The Lover From an Icy Sea (9 page)

Chapter 12

He flew to California as scheduled, did the shoot, saw the famous tattoo. So much Japanese hullabaloo about nothing. So typically Californian.

They finished up before noon, local time—no time, as far as Kit was concerned. His time was Eastern Standard. And just now, also Greenwich Mean. He took his rental car and drove north. He had the rest of the day to kill before his red-eye back home. ‘Might as well shoot something worthwhile,' he thought—and the Redwoods were, to his way of thinking, worthwhile.

Just outside of Sebastopol, he found them. But with them, he also found trailers, junk-heaps, the refuse of a civilization run amuck. Thousand-year-old Redwoods—living shrines as far as he was concerned—and in their midst, Bubba and his collection of heap, his rusted-out Camaro on blocks, his out-of-control dogs. What a fucked-up state!

He spotted a clearing and braked. Almost storybook. Trunks like giants’ thighs. Moss-covered turf beneath like so many montis veneris covered in emerald pubic hair. Here was something he couldn’t find back east—not anywhere, not anyhow, not in the thousand years or more it would take to replicate it. Here was a small piece of paradise.

He pulled over to the shoulder, parked, grabbed his camera and got out. Nothing but silence, the Redwoods and the moss. He walked in reverently, as if approaching a shrine, found the angle, and shot. Light and shadow. Green upon green upon green.

This is perfection, he thought. He could never sell it. Sell it? Fuck! He could never even begin to convey to anyone else—back East, out West, anywhere in between—what it was all about. These shots were for him alone, or maybe for his grandchildren. Scrapbook material—when, most likely, Redwoods would already be a thing of memory.

He moved in close to the base of one in particular—moss and mushrooms making quiet music—and then he looked up. A swath of lichen caught the bit of sunlight able to penetrate the heavy shoulders of Redwood boughs and push on through. It reflected back the stubborn light like a pale lover’s plea—weak, plaintive, yet persistent.

Kit dropped his camera and looked at the lichen. This is it! This was the thing he could bring back to her. This was the one thing that would mean—at least to him—what words couldn’t possibly convey.

“
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” was a jingle he knew well enough—as was “diamonds are forever.” But to Kit, diamonds were just old, dead things. And far from being ‘forever,’ they frequently found their way into the dusty jaws of jewelry boxes; through the last-prayer doors of pawn shops; down without grace into toilet bowls; out and down, thoroughly down, to the bottom-muck of some indifferent river where ‘forever’ meant truly forever.

Lichens, on the other hand, were both old—ancient, really—and alive. To give a woman a lichen was to give her the promise of forever and life. This was what a lichen meant to Kit: “love for as long as the two of us are alive.” And when they were no longer, the lichen would still continue on in someone else’s life as a reminder.

He peeled off the piece of bark with its lichen blanket and bagged it. Whatever else he might’ve found through his lens, he had his prize for Daneka. He wanted desperately to call her, pulled out his cell phone and dialed her number. It would, he knew, already be early evening on the East Coast.

*  *  *

Back in New York, Daneka had returned from Europe only moments earlier. The front door still stood open. Her luggage stood around her like so many impatient minions. But she was more interested in something else: a picture. It was the first thought she’d had coming off the plane. Actually, it was something she’d anticipated and thought about for the duration of her trip back over the Atlantic. She was coming home to someone, to some one, for the first time in years, and the thought of it had made her almost giddy with anticipation.

She’d already bought a frame in Europe, and retrieved the picture on the way home from the airport. Unpacking her bags was not the first thing that occurred to her when she stepped into her apartment. Instead, she took the picture out of its envelope and gazed at it. This black and white facsimile of Kit corresponded perfectly with the mental image she’d carried around in her head for the ten long days she’d been away. This, she realized, was a man she could fall in love with—head over heels in love. She laughed out loud as she thought of the hundreds of hackneyed stories she’d allowed her magazine to publish over the years. And now she, herself, was about to become one of those clichés. She took a deep breath: Not so fast, girl. Not so easy.

Who was this man, anyway? What power did he have that no one before him had had? And why he? Why now? She focused on his face, lips and eyes. They were indeed fine features. There was strength in the cheeks and chin and jaw-line, but his eyebrows and eyelashes, and the wave of his hair, were almost feminine by contrast. She looked hard at his features—as if, by staring long enough, she might be able to plumb their depth and strength of character and purpose.

This man, she decided in that instant, could be her equal. He might lack her particular kind of ambition. To her, photography was at worst an innocent hobby, at best a minor art form. And from the little she knew of him, he seemed to be perfectly content to live and let live from the proceeds of his minor art. But right now, she was prepared to accept this artist in spite of his minor ambition and to throw herself at his feet—while throwing all of her worldly goods out the window.

She put the photograph down on the bed; removed the glass from the frame; took it into the kitchen to clean. Then, holding the edges between the palms of her hands, she walked back to the bedroom, re-inserted the glass into the frame and laid in the picture, cardboard inserts and back panel. She locked the panel in place, flipped the frame over, and gazed once more at the image of Kit before placing his eight-by-ten likeness next to her bed. She was still gazing when she heard the phone ring. After three rings she picked up, still not taking her eyes off the photograph.

“
Hello.”

“
Hello, Daneka?”

“
Yes. Who’s this?”

“
Kit.”

“
Say again?”

“
Kit. You do—. Do you remember?”

“
Well, not really. What can I do for you?”

Kit dropped to the forest floor like a bag of wet flour. She had effectively knocked the emotional wind out of him and made him feel, once again, like a mere vendor—and so he cut his reply to her measure. “I have your photos. I’d like to deliver them.”

“
Can’t you send them up by messenger?”

“
No!” he said emphatically.

“
Excuse me?”

“
No, I don’t think so. For one thing, I’m not in New York.”

Now it was Daneka’s turn to feel distressed. She’d counted on being able to see him that same evening. She had to fight to keep the tone of her voice neutral, measured, blasé even. “Indeed. A little R&R in the country?” she asked as she unconsciously began to scratch her wrist.

“
No, I’m in California. I’m on a shoot.” The news hit her like a bullet. California was not even remotely in the neighborhood.

“
Well, isn’t that a shame. Perhaps you could FedEx them to me.”

“
No! They need me. I mean, they need my annotation, my explanation—. Oh fuck. I want to see you.”

Daneka smiled. First at Kit through the receiver, then at his picture. She’d won. She’d gotten him to make the first confession. “Well, I don’t know—.”

“
Daneka, you need me.” There. It was out.

Daneka pulled the receiver away from her ear, stiffened, and looked at it as if the instrument itself were giving offense. There was clearly too much presumption in his statement, and she intended to let him know it in the newer, stiffer tone of voice she adopted when she returned the receiver to her ear and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Excuse me?”

“
Yes. You need me. To explain the photographs. It’s what I do. I’m a photographer.”

She found the explanation adequate. The presumption had been impersonal—strictly professional. “I have an idea,” she said. “Let’s meet sometime for dinner. When do you think you might be coming back?” she asked as she resumed scratching her wrist.

“
Tonight. I’m coming back on the red-eye tonight.”

“
Well, there’s no rush, of course.”

“
Yes, there is! For me at least. What about tomorrow night?”

“
Let me check my calendar first.” Daneka laid the receiver down on the bed and went into the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water and drank it—very slowly. She returned to her bedroom and picked up the receiver. “You’re in luck.”

Kit sighed audibly in relief. “What did you have in mind?”

“
A place I know in Central Park. The Boathouse. Do you know it?”

“
I do. It’s a bit beyond my budget. But if you want to establish yourself as an account, I’ll be happy to expense it.”

“
Forget the account. I’m paying. Be there at seven.” She was finished with her end of the conversation and about to hang up, then briefly reconsidered: ‘conciliatory’ wouldn’t hurt either of them. “Okay?”

Kit was delighted. For ten days he’d been walking in circles. Tomorrow night, finally, he was going to set back out on a straight course. “Okay. At seven.”

She hung up. He hung up. She picked up his picture again and smiled, then kissed him full on his black and white mouth.

Chapter 13

Kit arrived at a point just west of the Boathouse at half past six—well before sunset, but at an hour when the spring sky looked like a teenager primping for her first date. The various species of viburnum were in full bloom, and the surrounding air almost seemed to vibrate with their young smells.

He found a space along the bank of the lake; pulled out his tripod and adjusted the legs so as to compensate for the uneven ground; mounted his camera and attached a telephoto lens. He was confident Daneka wouldn’t be looking for him at this angle and that he could execute his shot in complete anonymity as she arrived. This was what he needed now: to see her unrehearsed, not in complete control for a change, maybe even a little anxious during those moments when she might have to sit alone.

It will do her good to wait for a change
, he mused.

At two minutes till seven, he saw a car pull up to the curb at about fifty yards from the entrance to the restaurant. This, he thought, was rather unusual since private cars generally weren’t allowed on this particular stretch of road at this hour. A liveried driver got out and opened the back door. Kit watched as a figure emerged, limb by limb, from the dark interior. Both legs first stepped out, knees together, the heels of a woman’s shoes meeting the pavement at the same instant. It was Daneka—he could see that at once even from a distance. He noted she was wearing the shoes she’d worn at the time of her visit to his apartment almost two weeks earlier. Was this a portent or merely a coincidence? Would a mere click of the heels see her disappear from view as mysteriously as she’d disappeared that first time?

He suddenly wondered whether he’d underestimated her reach, overestimated his potential for meeting it even halfway. The thought made him feel once again awkward and insecure. What was he doing, anyway, with this camera and tripod? What did he hope to accomplish? This wasn’t any part of their deal.

At the same time, he considered: he’d seen her apartment; he’d reached a preliminary judgment about her need for others’ approval—even in her private space. What did this say about her? Why then should he be feeling insecure?

Kit bent down; turned the camera and lens in her direction; brought her into focus. He watched as Daneka extended a hand to her driver, asking him with this gesture to help her shift her weight forward, up and out of the car in one graceful movement. As she did, the folds of her dress fell like a long, fond caress. She was wearing another summer dress, a simple wrap-around held together only at the waist, the hem falling to just above the knee. The color was somewhere between pale yellow and carnival cream, and Kit could make out through his lens a timid floral print—lavender or larkspur, perhaps some rare variant or cultivar of salvia—he couldn’t be certain at this distance. He focused hard on the print and opened his shutter for a shot.

Although her driver’s back was to the camera, the movement of Daneka’s lips suggested an exchange of words. She then smiled before he closed her door again and slipped back into his driver’s seat.

Daneka turned towards the restaurant and walked up the stone path, careful not to catch a heel between pavers. The heads of men and women alike turned and lingered. Her mystique was like a web under perpetual construction and reconstruction, and she was the spider weaving only what nature’s endowment had bequeathed her. Her dowry was the object of every woman’s secret ambition, the object of every man’s concupiscence.

In other, former civilizations, gazes would necessarily have been lowered, would’ve made do with glancing only at the shadow cast by such a woman. But those were different times, different civilizations, different mores. In the present, the distinction between sacred and profane, private and public, personal and communal had vanished; finer distinctions had all been leveled in the great new gold rush to celebrity.