The trip so far had been a failure. He’d been concocting lies all week about where he’d been and what he’d done. She would be disappointed if she knew the truth. He’d gone so far as to stop outside an art gallery on one of his daily walks to take note of the exhibiting artist’s name so that he might tell Marie about the paintings. In truth, he’d mostly spent the week drinking in his room and, in the evenings, at the hotel bar. By Wednesday, he’d achieved a kind of mania that scratched and buzzed at him deeply, so much so that he was incapable of controlling his own decisions and actions. He simply experienced them. So when he got up and packed a small bag to take with him to the dunes, he found that each of his movements was deliberate, inevitable, and he did not stop to question himself. His body acted before his mind. It was out of character for him to agree to such a trip, or anyway out of character to actually follow through with it, but in the context of his behavior in Skagen so far that week, it made perfect sense.
In the mirror, he gave his face a close inspection and decided he didn’t need to shave. Then he showered and dressed, and met the Germans close to eight in the dining room. There was some awkward small talk as they made their way to the parking lot and more still when Anneke tried to insist he ride in the front seat and Lennart refused, a process that was repeated several times until Anneke gave up, which is how Lennart found himself sitting behind her, beside the bag of bird decoys, listening to her and Matthias argue in German.
Anneke turned around in her seat and said in English, “We’re just figuring out a new way to drive to the dunes. Matthias is being stubborn as usual.” She swatted at his shoulder with her hand.
Matthias smiled. He put the car in gear and eased out of the parking spot. “We’re off,” he said. Then he said something in German to Anneke and touched her leg tenderly.
Soon the city was behind them and the road opened up to a broad flat stretch of land where farms had been squared out across the sandy ground. The wind hummed somberly over the top of the car.
“I hate this song,” Anneke said and switched the radio off. “Lennart, do you know very much about the Mile?”
Before Lennart could answer, Matthias said, “This whole area,” and pointed back and forth across the landscape with a finger, “is very windy. The sand comes out of the sea on the west side of the peninsula and moves across the land to the east and back to the sea. The Mile is the largest migrating sand dune in Europe.”
“Funny to think about, isn’t it?” said Anneke. “Moving ground.”
In no time, they were off the main road, following the signs, posted in many different languages, to the parking lot at the dune’s edge. There weren’t many cars in the lot. Matthias parked near the trailhead. Along the ridge of the nearest dunes grass rattled in the wind.
Lennart helped take the equipment from the car.
“Many species of birds breed here in the spring,” Anneke said after they’d gone a little bit down the trail. She was breathing heavily with the weight of the bags she was carrying and the difficulty of walking in the deep sand. “In late autumn they come back on their migration south. We think these groups end up in Africa, maybe Italy. We’ve been hoping to find tags from other countries on the birds so we’ll know for sure. So far only the Netherlands and two from France.”
Lennart looked at the bag of decoys. He was surprised by how attentive he’d been to Anneke’s explanation. He had assumed he’d simply go with the Germans to the Mile and leave them to work while he walked around, maybe read for a little bit, enjoy what was sure to be one of the only warm days of his trip, certainly one of the only activities he could report to Marie, but the Germans’ work captivated him and he wanted to stay to watch. “Do you catch the birds?” he asked her.
“With a net,” she said. “You’ll see. We want to compare population sizes from this year and five years ago, when we came here last. If we see a decrease we know that there has been habitat destruction. Plovers, that’s the type of bird Matthias and I study, are a very common and robust species in the north of Europe. To see a decrease in their numbers would be ecologically discouraging.”
The wind was warm and he had to squint against the blowing sand. When they’d reached a spot at the foot of a tall rise, where there was an open space between dunes, Matthias dropped the bags he was carrying and said, “Here.”
They worked fast. Anneke stretched a large square of dark green nylon between two articulated poles Matthias had removed from a cylindrical case, unfolded, and driven into the sand about two meters apart. She and Matthias tied guy lines to each pole, pulled the lines tight, and fastened them to stakes anchored in the sand.
Using a length of rope, Matthias measured out a rectangle about the size of a small car. This didn’t take him long. Soon he was arranging more articulated poles on each side of the rectangle. He then spread out a net and stretched it to reach the poles.
While Matthias worked, Anneke took the decoys from the bag one by one and fastened a metal spike to the undersides. She held one up to Lennart. “Birds are like us,” she said. “They’ll always come to where they find others.” He’d never thought of himself that way but he supposed the morning had proved that he was.
“What happens when the birds land?” he asked.
“See the poles Matthias is working with?” Anneke said, pointing with a decoy. “The joints are hinged. The birds come in like this.” She brought the bird back toward her body. “They land beside these decoys and when the wind conditions are ideal, we pull on the line, the net rises up into the wind, and falls over the birds. It’s called a clap net.”
“Does it injure the birds?” asked Lennart.
“Rarely,” Anneke said. She picked up another decoy, pushed the metal spike firmly into the body, and placed the bird with the others. “We’ve named each of these wooden birds,” she said. “It’s funny to think about. This one is Frank. Do you have a family, Lennart?”
“A girlfriend,” he said. “She has a daughter.” Tove had just started school that fall. She was in kindergarten. Most days, Lennart walked with her the three blocks to her school. It was a part of his day he usually liked.
Anneke tapped the decoy on the sand. “Matthias and I aren’t really married. Well, he is. I was once, too.”
Lennart wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. She pushed a metal spike neatly into a decoy. He watched this. “I’m sorry?” he said.
“We’ve worked together eighteen years this fall,” she said without looking up from the birds. “When we travel for our research, we pretend we’re married. It started as a joke. I think Matthias was just too afraid to tell me what he wanted.” Lennart looked to Matthias, who was tethering the net to the poles forcefully. “The first time, we were in France, close to Dunkirk, in a hotel near the beach, I’ll never forget. We don’t talk about it during the rest of the year. Only when we’re on trips like this one. We stay together in one room, we sleep together.” She looked down at one of the decoys. “His wife has no idea. We travel twice every year for our work. Once in the fall and once in the spring. I imagine you think it’s terrible.”