I wanted to call out to them. Yell that I missed them. That I didn’t have the strength to lie there all by myself. That I was scared. But it hurt to breathe. Talking was out of the question.
My memories of those weeks involved my mother poking her head in the bedroom doorway when they were ready to go.
“We’re leaving now,” she reported.
Thumbs-up.
“Hope you feel better soon.”
Nod.
When they came home, it was the same procedure. They set things on the kitchen counter, turned on the radio, got out pots and pans, set the table.
I couldn’t understand it.
Why didn’t they come check on me, say hello?
I recovered after a week, but the loneliness wouldn’t release its hold on me.
It had never released its hold.
The pneumonia didn’t cause it. It just put words to it.
I was alone.
“I have to go back to the hotel,” I said when Pretty Putin sat back down next to me.
“You have to see the last act,” he said firmly. “There’s only an hour and a half left.”
I moaned and tried to find a comfortable position, but all the stuff going on onstage kept bothering me. The last act was really a hot mess. The only unifying motif seemed to be an overfondness for bird metaphors. As far as I could tell, Khan Knichak was like a raven, who swooped down and brought the Russians grief. Igor for his part was more like a falcon. These allusions bordered on being understandable. No one likes ravens. They’re unreliable troublemakers devoid of self-discipline and integrity. Can’t do anything on their own, just scrounge off others.
Not like a falcon. A falcon is a leader.
You can’t capture a falcon.
I could picture it as I sat there. So high up that it couldn’t even hear the falconer.
The widening gyre turning.
Things falling apart. The center that cannot hold.
And mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The bells rang.
The Cumans were approaching Putyvl.
But Igor came running on the stage and flung himself into the battle against the Cuman hordes with his sword in hand while Yaroslavna clutched at her heart.
After that I don’t remember anything.
I tried to find the hotel, but when I knocked on the doors at each building, a dog opened and explained that no one was home. And the landscape was so odd, so unrecognizable. Maybe it was just me, but I couldn’t find my way.
30
There was no way to know what time it was, but outside the window it appeared to be night, because the streets and the canal were shrouded in darkness. A lady in a babushka slowly made her way down the street before disappearing around a corner.
And then there was no one.
My head throbbed dully, and the veins in my temples were swelling. My sinuses ached.
I squirted my nose and pulled out the brown bottle, which somehow was almost empty. The label didn’t indicate how much you should take in a day. I couldn’t even find the little pictogram Norwegian medicine bottles have to warn you not to drive while taking it. I took a little sip, and then one more.
I thought about the icon.
Maybe it would be wise to check if it was still there. If someone had followed me earlier in the evening, they might have removed it from its hiding place. Was it still up there radiating light and hope?
I pushed myself off the bed, forced my feet to climb up two flights of stairs, ordered a glass of Georgian wine, and sat down on the corner sofa. There was hardly anyone there. Two men in silk shirts focused intently on their conversation at a window table, and a woman sat at the bar looking bored. I wondered if she might be a prostitute. In movies prostitutes always sat at the bar and waited for men to pick them up.
I regretted not having brought a book with me. Now people would probably assume I was a prostitute. But then I remembered that I wasn’t wearing any makeup and hadn’t brushed my hair or changed my clothes. Plus I was sick. All things considered I should be pretty safe.
The cough syrup was still working well, and the little fairies had come back, too. I reached out my hand to touch them, but they eluded me every time. They were too fast, way too fast.
As fast as Pretty Putin, who was suddenly sitting in the chair in front of me with a glass of whiskey in his hand. I stretched my hand out again to see if he was real. He was.
I giggled, while at the same time carefully creating a magic shield between him and the duct-taped icon.
“I thought we put you to bed?” he said tiredly.
“But now I’m awake.”
He rubbed his eyes.
“Did you take that whole bottle of cough syrup?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
He opened his mouth, but was interrupted by Peter, who entered the room huffing and puffing. He didn’t seem to see me, because he ran straight over to Pretty Putin.
“There you are,” he said. “I can’t find Irina anywhere! Where could she be?”
“I don’t know.”
“She said to meet her in the bar by the lobby.”
“It’ll be fine,” Pretty Putin said. “Your colleague is sick.”
“Ingvill is sick?”
Pretty Putin nodded at me.
“You!” Peter said, as if he’d forgotten I existed. “I thought we put you to bed?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I slept a little. And then I took some medicine. Oh, and here’s a glass of wine. So, I’m doing fine. No need for concern.”
I raised my glass in a kind of cheers, which made Peter raise his eyebrows.
“Why are you raising your eyebrows?”
“No reason.”
“Should I raise my eyebrows at how you’re running around chasing all the women you can find here in Russia? At how you’re acting like we’re not on the same team, even though you’ve always said we are?”
“Did you know that—”
“Maybe you should go look for Irina,” Pretty Putin interjected, “if she said she would meet you? She’s usually quite punctual.”
“Of course,” Peter said with a little bow. “Of course.”
And before I could say another word, he was out the door.
“He’s an idiot,” I said.
Pretty Putin didn’t say anything. I didn’t even know if he’d heard me. He glanced out the window at the snow, which was doing its usual blowing thing. He looked like he was far away. I wondered how far away he was. If he was all the way out at that sinkhole.
“You’re coming on too strong,” he finally said. “Russian women are subtle. They know what men like.”
“What do men like?”
“A certain mystique, coyness. Men like to take the lead. There needs to be a sort of dynamic in the relationship—one who gives and one who receives. Otherwise it’s like a head-on collision.”
“But I’m not trying to hit on Peter. Sure, he does have a Bill Nighy–esque quality, but I’m not interested in him. Absolutely not. And besides, he is an idiot. It’s only right that someone tell him that.”
“You’re coming on too strong,” he repeated. “There’s nothing left. Everything’s been said. It’s like I said before. You’re like a parrot.”
“Well, this parrot has to go to the bathroom,” I said.
The little fairies parted politely as I got up. I was still a little hesitant for fear that the invisible shield between Pretty Putin and the icon would disappear with me when I went. But they must have kept it going for me, because when I glanced back, he wasn’t showing any interest at all in the sofa. He was staring blankly out at the snow again. He looked lonely. I longed for Bjørnar so much my chest ached.
Luckily some cough syrup helped.
Although now there was less than a quarter of the bottle left, and a small wave of panic started to build in me.
I decided to ask Pretty Putin to get me some more. Maybe I could even use the icon as a bargaining chip to
get more bottles? Enough to bring home so that I could hold on to this numbness forever. And never have to give up the little fairies. They could hover over the road ahead of me, no matter which way I decided to go.
I giggled at the thought and walked out into the hallway on unsteady legs.
Just then Peter came walking toward me.
“Hi,” I said smoothly. “What’s up?”
“She threatened to kill me!”
Only now did I notice how pale and haggard he looked.
“Who?”
“Irina. She said that if I don’t bring the icon back within twenty-four hours, she’s going to shove my testicles so far up my body they would come out my nose.”
He put his hand up to his nose, looking like he could imagine how just such a maneuver would feel.
There was a faint whooshing in my head, while at the same time I was having trouble processing what he had said. But I couldn’t deny that the idea of shoving Peter’s testicles out his nose had occurred to me as well, several times.
“You’re an idiot,” I said.
He stared at me without answering.
“We have to return the icon,” he said.
Images of myself on the floor of a small cell flickered through my head. Drugged and brain dead. Lobotomized and ugly. And what about Peter? He wouldn’t last one week in the gulag.
I started to cry.
And then Peter started to cry.
“What’s with you guys?” called Ingvill, who walked up right then.
“We’re just a little sad,” I said. “And scared.”
“Why?”
“Peter’s concerned about internationalization. That things won’t work out with the . . . bilateralization.”
“How drunk are you?”
“Not drunk enough, Tropical Fruit Salad, not drunk enough.”
“I’m meeting Ivan in the bar,” she told Peter. “Are you coming?”
“Peter’s tired,” I said. “He wants to go to bed.”
“Really? I would have thought maybe you were the one who ought to go to bed. You’re a true embarrassment to our country. An embarrassment! Getting drunk like this.”
“At least I’m not roaming around massaging people,” I muttered.
“As if you haven’t been busy engaging in activities like that with your students? Oh, please.”
“What are you talking about? I have most assuredly never done anything like that.”
“I know what mindfucking is, let’s just say that.”
“She doesn’t think that mindfucking is sex, right?” I asked Peter. “Please tell me she doesn’t think that.”
“You think you’re so much better than everybody else,” Ingvill said.
“All right, ladies,” Peter said, holding his hands up to try to defuse the situation. “We’re all going to go get a beer together now. For the sake of internationalization. What do you say?”
I sighed.
As did Pretty Putin.
We sat around the table in the bar at the top of Designa Hotel in Saint Petersburg without saying a single word. Around us the snow swirled in its usual manner, around and around, probably not landing until it reached the Himalayas. Or some other high-altitude place. Some mountain where at this very moment a Mongolian Prince Igor was releasing a falcon to soar up, up, up into the big wide sky. Until it was just a black dot, hardly visible to the human eye.
Things were clearly falling apart.
Someone elbowed me.
“What?”
“Artemis wonders if we know anything about the icon? That one that disappeared from the dean’s office.”
“A dingo took it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Maybe a dingo took your baby!”
I cracked up, loudly, wondering if they even got the reference. I couldn’t remember where the line came from, but it was somewhere funny. Bjørnar would know.
“All you have to do is knock your heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go.”
I lay back on the sofa, closed my eyes, and felt someone pick me up. I put my arms around Pretty Putin’s neck. Now I would tell him everything. Calmly and honestly, I would explain that Peter had made a stupid mistake because he was a stupid man, and that the icon was taped to the bottom of the sofa he’d just picked me up off of, and all he had to do was unstick it and take it with him.
Then everyone could be on the same team again. I opened my mouth.
“Take me to your leader,” I said with a giggle.
“Shut up now,” he said calmly.
So I did. And I let myself be carried to a bed, where wondrously gentle hands tucked me in and tenderly caressed my cheek. It was so delightful and soothing. Human warmth. Someone who cared. And I tried to stretch toward the warmth, until the whole scene was pierced by a sharp voice.
“Did you get it?”
It sounded like Irina. I tried to raise my hand in a polite greeting, but my arm wouldn’t move, so I sent a signal with my eyelids instead.
“Nyet.”
They switched to speaking Russian. Diphthongs and consonants with variations that drew me into a darkness that was suspiciously reminiscent of Tehom. The deep that even God seemed to fear. That the Spirit of God made do with hovering over. That was only released one single time in history, in the days when God let the Flood flow over the earth.
I sank. Sank.
Until I was swirling with the other snowflakes.
Further and further. Without our ever having thought of falling.
My only thought was to stay afloat until I made it home to Bjørnar, and he could receive me.
When I woke up again, I was scared and called home.
“You woke me up.”
“If someone asked me who you thought was the best-looking man in the world, I would say that soccer player, Lars Bohinen, or David Byrne. Is that right?”
“Huh?”
“You said one time that you thought Lars Bohinen was good looking. But I think maybe you think David Byrne is better looking. Is that right?”
“Ingrid, I—”
“Right, we’ll cross off David Byrne.”
“What’s your point here?”
“To be or not to be isn’t enough. Under normal circumstances it would be enough, more than enough. But something happened to the universe. It’s off-kilter or something. The gyre is widening. Or there’s a sinkhole. I don’t know. We have to take precautions. Come up with some lists.”
“Ingrid, stop. Just listen—”
“And not just for this dimension. We need to think about the next world, too. After we’re dead. You have to promise you’ll find me. Do you promise?”
“You need to be quiet now and listen to me. First of all, are you drunk? I hope you’re drunk, because if you’re not, you’re psychotic. Are you drunk?”
“I have a sinus infection. And I took a weird cough syrup. And I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to come home to you and the kids. And I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
I started sobbing into my cell phone.
“OK. You’re going to go to bed now and sleep. And you’re not going to call me again until you’re sober. We have a history of people from your side of the family calling other people when they’re drunk and then regretting it later. You know this.”
“Yeah, but we have to be able to answer—”
“Call me back when you’re sober. Go to sleep now.”
“OK. Sorry.”
“Stuff your apologies in a sack and go to bed. Enough.”
31
When I woke up the next morning, my first impulse was to take more cough syrup. But I felt cold and clammy and had a disgusting metallic taste in my mouth, as if I’d been sucking on a handful of loose change all night.
Enough, I repeated to myself as we found ourselves in a busy hallway outside what I assumed was the university president’s office. People hurried past in all directions, with books and p
apers and bags and umbrellas. We sat completely still. Peter’s face was ashen and Ingvill was checking her e-mail on her phone. I felt dead inside.
Sorry, I texted Bjørnar. Sorry about everything.
The preschool teacher contacted me, he texted back. She said you’ve been acting weird at drop-off and pickup, and that one time you smelled like alcohol. We have to discuss this when you come home.
I put my phone back in my pocket.
“What did you guys tell them yesterday?” I asked Peter and Ingvill, noting that it hurt to speak.
“Who?” Peter asked.
“Who do you think?”
“All you said was them. That could be anyone!”
“You are such an idiot,” I said. “I mean Pretty Put—Artemis and Irina! And Ivan.”
“Nothing. You told me I shouldn’t say anything!”
Ingvill’s cow face slowly looked up from her phone.
“What wasn’t Peter supposed to say anything about?”
“Nothing.”
“Ingrid,” Peter said, “I think we should tell her.”
I put my face in my hands and rubbed my forehead as hard as I could.
“Fine,” I said. “He wasn’t supposed to say anything about how he took the icon because he thought it was a present and how I hid it.”
Ingvill got that expression on her face that suggested there wasn’t much going on in her head.
“Icon,” she repeated slowly.
“The dean’s icon.”
“What do you mean?”
“The icon that disappeared from the dean’s office that everyone’s been looking for. We have it.”
“Why do we have it?”
“Because we were scared to give it back. We were scared it would ruin our chances of reaching an agreement.”
“What agreement?”
“With the Russians.”
“With Ivan?”
“Yes, Ingvill, with Ivan. We’re all pinning our hopes on him. He’s Mr. Internationalization.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Oh! You know you’re not allowed to roll your eyes at me!” Ingvill exclaimed. “I’m making a note of that right now, and I’m going to report you to the chair when we get home. And then we’ll see!”
“Maybe you could add that I mindfucked you by using difficult words that you didn’t understand—like internationalization.”
The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter (The Ingrid Winter Misadventure Series) Page 16