Free Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida Page B

was acting out of character; she was undamaged and blithe.

8.
    I slept fitfully. When I woke, my mind felt blanketed, and I stayed in bed for much of the morning, calculating how few hours I had slept in the past week. Hunger finally roused me, and I dressed and walked to town. Inside the store that sold reindeer horns, I ate an overly sweet pastry and drank a cup of pale tea.
    At the tourist information center, I bought a map and post-cards of the town. I didn’t plan on sending them to anyone, but I wanted to have proof that this place existed .
    For two euros, said a sign, I could check my e-mail on the
    tourist center’s computer. I paid. In my inbox were nine e-mails from Pankaj, two from Virginia, eight from various coworkers, and two from a film company in Hong Kong, a sister company to Soutitre. I didn’t open any of the messages from Pankaj, or Virginia, or any of my coworkers. Instead, I read the e-mails

    from Hong Kong, as well as those from people whom I hadn’t been in touch with recently, people who were unlikely to have heard about Dad’s death or my sudden departure. I told three people I was writing from Bulgaria. When I tired of that, I said I was in Sydney, that the Opera House was atrocious but the steak was good. I told the Hong Kong company I would consider their job offer. It seemed true enough—there was nothing I wasn’t contemplating.
    In the late afternoon, when I surmised my father would be home from his trip to Ivalo, I walked by his house. In some respects, it wasn’t much different from our house in Rhinebeck—both had three steps leading up to the front door, a small porch, a neatly stacked supply of firewood.
    I rang the doorbell. Did people here ring doorbells? It seemed like a town where you would knock. A woman in her late fifties opened the door. She said something in Finnish.
    “Hi,” I said. “I’m Clarissa.”
    She stared at my mouth. Was she reading my lips? Did they resemble Eero’s? Her eyes were dense black buttons, her hair the shade of lint. She invited me in.
    I had been picturing Kirsi as the age my mother had been when she left. But Kirsi was older. She was large, ungainly, wearing a dress over corduroy pants.
    Kirsi offered me coffee, and I settled for tea. She directed me toward the living room, which I hadn’t seen the night before. While she was in the kitchen, I looked around the room. A large animal horn—a musical instrument of some

    kind—hung on the wall. I stroked its edges with my fingers. It had the texture of a tooth. In the corner stood a simple piano. A well-worn music book had been left open on the stand, and the seat bench was pulled out, as though the player had just gotten up.
    Kirsi entered the living room with a tray. She poured me a cup of tea, and I thanked her. I tried to avoid looking at her cold eyes. What did Eero see in her?
    “So you are a long way from home,” she said.� “Yes,” I said. “But I was born here.”�
    She responded with a stare. What did she know?� “And you play the piano?” I asked, to be polite.�
    “Yes,” she said. “For many years. I play in the church.”�
    I nodded. This was going to be a long wait. I busied myself �
    sampling the cookies she had put out.
    When enough time had passed that I felt she was deliberately trying to make me uncomfortable, I cleared my throat. “What time will my father be home?” I don’t know why I said this. I wanted, I suppose, to remind her that I had a right to be there.
    “Your father?” she said. She put down her cup on the table as if the weight or the heat of it was suddenly too much.
    “Yes,” I said. “I know he said he was going to Ivalo today.” “Yes, this is true, but—” She slowed her sentence to a halt.
    “Excuse me,” she said.
    She moved into the hallway. Her walk was wide-stanced, but not as absurd as I had imagined. I heard her pick up the

    phone and say my name. When she hung up, she went to the bathroom and ran the water.