Stig ?ge Thorsen sat in the cab of his tractor and tried in vain to control his thoughts. Two days ago he had returned home from a vacation, a twelve-day cruise in the Greek archipelago. The trip had turned into a catastrophe, and it haunted him however much he tried to push thoughts of it away. Unwelcome flashbacks, which he had no mastery over, flashed through his head. He let his gaze sweep mournfully over the autumn wooded landscape that crept down the hillside to the lakeshore and stood green, brown, and red-gold in the haze. The day was gray and the skies hung heavy with rain over the lake. It was somewhat chilly, with no hint of a breeze. His thoughts slid back to the cruise and he gave up trying to fight them. In Greece the fall had been warm, and the first day was calm.…
*
He kept to himself, enjoyed the rhythmic thud of the engine, and spent hours at the railing as he watched the fishing villages along the coast slide by in clear pastel colors and a predictable dullness. The food was unfamiliar but good. They had bungled his name. Stig ?ge Thorsen had become Thor ?ge Stigsen, which gave him problems in the restaurant. He corrected the error but the next day they had forgotten about it and he had to explain himself again. Knossos was an experience, and there he met Maja, who was freckled and full of laughter. Her red hair blew in the wind as she walked on the deck, and she smiled when she tossed pieces of bread to the gulls that surrounded her in a screeching mass. She smiled at him and that was bad. Later he explained about phosphorescence and pointed out constellations. Maja was from Randers, she smiled again, and he moved a little farther away.
The ship called into Samos, where the guide told them about the Greek mathematicians Pythagoras, Euclid, and Archimedes, who could lift the Earth with the help of a lever. She drew diagrams in the gravel with a stick while the group formed a circle around her. He himself had no confidence in the principle, for when the rod slipped out of one’s small hands, Father’s chest was crushed under the car, but he did not say this. Instead he asked if Archimedes knew that the Earth was round. The guide rubbed out her sketch and then he was frozen out. Even Maja was irritated at him.
They went swimming at the beach at Saloniki, and after that they lay in the sand and let themselves be dried in the sun. They were alone and for the first time he touched her and gently stroked her head. His fingers slid in among her wet curls and came together in a long caress of his hand through her hair. Then that happened that was bound to happen. Maja gave a satisfied sigh, and he heard his mother moan. Suddenly he noticed his mother’s hair, his mother’s white arms, tasted her salt cheeks, felt her skin. Smelled her sex.
He said words, ugly words, without wanting to.
Maja got up and put on her clothes while he tried to explain without success. About Little Bear land, where Little Bear’s mother cried because Little Bear’s father was bad and gone; about Little Bear’s mother’s tears that were Little Bear’s fault; about Little Bear who had to kiss away Little Bear’s mother’s tears and Little Bear who had to cheer her up, and about the nights that were so dreadfully long.
Maja left.
He left also. Dressed only in swimming trunks, he left the beach as quickly as possible. He wandered aimlessly on lonely roads that glittered in the sun and made his way through the landscape until he couldn’t go any farther. His feet were red and swollen. He plucked a thorn from a bush and punctured his blisters. It alleviated the pain but only the outer one. Inside he always had a thousand eyes that looked back at their own night, and he wanted to puncture them all one by one, but for this the thorns were useless. Nothing helped. There he sat, looking at a random road in a strange land, humiliated for his arrogance—for his fleeting belief that he could control his own life—while the cicadas sang and the mountains in the distance smiled at him.
*