The Lover From an Icy Sea (44 page)

Occasionally, very occasionally, he’d come face to face with an older woman who wore her lines proudly: laugh lines, or lines from crying, weeping, fighting illness. A woman who knew to cover her breasts because she’d once used them for their intended purpose—who’d suffered chapped nipples and the inevitable sag that resulted from the tug, the pull and the play of a greedy infant or a whole brood of them.

Kit wondered about Daneka—whether she’d one day sacrifice the prize of breast-feeding to her vanity. Looking at her now, he hoped she wouldn’t. He wondered, too, whether she’d age gracefully, allowing gray and gravity to do their work, yet without ever losing pride in her ageing body and never stooping to compete with younger women whose only edge might well be their youth. Or would she be one of those women who’d encourage men’s leers—and who’d continue to call them out with breast-hugging T-shirts and hip-hugging jeans—until those same men, once perhaps indifferent, might then react with annoyance or even outright anger?

He cut his reverie short. She was right. She’d understood this rude fact. This time, here and now, she shouldn’t have allowed him to watch her undress by direct sunlight.

*  *  *

As Kit turned away, Daneka realized what had just happened. She was no mind-reader, but she didn’t need to be: she had intuition and experience. The combination had given her wisdom. Wisdom rarely brought deliverance with it; on the contrary, it too often brought pain. She heard the sound of Kit’s footsteps diminish as he descended the staircase, then disappear altogether as he opened the front door and went outside to collect kindling and wood for the fires. There was an old rocker next to the hamper—a rocker that had been in her family for three generations. That rocker, with its soft, repetitive rhythm, had no doubt served its dual purpose many times: on the one hand, to put babies to sleep; on the other, to take away some portion of the pain of an ageing, abandoned woman. She dropped to the floor the last article of clothing she’d held only a moment earlier as cover. That cover, she knew, was needless—a false modesty, a silly relic. She walked to the bedroom door, closed and bolted it—then walked back to the rocker and sat down.

The tears came slowly. Self-pity was not a refuge in which Daneka often took cover. Self-pity, she’d realized many years earlier, was the land of the lost. She’d been lost—once, briefly, as a girl of fifteen. She’d been forced into a dark tunnel—and then just as forcibly abandoned. She’d allowed herself a few hours’ self-pity, had then fought her way back out into the light and sealed off the tunnel for all time.

She would allow no man—not Kit or any other—to make her feel that way again. Just this once, however, and close to the source, she would let herself unstop the tunnel for a brief glimpse back down inside. She would, just this once, allow herself the luxury of self-pity—for a couple of moments while he gathered wood and made a fire.

At the same time, she knew she would never again let him see her undress by full daylight.

Chapter 54

The next morning, Daneka rose early. She’d reached a conclusion or two during an almost sleepless night following a subdued fireside chat, a light supper, half an hour in front of the fire, and then bed. Bed, in this case, had meant sleep—or at least an attempt at sleep. Kit had had no problem falling off immediately. Daneka, however, had never really found hers.

She’d decided, among other things, that she would never again let his head find hers on the same pillow the morning after—any morning after. Rather, she’d get up and out of bed before he even stirred, would shower and dress, would then hide what lines she could with make-up well before his eyes opened to find those lines. She might, if she were able to rise early enough and consistently, undertake some form of aerobic exercise—maybe a daily swim down at the “Y” on Ninety-third Street. Whether or not she’d be able to manage it first thing in the morning, every morning, was not the critical point. Consistency was. A daily regimen was what she needed—and one she’d stick to.

Surgery? A radical solution, certainly, but not entirely out of the question. She’d have to think long and hard about it. Maybe she’d run the idea by him—see how he reacted. Botox, in any case, was a quick—if temporary—fix. There were plenty of players right there in the neighborhood who could do it. For Botox, she didn’t need to run off to Stockholm, Geneva, Rio, or even Beverly Hills. On Manhattan’s Upper East Side, access to a Botox solution was as easy as going to the corner pharmacy for cough syrup. She’d already heard of a good one right there on Fifth Avenue at about Seventy-seventh Street. An hour’s treatment, and she’d be right back out the door like a shiny new Chevy—or Volvo, she thought to herself sardonically. And then back in once a month for a tune-up.

In any case, age was not something she was going to give in to. They hadn’t been together for even six weeks, and already the spell was wearing thin—if it hadn’t, in fact, already worn through. Kit might or might not be the one; that wasn’t really the point. But he and he alone had re-awakened something in her, and she wasn’t about to let it go dormant once again.

Sex was something she could get anywhere, anytime. Cyber was safe, immediate, as often and for as long or short as she was in the mood. She was good with words and even with handles—of which she had half a dozen. She knew how to dip into a chat room with any one of her pseudonymous handles; study the banter; lure someone into a private room if that someone—he or she—struck her fancy; make herself come quickly and as many times as she needed; maybe let the other have his or her own little thrill; then leave—all of it nice, clean, efficient, and commitment-free.

There was the other, of course, for those times when cyber simply wasn’t enough. She shuddered. She hadn’t thought about it even once since she and Kit had left New York. That said something about him, certainly, and about this thing they had—whatever it was. Sex with him had been about more than just orgasms, and she hadn’t known, at first, what to make of it. The feelings and sensations he aroused in her were simply alien.

There had, of course, been that one time, many years before, in Riverside Park …. Entirely anonymous. Also with a younger man. She chuckled inwardly at the swift and sultry memory of it: in like a lion; out like a lamb. It had occurred, she recalled, also in the month of March.

And yes, there’d been many in between—some of them memorable; some of them forgotten within minutes if they even registered to begin with; a few, unfortunately, even less substantial than the drips and drabs they’d left behind in the sheets.

It was different with Kit—perhaps because she was older, somewhat wiser, her life less cluttered. Okay, maybe not entirely uncluttered; there was still Annemette.

Annemette—who’d brought them together in the first place and was the reason Daneka had picked up a copy of the Village Voice following an ordinary working lunch with Robert. Annemette, who was also the reason she’d dialed a number almost randomly and based on no better information than the odd combination of “portraits and landscapes.” What a thing—serendipity.

She’d have to get around to the matter of Annemette with him sooner or later. Annemette still mattered—mattered a lot. Kit would do fine for what Daneka had in mind. He’d be perfect for the shoot—as he was perfect for her, she mused, in so many other ways.

*  *  *

Kit woke up with a start. It wasn’t anything in particular that wrenched him into consciousness—nothing, at least, that he could immediately put a finger on. And then it struck him: it was nothing and no one that he could immediately put a finger on. Where the fuck was she? As she had so many times before, she’d simply vanished. Why, every time we’re beginning to make some kind of progress, does she simply up and disappear? He was about to get out of bed and go looking when he settled back, instead, to think. Something had happened the day before—something probably neither of them wanted to acknowledge openly—but it had happened nonetheless. He knew and suspected she did, too. All right—so the novelty had worn off. It was bound to go sooner or later, and he was frankly happy to have it gone. Now, he reasoned, they could finally get down to the real work of building a relationship.

Work was—in Kit’s mind—what made love real, sustainable, vital, the thing for which he lived. He didn’t play at photography; he worked at it. The harder he worked, the better he got—and the more he loved it. Why should his love for this woman—or hers for him—be any different? Nobody’s born with an innate talent or knowledge of how to love. The only thing we’re born with—the only innate knowledge—is an instinct for survival. Everything else is learned, acquired, mastered over time. Then, let circumstances strip away every acquisition and render all learning meaningless, the only thing still left would be a killer instinct to survive. A man would miss his acquisitions, but he’d get over them. He’d miss not being able to put to good use everything he’d learned; he’d get over that, too. Survival was the only thing he wouldn’t merely allow himself to miss. For that, he’d fight. Let anyone threaten that survival, he’d fight—as would a woman.

What, however, is survival without love? Little more than an opportunity to consume and pollute. To leave nothing behind but junk, the detritus of a wasted and worthless life. Every living thing consumes; every living thing shits and pisses and sloughs off dead cells. In that respect, we have nothing over a mere bacterium. Our special talent, our goodness, our godliness resides in only one thing. And the work of that one thing—the real creation of it—was about to begin.

He’d wanted to declare it to her symbolically once before—perhaps too symbolically, he now realized, and not sufficiently concretely—with his gift of a lichen. Here and now, he’d do it concretely with the gift of a garden. A garden that would, for the rest of her natural life, shout to her eyes on a thousand summer days and whisper to her nose on as many summer nights: ‘No man ever had a deeper love for a woman than I do for you. No man ever wanted to meld his soul with a woman’s more than I do mine with yours.  No man ever sought, or came to know and dared to call a woman his one and only mate—more than I do you.’

Chapter 55

Kit went downstairs and found Daneka in the kitchen—showered, made-up and dressed. Her reception was cool, standoffish even as he walked up to give her a morning kiss.

“
Sleep well, darling?”

“
Yes. And you?”

“
Wonderfully,” she lied.

“
Look. I’m sorry if I fell aslee—.”

“
Don’t be. I, too, was bushed,” she lied again. The ensuing extended pause let each of them know the extent of the other’s dissimulation. “Coffee?”

“
Sure. Thanks.” Daneka set to work on the coffee immediately. “What would you like to do today?” Kit asked.

“
Well, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d first like to go see my mother. Then, if the weather clears up—or even if it doesn’t—I’d like to show you my special place.”

“
I thought this was your special place. You mean you have another special place here on the island?”

“
I do.”

“
Would you like to give me a little hint?”

“
Nope.”

Kit stood up, walked over to Daneka, put his arms around her waist from behind and leaned down to her ear. “And if I kiss it out of you?”

“
You can certainly try, darling.”

Kit pushed the hair up off the nape of Daneka’s neck. She obligingly tilted her head forward so as to give him easy access. As he covered it with little kisses, she purred. The tiny hairs on the nape of her neck felt to his lips like mink. He’d never smelled a live mink before, yet he imagined—perhaps irrationally since minks were feral and not in any way known for exceptionally fastidious hygiene—that the smell of one would be as much a gift to the nose as their pelt was to the skin—and as her smell was now to him and his nose.

There’d been only one other woman’s neck in his life that had felt to his lips and smelled to his nose as exquisite as Daneka’s—and then, it had been only a fleeting smell and touch. He’d thought about it—and about that other nape—from time to time over the years, though not once, until now, since he’d first met Daneka. It was usually, and oddly, always towards the end of February that he thought of her, or whenever he’d stumble onto a patch of ground fog. Maybe it was the anniversary of that evening—he really couldn’t remember when it had taken place. Or maybe it was the ground fog in the park—he had only a vague recollection of the conditions under which it had happened. But he had a very concrete memory of mink.

As he continued kissing Daneka’s neck, he peeked around the side of her head and saw that she was smiling. He felt a little guilty—but no more than a little—as he brushed the nape of this woman’s neck with his lips and stroked it with the tip of his tongue while indulging in the memory of the other—

At the time, and in his own mind, he’d called her a minx—supplying the “x” as a place-holder for the name he never learned. It had been only a few minutes. Then she’d vanished from his life forever, leaving no trace of herself but the smell, taste and feel of the nape of her neck, which he suspected now—though he had no inkling then—he’d carry to his grave. He’d felt the other, too; had then smelled and tasted it as soon as he’d gotten home. He’d even postponed showering for almost a week so as to be able to revisit the smell and taste of her every night after he’d put the lights out and climbed into bed. But his unwashed smell eventually overpowered hers; he found himself at an increasing distance from the next body in the classroom or on the subway—anywhere he walked where other people were present; and so he’d had to shower and wash the last of her away.