Nicola Griffith - Always

“I think she likes it,” Eric said, and the sommelier poured. “It will be hard to find wine like this in Oslo,” he said sadly.

Servers, moving as soundlessly as though they were on oiled wheels, brought us a cèpes and game confit tartlet, topped with foie gras, which dissolved on my tongue. We ate with concentration, and sipped the Margaux, for several minutes.

“How is the wine?” our server asked.

“Lovely,” my mother said.

I picked my last toasted hazelnut from the plate with my fingers and ate it. They were waiting to see where I’d take the conversation. “I’ve been contemplating buying an oil painting. I wonder what a Norwegian would think of it.”

My mother raised her eyebrows, and her thought was as clear as sunlight. “I know,” I said, “but I haven’t lived there for a very long time.” They waited attentively. “It’s a big painting, of a woman. She’s… not fully clothed, exactly, but covered. But it’s clearly from a particular tradition. It reeks of high art, the artist as savant, dedicated only to improving upon his talent at the expense of all else. No concession to the group. No acknowledgment of the Jante law.” The almost fanatical Norwegian obsession with social and cultural equality.

A different server refilled our glasses. “How are you enjoying it?”

“Delicious,” Eric said, and the server gave us all an approving nod before gliding away.

“It sounds fascinating,” my mother said.

Our tartlet crumbs were replaced by lobster with white asparagus and perigord truffle, and yet another server took the opportunity to drift over and ask if we were enjoying the wine.

We drank in tiny sips. It lasted us through the lobster, the guinea fowl mousseline, the palate-cleansing spice-infused pinot sorbet, and finally the squab with chanterelles and caramelized turnip. It was beautiful food. I found myself longing for rough bread and homemade hummus, with cole slaw falling off all over the table and Kick smiling in satisfaction, knowing just what would please me. In my imagination I smiled back at her, then found I was smiling down at her, because she was in a wheelchair.

THE NEXT DAY,I didn’t call Kick, I didn’t call Dornan, I didn’t call Rusen and Finkel. I left my phone at the hotel and walked to the gallery.

I CONTEMPLATED Antique Dressing Table. The woman was a study in contradiction. Clothed only in a thin silk robe and open to the gaze of the viewer, she remained inaccessible, enigmatic, hidden. Her expression was secretive. It conveyed a sense of someone leading a supremely autonomous inner life, yet—and I couldn’t work out how the painter had made this so clear—she was vulnerable. Perhaps it was the eyes, focused far beyond the viewer, or the fact that there were no lines in her face. An innocent, or perhaps a victim past caring. It could have been her hands, one lying on top of the other in perfect repose, or complete resignation.

So flimsy, just daubs of oil on thin canvas.

This thing is inside me like a stain.

“Beautiful, isn’t she,” said the sales associate who had nodded earlier. “Would you like me to arrange a private viewing? I find that a few moments alone with the lighting just right can help a person make up her mind.”

I WENT TOthe dojo, where I worked until I sweated. I found myself working with Chuck, who flinched every time I laid hands on him.

I’m here. Yes, but for how long… those odds at a craps table…

If Chuck didn’t relax, he might fall wrong, break his back or his neck. I began to feel horribly responsible.

… times when illness can be bigger and stronger than we are…

I threw Chuck too hard. I apologized. He shied at my voice.

I took a shower, and was just getting dressed when people started to arrive for another class.

There is no perfect security. There’s always something. Always.

I put one of the communal gi s on and went back out to the mat.

I WALKED TOPioneer Square, consulted the piece of paper Bernard had given me the other night, the address of the woodworkers’ collective.

In the square, I found myself staring at a twisted metal column.

“Pergola,” said a homeless man with muddy green eyes and bright blue Gore-Tex jacket. “Fell down in the earthquake.” He looked about forty, though he could have been a lot younger. “Spare a dollar?” But then his pupils dilated and he stepped back. “I know you. You’re crazy. Stay away from me. You stay away.”

A pioneer, one who hadn’t wanted to dance.

“No, no, you keep your money.”

There was a handwritten card on the door of the woodworkers’ collective. Back in an hour. It was neatly printed, and hung exactly in the center of the glass, but it didn’t say when the hour had begun or would end.

I could see a sideboard and a carved screen, and a dining table. I put my hands against the glass like blinkers, and squinted. Fine work. Better than anything I could do. But I could learn. It was a collective. I could talk to the artisans. I could buy the furniture and learn from them.

From one moment to the next, I couldn’t breathe. My lungs just wouldn’t work. The ground wasn’t shaking, the air wasn’t shimmering, there were no drugs in my system, but I couldn’t breathe.

I bent at the waist, forced myself to count out five seconds as I breathed in, two as I paused, five as I breathed out, two as I paused. And again.

THE NEXTday was cool and rainy. I felt every minute of the work I had done in aikido. My muscles were sluggish with fatigue acids. I walked in the rain. I walked to a pier and watched the water. Kuroshio, the black current. I walked to the set. It was deserted, the door locked. I tried to remember what day it was. Sunday?

I’m here. Yes, but for how long?

THE SUITEwas as cold and impersonal as a flatiron. I turned the AC off and sat on the bed. My joints and feet and head ached.

I started the shower, and the rush of water made me realize I was thirsty. I filled the tooth mug under the cold tap. I drank, filled, drank.

The shower was hot. I stood under it a long time. The water smelled of chlorine. I had not noticed that in Seattle before. Perhaps someone had added something to a reservoir. Perhaps my sense of smell was coming back.

I sat on the bed and dried myself carefully. Buckets rattled outside as the housekeeper cleaned something.

Something behind me kicked a bucket. No, a can. The can rattled and bounced down a cobbled alley. I’m here, it said, right behind you. And then all sound died, everything, even the sound of my heartbeat.

I woke on my back. The room was brilliant with sunshine. It had stopped raining. A housekeeper was banging and clanging in the hall. I felt as though I had a hangover.

I had another shower.

DORNAN ANSWEREDon the third ring. "What did you mean,” I said. "The other day. When you said you didn’t live in Seattle?”

“Well, as you know, Torvingen, I live in Atlanta.” Silence. “Are you quite well?”

“What did you mean?”

“Why do you ask, why now particularly?”

“I’ve been thinking. About things.”

“Things, is it?” I didn’t say anything. “And have you reached any conclusions? ”

Yes. But for how long?

“I don’t know,” I said, and hung up.

THE SCENTSof sweat and mold and deodorant in the dojo’s changing room were briefly overlain by that of fabric softener as I stripped the freshly laundered gi s from their rain-wet bags and hung them on the rail. The next newcomer wouldn’t have to wear clothes that stank of anyone else’s sweat. I laid my new gi and hakama, the black-bloused trousers that yudansha are entitled to wear, on the bench.