The Lover From An Icy Sea Read online

  Who was this man, anyway? What power did he have that no one before him had had? And why he? Why now? She focused on his face, lips and eyes. They were indeed fine features. There was strength in the cheeks and chin and jaw-line, but his eyebrows and eyelashes, and the wave of his hair, were almost feminine by contrast. She looked hard at his features—as if, by staring long enough, she might be able to plumb their depth and strength of character and purpose.

  This man, she decided in that instant, could be her equal. He might lack her particular kind of ambition. To her, photography was at worst an innocent hobby, at best a minor art form. And from the little she knew of him, he seemed to be perfectly content to live and let live from the proceeds of his minor art. But right now, she was prepared to accept this artist in spite of his minor ambition and to throw herself at his feet—while throwing all of her worldly goods out the window.

  She put the photograph down on the bed; removed the glass from the frame; took it into the kitchen to clean. Then, holding the edges between the palms of her hands, she walked back to the bedroom, re-inserted the glass into the frame and laid in the picture, cardboard inserts and back panel. She locked the panel in place, flipped the frame over, and gazed once more at the image of Kit before placing his eight-by-ten likeness next to her bed. She was still gazing when she heard the phone ring. After three rings she picked up, still not taking her eyes off the photograph.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, Daneka?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “Kit.”

  “Say again?”

  “Kit. You do—. Do you remember?”

  “Well, not really. What can I do for you?”

  Kit dropped to the forest floor like a bag of wet flour. She had effectively knocked the emotional wind out of him and made him feel, once again, like a mere vendor—and so he cut his reply to her measure. “I have your photos. I’d like to deliver them.”

  “Can’t you send them up by messenger?”

  “No!” he said emphatically.

  “Excuse me?”

  “No, I don’t think so. For one thing, I’m not in New York.”

  Now it was Daneka’s turn to feel distressed. She’d counted on being able to see him that same evening. She had to fight to keep the tone of her voice neutral, measured, blasé even. “Indeed. A little R&R in the country?” she asked as she unconsciously began to scratch her wrist.

  “No, I’m in California. I’m on a shoot.” The news hit her like a bullet. California was not even remotely in the neighborhood.

  “Well, isn’t that a shame. Perhaps you could FedEx them to me.”

  “No! They need me. I mean, they need my annotation, my explanation—. Oh fuck. I want to see you.”

  Daneka smiled. First at Kit through the receiver, then at his picture. She’d won. She’d gotten him to make the first confession. “Well, I don’t know—.”

  “Daneka, you need me.” There. It was out.

  Daneka pulled the receiver away from her ear, stiffened, and looked at it as if the instrument itself were giving offense. There was clearly too much presumption in his statement, and she intended to let him know it in the newer, stiffer tone of voice she adopted when she returned the receiver to her ear and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Excuse me?”

  “Yes. You need me. To explain the photographs. It’s what I do. I’m a photographer.”

  She found the explanation adequate. The presumption had been impersonal—strictly professional. “I have an idea,” she said. “Let’s meet sometime for dinner. When do you think you might be coming back?” she asked as she resumed scratching her wrist.

  “Tonight. I’m coming back on the red-eye tonight.”

  “Well, there’s no rush, of course.”

  “Yes, there is! For me at least. What about tomorrow night?”

  “Let me check my calendar first.” Daneka laid the receiver down on the bed and went into the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water and drank it—very slowly. She returned to her bedroom and picked up the receiver. “You’re in luck.”

  Kit sighed audibly in relief. “What did you have in mind?”

  “A place I know in Central Park. The Boathouse. Do you know it?”

  “I do. It’s a bit beyond my budget. But if you want to establish yourself as an account, I’ll be happy to expense it.”

  “Forget the account. I’m paying. Be there at seven.” She was finished with her end of the conversation and about to hang up, then briefly reconsidered: ‘conciliatory’ wouldn’t hurt either of them. “Okay?”

  Kit was delighted. For ten days he’d been walking in circles. Tomorrow night, finally, he was going to set back out on a straight course. “Okay. At seven.”

  She hung up. He hung up. She picked up his picture again and smiled, then kissed him full on his black and white mouth.

  Chapter 13

  Kit arrived at a point just west of the Boathouse at half past six—well before sunset, but at an hour when the spring sky looked like a teenager primping for her first date. The various species of viburnum were in full bloom, and the surrounding air almost seemed to vibrate with their young smells.

  He found a space along the bank of the lake; pulled out his tripod and adjusted the legs so as to compensate for the uneven ground; mounted his camera and attached a telephoto lens. He was confident Daneka wouldn’t be looking for him at this angle and that he could execute his shot in complete anonymity as she arrived. This was what he needed now: to see her unrehearsed, not in complete control for a change, maybe even a little anxious during those moments when she might have to sit alone.

  It will do her good to wait for a change, he mused.

  At two minutes till seven, he saw a car pull up to the curb at about fifty yards from the entrance to the restaurant. This, he thought, was rather unusual since private cars generally weren’t allowed on this particular stretch of road at this hour. A liveried driver got out and opened the back door. Kit watched as a figure emerged, limb by limb, from the dark interior. Both legs first stepped out, knees together, the heels of a woman’s shoes meeting the pavement at the same instant. It was Daneka—he could see that at once even from a distance. He noted she was wearing the shoes she’d worn at the time of her visit to his apartment almost two weeks earlier. Was this a portent or merely a coincidence? Would a mere click of the heels see her disappear from view as mysteriously as she’d disappeared that first time?

  He suddenly wondered whether he’d underestimated her reach, overestimated his potential for meeting it even halfway. The thought made him feel once again awkward and insecure. What was he doing, anyway, with this camera and tripod? What did he hope to accomplish? This wasn’t any part of their deal.

  At the same time, he considered: he’d seen her apartment; he’d reached a preliminary judgment about her need for others’ approval—even in her private space. What did this say about her? Why then should he be feeling insecure?

  Kit bent down; turned the camera and lens in her direction; brought her into focus. He watched as Daneka extended a hand to her driver, asking him with this gesture to help her shift her weight forward, up and out of the car in one graceful movement. As she did, the folds of her dress fell like a long, fond caress. She was wearing another summer dress, a simple wrap-around held together only at the waist, the hem falling to just above the knee. The color was somewhere between pale yellow and carnival cream, and Kit could make out through his lens a timid floral print—lavender or larkspur, perhaps some rare variant or cultivar of salvia—he couldn’t be certain at this distance. He focused hard on the print and opened his shutter for a shot.

  Although her driver’s back was to the camera, the movement of Daneka’s lips suggested an exchange of words. She then smiled before he closed her door again and slipped back into his driver’s seat.

  Daneka turned towards the restaurant and walked up the stone path, careful not to catch a heel between pavers. The heads of men and women alike turned a
nd lingered. Her mystique was like a web under perpetual construction and reconstruction, and she was the spider weaving only what nature’s endowment had bequeathed her. Her dowry was the object of every woman’s secret ambition, the object of every man’s concupiscence.

  In other, former civilizations, gazes would necessarily have been lowered, would’ve made do with glancing only at the shadow cast by such a woman. But those were different times, different civilizations, different mores. In the present, the distinction between sacred and profane, private and public, personal and communal had vanished; finer distinctions had all been leveled in the great new gold rush to celebrity.

  Seemingly indifferent to all of it, Daneka continued towards the reception area. Kit took several shots of her in untroubled transit from curbside to dockside as the maître d’—obligingly, protectively, almost possessively—accompanied her down through the throng of hungry, curious, envious, lascivious faces to a table next to the lake. When that same maître d’ seated her at a flattering angle to the water’s edge, Kit noted Daneka’s gesture to him—still present, still hovering, still obliging—followed by his nod, followed immediately by a lighted match and then a lighted candle.

  The sun still hadn’t set. No other candles in the restaurant had yet been lit. But Daneka asked for—and got—her candle. The light from it and from a setting sun would give her face and upper body just the kind of nimbus she knew would deflect Kit’s attention from the difference in their ages. No matter how many anonymous heads she was able to turn, no matter how many unspoken but clearly obvious desires she was able to elicit, an older woman’s wisdom informed her that familiarity would slowly diminish any infatuation Kit might feel at the burgeoning of their relationship. This evening, this dinner—this moment sliced out from all that would follow—was her opportunity to enchant him with her beauty and make him oblivious of what by nature’s own conventions was unnatural. She wanted him blind: blind to other women, blind to any possibility of exit, blind to those events and choices in her past that had first informed, then molded, then finally hardened her character into what it was today.

  A waiter approached—a too-eager and too-gallant Prince Charming—to take her drink order. From what Kit could see of the abrupt change in the waiter’s demeanor, Daneka didn’t hesitate to re-order his agenda. Her nod said ‘Yes, bring a drink’—and then she named one. The waiter-prince wandered off, his charm rebuffed to a slightly duller sheen. In the meantime, Kit had moved his focus in as tight as he could on Daneka’s face and shoulders, front-lit by the candle and the setting sun behind him. As he was about to take another shot, he saw her raise a hand to her shoulder, then push her dress to one side and begin to massage what appeared through his lens to be a bruise. Probably the result of a minor collision with something falling out of the overhead rack, he reasoned. The attendants were always warning of in-flight shifts in overhead baggage….

  She looked down at the bruise and winced. Kit had the look and the strained curvature of her neck muscles in tight focus as he snapped his final shot. A look of minor pain on a beautiful face, he thought, gave him a portrait as perfect as he might ever hope to achieve.

  Kit disassembled the tripod and retired his lens to his camera bag. Not twenty feet from where he stood was a rowboat. He grabbed his gear and walked over to it, then looked for an attendant—but none was present. He climbed in, found a pair of oars lying at the bottom of the boat and began to row towards the restaurant. He reversed his position in the boat so as to be able to watch Daneka as he rowed. The newer position might’ve been awkward, but he managed it without difficulty as he watched the waiter set a flute of champagne down in front of her. As she raised the flute to take a sip, her eyes looked out over the water and found Kit for the first time. He was still at some distance, but close enough for her to allow just the hint of a smile as she put the flute to her lips.

  He answered with his own quiet smile. As successive pushes of Kit’s oars decreased the distance between them, each held the other locked in a stare.

  When he finally landed at the dock, he extended a hand. Daneka emptied her glass, stood up from the table and descended the few steps to his waiting rowboat. Kit steadied her as she stepped down and in, then settled her at the stern. At that moment, the waiter reappeared with menus and handed one to each of them. Their menus remained closed and their eyes remained fixed—but not on the menus. Daneka was the first to order. She asked for a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and a dozen oysters.

  “No, make that two dozen. And some fruit—peaches, nectarines, plums.” And then, barely above a whisper, “and a banana.”

  Kit looked hard at her and then ordered a second bottle of the same champagne and a dozen strawberries. “No,” he said, smiling mischievously. “For me, Grande Dame and two dozen strawberries. No bananas—instead, some pomegranates and figs.” He broke his stare at Daneka long enough to look up and ask whether the waiter could bring their order by gondola. The young man announced that well, yes … maybe he could … but that, well … it might be a problem … other customers, and … Kit looked at Daneka. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it worth your while,” he announced grandly. The waiter returned an ingratiating bow and smile; retired his pen and order pad to his shirt pocket; was about to walk off when Daneka asked him to dismiss her driver for the evening.

  Kit pushed back from the dock with an oar. Daneka, facing him, sat in the stern. He rowed slowly away from the restaurant while she leaned over the transom and trailed a single finger in the water.

  “Tell me about yourself, Kit,” she said. “Tell me about your early years, your first memories, about growing up, about when you realized you wanted to become a photographer. Or if not a photographer, an artist. Tell me how and why you came to be what and who you are today. All of it. Tell me about your siblings, your parents. Tell me why your friends are your friends, and why your enemies are your enemies. And then tell me what you look for in a woman, in a mate.” She smiled ironically. “In the love of your life.”

  “How long have you got,” Kit asked, a little surprised at such a tall order, but also skeptical she would have the patience or stamina to sit through all of it.

  “We’ve got the evening and the night. I’m not going anywhere. Besides, we’re marooned out here. I can’t swim in these clothes, and I’m not yet ready to take them off.” She watched for a blush, but none appeared. She liked that.

  “Not yet,” he said—more of a statement than a question.

  “Not yet,” she answered, neither a tease nor a challenge. Kit knew she would take them off when she was damned good and ready to take them off—just as she had done once before in his apartment. This time, however, he wouldn’t be falling asleep.

  “And if I tell you everything, absolutely everything about me, will you grant me the same favor in return?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” she teased.

  “Maybe?”

  “Well, my story has a few twists and turns. Most of them happy, mind you. But just the same, a few twists and turns.”

  “Twists and turns?”

  “Like my birthplace. You know, I suppose, that I wasn’t born in this country.”

  “I would never have guessed it.”

  Daneka feigned a look of hurt. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Your language is a bit too perfect for you to be home-grown. Your accent is—. Well, let’s just call it ‘finishing school,’ shall we? You’re very precise with both your consonants and your vowels. And I can almost hear the punctuation.”

  “Ahh! That’s because I’m reading Eats Shoots & Leaves,” Daneka said, barely able to suppress a snicker.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Eats Shoots & Leaves, Daneka repeated. “Or, if you prefer, Eats comma Shoots & Leaves. I picked it up in London a couple of days ago. It’s all the rage over there, or didn’t you know?”

  “No. I had no idea. But I’m not in the book business, remember? What’s it about?”

  “The quest for perfect
punctuation. Maybe that’s why you hear it in my sentences.”

  “Uh-huh. Punctuation. Fascinating!”

  “Yes. It is, actually. As a matter of fact, I’ve been flirting with a little story myself. For the British market, mind you. Brits get worked up about punctuation the way Americans get worked up about pornography. You’re both voyeuristic to the teeth. Brits just have a more refined sense of where to look—as in, between the lines and after an elipsis. I suspect, somewhere down below their stiff upper lips, they also get worked up about sex from time to time. Otherwise, they’d have a real problem—as in no population to punctuate. And no punctuation to populate.”

  Kit considered her logic; liked the sound of it; allowed himself a small smile. “And so your story—?” He left the question deliberately open-ended.

  “—Would use only punctuation marks.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “If I had a piece of paper and a pen, I could sketch it out for you right now. But since I don’t, I’ll have to tell it to you through dialogue. Of course, less is more, you know, where storytelling is concerned. My written story will take up only half a page, top to bottom, and a couple of spaces, left to right, at the left-hand margin of that page. You’ll be able to read it in ten seconds. It’ll be something like cuneiform or hieroglyphics. It’s the future of writing, Kit—at least magazine writing—and much cheaper. It’ll accomplish the same thing where readers are concerned, but leave far more space for advertising. If only we could do the same thing with photographs…”