Meet Me at the Museum

by Anne Youngson

  Karin had something to tell us, when she arrived, that would have worried me at another time, but we none of us spoke of it, afterward, and I found I could be detached. Was it good or bad, what she had to tell us? I could not say and would not let myself speculate. Her news was about Ben, the baby’s father. She had not told me that he was still sending her emails and, as the pregnancy went on, she was answering them, but without telling him about the baby. She had told me that when she realized there could be problems for her or the baby, she began to think she was wrong to keep Ben from knowing about his daughter. When she was recovering in the hospital, after the birth, she felt less sure. Then her friend found the book of poems you mentioned, and one of these is about the father. About the father bringing the mother and baby home from the hospital. It is addressed, by the mother, to the baby. The first line is: “I want you to know.” It was this poem that convinced her, and she sent Ben an email. She was looking for nothing from him, she told him, but she now felt it was not her right to keep Birgitt and Ben ignorant of each other. She, Karin, could not say whether Ben would choose to know Birgitt now, or whether she, Birgitt, would choose to know him, when she was old enough to know her own mind. All Karin could be certain of was that until that day, she would not give up responsibility for Birgitt. She might not even be prepared to share that responsibility. All she was telling Ben, she said (to him and to us), was that this baby had been born out of her egg, his sperm.

  He had replied, not with any complaints or even any expressions of joy, but with a flight time. He was going to arrive in Copenhagen on the morning of December 27. Karin told him she would meet him at the airport. Her idea was to take the baby. There would be no celebration of the first meeting of father and child, just a woman holding an infant in a crowded public space. Also, she would be able to judge, she thought, what her next steps should be—whether to invite him to the flat, for instance—once she had managed that first meeting, so it was important to arrange it so that all options of where he might stay or go next remained open. We, Erik and I, listened to her explaining all this and we said: “Your choice, your decisions.” Then we all sat on the sofa and watched the flames in the stove and the light catching on the white-, silver-, and gold-painted wooden globes I had hung from the ceiling.

  Of course, when the time came for Erik to take Karin and Birgitt back to Copenhagen, on December 26, I was full of worry. I said, should I come with you? No, she said. So I waited for all of the next day for word from her, and on the following day, she phoned. She asked if she and Ben could come and stay with me, for two nights. Yes, I said, of course, and I asked no questions. I wonder if it is easier for families who have the habit of talking. If I had always used words to let my children know what I was thinking and feeling, would that have been a better way of bringing them up and loving them and going on supporting them now that they are old enough to support themselves? I do not have that habit, and at the least it means I did not say anything that was the wrong thing to say at the time.

  When they arrived, I could see at once it might be possible to say the wrong thing. Both of them looked as if they were holding their breath. Ben is taller and bulkier than Karin and sort of tightly made—there must be a word; tell me what it is. He is dark and serious. I had expected someone much looser, perhaps because—I can admit this to you—I was still rather shocked at the way he and Karin had behaved, when Birgitt was conceived, and, unfairly, I’m sure, I blamed him. But he is sober and hesitant, which I also did not expect, because I thought, from the story of what happened when Karin was alone in a crowd and being bothered by strangers, he would be confident and forceful.

  When I opened the door, he was holding the baby, and this made me hope that everything was going to be all right.

  “We had to get out of Copenhagen,” Karin said as she kissed me. “Too many people.”

  They stayed for three days, and for the first two I did not see them very much. They went for walks and to places in the car, and they slept. Karin had one room, Ben another, but when the baby cried in the night I heard two sets of footsteps going to and fro with her. When they were not out or asleep, we sat and looked at the baby and talked about the most ordinary things: Ben’s job and Karin’s job, the book I am writing, Silkeborg, the town in Australia where Ben grew up. We spoke, of course, in English, and I thought of your delight at the accents on the trains you traveled in. I find the English Ben spoke much more solid, in his mouth, than the English voices I usually hear in the museum.

  As the days passed, I found out two things. Firstly, Ben is not so serious. He is diffident, but in normal times he smiles a lot, makes jokes, behaves like someone who believes life is fun. I like that. Secondly, they were, slowly, letting go of the breath they were holding and, as they passed the baby between them, they were building trust in each other.

  On the last night, Karin said:

  “Ben has three sisters, all older than he is. His mother has eight grandchildren already.”

  “Not one of them as cute as Birgitt,” Ben said.

  Karin touched his hand. “Obviously not, but my father talked about whether we should be worried your mother might need Birgitt to make her life complete, and I was just telling him it isn’t so.”

  “It was an honorable thought,” said Ben. “Thank you for thinking it.”

  Later, I said to Karin: “I think it is time you went back to Copenhagen.”

  “Tomorrow,” she said.

  So they went, and yesterday she phoned to tell me Ben has gone back to Australia. Before Karin goes back to work, she will visit him. Then he will visit her. They have given themselves a year to decide if they want to live on the same continent, in the same town, in the same apartment. Then, if the answer is yes, they will look at jobs available for him and for her and decide which continent, which town that will be. I hope the answer is yes. I hope the continent is Europe and the town is Copenhagen. But I do not mind. I am like a man standing on a shore watching people he loves rowing a boat. As long as they are safe in the boat, nothing else is so important.

  I am alone in the house now, when I am not in my office making notes for the book. Write soon, for I have no one else to talk to.

  Love,

  Anders

  Inverness

  January 11

  My dear Anders,

  Here it is, the bear. Only a little bear, as you will see, so fitting easily inside this envelope. I am posting this in Inverness, before I leave for home. I am waiting until I reach home, and my own computer, to see if you have written to me again. Something to look forward to. Although, going home is also something to look forward to. I have enjoyed myself with Mary and Vassily, but there are things I will not miss when I am back at the farm. It is a little cramped, in a trailer, even a big, two-bedroomed mobile home such as Mary and Vassily have. It feels like an insubstantial place to lie down and sleep. Also, it is hard to know what they are hoping I will do—cooking? cleaning?—and what they are hoping I will not interfere with—cooking? cleaning? They have been most welcoming and took me into Inverness to see the town and round the lochs and the mountains to see the scenery, but I felt I was an interruption. They have much to do: building the house, obviously, and keeping the trailer clean, but also building up the life they have chosen to lead. I sense that this is harder, more emotionally demanding than they thought it would be when they left the farm. They were so merry and excited then. Now they are more thoughtful and somber. But still happy. Still contented, one with the other.

  I will write again when I am home, and respond to whatever you have told me in the letter I am expecting to find.

  Much love,

  Tina

  Silkeborg

  January 18

  Dear Tina,

  The bear—does he have a name?—is sitting on my desk, watching me as I write. He has his back to the window, of course, because I am facing it. I will give him to Birgitt when next I see her, but I am not in a hurry to pass him on. It will be m
onths before she will be able to look at him and recognize him, and I can look at him and recognize him now. So I am keeping hold of him, to add to my collection of a feather, a square of cloth, and the letters. I like the way you have made his mouth turn up in a smile. I can imagine you were smiling as you did this piece of sewing. I am smiling, looking at Mr. Bear’s smile and picturing your hands holding him as mine are holding him now.

  I think I will give Mr. Bear a name. I wanted to name him after the man who was part of the team sent to dig the Tollund Man out of the peat and transport him to Copenhagen, under the direction of Professor Glob. This man did not reach Copenhagen but died of a heart attack while the excavation was taking place. I have always thought how sad it was to die lifting such a find as the Tollund Man out of the earth, never having the chances we have to learn more about this body, so well preserved. Never to have left the bog alive, and yet not to have his body preserved as the Tollund Man’s was. Though his body is long gone, I thought that giving his name to this little bear would be giving him the chance to take part in the later stages of the story that he never lived through. However, I have not been able, sitting here at home, to find out what this man’s name was, so I believe I will call the bear Peter, after Professor Glob. Professor Glob is, after all, responsible for introducing us to each other, so to speak. If you had already named him, you must tell me.

  Thinking of names has made me remember seminars I have taken part in, with archaeologists, curators, and conservators, which were arranged by the marketing people responsible for making visible and understandable to people who are not archaeologists, curators, and conservators what it is we work with so diligently. The seminars were intended to find more ways to make this happen—the visibility and the understandability (is that a word?)—and one of the topics the marketing people wanted us to discuss was giving names to the bog people. Calling the Tollund Man Knut, for example; the Elling woman Eva. I argued strongly against this. The figures, which have been preserved through a combination of circumstances, are people unknown to us. It would be an empty pretense to give them names from which, before long, we would create characters. They were known to those they lived among and to those who killed them. They are known to us only as men and women so perfectly preserved that they might almost, but not quite, be asleep. To give them names, said the marketing people, would make them seem more human. But, I said (and not only me, fortunately), to give them names would make them only human, rob them of their mystery.

  The knitted bear has made me remember all this, and now I am wondering about my idea of giving a man’s name to an object made of wool. But I think in using his name I am paying homage to Professor Glob. If we gave the Tollund Man a name that was not his, we would be insisting on knowing him as if he were a man like us.

  Tell me what you think.

  Thank you for the bear. I did not remember to say that at first.

  Love,

  Anders

  Silkeborg

  February 6

  Dear Tina,

  You must forgive me for writing before you have answered my last letter, but I have become impatient. Is that word too harsh? I mean to say I am impatient for your reply and it has not come, and I am fearful that this is because I have upset you in some way, or because something has occurred to prevent you from writing to me, and then, of course, I begin to imagine what that might be. I do not think of myself as someone with a good imagination, but in the matter of thinking of disasters that might happen, my imagination is too good. Last night I could not sleep and I went downstairs and sat facing the window in the dark, with the moonlight picking out the shapes of my few ornaments and giving me just enough light to see that, however sad I might be feeling, Peter the bear is still smiling. This made me hopeful that you are also still smiling and have some reason for your silence that is a joyful reason, which you will explain to me when you have time. I resolved I would write to you again without waiting longer, just to tell you that I am missing hearing from you. You have made it possible for me to talk of things I have never spoken of before, and to understand what has been hidden. I am peaceful now, as I was not before; happier. I wanted you to know.

  Love,

  Anders

  Bury St. Edmunds

  February 8

  Dear Anders,

  I wish I could stitch a smile onto my face to match the smile on the bear, but I cannot. Everything has changed. No. Nothing has changed. It is just that I have all at once discovered that I was wrong in the way I understood everything to be. I have your letter about Karin and your letter about the bear. I think maybe we should stop there. With you happy. With me having shared your happiness. I do not want to burden you with my unhappiness.

  Tina

  Silkeborg

  February 9

  Dear Tina,

  I do not understand. How can we stop? You must know how important it has been to me, talking to you. You have brought me from misery to happiness. Without ever seeing your face, touching your hand, sharing a meal. I cannot believe you would deny me the chance to do the same for you. You must tell me what has happened. Please.

  I will not stop thinking about you and wondering what it is, until you write again. I will not stop writing to you, until you reply to me.

  Love,

  Anders

  Bury St Edmunds

  February 16

  Dear Anders,

  I am sorry. You are right. I owe you an explanation. I thought I would be unable to write this down, but now I remember that writing things down, to send to you, has been helpful to me. Perhaps telling you the story will be helpful again.

  I came home from Inverness a day earlier than I had planned. I found that Mary, Vassily, and I had spent as much time together as we needed to, for the moment, in the circumstances. So I caught a train home and texted Andrew to come and pick me up when I arrived in the evening. This time I changed at Edinburgh as well as York and Peterborough, and the daylight, while it lasted, was gray and foggy and the darkness was murky, all the lights we passed fuzzy with mist. I was beyond weariness by the time I reached Bury St. Edmunds. Andrew was waiting for me past the ticket barrier, and I was relieved to see him there, ready to take my case, to give me a hug. I had thought I would be pleased to be home, but when we drove into the yard, I felt no pleasure at all. Just a dull sense of a tiresome journey ended. I walked in out of the mist and there was Edward, sitting in his shirtsleeves with his collar and his hair ruffled up from taking off his overalls, with a pot of tea made, keeping it warm with a tea cozy I knitted years ago. In a diamond pattern. I was proud of myself for having knitted something so complicated, at the time, and whenever I have noticed it since—it is used every day, but you know how it is with things you use every day; you only become aware of them once in a while—I have been pleased to know I made it, and it is handsome and well made.

  I felt warm, for a moment, noticing the nice tea cozy, knowing Edward had taken his overalls off and made the tea because he knew I would appreciate it. The tea would be too strong, and the overalls would be lying on the floor in the scullery waiting for me to pick them up and put them in the washing machine, but still. He had tried. I drank the tea, and Edward told me everything that had occurred since I left (though not quite everything, but I will come to that). What he said was familiar to me. He talked as he always does, but I heard it more clearly because I listened with the recent memory of how Mary and Vassily had talked, to me and to each other. Edward told me everything that had occurred that annoyed him. A walker not in control of her dogs; a planning application for a solar farm, which would mean construction traffic on the lanes; the failure of an agricultural machinery supplier to deliver a part within the promised twenty-four hours; no beef drippings in the fridge when he fancied spreading some on a slice of toast; a favorite pair of socks that he had looked for all over the place and failed to find. If anything good had happened in my absence, he did not think to mention it.

  If I had not been so
tired, I would have gone at once to find the beef drippings and the socks. I knew pretty well where both of them would be. I realize, of course, that it is because I have always gone at once to find the things Edward wants that he can never find them. He has no capacity for searching; why should he have, when he has only to call my name and whatever it is will be found? But that night I was too tired, and these things he had lost—he was struggling to remember what else it was he had looked for and could not find, for there was definitely something else—were not needed at that moment, so I went to bed.

  I expected the bedroom to be a trampled mess of discarded clothes and dirty sheets. But it was as clean and tidy as I had left it, and this, like the tea and the tea cozy and the discarded overalls, made me feel I should appreciate Edward’s little kindnesses, which do not come naturally to him and therefore represent a deliberate effort. So tidy was the bedroom, I wondered briefly if he had slept in another room, to leave it as he knew I would like to find it, but I fell asleep before I had half completed this thought.

  When I woke up in the morning, Edward was already gone. I lay looking around the bedroom and thought: Edward must have asked Sarah to come in and make the bed. But the sheets were the ones I had put on it before I left. Another room, then, I said to myself. I would look after breakfast, because it would be my job to restore it to order.

  You will be ahead of me by now. Wondering why I am wasting so much paper on tea cozies and clean sheets. Did I know, while I was brushing my teeth, pulling on my sweater, combing my hair? I could not say. I was still safe in the before; I may have known there would be an after, but it was not yet.

  I went down to the kitchen. Tam and Andrew were there, as well as Edward. They had the tang of fresh air on them, the sharpness of wind still on their clothes and in their hair. Andrew stood up to pour me a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove, and I said to Edward, as I sat down, idly—idly, as if this were a question just brushing the edge of my mind, to be dealt with before matters of more substance were discussed: