Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

“When?” She’s warm and wet. He can almost smell her fragrance notes filling the car.

“Then pull over,” she whispers. “I hate you, Thomas.”

He goes out of his way to avoid seeming aggressive. But she’s aggressive. As she straddles him on the narrow backseat, she slaps him hard in the face with the flat of her hand.

She shakes him and thrusts her groin against his until it almost hurts. She tears at his shirt, and a button pops off. He thinks he smells something strange on her. Maybe she’s got another man’s sperm in her, maybe another man’s touched her skin. This arouses him. “Have you been cheating on me?” he whispers. Afterward the thought is in no way arousing. Afterward she pulls her skirt to her knees and smooths it with her hands. She lets him kiss her. He kisses her face, forehead, eyes, mouth, her flushed cheeks. But she’s strangely detached now.

They leave the forest road and the half-darkness between the trees. A squirrel scuttles up a tree trunk. The car smells thickly of sex and sweat. He turns on the air conditioning and drapes his arm around her neck. They listen to pop music and chew gum. She fishes perfume from her purse and sprays Thomas with it. “Now you smell like a woman,” she smiles. Then she starts to laugh, and she can’t stop herself. Leaning forward, she cackles until she begins to tremble. He laughs along, but he doesn’t know what’s so funny. Yet the bad atmosphere has completely disappeared by the time she, hiccupping, settles into her seat once more and rubs her eyes. “Oh” she says, “Oh, you slut. Everything’s so bizarre!” A half-hour later they turn off the road and continue along poorly paved country roads, until they reach Helena and Kristin’s driveway. A long, curving gravel track surrounded by pine trees on either side and leading to the farm with the big barn. From up here, you can see the lake on the other side of the grove, which slopes down behind the buildings. And beyond that, marsh and beeches; and farther still, the scattering of fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. A mountain chain in the distance. Smaller mountains closer by. The closest neighbor lives sixteen miles to the east.

While they’re removing their luggage from the trunk, Kristin, wearing wooden clogs and an apron, comes outside through the back door. She gives them each a hug and squeezes Thomas’s chin. “Let me get a good look at you. How are you doing?”

“Fine. I’m fine. And you?”

“We’ve been so looking forward to seeing you all.” She smiles with an almost quivering tenderness. Her eyes gleam wetly. She swallows. “Jenny’s in the kitchen drinking tea with Helena, Alice, and that guy, what’s his name again?”

“Ernesto? The musician from the funeral?”

“No,” Kristin says. “The other one.”

Thomas glances at the house. A soft light emanates from the window in the twilight.

“What other one?”

“You have sheep?” Patricia asks, snatching up the travel bag. Thomas follows her gaze over the field that borders the road. Sheep and lambs graze peacefully. A trace of mist envelops them, dreamlike.

“You better believe we do. Helena makes yarn from the wool, you know. We’ve got hens, too.” She walks ahead of them and calls back, “We’ll actually be eating a couple of them for dinner!” Thomas and Patricia glance at each other, slightly apprehensive. “Hens,” he whispers, wrinkling his brows. Patricia smiles broadly. Her eyes sparkle with a sudden light. That’s exactly how she looked when I met her, he thinks, when I fell in love with her, the freedom she radiated, the confidence. Now it feels as though she’s taken a step away from him and lives in a secret world that he doesn’t have access to. But she’s so beautiful . She sparkles . Her hips sway from side to side when she walks; he can see her leg muscles straining. He holds his breath. They reach the stairwell, where the twins are standing gawkily behind Kristin’s impressive figure. Jenny and Helena emerge from the kitchen, and the hallway’s now full of people. They embrace and say hello. Thomas fishes the chocolate bars and the videogame from the plastic bag he got at the gas station, and the twins give him their bashful thanks before vanishing up the stairs with the gifts. Patricia hands Helena the wine bottle. “That’ll come in handy,” she smiles. And then Thomas catches sight of Luc’s face. He’s standing behind Alice, a hand on her shoulder. Thomas grows cold, and doesn’t hear what Kristin tells him. “Do you?” she asks.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“Do you like especially spicy, dark wine?”

“Not particularly. .” he says. He hangs his jacket on a hook. The group — still chatting, a large clump of clothed flesh — glides into the kitchen, where a fat-bellied teapot rests amid some sort of arrangement with tea lights in the center of the long, scrubbed, white oak table. There’s an aroma of food. A small, plump dog with a dirty pelt wags toward them. It leaps up on one person, then another. “Go lie down, Jupiter!” Kristin shouts. Jupiter waddles sadly over to his basket near the wood stove. An incredibly homely dog. Patricia stands next to Helena in the kitchen and talks to her, one hand resting on her back. From behind, Alice wraps her arms around Thomas. “Uncle Thomas,” she says affectionately. “Here we are.” She lets go of him, and he turns. Luc offers his hand. He takes it hesitantly. “So you’re here too,” Thomas says slowly. “Luc.”

“Luke!” Alice smiles. “I call him Luke.”

“Yeah, it was really nice of Alice to invite me. And when I heard about the lake, I jumped at the chance. I’d like to catch some pike. It’s the perfect time for the males.”

“But not the females?”

He shakes his head. “They’re carrying eggs now. They swim close to shore to spawn when it’s a little warmer. So if we hook the ladies, we let them go.” He smiles at Alice. She nods and smiles back. A private smile, Thomas thinks with a growing sense of hysterics. He tries to get Patricia’s attention, but she’s got her back to him, gesticulating eagerly as she talks with Kristin. Thomas turns to Luke again.

“You brought your fishing pole?”

Luke nods. “Sure thing. If we’re lucky we’ll also get some perch.” He looks extremely relaxed in his chocolate-brown sweater that fits perfectly with his eyes and his characteristically thick, unruly hair. Alice gazes at him with admiration.

“So we’ll have some fish balls for lunch on Sunday,” she says.

“If you catch anything, that is.” Thomas says. But now Kristin’s tugging at him. “Sit down and have yourself a nice, relaxing cup of tea. You two must be terribly exhausted. I hear that you’ve had a break-in at the store. That sounds just awful, Thomas.”

She leads him to a settle bench, where there’s a ceramic mug filled with mint tea and a seat beside Jenny waiting for him. Kristin sits opposite them.

“There you are, you kids. Look at you now.”

There are red splotches on Jenny’s neck. That doesn’t bode well.

“We were just talking about Mom,” she says, looking down at the table.

Jenny scrapes at the fingernail polish on her left pinky. There’s clattering in the kitchen. Alice and Luke have begun washing lettuce for the salad, while Helena stirs what’s in the pans. Patricia’s got a dishtowel around her waist. She’s skinning almonds.

“Alice really wants to learn more about her grandmother,” Jenny says, almost a whisper.

“Well,” Kristin says. “I know it’s not easy for you, Jenny. But it’s understandable, this need of hers. And by now you two must be ready to talk about her. My God, it’s been so long.” Kristin pushes a bowl of dried fruit across the table toward Thomas, but he has no desire to eat withered apple slices or small, shriveled-up figs.