October turned seamlessly into November as it always does. One day, running in the woods, Ben smelt woodsmoke. He had to stop, hands on knees. He was almost sick at the overwhelming memory of another run, another smell of woodsmoke—and then a fire. Nate. He hadn’t thought about Nate for many months, but it was a year ago he’d died in Ben’s cottage. A year. Ben was thirty years old, but, at that moment, he felt defeated by age.
Soon they had the first snowfall. Ben had spent the last few weeks chopping wood, a job he enjoyed, stacking the cords neatly under the eaves of the house. He had a fireplace in his room, and now evenings were spent reading Danish in front of the fire with Radulf and wine. It was safer this way. One evening, he’d foolishly accepted an invitation from Amy to her birthday party. It hadn’t gone well. Why could he not stay, indeed? She was single; he was single. She was offering. He was…desperate. He wondered later, when he’d made his pathetic apologies and left, whether if she’d been amanhe’d have weakened or not. With men it was so much easier, both understanding the unspoken. Women, in his limited experience, didn’t. If he’d stayed and slept with her, she would expect more.
The following day, in the library, he was very glad he’d been strong. She seemed relieved as well, and when Gabby wasn’t looking offered him a leftover slice of birthday cake. All his new girlfriends in the library seemed to think he wasn’t eating enough. He craved the attention and allowed their concern. He’d even let Gabby measure him up for a sweater she was knitting.
§ § §
Toward the middle of November, while he was fixing shutters to the windows around the house, his phone buzzed. He yanked it out.Hello Ben
His fingers were too cold to text, so his reply came out aswhere uck r u?He had to think for a while to remember the English.
The reply came back very swiftly:not with u and that’s all I think about
He groaned and sat down on the ice-covered chair.How is he?The inevitable question.
He’s dead
Ben sat back, hardly believing what he saw. He wasn’t sure what to text but decided to sendI’m sorry. For you. Honestly
Thank you. I kept promise. That all that important no?
Keep one now and come home
Soon. Have things must do first. Home 1st week December?
December? No. Now!
Maybe u have missed me?
If u want 2 no how much have missed u come home.
Irritating child. I c u soon.
Ben tipped his head back and caught a stray snowflake on his cheek. It was time to go home. He couldn’t bear to tell Ingrid, so he didn’t. He continued to cut wood for the next few days so she’d have enough to last for a small apocalypse.
On the third day after Nikolas’s message, he went back to the Mikkelsen summerhouse. He called in to see Hans, but he wasn’t there so he talked to his little daughter for a while about mermaids and then about Radulf. At a suitable moment, he asked her where the keys to the house were kept. He wanted to say good-bye—to what, he wasn’t sure. But as someone who believed in fate, he also believed in omens. Something about Nikolas’s last communication had set the hairs on the back of Ben’s neck rising and had caused him sleepless nights. He couldn’t shake the terrible feeling he wouldn’t see Nikolas again, that the vast and awful country which had once swallowed the little boy had finally taken the man.
The house was slightly different than he remembered from their earlier visit. Some of the timeless quality had gone. Hans had taken the dustsheet off the piano and lit a fire to keep the damp of the bitterly cold day out. Ben wanted to see the bedroom. Here again, some of the sheets had been pulled off the bookcases. He wandered around, looking at fossils and globes, models and books. Now he could read the titles. Above one bed, someone had thrown knives at the wall toward a hand-drawn target. It was not as accurate as the throwing he’d seen on a T-shirt in another time and another place. He guessed Nikolas had had some practice since he was a little boy named Aleksey.
He replaced every sheet with great care and went out, locking the house behind him. On a whim, he went down through the gardens toward the sea. This was the way Aleksey must have gone every morning to swim. Now the sea was extremely unappealing; Ben hadn’t swum for weeks. There were signs of ice forming at the edges as he walked along from the villa toward a small boathouse.
Something caught his eye in the sea. He braved the wind and turned, squinting. Unbelievably, he could make out the shape of a man swimming. It seemed impossible. Flakes of soft snow were falling on the grey sand. Radulf’s coat had a speckling like white spots. He watched the man, worried for him. He was coming into the shore. Eventually, he reached shallow waters and stood, emerging totally naked from the ocean. Ben squinted. The man was tall, deeply tanned and very muscular. He had very short hair, shaved at the back and sides but left longer on the top, and the long strands fell into his eyes. He lifted his hand and swept them back impatiently as he strode from the freezing water.
“Nikolas?” There was no way he could fail to recognise that gesture, despite the man being almost a stranger. It seemed Radulf agreed. He began to bark and fetch unpleasant offerings from the high tide mark to give to this apparition of salt and freezing air.
The man looked over at them. “Ben?”
“What the??” He didn’t know the word for fuck in Danish, having lived with an elderly schoolteacher. “How are you here? What?? When?? I mean? Oh, my God—Nikolas?”
Nikolas came fully out of the water and embraced him, icy cold, so strong, so…different. He frowned, held Ben off. “Are you speaking Danish?” he asked in Danish, so Ben replied in the same language.
“Yeah. I am. For you. It was supposed to be a surprise. What’re you…? I mean…Christ. Look at you! What’ve you done?”
Nikolas laughed and continued in the now shared language, “I started to eat. For you. It was supposed to be a surprise. And then I started to swim and run, and now I’m very fat!” He grinned, knowing just how superb he looked. Every muscle was beautifully defined. He must have weighed at least twenty pounds more than the last time Ben had seen him—and it was all muscle. He wasn’t quite as muscular as Ben, but there wasn’t much difference. Suddenly, Ben realised Nikolas had started to shiver. He ripped off his jacket and wrapped it around him. “Fuck.” Sometimes English was such a good language.
Nikolas switched to English, too. He grabbed Ben’s arm and dragged him toward the boathouse. By the time they got there, he was pretty incoherent in any language and had to be helped to dress in the clothes he’d left in a pile. He handed Ben back his jacket and dressed him in it, zipping him up and pulling up the collar. Then he stayed his hand and put it to Ben’s cheek. He frowned, dragging his thumb across the stubble; he ran his fingers up through the very long, black hair; put his thumb back to Ben’s face, to his lips, pulling the bottom one down; he put a finger to Ben’s green eyes, making them close one at a time; then combed the hair once more.
Ben caught the roaming hand, held it off, then came very close and kissed Nikolas’s cheek, then his forehead, then lower, his lips. Nikolas opened his mouth to the kiss, and they were back, everything recognised and known, everything just as it had once been with no secrets or distance between them.
