Janne Drangsholt - The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter

“Weird how famous paintings like this are always so small,” Ingvill said.

“You know so many things, Ingvill,” I said, a statement that resulted in her mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like slut .

I tried to focus on Leonardo’s interpretation of Mary’s motherly love. She seemed so young. And I suppose she was, too.

When I had Ebba, I was twenty-nine. And with Jenny I was thirty-one. That was OK. But with Alva I was thirty-six, and I felt it right away: My body didn’t want to be pregnant, and it definitely didn’t want to give birth. The midwife said there was a kind of lip in there that hadn’t gone away. The other two babies had just slid out without any problems, but Alva had built herself a wall so she could stay in the womb. For a second I felt like I’d made her homeless when I held her in my arms.

I longed for her little body, her rubbery rain-boot smell.

“Would you like to see the icon collection?” a voice suddenly whispered into my ear.

I closed my eyes and put up a mental wall before I remembered this was a Voight-Kampff test and that a wall wouldn’t work. So I put on a smile and showed it to Pretty Putin in the hopes that it would dazzle him.

“The icon collection?” I repeated. “Definitely.”

He stared at me and I sensed there was a battle burgeoning between us. The difference was that he’d trained in Gaddafi’s Libya, whereas I pretty much only had what I’d learned from American movies. But maybe that would be enough?

“You’re in a desert,” I said, staring back at him. “You see a tortoise and flip it over so it’s lying with its belly up. It can’t flip itself back over without your help, but you do nothing. You just stand there and watch it suffer. Why?”

“Why?”

“Yes, why?”

“The tortoise must take responsibility for its own fate.”

“But why did you flip it over to begin with? Why didn’t you just let it be?”

He watched me without blinking.

“It needed to think things over a little,” he replied, “reflect on its actions. No one is completely innocent.”

That night I was constantly woken up by doors slamming shut and the heater cycling on and off, and every time I was pulled out of sleep, I felt the iron fist clench my heart a tiny bit harder. My throat responded by contracting as well, and my tongue was so dry it felt like it was made out of cardboard.

The bottles of water the hotel had set out as welcome gifts were already empty and no one answered the phone at the number labeled “Room Service,” so I ended up drinking water from the sink in the bathroom, even though it was probably radioactive. At any rate it tasted strongly of chlorine, and I was dizzy and nauseated and wondered if I might have a fever.

In the end I got up, even though the night could hardly be described as over. It was snowing outside, but the ground was still bare. The canal was lit up a sickly yellow color and the streets were deserted.

I tried to go online, but received the same error message as before. Something about a PTC connection? That sounded strange, but everything was so strange in here, from the fluctuating heating system to the weird yellow carpet with its baroque-psychedelic pattern. Suddenly I felt the snow globe closing in to just this room.

Trapped in finite infinity.

And I would never find my way home. Not in time, not in space. Not on the inside, not on the outside.

If only I could get home, I thought. Then everything would work out.

If only I could find my authentic self, make myself a moveable home that could let me exist. That could pulverize the iron fist.

I turned on the shower. The water ran over me, and I closed my eyes and leaned my head back.

This wasn’t one of those bathtub showers. This was a shower stall. A stall that was a portal that could start the process required to get me back.

To get me home from Russia. Home to us. Home to myself.

I’m not a replicant, I repeated.

I am a human being.

We all make the world.

It was all going to be OK.

I blow-dried my hair and slowly donned my socks and pants and sweater, then my coat, and peered cautiously out into the turquoise hallway. I slowly made my way down the stairs to the colorful lobby with its big black marble tiles and purple and yellow walls. There was an enormous sculpture in the middle of the room that at first I had thought was Atlas, until I realized that he wasn’t carrying the world on his shoulders after all—he was trapped inside it. His body was muscular and sinewy, and it looked like he was pushing with his shoulders and his knees in an attempt to break out of the bonds that held him. This person was all about his intense need to escape, to free himself.

I tried to hold my thighs still, because they’d started trembling. I wondered if the best course of action might be to go back upstairs and open that bottle of vodka, now that I’d proven to myself that there was something outside my room. But the claustrophobia wouldn’t let go and the trembling hadn’t abated, either, so I pushed the bounds of my snow globe further still by putting on my hat and mittens and going outside.

There wasn’t anybody in the street, though night was turning to day. The suburbs were probably jumping with people on their way to train stations or scraping ice off their cars. For all I knew, maybe Ivan was laboring right now to get his car into drivable shape while cursing internationalization generally and Norwegians specifically.

My thighs were still trembling, but now it was more from cold than anxiety.

I contemplated the icy wind from Siberia and my thoughts returned to that sinkhole. What would it be like to approach a crater like that? On foot over the Siberian tundra. An encompassing darkness that was suddenly penetrated by dancing flames and billowing gas that settled like a membrane over the land. I’d crawl toward the top of the tallest ridge and look down at the flaming opening.

What would I see?

What would I understand?

What would I remember?

Suddenly I noticed that it had stopped snowing and the canal lay covered in ice before me. I stared at the opposite shore, where the bluish buildings of the Hermitage stood out in the darkness. It had gotten to be six a.m. and traffic was already flowing in a steady stream.

Thoughts of the icon agitated me.

I pulled out my phone and called Bjørnar, who answered just as I was about to tap the red button with my finger.

“Good morning,” I said. “You do exist!”

“Yes.” He yawned. “Just barely.”

“How’s it going?”

“The way it usually goes when you’re solo-parenting three kids and are busy at work.”

“Yeah.”

He yawned again and then asked, “How are you?”

“Fine. It’s a little weird here. I wonder if I have a fever.”

“Mm.”

“Well, I just wanted to say hi. Make sure you weren’t just a dream.”

“Nope, I’m real.”

“No news on the house?”

I regretted it as soon as I heard the words slip out of my mouth.

“The agent thinks we should consider taking it off the market.”

“Oh?”

“So it comes up higher in the searches. There’s no interest in it, not even from reptiles.”

“Replicants.”

“What?”

“You meant replicants.”

“Anyway, nothing’s happening. We’re probably going to have to be prepared to own two houses.”

“Don’t say that!”

“I’m trying to be a little realistic.”

“I know.”

“We can talk about it when you get back. I have to hang up in a sec if I’m going to manage to get us all out of here on time. I have an early meeting.”

“Say hi for me,” I said flatly.