They only saw each other twice.
The first time was on Isak’s grandma’s birthday, a weekend full of toasts and dinner guests so polite Ana thought she’d shrivel up. Isak’s entire Lutheran family had gathered at a community center outside Sandnes, so the young lovers had to steal their kisses between the inquiries of curious uncles and questions about Dracula and Ceaușescu and whether it was really true that a beer in Romania was cheaper than a bottle of water. When they finally had a moment to themselves, Isak spoke only about the exhibition, about the concrete, which wouldn’t take shape.
They’re torturing me with all their rules, he said. I can’t work like this.
The second time was three days before Ana had to leave for Bucharest. She’d been to a final critique and got so much praise it was almost embarrassing. At the thesis exhibition she’d met a curator from Prague who asked for her card, and it was in that mood that Ana arrived in Stavanger. Sunburned, her nails painted cornflower blue, she stood on the platform and hummed, astonished by the long summer days, the fresh, cool air, the passengers on the platform, so practically clad in windbreakers and hiking boots, when on a bench along the wall she caught sight of Isak. He hadn’t seen her, and when she sat next to him he looked up, pale and disheveled, a cold sore blooming on his lip.
Baby, is that you? he said, smiling. I’d forgotten how cute and tiny you are.
There were only ten days left before Isak’s exhibition opened, and he spent all his days at the museum, where he broke up concrete and poured out cement in a Sisyphean process that Ana rapidly gave up trying to understand. She lay on the floor and chattered about everything they should do when he came to Bucharest—the places he should see, the food he should taste—and when she got tired of fantasizing she prepared lunches and snacks, read aloud from the paper, and watched Isak shovel cement.
Ana had been hoping for a romantic gala ball of a weekend, but if she’d thought they were going to be counting shooting stars in the park or kissing until the sun rose, she was very much mistaken. Isak hoarded every minute for his exhibition, tight-fisted even with his seconds; and late at night Ana would wake to find him sitting at the edge of the bed, scribbling a sketch, muttering to himself.
On the morning of the day she was due to leave, they found the time for goodbye sex, and afterward they lay in bed and cuddled.
Sorry I’ve been so preoccupied, said Isak. It’s this stupid exhibition, it’s psyching me out.
Ana smiled, stroking his nose down to his cheek. It’s okay, she said. We’ll be in Bucharest soon, and then we’ll have nothing but time to waste.
Fourteen hours and two stopovers later, she could just make out the runway at Otopeni, split and asphalt-patched. When the wheels hit the ground, the passengers clapped and hollered, and in the arrivals hall Ana had to search for half an hour before she found Maria among the swarm of weeping mothers and returning sons, their nylon bags bulging with migrant-worker loot. Ana cried too, but her mother shook her head.
Skin and bone, she sighed, feeling Ana’s ribs. Nothing but skin and bone.
In the cab they drove past the dam and Casa Scânteii, which hung as usual like two teenagers in the cityscape, clumsy and oversized. Yet something about the city felt different, and for the first time in her life, Ana noticed the stubbornness, the engineered, unbending river and rule-straight motorway, all the direct lines that insisted on crossing through the city. She remembered Bucharest as a slovenly, chaotic place—she’d warned Isak about street hustlers and lunatic drivers—but she saw now the rational madness, the practical apartment blocks, the six-lane boulevard, the pedestrian underpasses placed at rigidly regular intervals.
God, said Ana. Has it always been like this?
No, sighed Maria. Not when we lived in the villa at Dorobanti.
And then the cab turned into the labyrinth of Drumul Taberei, and Ana rolled down the window and smelled the linden trees and the exhaust and the sweetish, summery scent of garbage. She hadn’t been home for a whole year, and was looking forward to seeing what had changed.
The short answer? Fuck all.
The same stringy communal strays barked them welcome in the parking lot, and from the neighbors’ windows came the same old soap-opera tune. Outside the corner store, the same old soaks sat on the same old plastic chairs, and the shopkeeper still hadn’t forgotten the good times under Ceaușescu, when the whole neighborhood had buttered him up with baked goods and flattery, trying to get their hands on the next scoop of coffee. Up in the apartment, her grandma was snoring the same wet snore, and when Ana met Sorin at the café behind the Academy, he was just as frustrated by the city’s lazy and unfaithful men as he had been when Ana left.
Keep going, Sorin, she said with a laugh. I love it when you’re angry.
There was something reassuring about the way Bucharest hadn’t changed, the way her friends acted like they’d seen her yesterday. She went to the cemetery with her mother, to mass with her grandmother, and in the evening she worked on her videos in her old room, which was exactly as she’d left it, with last summer’s newspapers slung across the bedside table.
Ten days after her arrival, Ana stepped inside the café at Strada Covaci to meet Claudia. At first she didn’t recognize her, but then she noticed the woman sitting in the corner, her hair twice as long as before, wrapped in a scarf, a cigarette dangling loosely from her lips. She’d swapped practical jeans and sneakers for a long dress, and she didn’t wear a bra. Somehow she looked light and porous, sitting there in the lamp’s white cone of light, and then she turned, smiled, and brushed back her hair.
Hey, Ana, look at you, she laughed. You haven’t changed a bit.
That summer they took long walks through the city, turning every stone of their new lives. Ana chatted about Isak’s sculptures and the curator from Prague, while Claudia talked about the Congolese theater director she’d dated in Paris, and about her professor, who’d raised the question of a PhD. They sat in parks and laughed at their ill-starred, incompetent Romanian compatriots, and Claudia took Ana’s hand and told her that Bogdan, her childhood friend, had drowned in Vama Veche. When they cut him open at the autopsy they found three ampoules of heroin in his rectum, and rumor had it he was part of a smuggling ring from Transnistria, though that part of the story couldn’t be confirmed.
It’s odd, sighed Ana, after they’d toasted to Bogdan. There aren’t many witnesses to my childhood left.
Congratulations, said Claudia. Now you can just make it up.
Three days later, Claudia left to visit her grandparents in Sighişoara, and that afternoon Isak arrived from Norway. Ana put on her best dress, wrapped a scarf around her hair, and drove to the airport with a cardboard sign that said Johnny Depp. The expectant women sighed with disappointment when they saw it was just Isak who came shambling out of the terminal, but Ana had tears in her eyes, and she kissed him so long a policeman yelled, Get a room. Isak looked worn but relieved, and when she asked about his exhibition, he waved his hand.
Fuck that shit, he said. We’re here now.
He was sweating, patches spreading underneath his arms, and in the cab he kept quiet while Ana held his hand. In Drumul Taberei she introduced him to her mother and grandmother as a classmate from Norway and showed him the parking lot and her old school, the chess club and her favorite communal dog, and when evening came she made up the bed in the guest room, her father’s old office.
Aren’t I sleeping with you? asked Isak, and Ana shushed him.
Hey, this isn’t Scandinavia. We’ve got rules here.
Ana’s mother still believed Ana was a virgin—or at least Ana believed she believed it—so Isak had to play along with the comedy and sleep in the spare room. If this had been a romance novel, Ana might have snuck in there at night, wet and warm and whispering, while the family was sleeping. But it didn’t work like that, and they sat either side of the dinner table on their best behavior, without even playing footsie, and in the evening they lay in their re
spective beds with their hands folded demurely over the covers. They didn’t even manage to sneak a quick fuck while Maria was out shopping, because her grandmother hovered over them like a drone, and after three days in Bucharest Ana was so tired of playing secret lovers that she suggested a visit to Claudia in Sighişoara.
Then you can meet my second favorite person in the world, said Ana, kissing him.
Isak nodded and wiped the sweat off his brow, and when Ana thought about it later she realized he’d never actually agreed to come. He hadn’t said no either. He’d said: I guess we could do that. He’d said: That’s probably not a bad idea. He didn’t commit one way or the other, but early the next morning Ana hauled him out of bed, and one hour later they were sitting on the train, puffing through the suburbs. She laid her head on his shoulder, glad to be alone, but when she put her hand on the bulge in his pants, he pushed it away and twisted his crucifix around his finger.
Hey, he said. Easy now.
They chugged through forests and villages, through fields that had once been Europe’s grain store, but Isak didn’t notice. He dozed and murmured in his sleep, twitching his leg from time to time, and it irritated Ana. Why was he being such a wet blanket? Why wasn’t he interested in her country? She woke him once or twice to show him a magnificent view or steal a kiss, and Isak took her hand and gave her a smile.
Hey, relax, Ana, just chill.
Then he kissed her forehead and Ana smiled. He was heading over the edge, and he didn’t know it or he didn’t care, or he hid it so well that Ana didn’t notice. When the train pulled into the platform the sun was high in the sky, which was dotted here and there with clouds. The scent of resin and cinnamon hung in the station, and behind the building were the jutting church spires. Claudia stood waiting for them in the shade, and when they got off the train she came to meet them. She kissed Ana and asked about their trip, but when she tried to kiss Isak on the cheek he pulled back like he’d gotten an electric shock.
Ana, be careful, he said. There’s something wrong with her.
Ana laughed, thinking it was a bad joke, and she took Isak’s hand and smiled.
So, she said. Shall we go home and unpack?
But Isak wanted none of it.
No, he said, taking a few steps back. She’s evil, that one.
Ana gazed in astonishment at Isak, who was pointing at her best friend.
Just try and act normal, she said. Come on, for Christ’s sake, let’s go.
But Isak wasn’t going anywhere. Well, that’s not quite true: He was going away from the devil woman and back to Bucharest, and without another word he rolled their suitcases toward the ticket office.
What’s going on? asked Claudia.
No idea, said Ana, and she marched after Isak to ask whether he’d gone completely off his rocker. What the hell was he thinking? What kind of a way was that to treat her friend?
Have you lost it, said Ana. Is it because she’s dark, or what? Are you racist?
Isak shook his head, rummaging through his bag while drops of sweat trickled from his brow.
Okay, tried Ana diplomatically. What if we just each lunch? And if you still don’t like her, we’ll take the first train home.
I’m not eating with her, said Isak. It’s her energy, can’t you feel it? I can see her face, for God’s sake.
What about her face, snapped Ana, scowling down the platform to where Claudia stood and gaped at them. Then Isak grabbed her arm.
Please, he said. I can feel it. She wants nothing good for us.
So there Ana was: her fiancé on one side, her best friend on the other. If she could do it again, she’d sit Isak down on a bench and deal with it calmly, but Ana couldn’t take any more bullshit. She was exhausted after the long train journey. She was hungry and sweaty and sick of Isak carrying on. First it was the exhibition stressing him out, now all of a sudden he could sense some monster inside Claudia—no, wait, her energy—and if it wasn’t one thing it was another. Why didn’t he just pull himself together and man up, said Ana, the words grating between her teeth, and then she said, Fine, then. Just buy your stupid ticket.
Done.
They never saw the citadel or the clock tower, nor did they see Vlad the Impaler’s childhood home. All they saw in Sighişoara were the station building and Claudia, who vanished through the gates in such a huff she wouldn’t speak to Ana for weeks. And so they rocked back across Romania for the second time that day, Isak rubbing his cross between his fingers, Ana buried sullenly in a book. The sun went down behind the mountains, and by the time Ana woke from a nap it had gotten dark. They were cutting through a narrow valley, not a light visible beyond the windowpanes, and in front of her Isak’s seat was empty.
Ana knew at once that something was wrong. She sat up with a start: the compartment was preternaturally silent, only the creaking of tracks to be heard along the corridors. First she checked the dining car, then five identical compartments, and just as she was on the verge of panic she caught sight of him in the aisle, holding his bag as though he were getting off at the next stop.
Jesus, Isak, she said. I thought something had happened.
And perhaps it had, because when he turned his head and Ana looked into his face, it was wholly rigid and white, the pupils black and contracted.
Ana, he said. We can’t sleep together anymore.
What—what are you talking about?
Ana. You’re just a little girl.
A little girl?
Yes, and I’ve touched you. And that’s not okay.
Yeah, I know you’ve touched me, she laughed. Now come on back inside, you loon.
No, no, he said calmly. Listen, it’s alright. I know what I’ve done. When we get to Bucharest, we’ll go to the police station and I’ll turn myself in.
Don’t be ridiculous, said Ana, pulling him into the compartment and shoving him onto the seat. For a moment they looked each other in the eyes, and then he rummaged in his bag again, drew out a notebook and began to scribble. Small, shapeless letters. That much Ana could see, although she didn’t understand the Norwegian words on the paper. He filled the page so densely that even the margin was covered, and she was astonished. Usually Isak only drew, and she should have asked what he was writing, but she said nothing. She was too weary to speak another word. Finally the train reached the city limits, and Ana packed books and jackets into her bag and stood at the compartment door and looked at him. Coming? she asked, but Isak didn’t answer. He put down his notebook and gazed out at the city lights, his eyes lit with the central station’s neon—red, purple, blue—and the glow of a thought it was impossible to follow.
That was it. That was their big summer in Romania, and four days later they were sitting on a plane to Norway. When they landed in Flesland, Isak kissed her goodbye—he had to make the train to Stavanger—and Ana was left alone, watching her suitcase trundle around the carousel. She didn’t hear from him for a week. She had the key to his boat, but it sat so low in the water, bumping against its mooring, that she couldn’t read or work. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she went home to Jorunn and rang the bell.
So, what now? said Jorunn, when Ana had told her about their summer. Think you should pack your stuff and get out?
Get out?
Yeah, he doesn’t sound very well.
Oh, no, said Ana, drawing up her legs beneath her. He’s just going through a rough patch.
A few days later, Isak returned to Bergen. His T-shirt was laundered and his beard shaved; he looked fresh, and as he folded out a chart on the kitchen table he explained his new project. The whole thing was already planned and arranged. He just had to sort out the practical side, and then he’d sail his boat up to a little settlement in Nordland, right where the Arctic Circle cuts through the coast.
Nordland, said Ana. What on earth do you want there?
I’ve had it with Bergen, he said. These people, they can’t think for themselves.
That week Isak began to ready the
boat. The motor hadn’t been used in years, so he hunted up spare parts and cleaned off rust and dirt, giving the hull a coat of paint. Jorunn began to get worried. She hovered over Ana and chaperoned her to the studio, and over the weekend she dragged her to her family’s summer cottage. At first Ana didn’t want to go, but Jorunn insisted, so they drove north to the family cabin and sat in the little front room with the doors open to the lake, talking about art and drinking boxed wine and laughing themselves into fits at the dragon tattoo Jorunn’s ex-boyfriend had just gotten in the middle of his back.
You’ll see, said Jorunn, as they were lying in their sleeping bags. Booze and art and cigarettes. You’ll soon be back on track.
Ana smiled. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
But Jorunn, she said. There isn’t anything wrong.
Oh, come on, Ana, wake up. Isak’s not well.
But Ana didn’t want to hear it. Isak was stressed, she explained, he was a sensitive guy, and the exhibition had taken a toll. If they didn’t stick together when times were tough, then what was the point of being together? Driveling on into the darkness, Ana just kept going: Think how much that exhibition meant to him, she said. You’d be upset too, wouldn’t you?
For two days Ana prattled about Isak. Poor Jorunn, God knows how she put up with it. On Monday they packed the car and drove home to Bergen, and when Ana crawled down into the boat, she found Isak bent over a tub of crawling crabs he’d fished out of the harbor.
Baby, take a look at that, he said, kissing her cheek. We’ve got everything we need right here in the fjord.
What, crabs?
Yes, crabs. What do we need with all this crap? he said, flinging out his arm as though to encompass the harbor and the city, the shops and their wares, the highways full of cars, the families on their way to Oslo or Denmark and the rest of Europe, to the whole putrid continent that lay beyond.
The Invention of Ana Page 23