Love Begins in Winter

by Simon Van Booy

  George said he didn’t understand why they had called. His boss asked George if he was kidding. Then he told George that he was being fired. George sighed.

  “Well, that’s fine,” George said, “because I’m going to Sweden for a while.”

  There was silence, and then his boss said:

  “Where the hell is Sweden?”

  “It’s like Scandinavia—or something,” George said, looking for an open pack of Raisinets.

  A week later, his passport arrived. In the package was:

  A pair of adult-sized mittens

  A kid’s drawing of a whale with “Good Luck!” written on it in blue and yellow crayon

  A letter from his sister

  A list of things they had cooked when they were children

  One of three drawings secretly rescued from the trash after the egg incident

  The letter from his sister was addressed to “Major Tom” and signed “Ground Control.”

  A short P.S. read: “You’ve really made the grade.”

  III

  GEORGE’S TAXI BROKE DOWN on the way to the airport. The driver cursed in Hindi, then ripped a tiny plastic deity from the dashboard and yelled into its face.

  George leaned forward and explained to the driver that he had a daughter he’d never met, that she was waiting for him, that he had only one chance to find her. The driver replaced the deity with a kiss, then threw open his door and ran out onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, waving his arms. George noticed that he was wearing loafers—patent leather.

  Several cars skidded, almost hitting a Wonder Bread truck. The bread truck driver jumped from the cab and stood with his chest against the taxi driver’s face. The cars behind suddenly stopped honking. Just when it seemed the truck driver was going to punch the taxi driver, the two men shook hands. The cars behind started honking again.

  George climbed into the bread truck. A small Puerto Rican flag dangled from the rearview mirror. The driver swerved in and out of traffic as though sewing up the highway. He smoked one cigarette after another. A can of Red Bull fell from the cup holder and spilled all over George’s velvet loafers. The driver laughed. George could hear the bread flying around in the back, hitting the sides with dull thumps.

  When they arrived at Newark International Airport, the driver looked at George and shouted, “Go, motherfucker, go.”

  George grabbed his bag and fell from the cab, then sprinted through the doors into the terminal.

  The woman at check-in had a glass eye. She told George he had five minutes to get to the gate. Then a large African-American man in gold-rimmed glasses studded with fake diamonds appeared on an airport golf cart. He told George to climb on, and they beeped their way to the gate, scattering passengers on all sides.

  Once at a cruising altitude, the passengers around George began to sleep—like people falling into pools of their own lives.

  George thought about his journey to the airport. He’d never see those men again. Love between strangers takes only a few seconds and can last a whole life.

  Then he thought back six years to the night he’d spent with the Swedish hotel clerk at a truck stop in upstate New York; it was the night of beginning, because it was the only night they were together. To think that one unplanned night with a stranger in a strange place could create the most precious person who ever lived.

  Six years ago, George had a sort of nervous breakdown. Instead of calling an ambulance and waiting on the couch in his underwear, George decided he was going to drive to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding in Massachusetts and then charge the cake as it was brought out. He pictured himself being arrested and then institutionalized. He imagined the pleasure of sitting in a bathrobe on a bench beside a rose garden, nurses gliding past like swans.

  The wedding was to take place on a Saturday morning. George left on Friday and drove until his nerves could no longer handle the traffic. He took the next exit and followed the car in front. He wondered who was in it, what sort of life they were having. He knew he would never see their face and that their lights would soon disappear along the road to somewhere he could not imagine.

  Then George spotted a red neon sign:

  RED’S, SINCE 1944.

  He parked and went inside.

  The waitresses wore white shirts with frilly collars and black vests. There were plastic flowers on all the tables. The wind howled against the windows.

  Opposite the diner, about half a mile in the distance, burned the lights of a correctional facility.

  There were photographs of 1950s baseball players on the walls. Snow blew around the parking lot. A storm had been predicted, and the waitresses kept looking through the windows and pointing.

  The silverware was flimsy. George bent his spoon with one hand. The spoon reminded George of a child’s hand.

  The lamp shades hung low over each table. George asked for the special. When he finished his glass of Diet Coke, the waitress brought another, but George’s mouth was so full of bread, he could only nod when she set it down on the table before him.

  A man walked his little son to the bathroom. They were both wearing neckties. The boy kept touching his. Near the entrance was a lobster tank with only one lobster in it. George wondered what the lobster was thinking; perhaps wondering when the others were coming back.

  When George returned from the bathroom, his food had arrived. The lobster tank was empty. George ate a few mouthfuls painfully, and then concentrated on the coleslaw which lay in a sad heap half off the plate.

  Outside, snow lay thick upon the picnic tables. A couple at the next table was eating dinner. They were about George’s age. They were wearing scarves and laughing. They ordered a bottle of wine, and it arrived with a napkin around its neck. Why did everyone else’s life seem perfect?

  At the other end of the restaurant, a father held his daughter aloft, as though he had just pulled her from the ground. George felt dizzy. There were plastic snowflakes hanging in the windows.

  George tipped the waitress the year of his ex-girlfriend’s birthday, $19.72—more than the meal itself.

  He knew he was only twenty minutes from where the wedding was being held the next day, so when George saw a sign for lodging not far from the restaurant, he followed the flashing arrow. The hotel was a line of connected cha-lets, each with the same color door. Lines of trucks filled the parking lot, their engines like snouts gleaming and puffing in the moonlight.

  Drivers milled about, smoking and stomping the snow from their boots.

  The check-in desk was lit by a long fluorescent bulb missing its cover. An ashtray on the counter was full of ash but no cigarette butts. There was also a calendar with a glossy photograph of a Mack truck.

  George rang the bell and waited. Nobody came.

  As he turned to leave, a woman with short black hair appeared.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” George said.

  Her skin was pockmarked, but her eyes were very beautiful. Her hair was uneven, as though she’d cut it herself. She also had an accent. When she spoke, it sounded like she was singing.

  “A room?” she asked.

  “Yes, please,” George said.

  “Are you a driver?” she said, looking at her book.

  George thought for a moment and remembered all the rigs parked outside.

  “No,” he said, “just a regular person.”

  The woman laughed.

  “245,” she said. “It’s on the second floor. How do you wish to pay?”

  George handed her his credit card.

  “Nonsmoking—is that all right?”

  “I don’t smoke,” George said.

  The woman looked at his credit card and said his name aloud.

  “George Frack.”

  “Yes,” George said.

  “That’s a funny name.”

  “Is it?”

  “It sounds like it’s made up.”

  “Well, it’s not made up,” George said. “I’ve had
it for years.”

  “Well, here’s your key, George Frack.”

  George took his key and thanked her. Then, for some reason, instead of going immediately to his room and getting into bed as he’d planned, he turned to her and said:

  “Where are you from—I like your voice.”

  The woman stared at him closely.

  “Sweden.”

  “Oh,” George said, “so you’re happy about the snow.”

  “I am,” she said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You mean, working at a truck stop in Nowhere, New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a long sad story, George Frack. Why are you here?”

  “It’s a long sad story also.”

  A trucker passed through the lobby and disappeared into the bar, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke.

  “Do you want to watch TV with me in my room later?” George said.

  “Okay,” the woman answered without looking up. “I’ll be over in two hours—shall I bring anything?”

  “Orange juice, please.”

  “And how about some Raisinets?” she said.

  “Candy?” George said.

  “You’ll see.”

  An hour later, Marie sat with George on his bed. The room was quite sad. Cigarette burns in the carpet, a ball of sweatpants in a drawer, dirty ashtrays, the cap from a bottle of something under the bed.

  Instead of watching television, Marie told George about how she’d come to New York to find her father. Her mother said he was a truck driver—at least he was in 1978.

  “You picked a good spot,” George said.

  “I suppose so,” she said.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Almost three months—but I’m going back next week because my visa runs out.”

  “You didn’t find him then?”

  “I hoped I’d recognize him.”

  “At least you tried.”

  Marie shook some Raisinets into George’s hand.

  “My father is dead,” George said.

  “Is that why you’re so unhappy?”

  George thought for a moment. “Actually yes,” he said.

  “But why are you up here, George Frack?”

  “I don’t think I know anymore,” George said, moving deeper under the covers. Then Marie kissed him.

  Afterward, they lay in each other’s arms without saying anything.

  When George woke up the next morning, Marie was gone. The bed was full of Raisinets. He’d missed the wedding. The television was a reflection of the room. He took a shower, then got in his car and drove home. The traffic was very light.

  IV

  WHEN GEORGE’S PLANE TOUCHED down in Stockholm, it was still dark. Orange Volvo wagons idled within yellow lines painted around the docked aircraft.

  A group of men stood about a luggage cart looking up at the faces that peered out from the small windows of the airplane. Some of the men wore blue headsets around their necks.

  A child started to cry.

  George thought the man next to him was asleep, but then he reached up and touched his mustache, as if to check that George hadn’t stolen it.

  As people made their way lugubriously to passport control, George noticed that the man who’d been sitting next to him was limping badly. He was soon passed by all the other passengers. Three mechanics glided by on small scooters.

  The woman in the passport booth hardly looked at George’s passport. Then he was suddenly waiting for his luggage. He recognized a few faces from the plane. Most of the passengers were Swedish and talked quietly in singsong voices.

  He couldn’t believe he’d done it, that he was a father—that he was in Sweden. A situation George would have thought nightmarish if it had been put to him hypothetically was now the single most important thing that had ever happened to him.

  Life had called his name, and without thinking, he had stepped forward. He wondered if perhaps he was becoming the person he had always wanted to be.

  On the plane, George had made a list of the different jobs he might enjoy and that might earn him enough to travel back and forth to Sweden. Maybe he might even live in Sweden. He liked snow, after all, and he owned a green Saab.

  A little girl sat on the edge of the baggage car, dangling her feet as though she were on the edge of a pier on the last day of her family vacation. Her eyes kept closing and then opening. Several more children arrived and did the same thing—sat on the edge of an empty baggage cart and dangled their legs off.

  The baggage area was bright but desolate. People watched the pushing belt of suitcases and boxes. George sat on his briefcase as though it were a very small horse. The only things in it were the photograph of the little girl, a photograph of Goddard, the stuff from his sister, plus several boxes of Raisinets.

  For the first time, George wished he’d held on to the money his mother left him when she died. What wasn’t used to pay off debts, George had spent on thirty pairs of velvet loafers and delicate kites from China—of which not a single one remained. Of the thirty-seven kites he’d bought through the mail, about two dozen had ripped when George launched them from the New Jersey cliffs. Others had broken in mid-flight and dotted the trees of McCarren Park.

  It had occurred to George that if his plane crashed, one reason might be that one of his missing kites had landed on the windshield as they tried to take off.

  Everyone had collected their luggage and seemed to be walking in one direction. George followed. If there was a customs, George wasn’t aware that he’d walked through it. He followed several knots of passengers down an escalator to a train platform. He felt as though he was quite deep underground, as above the tracks the ceiling seemed to be natural rock. There was not a single piece of litter on the platform, and George could hear the low buzzing of the neon sign that announced the time of the next departing train. The announcement was made in Swedish, then English.

  At the station in central Stockholm, George got some money from an ATM, called a Bankomat.

  With thousands of kronor in his pocket—and knowing nothing about how much meant anything—George joined the line of people waiting for taxis. There was a large man in a yellow jumpsuit directing people into cabs, which were all Volvos. There was a woman in a wheelchair in front of George who had to sit to one side while the dispatcher waited for a different kind of taxi. George wondered why someone couldn’t pick her up and carry her into the car. He even thought of volunteering, but perhaps the only man allowed to carry her was her husband.

  The taxi driver had a large head and thin white hair. He wore a black leather jacket that read “Taxi 150000” on the arm. He also had thick silver hoops in both ears.

  At the hotel, the woman at reception informed George that he wouldn’t be able to check in until 2 PM. When he sighed, she asked if he wanted to leave his luggage and go for some breakfast. It was about ten o’clock, and the sky was beginning to brighten.

  As he walked along the street, it started to rain. It was light and refreshing, but then it got heavy and George was soon quite wet. He walked and walked, looking for somewhere to have coffee but passed only offices.

  He wished for someone to stop him and talk. He wanted to say that it was his first day in Sweden and that he had come to see his daughter.

  George wondered if it was a custom for offices at street level to have large clear windows, because they all did.

  Every so often, George stopped and looked in on a board meeting or a secretary who had changed under her desk from heels to flats. Through one large window, George stood for some time in the pouring rain and watched a pretty woman with her hair tied in a bun. She was brushing the frame of an old mirror. On a shelf behind her was a small microwave with black finger marks, heaviest around the door.

  When George saw a woman with a shopping bag that read “NationalMuseet” on the side, he walked in the direction from which she had come, hoping that he might find a museum where he could d
ry off and sit down for a while. Everything seemed to be closed.

  For several hours, George simply walked around in the rain. He had never been so wet and so cold. When he finally checked into his hotel room, he took a hot bath, then sat on his bed in the hotel bathrobe. He dried his feet and held his velvet loafers under the hair dryer for half an hour.

  He took the letter from his pocket and looked at the address. The area of Stockholm where she lived was called Södermalm.

  He picked up the phone and dialed the number as it was written on the letter. A child answered.

  “Hello?” George said.

  “Hej,” the small voice said.

  Then a few seconds of silence.

  “Ma-ma,” the voice said, and George heard the echo of footsteps. The woman on the other end of the line repeated her phone number in Swedish.

  “It’s George,” George said.

  “George?” the voice said.

  “George Frack.”

  There was a faint gasp and then silence.

  “Was that her?” George asked.

  Just when George was about to repeat the question, he realized the woman was crying.

  He heard the child say something gentle to her mother in Swedish.

  “I didn’t expect you to come to Sweden,” Marie said.

  “I know,” George said.

  Then Marie said something to the child, which met with a few words of protest.

  “I just told her to go and wait for me in her bedroom,” Marie said quietly, “because I’m going to beg you, George Frack—don’t come here if it’s only to see what she looks like.”

  “I know what she looks like,” George said, glancing down at his briefcase.