The day before Christmas Eve she went into town in the afternoon to go to the cinema. When she left after the film it was dark. She walked through the pedestrian streets, where people struggled past laden with all the parcels that twenty-four hours later would be unwrapped again by other people who had toiled along with similar parcels, just as red in the face with effort and irritation. Now all she needed was to run into Otto and his divine photo-mulatto, or whoever he had replaced her with if Miriam was right that their affair had already ended. Once that had occurred to her she couldn’t get it out of her head again. Of course she would meet Otto at any moment with Christmas presents under one arm and a gorgeous doll under the other, and then she would have to stand and smile all over her face to convince him of what actually was the case. That for weeks she had hardly given him a thought and had already begun to wonder why she had loved him so much.
She went round Magasin du Nord’s food halls without finding anything to buy. Finally she decided on fillet steak. There were two steaks in each tray, obviously they thought no-one would be so extravagant as to buy fillet steak for themselves alone. But she could always eat the second one tomorrow, she thought, and now she was pushing the boat out she also put a tin of foie gras and a jar of caviar in her basket. As she approached the wine department she caught sight of a man standing with his back to her studying the labels. He wore a camel-hair coat and the grey curls at his neck fell over the turned-up collar.
She thought of turning round, he must have read that embarrassing interview, but she went on. The Gypsy King was not going to stop her drinking red wine on Christmas Eve. He glanced up from the bottle he held in his hand. He was pale and looked tired. She tried to smile but he did not smile back. Catching up with the shopping? he said finally. She held up her basket. My Christmas dinner, she said, launching into an over-elaborate explanation of why she would be alone, regretting she had disturbed him. He smiled wryly at her efforts and she stopped talking. Neither of them said anything, and when the silence grew too strained she found the courage to ask after his wife. She had not given her a thought since the première celebration. He put the bottle back on the shelf. She died this morning, he replied dully.
Afterwards Lucca could not have said how long they had been standing like that, looking into each other’s eyes, she with her plastic basket, he with his hands in the pockets of his coat. He cleared his throat. She shook her head rapidly as if waking from a trance. He looked down at his shoes and then back at her. His wife had been alone, he had overslept. He looked away. They had phoned, he had gone out there as quickly as he could, but too late. He had come too late for her death.
For a moment his face seemed about to collapse. He turned his back and took a step or two between the shelves of bottles, and she heard a half-strangled throaty sound. She went towards him but stopped as he turned back again. He dried his eyes with the backs of his hands and looked at her. I’m sorry, he said. She said he needn’t be. Would he rather be alone? He avoided her eyes and took another bottle from the shelf, desultorily studying the label. I don’t really have any choice, he mumbled. But she supposed he needed something to eat… the words tumbled out of her mouth. He looked at her blankly. She pointed at her basket of fillet steaks. There are two of them, she said. He looked at her in surprise. Did she mean it? She shrugged her shoulders. He had better find something drinkable, then. He walked slowly along the shelf, carefully inspecting the labels, suddenly shy at having her standing there.
She made a bowl of salad while he fried the steaks. To start with they were a little stiff with each other. He said he had read the interview. She had said some nice things. She told him what she thought of the journalist. He smiled. A journalist like that wants to show she is someone too. You mustn’t grudge her that… Now and again they fell silent and avoided each other’s eyes, as if they took it in turns to regret she had gone home with him. They spoke about the performance, he said she had earned her success. If she wasn’t too terrified he was thinking of asking her to work with him again next year. He felt like doing a new production of A Doll’s House. It was fifteen years since he had last worked on the play, and he had actually considered it was passé since, according to their friend Strindberg, marriage had long since become ‘a partnership with economic activity’. He smiled tiredly. But she had given him the courage to try. He had thought of her as Nora. She held her breath a moment. Yes, thank you, she said. He shook his head. She had nothing to thank him for.
When they had eaten they sat for a long time looking over the lights of the city. He told her about his wife, but not at length. They had lived apart for several years, she at the villa north of the town, he in the rooftop apartment. For years it hadn’t been a real marriage, he said. There had been too much… how to put it? Too much and too little had been said between them. He put down his wine glass and walked over to the French window at the terrace. Either she should go now, or stay.
She stayed. Everything happened very slowly, as if through water, with long pauses when they just lay side by side until they had to give in to what they had so hesitantly begun. His body was different from any other body she had known. His skin was looser, but very soft, and his arms and legs were more sinewy than she had imagined. He did not let go of her eyes as she straddled him, and she recognised the open, vulnerable expression that had made her speculate so much. As if he marvelled over what she was doing to him, at the same time taking hold of her buttocks. There was something unfeigned, at once reckless and completely stripped bare over his face when he groaned and she felt that he came. She lay awake while he fell asleep in her embrace. It was a terrible thought, but she did think it. She thought that she was glad his wife had died before this happened. Since she was dying anyway.
22
The plane from Madrid had landed when she entered the arrival hall with her cardboard placard. She placed herself at the front of the group of people waiting. The first passengers came in sight with their luggage and looked around them, searching. People called out greetings and kissed each other. She recognised him at once, before he caught sight of her placard, it must be him. Andreas Bark looked pale, as Danes do when they emerge from winter and screw up their eyes against the bright light. He wore black jeans and a shabby leather jacket of the kind sported by the Copenhagen in-crowd of young artists and film-makers. But at least he wasn’t shorn like the really hard-boiled arty types with their cropped pates that made them look like convicts. In fact he was not bad looking with his dark, unruly hair and prominent chin.