by Cai Emmons
What surprised Bronwyn most was that Diane invited Matt. He’ll be your chaperone, Diane explained, but something tells Bronwyn that’s not the whole story. She still has a hard time imagining their mysterious meeting in Cambridge. To think that Matt approached Diane sight unseen and they had lunch together! Initially, Bronwyn resisted having Matt join them, afraid he would be a distraction. But Diane insisted. He would be useful, she said, though she didn’t specify how. Even now it’s hard for Bronwyn to resist Diane’s will entirely, and she can’t pretend that memories of her interlude with Matt in New Hampshire don’t still haunt her.
Diane pulled this expedition together quickly. She already had plans to come to the Arctic to grease her relationship with Dmitry Retivov, the newly appointed director of the Tiksi weather station where the Arctic Cloud Project gets a significant portion of its data (daily cloud cover, daily surface temperatures, measurements of the seasonal variability of the active layer above the cryotic soil, among other things). When Bronwyn agreed to come, Diane postponed her travel dates by a couple of weeks to allow them to get flights and visas, and for Bronwyn to get time off from her job. Matt, currently jobless, had no difficulty making himself available.
So here they are, Matt in the seat beside her and Diane across the row, about to land in Tiksi, Russia, above the Arctic Circle where the Lena River meets the Laptev Sea, one of the most northerly places on earth inhabited by humans.
They spent the last two nights in Yakutsk, recovering from jet lag, making plans, and equipping themselves, Russian-style, for the cold. Dr. Fenwick insisted on purchasing for Bronwyn an ankle-length sable coat which the Russians say is the only foolproof way to truly armor oneself against the frigid temperatures. The coat now lies over Bronwyn’s lap like a drowsy pet. It’s the kind of garment that could get you killed on the streets of Cambridge by animal rights activists. Matt refused the offer of a fur coat, having equipped himself before leaving with expensive, high-tech Patagonia gear used by Himalayan climbers. Diane has an ankle-length goose down coat that has served her well. All three of them have fur-lined hats with ear flaps and fur-lined mittens. Yakutsk was nine degrees Fahrenheit when they set out, and Tiksi is likely to be colder.
The plane banks right as if they’re coming in for a landing. Matt reaches over and squeezes Bronwyn’s sweatered arm. She turns and gifts him with one of her dazzling smiles. She is like the Aurora Borealis. He has developed a whole new series of metaphors for her, all of which have to do with the natural forces with which she is so attuned. She has come into his life like the rising and setting sun, surprising him with an evanescent beauty, never the same from moment to moment and always eluding his grasp. She travels through rooms surreptitiously as mist, etching herself on the air so her presence lingers, her moon-white skin, her chute of resplendent hair, her jade eyes parsing and refracting the light like dewdrops. Since Walden Pond she has been out of her funk and sure of herself, and it makes him irrationally happy. To hell with the life stability he was supposed to be seeking. Coming here with her to the land of his lineage, the country where his father was born, is an unparalleled adventure, not one that Buzz or Metcalf or any of his old school buddies is likely to happen upon. He’s always known he would have to come to Russia someday, but never expected it would be in a situation like this. His visa says he’s a journalist writing an article about Diane Fenwick’s research. There is no article in the works. Diane said that to assure his credibility. The Russians don’t want him to be writing anything about them, but it’s fine for him to be writing about her.
Every once in a while Dr. Fenwick and Bronwyn withdraw for a private talk, and he is acutely aware of being a third wheel. In the late afternoon of their first day in Yakutsk, which bills itself as the coldest city in the world, the two women went off for a walk together and to purchase Bronwyn a warm coat, leaving Matt in the hotel room to fend for himself. The hotel offered little in the way of distraction and it was depressingly dim, so he ended up going out for a walk of his own.
It was snowing, light flurries that ignored gravity. The city felt shrouded and exotic, more foreign than any of the foreign places he has visited, including Thailand and Zimbabwe. There was no feeling he’d arrived in his homeland. He studied the pedestrians, many of whom looked Chinese, with black hair and swarthy faces and almond eyes, not at all like his father, who is pale and brown-haired with a tendency to freckle. Russia is a big country, with many ethnic groups, and Matt felt stupid for having thought all Russians would resemble his father. He wished he’d made more of an effort to learn some Russian. All he knows are a few useless phrases his father taught him. No flying from fate. Every man to his taste. One fire drives out another. Not the most useful for daily conversation.
It was already getting dark, and he could see his breath swirling like smoke in the lamplight. His hooded orange mid-thigh parka, rated for extreme cold, was doing its job nicely so far. He’d had to ask his parents to front him the money—something he hadn’t done for years and hated to do—but Ivan was thrilled that Matt was finally visiting Russia and was eager to fork over some cash. He gave Matt more than he needed. Now Matt must remember to express his gratitude with some gifts.
Back at the hotel Matt dozed a little under the covers of his single bed and woke when he heard commotion in the adjacent room where Bronwyn was staying. There was a knock on his door, and when he opened it Bronwyn and Diane were there, giggling like teenagers, wanting to come in. Bronwyn was wearing a grayish-silver fur coat that came down to her ankles and a fur-lined hat with earflaps like the hats of so many men in the streets. She held out her arms and spun for him, laughing. “Isn’t it ridiculous? But it’s so warm.”
Later that evening they went out for dinner at a small café where they had beef and boiled potatoes and cabbage and sauerkraut which looked unappetizing but was surprisingly good. As they ate he could tell Bronwyn and Diane had had an intimate talk. He will have to accept the fact that, for the duration of this trip, he will be the odd man out.
“Oh my god, the Arctic Ocean,” Bronwyn says. “Look.” He leans over her and peers through the plane’s small window and, though the opening is too small to see much, he sees black water and a shoreline and he pictures an elementary school globe and feels himself whirling to the top of it.
“Actually, more precisely, it’s the Laptev Sea,” Bronwyn says.
“Well, by all means, let’s be precise,” Matt says, which earns him another coveted smile.
For so long Diane has been dreading this trip which she suspects will be confrontational. Dmitry Retivov isn’t the first difficult man she’s had to face in her professional life, and no doubt he won’t be the last. She’ll do what is necessary to get the data released—a free flow of data from this station is important for dozens of international projects, not just hers—but that doesn’t mean she likes being a hard-ass. The tone of the trip changed, however, when Bronwyn agreed to come. Now Diane feels almost giddy with the secret hope that maybe, just possibly, Bronwyn will do something to freeze the permafrost and impound its stores of methane. What happens in the next few days, may have a profound impact on retarding the Earth’s catastrophic warming. She is trying to keep her hope sealed, as Bronwyn does not respond well to pressure, but within Diane the hope is robust. How much richer, albeit stranger, her life has become since Bronwyn returned to it.
Diane watches Matt leaning over Bronwyn’s shoulder to peer out the window. It pleases her irrationally. Perhaps this trip will solidify Bronwyn and Matt’s relationship. Diane has never played the role of matchmaker before, and she’s not really a matchmaker now, as she had nothing to do with Bronwyn and Matt meeting one another, but she is definitely doing what she can to encourage the relationship. Matt is so much better suited to Bronwyn than that Reed character was. Diane honestly found Reed to be insufferable. He was perfectly friendly and nice, but you could see his unfettered ego from miles away. But Matt, he’s an old soul, Diane could see that from the moment she met
him. Maybe it’s the Russian in him.
They are seconds from landing now, and the small plane registers every updraft and downdraft as they approach the runway. Matt looks poised to kiss the hair at the back of Bronwyn’s head, but he doesn’t. What nostalgia this sight invokes in Diane. The memory of young love—or at least younger love. She misses Joe and is remembering a certain trip they took to Big Sur early in their courtship. They went on a walk in a torrential rain storm that would have been hellacious under most circumstances, but their mutual infatuation tinged it with wonder and romance. She remembers picking several fragrant bay leaves and stashing them in the pocket of her rain jacket where they stayed, holding their scent for years.
The wheels smack the asphalt, and the pilot breaks hard, and they bump and swerve along the short runway. What a relief to be no longer airborne. For all the flying Diane has done, on specially equipped data-gathering planes that fly through clouds, she has never flown without anxiety. She knows too much about the unpredictability of pressure, temperature, wind shear. She can never credit a pilot with knowing as much as she does.
52
It is only two-thirty in the afternoon when they set out in a taxi from the tiny Tiksi airport, heading toward the town center. The sun is already low and the sky exerts the long dark pull of Arctic winter. There is little traffic and few signs of commercial enterprise, only a hodgepodge of unlabeled concrete buildings, flat-roofed and barracks-like. Some are emblazoned with fading red hammer and sickles; others appear abandoned; yet others are in various stages of collapse, buckling at their middles likes supplicants. A few idle bulldozers suggest interrupted demolition projects. The town’s population has diminished since it was a thriving military base during the Cold War, and now it truly looks like an abandoned outpost, the edge of the known world. Bronwyn struggles to hold onto her excitement as they bounce along the empty rutted streets, passing not a single car. Beyond the town stretches the dark water of the Laptev Sea, shallower than most ocean water, but more mysterious. It’s hard to imagine who would want to make a home in such an inhospitable place. It guts her spirit, makes her see all human enterprise as shockingly temporary.
Diane keeps up a steady patter, filling Matt in on the various efforts of the Arctic Cloud Project, how they have expanded into a study of the permafrost as well, and giving him a crash course in how clouds both cool and heat the Earth. Some clouds primarily reflect and scatter incoming sunlight, thereby cooling the Earth, while others absorb the infrared radiation and reradiate it back down to Earth, causing warming. They need satellite data and surface data to learn as much as they can. They need to know the heights of clouds, and whether they are composed of water or ice. Matt appears spellbound, but for Bronwyn this is Atmospheric Sciences 101 and she only half listens. She pictures them above the Arctic Circle, beyond reach of the usual comforts of the Western world. Disconnected. Sudden departure wouldn’t be easy. Kansas and Oklahoma seemed vast and unfamiliar to her, built on a different scale from the New England landscapes she’s used to, but this, this is vaster yet, a place unto itself, withholding its beauty from outsiders. Will she ever be able to know a landscape like this, merge and commune with it, overcome the feeling that it’s simply cold and brutal?
They stop in front of one of the smaller buildings of blue concrete and unload their bags. The taxi driver, bearded and wearing a fur coat almost like Bronwyn’s, speaks negligible English and Diane struggles with her rudimentary Russian to work out how much they owe.
Matt and Bronwyn stand in the frigid twilight looking north. It is early November, still six weeks shy of winter, but it feels like winter already, the calendar date a mere formality. Winter must almost be a permanent condition of life here, perhaps a perennial state of mind.
“Are you warm enough?” she asks Matt. His luggage, containing the high-tech gear he’d bought at great expense, did not show up at the Tiksi airport. Now all he has for warmth is an L.L. Bean parka he used for cool days in Florida.
“I’m okay.” Hunching his shoulders and tapping his feet like a hyperactive child, he does not look okay.
“You should have gotten a coat like mine.”
“It doesn’t look as if there’s much getting to be done here. I should have worn my gear on the plane. Stupid.” He laughs and they both gaze north to the water. Two children run by, chasing one another, giggling with mischievous glee. She tries to borrow their energy.
Diane is done with her negotiations. “I have no idea if I’ve been scalped or not. Oh well, are you set? Poor Matt. Don’t look so forlorn. We’ll find you something warm.”
They enter the blue building, four stories, the size of a small apartment building, and find themselves in an empty room with blue walls and a single chair. A long hallway leads off it. Diane has told them that this is the same place she stayed five years ago, run by a woman named Lubov. It is part hotel, part B&B, part SRO. A little odd, she warned, but they will find Lubov to be wonderful.
“It’s not the way I remember it somehow,” Diane says. “Yoo-hoo? Lubov?”
Moments later Lubov hobbles in as if arriving from another century. She must weigh at least two hundred and fifty pounds, and she wears an uncountable number of colorful skirts over brown trousers and laced ankle boots. On her upper body she has layered a series of equally colorful wool sweaters. Her gray braids are fastened on top of her head as if to coronate her round red face. One of her hands is missing a pinkie. She regards them suspiciously for a moment before recognition sweeps over her and she lunges at Diane, enfolding her.
Lubov, spilling Russian with single words of English interspersed, escorts them up a flight of stairs to an apartment with two small bedrooms containing single beds, a modest living room with a foldout couch, and a bathroom with a clawfoot tub, sink, and toilet. The women are assigned to the bedrooms, Matt to the foldout couch. The décor is sparse and functional, with the exception of the beds which are equipped with luxurious goose down quilts.
“All right?” asks Lubov. “All right?”
Diane nods, and an enthusiastic half-mimed conversation about food ensues.
By 4:00 p.m. it’s already pitch black. Lubov serves them cabbage soup and black bread in a small dining room on the ground floor. The three other tables in the room are all empty. Diane suspects they are the only people staying here; they certainly have Lubov’s full attention. The last time she was here—five years ago when they were just initiating the Arctic Cloud Project—she came with colleagues from Indiana, Michigan, and Alaska, a French man and a Swede, and a very funny woman named Lorna from the National Science Foundation who became a good friend. The seven of them made for an unexpectedly raucous and fun-loving travel group, and Lubov encouraged their hilarity by sitting with them at the end of each meal to practice her English, and bringing tea and vodka and cake to their rooms after dinner when it was still light. It was July then and quite a bit warmer, and it never got dark, but for a slight surreal dimming at midnight as if the sky were on a rheostat. The woman from Alaska and the Swedish man were flirting unabashedly and finally slept together on the last night. If any climate could push people to coupling this was certainly it.
By contrast to that group Bronwyn and Matt are more subdued; along with the frigid temperature, and the scarce light, the mood of this expedition is entirely different. Still, Diane feels optimistic. Matt is proving to be a very amiable travel companion. Presently he is trying to get Lubov to identify the kind of meat that lies in an uncordial lump at the bottom of their bowls. Though it is obviously meat—boneless and minced and shaped into a columnar meatball resembling a small baseball bat—it is not recognizable. Lubov keeps repeating a word Diane doesn’t understand. Matt is about to venture a taste. He pouches his lips and oinks for Lubov, who shakes her head, no not a pig. He quacks and flaps his arms, cheep-cheep. Lubov, laughing, shakes her head again.
“I’m doing the whole poultry and bird family here,” he says. “Okay, not pig, not poultry.” He moos imploringly
at Lubov, and she continues to shake her head and laugh.
“Help me out here.”
“Lamb?” Bronwyn offers.
“Baa, baa,” Matt says.
No, no, asserts Lubov, perhaps only to encourage Matt’s further performance.
“Now I’m running out of animals.”
“Heavens,” says Diane, “You’re just beginning. What about deer, or reindeer, or goat?”
“What does a reindeer say?”
“Do the antlers,” Bronwyn says, getting into the spirit of things.
Matt rises from his seat and uses his raised arms with splayed fingers to suggest antlers. He leaps across the room, bumping empty chairs as he goes. “I’m prancing here.”
Lubov still shakes her head, still laughing.
“You haven’t done bear,” Diane suggests.
He descends to all fours on the floor and lumbers around them, growling and sniffing, clawing the table legs, endearingly unafraid of appearing the fool, the classic behavior of a youngest child. Lubov whips out a phone, a surprisingly modern-looking smart phone, and, still shaking with laughter, she photographs Matt who plays to the camera. What Diane would really like is a wide angle shot with all four of them in the frame, capturing them in this small room in Siberia on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough.
“Okay,” says Matt, taking his place at the table again and reining in his body so as not to catch the floral tablecloth with his knee, “let’s just call it the mystery meat. We really don’t want to find out that it’s horse or dog. I had horse once, by accident, in Italy. That’s what you get for not knowing the language.”
Lubov goes to the kitchen and returns with a tray of more food, tea and cookies, a hunk of cheese, a bottle of vodka, tea cups, and glasses. She pulls an additional chair up to the table and seats herself, as was her habit on Diane’s last visit. There is no place for excessive formality here above the Arctic Circle. Here you are either friend or foe, and if you are friends, you stick together to help each other out in whatever way is necessary. Perhaps this is the uncomplicated reason why people choose to live here, or choose not to leave.
