He seemed hopeful rather than sure. Ritual or civic function. He made it sound so alien, but the men and women who had cut the trees, dug the post holes, woven the hangings, would have had the same concerns as us: hunger, love, irritation. It was probably something utterly prosaic: the fifteenth century equivalent of public toilets, or a tavern, or—given the unchanging nature of humanity—a combination. I could almost see a local burgher, drunk from celebrating the return of some trading ship and a handsome profit, staggering outside, twitching aside his velvet and pissing against the corner post.
The archaeology student went back to his task, nose just an inch away from the wood.
The western side of the Olsen Glass building looked like a slab of gold in the slanting sunlight. The entrance and lobby were on the south side. I was five minutes early. I stayed on the pavement.
When the lift doors opened and Julia stepped out, I watched her through the plate glass. It must have been warm in Borlaug’s office; the top buttons of her shirt were undone, the sleeves rolled above her elbow and her hair pulled up into a topknot. She looked alert and lithe, a dancer with a briefcase in the wrong building. When she turned her head this way and that I saw the movement of smooth muscle under her skin. I stepped inside the door. Her face lit, softly, like a candle.
“All settled?”
She patted her briefcase. “Signed, sealed and delivered. The preliminaries, anyway. Ah,” she said, as we hit the pavement, “what a lovely afternoon! I want a bath, a drink, and dinner. Followed by another drink. I feel like celebrating. It’s the start of my vacation.”
We were sipping our coffee and contemplating a liqueur. Well-fed, well-bred conversation hummed round us lazily. Julia sighed and leaned back. Light poured over her face, dividing at her nose and spilling over her bare shoulders and arms. Her dress, of a heavy grey silk, gleamed like oiled chain mail, and the tiny hairs on her forearms could have been made of platinum.
“This is when I would kill for a panatella.” Her laugh was low and rich and adult; it fumed under my nose like a fine Armagnac. “No need to raise your eyebrows like that. I gave up smoking six years ago, but this is when I miss it most. And the smell of cigars is delicious.”
“But, like coffee, they never taste as good as they smell.”
“True.”
I lifted my jacket from the back of the next chair and took a flat box from the inside pocket. “Your native guide decided you ought to have a souvenir of Oslo.” I laid it on the heavy linen tablecloth in front of her.
She touched the velvet lightly. I imagined how it might feel against her fingertips. The moment stretched, then she opened the box. She said nothing. I couldn’t see her eyes. She tilted the open box this way and that so that light ran over the polished pewter. “Aud, it’s beautiful.”
“Then it should suit you.”
She lifted it out, draped its supple links over her forearm. It was as though someone had turned woodsmoke into metal and laid it against her skin—which suddenly seemed darker, more mysterious and infinitely alive. “It’s heavy.” She ran it up and down her arm, playing, enjoying the sensation.
“The maker assured me that it’s been designed for comfort as well as beauty. The swan’s neck is also meant to represent Oslo.” The lines were simple and dramatic, the swan more suggested than actual.
“I have to try it on.” She stood.
“The bathroom is that way.” I pointed behind me.
While I waited the waiter came and asked if there was anything else we wanted. I ordered brandy for me, more coffee for Julia, and the check. I waited some more. No other diners were missing. She was just admiring herself in the mirror.
The check and brandy came. I paid one and sipped at the other, let it hang a moment at the back of my tongue until it seemed I would swallow more fume than liquid, and then Julia was sliding back into her seat, the gorget lying around her throat: swan’s neck around swan’s neck. She was right, it was beautiful.
She leaned forward until I could almost have kissed her. Her eyes were brilliant. “You have to tell me why. No flip answers. Why did you buy me this?”
“I don’t know.” I had said I don’t know more times since I had met this woman than during the rest of my life put together. “I saw it in the shop. The sunlight caught it. I saw it and thought of you.” Thought of you in Borlaug’s office, the way your lip sometimes almost catches on your bottom incisor when you smile, how much I wanted to see you smile. “I thought of how it would look on you. I bought it.” She listened with an odd, patient expression on her face that I could not interpret. I had not given her what she wanted to hear. I did not know what that was.
She stood suddenly. “Finish your drink. I want to go dancing.”
We walked the long way round, south along Akershusstranda, the last glimmers of twilight on our faces. The sky was indigo and ink and the people walking laughed with a shiver of excitement: it was spring, and Friday night in the big city. Julia’s dress slid back and forth over her hips and her gorget gleamed. She seemed on the edge of something—restless, unsettled. As we neared the club, the bass thump thrust a hand in my belly and stirred. My heart accelerated.
There was a line. The flashing neon sign over the doorway caught on piercings and leather and smooth faces. The music was a wall of sound. Julia lifted her face to it, as though it were the sun. She smiled, then laughed aloud.
The line moved slowly. Julia hummed to herself, moved with the music. The air felt wild.
When we reached the head of the line, the man at the door held out his hand.
“How much?” I asked.
“Sixty krone. And ID.”
I reached for my wallet.
“What did he say?”
“He wants to see ID.” I found my driver’s license.
“What do you mean, he wants to see ID?” She turned to him, and suddenly all that restlessness was focused. “Oh, come on. Just how old do you think I am?”
He just held out his hand a bit more emphatically. I gave him my license. He scrutinized it carefully.
“Oh, that’s just great. How old do you think she is? Sixteen? And I suppose you think we’ve flown all the way to this country and faked ID just so we can get into this club!” Her voice was fierce.
“Julia, he’s just doing his job. This is an over-twenty-six club.”
“A what?” Now it was my turn under those unwinking eyes. I looked right back at her.
“You have to be over twenty-six. How is he to know you’re twenty-nine?”
“Indeed,” he said, with a formal little half bow, “you look much, much younger.”
I thought for a moment she would hit him. She restrained herself visibly. “That, I suppose, is meant as a compliment. I don’t take it as such. Here is my license. If you won’t let us in here, just say so. Now give me that back and either let us by or not.”
He gave back the license and she brushed past him. I paid and followed. The music was like a living stream, pulsing between bodies, collecting thickly in dark corners, vibrating bone so hard it might have been cartilage.
She was already at the bar. “I ordered you beer.” She tossed down the shot next to the two glasses of beer and lifted a finger to the bartender—a big woman, all fat and muscle and chipped front tooth—who brought her another. “That pompous bastard.” She drank half the second akevit. “God, I hate this stuff,” then finished it anyway. “Why do people do that with ID? They make me feel…It’s the way they look at you, as though you’re trying to cheat them somehow. Look, look at my face. Is this the face of a twenty-four-year-old? No. Of course it’s not. It’s all bullshit, this show me your ID crap. Do I look like the kind of person who would lie just to get into this lousy club? I hate being accused of being a liar, of trying to get something I don’t deserve. And as for that crap about, ‘Oh, you look so young, ma’am…’ Ha! Compliment my ass. Why do you suppose anyone would think it was a compliment to be told you look young and unmarked by experience, that is, naive and an easy mark? Well, I am not flattered. I’ve earned this face!”