The Greenhouse (25 page)

Then I can’t explain what happens next, no matter how many times I go over it in my head. As often as I’d fantasized about the possibility of this happening when I was alone, wrapped under the covers of the sofa bed in the living room, I just can’t fathom what came over me. I’m inclined to think there was no thinking behind it at all.

Anna has washed up when I reenter the kitchen after putting our daughter to bed, and is picking up her toys. For once she isn’t sitting with a book in front of her. She’s in a dress with her hairclip and I sense she’s looking at me in a new way, as if she had something personal to say to me. So I start to pull off my sweater and then unbutton my shirt and loosen my belt. As if I were going to bed or undressing for a doctor. There’s nothing premeditated about it, in fact, I can’t explain why I felt the time was ripe to strip off in the middle of the kitchen floor. She looks at me and I sense a kind of agitation in her when I start to undress out of the blue. In my mind I’ve already gone farther than her, gone the whole way, and I know as soon as I start taking my clothes off that I’m making a mistake. Nevertheless, I keep going, like a man who’s got to complete an embarrassing but urgent task, until I’m standing there naked in the middle of a pile of clothes, a bird in its eider nest, an ostrich that has shed all its feathers. At the same moment I realize that Anna is holding a pen in her hand. It is only at that moment, and not before that moment, that the possibility dawns on me that she might have just intended to ask me to help her with some Latin terms in her genetics book, like a fellow pupil asking for some help with a Latin essay. Would a woman who had other intentions than scribbling notes into the margin of the book that is lying on the table—a woman who, let’s just say for the sake of argument, wanted to make love to a man—be holding a pen in her hand? She looks at me exactly as if she had been on the point of asking me something about the genome and my response had taken her by complete surprise. Next she’ll be asking the Latin genius:

—Do you know what this means? and stoop over the book to read out some tortuous Latin word in the text.

In any case, I’m stark naked, and rather than not do anything at all, I pick up the pile of clothes and dump it on the kitchen chair. Even though my predicament at this moment is a slightly awkward one, I nevertheless don’t feel it’s ludicrous. I’m fortunate enough not to take myself too seriously, not in that sense, not in the naked sense. I’m helped by the fact that my body is still somewhat alien to me. Nevertheless being a male can be tremendously embarrassing; I would sacrifice my entire plant collection including my last six-leaf clover just to know what she’s thinking.

Instead of walking over to me and pointing out the word she doesn’t understand, she smiles from ear to ear. I don’t get women. It’s the most beautiful smile in the world. Then she bursts into a giggle. I’m relieved. I laugh, too. Thank god I’m impervious to ridicule. Now that the body has made such a blunder of things, words have to take over, and as the sand rushes through the imaginary hourglass of my mind, I stumble to find the words to rescue myself. I’m terribly fond of Anna and don’t want to lose her, I don’t want this to make her leave. One word and everything’s saved. One word and everything’s lost. I’m hot. I’m cold. What words could be potent enough to delete this whole naked male body incident from her mind and to turn this situation around? Back to square one in my quest for the truth. No, I’m in the middle of a river with a powerful current sucking me into a vortex, and can’t see the banks; I obviously haven’t learned anything in my twenty-two years.

The best I can come up with is making another physical move. This time I bend over and choose one item from the pile. I first put on my underpants, then my T-shirt and loosely yank up my jeans without bothering to button up. Then I walk over to the sink, grab a kettle, and turn the tap.

—I better make some tea then, I say, filling the pot. I hear a slight tremor in my voice. I feel I need to make it up to her somehow, so that we can continue being friends, so that she can look at this as a mere digression, a totally freak incident. I glance at my watch, wishing I could rewind my life to six minutes earlier. How long does it take for a woman to forget something like this?

—All it needs is sleep and time, Mom would say.

If she were to suddenly start packing her things to go and write her thesis somewhere else, I would say without hesitation:

—Please don’t leave.

I also wonder if a plant might change the situation. The idea of the plant comes to me automatically; what if I were to fetch the whole lily from the balcony ledge and give it to her, for example?

I look for the teabags.

—Do you know where the teabags are? I ask and my voice is back to normal again. I put the kettle on the gas stove and light it. My back is still turned to my child’s mother and because I think she’s still standing by the table, I channel my voice in that direction. Then she’s suddenly standing right up against me, body to body, and I can feel the heat of the gas flames against my spine. She gently strokes my shoulder and then my elbow, sticking to the joints. Then she embraces me.

—Sorry about that, for laughing I mean, she says. I wasn’t laughing at you, but just because I was so happy.

I hurriedly put the teapot down and turn off the gas and then follow her into the bedroom. I’m quicker than before, because my jeans are unfastened and I haven’t buttoned up, and this time I do it without hesitation. I’m not even sure the velvet curtains are properly drawn; the evening sky peers through a gap, and a peculiar veil of pink cloud stretches across the horizon in a horizontal streak.

Once that’s over I get the feeling that it’s not over at all. There isn’t a clear division between her body and mine yet, and for just a few minutes more we breathe in unison. In the ten minutes that follow I feel I couldn’t be any closer to another human being. I feel it’s incredible that I can be so close to a woman, that she’s in me and I’m in her. I’m extremely fond of her and I think that the fact that we have a child together doesn’t matter; she’s new and different, the greenhouse has vanished into the mist of time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been attacked by vandals and smashed to pieces. It’s all falling into place; Dad is very evasive when I ask him about how he’s managing to give away the tomatoes.

I touch Anna all over, partly to convince myself that she’s really all there. Afterward I walk out of the room to get a glass of water from the sink in the kitchen. The sky is strangely ablaze, and the moon drifts through the clouds. I see the old man opposite is having a sleepless night and stands at his window, staring at me. When I return to the bed I stroke her down her back, and she turns over without waking. She’s so slim. Then I stroke her over her waistline, several times; her waist is just a few centimeters above the sheet. I grope my way forward like a blind man trying to find his way; her thigh is sticky. I do everything that occurs to me that I can do without waking her up. The sheet is crumpled on the floor but I leave it be. It’s then that I realize that two eyes are staring at me through the darkness like two suns. Flóra Sól is standing up in her cot; she is puzzled that I’m not in my bed.

—Lie down and go to sleep, it’s nighttime, I say, quashing any possibility of dialogue; changing her diaper is out of the question. But it’s not very convincing, it’s seven o’clock and a streak of daylight pierces through the window, but I long to have some peace with Anna; I don’t want the child to disturb us. I have my eyes half closed to show her that I’m neither willing to talk nor play, but I can’t see if she’s offended by my refusal to engage with her. She sinks back into the cot again, helped by the force of gravity, and obediently lays her head on the pillow. I look at the horizontal row of three snaps on the back of her bodysuit and the quilt crumpled at her feet, so I creep over to spread it over her and glance fleetingly at her as I move. She’s turned over to face the wall and is hugging her rabbit. Her lower lip is quivering; she’s clearly fighting back some tears.

—We’ll do the jigsaw tomorrow, I say. Good night, I add, to make her realize the conversation is over. I crawl back into the other bed and slip my arm around the woman lying beside me.

Ten minutes later my daughter is standing up in the cot again and looking at me in the dark.

—Da-da-da-da, she says in a rapid hush.

I sit up.

—Do you want us to go and make porridge? I ask.

I stand up, slip into my trousers, and stoop over the cot. My daughter releases the drenched ear of the rabbit from her mouth and smiles at me. My hands tremble as I pick her up and I realize that I’m full of new, unknown, feelings.

—We’ll let Mammy sleep.

—Ma-ma dodo.

As I’m making the porridge, I try to work out this new situation that has developed and how I should behave when Anna wakes up and comes in. What am I supposed to do about this new intimacy? This is the first time that I’ve stayed put after sleeping with a girl. Up until now I’ve always vanished before they start making breakfast, not that I leave without saying good-bye. Besides, I couldn’t leave; this is my apartment, which I’m renting, no more than Anna could leave, since we’re both temporarily living under the same roof.

I throw the windows in the kitchen wide open. A thick mist hovers over the rose garden and it’s dead still outside. The old man is no longer standing by the window; I imagine he must have taken a sleeping pill.

We’ve got eggs and milk, and if I borrow two cups of flour from my neighbor on the top floor, whom I can hear has been up for ages, I could make pancakes for Anna, using Mom’s recipe book. In one of Father Thomas’s movies there’s a scene with people sitting at table eating pancakes with black currants and syrup; I think that combination could very well work.

I’m topless so I first slip on a T-shirt, and then hold Flóra Sól in her pajamas in my arms, walk up the stairs, and knock on the door. The old woman is glad to see us and invites us in, but I tell her we’re pressed for time. She tells me her friend’s asthma has been much better since she met the child and that the depression that plagued her with her asthma is also much better. The thing is that she’s expecting a visit from her cousin from a neighboring town next weekend, a three-hour journey on the train; she’s been through a lot and now she’s got cancer. The question is whether she might be allowed to introduce the child to her cousin.

—She’s taking the train straight back the next day, she says, as I shilly-shally uneasily in the doorway.

By the time my mistress comes in, all rosy-cheeked, I’m flipping my fourth pancake on the pan. She’s holding a book in her arms with her hand stuck in so as not to lose the page. She acts as though nothing has happened and smiles at me and kisses her daughter, who is doing a jigsaw at the table; then she sits down and opens the book. We’re platonic siblings again. Two individuals who accidentally had a little child with yellow angelic curls on her forehead.

—This is unbelievably good, she says of the syrupy pancakes. I notice she has a scratched chin because of me. I don’t know how close I should be to her; we’re once more separated by a table’s length. I’m not even sure that she notices that I’m looking at her, watching her with new eyes. I don’t see how I could ever have thought that she was plain looking. My former self of a year and a half ago is an obscure hidden mystery to me, like a stranger.

—What? she says with a smile. She almost seems shy.

—Nothing, I say.

I’m pondering on the miracle of being able to feel so close to someone who isn’t related to me. Then she asks:

—Were you operated on recently? You didn’t have a scar before, nineteen months ago.

Our daughter looks from parent to parent. Does she realize that a new situation has now evolved in the house? That our relationship isn’t just about her anymore?

—Yeah, I had to have my appendix out two months ago. I’m not the same body that I was.

The child stares at me as I try to grab a hold of myself. I suddenly find it difficult to handle this intimacy; it flusters me, so I stand up and search for my sweater. I can’t let Anna see me in this condition, see how sensitive I am about her. She also stands up.

—I’m off to the library, she says and kisses the child good-bye. Then she hesitates a moment and looks at me. I hesitate and look back at her as well; she’s the one who takes the initiative and kisses me.

This hurls me into a conundrum that I’m too agitated to deal with, so I dress the child in her outdoor clothes and hold her in my arms for the two flights of stairs down to the carriage. If Anna were to ask me what my feelings are, what would I say? Should I tell her the truth, that I’m not sure and that I’m thinking things over? A man can’t always express instant opinions on things the moment they happen.

There aren’t many people around at this hour of the morning, but the three tables have been put up outside the café. I can’t quite imagine what will happen next, whether the various parts of the day will be different from now on. How will the hours of the day be spread after last night? Will each part of the day, the morning, afternoon, evening, and night, take on a new meaning? Am I in a relationship or am I not in a relationship? Am I her boyfriend now or are we not a couple? Is this a love relationship or a sexual relationship? If we are a couple, should I be wondering if that makes me the father of a family, at the age of twenty-two? Or am I a friend she sleeps with and, if so, what’s the difference?