Unformed Landscape Read Free

laughed and winked at her. She shrugged her shoulders, and ignored the vodka he’d poured for her, and drank the coffee. Alexander said he hadn’t been paid in three months. She offered him money, but he refused, and gave her a loaf of Russian bread.
    Once, when it was winter again, and a violent storm was blowing at sea, the
Verchneuralsk
stayed in port overnight. Kathrine had visited Alexander in the course of the afternoon. He had given her half a codfish in a plastic bag with ice. That evening, on the way home, Kathrine saw Alexander and his men heading for the pub. She raised the bag with the fish in it, and waved. The men didn’t see her. She shouted something to them, but the words were blown away in the gale.
    The snow fizzed horizontally through the light shed by the streetlamps. When Kathrine got home, Thomas wasalready there. He was sitting with the little boy in the kitchen. They were playing a game.
    “Here comes Mama,” said Thomas, and he kissed Kathrine.
    “I’ve got some cod for tonight,” said Kathrine, but the child made a fuss, and then so did Thomas. He said he was going to get hot dogs from the kiosk, and then he disappeared.
    The boy was sitting at the table. Kathrine put her arm around his shoulder.
    “Have you done your homework?” she asked. “Do you like Thomas?”
    “He’s nice,” said the boy. “We played a game together.”
    “Did you win?”
    “We’re still playing,” said the boy.
    Kathrine moved one of the wooden figures on the board forward a square, and said, “I’ll help you.” Then the child said, “God sees everything,” and moved the figure back, and held it there until Kathrine went out into the corridor to take off her shoes.
    “And what shall I do with the fish?” she asked when Thomas came back.
    The next day Alexander was reported missing. A woman everyone knew said she had seen him walking out of the village at half past one at night. She said she hadn’t been able to sleep. And he had been just the same as ever, not drunk. They looked for Alexander for several days, butdidn’t even manage to find any traces of him in the snow, and eventually the
Verchneuralsk
left port without him.
    Kathrine sat looking out the window in the fishermen’s refuge. She walked through the village. The sun hadn’t appeared for a couple of weeks now. The lights were on in the windows of the houses. The streetlamps were on night and day, and even the graves in the cemetery had lights on them. At Christmas, Kathrine thought of Alexander’s wife and his two daughters. She wanted to write to them, but she didn’t know what to say, and so she let it go. Thomas gave Kathrine an electric wok.

 
    S vanhild didn’t ask Kathrine why she wanted a room, she only asked her how long she wanted to stay. Kathrine said, “One night, maybe longer,” and Svanhild gave her a key. It was late.
    The room was small and much too warm, full of a dry electric heat. It had a smell of dust, even though all its surfaces were sealed, the laminated floors, the PVC wall panels, the cheap melamine furnishings.
    Kathrine tipped open the window as far as it would go and switched on the television, which was fixed to the wall on a metal arm. She chose an English-language news channel, and turned the volume down so low that she could hear the speaker, but not make out the words. She laydown on the bed. The cover wasn’t old, but it was full of cigarette holes and stains that washing had only driven deeper into the material. She stood up and went over to the window. The room was on the lower ground floor, the window was only just above ground level.
    Kathrine looked out onto the street she walked down every morning on the way to work. She thought of the people who had been in this room before her, seamen, fishing agents, engineers. Perhaps Christian had slept here his first few nights, before he had found an apartment. Perhaps he had watched her go by in the morning, smoking a cigarette out of the