“Locals,” he tries to explain. “They’re like the fucking union.”
“Guys. Always putting you in the middle of a Michael Mann.”
Kelvin gives me his Baby girl, what the fuck are you going on about? look.
I’m put to one side, away from the others as they are being processed. My wrists hurt, cut from the zips, and I swear to myself that I will kick Nash in the nads the next time I see him.
I then give a start when a woman appears suddenly out of the fog, almost walking right into me because she’s so busy watching what’s happening in the middle of the street. She excuses herself reflexively and I smile politely in return. Gott kvöld, I tell her. It’s a phrase Bergey had taught me.
I then step off into the fog, walking away in the direction she had come from.
25
Keflavík — Reykjavik — Seyðisfjörður
People in movies, for some damned reason, escape by running right down the middle of the road. Real people don’t tend to do such things, though I’ve seen them make some stupendously stupid decisions when they’re being chased. The key to getting away, first and foremost, is to get yourself out of sight.
I immediately slip around the corner of the appliance shop, walk the length of it, and then turn another corner around to the back, so that I have a whole building between me and the Icelandic Police people. Only then do I head out across the open stretch of field that I know is back there, because I had spent the prior five days walking almost every inch of the town of Keflavík. So even with this fog, I have a pretty good idea of where I’m going.
There’s a road on the other side, but that’s not where I want to go. About half way across the field, I turn abruptly left and make a beeline until I come out near the hotel. There’s a parking lot between it and the gas station, and if I cut across it, then follow a small alley, then cross another lot, then squeeze between a wall and a building, I will come out on a road further down from the roundabout. On the other side, I make my way towards the homes. I’m now off in the opposite direction from where I first walked away.
I did not waste my time during those five days.
I would like to know who’s the fucking bastard who realized that using two zip-ties to cuff a person is far superior to using one. With one, the zip is tight enough that you can reverse cowboy hump the underside of a car or a fence or something and cut through pretty quick. Moving over non-moving, a rock-climbing instructor once told me, will slice through the rope in a heartbeat. He was trying to keep me and the other students from falling to our deaths, which would’ve ruined his reputation. I doubt he realized that the same logic applies to freeing yourself when the cops have you zipped.
But then some brilliant shit came up with the brilliant idea to use two zips looped together. They are almost impossible to get through on your own.
Anyway, I hate that fucker, whoever he or she is.
For personal reasons, obviously.
It’s hard to do anything when your hands are stuck behind your back — hard to keep your balance, or run. A barrier no higher than your knees suddenly becomes almost impassable, unless you absolutely don’t mind falling on your face against the weird, strip-away-your-skin black shit they seem to have on Iceland. Jesus, it even sounds like you’re walking on broken bottles.
At my height, there’s a whole lot more knee-high barriers to contend with.
I am certain that if some Icelander grandma was looking out her window, watching a drenched little Coloured girl stumble across her back yard with hands zipped behind her back, the police would quickly be informed. Probably not in Boston — it might just be some kinky shit gone bad, which is no one else’s business. But I’m cold, wet, and damned near hypothermic, about ready to say Fuck it! and turn myself in. The back of a police cruiser has to be far more pleasant than this shit. I’m shivering uncontrollably, probably doing stupid things without knowing it, telling myself over and over that I should give up, give myself in, while being too pig-headed to even listen to what I’m saying. Mom would tell me that I would argue with yourself just for the sake of hearing your own voice. Makes no sense, if you really think about it, but I understood her intent. I was a loquacious and pugnacious child.
Still, I keep trudging forward through the fog, keeping to the back yards, careful whenever I cross a road. The people of Iceland seem to drive some pretty quiet cars and that’s how shit like this usually ends, with the alleged on the road, squished.
It’s hard to think when your teeth are chattering. I’m surprised they don’t just simply follow the noise.
We used to play a game, during my first years in the States, where all the boys would chase after all the girls around the recess field, or all the girls would chase after all the boys. I ran myself silly, laughing and squealing, trying to tag any boy within reach, and they would taunt me with Missedmemissedmemissedme! as they slipped away. It would continue until everyone on the chased side was tagged and if you watched the game closely, you found out which girl liked which boy best and which boy liked which girl best because they would always chase that same person.
I didn’t care so much. I would chase anyone. I was just thrilled to suddenly find myself with other children to play with.
But when the game would shift, and the boys were chasing the girls, no one ever chased after me.
I butt my head against the window and at first, Bergey looks around, trying to determine the source of the noise, then returns to whatever she’s working on at her desk. I smack the window again with my forehead, which is not a pleasant thing to do, and this time she looks up and finds me immediately. And instead of being horrified, she appears delighted.
Jesus, this girl’s going to get herself into trouble one day.
Then another head pops up, like a blonde-headed gopher, from behind the bed. It’s a boy, with pale skin and pale green eyes, maybe around nine or ten. It’s one of her younger brothers and he’s much whiter than I had imagined. Holy crap, I feel like I’m looking through a window into an alternate reality, where Bergey and I are the constants and only the families change. (There must be another episode of Twilight Zone that my Dad could reference. That show creeps me out.)
No wonder she took to me the way she did. I must be the first person she’s met who really understands what her life’s all about.
I gesture with my head for her to meet me in the back.
“Omygod! Are you doing spy shit?”
Sixteen-year olds should not swear. At least, not so plainly. I didn’t swear until I was in college, not for real until I was in the Army. Actually, I don’t really swear all that much out loud. Not really. Most of the swearing I do goes on inside my head. I have a much looser set of standards in there.
Anyway, it seems wrong.
“That’s the CIA,” I tell her. I rub at the thin red lines circling my wrists. We’re collected in the shed behind her home, which isn’t very warm but it at least protects me from the damned wind and mist.
The boy, who came out with his sister, eyes me warily. He says something and Bergey responds without even looking at him, talking over her shoulder while watching me. I don’t know Icelandic, but I can pretty much recognize Shut up and go away from a sister in any language.
She seems enthralled by my being there and I find her steady, adoring gaze awkward. She already looks down on me, seeing that my eyes only come to her chin, but now I’m cold and huddled, my hair flat to my head, and I’m feeling quite pathetic, so she’s certainly aware that she has the upper hand. I tell her that I need to get back to Reykjavik, to get my passport, my stuff, and that I need to find some way off the island without going to the airport, because chasing me or not, it’s a no-brainer that Nash will have them watching the flights. What else can I do? Hide on Iceland forever? A black woman?
Maybe I can adopt Bergey. Start my own family of misfits.
“There’s a ferry, from Seyðisfjörður to Denmark,” she tells me. The town with the name I cannot pronounce i
s on the other side of the island, about eight hours away. Shit, Iceland’s bigger than I imagined. She tells me that she has a cousin, he has a car, and he often travels around to the other side because he works for one of those companies that take tourists to see volcanoes, glaciers, and the Northern Lights. He’ll help if she asks him; he’ll get us there.
The boy says something again and this time Bergey turns abruptly and puts her face down into his, making his eyes go wide as she speaks at him with a hiss of Icelandic and English. She’s threatening him, that’s obvious, and he’s going to obey, obvious as well. When she comes back to me, she’s smiling again, proud of her ability to take charge.
This, I can tell you, wasn’t me at sixteen. She even scares me a little.
Bergey and Mik spend more time speaking Icelandic (Really, is that the right word?) than they do speaking English, which means that they are spending more time talking about me than to me. I lay in the back seat, which isn’t as comfortable as it was when I used to lay in the back seat as a child because rear seats now appear to be more like the bucket seats up front, which are near impossible to lay across. At least, that’s how it is in the back of Mikkel’s car.
During their heated on-again-off-again conversation, Bergey looks back to give me a reassuring smile, to let me know that she’s holding her own against her older cousin. Mik, in much the same way, shifts furiously through the gears, to let us know that he’s still in control, even if things aren’t going so well for him discussion-wise. The fact that there’s no traffic lights, or stop signs, or any other reason whatsoever to require a change of gears doesn’t matter. He’s taking his frustration out on his poor little car, which is a thing with guys.
About an hour outside of Reykjavik, Bergey has her cousin pull off so she and I can switch. She says she wants the chance to stretch out, but once she’s back there, she spends most of the time hovering between the seats, so that she’s almost up front with Mik and I. The conversation is now mostly in English, except for the times Bergey’s telling her cousin to stop being a prick (I assume), but I probably appear to be more reticent than I mean to be because I’m hiding behind my hair and not really responding to Mik beyond monosyllabic grunts.
“I really appreciate you doing this,” I finally offer.
“This is the best time ever,” Bergey announces, letting her cousin know that his attitude will no longer be tolerated. She’s not going to let him spoil her fun. He glances quickly in the rearview mirror, catching the enthusiasm on her face, and then can’t help but grin himself. He’s having fun, too. He shifts down and presses on the accelerator and sends his little red Polo rocketing eastward.
“I had over a million Euros, in my hands, and they took it away.”
I’m talking with Mik, holding my empty hand out to show that I no longer have the money, but that I can still feel its weight.
“In cash?”
I’m a little thrown by the question and have to look at Bergey for a moment before I understand what she’s asking. It annoys me, her interrupting, because I almost had Mikkel convinced.
“No. In bank checks. You can’t just go walking around with a suitcase full of cash. It looks suspicious. You’ll be stopped.”
God, I’m really giving this poor girl an education in becoming a criminal.
I look again at Mik, who sits across the table from us and gazes back at me with that kind of Yeah, okay, if you say so look.
“I’ll pay you back. I swear.”
“Who took the money?” Bergey asks.
“Yes, well, a promise doesn’t really pay the bills now, does it? No one’s ever handed me a hundred Euros, let alone a million,” Mik tells me.
Of course he’s right, but what else can I do? I don’t have the money to pay for the ticket, all that I had left paid for the apartment we’re renting out on the edge of town, some food. They already bought me a burner phone, a warm coat, a hat, and a pair of mittens, even though the two of them are running around in t-shirts most of the time. Mikkel doesn’t trust me and it leads to an even more animated conversation between him and Bergey. When he finally throws up his hands and leaves the table to go outside for a smoke, Bergey takes my hands in her own and smiles.
“He’ll help.”
“I’ll pay him back, as soon as I can.”
“Of course you will. I believe you.”
It’s two days from the time we arrived in Seyðisfjörður until the ferry is to depart — it sails only once a week. I had told Bergey that she and her cousin should take off, head back home, but she would hear nothing of it. She pointed out that without her, I would stand out in this small town — as natural as…well, as natural as a giraffe on Iceland, I guess. A very short giraffe. So the three of us become something of a strange little modern family — a mother, a daughter, and…. Actually, I’m not sure what Mik is supposed to be.
He comes back in shortly, sits down heavily, and sighs to let us both know what a burden this is for him, but he agrees to front me the ticket. Bergey responds sweetly in Icelandic, and whatever it is, it causes Mik to smile and even blush a little. I take Mik’s number and address and promise that I’ll send him more than he spends, but after a quick glance at his cousin, he insists that I needn’t bother. But I know that look. He’s a twenty-two-year old tour guide, with rent, bills, and the ambition to power-shift his poor little car into the ground.
I need to bother.
Bergey creeps into my bed on our last night and lays beside me for some time before rolling over and placing an arm across my body. I don’t move. I don’t want to give her any ideas, but I also don’t want to scare her off. I know exactly what she’s doing. She sniffs tears as she gently nestles her cheek to the back of my neck, and after a few minutes, her soft, steady breathing tells me that she’s fallen asleep.
Where is Mia at this moment? Does she even think about me?
At least I give Bergey a chance to say good-bye. That has to make me a better person, doesn’t it?
26
Seyðisfjörður — Tórshavn — Hirtshals — Lund
Nine years of prison is incredible training for being able to sit and think for two and a half days. Problem is, nine years of prison kind of uses up just about everything you have to think about, which leaves you only the things you can’t help not thinking about, no matter how hard you try.
The first part of the trip, from Iceland to the Faroe Islands, is spent keeping to myself, despite sharing a six-berth cabin with four other women — two college-aged girls who are having the adventure of a lifetime traveling the world, and two middle-aged women who are having the adventure of a lifetime traveling the world.
Me? I’m all adventured out. And I’ve had enough of traveling the world.
Neither group acknowledges me much, beyond the occasional friendly smile and hello. I don’t know if the older pair can understand the younger pair; I certainly couldn’t tell you what language the girls are speaking. The women speak in Spanish, which I understand fairly well, having lived in L.A., but I don’t think the girls can make heads or tails of it.
I make a poor substitute for Mia in these situations.
Things change when we reach Tórshavn, the destination on the Faroe Islands. It’s there that the girls disembark, planning to stay, while the rest of us have a six-hour layover. I remain in the cabin, watching the girls collect their belongings and leave, followed by the other two, who talk excitedly about making an afternoon trip of it. It becomes suddenly quiet when they’re gone — there’s only the heavy footsteps of other passengers passing in the corridor, sometimes their muffled laughter, talking. It doesn’t bother me too much, because I’m used to it, but it makes me miss Mia for the first time without bitterness. I want her with me, dragging me by the hand and forcing me to experience the world outside my own head.
About a half hour later, my two roommates reappear and gaze at me awkwardly as they hold a discussion between them.
“I understand what you’re saying,” I t
ell them in Spanish.
“Ah! ¿Tú hablas español?”
I can swear pretty good in Spanish, threaten to put a bullet in someone’s head, but I can’t really say that I’m proficient.
“We speak English…okay. ¿Te gustaría venir con nosotros? Para ver la isla?”
The one doing all the speaking is Romina, life-long friend of Giuliana, who was recently left by her husband of twenty-three years. They’re from Argentina, reconnecting after a lengthy absence from one another’s life, and it’s clear that Romina loves her friend dearly — she cherishes Giuliana. Over the next day and a half, it’s plain to see that she thinks that the disintegration of Giuliana’s marriage is the very best thing to happen for both of them.
I tell them I have no money — I’ve been surviving on the few things Bergey and Mik stuffed into my bag when I wasn’t looking. When the pair say that they will take care of me, I surprise myself by accepting graciously, allowing them to treat me to dinner in Tórshavn, meals onboard, and drinks in the bar. By the time we walk down the gangway in Hirtshals, they’ve offered to pay for my train fare to Lund.
Mia would be proud.
So, like the woman says, somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must’ve done something good.
Though for the life of me, I can’t say what it was. I mean, I really try to be good — I’m just not all that good at it.
But for the second time in my life, over a very short span, I again find myself in the joyous, elusive experience of the Movie Airport Reunion. Well, I guess it’s more of the Movie Ferry Reunion, which I don’t think gets nearly the same amount of screen time.
But more importantly: I have witnesses!
I wasn’t expecting Anna and Iben to be there. I mean, it’s something like a four- or five- or six-hour drive from their place to Hirtshals, so I told them that I would find my own way down by train when I called from Sadist-foder, or however the hell that place is pronounced. Instead, Romina, Giuliana, and I are welcomed by the sight and sound of Anna, bouncing like a hyperactive puppy, calling to me from the area where you wait for arriving family and friends. Iben is standing right beside her, leaning away, hoping that no one might make the mistake of thinking that she’s somehow related to this crazed person.
Zwerfster Chic Page 24