Love Begins in Winter (14 page)

W
HEN GEORGE'S PLANE TOUCHED
down in Stockholm, it was still dark. Orange Volvo wagons idled within yellow lines painted around the docked aircraft.

A group of men stood about a luggage cart looking up at the faces that peered out from the small windows of the airplane. Some of the men wore blue headsets around their necks.

A child started to cry.

George thought the man next to him was asleep, but then he reached up and touched his mustache, as if to check that George hadn't stolen it.

As people made their way lugubriously to passport control, George noticed that the man who'd been sitting next to him was limping badly. He was soon passed by all the other passengers. Three mechanics glided by on small scooters.

The woman in the passport booth hardly looked at George's passport. Then he was suddenly waiting for his luggage. He recognized a few faces from the plane. Most of the passengers were Swedish and talked quietly in singsong voices.

He couldn't believe he'd done it, that he was a father—that he was in Sweden. A situation George would have thought nightmarish if it had been put to him hypothetically was now the single most important thing that had ever happened to him.

Life had called his name, and without thinking, he had stepped forward. He wondered if perhaps he was becoming the person he had always wanted to be.

On the plane, George had made a list of the different jobs he might enjoy and that might earn him enough to travel back and forth to Sweden. Maybe he might even live in Sweden. He liked snow, after all, and he owned a green Saab.

A little girl sat on the edge of the baggage car, dangling her feet as though she were on the edge of a pier on the last day of her family vacation. Her eyes kept closing and then opening. Several more children arrived and did the same thing—sat on the edge of an empty baggage cart and dangled their legs off.

The baggage area was bright but desolate. People watched the pushing belt of suitcases and boxes. George sat on his briefcase as though it were a very small horse. The only things in it were the photograph of the little girl, a photograph of Goddard, the stuff from his sister, plus several boxes of Raisinets.

For the first time, George wished he'd held on to the money his mother left him when she died. What wasn't used to pay off debts, George had spent on thirty pairs of velvet loafers and delicate kites from China—of which not a single one remained. Of the thirty-seven kites he'd bought through the mail, about two dozen had ripped when George launched them from the New Jersey cliffs. Others had broken in mid-flight and dotted the trees of McCarren Park.

It had occurred to George that if his plane crashed, one reason might be that one of his missing kites had landed on the windshield as they tried to take off.

Everyone had collected their luggage and seemed to be walking in one direction. George followed. If there was a customs, George wasn't aware that he'd walked through it. He followed several knots of passengers down an escalator to a train platform. He felt as though he was quite deep underground, as above the tracks the ceiling seemed to be natural rock. There was not a single piece of litter on the platform, and George could hear the low buzzing of the neon sign that announced the time of the next departing train. The announcement was made in Swedish, then English.

At the station in central Stockholm, George got some money from an ATM, called a Bankomat.

With thousands of kronor in his pocket—and knowing nothing about how much meant anything—George joined the line of people waiting for taxis. There was a large man in a yellow jumpsuit directing people into cabs, which were all Volvos. There was a woman in a wheelchair in front of George who had to sit to one side while the dispatcher waited for a different kind of taxi. George wondered why someone couldn't pick her up and carry her into the car. He even thought of volunteering, but perhaps the only man allowed to carry her was her husband.

The taxi driver had a large head and thin white hair. He wore a black leather jacket that read “Taxi 150000” on the arm. He also had thick silver hoops in both ears.

At the hotel, the woman at reception informed George that he wouldn't be able to check in until 2
PM
. When he sighed, she asked if he wanted to leave his luggage and go for some breakfast. It was about ten o'clock, and the sky was beginning to brighten.

As he walked along the street, it started to rain. It was light and refreshing, but then it got heavy and George was soon quite wet. He walked and walked, looking for somewhere to have coffee but passed only offices.

He wished for someone to stop him and talk. He wanted to say that it was his first day in Sweden and that he had come to see his daughter.

George wondered if it was a custom for offices at street level to have large clear windows, because they all did.

Every so often, George stopped and looked in on a board meeting or a secretary who had changed under her desk from heels to flats. Through one large window, George stood for some time in the pouring rain and watched a pretty woman with her hair tied in a bun. She was brushing the frame of an old mirror. On a shelf behind her was a small microwave with black finger marks, heaviest around the door.

When George saw a woman with a shopping bag that read “NationalMuseet” on the side, he walked in the direction from which she had come, hoping that he might find a museum where he could dry off and sit down for a while. Everything seemed to be closed.

For several hours, George simply walked around in the rain. He had never been so wet and so cold. When he finally checked into his hotel room, he took a hot bath, then sat on his bed in the hotel bathrobe. He dried his feet and held his velvet loafers under the hair dryer for half an hour.

He took the letter from his pocket and looked at the address. The area of Stockholm where she lived was called Södermalm.

He picked up the phone and dialed the number as it was written on the letter. A child answered.

“Hello?” George said.

“
Hej
,” the small voice said.

Then a few seconds of silence.

“Ma-ma,” the voice said, and George heard the echo of footsteps. The woman on the other end of the line repeated her phone number in Swedish.

“It's George,” George said.

“George?” the voice said.

“George Frack.”

There was a faint gasp and then silence.

“Was that her?” George asked.

Just when George was about to repeat the question, he realized the woman was crying.

He heard the child say something gentle to her mother in Swedish.

“I didn't expect you to come to Sweden,” Marie said.

“I know,” George said.

Then Marie said something to the child, which met with a few words of protest.

“I just told her to go and wait for me in her bedroom,” Marie said quietly, “because I'm going to beg you, George Frack—don't come here if it's only to see what she looks like.”

“I know what she looks like,” George said, glancing down at his briefcase.

“Oh,” Marie said.

“Does she know who I am?”

“No,” Marie said. “Though she asks me every day why she doesn't have a daddy.”

“And what do you say?”

“I said nothing, until two weeks ago, when I said that you worked in America.”

“Is that when you wrote to me?” George asked.

“Yes, George Frack—do you remember why?”

“Yes,” George said. “Funny how we do what was done to us.”

Silence again.

“After I told her, she began putting up pictures of President Bush all over her bedroom, and I realized that I had made a terrible mistake. I should have told you at the beginning.”

“I'm not mad,” George said quickly.

“Her name is Charlotte.”

“I want her to know me,” George said.

“She doesn't know you,” Marie said. “And she already loves you.”

Then she started crying again.

“Are you married, Marie?”

“I'm engaged. And you are married with kids I suppose, George Frack?”

“No,” George said. “But I had a cat.”

“You'll meet my fiancé. He's nice, quite a bit older than me—twenty years, actually. He was the one who encouraged me to write to you.”

“Really? What's his name?”

“Philip.”

“He sounds nice,” George said.

“Can you give me a few hours to think, George? I know it's a lot to ask, but—”

“Sure. I'm staying at the Hotel Diplomat—call me when you're ready.”

George hung up and lay back on his bed. He took a box of Raisinets from his briefcase and ate a handful. He then found a large envelope with the hotel name on it. In the envelope, George put his boarding pass, the chocolate he'd found balancing on his pillow, a feather that had been in his jacket pocket for years, a small thin bar of soap from the bathroom, and a drawing he'd done on the plane—of the man with the mustache.

Then George took a blue pen from the desk and wrote “Dominic Frack” on the paper. Then his sister's address.

He sat on his bed and turned the television on. Then he turned it off again.

He picked up the phone and dialed his sister's number, making sure he pressed the country code in first.

It rang and rang and rang.

George wondered if Helen was giving Dominic a bath. He imagined himself standing next to her with a towel. Dominic's shiny face. Clouds against the window. Trees outside too, and the sea not far away.

A few minutes later, the phone rang of its own accord.

“George,” Marie said, “I don't want to wait because I'm afraid you'll change your mind and it will be my fault.”

“Good,” George said.

“Meet us at Skansen in two hours—it's a park with animals, not far from your hotel.”

“Is it still raining?” George said.

“No, George, look outside.”

Outside, flakes the size of buttons drifted down and settled upon the earth. People on the sidewalks had slowed to look.

Then in the background, George heard his daughter scream something in Swedish.

“Did she just say it's snowing?” George asked.

Within a couple of hours, the snow had stopped, leaving a thin layer of white across the city—just enough to catch footprints and bicycle tracks.

George took a shower. Then he shaved and brushed his teeth. He slowly dressed in his finest suit. Then he put on a brand-new pair of velvet loafers he'd brought with him. There were balls of tissue paper in the toes.

George left his hotel and walked east along the Strand-vägen toward the bridge. After crossing the busy road, he came to a fork. One path held the painted outline of an adult and child walking hand in hand; the other had the painted outline of a bicycle.

It was very cold outside, and each time George exhaled, he passed through a cloud of his own life.

Skansen was a park within a park. The Djurgården, in which the park was situated, was once the king's private hunting grounds. Joggers passed in yellow spandex and thick hats. Along the water there were many boats. George guessed that they took tourists to the small, uninhabited islands around Stockholm. Most were closed for the winter, though one boat had lights on around its deck. As George approached, he saw several men working on the deck with their tools laid out next to them. As he passed, one of the men said something and waved. George smiled and waved back.

George entered the park through a blue iron arch with gold deer heads carved at the top. Birds swung from tree to tree. The path took him along the edge of another small lake. George checked the trees for the wreckage of kites. He wished he'd brought one. Ducks glided along the banks, while farther out, tall white birds cried out in the mist that lingered upon the surface of the lake.

When he reached the entrance to Skansen, George found that he was the only person there. A man with silver-rimmed glasses waved to him from the ticket office. George approached.

“One adult ticket?” the man asked.

“No, three tickets,” George said. “I'm expecting a woman and a girl in an hour—and I'd like to pay for them too.”

The man looked a little confused. “How will I know if they're the right people?”

“I don't know,” George said.

“Is it your family?” the man said helpfully.

George nodded.

“Then I'll look out for a girl who looks like you.”

George nodded and grinned a little.

“There are also two other entrances,” the man added, “so if they don't come through my gate, come back before we close and I'll refund your money.”

“Okay, I will,” George said.

“Where are you meeting them?” the man asked.

“Somewhere, I guess.” George said.

“Very good,” the man said. “Well, I should tell you that Skansen was founded by Artur Hazelius in 1891.”

“1891?” George said.

“I think you're going to be surprised.”

“I think I'm already surprised,” George said.

“That's what we like to hear,” the man said. He was a cheerful sort of person.

George walked through the deserted model town that was supposed to be a miniature Sweden. There were empty workshops, empty schools, empty shops that in summer would be full of employees in period costume and Swedish children licking ice creams.

In the middle of winter, Skansen was like George's life: a world that quietly waited for people to fill it.

After a few minutes, George's loafers were covered in snowy mud. Birds circled high above the park. As he passed a plowed square of soil with a sign that read “Herbgarden,” George found himself on a ridge overlooking the city of Stockholm. The sound of cars and trains echoed through the cold air as a continuous hum, broken only by the occasional call of a bird from faraway trees.