety-two kilometers from Copenhagen to Rønne, by the way, and shouldn’t take us more than about an hour and a half once we board the train. Sound like a plan?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Kit said. He was eager to meet Daneka’s mother, but he first wanted to get acclimated, to get a sense of his surroundings, to get a feel for “the little country” and its people—even if just by observation—before he’d actually meet one of them.

  Their plane landed with the grace of a water bird: its pilot was obviously adept—at least at piloting. Kit and Daneka disembarked with the other passengers, passed through the distinctly businesslike—albeit cordial—affair of Danish Customs and made their way to the baggage claims area. Kit expected to see a bevy of buxom blonds blow through at any moment. His repeated glances belied the attitude of idle curiosity he was otherwise trying hard to project.

  “Sorry, darling. That plane is taking your pretties directly on to Stockholm. You’ll just have to make do with Danish and coffee today.”

  “My pretties?” Kit asked with a disingenuousness even he found off-putting. Was he so transparent? Or was she—in addition to everything else—also præternaturally intuitive? And this “Danish and coffee.” Was it a clear reference to what he believed was a private penchant? How could she possibly know about that? He chose silence over denial as the better of the two strategies.

  “Qui tacet consentit, darling,” Daneka said through lips that seemed to Kit at that moment to be made of Roman marble—the old, cold kind. “Don’t forget—Latin is also one of my languages. She reached up and put a hand on Kit’s shoulder. If she meant the gesture to be consoling, the tone in her voice was instead condescending. “So go ahead and dally, darling. Just don’t deny it. And don’t do it in my presence.”

  Kit reached for a cigarette.

  “Sorry, darling. This isn’t Italy. You’ll have to step outside for that fag.”

  She’d just added banishment to scorn and condescension, and he suddenly remembered their earlier conversation in the restaurant that first night in Portugal. “We can also be vicious and vengeful,” she’d warned. The waiter had interrupted her as she was about to explain how ‘vicious’ and ‘vengeful’ might ultimately evolve into a severe Scandinavian silence.

  As he dropped the pack of cigarettes back into his pocket, he shuddered. He’d only just set foot in Scandinavia—in summer, no less—moments earlier. And yet the chill of it, and the chill of her, felt like the dead of winter.

  Chapter 50

  They collected their bags. Kit renounced his cigarette and followed Daneka down one level to the train station, where she purchased two round-trip tickets from an automat that spelled out København <-> Rønne.

  While she was busy with the purchase, Kit looked around and was suitably impressed with what he saw. For all of New York’s inane efforts to implement and operate an effective “train to the plane,” someone might’ve thought to ask the Danes how to do it. Their achievement looked to him like the work of master craftsmen—even if in miniature. Directions in both Danish and English were clear, concise, and color-coordinated so that even travelers who were neither Danish nor English-speaking could, with some ingenuity, manage to find their way about. The platforms were uncluttered; the tracks, clean. Except for occasional announcements over the public address system, the noise-level rarely exceeded that of a dentist’s office. Whenever announcements were made, they were clear, intelligible, given in both Danish and English.

  When trains arrived, people wishing to board stepped aside and waited patiently until the last exiting passengers had stepped out. In several instances, those waiting on the platform to depart would first help other, elderly or overburdened passengers; would then, and only then, board themselves. Even the trains were quiet: they entered and exited the station quietly; their doors opened and closed quietly. ‘Quiet’ seemed to be—if not the signature feature of the whole operation—then at least a significant consideration in its design.

  France, Portugal and Italy were civilized countries—there was no question in Kit’s mind about that. But in Denmark—at least in this train station, in this city, at this moment—he was discovering an entirely different way in which a country might call itself civilized—quietly civilized.

  Kit and Daneka boarded their train when it arrived, and Daneka found their reserved seats. They stowed their luggage in the overhead racks, and Daneka insisted that Kit take the window seat. As the train slowly pulled out of the underground station and up into muted daylight, she slipped her arm through his and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “Peace, darling. Let’s leave Sweden at the airport and just blame your little lapsus on Stockholm Syndrome, shall we? Strange things happen to people when they’re taken hostage. The girls were cute—I’ll give you that—but they were girls. More to the point, they were Swedish girls. And you want to be very careful where Swedish girls are concerned.”

  “Swedish girls are somehow different from other girls?” Kit asked.

  “Well, you know I hate to generalize—except when I like to generalize. Yes, they’re different.”

  “How so?”

  “They feel superior and entitled. They’re opportunistic. And so, they rely on their good looks to get just about anything they want—the good-looking ones, that is. I realize that even Sweden has its share of homelies, but they become doctors or chemists.”

  “Sounds to me like a lot of the women on the Upper East Side. And like almost all of the women I work with—I mean the ones I shoot.”

  “Yes. Supermodels and Swedish pretties have a lot in common. But there’s a difference. Models have to work at it. If they don’t, they fall out of a job and just as quickly fall out of fashion. Swedish pretties just look around for the next party, crash it, then hone in on the money.”

  “It still sounds to me like most of the models I’ve known over the years.”

  “Except that your models are making their own money. Modelling may not be a terribly noble cause, but it’s a job. More glamorous than most, I’ll grant you, but a job nevertheless—with hours and appointments to keep, clients to please, personalities to mollify, and hours of sleep to log.”

  Kit chuckled. “Sleep?”

  “Yes—and another point at which models and your Swedish pretties
part ways. Models actually have to sleep if they intend to remain models. Alone. Not around. And not with two or three guys at the same time. Okay, so they may dally from time to time.”

  Daneka’s show of teeth with this last comment struck Kit as more nudge than smile. “But if they’re smart, they’ll dally serially—and carefully. You’re average Swedish ducky can’t even spell ‘serially,’ much less keep up with the sexual math of it. In any case, not where there’s good cash to be had—the old-fashioned way.”

  “I guess I’d never really thought about it.” Kit paused, then looked again at Daneka. “Is there anything you actually like about Sweden?”

  “Yes, of course. I like Swedish men—for the most part. Not the jerks who fly planes, of course. And I like Stockholm tremendously. It’s a beautiful city—much more beautiful than Copenhagen in fact. There’s really only one problem with it.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “It’s in Sweden.”

  Kit smiled.

  “No, it’s true! In the summer, when most of the women have left for the beaches of Spain or Italy or Greece, it’s a beautiful city. It’s really the only city—with Amsterdam perhaps—that I find tolerable in the summer.”

  At her mention of Amsterdam, Kit turned nostalgic. Whatever was or wasn’t true about Stockholm and Swedish women, Amsterdam—and Dutch women—held a special place both in his heart and in his memory.

  Of the cities he’d known and loved in his life—Paris, London, Rome; Madrid and Barcelona; Athens, Vienna, St. Petersburg; and of course, New York, at least in the spring and fall—none of them held a real candle to Amsterdam. Nor could the women of any of the others—whether home-grown or imported—compete with the women of Holland, and especially with those of Amsterdam. The beauty of Dutch women on the streets of Amsterdam was obvious. Part of it was no doubt in the genes; the other part, in their diet and reliance on bicycles and feet for locomotion.

  But there was something else about Dutch women—something, it seemed to Kit, that they and they alone possessed: a modesty; almost a timidity; in any case, a seemingly complete unawareness of what nature and a high standard of living had given them. He’d never done a shoot with a girl from Staten Island; he’d also never shot one from Holland. And yet he, personally, had seen it in Amsterdam in one face after another—on the streets; in cafés; on playgrounds with young children; on bicycles everywhere. If the fashion world hadn’t yet found out about Dutch beauty, he thought, so much the better. That particular beauty would remain unseen by the world at large and would, consequently, also remain unselfconscious and uncorrupted.

  “Darling, you seem preoccupied. What is it? Have I sullied some boyhood fantasy of yours about Swedish girls? Were you also once curious yellow about everything that sounded like ‘Volvo?’ I’m so sorry.”

  Kit chucked. “Sorry?”

  “Look. I know something about advertising. Swedish sexuality is as strong a brand as Mercedes, Coca-Cola and Marlboro. Unfortunately, it’s also little more than a rumor.

  Kit smiled. He knew she was right. Sexiness and sensuality were no more a birthright—the product of a passport or a function of geography—than freckles. And yet, there was something about those women from the Deep South….

  “Can we talk some more about your parents? Tell me about your father,” he said.

  Daneka seemed reluctant to answer. Following a long pause and a sigh, however, she clasped her hands together and started in.

  “My mother never really said much about him. I don’t know how well she knew him, to be quite honest. He was a farmer—like most Danes at the time. He worked hard from dawn till dusk. Read little. Never left the island—not even to visit Copenhagen. Went to church every Sunday—and then died, as I told you earlier, shortly after the German invasion.”

  Kit suddenly realized that Daneka had misunderstood his question—whether intentionally or unintentionally, he couldn’t be certain. “Are you talking about your father or your grandfather?”

  “My grandfather, of course. My mother’s father. Min morfar,” she said to be precise, at least in her own mind. “Isn’t that what you were asking?”

  “No. Not at all. I asked about your father.” Kit was perplexed. This wasn’t a question of vocabulary. This was a genuine—what had she called it?—lapsus.

  Then, after another too obvious pause, she recommenced. “Well, there’s not really much to tell. Besides, we’re almost halfway to Øresundsbroen, and you haven’t looked out the window even once. I know that Denmark’s not Italy or Portugal, but it does have its own little charm. You could spend just a minute or two pretending to admire it, darling. For my sake?”

  “Daneka.”

  “Yes, darling?”

  “Tell me about your father. Your father.”

  This time, she didn’t hesitate.

  “We were not particularly close. What else would you like to know?”

  If Kit had been slightly perplexed a moment earlier, he was now entirely nonplussed. Not particularly close? Did she really think he’d be satisfied with that summation of a relationship with the second most important person in her life—at least up to her tenth or eleventh birthday? Did she intend to conceal from Kit what he already knew had happened to her father? And, at an age—her age—when that same father’s decision to make a too-hasty exit could’ve meant only one thing to an impressionable child just entering adolescence? This was troubling. Either she was too ashamed to talk about it; didn’t think their relationship secure or significant enough to risk introducing it; or—most troubling of all—was simply catering to denial.

  Kit had been loath until now to confront her on any of what had bothered him since they’d first met: her extended absences without explanation; the “I love you, too” he’d heard at the tail-end of a telephone conversation just before they’d left for JFK; whatever it was that had really brought her to tears—after their first simultaneous orgasm—but also that first night in Cabo de São Vicente, at the restaurant, the result of lyrics, or of the music, or of a voice, or of all three; and, of course, some of the less savory aspects of her sexuality—how it seemed to him that, the rougher it got, the more responsive she became. All of that could wait. This, however, could not.

  He was about to confess to his late-night date with Google when the conductor entered their car.

  “Goddag. Må jeg se billetterne.” Daneka promptly presented their tickets. She appeared to be grateful for the reprieve and in no particular rush to continue the conversation she felt she’d adequately concluded—at least to her own satisfaction. As the conductor approached the two of them, she greeted him with a smile.

  “Goddag. Du kunne vel ikke fortælle mig, hvornår vi kommer til Øresundsbroen?”

  “Jo, naturligvis. Vi ankommer til tiden—klokken 15.10.”

  “Og færgen til Bornholm sejler klokken 15.30?”

  “Lige et øjeblik …. ” The conductor withdrew a schedule of departures and arrivals from his rear pants pocket and consulted it. He found the page he was looking for, then ran his finger down it until he arrived at the anwer to Daneka’s question. “Det er rigtigt—klokken 15.30.”

  “Tusind tak,” she said.

  “Det var så lidt.” He looked briefly at her; then at Kit; then added with a smile, “God tur. Og god ferie!”

  So this is Danish, Kit thought. It certainly resembled Swedish—to some degree or another—but the two languages were so utterly foreign-sounding to his ear, he really couldn’t distinguish one from the other. He would’ve liked to spend some time discussing the distinctions with Daneka, but he now had a more urgent matter to sound her out on.

  “Daneka, I have to tell you something.”

  “What is it, darling? That my Danish also sounds too ‘finishing-school?’” she asked with an edge to her voice, which—Kit suspected—had more to do with her anticipation of his intent to continue their earlier discussion than with any possible criticism of a language he knew nothing about.

&n
bsp; The confession didn’t come easily to him, and he got off to a clumsy start. “A couple of weeks ago—. I don’t remember the exact night. You were in Europe. I missed you. I was curious—.” He paused.

  “Yes, darling. Do please go on.”

  “I Googled.”

  “You Googled.”

  “I Googled.”

  “Well, I hope it was fun, this Googling. Tell me. Did you Google all by yourself, or did you Google with a partner? It doesn’t take two to Google. It’s not the tango. But it’s certainly much more entertaining à deux—zu zweit—than tout seul.”

  She was not smiling. French might’ve been an attempt at humor; German was not. Schadenfreude was the only other German he’d ever heard her use—once, in his apartment, when they were first getting to know each other. German in her mouth was not the stuff of poetry. There were too many other connotations. She used it here—and he suspected she would use it elsewhere—like a hammer.

  “Let’s cut the shit, shall we?” Kit was surprised to hear his temper escalate in response to hers.

  “Yes, please. Let’s. You Googled. And?”

  “I Googled to your name.”

  “To my name. With or without the ‘ø’?”

  He ignored the sarcasm. “To find out who you were. What you did. Where you came from.”

  Daneka glared back at him. For the first time, the laugh lines around her eyes betrayed the difference in their ages. He suspected, under the circumstances, she’d keep her rage under control. However, one thing was clear: she didn’t like snoops. Her magazine might have a gossip column or two, but Daneka didn’t like having any of that kind of spotlight turned directly on her.