And then Peter started to cry.
“What’s with you guys?” called Ingvill, who walked up right then.
“We’re just a little sad,” I said. “And scared.”
“Why?”
“Peter’s concerned about internationalization. That things won’t work out with the . . . bilateralization.”
“How drunk are you?”
“Not drunk enough, Tropical Fruit Salad, not drunk enough.”
“I’m meeting Ivan in the bar,” she told Peter. “Are you coming?”
“Peter’s tired,” I said. “He wants to go to bed.”
“Really? I would have thought maybe you were the one who ought to go to bed. You’re a true embarrassment to our country. An embarrassment! Getting drunk like this.”
“At least I’m not roaming around massaging people,” I muttered.
“As if you haven’t been busy engaging in activities like that with your students? Oh, please.”
“What are you talking about? I have most assuredly never done anything like that.”
“I know what mindfucking is, let’s just say that.”
“She doesn’t think that mindfucking is sex, right?” I asked Peter. “Please tell me she doesn’t think that.”
“You think you’re so much better than everybody else,” Ingvill said.
“All right, ladies,” Peter said, holding his hands up to try to defuse the situation. “We’re all going to go get a beer together now. For the sake of internationalization. What do you say?”
I sighed.
As did Pretty Putin.
We sat around the table in the bar at the top of Designa Hotel in Saint Petersburg without saying a single word. Around us the snow swirled in its usual manner, around and around, probably not landing until it reached the Himalayas. Or some other high-altitude place. Some mountain where at this very moment a Mongolian Prince Igor was releasing a falcon to soar up, up, up into the big wide sky. Until it was just a black dot, hardly visible to the human eye.
Things were clearly falling apart.
Someone elbowed me.
“What?”
“Artemis wonders if we know anything about the icon? That one that disappeared from the dean’s office.”
“A dingo took it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Maybe a dingo took your baby!”
I cracked up, loudly, wondering if they even got the reference. I couldn’t remember where the line came from, but it was somewhere funny. Bj?rnar would know.
“All you have to do is knock your heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go.”
I lay back on the sofa, closed my eyes, and felt someone pick me up. I put my arms around Pretty Putin’s neck. Now I would tell him everything. Calmly and honestly, I would explain that Peter had made a stupid mistake because he was a stupid man, and that the icon was taped to the bottom of the sofa he’d just picked me up off of, and all he had to do was unstick it and take it with him.
Then everyone could be on the same team again. I opened my mouth.
“Take me to your leader,” I said with a giggle.
“Shut up now,” he said calmly.
So I did. And I let myself be carried to a bed, where wondrously gentle hands tucked me in and tenderly caressed my cheek. It was so delightful and soothing. Human warmth. Someone who cared. And I tried to stretch toward the warmth, until the whole scene was pierced by a sharp voice.
“Did you get it?”
It sounded like Irina. I tried to raise my hand in a polite greeting, but my arm wouldn’t move, so I sent a signal with my eyelids instead.
“Nyet.”
They switched to speaking Russian. Diphthongs and consonants with variations that drew me into a darkness that was suspiciously reminiscent of Tehom. The deep that even God seemed to fear. That the Spirit of God made do with hovering over. That was only released one single time in history, in the days when God let the Flood flow over the earth.
I sank. Sank.
Until I was swirling with the other snowflakes.
Further and further. Without our ever having thought of falling.
My only thought was to stay afloat until I made it home to Bj?rnar, and he could receive me.
When I woke up again, I was scared and called home.
“You woke me up.”
“If someone asked me who you thought was the best-looking man in the world, I would say that soccer player, Lars Bohinen, or David Byrne. Is that right?”
“Huh?”
“You said one time that you thought Lars Bohinen was good looking. But I think maybe you think David Byrne is better looking. Is that right?”
“Ingrid, I—”
“Right, we’ll cross off David Byrne.”
“What’s your point here?”
“To be or not to be isn’t enough. Under normal circumstances it would be enough, more than enough. But something happened to the universe. It’s off-kilter or something. The gyre is widening. Or there’s a sinkhole. I don’t know. We have to take precautions. Come up with some lists.”
“Ingrid, stop. Just listen—”
“And not just for this dimension. We need to think about the next world, too. After we’re dead. You have to promise you’ll find me. Do you promise?”
“You need to be quiet now and listen to me. First of all, are you drunk? I hope you’re drunk, because if you’re not, you’re psychotic. Are you drunk?”
“I have a sinus infection. And I took a weird cough syrup. And I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to come home to you and the kids. And I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
I started sobbing into my cell phone.
“OK. You’re going to go to bed now and sleep. And you’re not going to call me again until you’re sober. We have a history of people from your side of the family calling other people when they’re drunk and then regretting it later. You know this.”
“Yeah, but we have to be able to answer—”
“Call me back when you’re sober. Go to sleep now.”
“OK. Sorry.”
“Stuff your apologies in a sack and go to bed. Enough.”
31