Jensen Beach: Swallowed by the Cold: Stories

“It’s the last night of your trip. I’m sure you’ll want some quiet before you go home to your family.”

“Well,” Matthias said coolly, “come down for a drink later.”

In his room, Lennart placed his backpack on the dresser beneath where the television was mounted to the wall. He poured himself a drink and sat down on the bed with it. He flipped through the television channels, watching short flashes of American sitcoms and Danish news programs and a German documentary film about the plastic garbage patch in the Pacific. Several times larger than Switzerland. The narrator said this repeatedly as if it was a precise measurement of size. Lennart got up to refill his glass. He opened the bag and looked inside. The weather forecast was the first thing he saw. A sun and a cloud a single day apart. He reached in and unwrapped the paper and lifted the bird’s carcass from the bag. He placed it on the dresser beside his drink. The bird had stiffened a little bit and the beak was tucked tightly against the body. He lifted the bird and looked at the feathers, stretched each wing out to see how long they were. He turned the body in his hands, mimicking as best he could the movements Matthias and Anneke had performed earlier. The bird wasn’t tagged. He guessed this meant it was probably young, hadn’t had the time to get caught. He put it down and picked up his glass. The glass was nearly empty and this shocked him, though the feeling passed quickly and left a tingle in his chest as if he’d thought he’d lost his car keys or telephone and suddenly remembered they were only in his pocket. The body is so much more immediate to all we experience than the mind. He lifted the glass, held it at eye level, watched the liquid calm, and measured with disappointment how much he’d already had. He finished what was left in one gulp.

Early the morning after his father died he’d received a phone call from the summerhouse. The police had called the evening before to confirm the death, so he was surprised and a little frightened to see his father’s number flash across the screen of his phone early the next morning. The call was from Henrik Brandt, the man who owned the house up the road and nearest a little outcropping of rock his father had always called Bull’s Head. Henrik had woken him with the call. It was before dawn. He didn’t want anything and he didn’t say why he was in the house. He just apologized for calling so early and told Lennart he was sorry to have heard the news. Lennart didn’t know how to respond, so he thanked the man for his concern. It wasn’t until later that it occurred to him that this situation was strange. That afternoon, Lennart looked up the number for the Uppland County Police Authority and called to report Henrik’s phone call. He was transferred to a woman who introduced herself as a case officer in the Norrtälje Police Department. She assured him that the police would investigate the call but that it was nothing he should be concerned about. When he pressed her on this, insisting he didn’t suspect that Henrik was involved in the death, only that it seemed odd that he would enter the house of a person he knew was dead and then call that person’s son, the woman said, “People sometimes act in unusual ways following a death.” After he hung up, he tried to rest the telephone in its cradle but was distracted and his hand slipped and he dropped the telephone to the floor, where it broke apart. He spent that afternoon resoldering a wire to the microphone and gluing the plastic casing back together as best he could. Then he called himself from his cell phone several times to check that the microphone on the landline worked.

The nature program had ended and the bird was staring at him. He tried to sip his whiskey, but the glass was empty. He got up and filled it. The bottle was nearly half gone. He looked at his reflection in the small circular mirror beside the television. He hated this hotel. He leaned in and looked closely in the mirror. Even in the dim shaky light from the television, he could tell his eyes had reddened. He had to do something with the bird.

He wrapped it in the newspaper again, sun and clouds facing him. Tomorrow would be more rain. He held the package in one hand. The drink in his other. He was warm in his chest and the bird weighed nothing at all. He could barely feel it.

With the hand that was holding the bird, he opened the door, pulling until it was wide enough to fit his foot in the crack of light and pull open.

The hall was empty. He held the bird close to his chest.

Next to the elevator was a shiny brass trash can with a large plastic bowl on top that had once been an ashtray. He would put the bird inside, go back to his room, pour himself another drink, watch television until he fell asleep.

Before he could, the elevator bell sounded. He heard the car coming to a stop. The doors opened. Three people stepped out, a man and a woman and a young girl. A family. The woman took the girl’s hand and pulled her close, out of Lennart’s way, as they passed. “Excuse us,” the woman said. She said this in Danish, but Lennart could hear right away she was Swedish. He and Marie had talked about taking a family vacation, but it hadn’t happened yet. Maybe in the summer they would take the ferry to Åland to go camping. Lennart felt the bird and his drink in his hand, and turned to hide both from the family. He smiled at them, got on the elevator, and pressed the button for the lobby.

He left his empty glass on the floor of the elevator.

In the dark under the lip of the bar, one hand rested heavily over its tiny shape, he held the bird on his lap. He ordered a beer and drank it quickly. There was a soccer match on television and a crowd of people there to watch. He kept one hand on the bird. With the other he scrolled through his phone, aimlessly. He hadn’t checked his e-mail all week. Marie had written to say she was going to meet him at the train station in Stockholm when he arrived on Sunday. She missed him and hoped that his trip had been calming. He wrote back, briefly, to tell her he planned to drive himself to the ferry in Frederikshavn, get the train in Gothenburg, and be home before Tove went to bed. It was simple. He hoped whatever choice he made in the morning was just what he told Marie he’d do, or at least something like it.

It was late when the Germans arrived. The game was over. Lennart still sat at the bar, the bird on his lap, his hand on the bird. Anneke’s cheeks were flushed and Matthias was grinning widely. They approached Lennart, sat on either side of him. Matthias put his hand on Lennart’s shoulder and squeezed. “What a surprise,” Anneke said. “A wonderful dinner, and now this. Now you. Here you are.”

Thanks to Anna Stein, and to Ethan Nosowsky, Fiona McCrae, Katie Dublinski, Erin Kottke, and the rest of Graywolf. Thanks also to John McElwee, Alex Hoyt, and Mary Marge Locker, Steve Yarbrough, Ron Carlson, Jill McCorkle, Sabina Murray, Noy Holland, Chris Bachelder, Jack Livings, and Molly Antopol. Thanks to the editors who first published some of these stories, especially Valerie Vogrin, Drew Burk, Maile Chapman, Cal Morgan, Clara Sankey, Brigid Hughes, Lorin Stein, Cressida Leyshon, and Deborah Treisman.

As ever, thanks to my parents and family for their support. And to Anna, with love: thank you.

JENSEN BEACH is the author of the story collection For Out of the Heart Proceed. His work has appeared in A Public Space , the New Yorker, Ninth Letter , the Paris Review, Tin House , and elsewhere. He teaches in the BFA program at Johnson State College and lives in Vermont with his family.