The Lover From An Icy Sea Read online

  The dinners they now had together were functional affairs. It wasn’t that she was cheap. She wasn’t. She never failed to bring something fresh and tasty back from Rønne. They’d eat well—entirely to Kit’s satisfaction—but in silence; would then retire their empty plates to the kitchen; rinse them, set them in the dishwasher, and run it. The dishwasher became their evening music.

  She taught him how to load it—how to set each plate, glass or cup just so; how to lay each piece of silverware in the top rack—with the tines all pointed in the same direction for maximum efficiency. She taught him how to make her bed—she never called it “our bed”—but by the fourth morning, he still hadn’t quite learned her way; and so, he gave up and would simply put the duvet and pillow cases out to air, then assist her when she got home at the end of the day. She made the bed; he simply handed her the bits with which to make it.

  When he assisted at all, he usually just held, or handed, or awaited further instructions. They’d both reached the same conclusion early on: he simply couldn’t learn to do it the way she wanted it done—and so, “no way” was preferable. Sometimes, mercifully, she’d dismiss him from watching, waiting, holding, handing—and he’d go outside for a smoke. Since she hated inefficiency, she’d invariably attach some little task to his trip downstairs: take out the garbage; return a tool that wanted returning to the toolshed; fetch a tool that needed fetching from that same toolshed; unstick a window that needed unsticking from the outside. She never once asked him to chase a moonbeam, lasso a star, go for a midnight swim, take an evening walk, or even just talk.

  Wine was always served with dinner—good wine—but she now handled the pouring of it, as he couldn’t seem to keep the last drops from running down the outside of the bottle. She kept the bottle next to her—as well as the cork, which she assiduously returned to the bottle after each of them had had two glasses. It was better this way, she reasoned: they’d sleep more soundly; be more productive; rise earlier and more refreshed each morning. She was right of course—in this, as in so many things—and Kit knew it. He’d retire to a smoke, but only after having first removed, rinsed and stacked his empty plate, then been handed the garbage, some tool, or some instruction. Daneka would also then retire—to a task.

  Occasionally, they’d make eye contact across a candle. But the contact was fleeting—almost like an accident.

  Occasionally, he’d say a word—but her terse, usually monosyllabic response would result in a still-birthed conversation.

  Occasionally, when she returned from her mother’s by early evening, she’d glance at his work in the garden. She might say a word; she might not. He eventually stopped asking, anticipating, seeking her approbation. He simply wanted to complete the task and retire the tools—after, of course, first cleaning them to her satisfaction.

  When they retired each night to bed, she’d leave one candle burning in the window facing west—towards Rønne, and beyond it, New York. He’d curl up behind her, his lips half an inch from the nape of her neck, but not quite touching it. He’d stare at the candle either until it burned out, or until sleep overcame him—usually the former. In that same window, he could see the reflection of the face next to his on the pillow, her lips closed, her eyes always open—at least until his no longer were, or until the flame had burned out.

  On the fourth evening, after dinner, Daneka announced that it was time for them to return to New York. She was right, of course. She always was. Kit knew it. The work in the garden was finished. There’d be nothing more to do until the following spring—if there was to be another spring. She’d just tidy things up around the cottage, she said. Would maybe even pack their bags so that they could get an early start the next morning. She’d already called from her mother’s house and made the reservations. The flight would leave from Copenhagen shortly after noon. That would give them plenty of time—if they got up early enough—to visit with her mother one last time; return the car; take the ferry to the train; take the train to the airport; check in.

  Kit retired his empty plate, wineglass and silverware to the kitchen; rinsed them; put the plate and glass in the dishwasher—just so—and laid his silverware in the top tray—with the tines all pointing in the same direction. Daneka handed him the garbage. He took it and his cigarettes outside for a smoke.

  He noticed—or maybe it was only in his imagination—that the days had begun to grow shorter in just the space of the week they’d been in Denmark. It was not yet even nine o’clock, and already he sensed that night was moving in upon them. If there was a shimmer from the western sky, there was none at the opposite horizon. Kit looked up straight overhead as he put a lighter to his cigarette. The sky was cloudless, stars too many to comprehend in a single glance—or maybe even in a lifetime.

  He heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner from inside the cottage. He’d heard it many times that week, but only now did it sound to him more like keening than humming. There was, he knew, no more dirt or dust—much less crumbs—to be had.

  As he continued to look up at the sky, a celestial maelstrom suddenly met his gaze. He wondered whether he was hallucinating, whether the sadness he felt had released some strange endorphin.

  Or was this the thing he’d read about so often, but had never seen? An explosion of multi-colored lights skittered across the sky—over and over again and never once repeating the same pattern. It was like some cosmic Fourth of July celebration with rockets and fireworks shooting off from somewhere below the horizon, reaching out into depths he couldn’t see—still less fathom—then dissipating, slowing disintegrating, then finally falling back to earth like piles of powdered sugar. It was the thing the Romans had called Aurora; the Ancient Greeks, Eos; the Vikings, a false dawn; and the moderns—at least those who preferred science over poetry—a display of the electro-magnetic forces of…etc.

  These, then, were the fabled Northern Lights.

  He would now have liked—just as he would once have liked in Rome—to have Daneka by his side. It was again a moment of miracles—and she was missing in action. He felt the conflict like some distinct, internal electro-magnetic field, but without the powdered pay-off. He sat down on the ground and crumpled up like the useless vagrant she’d apparently already decided he was. The vacuum cleaner continued to keen in the background. The Northern Lights continued to flicker and fall in the foreground—and with them, his hopes.

  Chapter 63

  They rose early, just as she’d suggested. They then showered—separately; and dressed—indifferent to each other’s bodies. Finally, they loaded the car in silence and locked up the cottage.

  Kit bade a quiet adieu to the toolshed after first whispering an even quieter ‘thanks.’ He knew the gesture was absurd, but he also knew this toolshed would have to stand outside in the cold all winter long with no one to open it, no one to wish it ‘goodnight’ or ‘good morning,’ no one to pay it any kind of attention at all. Scandinavian silence would be hard on a pine toolshed, he figured. But then Scandinavian pines, which would’ve known silence from birth to buzz saw, were conditioned to that kind of silence. He could probably learn a thing or two from this toolshed—if one could learn anything at all from old, dead wood.

  He got in behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition, and backed out.

  “Bye, house,” Daneka said almost sing-song. “See you next summer.” Maybe she wasn’t so different from him after all, Kit thought, even if any mention of spring had clearly not figured in her goodbye.

  “Shall we go across the island or around it?” he asked, hoping she might want to drive one last time with him through the forest, maybe even stop off briefly to visit her special place.

  “Oh, ‘makes no difference to me. You choose.”

  It’s an opportunity, Kit thought to himself. No time to dally. He turned the car in the direction of the forest and accelerated. It was another sunny day. Within minutes, however, the overstory was eating up the sun’s rays like little, yellow Egg McMuffins. Although he’d
seen the location only once, some of the stands looming lushly over the road already looked familiar to him. Meanwhile, Daneka rummaged through her purse—looking at, crumpling, then discarding various slips of paper. Kit knew it was now or never.

  “Wanna chuck wood?” he asked, but it seemed to him that his voice somehow floundered on the last word—like a broken buzz saw.

  “Huh?” she said. “Oh, fuck!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t find the damned picture of my mother—the one she wanted me to take to Annemette.”

  “Maybe it’s in one of your bags.”

  “Maybe. But if I left it behind, she’ll be furious.”

  Kit saw a second opportunity. Maybe, he thought, this one is providential. “Why don’t I just pull over and we can look through your bags?”

  “You don’t mind? I hate like hell to lose time. This is so stupid of me!”

  “I don’t mind at all, darling. We’ve got more than enough free time to lose.” Funny—he thought to himself—his using ‘the D-word.’ Then it suddenly hit him: he hadn’t heard her say it to him in days.

  Seconds later, he spotted the exact place they’d parked days earlier, and pulled over to the side of the road. He wondered whether Daneka would say anything. She did.

  “Why don’t you pop the trunk and I’ll go check. You don’t have to get out. I’ll only be a minute.”

  He did as she requested, then sat gazing out the window at the clearing on the opposite side of the road. He no longer wondered whether she’d notice their location and suggest a last visit to her special place. He already had his answer.

  He heard mumbled grunts and curses enough to know she wasn’t finding what she wanted. When she returned to her seat, her tone suggested more than mere disappointment.

  “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”

  “Darling, if you’d like, I can turn around and we can go back to the cottage to look for it.”

  “It’s all because of the clutter. If the place weren’t always such a mess, I’d know where things were and wouldn’t misplace them!”

  Kit wondered whether ‘always’ might be some thinly veiled reference to the five days he’d been a guest. As for ‘clutter,’ he could remember once, immediately after a shower, when he’d laid his towel down on the bed while he looked for a clean pair of shorts. She’d swooped in like a hawk and returned it to its particular rack in the bathroom. He’d wondered at the time whether any moisture might’ve evaporated out onto the bedsheets; whether she’d demand that he now strip the bed and put the sheets out to dry. He wanted to avoid having to hear a direct order and was about to ask when she came back out of the bathroom, bent down to inspect the sheets herself, ran her hand a couple of times over the spot where he’d dropped the towel, and apparently decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.

  He never again repeated that particular mistake. For once, he’d learned to do it her way.

  “No, no. We haven’t got the time. Let’s just continue to my mother’s place. Maybe she’s got another.”

  Kit started the car up again, looked back through his rearview mirror—first for oncoming traffic, then just to get a last look at the clearing—swung out onto the road and accelerated to the legal limit. Daneka, he noticed, was wringing her hands, repeatedly scratching some spot on her arm until it actually began to bleed.

  “Oh, DAMN it!” she said as she rummaged through her purse for a tissue. She found one, touched it to her tongue, then blotted the raw spot on her arm.

  They continued on until Kit spotted a marker at the side of the road indicating their arrival at the outskirts of Rønne. Rather than engage Daneka in conversation, he decided to review, in reverse, the visual memory of the first and only time he’d driven out from Rønne to Svaneke. As he’d heard nothing from her so far, he assumed he was on the right course.

  “Where are you going, Kit?”

  “To your mother’s house. Where else would I be going?”

  “Was it your plan to take the scenic route, perhaps take one last spin around town before maybe—but only maybe—ending up at her place?”

  Kit stopped the car; took the keys out of the ignition; handed them to her. “Here. You drive. I think I’d rather walk. Rønne’s a small town. I’m sure I’ll find the house sooner or later,” he said as he started to open his door.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous! Just slow down and watch where you’re going. I’ll give you directions. Now drive, please!”

  Kit put the key in the ignition and started the car back up. His thoughts turned to Ron, her driver, and he discovered a newer respect for him; considered whether his tic of tipping an imaginary cap might be something more than a mere artifact.

  “Where to from here?”

  “Instead of turning right, which you were just about to do, turn left. We’ll take it from there once you’ve made the turn.” Kit realized she was now going to spoon-feed him the directions as if he were a child. He turned left.

  “This is the main road. Continue on it until I next tell you where to turn.”

  He had an urge to strangle her—to rip her fucking head off and stuff its mouth, like a pig’s snout, with a banana rather than an apple—then roll it down the ‘main fucking road’ like a knobby soccer ball. Instead, he resorted to humming “Dancing in the Dark.” He hated hummers. Fortunately for both him and Daneka, he didn’t get further than a few bars. “Oh, stop that, will you! It’s such a shit-for-brains piece of Americana!”

  “Would you prefer I hum Daneka Does Denmark? Hmmm? Did you, by the way? Do most of Denmark, I mean. Is that why you moved to New York? ‘Just ran out of doable Danes? Who’d already run out of bananas?”

  She slapped him, slapped him hard. He stopped the car and turned to her slowly.

  “I may have deserved that. If so, I now offer a formal apology. But let’s understand something right here and now. Nobody, but nobody, slaps me or anyone I know—not even you, Ms. Sørensen. You may’ve noticed that up until now—and even when you were dressed to kill in only a blindfold and napkin ties—I haven’t, didn’t and would never lay more than a feather on you—or maybe a champagne kiss. I don’t do that—not in jest, not in fun, and certainly not in anger. What you do after bedtime stories and lights-out is your business. Just don’t include me in any of that shit.”

  “And what exactly do you mean by that?” she asked, her mouth almost frothing.

  Kit quickly got himself under control. He’d lost it—he knew that—and could lose her as well if he didn’t choose his words carefully. At the same time, the thing was finally out. He needed right now to deal with it rather than try to stuff it back into some bag of unsolved mysteries. He took a breath and held it, then proceeded cautiously.

  “For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve had this tendency … this habit … this penchant for disappearing. I first noticed it in New York, of course. Nights in particular. But your doorman, what’s his name?”

  “The Fitzgerald has a number of doormen. Am I supposed to fucking know which doorman you have in mind?”

  “The one who was working the nightshift that early morning I came up. You weren’t in. By the time I’d gotten back from my walk in the park, you—”

  “You mean Mr. Kelly. Michael Kelly?”

  “Yeah, that must be it. But let’s forget him. He’s not worth spending time or words on—other than to say that he’s a genuine prick who knows almost how to keep his mouth shut.”

  “And what precisely do you mean by ‘almost?’”

  “‘Almost’ meaning that, like most guys, you rub his prickly ego long enough, he sings. You oughta try him out the next time you’re looking for a facial.”

  Daneka’s hand flew back. But then she caught herself—and it.

  “Oh, you know that word, do you? Must be all that quality time you spend on the Internet—increasing your word power. Not everyone in Christendom knows the difference, by the way, between a facial and a facial, darling.”

  “You a
nd my mother by chance in league together?” she growled. “What’s the deal anyway? You have some kind of mutual admiration thing going? She with her pink fucking carnations, and you with your purple piccies? It’s a shame the two of you don’t work on a Web site together. The color scheme would work wonderfully. Very complementary colors, pink and purple.”

  “I don’t know, Daneka. I’m afraid that cum-sucking pink faces on purple plush just wouldn’t pull in the traffic—so we’d never have the pleasure of your visit.”

  Each was breathing heavily following this volley of insults in an all-out effort to fatally wound the other. If they didn’t pull in the reins—and pull them way back, soon—Kit suspected one of them was going to get seriously hurt in the exchange. He threw in the glove. It wasn’t exactly a truce he was proposing; he just wanted to lower the temperature a few degrees.

  “Let me get back to your doorman.”

  “What about him?” Daneka hissed. Kit realized she was still in battle mode, and not at all prepared to step down. He withdrew the glove.

  “Well, dear, he sang—metaphorically speaking.” Kit let the word slip out like a mongoose on the prowl for a napping cobra. “You know how it is with these Irishmen—they can’t help themselves. It’s in their fucking nature.”

  “Is this little story actually going somewhere, or is it your intention to tell me a saga? Because if it’s a saga you intend, I’ve already heard just about as many as I can stand. I grew up on sagas, Kit. I don’t need to hear another one just now.”

  “He explained to me that morning—very Irish of him—that you like to ‘walk the dog.’ And that yours being an ‘old dog,’ you’d sometimes take a little longer to ‘walk’ it. Now, I happen to know you don’t own a dog. So if Mr. Kelly tells me you’re out ‘walking the dog,’ I get his meaning.”