Berit Ellingsen - Not Dark Yet

“I’m back!” he shouted at the bathroom door. “Can I sneak into the bedroom to get some clothes?”

“Go ahead!” Beanie yelled over the dryer. “Your things are all there. I haven’t touched them.”

He smiled and hurried into the bedroom. The bed was undone and covered in layers of skirts, dresses, blouses, trousers.

“Let me guess, you have nothing to wear today?” he asked.

“Shut up!” Beanie replied.

With the bedroom closet full of his clothes, Beanie had installed a rack for storage next to it. The steel tubing was full of hangers holding blouses, sweaters, pants, skirts, and jackets in various colors, and the ends of stockings, scarves, belts, and socks spilled out of the half open drawers below. He had to step over three stacks of books, magazines, and vinyl records to reach the closet, and push more aside to open the doors. His clothes were still there, in the clean and folded shapes he had left them.

His brother Katsuhiro and Michael phoned, having arrived at the parking lot to pick them up.

“Come up for a drink first?” he asked.

“No time,” Michael replied. “We’re already late. Use a cattle prod on my sister to hurry her up.”

He laughed. “I’ll be downstairs right away.”

When he opened the door to Katsuhiro’s car, Michael stepped out and hugged him.

“It’s so good to see you,” Michael said, breathing on his neck.

He hugged Michael back and kissed him. Michael smelled of aftershave and newly steamed fabric and his face was very warm. In his skinny suit and narrow tie Michael looked great.

“We need to get Beanie,” Michael said, “or we’ll be standing here for half an hour more.”

Michael took his arm and pulled him toward the entrance. The glass doors admitted them soundlessly. Inside, the foyer was brightly lit and empty, the air still and cold. Michael dragged him into one of the elevators, pushed the button, and kissed him hard. When they reached the floor they were both breathing quickly.

“Let’s leave early tonight,” he whispered. Michael nodded, eyes dilated and dark in the faint illumination in the hallway, and took his hand.

Michael opened the door and yelled, “Beanie! Five minutes, or we’re coming in to fetch you!”

“Seven!” Beanie shouted from the bedroom.

“So how were the mountains?” Michael said with a neutral facial expression.

“A bit strange,” he replied. “The neighbors have started growing wheat, it’s gotten warm up there too.”

“How do you stand it?” Michael said.

“The neighbors?” he said. “They’re all right.”

“No, being alone in that cabin, away from everywhere else, anyone else.”

He laughed. “It’s fine. The cabin’s got everything a person needs, and it’s quiet, peaceful.”

“It’s quiet and peaceful here as well,” Michael said, looking at the apartment. “And the view is phenomenal.”

“There’s no traffic in the mountains,” he said. “I can hear the wind at night and smell the heather in the morning.”

“You look terrible,” Michael said.

“I do?” he said. “I thought I looked fine.”

“You’ve lost weight, and there are dark rings under your eyes.”

“I’m training a lot,” he said.

“How’s that working out?” Michael asked.

“They called me in for a third test,” he said, ignoring Michael’s sarcasm. “Down south. Seems they wish to meet us in person, and do some medical exams.”

“If you are being selected, how long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s a long training program, taking place with all the major space organizations, all over the world.”

“You want to become an astronaut but you don’t know how long it takes to go to Mars?”

“A year and a half,” he said. “At best.”

“One way or round trip?”

“Round trip.”

Michael’s eyes grew more and more dark. Then he blinked quickly and glanced down at his watch. “Five minutes, we’re coming in, Beanie!” Michael strode over to the bedroom door and opened it.

Beanie shrieked and tried to keep them out. She was dressed in a twinkling sequin blouse and a short, wide skirt that reminded him of ballet dancers, only it was black. She was even in high-heeled shoes, but kept fiddling with a pair of large crystal earrings that reached almost to her shoulders.

“You’re coming with us now,” Michael said, picked her up, and put her over his shoulder. Working out or running on the nights his job as a financial risk analyst in the city allowed for, Michael had no problem lifting his petite sister.

“My earrings! I’m not finished yet!” Beanie yelled and flailed, but Michael continued into the hallway.

“Take her coat,” Michael said, “we’re late.”

As soon as Katsuhiro saw them he started the car, having been their get-away driver many times before.

He got into the back seat and opened the other door from inside. Michael deposited Beanie, tucked her flaring skirt inside the vehicle, and closed the door, then took the passenger seat in the front.

“Everybody inside, including Beanie’s skirt?” Katsuhiro said.

“Just about,” Michael said and pulled on the seatbelt.

“You bastards!” Beanie yelled. “I lost my earrings! They were so expensive!”

“Don’t forget that you and I have the same parents,” Michael said.

“You’re still a bastard,” Beanie said.

Katsuhiro brought the car into a wide curve on the nearly empty parking lot and started down the road toward the motorway.

It was nearly dark. The honeycomb towers shrank behind them, but even from a distance he could see that more than half the balconies were unlit, several windows seeming to lack curtains. Katsuhiro had moved out early in the spring because of the high cost of living in the building. He wondered how many others had done the same.

They drove westward to one of the oldest residential areas in the city, where tall corkscrew hazel and hawthorn hedges hid long, low houses with flat roofs, expansive windows, and large wooden decks. Katsuhiro eased the car slowly into the driveway, then slipped it neatly around the corner behind the dense hedge which blocked even the view of the garage from the quiet street outside.

When he exited the car and started on the short path to the house, he saw that the low boxwood plant which stood in a wedge-shaped, glazed pot outside the front door had been cut into a tight sphere, garlanded with tiny string lights, and strewn with fake snow for an extra festive appearance. He nearly laughed when he saw it, and imagined Michael’s father kneeling in front of the pot as if in worship, laboring to trim the bush into the perfect holiday ball. But it was an honest effort, as were the lit torches that flanked the rain-glistening shale paving toward the front door.

They were among the last to arrive, the hallway and the living room and kitchen full of Michael and Beanie’s grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and their partners and children. Since his parents had no relatives in the city, they spent the holiday with Michael and Beanie’s family. Fortunately, there were enough people for him to quietly fade into the background, and only have to muster small talk with a few people.

At the dinner table, beneath the sparkling chandelier and the Christmas garlands, relatives dressed in silk and sequins, velvet and fine wool, took turns clinking their cutlery against their glasses, standing up, and relating to the rest of the family what the past year had brought to themselves, their spouses, children, and pets. He refused to pay attention to the boring stories about who the family members had proposed to or married or given birth to, what they had bought or won or otherwise accomplished, and allowed his mind to relax while keeping his eyes open and his lips curved amicably upward. He was deep in his own thoughts when Katsuhiro tinkled a glass, rose, and started recounting their father’s achievements and those of their mother and of Katsuhiro himself from the year that was almost through, things he hadn’t heard before. But then Katsuhiro said, “And lastly, but not least, my beloved brother applied for the space organization’s new astronaut training program and has already passed the two initial rounds. If this continues he may be the first of our family to go into space!”