Until Tomorrow

by Robin Jones Gunn

  “Took two pictures,” he said. “Just in case one didn’t turn out.”

  Christy smiled at him and said, “So you’re glad you went, right?”

  He nodded. Then, looking in Christy’s eyes, he leaned closer and whispered so only she could hear, “Except I wish you had been with me.”

  17

  The three reunited travelers spent the day playing like kids at Tivoli Gardens in the glorious sunshine. They ate ice cream that was served in cones with whipped cream, a dollop of jam on top, and a thin cookie tucked on the side. They knew they had to try one when the sign said Amerikan Cones. They decided nothing was especially American about them.

  By evening, even though it was still light, the air felt cool and sweet. They rested on one of the many benches within the garden, having gone on all the rides and then complained that they were kiddie rides. The roller coaster was, in Katie’s words, “like going over speed bumps at Kelley High School.”

  “I think we’re spoiled by all the amusement parks in California,” Christy said. “Weren’t you the one reading to me about how this park was built more than one hundred and fifty years ago?”

  “Yeah, but I still had higher hopes,” Katie said.

  “It’s really a beautiful park,” Christy said. “Look at these trees. Their trunks are almost black, and the leaves are minty green. What kind of trees do you suppose they are?”

  “Danish trees,” Katie said. “Can we go see something else?”

  “Sure,” Todd agreed. “What do you have marked there in the book?” He broke off a triangle wedge from a Toblerone candy bar and handed it to Christy.

  “I want a piece,” Katie said.

  “I thought you would.” Todd handed Katie a piece of the honey-sweetened chocolate bar.

  “I planned to eat a candy bar in each country we went to, but I blew it in Norway,” Katie said. “I think I’ll have to get double the bars here in Denmark. How did we end up not buying any chocolate there?”

  “It’s because I took you to all the bakeries, and we bought pastries instead,” Christy said.

  “Those haven’t been too bad,” Katie admitted.

  “They’ve been fantastic!” Christy said. “I really can’t wait to take both of you to my favorite little Konditorei in Basel.” She turned to Todd. “Do you remember me telling you how I go there every Saturday morning? It’s where I get my sanity back.”

  “I remember.” Todd munched on the chocolate bar. “You order a coffee with cream and sit at the back corner table. Then Margie, or whatever her name is—”

  “Marguerite,” Christy corrected him.

  “Marguerite brings you whatever they’ve just pulled out of the oven. Is that right?”

  “Exactly.” Christy felt warm inside as she realized how much Todd paid attention to her emails and how he did take notes on what was important to her. “I want to take you there. I want you to meet Marguerite and taste the delicacies she creates.”

  “We can do that.” Todd stretched his legs out in front of him. He offered Christy and Katie another hunk of chocolate. “We’ll plan our itinerary so that we get back to Basel on Sunday before you start classes, and we’ll go to your bakery.”

  “Then the question is,” Katie said, “what do we want to see between here and Basel? I, for one, must see the Eiffel Tower.”

  Christy thought, If you end up with the same feeling about the Eiffel Tower that you had about the fjords, Paris will be a really short stay.

  “Okay, we’ll swing by Paris. I wouldn’t mind seeing Notre Dame,” Todd said.

  “And the Mona Lisa,” Christy added.

  “Is she there?” Todd asked.

  “Yes,” Christy said. “We have to go to the Louvre. That’s mandatory.”

  “How many more days do we have?” Todd asked.

  It took the three of them a while before they could decide what day it was and how many more they had. The consensus was that this was, in fact, Thursday, and they had to be in Basel by a week from Monday. Or actually, they had to be back by Sunday so they could visit Christy’s bakery.

  “We have plenty of time,” Todd said.

  “You know what that means?” Christy asked. “Today our trip is half over. We’ve been traveling for eleven days, and we have ten more to go.”

  “Are you serious? We’ve only been traveling for eleven days?” Katie looked stunned. “It feels like a decade. Or at least a month. I hate it when I exaggerate so much.” Shaking her head, she added, “You guys, we have to make a plan! This last week and a half is going to go by like that.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis.

  Todd and Christy looked at each other, and Christy burst out laughing. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say for the past eleven days. We need a plan!”

  “So I’m a slow learner. Be nice.” Katie pulled out the tour book from her day pack, where she now permanently kept it. “I say we find a night train and get ourselves to Paris. No, cancel that. I wanted to try to talk you guys into going to Saint Petersburg first.”

  “In Russia?” Christy asked.

  “I was reading about it,” Katie said. “I think Moscow is too far to go. It takes something like three days by train from here. But Saint Petersburg isn’t far from Helsinki, and Helsinki is only a day’s train ride from here. Twenty-four hours. We could see those onion-dome churches, and they have a museum in Saint Petersburg that’s supposed to be even better than the Louvre. It’s the Heritage, or something like that.”

  “I think it’s called the Hermitage,” Todd said.

  “Right.” Katie flipped through a few tattered pages. “Here it is. The Hermitage contains 2.8 million exhibits. They built the museum out of the czar’s former Winter Palace. It says, ‘The staterooms in the Winter Palace, with their chandeliers and opulent marble and gold-leaf decoration, should not be missed.’ See? ‘Should not be missed.’ ” She pointed to the words in the tour book. “We should go to Saint Petersburg.”

  “What do you think, Todd?” Christy asked.

  “Whatever you guys want is fine with me.” With a grin he added, “I’ve been to Narvik and back. I’m happy.”

  Christy was glad all over that she had suggested he go to the Arctic Circle. It had been a good choice. She hoped they could come up with some more good choices now.

  After an hour discussing options on the bench at Tivoli Gardens, Todd suggested they find a place to eat. He said he hadn’t eaten much on his journey to the “end of the world.” Today all he had eaten was an “Amerikan” ice cream and the Toblerone bar.

  They went to a small restaurant off the main street at the recommendation of a distinguished gentleman Todd had stopped on the street once they were back in the main part of downtown Copenhagen. Christy ordered the special of the evening, which was listed on the menu as “flaekesteg med rodka.” The waitress spoke perfect English, and she told Christy it was roast pork with red cabbage and browned potatoes. Katie looked as if she was having a hard time not bursting out laughing.

  As soon as the waitress left, Christy gave her a what’s-so-funny look. Katie laughed and said, “I’m sorry. It’s just that the way you said it, Christy, the last word sounded like ‘road kill’! ‘I would like to order the road kill for dinner, please.’ ” Katie kept laughing.

  Christy realized how tired and hungry she was now that they were sitting in the quiet, dimly lit restaurant. Katie’s laughter was fun while they were on the rides at Tivoli Gardens, but now it sounded loud and overdone to Christy. She knew Katie became punchy when she was tired and living on sugar. But the truth in Christy’s heart was that she wanted to be alone with Todd. She wanted to hear all about his adventure to Narvik. She wanted to look into his eyes and listen to him without having to divide her attention between Todd and Katie.

  Dinner was scrumptious, and they all mellowed after eating. A complimentary plate of various slices of cheese followed the meal. Todd ordered a coffee, and they went back to planning the next portion of their trip.

>   By the time the brightness in the sky had finally begun to soften into shades of tangerine and soft rosy pinks, the three of them had come up with a plan. Stockholm and Helsinki were off the list. Since they weren’t headed for Helsinki, Saint Petersburg was also struck from the list.

  They decided to travel to Paris with a one-day stop in Amsterdam so they could see a Dutch windmill. The train ride from Copenhagen to Amsterdam would take more than twelve hours.

  Todd had been figuring out the train schedule with a book of Eurorail times. “It looks as if we can leave Copenhagen at 7:00 tomorrow morning and get to Hamburg around noon. We get on a different train at 1:00 and that takes us to Cologne, Germany. And that’s as far as we can go, by my calculations. They don’t list any night trains from Cologne to Amsterdam.”

  “What are you saying?” Katie asked. “Do you want to skip Amsterdam and go directly to Paris?”

  “No, I’d like to go to Amsterdam. I’ll keep checking. A night train is probably available, but it’s just not listed here. If there isn’t one, we could stay in Cologne tomorrow night and take a morning train to Amsterdam. I know some people we could stay with in Amsterdam. They were in Spain when I was there.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Katie said. With a smile to Christy, she said, “Looks like we have a plan.”

  As they walked back to the youth hostel, Todd held Christy’s hand, and she wondered how long it would be before she and Todd had a plan. He was so good at reviewing the tour book and figuring the train schedules. Has he begun to review his school schedule to figure out when he’ll finish? He’s been trying to save money this past year. Was all that for college, or was he saving up for an engagement ring?

  Christy told herself she was jumping too far ahead. She knew from previous seasons of wondering and waiting in her life that if she ran ahead and tried to predict the future, she inevitably ended up robbing herself of the joy of the present.

  This is where she wanted to be. Right here. Holding hands with Todd, strolling along the streets of Copenhagen under the peach-tinted trail of the midnight sun. They could discuss their future another time, but not tonight. Tonight was for dreaming, not discussing.

  About halfway through their train ride to Hamburg the next morning, the train chugged into the belly of a huge ferry like the one Katie and Christy had seen at the harbor. Christy didn’t know if they had been transported by a ferry on their way to Oslo because she had slept through most of that trip and wouldn’t have noticed if the train was under the stars or under the sea.

  She convinced Todd to exit the train with her and find a way to the top of the ferry. She wanted to wave to the tourists on the dock the way the school children in their yellow shirts had waved at Katie and Christy.

  “I can take a hint,” Katie said when Christy didn’t include her in the invitation. “Don’t worry. I’ll stay here with the luggage. You two go and have a good time. Don’t worry about me. I’m sure I’ll be just fine.”

  “We’ll find a candy bar for you,” Todd said as they left.

  “You’re my hero!” Katie called out after him.

  “What’s it like being a hero?” Christy teased.

  Todd grinned but didn’t answer. She could see that the hot-water burn she had inflicted on his forehead hadn’t improved much. Still red, it looked a little swollen.

  “Does your face hurt?” she asked.

  Todd gave her a funny look.

  “I mean, your forehead. Does the burn bother you much?”

  “No, I think it will be okay.” Todd led her up some stairs until they reached the top deck. He immediately spotted a snack bar and stood in line for some food and for a candy bar for Katie. So many people were waiting it took nearly all of their fifty-minute ferry ride to buy the food.

  At first Christy was disappointed they had spent their alone time standing in line. But when their train pulled into Hamburg a little late and they had to run to catch their next train to Cologne, Christy was glad she had something extra to munch on. The ride from Hamburg to Cologne took five hours. The three friends played chess and read the tour book to one another.

  Katie was so caught up with reading every detail of every major city and giving Todd and Christy full reports, that Christy was beginning to think she actually had been to some of the cities. Katie said she had a philosophy. If they couldn’t see Helsinki, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Berlin, they might as well know what they missed.

  The descriptions Katie read of the Netherlands and France made Christy glad they had decided on those two places for their next destinations. The only problem was that Christy really wanted to see Luxembourg and Belgium, too, after hearing about them.

  “I think after Paris we should go to a small city,” Christy said. “Or at least a small country. We’ve been hitting the major cities, which is great, but we could see a lot outside the big cities. I think that way we would know more what people are really like in those countries.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Todd said. “Where do you want to go after Paris?”

  “Germany,” Christy said.

  “We’re in Germany now,” Katie said.

  “I know, but we’re zooming through. A Rhine River cruise is listed in the book that I marked. Did you see it, Katie? It sounds really wonderful.”

  “I saw that,” Todd said. “Doesn’t it start in Cologne?”

  “No, you don’t,” Katie said. “Don’t start changing plans on me. We’re going to Amsterdam.”

  Christy couldn’t believe how rigid Katie had become now that she had the power of the tour book at her fingertips. “What happened to the Katie Weldon who started this trip as a free-spirited woman on an adventure?”

  Katie smirked. “She got information. Knowledge is power, you know.”

  “Knowledge can lead to arrogance and legalism,” Todd said. “Let’s use the knowledge to make us a kinder bunch of grace-givers.”

  Christy remembered hearing Todd say those exact words at a Bible study he had taught years ago. He was referring then to the Bible and how some people can get so much information and knowledge about God that they turn into a bunch of rigid rule-makers. She knew he was talking about the tour book now with Katie, but the comparison was strong in her mind. At this point, all she could hope was that Katie would extend grace to her and agree to the Rhine River cruise.

  “Oh, all right,” Katie said. “I don’t want to be a brat about this like I was about not going to the Arctic Circle. We have to stop in Cologne anyway, don’t we? We can stay there tonight, take the river cruise in the morning, and be on our way to Amsterdam before the sun goes down. Then we’ll spend one day there and go on to Paris because we’re going to need at least a couple of days in Paris.”

  Even though Katie’s plan sounded clear and easy, Christy had a feeling it wouldn’t go as smoothly as all that. She was just glad that they would see more of Germany, the home of her ancestors. She hoped their boat tour would be a new highlight of the trip.

  Once they arrived in Cologne, at Katie’s insistence, they walked around the Dom before finding a place to stay. The Dom was a twin-towered cathedral close to the rail station. It dominated the area because it was so large. According to Katie, the cathedral was one of the largest Gothic structures in the world, with the foundation built in 1248.

  “I’m so bummed we can’t go inside,” Katie said as they stared up at the massive, twin gray spires that pierced the evening sky. “They closed a half hour ago. I told you, didn’t I, that this cathedral has relics of the wise men who brought their gifts to baby Jesus? The tour book didn’t say what the relics were specifically. I wanted to see the display.”

  “We could come back tomorrow,” Todd suggested.

  “No, let’s keep going. Youth hostel first, some food, and then in the morning we’ll go see Christy’s castles.”

  It didn’t settle well with Christy that the reason they were spending an entire day floating down the Rhine River was because she wanted to see more castles. She w
ould have felt better if Todd and Katie were as interested in this tour as she was.

  The next day, an hour into the cruise, Christy could tell that Todd and Katie were being nice friends and acting as if this slow boat was fun. But she knew they were miserable, and that made it hard for her to enjoy the leisurely journey.

  The first time they went past a castle high on the hillside, tucked behind ancient trees and overlooking the wide Rhine River, Christy could get Todd and Katie to look up and do a little imagining with her.

  They answered with clever words when Christy said, “Who do you think lived there? A handsome prince, maybe? Do you think he ever had to fight any battles to defend the castle and his princess?”

  By the third castle, no one, not even Christy, wanted to play twenty questions about the imaginary past of the castle. I think I’ve seen too much. I feel numb. I mean, this is beautiful and romantic and wonderful, but all I want to do is find a patch of sunshine and curl up like a cat and sleep.

  The boat ride was restful, and more than any of them, Christy felt ready to rest. She knew she hadn’t recovered from the exhaustion of her recent difficult school term. Traveling was exciting and fun, but it was anything but restful.

  The clouds played hide-and-seek with the sun for the next few hours. While the weather never turned cold, Christy did end up pulling a pair of jeans out of her backpack, going to the rest room, and changing from her shorts.

  The stretch from Koblenz to Bingen was spectacular. A hilltop castle gazed down on them every time they looked up. Christy had a feeling that this part of their trip would be something she would remember years later, as if it had been a dream.

  But she was ready for the cruise to be over when they arrived in Mainz a little after one in the afternoon. Getting on a modern train and figuring out a way to sleep for the rest of the afternoon appealed to her, as if the gentle Rhine, with its fairy-tale guardian castles, had lulled her into a dreamland. She was eager to go there and allow her weary mind and body to rest deeply.