Travelling Light (17 page)

“They’ll settle down,” said Elsa. “But you see, they’re nesting right now. We just need to watch out for the nests right next to the cottage.”

They secured the boat and carried up their bags, and she gave him the key to unlock the house. Inside was a single low room with four windows. A damp chill had settled in it. All four windows looked out on a sea with no horizon.

“It’s totally unreal,” said Arne. “Like being on the top of a mountain or maybe up in a balloon. I think I can sleep tonight. Shall we leave the unpacking till morning? We don’t need lamps, do we? What about lighting a fire?”

“We don’t need anything,” said Elsa. “Everything’s fine.”

* * *

The birds started screeching before dawn, like a
thousand
furies spoiling for war. Their feet tramped over the sheet-metal roof as if laying siege to the cottage. They were everywhere.

Arne woke Elsa. “What’s the matter with them?” he said.

“They’re always like that in the morning,” she said. “One starts screeching and all the others start. They’ll soon quiet down. Let’s go back to sleep.” She took his hand in hers and fell asleep again at once. The birds went on screeching. He tried to ignore it, but he could feel his old fear creeping closer, his horror of noise, of anything out of control. Then he found refuge in the memory of last night’s proud fulfilment, in a renewed longing to shelter and protect, and so the clamour of the birds lost importance.

The sun rose, drowning the whole room in strong pink and orange light. Outside the cottage it was quiet.

I’ll learn to be calm, he thought. I’ll learn.

* * *

They drank their morning coffee.

Suddenly there was tapping at the window. Elsa leaped up and exclaimed, “It’s Casimir! He’s back!”

An enormous herring gull was pressed against the window pane. It looked impatient.

“Is there any more coffee?” Arne said.

“I’ll warm it up. Just a minute…” Elsa quickly put some dry bread to soak, cut a piece of cheese rind into
convenient
little bits, and carried it all out to the front steps. She whistled her birdcall, raised the dish with her beautiful round arms, and Casimir came and stood on her hand while he ate. “Look at that!” she called. “He remembers me!”

Arne asked, “How long do they live?”

“Forty years, if they’re lucky.”

“And they always come back?”

“Always.”

* * *

Arne was the first to see the eider. She was sitting on her nest under a bush by the steps, almost indistinguishable against the grey-brown spring soil.

“A good omen,” said Elsa earnestly. “And she didn’t fly away even when we came near. Now she’ll stay till her chicks hatch. Isn’t that lovely?”

Arne studied the eider, fascinated. To him the bird’s long face seemed full of patience and wisdom. She sat completely still.

He said, “I’ve never seen an eider before. I’ll sit here on the steps for a bit.”

“You do that, darling. I’ll unpack.”

Arne sat a long time watching the motionless bird, a clever bird that knew she had nothing to fear.

Very slowly he walked past her and further up across the island. But as he neared the navigation marker at the high end, he was attacked. A raging swarm of howling birds dive-bombed him, again and again, purposefully and maliciously, like Stukas. He screamed back at them and waved his arms in panic. He felt their wings beating on his head and suddenly he was bitten, a wicked little nip. He cowered on the granite with his arms over his face shouting, “Elsa! Elsa!”

She came running and shouting at the same time, “It’s their nests! There are a lot of nests on this side. I should have warned you.”

They went back down to the cottage, and he flung himself on the bed and stared at the wall.

“I’m so sorry,” said Elsa. “They’re very aggressive at this time of year and there are too many of them. And if you stand up to them it makes it worse…”

“Don’t I know it. Too many children in every class, in every bloody class. And if you stand up to them, it just makes it worse. Don’t say it. I’m going to sleep.”

* * *

Towards evening he went out to have a look at the eider. Two gulls were giving a strange performance on the rock slope nearby. With a rapid series of short sharp cries and powerfully flapping wings, the cock besieged his hen.

Arne went back inside. “It’s bestial,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”

“Do you think so? I think it’s beautiful. Shall we have vegetable soup today or would you rather have chicken?”

“Whichever you like. I don’t care.”

* * *

Elsa lay awake listening to the cries of the long-tailed ducks. She would have enjoyed telling him about the long-tailed ducks, those mysterious birds, and getting him to listen for their seductive calls far out at sea, but after the incident with the terns she didn’t dare talk about birds. His hands had started to shake again and for several days he wouldn’t leave the house. He’d only go as far as the steps, where he would sit and watch the eider. Once he said, “She seems so content with
everything
, doesn’t she?” And he asked when the chicks would hatch.

Casimir had become a problem for Elsa. The tapping at the window had to stop. She moved the box he liked to stand on and hid his food dish. But wherever she went, the huge bird followed her with his plaintive, ingratiating chirping. Arne watched and made sarcastic remarks. In the end she practically stopped going out. It was only while Arne was reading or asleep that she rushed through her outdoor chores, threw Casimir’s food on the granite slope, and sneaked back into the house. They had become excessively cautious with each other and talked only about safe everyday trivia.

Then one night the wind changed and began to blow from the northeast. The shift in the wind woke Elsa, and she went to the window to check on the boat.

“Arne,” she said, “the boat’s pulling at her moorings.”

Down by the shore she was careful to explain what needed to be done. He took time over it and fixed the lines quite passably. The birds were silent.

In the morning Arne was in a better mood than she’d seen him in for quite some time. Thank God, he was finally cheerful. As usual he went to look at the eider, who was sleeping under her rosebush.

“She’s asleep,” he whispered. “When the leaves open, she’ll feel more protected. Don’t you think?”

“Oh yes,” said Elsa. “She’ll be just fine, then. Why don’t we go for a walk along the shore and look for firewood? We’re out of kindling and I can’t get the big pieces to burn without it.”

“I can fix that,” said Arne. “I’ll go and chop you some kindling. Easy, it’ll take no time at all.”

She let him go, forgetting about the gull that nested beside the woodpile every year. When she finally
remembered
and rushed out to call him back, it was too late. She met him coming back with the axe dangling from his hand. He threw himself down on the bed and said,

“There were three eggs.”

“What do you mean?”

“Three eggs. Three birds. I threw them in the water. Plus the nest.” He was silent a moment, then said, “The nest floated away. But the eggs sank like stones, straight to the bottom.”

Elsa stood and stared at his dismissive back. She didn’t want to tell him that if you take away a seabird’s nest and eggs, she’ll just build a new nest and lay new eggs in exactly the same place. She went down to the woodpile, found the crime scene, filled the place with stones, then waited behind the shed till the gull came back. The bird examined the stones, tried to cover them with her body, got up again, walked round, sat still for a while, tried again, then began collecting dry grass in her beak and stuffing it clumsily between the stones.

“You idiot,” Elsa whispered. “You damned, stupid idiot…” She wanted to weep, and suddenly she was sick and tired of Arne and all his imaginary terrors, his
pretentious
sensitivities. She ran to the cottage and sat on the edge of his bed and gave him a detailed and somewhat cruel account of the gull searching for her eggs.

He listened in silence and then when she had finished he turned and lay on his back and just looked at her. Then he smiled. “So what shall we play at now? Try to scare each other? Hunt for eggs? It was you who said we should find some silly game to play.”

Elsa got up, went to the kitchen counter, angrily prepared Casimir’s food dish, threw open the door and whistled.

Arne shouted, “You’ll disturb the eider! Can’t you feed that damned gull on the other side of the house!”

Casimir came. The same persistent piercing cry, the same strong soft wings touching her face, the same firm grip on her hand. She laughed out loud, let the dish fall, and grabbed the gull with both hands, overcoming the powerful resistance of his wings. It was just exactly as she had imagined it, a great silken-smooth life force caught and held in her hands. To her astonishment, the rare, furious joy of clasping the creature in her arms suddenly went right through her and took her breath away – and at that moment the huge bird twisted out of her grasp, soared out over the shore and vanished. It was very quiet. Elsa stood where she was without turning round.

Arne said, “I was watching.” His voice was distant and dry.

It was a mild, overcast day, the sort of hesitant weather when nothing seems to move. The leaves of the rosebush were on the point of opening, wrinkled and light green. Arne didn’t look at the eider but he knew she was still there, an honourable companion.

They probably should have brought a radio with them but they’d finally decided on a long, blessed silence. That had been the plan. Towards evening a thick mist rolled in from the sea, bringing an even deeper silence. In an instant the island became unreal, diminished, as if the cottage’s four windows had blinders of thick white wool. Ideal
conditions
for the eider to take her chicks down to the water.

Elsa made their evening tea. They drank it while reading their books. After tea, Arne went out on the steps – at just the right moment. The eider was making her way slowly down the slope, her chicks in a line behind her. It was unbelievable, fantastic, such a
remarkable
thing to see that he called to Elsa so she could see it too. And at that moment came a powerful beating of wings and a great white bird dived out of the sky and seized one of the chicks. As Arne watched in helpless horror, the eider chick disappeared down the bird’s throat bit by bit. He screamed, rushed forward, picked up a stone and threw it. Never before in his life had Arne thrown anything straight and true, but he did so now. The bird fell on the granite slope, wings outspread like an open flower, whiter than the mist, with the legs of the eider chick still sticking out of its mouth.

“Elsa, I’ll kill you!” he cried.

She was standing beside him. She touched his arm lightly and said, “Look, they’re marching along
undisturbed
.”

The eider and her remaining chicks were heading on down to the water where they disappeared into the mist.

He turned to her. “Don’t you see what’s happened? I’ve killed Casimir. I attacked him, took him out!” Wildly excited, he lifted the dead bird by one wing and walked down towards the water to throw it into the sea. Elsa stood and watched him go. She decided to remain silent and not tell him that this wasn’t Casimir, or even a herring gull that he was consigning to the deep. And that, of course, her own gull would never come back.

W
HEN
U
NCLE WAS REALLY OLD
he developed an interest in botany. He’d never married, but his large and
benevolent
extended family always took good care of him. Now his relatives bought him expensive and beautifully
illustrated
books on botany. Uncle praised the books and set them aside.

But when they’d all gone off to their jobs and their schools and whatever else they were busy with, he would go out and take the tram to the Botanical Gardens. It was a laborious and always unpleasantly chilly journey, but the awkwardness of the enterprise was more than compensated by anticipation, and by the crucial moment when he opened the door to the Hothouse and was met by the warmth and the gentle but powerful scent of the flowers. And the silence. There was rarely anyone there.

Uncle would put off looking at the waterlily pond, that always had to come last. He would wander down the narrow passages through tropical greenery. The jungle brushed past him but he never deliberately touched the plants and did not read their names. Just
occasionally
he felt an irrational desire to walk straight into the flowering luxuriance in frank adoration, to feel it rather than just look at it. This dangerous desire became even stronger when he came near the waterlily, the lotus pond, a shallow pool whose clear water bubbled forth in a constant babbling stream – what would it be like to take off his shoes, roll up his trousers and stride in, wading among the broad-leaved flowers, letting them glide past him and come together again behind him as though nothing had happened? Entirely alone; warm and alone in the Hothouse.

Near the water was a little wrought-iron bench, painted white, where Uncle liked to rest his legs and lose himself in a kind of contemplation and reflection that gradually freed him from all the concerns of the world outside.

High above the pond rose a glass cupola, constructed so long ago that it was really beautiful to look at. The bridge beneath the cupola was a delicate tracery of light, fin-de-siècle, metal arabesques, and the spiral
staircase
up to it had the same playfully seductive elegance. Sometimes people clunked up the spiral staircase and crossed the bridge quickly before coming down again and disappearing; they were always in a hurry and hardly ever gave the lily pond a glance.

Donkeys, thought Uncle. Strong legs but no brains.

The caretaker would sit behind a large luxuriant bush, either reading the paper or crocheting. Uncle was several times on the verge of asking him what all that crocheting was for, but he let it go, preferring the restful detachment of silence. But they would acknowledge each other’s presence with a little nod of the head.