He’d meant to kiss her once, to make a statement of his intentions and gauge her response, but her skin was so fragrant and smooth that he couldn’t stop. Her ear, her nose, her taut rosy eyelid, her determined chin with its dab of soft flesh at the end—he kissed them all and then started again. Each time she tried to speak he kissed her mouth to prevent the words. What could she possibly say that was more important than this? But she was bent on saying something, and while he was burying his face in her neck, she did.
“Just for tonight.”
He pulled away from her. The space between them seemed enormous now that he had bridged it once.
“I mean, this visit and that’s all,” she went on. “Okay?”
“Why?” he said without thinking. Then her meaning began to sink in. “Why just this visit? What are you talking about? No, it’s not okay. How could it be okay?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t want to have a conversation about it. I’m just trying to be fair.”
“Fair!” Her elbows, her breasts hiding under her sweater, the notches of her spine that were visible as she bent toward him: he hadn’t kissed any of them, and what was fair about that?
“I don’t want us to make each other unhappy. This way there won’t be any disappointment.”
Whose disappointment was she talking about, though, hers or his? Instead of asking, he spat out, “Where did you learn this sort of thing, Paris?”
“Don’t be angry.” She reached for his hand.
He looked at her wrist, which he’d thought fragile and pitiable that night at Eyvindur’s. “It’s so calculated. Suppose we want to keep seeing each other?”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe it’s best we don’t go to bed together.”
He was amazed. In less than five minutes they had begun and destroyed a love affair. And he couldn’t blame her alone. If he hadn’t questioned her rules, they’d be upstairs instead of stymied at the table. Heðin wouldn’t get himself into this situation—and if somehow he did, he’d get out of it: one quick lunge ought to do it. Jonathan made a verbal lunge. “You’re just scared. You have to know how it’s going to end before you begin.”
“You’re the one who’s scared,” Daniela retorted. “You have to pretend there isn’t going to be an end.”
“If you didn’t arrange everything, there might not be.” His voice was rising. “Why bother to start?”
“I can think of some reasons.” She took hold of his forearm and then slid her hand up toward his elbow.
He shivered. He was about to capitulate—but how had everything switched, so that she was the seducer and he the reluctant object? As her hand crept under his shirt sleeve and stroked the inside of his arm, he looked into her eyes where a miniature Jonathan looked back at him, still hoping for assurances. He wasn’t going to get any. All he could get was the comfort of flesh and distraction from his disappointment. He pulled Daniela roughly into his arms. Her body was his compensation for her unreachable heart, and he wanted it.
“Okay,” he said, looking down at her face that was pale with desire. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Jonathan dreamed all night of Daniela, thereby multiplying his pleasure at waking beside her. They were crammed together in his single bed; she clasped most of the eiderdown in her arms, a soft substitute for him. Her braids, which they hadn’t troubled to undo the night before, had fallen out of their pins and bands and lay in lazy curves on the pillow. In his dreams she had been on the move—walking ahead of him, leaving a room as he entered; he was relieved to see her settled down in sleep.
She was a composed sleeper: no noises or flailing about. She was lying on her back, so he could look his fill at her face. Her face, though, was nearly familiar to him and still not quite beautiful. He tugged at the eiderdown: what he really wanted to see was her body, which he knew only by taste and touch. She kept a firm hold on the puff and frowned when he pulled. He managed to expose one breast. Her nipple was pale pink and very small, though her breast was a nice size. As if aware of being observed, the nipple curled even tighter into itself. Jonathan felt shamed for spying on it; he covered her up again. But he was restless. He pushed his knee against her side, hoping she’d move around and reveal some other part of herself. She didn’t do anything except sigh.
He looked at the ceiling; he looked at the clock (eight-thirty); he looked at the other bed, where their clothes were tangled together as if they too had spent the night making love. He wished she’d wake up. He put his leg over her belly.
Daniela opened her eyes.
“Good morning.” He pressed a little closer.
“Early.” She tried to move away from him, but there was no space in the bed.
“You just rest, I’ll do everything,” he said, and immediately began to.
“Mmmm,” she said. She was moving around underneath him. This encouraged him, and carried away by passion, he pushed right into her. “Stop it,” she said.
But it was too late to stop. He felt her jaw clenched beside his cheek and her arms stiff under his as he shot through to the end of desire.
When he lifted his head a few minutes later, she would not meet his eyes.
“Daniela.”
She turned away.
“I thought you wanted to.”
“I said to stop.” She was still turned away.
“I thought you wanted to,” he said again.
“Never mind.” She moved as if to get out from under him.
He clamped his legs around her hips. “Wait. Can’t we talk?”
“There’s nothing to talk about!” She was angry. “You always want to talk about everything, and you don’t understand anything.”
“What don’t I understand?” She didn’t answer. “Didn’t you like it last night either?” He rested his forehead on her collarbone. “I thought that was nice, last night,” he said softly.
“It was nice.” She put her hand on the back of his neck. “We don’t have to talk about it.” She patted his head.
Was she patronizing him? He moved his head so he could see her. She was staring off into space. She ought to be staring into his eyes.
“I’m going to get up,” she announced.
He let her go.
But out on the headland, where they sat on a boulder eating their picnic in pale new sunshine, he started questioning her again.
“Why did you say I don’t understand anything?”
To his surprise, she answered him. “I don’t think you know what the point of making love is.”
Jonathan choked on a mouthful of bread and cheese; the world went into a brief eclipse as he lost his breath. He’d never heard this complaint before—but then, he hadn’t probed his other lovers for complaints. A few had said they wanted more of his time and attention. He’d taken that to mean they were pleased with what they’d got, otherwise why want more? She must still be angry because of the morning. “I’m sorry I jumped you this morning.”
“It was the same last night.”
“It was not the same last night. You wanted me—I know you did.”
“Of course I did. I’m not talking about that.” Daniela shook her head. “You see, you don’t understand.”
He glared at her. “You’d better explain it to me, then.”
“It’s not something to explain.” She lowered her eyes and then looked at him almost flirtatiously. “You have to show.”
“So show me.” He edged a little closer to her, excited despite himself.
“I think some other girl will have to do it.”
Jonathan dropped his chin onto his chest. He had just about reached his limit. There was no pleasing Daniela, because there was no knowing what she wanted—in bed or out of it. And from her last comment he figured they wouldn’t be in bed again. He appeared to have botched the whole business, though he’d been trying as hard as he could to do everything her way. She had a lot of nerve, accusing him of selfishness. He stood up. He didn’t feel like sitting next t
o her. He almost wished she wasn’t there.
“I could go home this afternoon,” she offered in a low voice.
“That’s a good idea.” He didn’t turn around. He could hear her wrapping the cheese in its waxed paper. Out over the ocean the sun’s rays were short and bright: not yet one o’clock. The boat left at three.
“Jonathan?” Her tone was tentative.
“Yeah.” He braced himself for a new accusation.
“It wasn’t really right, what I said.”
“Oh?” He turned around.
“It’s that I felt alone.” She paused. “As if you didn’t want me in particular.”
“Well, whose fault is that?” He was tired. “You made such a fuss about no future and just this visit. What do you expect me to do?”
“You could be with me. Then you’d have more to remember.”
“That’s just a fancy way of saying more to lose.”
“Maybe losses are wealth,” said Daniela.
Jonathan stared out to sea. Was he the sum of his losses, soon to be increased a hundredfold when this landscape no longer met his eyes? He turned back to look into her eyes and was surprised to see the glaze of desire on them. He moved a step closer, and she stood up. For a moment she was standing in his arms, then they were falling onto the cool cushion of grass, their green, cloud-canopied bed.
Swamped, flushed, speechless, they lay in the hollow their bodies had bruised in the tundra. They had bruised each other too. The marks of his teeth were on her shoulder, and there was a thin, raised scratch on his thigh. They hadn’t really undressed. His calves were tangled in his trousers; her arm was trapped by the neck of her blouse. He lifted her up a little and pulled the material back into place. She flapped her hand in the direction of his pants but couldn’t reach them.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. Nothing mattered except lying there watching the sun drift across the sky and cast pearly shadows on her skin. But it wasn’t warm enough to lie still for long, and goose bumps were appearing on her arms.
“You’re cold.” He draped his sweater over her like a blanket.
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m pretending I’m not.”
She laughed. “You are often pretending you don’t feel something.”
If she’d said this at breakfast, he would have been insulted. Now he said, “You’re right, I’m cold.”
She sat up and began pulling her clothes back together. “The day is much longer already,” she said, looking out to sea. “It’s almost spring.”
A chill went through him; it really wasn’t warm. “Not yet,” he said, rubbing his arms to get the blood going.
The walk between the cliffs and the village, which had been interminable on the way out, went by much too quickly on the return. It seemed to Jonathan that the simplicity of the landscape had simplified things between them. He looked at Daniela. She looked happy, swinging her arms and tramping along in his borrowed boots stuffed with a pair of his socks. He liked knowing she was wearing some of his clothes, though this morning, when he’d lent them to her, he’d thought her impractical for bringing only city shoes. He could see them, her warped black pumps, waiting in the hall beside his clogs, as if she lived there too.
They crested the last hill and the harbor came into view. Half a mile out, the Másin chugged away from Skopun with the afternoon mail and without Daniela. She would put on her shoes and board the boat, but not today, not yet.
Past Perfect
Warm winds blowing up from the Indies had moistened the tundra and made it soft and green again. Mosses shaped like stars edged every rock. New lambs, fluff balls who could barely stand, dotted the outfields, where wild orchids were coming into bloom. The puffins were cleaning their burrows in the cliffs; the skuas were scouting the grass for nesting spots. Each day leaped further into light—fifteen, twenty minutes longer than the day before. Only the brightest stars were still visible; they were leaving, slipping away to their summer pastures, and it was time for Jonathan to leave as well.
The complexities of departure were daunting, and for a while they screened him from the fact of it. He had a lot of stuff for a fellow who’d lost his luggage. Books, the eiderdown and its heavy striped cover, some sturdy blue mugs that had caught his eye in Sigurd’s store (an improvement over the cracked flowered teacups in his kitchen), high rubber boots, all those extravagant sweaters, his slicker, his two-pound picture book of Faroese views: added to his clothes, this made a heap that would never fit into a suitcase.
So Jens Símun was building him a box. It was as long as a coffin, but wider, and made of new, sweet-smelling pine. The resin and the pale curled shavings brought a whiff of home to Jonathan when he went to check on its progress, which he did four times. This was no slapped-together item; if it had been a house it would have stood for centuries. Jens Símun labored over the dovetailed corners, the recessed handles, the inner lip that kept the lid secure, with the reverence of one who works with rare material. Wood: the malachite and chalcedony of the Faroes. Jonathan thought of the green mineral pillars in the palaces of the czars, and also of how many lengths of lumber once used as bookshelves he’d discarded because they were a little warped.
The day the box was finished Jens Símun carried it over balanced on his head and placed it on Jonathan’s kitchen table, where it needed only a candle to complete its funerary likeness. Jonathan himself would do nicely for the corpse; the sight of the box made him ill.
“You can put everything you have in there,” Jens Símun assured him.
That was just the trouble. Jonathan broke out in a light sweat that made his back clammy and his head hollow. Looking around the room to avoid the box, he noticed the radio: it would never fit; he was reprieved from leaving—for as long as it took to build a bigger box. Wordlessly, he pointed at it.
Jens Símun scowled. He seized the radio, wrapped it in a dish towel, and jammed it sideways into the bottom. “Hah! Perfect.” He could not resist congratulating himself on his craftsmanship. “That’s a fine box you’ve got there.”
“I reckon so,” said Jonathan.
Jonathan and the box had different itineraries. It was to be sent by mail boat to Tórshavn, but there their paths diverged. Petur had a cousin-in-law who knew a man who worked on an Icelandic boat that fished off Newfoundland and delivered its haul to Gloucester, thirty miles north of Boston. For two bottles of aquavit, this boat would carry Jonathan’s box across the ocean. The bottles had already been sent over to Tórshavn. Now it was the box’s turn—for the boat was due to leave the Faroes in three days. Not so Jonathan, who planned a week beyond that to wind up his affairs and had yet to book his plane.
He’d laid in a first-class temun for Jens Símun: cake, cheese, jam, and the white loaf known locally as Vienna bread, which was used only for company. Jens Símun was pleased but didn’t hesitate to charge Jonathan a good many kroner for his work. The wood alone cost as much as a handmade sweater. Jonathan wondered what Jens Símun would have charged to build him a new bed, for instance. Far less, he imagined. It was because the box was for export. Whatever stayed in the village was community property, even if it lived in a specific house. Jonathan was sending a portion of Skopun’s capital—labor and wood—to another world. Such profligacy had its price.
His own capital—five notebooks filled with kinship charts, village anecdotes, recipes for killing and cooking whale, puffin, guillemot, directions to the best egg-gathering sites—was not going to be entrusted to the hold of an Icelandic trawler. The small bag he’d bought the week he’d arrived held, barely, two changes of clothing and all the notebooks. With a toothbrush and comb in the pocket of his old tweed jacket, he’d be all set to travel—to Tórshavn, to Reykjavik, to Logan Airport.
Jonathan spent an evening packing his things and enlisted Heðin’s help carrying the box down to the dock in the morning. Jens Símun had painted what he thought was a sufficient address on the lid: JONATHAN BRAND, AMERICA. Jonathan wished it were s
o easy. He borrowed a black crayon from the foreman of the fish factory and added: HOLD FOR PICKUP IN GLOUCESTER. Then he had to give elaborate instructions to the ticket taker on the Másin: This box is going onto the trawler Sagafjord, which should be in the harbor tomorrow, and then it will go with them to America—here Heðin interrupted.
“Vestmanna Jákup, you know with the black hat; he’ll get it.”
“So I’ll just leave it up by the harbormaster’s?”
Jonathan began to protest, but Heðin nodded to the ticket taker.
“What do you think will happen to it?” Heðin asked Jonathan. “Everybody will know it’s going onto the Sagafjord, because of the address, you see.” He grinned. “You worry too much.”
“Some things never change,” said Jonathan, grinning back.
He was lonely in his house without the radio and his own bedding. The ancient eiderdown from the other bed was just a sack of feathers with no quilting to organize their distribution; he spent much of his first night under it in battle. No matter how vigorously he kicked the bottom to move the stuffing up toward his chest, within half an hour it had all sunk down to his feet again. He gave up trying to sleep and pulled the chair over to the window.
The evening star had set hours before, and the partial moon was faint against the never-dark, now-brightening sky. Great schools of mackerel clouds tinted pink on their bellies arched over the water. A rooster warned of sunrise.
He was looking at light he would never see again. The ocean that was a dark reflecting pool, the earth polished by new grass to a silver surface, the latitude, all bent light and beamed it sideways, condensed it into a new substance in which every house, electrical pole, and rock on the streets of Skopun seemed the essence of house, pole, and rock, absolutes planted in more than three dimensions. Jonathan had seen this happen before and he knew it was a trick, an effect of northern dawn; he could even tell himself it was done with mirrors, since it was a consequence of reflection. At the same time he was convinced: here at the top of the world reality was visible, and he was looking at it.