S. Gazan - The Dinosaur Feather

Back at Anna’s they ate pancakes and, later, lasagna, salad, and ice cream.

“We’re having a party,” Lily said, again and again, and Karen and Anna laughed every time.

When Lily had been put to bed, they sat in separate chairs in front of the fire and shared a bottle of wine, while Anna told Karen the story from beginning to end, even though some of it was probably confidential. She didn’t care. When she had finished, Karen looked at her for a long time.

“You need to open the door to Thomas’s office.”

Anna closed her eyes and didn’t respond.

“Anna—”

“I’ll open it,” she cut in. “I’m not scared of opening it. There’s nothing behind it. The room’s empty.” She straightened up.

“But first I have to do something I really am scared of.” She glanced at Karen.

“Stay where you are,” she went on. “Don’t say anything, don’t do anything, please. Just be here, all right?”

Karen nodded.

Anna stood by the dark window, her hand on the telephone, looking down into the street, now slushy with melted snow. She could see Karen’s reflection in the glass; she was sitting in the chair to the left of the stove with her legs curled up, her chin resting on her knee. Anna breathed right down into her diaphragm, then she picked up the telephone and pressed Thomas’s number. It was past eleven, and it rang six times before he answered, drowsy with sleep.

“It’s Anna,” she said.

Thomas sighed.

“What do you want?” he said, as though she rang him constantly. “I was asleep. I’m working shifts.”

“I’m calling to tell you I forgive you.”

“What?”

“I’m saying,” Anna cut the letters out of a large, heavy sheet of metal, “that I f-o-r-g-i-v-e you. I forgive you for messing up my and Lily’s life.” Her voice gained strength. “I forgive you for being a fraud. I forgive you for never really loving me, and I forgive you for being cold. I forgive you for being a coward, I forgive you for all the stuff you haven’t got the guts to face, I forgive you for all your lies and your habit of blaming everyone but yourself. I forgive you for only seeing what you want to see, I forgive you for—”

“Do you know something, I don’t need to listen to your crap,” he said and slammed the telephone down.

Anna looked out across the street.

“No, I don’t suppose you have to. But I forgive you anyway, damn you,” she said and added into the telephone: “Except one thing. I’ll never forgive you for depriving Lily of her father.” Then she hung up.

She turned around and faced Karen, who was still sitting in front of the stove and said, “Why don’t we take a look at your new room?”

Karen smiled.

Johannes was cremated on Thursday October 18. The day before Anna called Mrs. Kampe to ask when and where, and she replied it was a small and private service but Anna was welcome. When Anna arrived at the chapel of Charlottenlund Church at 12:50 p.m. she encountered ninety-five goths in full costume. It was a glorious sight. Mrs. Kampe stood away from the crowd, looking lost.

Inside the church, she sat alone in the front pew, but just before the service was about to begin, she rose and asked in a meek voice, “Why don’t you all move closer to the coffin?”

People got up and filled the front pews, and when Mrs. Kampe began to sob, a woman with heavy black makeup and green hair gently took her hand. Anna sat in the fourth row letting her tears fall freely. The coffin was pure white. It should have been wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

Anna looked out across the almost fifty people gathered in Lecture Hall A at the Institute of Biology. She didn’t know most of them, postgraduates from other departments and institute staff who must have seen her disseration defense listed on the internal notice board. Hanne Moritzen sat in the back row. In her grief, she glowed faintly, like a distant moon. Asger had been buried last Saturday, and Anna had attended the service. At first, they had been the only two mourners, but Dr. Tybjerg arrived at the last minute, dressed in a nice but crumpled suit and with a fresh haircut. The organ started playing and none of them heard the door open and shut again, but when the service was over and they rose to leave, Mrs. Helland was sitting at the back of the church. She said nothing, and she didn’t look up.

Anna’s eyes swept across the seat rows. There was Jens and Cecilie, and Karen next to them. They all watched her with excitement, and Jens’s eyes were moist. Anna had asked him not to take photographs, that it would distract her and make her nervous, but she couldn’t stop herself from grinning when, for the fourth time in less than ten minutes, he sneaked out his camera and snapped a picture of her.

They all had dinner together the other day, Anna, Karen, Lily, Jens, and Cecilie, and it had gone very amicably. They had talked about Troels, and Karen and Cecilie had cried. That was all right. Anna understood they were shocked. After the meal, Karen had gone to the corner store and Jens, Anna, and Cecilie had cleared up while Lily put her dolls in a drawer in the living room. Cecilie started to speak, “Er, Anna,” she said, in a certain way. Anna stopped her.

“But we have to talk about it,” Cecilie protested, her voice thick and Jens standing behind her, nodding.

“We do, Anna, my love,” he said.

“And I want to,” Anna replied. “I promise you. But not now. I’m exhausted.”

Cecilie and Jens had accepted that.

At that moment, Karen returned with marshmallows, and they all played a game of Monopoly.

Her lecture would begin in five minutes. Anna was sweating. They had agreed that Karen would pick Lily up from nursery school between Anna’s lecture and examination. Afterward there would be cake and champagne for everyone in the department, and Lily was, of course, invited.

Dr. Tybjerg sat in the front row, tilting his pencil. He was dressed in the crumpled suit he had worn at Asger’s funeral, and he looked gravely at her. He pointed to his watch with his pencil and Anna nodded.

She lowered the lights and took a deep breath.

She opened with a short historical review and proceeded to the in-depth presentation of scientific ideals where she succinctly accounted for Popper, then Kuhn and Daston after which she extracted the basic rules for scientific integrity, the same that had been listed on the paper she had given to Professor Freeman. It took her about fifteen minutes. The next thirty minutes she spent reviewing the morphological evidence linked to the controversy. At fairly high speed, she went through the stratigraphic disjunction, the half-moon-shaped carpus, the furcula, the ascending process of the talus bone, the fingers of the bird hand, and the base of the pubic bone, whereupon she considered in detail first the disputes and then the theoretical science problems linked to the evolution of the feather. She held a small remote control in her hand, and while she explained, illustrations and keywords flashed up on the screen behind via a computer.

Anna briefly looked out into the darkness.

“After this review it should be clear that Clive Freeman, professor of paleoornithology at the Department of Bird Evolution, Paleobiology, and Systematics at the University of British Columbia, didn’t adhere to the most basic rules for sober science, and his archosaur theory is riddled with major internal contradictions and a striking absence of consistent methodology. The central question is…” Anna paused and tried to find Dr. Tybjerg’s eyes in the half-light, “why? Why is the opposition reluctant to accept that birds are descended from dinosaurs? I propose three possible reasons.”

Anna took a step toward her audience.