Katherine Carlyle

by Rupert Thomson

  “What are you doing, David?” Lydia says.

  He pats his pocket, then appears to relax. “Sorry. I thought I left my passport in the taxi.” But he knows exactly where his passport is. He’s lying to her and he’s not sure why.

  The next day, as they scour the city for evidence of me, they take a shortcut between some old wooden houses. Lydia stops by a window. Between the net curtains and the glass panes, arranged on the thin shelf of the sash, is a row of snow globes. Lydia suggests they go inside. Though my father is eager to keep moving he doesn’t want to seem inflexible or stuck in his ways — and it’s hard at this stage in their relationship to deny her anything. Reluctantly, he agrees. The two men are there, just as before, one folded into the armchair by the counter, the other curved against the shelves, oddly boneless. Despite himself, my father feels a stirring of curiosity. The atmosphere intrigues him. Something otherworldly, anachronistic. The tin-lined ceiling, the dark boards on the floor.

  “How old is this place?” he asks the man who is leaning against the shelves.

  The man surveys him, the glitter in his eyes reptilian and cold, then he turns and speaks to the other man, who might or might not be his brother. He fails to answer my father’s question. Probably he didn’t understand.

  My father doesn’t pursue it. Looking round, he finds himself drawn to the left side of the room, and then to one snow globe in particular. Inside the plastic dome is a replica of the airport where he and Lydia landed the day before, every detail faithfully re-created. The long low terminal building. The blue-and-white light aircraft mounted on a pedestal outside and placed, bizarrely, in among some birch trees. The chunky pale-pink control tower. Tiny passengers thread their way across the tarmac towards an old-fashioned turboprop that is preparing for takeoff. My father is about to call out to Lydia when he sees something that almost stops his heart. At the top of the steps that lead up to the plane is the figure of a young woman with hip-length hair. Dressed in a dark-brown coat, she glances over her shoulder, taking one last look at the place she is about to leave behind. The air between my father’s eyes and the plastic dome seems to contract, congeal.

  “David?” Lydia says. “What is it?”

  He doesn’t reply. Instead, he snatches up the snow globe and carries it over to the man sitting by the counter. He points at the inside of the dome.

  “This girl,” he says. “Have you seen her?”

  The man looks past my father at the other man, and his lips draw back to reveal receding gums.

  My father pushes the snow globe up against the man’s face, too close to focus on. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you. Where did she go?”

  Lydia touches my father’s arm. “He doesn’t understand, David. He doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He shakes her off. The man does understand. Both the men understand. He’s convinced of it. They’re communicating, all three of them, at a level beyond language.

  “Tell me where she is,” he says, “or I’ll call the police.” He searches for the word in Russian. “Militsaya.” He seizes the man by his lapels, hauls him to his feet and shouts into his face. “Militsaya!”

  The man begins to shake, as if he has a fever — he’s shaking all over — then he opens his mouth, showing all his teeth, some of which are thin as matchsticks, and he’s shouting too, in a high-pitched voice, like a bird.

  Lydia steps back into the shadows. She’s used to thinking of herself as practical, efficient, but the situation frightens her. She has no idea what to do.

  The snow globe slips from my father’s hand and smashes on the floor.

  Everything stops.

  My father lets go of the man, who slumps back in his chair. The man’s chin rests on his chest, and he’s panting. His hair has fallen over his eyes. It occurs to my father that the man might be a cripple, or an epileptic. Or even mentally deficient. The other man leans down and straightens his brother’s clothes, then whispers in his ear. There’s a thin acrid smell, like blown lightbulbs or melted fuse wire. Lydia still hasn’t moved.

  The man in the chair is saying something in Russian. The same words, over and over. This time it’s my father who doesn’t understand. The man reaches for a pencil and paper. With a trembling hand he begins to scribble.

  It’s a number.

  A price.

  He says the words again, then aims a finger at the shattered globe. He seems to be pointing at the tiny figure in the cashmere coat. She is still poised at the top of the metal staircase, still glancing nostalgically over her shoulder, but the plane has lost a wing, and the airport is in pieces, and the granules of snow are scattered across the dark wood floor.

  As my father stares at the broken globe, the man comes out with a simple quiet sentence. My father doesn’t know what the man is saying. I do, though. I know exactly what he’s saying.

  If you don’t pay, your daughter will die.

  /

  A few nights later I rise up slowly through several layers of sleep. My feet are so cold they feel separate from the rest of me. The clock says twenty to three. A symphony is playing on the radio. Stealthy apprehensive music. Feelings that aren’t permitted. A cleansing wash of sound from the strings, but then anxiety and turbulence from the brass instruments. I turn the volume down and listen. There are no noises in the corridor, not tonight. Bohdan is in Pyramiden, perhaps. Once I have rubbed some warmth into my feet I leave the bed and walk to the window. I never tire of looking out at this unlikely place; I still marvel at the fact that I am here. The smooth white sports field, spotlights casting soft-edged circles on the snow. Buildings that seem unnaturally motionless, as if braced against the cold. One of the older houses sinks, lopsided, into the earth. To the left and lower down, not far from the old canteen, is the wooden church with its blunt black spire. The lights have been left on, and the two windows glow, sinister as the eyes in a Halloween pumpkin.

  I’m about to turn away when a shift in the shadows to my right distracts me. A polar bear shambles down the slope, moving like an athlete, with a loose easy muscularity, its coat a musty yellow white. The breath stalls in my throat. Once on level ground, the animal rears up on its hind legs. Head swaying on its powerful neck, it lifts its muzzle and sniffs and scours at the air. Then it drops lightly back on all fours and disappears into the darkness beyond the football pitch, and I’m left standing at the window, buds opening inside my body, a tingling on the surface of my skin. Torgrim told me that polar bears do most of their hunting on drift ice. From April onwards, though, the ice begins to melt. Polar bears can survive without eating for eight months, but they are so hungry by late autumn that they will go almost anywhere in search of food. All the same, I can’t quite believe what I’ve seen. Back in bed I reach for the radio and turn the volume up again. The symphony isn’t over yet. The music has an insistent rhythmic quality — risks are being taken, avenues explored — and I lie awake until it finishes.

  When I walk into the library the following morning Zhenya’s eyes are swollen and I suspect she has been crying. I ask if she’s all right. She shrugs and doesn’t answer. Later, over a cup of dark sweet tea, she tells me that she and Gleb had an argument the previous night, and that she couldn’t sleep for hours afterwards. It was about money, and about their son. She wants to return to Ukraine but Gleb thinks they should stay on, perhaps beyond the summer. He claims it would be an investment in the future. If you don’t have a present, she told him, there isn’t any future. After that he said cruel things, hateful things. He’d been drinking, of course.

  “It’s hard to be in this place.” Zhenya gives me a direct, almost accusing look. “Sometimes I don’t understand why you are here.”

  “I don’t have a husband,” I say, “or any children either. I’m free to go where I want.”

  “You have no boyfriend?”

  “There was someone.” I sigh, then look away. “It’s over now.”

  “Your heart is broken? That is why you came?”
/>   “No, no. Nothing like that.”

  Zhenya’s eyes are still fixed on me. “Strange you have no boyfriend,” she says, “a girl who looks like you.”

  Outside, the darkness is absolute, even though it’s the middle of the day. It has been like this since November 12, when the last of the light disappeared. I pick at a loose thread on Mrs. Kovalenka’s sweater, then reach for my cup. The thin clean smell of tea.

  “I can’t tell you why I’m here,” I say, “not now.” I hesitate. “Perhaps if I get to know you better.” And then, in an attempt to lighten the mood: “If you stay for long enough.”

  “So that will be my reward,” Zhenya says matter-of-factly, and without a trace of sarcasm. “To hear your story.”

  “It’s a long story. I’m not sure how to tell it yet.”

  “Does it have an end?”

  “No. But it has two beginnings.”

  “A story with two beginnings and no end.” She looks beyond me, into the library, where all the books sit undisturbed. “That’s something new.”

  Her dry delivery makes me laugh. “You’re very funny, Zhenya.”

  “Really? No one’s ever told me that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “My husband doesn’t think I’m funny.”

  “Well, he’s wrong.”

  She takes her cup over to the sink and stands with her back to me for a few moments, not doing anything, and I worry that I might have caused offense. Then she looks at me, over her shoulder. “I feel better. Thank you.”

  I finish my tea and join her at the sink.

  “Guess what I saw last night,” I say.

  /

  Winter grips. Satellite images show the town from above, blurred, buried, close to being obliterated by whiteness. A southeasterly rushes between the buildings, shrill and relentless, and the cloud cover is dense and low. I ask Zhenya if the wind has a name. In most countries, I tell her, winds have names. Chinook, meltemi. Tramontana. Maybe it does, Zhenya says, but she isn’t aware of it. The streets are deserted except for when the miners return from their shifts, lights shining on the front of their orange helmets, faces wrapped in scarves or balaclavas. The temperature has plummeted twenty degrees since my arrival, though the wind-chill factor makes it feel more like thirty. In the evenings I make endless cups of tea and coffee and sit in bed with my hot-water bottle, learning Russian or listening to the radio. If Bohdan’s keeping vigil in the corridor I haven’t heard him.

  On the first Saturday in December I arrange to have dinner in the bar of the hotel. It’s an extravagance — I will have to pay in Norwegian kroner, like a tourist — but I’m tired of cooking for myself and I feel like a change from the canteen. That night, as I pass the half-open door to the kitchen, Ivonna looks round. We say good evening to each other, but Ivonna’s expression is neutral, as always. Everything is the same as I remember it — the dark-red tablecloths, the pine-clad walls that gleam like glass, the vodka and Toblerone behind the bar. What I’m unprepared for is the presence of two middle-aged men, seated where the doctor used to sit. One of them is balding, with a beard. The other has fair hair and pink cheeks. They’re deep in conversation, though they fall silent and look round when I walk in. My old table is set up for me, with three or four pirozhki, some sliced white bread, and a jug of processed apple juice. As soon as I sit down Ivonna brings the hot part of the meal — a small plate of cannelloni and a piece of grilled meat.

  Later, when I’m standing by the electric kettle, waiting for it to boil, the man with the beard asks if I’d like to join them. They are scientists, he says. From Denmark. I thank him, then introduce myself and take a seat.

  The fair-haired man pours me a vodka. “You’re American?”

  “No, English.”

  “Bottoms up!” He raises his glass. “That’s what you say in English, no?”

  “Not very often,” I tell him. “Usually we just say ‘Cheers.’ ”

  “Oh.” He smiles ruefully, then drinks.

  “But it’s not wrong,” I say.

  The man with the beard tells me he works as a botanist. The two men have been to Svalbard on many occasions, though this is their first visit to Ugolgrad. I’m surprised to see them, I say, transport being virtually nonexistent at this time of year. They were lucky, the bearded man tells me. Their university contacts in Longyearbyen managed to secure them a lift on the Russian helicopter. They are regular visitors to Ny-Ålesund, he goes on, the scientific community that acts as a center for research into climate change. I ask if it’s true that the Norwegian government have built a doomsday vault on Svalbard.

  The fair-haired man breaks in. “It’s near the airport. You didn’t see it?”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t know it was there.”

  “That’s a shame. It’s beautiful.”

  Since the materials used in the top half of the vault include mirrors, stainless steel, and prisms, he tells me, it reflects light throughout the summer, acting as a kind of beacon or focal point in an otherwise bleak landscape. In the winter it’s even more spectacular. A network of two hundred fiber-optic cables means it gives off a constant, muted white-and-turquoise glow. A Norwegian artist by the name of Sanne designed the installation.

  The botanist takes over. Svalbard was chosen for the project on account of its comparative security, he says. Permafrost is one factor, but the absence of tectonic activity is also significant. The vault itself is located 130 meters above sea level, in the side of a sandstone mountain. Even if the polar ice cap were to melt, the site would remain dry. Locally mined coal provides power for the refrigeration units that cool the crop seeds to the recommended minus 18 Celsius. Four and half million seeds will eventually be stored inside the vault, to be used in the event of global catastrophe.

  He hesitates. “You’re smiling.”

  What he’s saying reminds me of my own origins. He might almost be describing me.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I was thinking about something else.”

  Worried that he’s boring me, perhaps, he changes the subject. The flora is astonishingly varied on Svalbard, he tells me, partly due to the warming influence of the Gulf Stream, and partly on account of the seabird colonies, which provide natural fertilizers. Roughly a quarter of the flowering plants are completely unknown in Scandinavia. There are twelve different species of whitlow grasses, for instance, though he has only ever spotted seven. The fair-haired man interrupts. He works as a marine biologist, he says, but his real passion is bird-watching. On Svalbard you can see king eider ducks, gray phalaropes, and fulmars. You have to be careful with fulmars. If you encroach on their territory they spit a rancid liquid at you.

  The two men are enthusiasts, and eager to share their knowledge, but after a while, inevitably, the conversation shifts. They are amazed to find someone like me in such a remote place, especially at such an inhospitable time of year. They couldn’t quite believe it when I walked into the bar. Am I alone? Surely not.

  I tell them I have come to Svalbard for the peace and quiet.

  “Peace and quiet?” the botanist says. “That is — how do you call it in English? — an understatement, no?”

  The two Danes are laughing. They’re both a little drunk. The marine biologist is curious to know how I spend my days.

  “I work as a cleaner,” I say, “and I’m learning Russian in my spare time. I’m keeping a journal too.” I talk about my drawings of abandoned interiors. The pink house near the quay, the old canteen. “Now it’s dark all the time, though, I’ve started writing.”

  The botanist exchanges a look with his colleague. “We must be interesting. Then she will write about us.”

  “I’ll write about you anyway,” I say.

  The two men find this very funny.

  “Ah yes,” the botanist says, shaking his head. “The English humor.”

  The marine biologist lifts the vodka bottle. “Another drink?”

  I thank the men for their company, but plead tiredness an
d rise out of my chair.

  “Can we walk you home?” the botanist says.

  “That’s very kind,” I say, “but there’s no need. It’s really close.”

  Outside, the night is so cold that breathing is difficult. My throat and lungs feel scoured by the air. I tip my head back and the sky towers above me, layer on layer of blackness. The moon is a round hole, small and brilliant. Light streams through it from another, brighter world.

  I take my usual shortcut, behind the back of the school, then through the playground with its warped collapsing hut and its marooned blue rowboat, and up past the new canteen. The vodka simmers deep inside my body. I’m already looking forward to being home and lying in the dark with the radio on. The botanist’s words come back to me. We must be interesting. Smiling, I climb the short flight of steps that leads up to the front door of my building.

  I’m standing at the foot of the stairs, by the fire extinguisher, feeling for my key, when somebody grabs me from behind and clamps a hand over my nose and mouth. Without looking, I know it’s the man in the green jacket. Bohdan. He must have been waiting in the shadows just inside the door. His palm is rough, like the heel of a foot. It smells of nicotine. He wraps his other hand round my middle, trapping my arms, and drags me away from the stairs. I kick backwards. Catch him on the shin. He twists my head so violently that colors explode before my eyes. White, then purple. I can’t cry out, though. I can hardly breathe. I think about biting his hand but it would be like sinking my teeth into cardboard or leather. It’s hard to believe that his hand and my face are made of the same thing.

  He hauls me back outside, into the dark. I let myself go floppy as a doll, as if I’ve passed out or given up. My weight doesn’t seem to trouble him, though he’s breathing noisily, through his mouth. The reek of vodka hangs around him in a cloud. He’s drunk, as always. I have to use that to my advantage. He might be strong but he’s bound to be sloppy, careless, unsteady on his feet. I’m sure I’m faster than he is. More nimble. If I can just wrench free of him I don’t think he’ll be able to catch me. Where’s my door key, though? I no longer have it. I remember a chink and then a tinkle as it bounced off the fire extinguisher and landed on the floor. I see it in my mind’s eye, pewter-colored, lying on the concrete.