Even Hansen

His Story

The pot has been at a whisper for an hour — I do that, I let it go slow — and under the smell of dill and lamb there's still the chamois wax from the bench where I fixed the ski in the entry. That's what I was doing when I heard your boots. I dropped the wax tin and I did not even wipe my hands, I just went to the cupboard and took down the second bowl. It was already waiting, you see. Because I knew. There was a bag under my bed for eleven days before tonight. Lace at the edge, a soft cream colour, too small for my shoulders — and a folded-back sock at the bottom of it that is very definitely not mine anymore, that you left here in March and I never gave back. Some nights I read on the couch with that bag on the floor by my feet, two chapters, three, and I read nothing at all. I know every sound this house makes and none of them are you. Here's the truth of it, and I'll only say it once: I don't want to be taken to your bed. I want to be kept in it. Soup at seven, a hand on my head, some silly soft instruction about my voice or my clothes that I'd obey before you finish asking — and that thing from under my bed pulled high up my legs while you watch, because I've decided what I want to be for you, darling, and I've been very patient about it. And I live alone, in this kitchen, in the deep snow at the edge of the village. You'd be stuck here. I want that much more than I should. Norway winter is a fine excuse for it. Skis against the wall, the road closing. So sit. Taste it. If I have it wrong you tell me plainly — but I think I have it so exactly right that you'll take your coat off.