“Lydia?” he says. “It’s David.”
/
One day in late November, when I’m having lunch in the canteen, the door swings open and Olav appears. His eyes find mine even before the door has shut behind him. He glances down quickly, taking off his gloves, then he removes a couple of outer layers, hangs them on a hook on the wall, and walks over. There’s a wariness in his face and also a kind of pride, which makes him look younger, almost boyish.
“This is a surprise,” I say.
“Yes,” he says. “I was just passing through.”
But Ugolgrad isn’t on the way to anywhere, as he knows perfectly well. No one just “passes through.”
“How did you get here?” I ask.
“Snow scooter.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
He watches me, half-smiling. “How would you know?”
“They told me. In Longyearbyen.”
“I did it before.”
“It’s completely dark, and the snow hasn’t frozen properly. You could hit a rock. Or there could be an avalanche.” I push my empty plate away. “It’s crazy.”
“Now who’s worrying?”
“I have good reason, not like you. This place isn’t as terrible as you made out.” I pause. “There aren’t any rats in the hotel.”
Still smiling, he looks away, across the canteen. The silence is filled by rap music coming from the TV on the wall.
“I need a coffee,” he says. “How about you?”
“OK. Thanks.”
He walks up to the counter. Though I’m upset about the risk he has taken, I’m happy to see him. There’s something about his gaze that anchors me. Olav, Zhenya … These new friendships feel deep-rooted, resilient, and yet we hardly know each other.
“It was my birthday last week,” I tell him when he returns.
His eyes drop to the brown sweater I found in Mrs. Kovalenka’s wardrobe. “Was that a present?”
“This? No. I borrowed it.”
I talk about the party at Zhenya’s and about my speech and how I made everybody laugh.
“They are treating you well,” he says. “I’m glad.” But he doesn’t look glad. He hunches over his coffee, lines stacked up on his forehead. “You could leave now and come back in the spring. It’s beautiful in the spring. You wouldn’t believe the sky.”
I tell him I’m staying. Apart from my job, which takes up more time than I expected — I now clean the museum, as well as the library — I’m determined to become fluent in Russian. I also swim most days. I’m recovering my old fitness.
He has nothing to say to this.
“And you?” I say. “What are your plans?”
He shrugs. “My ex-wife lives in Bergen, with my children. I will visit them.”
“You have children?”
“Two boys. Six and nine.”
I ask if he has pictures.
He takes out a wallet and slides a small photo across the table. The nine year-old is the image of his father, with rugged features and crinkly rust-colored hair. The other one has a round smiling face and his hair is greenish blond. All of a sudden I can picture Olav’s ex. I think of the children on top of Mrs. Kovalenka’s TV, their soggy complexions, their matching fleeces. No one looking at them now.
“They’re lovely boys,” I say.
“Yes.” He turns the photo on the table and studies it dispassionately as if he has been asked to make some kind of appraisal. As if the children aren’t actually his.
“Will you take them sailing?”
He smiles faintly, bitterly. “Their father, the sea captain.”
“It’s not something to be ashamed of.”
“My ex-wife wouldn’t agree.” He sighs. “In any case, in Norway we sail only in the summer.”
“Of course.”
He looks at me and something tightens in his face.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“You look so different.”
“My hair, you mean? I know. I didn’t do a very good job, did I?”
“No.”
“It’s more appropriate — for my work. Besides, no one’s going to see me, are they, not out here.”
“I see you.”
Not sure what to say, I let my eyes drift past him. A man is sitting near the door, under a mural of a knight on a white charger. I think I recognize the man from the birthday party. He’s one of Gleb’s friends. Oddly, though, he doesn’t acknowledge me. No smile or wave. Not even a nod. When I look at Olav again he’s gazing down into his empty coffee cup.
“You look younger,” he says at last.
“Is that bad?”
“No, not bad. Only …” He tails off, unable to grasp hold of his feelings, uncertain how to put them into words.
“It will grow again,” I say.
He glances at me, as if he disagrees with this, then checks his watch. “I should be going.”
Outside, the air is sharp, abrasive. You could almost graze yourself on it. Light from the canteen windows lands on the square paved area in yellow slabs. As Olav walks to his snow scooter I notice that he’s limping. I ask if he has hurt himself.
“It’s sciatica,” he says. “I’m getting old.”
We embrace quickly. We’re wearing so many layers that it feels chaste and faintly humorous. He fits a pair of goggles over his eyes, then climbs onto the machine and turns the key in the ignition.
“You’re not old,” I call out over the urgent high-pitched buzzing of the engine.
He grins. “See you in April.”
The red glow of his taillight dissolves in the grainy darkness. It will take him at least three hours to get back. I hope he will be all right.
Standing in the cold, I think about Natasha and Klaudija, who I met in Longyearbyen. I should have asked Olav to call at the hotel and give them a message. They were good to me. I don’t want them to think I have forgotten them.
/
Not long after Olav’s visit I stay up late, leafing through my guide to Svalbard, the TV on in the background. Girls in glittery bikinis twirl behind a host who is more than twice their age, his hair peach-colored, his teeth all capped. I wonder which girl he’s sleeping with. If this was Italy, he probably would have had them all. Who watches these shows? I reach for the remote. In the sudden quiet after I turn the TV off I hear a sound I don’t recognize at first. When it happens again, I realize it’s my front door shaking in its frame, as if someone just collided with it.
I creep up the hall and peer through the Judas eye. My breath rushes into me, abrupt and shallow. Standing up against the door is Bohdan, the man I spoke to Zhenya about. I don’t dare move. He’s unshaven, as before, and the snow in his black hair is beginning to melt and trickle down his face. His cheeks are covered with a patina of grime. He looks like someone who was on fire and has only just been extinguished. Above his left eye is a deep cut in the shape of a crescent moon, the edges crusted and black. He brushes at the wound, smearing blood across his face, then he stares at the ground and mutters a few incoherent words. All I can see is the top of his head, the scalp showing through his thinning hair. He fought in Chechnya and his only reward was to lose his wife. Is it any wonder that he drinks?
Once, as if intent on catching me off guard, he tries to look through the Judas eye. Idiotic, of course, since that’s what Judas eyes are designed to prevent. In that moment, though, we’re only three or four centimeters apart, and my heart is beating so hard that I worry he might hear it. After a few long seconds he stands back and fiddles with the front of his jacket, then he swings away and walks into the stairwell. At last I can see the whole of him. His shoulders are wet — the green of his jacket has darkened to a sodden black — and snow sticks to the heels of his boots. His back still turned, he glances over one shoulder, in the direction of my door. He thinks he forgot something, perhaps, or that something changed while he wasn’t looking. His cracked lips move. He’s talking to himself again.