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

to spend the night and share hamburgers and polsers in the middle of the floor. A coffee plantation in Kenya. A lighthouse on a rock in the Orkneys, gulls blown past his windows, bleak dawns over a black sea, secure by a neat fire.

But this was just as good, a courtyard with a tree and rows and beds of flowers, a sculptor's studio with a pitched glass roof.

Along a pomp of dahlias in a line, rust mustard brick and yellow, he walked with a steady casualness to the blue door. A wicker basket beside it, for the mail. A stone jug with sweet williams. His mother was keen on botany, so he knew the names of flowers, weeds, and trees. And maybe an angel with nothing better to do would see him through this.

A card fixed to the door with a drawing pin: Gunnar Rung, the name Mama had said. He was about to push the doorbell when the door opened, wrecking his cool.

—Hello, he said in as deep a voice as he could manage. I’m Nikolai Bjerg.

The man who opened the door was tall, in jeans with a true fit and an Icelandic sweater, and was much younger than Nikolai had expected. His eyes were as friendly as those of a large dog.

—You're on time, he said. Gunnar Rung here. Come in and let's see you.

Books, drawings on the walls, tables, an unfamiliar kind of furniture. And beyond, through wide double doors slid open, under a glass roof, a tall block of squared rock that must have been hauled in from an alley in back. Nikolai looked at as much as he could, all of it wonderfully strange and likable, with quick glances at Gunnar, who was goodlooking and had wads of rich brown curls, almost not Danish, and hands as big as a sailor's.

—It's an Ariel I have a commission for, Gunnar said walking around Nikolai, looking at him through framing hands. Your mother thought you might do, and would like posing. Have you ever posed before? It's not easy, and can be tedious and boring. There's also a King Matt I'm to do, a boy who's king of an unimaginable Poland, and you might also be him. We'll have to see how you and I get along. What about some coffee? Do you drink it?

—Sometimes. I mean, yes.

Coffee! Gunnar was treating him like a grown-up, so don't trash it.

—You can undress while I'm putting the coffee on. Won't take a minute.

—Everything? Nikolai asked, instantly regretting the question, unbuckling a scout's belt of green webbing, offering his charmingest and toothiest smile.

—That's the way the stone is to be, without a stitch.

Eyebrows bravely up, Nikolai backed out of his short denim pants and knelt to untie his gym shoes. Briefs and thick white socks he pulled off together. Then his jersey over his head.

—Two sugars? There's real cream. You'll get over blushing. Good knees, good toes.

—Sorry. Didn't think I'd blush. The statue will be the same size as me? Hey! Good coffee, you know.

—Life size, oh yes. Keep turning around. Raise your free hand and stretch. Do you think you can keep to a schedule for posing?

—Sure. Why not? I really didn't think I'd go shy. Being naked's fun. My grandma and grandpa, Mama's mama and daddy, are Kropotkinites, and I'm boss in my own pants. My folks are as broad-minded green as they come, no barbed wire anywhere, good Danish liberals, to the point of being fussy. You know what I mean?

A mischievously knowing smile from Gunnar.

—Park your cup, there, and stand on your toes, arms over your head. Legs out more, each side. We can't do a Thorvaldsen nor yet an Eric Gill. I'm what they call a neoclassicist, a realist, and out of it. What's being boss in your own pants mean?

—A licensed devil, according to Mama. Liberal points for what boys do anyway, says Papa. Who's King Matt?

—Another character in a book, by a Polish doctor. Actually the work will be of a boy carrying Matt's flag. At an awful moment. I'll tell you all about it while we're working. You can read the book.

Eyes askew, Nikolai ran his tongue across the plump tilt of his upper lip. While we're working.

—You have kids? I guess they're too little to pose.

—No, and no wife, either, just Samantha, whom you'll meet. Arms out. Twist around to the right. You're going to do, you know? You're Ariel, all right.

2

Nikolai sat on his clothes piled in a chair. Coffee break.

—Why was Ariel naked?

—He was a spirit of the air. Like an angel.

Nikolai thought about this, guppying his coffee and sprucing the fit of his foreskin.

—Angels wear lots of clothes. Bible clothes. Steen and Stoffer are neat today, did you see? I'll bet this Ariel you're copying me for had pure thoughts and never a hard on, right? There was a Steen and Stoffer where Steen sees monkeys in the zoo jacking off and he says O gross! and his mom and pop are suddenly interested in showing him the cockatoos and toucans. Parents.

—What a face, Gunnar said, running his fingers over his cast of Bourdelle's study of Herakles. The model was Doyen-Parigot, military bloke. Physical fitness enthusiast. Used to arrive on his horse at Bourdelle's in full soldierly fig.

—Looks like an opossum, wouldn't you say?

Punktum punktum,

komma, streg!

Sudan tegnes

Nikolaj!

 

Arme, ben,

og mave stor.

Sadan kom han

til vor jord.

 

—Killed at Verdun. You make Edith glance heavenward when you twitch your piddler. Christian Brother from the Faeroes she is, you know. Though I once had a girl model who played with herself as liberally as you, and as unconcerned for convention, and Edith rather took to leaning around the door to see, in passing.

—What's Verdun? You know Mikkel, the redhead kid, my pal, with terminal freckles and chipmunk teeth? His dad is all for his doing it every day. Says it keeps him happy.

—Verdun was a terrible battle in the First World War. Is Mikkel's daddy Ulf Tidselfnug? Break's over: back at it.

—Do you know him? He prints books. It's fun to go to Mikkel's, where, if we stay in his room, we can do anything we want to, and Mikkel's always answering the door in nothing but a