A Table of Green Fields, Guy Davenport [ebook reader screen .TXT] 📗

—Four times. I'm not a baby. Ho, Samantha.

Samantha with her jacket over her head, wet.

—It's raining cats, dogs, and Swedes. The streets are rivers. Nikolai! You count, of course. Gunnar's not in the world when a work fit's on him. When he went full throttle on the Georg Brandes I had to feed him for two days and remind him to pee. Charming reversal: Nikolai practically unrecognizable in clothes, with Gunnar pretty much the way he was born. Reminds me of a horse 1 saw the other day in the paddock at Rungsted Kyst. He was the only gentleman among mares, and he'd slid out half a metre of pizzle, and was frolicking back and forth, ready for the party, in case anybody invited him. Ear-to-ear fun, Nikolai's face.

—One foot's here, said Gunnar to himself. The other one's there. Nikolai's going to grit his big square teeth and lay out the sandwiches and make coffee while there's an urgent party upstairs, if some of us take off our knickers.

—Don't have any on.

A sudden hug for Nikolai, and a kiss on the mouth.

—Don't get your feelings hurt. Be brave. Understand. We'll owe you a big favor.

Rain light. The coffee-maker was sort of like the one at home, with cannister and paper filter, reservoir in its back. Should he bolt? He would play it cool. That's how Mikkel

GUNNAR AND NIKOLAI • 55

would see it through, pants poked out in front and all.

Bedspring music from upstairs, and grunts. A sweet laugh. Swarm of honey in his testicles. We're breathing through our mouth, aren't we, Nikolai, and feeling reckless? We're pouring sugar all over the table, everywhere but in the sugar-bowl. We're rattling cups and saucers.

He put the bag of sandwiches on the coffee table. He sat, looking as if he had a folded fish in his pants. He stuck his fingers in his ears, instantly taking them out. This was a learning experience. In Gunnar and Samantha he had people even more understanding than his tolerant, sweet, fussily liberal parents.

He listened to the rain. He composed his account of what was happening, for telling in the tree house.

He was just unbuttoning his pants and easing down the zipper when he heard Gunnar padding downstairs.

—There's beer, he said. I see the coffee making. You're family, I hope you know. Leastways, you are now. O Lord, I didn't even take off my sneakers. There'll be comments made.

—You didn't take off your sneakers, Samantha said coming in wrapped in Gunnar's dressing gown. I'll take over. You've done it all for me, though, sweet Nikolai. I hope you grow up to be a billy goat like Gunnar. It's lots of fun.

—Didn't know I was so hungry, Gunnar said through a mouthful of sandwich. See how the back of the legs echo the whole figure? Nikolai stands as if he were ready to fight the world anyway, but here it's Ariel realizing that if he does what Prospero's ordering, he's free.

Samantha mussed her hand around in Nikolai's hair while reaching for Gunnar's beer to have a sip from.

—Is anybody ever free?

—Only if they want to be. Nikolai's free. How else could he have posed for Ariel?

—Yes, but children don't know they're free, and think of grown-ups as free.

—Am I free? Nikolai asked, munching.

—If you aren't, lille djævel, nobody is.

—Two glups of coffee, Gunnar said. Goggles, mallet, chisel.

Nikolai cleaned up, and went back to sweeping dust and marble chips into paper bags. Samantha was curled up in the dressing gown on the couch, having a nap.

Gunnar chiselled, whistled, chiselled. Nikolai watched as intently as if he were doing it himself. The stallion ran around his paddock at Rungsted Kyst, half a metre of pizzle dangling and wagging.

—There is no reality to time at all, you know? None.

Samantha woke with a vague smile.

—I had a wet dream, she said.

—Girls don't have wet dreams.

—A lot you know. Complete with orgasm, sweet as jam.

—In that case, Gunnar said, I'll follow you upstairs.

—There's something maybe I ought to tell you, Nikolai said. —What?

Sigh, bitten lip, silence.

—Nothing, he said.

THURSDAY

Samantha was on Fyn, visiting her aunt. Gunnar had spent the evening with Hjalmar Johanssen the art critic, who had come to see the finished Ariel. The morning had gone to photographers, the afternoon to Samantha and to seeing her off. And here was Nikolai's knock on the door.

—I've come to spend the night, so you'd better not let me in if you don't want me to. Don't look at me like that.

—Come in, Nikolai. It's late, you know.

—What's that supposed to mean?

—That your parents will be worried you're not home, for one thing.

—Call the Bjergs, if you want to. They'll tell you that Nikolai is in his jammies and fast asleep. Or reading, or watching T V, or whatever he's doing.

—How have you rigged that?

—I haven't. Nikolai has.

—Let me sniff your breath. You're not drunk. Breath's as sweet as a cow's. But obviously I've lost my mind.

—I'm Mikkel. We're best friends, me and Nikolai, tight as ticks. You have only seen Nikolai the one time I brought him around and told you he was Mikkel.

Gunnar sat down and crossed his eyes.

—Go on, he said.

—When Nikolai's mummy asked him if he'd pose for you, the plan fell into place. Nikolai has a girl who has the run of her house every afternoon, and she and Nikolai had already started fucking their brains out when this posing business dropped out of the sky. So I agreed to be him. As I have been. So every afternoon I've been here, he's been coming like a water pistol in the hands of a four-year-old.

—So, hello, Mikkel.

—Hi.

—Now that you've jolted me out of a year's growth, tell me again why you're here. Gently.

—Nikolai wants to pose for the Korczak. As my buddy, arms around each other, on the death march. That will even it all out, right? He got jealous when I told him about how close you and I have become, and about Samantha. The Korczak got through to him. He thought the Ariel old hat. He's the brainy one of us, you know. I've had to pass his parents off as mine. I was sure I'd slip up there. Did I?

—No. Not even with Samantha