An Imperfect Librarian (18 page)

In the terminal, I waste time walking to the baggage claim. Elsa's at the end of the corridor. It's not easy to ignore someone so tall, so blond and so pressed up against the glass wall. She waves. I look the other way. I didn't check in any baggage but I stand around the carousel anyway. One by one, the bags disappear until I'm facing an empty carousel.

“Did you get your luggage?” a man in a uniform asks.

As soon as I exit the baggage area, she flaps her arms around me. “It's good to see you,” she says. “You're still wearing that same shirt and pants. Have you been losing weight?”

“I've shed a bit. Life's hard in Newfoundland. I have to fight to stay alive.”

She glares at me. “Is this a joke you're doing?”

I almost forgot that Elsa hasn't mastered the nuances of English. “Yes. I'm making a joke.”

“You weren't a joker before. You always...” She talks about how I used to be, how she used to be and how we're going to be. We ride the elevator to the parking lot. Elsa updates me on the last two years. “...then there was this one time when Sophie wanted me to...” I'm distracted by our reflections in the mirrored sides of the elevator – infinite layers of Carl and Elsa reflecting off each other. She curls her fingers into mine as the elevator descends. I pull away to adjust the bag on my shoulder. The door opens. I follow her through a maze of parked cars.

“Why don't I stay with you at your hotel?” she says. “I'm your wife. I hope you have not forgot this already.”

I shake my head. “
Forgot
is not the word.”

She chats about who we'll visit, invitations to suppers, how
happy she is to see me, how we're going to enjoy the old times together. I interrupt the old times to ask her about new times. “Do you know if I'll have email access in my hotel room?”

She laughs. “You don't need email while you're here. You'll be too busy. Tonight, we'll have something to eat, talk about old times, I'll help you unpack, give you a massage.”

She unlocks her car and I take my seat in the front. “I'm not hungry and I don't need to unpack but I do need to send an email.”

“Once you smell the food, you'll rediscover your appetite – same for your wife.”

“I don't want to be married to you anymore, Elsa. I decided on the way over here that I want a divorce.”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden? You can't decide something so important on an airplane flight!”

I gaze out through the side window. “Sorry. I had time to think about what I want. It's not you. It's not a life in Norway.”

Her sniffles harmonize with the swishing sound of the wipers. “Are you planning to stay forever in Newfieland?” she says.

“I promise to stop calling her Brutus if you'll stop calling Newfoundland, Newfieland.”

Elsa drives the car and the argument for the full distance to the hotel. When we arrive, she parks then unfastens her seatbelt. “You are always saying you will do anything for me to be happy. I want to be with my husband. Please.”

The two palm-sized beach rocks are in my pocket. I rub them between my fingers. “Goodnight, Elsa. See you tomorrow. Call before you come.”

The bellboy opens the hotel door and greets me.

I ask him if they have Internet access. The connection turns out to be slow but my message goes through anyway.

Norah, ...

just arrived in Oslo to take care of some personal

affairs...will be in Newfoundland late Monday

afternoon...I wanted to tell you...I'm sorry for not

trusting you...I miss you...I love you...

C...

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

T
HE TELEPHONE WAKES ME.
I
T
'
S
not the woman in my dream. While Elsa talks, I check my email: eleven marketing penis-lengthening apparatus, fourteen offering an advanced degree without study, fifteen messages from Nigerian scam artists, twenty-one offers of cheap prescription drugs and one message from Norah.

Hello Carl,

You missed a spectacular fall at Cliffhead. Folio

injured herself. She was asking for you ;>) The tail of

Hurricane Juan ripped shingles off my roof. No damage

to books :>) I missed you too :>( If the snow holds off,

we can fit in a few beach bonfires. Lots to look forward

to :>I (That's meant to represent a big smile).

Norahp

p. s. Tolerance of ambiguity helps in a relationship.

Elsa calls me from her car in the hotel parking lot. “I'm on my way to your room.”

I jump out of bed and put on my trousers. “No point. I'm just going out the door now.”

We meet in the squatty lobby of the hotel. She tells me the plan for the next forty-eight hours. I tell her that I want to see a lawyer about the divorce. She's standing next to a couple from Germany, in front of the desk staff and not far from the man she left for another woman. She shouts: “You ask me, ‘Come back to you!' For two years, ‘Come back to me, Elsa. Come back.' Now you're tired and you wake complaining, ‘I want a divorce. I want a divorce.'”

Everyone is staring at us. I turn to face the door. “Is your car out front, Elsa? We can talk there.”

She's frozen in the middle of the lobby, playing the space like centre stage. She raises her hands to her face. “Talk about what? A divorce?”

The bellboy opens the door for me. “We'll discuss it in the car, OK?”

It's cold outside, even colder than in my basement flat during those sombre nights when I slept without the body of my wife beside me. Finally, she comes out of the hotel and unlocks the car. “Many couples separate for a period, resume the marriage later and it's much better,” she says while she plays with the car keys in her lap.

“We're not one of those
many
couples.”

“When I met Sophie, I thought she was what I needed.”

I take the keys from her lap to put them in the ignition. The sooner we start moving, the sooner I'll see a lawyer, the sooner I see a lawyer, the closer I'll be to–

“Then I realized I did not want to be with Sophie or with any woman. I wanted to be with my husband and...”

I turn to face her. “What?”

She looks out the windshield. “If we don't have our children now it will be too late. I became forty this year. You're
fifty. How much longer can you wait? You don't want to be seventy with a ten-year-old. We'll make an excellent child together. Your dark colour. My fair colour. Our child will be unique. You're well-educated. I'm a skilled athlete.”

“A well-educated, dark father? Is that what I represent for you? I don't want children. I don't want to be married to you. I can't believe I was so naïve.”

It's Saturday morning, not yet eleven o'clock and I have a headache. In Cliffhead, it's even earlier but I bet the dogs have been up for a couple of hours. Norah is probably sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper and drinking coffee under the orange glow of the lamp. The horses have already been fed but the barn will need to be shovelled out. She might take a ride on Biblio as far as the pond to check on Ray's traps. Maybe she'll do some work on the rock wall bordering the path. If it's raining, she might sit and read in front of the windows in the living room with the woodstove on high and the dogs settled in the porch.

Elsa plays with the keys. The car feels stuffy. The windows are fogging up from the inside. It's grey outside. “We can seek help from a marriage counsellor,” she says.

I take the keys from her lap and put them in the ignition “Not unless he specializes in speedy divorces. Let's go.”

For the rest of the day, I dodge references to “our children.” Elsa's friends greet us with “so happy to see you two together again.” Her parents tell me “glad you decided to come back,” in the spirit of
we forgive you
. That night, I call Norah. She tells me about how Folio broke her leg when she came too close to Walter's horse. I ask her what she's been doing for the last five weeks. She talks about what a great year it's been for berries. “Wait till you see all the jars of jam,” she says. She had her roof re-shingled but now there's a leak in the living room. We talk about what we'll do under the star-lights
besides gazing at the sky.

Day two, Sunday: I spend the morning on the phone trying to contact a lawyer. We stop by the university but the corridors are empty. We stroll downtown. Mercedes asked for a souvenir spoon of Oslo and I want to buy a book for Norah. The streets are almost empty except for tourists. The wind is cold. Elsa twines her arm in mine. She tries to detour me to stores where they sell baby items. We walk down the road where her office is located. I remember how often I paced the sidewalks hoping to run into her. Now, I'm trying to find an excuse to not be with her. I propose the most unromantic meal I can think of.

Elsa would normally never eat in a fast food outlet, but she makes an exception this time. We sit in a booth with red plastic seats under fluorescent lights, eating French fries with ketchup, coleslaw and greasy deep-fried chicken. I'd prefer a fish, chips, dressing and gravy from the Campus Quaff any day. I tell her about St. John's and how everyone knows everyone. I describe the time I saw a moose and her calf on the road to Cape Spear and about the time when I was wading in the ocean and the capelin washed in over my feet. I explain about the winds and how quickly the temperature can change.

Elsa rolls her eyes and pushes her half-eaten supper away from her. “You complain that I talk too much about babies. What do I care about weather in Newfoundland?”

I lie in bed that night in the dark after an argument with Elsa and a conversation with Norah. I can almost pretend I'm back on Gower Street. Maybe the flat is not so bad after all. If I moved out I wouldn't see Cyril and Mercedes as much. Although, I wouldn't mind if it meant living at Cliffhead. I'd invite them to visit. The four of us would sit around in the evening and play trivia or cards. Mercedes would be impressed with Norah's kitchen and Cyril would love the dogs. Years
before I met them, they used to own a Labrador retriever. It darted into the road after a pigeon and was killed by a car. Cyril has a cabin rented in a national park for a weekend in May. Maybe Norah can come with us. She told me she likes fishing. I fall asleep dreaming about a rowboat floating on a pond with the trout jumping out of the water after flies, the white-throated sparrows calling to each other and two people lying in the bottom of the rowboat in each other's arms.

The following morning, Elsa drives me fifty kilometres to catch my plane. The theme of her conversation hasn't changed. “I don't mind giving you some time to think about it,” she says. “I can visit you this spring.”

As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as spring in Newfoundland beyond the lull at the end of winter when all the snow is nearly melted except for piles in the parking lots. There are those rare days when it's so warm you can lie in a rowboat, dangle your feet over the edge or sit at the top of a cliff and admire the icebergs.

When we arrive at the airport, we take the same route we followed three days earlier, though in reverse: through the maze of parked cars, up the elevator with our reflections in the mirrored walls all the way to the security gate.

“Goodbye. Good luck with Sophie. Tell your parents thanks for the fine meal at their home on Saturday night. Thanks to Marlene for the luncheon.”

She tugs on my shirt. “Your flight is not for another forty-five minutes. Stay with me here. We can talk.”

I throw my backpack over my shoulder, pick up my laptop then walk towards the queue of passengers. “Not unless the conversation is about completing the paperwork for the divorce. You're only prolonging matters, making them more complicated and costly.”

Elsa follows by my side. “My husband wants to divorce me, does not want to have children. What about that cost?”

“I'll say hello to Papa and Tatie for you.”

“How will they feel when they learn that their only child is not planning to give them any grandchildren?”

“Tatie's not my mother. You know that. The lawyer will be in touch.”

I stop, then turn to face her before I go through security. “One last question – it's just a little poll I've been doing. If you were in a situation where all the books in the world were going to be destroyed and you wanted to memorize one for future generations what would it be?”

“There won't be future generations if people like you and me don't have children.”

“Assuming there were, what book would you choose?”

“You wonder why I'm always talking about babies. I wonder why you're talking about books. What's wrong with you?”

“I'm curious that's all. Name one book you believe should be passed on.”

“I've been reading so many lately, I'm not sure which I'd pick. There's Dr. Spock but he's–”

I bend forward quickly and kiss her on the cheek. “Thanks, Elsa. Makes sense. Bye.” I step forward into security. The glass door slides shut behind me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

F
ROM
O
SLO TO
P
ARIS THEN
to the Gare du Nord, I don't waste a step. Papa will be upset if I'm late. I arrive right on time just as the TGV pokes its aristocratic nose into the station. The porter motions us to move aside. Brakes squeak, whistles blow, people swarm around the opening doors. I sort through the passengers: tired backpackers, rushed businessmen, dazed tourists, eager immigrants and weekend commuters. There's no sign of Georges and Georgette – twins in their seventies.

“Is this the train from Avignon?” I ask a backpacker. He nods. Finally, I see them. They're moving slowly with their heads lowered. Tatie is holding onto Papa. I call to them but they turn in the wrong direction. “Papa! Tatie! It's Carl. Over here!” I wave then elbow a path towards them.