Travelling Light

by Sandra Field

  ‘Thank you for telling me about her,’ Kristine said huskily.

  He shot her a keen glance. ‘I watched you and Lars when you were here together. And I was reminded of me and my Sonja when we were young and in love.’

  Briefly Kristine closed her eyes. If Lars were to walk in the room right now, wouldn’t she know it in her heart? Of course she would.

  ‘Harald is coming for the weekend,’ Jakob said slyly. ‘He’ll be going back to Oslo on Sunday.’

  And if she went back to Oslo, what would she do? Walk up the front steps of Asgard between those two hideous griffins, and announce to Lars that love was like the many petals of a rose?

  * * *

  Harald arrived on Saturday, marched up through the field to the vegetable garden where Kristine was weeding, and said coldly, ‘What the devil’s wrong with you, sending Lars away like that?’

  Kristine had not had an easy week. She hauled out a thistle, shaking the earth from its roots, and said, ‘Mind your own business, Harald.’

  ‘I thought you had more guts than that!’

  ‘I have a perfect right not to marry Lars,’ she said haughtily. ‘Or anyone else for that matter.’

  ‘Not when it’s as clear as the nose on your face that you’re crazy about him.’

  ‘So is that your definition of love? Being crazy about someone doesn’t seem much of a basis for a lifelong relationship.’

  ‘OK, OK, it was a poor word to use. To me it looked as though you loved each other from the start.’

  ‘It’s not nearly that clear to me,’ Kristine said shortly. ‘As I keep saying to the point of boredom, I don’t even know what love’s all about.’

  ‘That’s obvious.’ But the anger had died from Harald’s face, and as he sat back on his heels, absently brushing flecks of earth from his trousers, his face was unusually thoughtful. ‘Do you want to know what I think love is, Kristine?’ he said soberly. ‘It’s our only way of dissolving our separateness. Take me and Gianetta. Two people from different cultures and speaking different languages. Yet when we’re together—and I don’t mean just when we’re in bed, although that’s part of it—sometimes we’re able to become one.’ He paused, searching for words. ‘To complete each other and do away with the barriers we spend so much of our lives creating and defending. Open to each other.’ He shrugged, adding with his normal charming smile, ‘I can’t explain it. It’s got something to do with basic body chemistry, too—and you and Lars certainly had that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kristine said with painful truth, ‘we did have that.’

  ‘Why don’t you give it a second try? You could go back to Oslo with me tomorrow,’ Harald said lazily, flicking an insect away from her face. ‘In the meantime, do you want me to bring you a beer?’

  ‘Please,’ she said, and watched him lope down the hill.

  The beauty of a many petalled rose. The human need for closeness and union, the trust that allowed for vulnerability. The stormy-tempered wife who chose to live far from the freedom of her island home because she loved her husband. Maybe, Kristine thought, knitting her brows, there are as many definitions of love as there are people, and I have to discover and trust in my own.

  The sun lay warm on her bare arms, the scent of freshly turned earth filled her nostrils, and she missed Lars so acutely that she almost cried out with the pain of it. If she went back to Oslo with Harald tomorrow, she could see Lars tomorrow night—hear his voice, feel his hands on her body, watch laughter glint in his blue-grey eyes. Know that she made him happy. Be happy herself. And begin the long journey of trusting in that happiness, a journey she would take not alone, but with him at her side.

  The back door opened and Harald appeared carrying two bottles of beer. Kristine bent to her weeding, and wished with every ounce of her strength that it was Lars who was walking up the slope.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ON SUNDAY evening at eight-thirty Harald drew up in front of the stately stone mansion called Asgard. ‘I’ll wait here,’ he said, a mocking gleam in his eye. ‘This is your scene, babe.’

  Kristine said with great dignity, ‘That’s outmoded slang, Harald.’ Then, in sudden panic, ‘What if he’s not here?’

  ‘Leave a message. With anybody but the grandmother.’

  She took a deep breath, got out of the car, and shook out the folds of her blue dress. Then, holding herself very upright, she climbed the steps, ignoring the griffins, and rang the doorbell.

  Her heart beating like a trip-hammer, she heard the lock scrape and watched the door swing open. As the butler inclined his head, she asked for Lars in her best Norwegian.

  ‘He is not at home, madam.’

  Kristine bit her lip, wondering if the extent of her disappointment was any measure of this elusive emotion called love. ‘May I please speak to Fru Bronstad?’ she asked.

  He ushered her in the door and led her down a long hall to a parlour she had not seen before, a room minimally less gloomy than the dining-room, with, Kristine saw with a quiver of pain, a bouquet of old-fashioned roses on a mahogany armoire. Marta Bronstad was seated in a straight-backed wing chair, reading. She looked up when Kristine came in, and said with neither overt surprise nor particular warmth, ‘Miss Kleiven...do sit down.’

  Kristine chose the nearest chair, which was oak, carved like the prow of a Viking ship and about as comfortable. She said with a calmness she was far from feeling, ‘I came to see Lars.’

  ‘He isn’t here.’

  So this was to be like a chess match, thought Kristine, a series of moves by players who were opponents. ‘Please could you tell me when he’d be home?’

  ‘I have no idea. He’s left Norway, Miss Kleiven.’

  Whatever Kristine might have expected, it had not been that. Her poise deserting her, she croaked, ‘Left Norway?’

  Marta Bronstad inclined her head, then sat in a majestic silence waiting for Kristine’s next move. Fighting down an utter desolation that Lars should have gone from Asgard, Kristine felt the beginnings of anger, healthy and alive, lick along her veins. Deliberately she went on the attack. ‘Lars asked me to marry him,’ she said, ‘but I turned him down.’

  The old lady said coldly, ‘So why are you here looking for him?’

  It was the most difficult question she could have asked. ‘That’s a personal matter between the two of us,’ Kristine said, and knew it for a weak reply.

  Marta Bronstad folded her hands tidily in her lap. ‘Unfortunately, as I have already said, he is not here.’

  ‘When did he leave?’

  ‘Early in the week.’

  ‘When will he be back?’

  ‘He promised to come home for his birthday in October,’ Marta said with a smile that was a mere movement of her thin lips.

  October. She would have to go back to Canada long before that. ‘And will you tell me where he is?’ Kristine asked.

  ‘Why should I, Miss Kleiven?’

  Her eyes blazing, Kristine abandoned discretion in a glorious sweep of rage. ‘If your grandson loved me with all his heart and wanted to marry me—you note I say “if”, Fru Bronstad—would you want him to be happy with me? Or would you stand in the way of his happiness because I’m a footloose and penniless Canadian of whom, clearly, you disapprove?’

  ‘You have a talent for going to the crux of the matter,’ the old woman said with grudging respect, the diamonds flashing on her fingers. ‘Now I have a question—why did you turn him down?’

  Too angry to be anything but honest Kristine said, ‘Because I was afraid. Afraid of love and afraid of commitment. Afraid my marriage would turn out like my parents’ marriage.’

  ‘I have no patience with cowards,’ Marta snapped. ‘Life can be cruel—you take what joy you can and you don’t waste your time searching for guarantees.’

  Inadvertently she had been given another definition of love, Kristine thought, and remembered that Lars had linked tragedy with his grandmother’s life. She said carefully, ‘So there are no guar
antees?’

  ‘None.’ Staring at a point beyond Kristine’s shoulder, the old woman said, ‘My husband, whom I loved, was killed in the war. My only son, Lars’s father, died in an accident along with his wife when Lars was six. No, there are no guarantees.’

  Instinctively Kristine offered no easy sympathy. ‘You love Lars,’ she said.

  ‘I love both my grandsons. For although love can destroy us with its pain it will not release us from its claims...that is perhaps what you fear, and you are right to do so.’

  It was a strange moment for Kristine to feel a kind of peace settle on her for the first time since Lars had left Fjaerland. ‘Thank you for being so open with me,’ she said.

  Marta leaned forward, impaling Kristine with her fierce old eyes. ‘Do you love Lars?’

  Kristine’s gaze was drawn back to the roses, whose dusky petals were clustered around the flowers’ golden hearts. ‘Yes, I love Lars,’ she said, and in a flood of incredible joy knew her words for the truth. She was not certain what she meant by those words; but in the sureness of the emotion that filled her heart was the germ of her own definition of love.

  The blue eyes that she raised to Marta’s face were brilliant with the wonder of her discovery. The old lady leaned back in her chair, adjusting the folds of her dark skirt. ‘Lars is in New York, being interviewed for the UN job—I will give you the name of his hotel.’

  Kristine let out her breath in a long sigh; she had not expected such generosity. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, and thought how odd it was that she should find out she loved Lars in the gloomy parlour of a house she disliked, with a woman who was a redoubtable foe.

  ‘Will you go there?’ Marta asked.

  ‘Yes. I have an open return ticket...I’ll go as soon as I can get a reservation.’

  Marta said with a touch of malice, ‘Maybe he’ll no longer want to marry you.’

  Buried deep down, Kristine was afraid of the same thing. She said dulcetly, ‘If that’s true, then I was right to decline his offer of marriage, was I not?’

  To her utter amazement, Marta Bronstad laughed, a laugh creaky from disuse, but nevertheless a laugh. She rang the silver bell on the table beside her and said, ‘You’ll join me in a glass of sherry, Kristine?’

  Knowing she had won a major victory, Kristine for the third time said, ‘Thank you,’ and hoped her jaw hadn’t dropped at this quite unexpected use of her first name. The parlour did not look nearly as gloomy as it had when she entered, and on the armoire the roses glowed with pagan colour.

  * * *

  Giddy with jet lag, Kristine stood on the edge of a New York pavement and studied the entrance of the hotel where Lars was staying. It was within sight of the tall green trees of Central Park and the expensive bustle of Fifth Avenue, and she was quite sure its brochures would describe it as exclusive.

  While it was time for a mid-morning coffee break in New York, Kristine’s inner clock was telling her it was four a.m. The overnight transatlantic flight had allowed her very little sleep and had left her with a dull headache, so that she neither felt nor looked her best. Her pack, containing her entire wardrobe, her tent, and her sleeping-bag, was strapped to her back; she was wearing jeans and her best shirt.

  The commissionaire standing on the plush red carpet outside the hotel was dressed in a smart olive-green uniform, while some of the guests walking in and out of the brass-edged doors could have graced the covers of Vogue. Kristine straightened her spine in a way Fru Bronstad would have approved, and approached the door. She smiled at the commissionaire and said, ‘Good morning.’

  He touched his peaked cap and held the door open for her as if she were a visiting duchess. Much encouraged, Kristine crossed the foyer, receiving a quick impression of glorious hothouse flowers and twinkling chandeliers, and said to the young man at the reception desk, ‘I believe Lars Bronstad is a guest in your hotel. I wonder if you could page him for me, please?’

  The young man was not as gracious as the commissionaire. He gave Kristine’s attire a swift, critical assessment before saying with automatic courtesy, ‘One moment, madam.’

  He touched several keys on his computer and waited for the screen to display, then said coolly, ‘Mr Bronstad checked out earlier this morning.’

  ‘Checked out—you mean he’s gone?’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘Do you know where?’ she gasped.

  The young man’s voice hardened imperceptibly. ‘No, madam.’

  ‘He didn’t leave a forwarding address?’

  ‘No, madam.’

  Nor would you give it to me even if he had, Kristine thought. Striving for composure, she said with a touch of sarcasm, ‘Thank you for your help,’ and headed for the brass-edged doors. The commissionaire saluted her, and she walked away from the hotel exactly as though she had a destination in mind.

  She kept walking until she came to a fast-food chain, entered and ordered coffee and a doughnut, then unstrapped her backpack and sat down in one of the booths. The coffee was excellent and the doughnut fresh, but try as she might she could not focus on either of these simple pleasures.

  She was alone in one of the world’s largest cities. She did not know one soul among the several million souls surrounding her. She had very little money. And she had missed Lars by a matter of an hour or so.

  Maybe he’s gone back to Norway. Maybe he’s gone to Mexico or Guatemala or any of a dozen places that his new job might take him. Maybe he’s already forgotten you.

  A fragment of doughnut caught in her throat. Coughing, Kristine buried her face in her paper serviette and wondered what on earth she was going to do.

  She had an emergency fund of four hundred dollars that she had never touched in her two years of travelling. It would get her home to Ontario. Even if her father didn’t want to hear Jakob’s message she should deliver it to him.

  She didn’t want to go home to Ontario. Not yet. She wanted to be with Lars.

  She could wait four or five hours to allow for the time zones, and phone Marta Bronstad on the off-chance that Lars might have spoken to her with his whereabouts. If that didn’t work, she could phone the UN and try and track Lars that way—which was probably the modern equivalent of looking for a needle in a haystack.

  What she couldn’t do was hang around in New York for more than a couple of days. She couldn’t afford to.

  She whiled away the time with a second cup of coffee, a visit to the Metropolitan Museum, and a light lunch. Then she found a public telephone and began the complicated procedure of phoning Asgard, whose number Marta Bronstad had written down for her. After a series of clicks and beeps, the phone began ringing. The butler answered, Kristine asked for Fru Bronstad, and in a few moments the old lady’s tart voice came over the line. Speaking as distinctly as she could, Kristine said, ‘This is Kristine Kleiven; I’m in New York. Lars checked out of his hotel this morning.’

  With the nearest thing to warmth in her voice Marta Bronstad said, ‘I’m glad you phoned. Lars spoke to me last night after you left—he’s gone to stay at the country home of one of the directors for three days, his name is Charles Franklin, and his home is in a little place called Lambourne, in the Catskills. The nearest town is Tranton. Do you think you can find that?’

  Kristine was busily taking notes in her address book. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m sure I can.’

  ‘I chose not to tell him you were flying to New York...I hope I did the right thing?’

  Marta Bronstad was actually asking her opinion. Kristine said solemnly, ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Do you have money for a proper hotel? New York can be a very dangerous place for a woman on her own.’

  ‘If I managed in Istanbul, I’m sure I can manage in New York,’ Kristine said drily.

  There was a small silence. Then Fru Bronstad replied with equal dryness, ‘Most certainly you will make a more interesting addition to the family than Sigrid. Good luck, my dear.’ And she rang off.

  Kristine was le
ft gaping into the receiver. Hurriedly she replaced it and began searching for the number of the bus station. After a frustrating exchange with a computer, she discovered she could get a bus to Lambourne leaving in an hour and a half. She spent more money on a cab to the bus station, found the right booth and bought her ticket, and then went upstairs to wait.

  The bus station seethed with eddying crowds of young men whose vocabulary seemed entirely composed of four-letter words and whose anger was a palpable and frightening force. Kristine kept her pack firmly at her side and was glad Marta Bronstad couldn’t see her now.

  Eventually the bus pulled out of the station. Although it was a two-hour trip, Kristine was too keyed up to sleep; she gazed out of the window as the concrete of the city was replaced by fields and trees and small towns, and wondered whether Lars would be pleased to see her.

  Quite clearly, having travelled all the way from Oslo in Norway to Lambourne in New York State, she was not simply dropping in to see an old friend. Rather, she would be intruding on a private country home, on a gathering to which she had not been invited. A gathering, moreover, associated with Lars’s new job. If he no longer loved her, she could be an acute embarrassment to him.

  There was a very strong likelihood that he didn’t love her any more. After all, what had he said to her in those last dreadful moments on the peak of Dalsnibba? ‘I don’t need to be with a woman whose life is run by fear... You can’t give me what I want.’

  Kristine was so tired that her head seemed to be floating somewhere above her body. Closing her eyes, she watched as the head grew arms and wagged an admonishing finger at her. Grow up, Kristine, its voice said crossly. You saw the strength of Lars’s feelings for you. He hasn’t changed his mind in little more than a week. He left you—and the country—because he couldn’t stand being with you when you’d done such a fine job of convincing him you didn’t love him. Get real!

  She opened her eyes and the head disappeared. Her legs were twitching with tiredness and her eyes felt scratchy from lack of sleep. She was insane to be chasing Lars across the width of an ocean, travelling burdened down with doubts and fears, her destination in another person’s hands.