The Sunlit Night (18 page)

“I can’t wait until you’re gone again,” Yasha said.

“I think I’ll stay a little while,” she said, “before we go back to logistics…” She waved a hand over the papers. “Take in the fjord country. What about your girlfriend, Yakov, is she taking off? Cut your hair,” she said. “It will give you a better chance with her.”

Yasha left the room. In the hallway, he could hear Kurt in kitchen, chopping, and Frida talking about a vacuum.

He walked a few steps down the hall and stopped at the door to Frances’s room. Frida’s vacuum started up in the kitchen. It made a howling sound that Yasha couldn’t bear. He had become terribly, terribly tired. He was a
shabby flop
. He pressed one palm against Frances’s door, then the other, then his forehead, making three dull thuds. A latch moved, and suddenly the door opened. Yasha fell forward into the room. He stood just over the threshold as Frances cleared her second bed of a dozen multicolored gel pens, a necklace bearing a figurine of a ballerina, a bundle of paintbrushes, and her socks, which had been set out to dry. Yasha saw the open expanse of the cleared bed, removed his shoes, and lay down.

•    •    •

The wild boar was awake and rubbing itself vigorously against one side of its pen. A new load of apples had been thrown in, reddening and brightening the ground. Yasha had one eye open. The other had not yet given up on sleep. A blanket covered his body, though he could see his feet sticking out at the far side. No shoes. It was true, then, the final image his consciousness was now offering up—that he had knocked, or in a way, fallen, on Frances’s door, and that he had taken his shoes off by the door, with a kind of diligence he could not this morning fathom, and gone to sleep on her second, bare bed. He rolled his one open eye, as slowly as possible, to the left.

Frances was there, in her bed. She too was covered entirely by a blanket, except for her shoulders, each marked by a thin gray strap. Yasha was perfectly awake now. So was Frances. She lay on her side, facing Yasha, her hair tied up in a bun. The room was about twelve feet wide.

To speak would require a significant movement of the lungs, parts of his body buried deep under the covers and practically nonexistent; the realm of what existed had drastically contracted, in the last forty seconds, to Frances’s face and shoulders, his own feet, and the wild boar. He had no idea what Frances was thinking. The width of the room felt engineered for the special purpose of reminding Yasha that he would never, in all his life, touch the gray-strapped shoulders of the girl across from him. He imagined his married life taking place in the black-and-white bedroom set of
I Love Lucy
, the beds always separated, her hair always in a bun.

Yasha wanted to cross the room and join her in her faraway bed, something he should have tried last night, with the pretense of being too tired to think, if only it had been a pretense and he had been able to think at all. He’d chosen the wrong bed. The right room, at least, he told himself, and wanted so badly to stand up just then, but couldn’t, because of his pants. That would pass soon. As he was checking the contour of the sheets over his crotch, Frances pushed back her covers, shattering the room’s stillness. It hadn’t been a bra. She was wearing a gray tank top, and the yellow short-shorts. “Morning, Yasha,” she said, as she walked to the small sink at the foot of her bed.

Yasha imagined a
HELLO! MY NAME IS
name tag that read
MOURNING YASHA
and knew he would be wearing it for a long time.

She ran her toothbrush under the faucet. “You were really tired,” she said. “Sleep well?”

There she was, brushing her teeth in front of him, an intimacy that flattered him tremendously. He turned away from her shorts, in the hopes of eventually standing up. The blinking clock radio on her night table read
9:09
.

“We have to go to breakfast,” Yasha said.

“Weckfeth?” She spat her toothpaste into the sink. “News to me. What have I missed?”

Yasha wanted to answer that question at length, starting with his mother’s breakfast plans and progressing in time through his crusty childhood and his interest in building origami cubes out of MetroCards, but it was 9:10 now, and she was in pajamas, and he was still wearing his funeral clothes.

“I’m going to change,” he said, and stood up. It wasn’t too bad down there. He didn’t need to tuck it under his belt. Even better, she hadn’t seen him check. She was still bent down over the sink, rinsing her mouth out with cupped handfuls. She looked like a rabbit. He didn’t want to leave.

“I’ll be back in a minute, in a different shirt,” he said. “I’ll pick you up,” he was pleased to say. “We’ll go together. Breakfast in the Ceremonial Hall, with my mother and Haldor.
He has many things to say to us.
”

“If I’m not in the barn in about five minutes, Nils will weep,” Frances said. She wiped her mouth with a towel and buttoned a collared shirt over her tank top, hiding the straps Yasha loved. “The officers arrived an hour ago.”

“I forgot about the inspection.”

“Turn around, would you?”

Yasha obeyed and presently heard the unmistakable sound of her shorts falling to the floor. A moment later, when he was permitted to turn, he found her fully dressed.

“Let’s go,” she said, leading him to the door.

Yasha wanted to go with her. To go anywhere, shamelessly. Instead, he stood still as she walked off toward the exit, toward the barn, where Nils stood waiting.

“We should stay,” Yasha called.

“Why not?” Frances answered over her shoulder. “We’ve got nowhere to go.” She tucked her shirt into her pants and rebundled her hair at the top of her head. Yasha wished her luck, then wished himself the same.

•    •    •

Haldor wore his Sunday clothes at the breakfast table: a black tunic with white accents that made him look vaguely like a minister. Olyana wore a silk blouse with enormous sleeves. She and Haldor sat across from each other at a table neatly set for three.

“You may stay until and no later than the first of September,” Haldor said, as soon as Yasha sat down. Haldor held his knife in one hand and his fork in the other, sharp ends up.

“How did you know I wanted to stay?” Yasha said, hearing his own voice sound miserably young.

“Why only the first of September?” his mother added right away.

“Yakov,” Haldor said, “your mother and I have spoken.”

Your mother and I!
Papa himself had never used the phrase. Papa himself—it had only been nine hours since they’d buried him. Papa’s
self
could not have decomposed yet, not entirely. Yasha took up Haldor’s position: fork in one hand, knife in one hand, sharp ends up.

“Frances also wants to stay,” Yasha told Haldor. “I can only stay if she stays with me.” Olyana smacked the back of Yasha’s hand approvingly. His knife jiggled. He wanted to tell her that she had nothing to do with it, but he wasn’t sure that was true.

“Everyone can stay,” Haldor said, “until I leave for a twelve-night cruise of the Baltic capitals,” he said. “The ship departs from the Oslofjord on the first of September, which is also the day we close the Viking Museum for the autumn. Of course,” he said, “this is not a co-in …” He turned to Olyana. “Co-in …”

“Coincidence,” said Olyana.

Haldor smiled and waved his fork in the air, saying, “Olyana and her English.” He started over. “This is not a coincidence, as it is I who plans the calendars.”

Kurt appeared beside their table, bearing a tray full of meat.

“Certainly you are ready for your breakfast, Yakov, after last night’s labors. Kurt!” Haldor said. “Deal out the sausages.”

Kurt served Haldor first, filling his plate with four sausages that were four different shades of brown. He served three to Olyana, and two to Yasha.

Yasha was about to demand that Kurt fill his plate properly, when Haldor said, “Your mother will be joining the museum staff, in the position of Acting Valkyrie.” Olyana’s eyes flashed with pride. “We need her for battlefield reenactments. Yakov, you can choose jobs one by one. The same for Frances. I will pay you both by the day. We will need help with the Icelandic horses—they are very short and hungry—and the kitchen, and the cleaning, and sometimes the boat.”

“We aren’t quite ready to leave this marvelous place, are we, little man?” Olyana asked.

Yasha chewed slowly and absently. Behind Haldor, out the window, at the top of the hill, a line of four inspectors filed into the barn. He couldn’t see Frances or Nils. He imagined them welcoming the officers, both terrified. Nils no longer seemed puny to Yasha, nor did the barn seem inconsequential. Nils had something to show for himself, and he had Frances at his side.

“I didn’t think you all would want to stay here,” Haldor said.

Yasha and his mother said simultaneously, “I do.”

Kurt, who was still standing beside the table, said, “Orange juice?” To which Haldor bellowed,
“Ja!”

There were questions, accusations, building up in Yasha’s mind, and he was thinking of when to spring them. Questions about Manhattan, and Brooklyn, and the fall. Questions about who would visit Eggum regularly, after September, to check that the grave was intact, if they could find it out on the beach. Questions about Icelandic horses. Questions about Frances and Nils.

Haldor seemed content. He was done with his meat, and his belly brushed the edge of the table. He stretched his arms out at his sides, as if to hold both Yasha’s and Olyana’s hands. Yasha’s fingers reflexively bunched into a fist. But Haldor only let his arms drop and said, after a yawn, “I am so glad you both can stay.”

Olyana said, “I am sure Vassily is happy to have us here a little longer.”

“Excuse me,” Yasha said. He stood up, pushed his chair in under the table, folded his napkin neatly in half, and slammed it onto the table. He walked out of the Ceremonial Hall, through the lobby, past Yggdrasil, and out the museum’s back door.

•    •    •

Yasha had not yet explored the full grounds of the museum. The hours preceding the funeral had been filled with sleep and food. A complete Norse arena lay just outside his room. Families had come out for the museum’s activities. He walked down the beach toward giant archery targets. A ten-year-old girl was aiming a child-sized bow and pulling back, with all her strength, a magnificent arrow.

Yasha stopped a good distance away, so as not to distract from her shot. She let the arrow go—it flew up for a moment before plunging into the dirt, well short of the target. A slightly older boy came trotting up behind her, teasing her from atop a shaggy pony. A woman arrived at the far side of the shooting fields to greet her children. She was standing at the foot of a trail that stretched behind her, and as she rushed to the now crying girl, Yasha ran past them to the opening where the woman had stood. He lacked a sense of direction, a map. He wanted to know where everything was. He followed the trail along its short curve to a hut. The hut had no front door, its whole front gaped open, and smoke bloomed from it in spurts.

“Superfine, Yasha,” Sigbjørn said. “Good morning.”

Mourning Yasha
, Yasha named himself again, though he was relieved to see Sigbjørn’s familiar biceps, and shook his sooty hand.

“We’re staying,” Yasha said, wiping the soot down the front of his pants.

“Who is staying?”

“I am, and Frances, and my mother,” Yasha said. “My mother is the new Valkyrie.”

Sigbjørn pushed a narrow piece of iron into a pile of burning coal. “Frances is not staying,” he said. “Her sister shall marry. In California.”

“She has a sister?” Yasha said. Sigbjørn nodded. California, at that moment, was the farthest, largest, warmest place Yasha could imagine.

“The wedding isn’t until September, that much I know,” Yasha said. He hadn’t asked her the right questions in the back of the pickup truck. “What else has she told you?”

“Nothing. New York, her sister, California.”

“Have you spent much time together?” Yasha wondered whether Frances had ever seen Sigbjørn’s home, had ever met his grandma Gertblorg or Ingavildabrun or whatever.

“I helped her make a nail. Her first day. Then she ran away with the short man, Nils, to the boats. You have a special interest in the girl? Some choice she has,” Sigbjørn said. “A man twice her age, or half!”

“I am not half her age,” Yasha insisted, “I am exactly four years younger.”

“Ja vel,”
said Sigbjørn, pumping hard on a lavishly ornamented pair of bellows.

Yasha could see Sigbjørn’s point. Perhaps Nils was not his rival—perhaps neither of them stood a chance. Yasha needed to talk to her. He needed to see her thin gray straps, which had become in his mind the pillars of an ancient temple, in whose inner chamber she slept.

“Your uncle is leaving,” Sigbjørn said, when he stood from the bellows.

“When?” said Yasha.

“Do you not hear the taxi?”

Yasha ducked out of the smithy and saw Daniil in the parking lot, stuffing his bags into the trunk of a car. He sprinted back through the archery field.

“I came to say goodbye at breakfast, but your chair was empty,” Daniil said.