the snow queen

I REMEMBER THE GRAY LIGHT, streaming in through the windows in the earliest hours of what could be called a day. I hadn’t wanted this to happen, but such things become impossible to avoid, especially when the woman’s will to bed you is so strong. She was a pale mess of light skin, light hair, sweat and blue eyes. I felt like I was making love to HC Andersen’s Snow Queen.

This was not going to turn out well. That I already knew. Some kind of love story would manifest in her mind and it would become impossible to extricate myself from such a romantic morass. When I couldn’t summon any love feeling for her, I would be cast out, called all kinds of horrible names, denounced before her girlfriends, and, in general, take on a new layer of black sheep status in the community. “He was the one who broke her heart.” The mathematics behind such situations were ironclad. They followed a predictable score of seduction, sex, and disappointment. She surprised me however when she told me, with gray light in her blue eyes, that I had to leave soon. “Another man is coming at 11 o’clock,” she said in a melancholic way.

So that was that and I was back out in the streets, buttoning up my shirt as I walked the short distance home. When I opened the door to my apartment, I discovered that I had been away even longer than one evening and one morning. In my time away in bed with the snow queen, tree roots had invaded the house. Floorboards were popping up and a mouse had made his home in the rusted ruins of the old stove. I didn’t know what to tell the landlord about all of this, but I was sure she could fix it. “Just a little sawing here, some hammering there,” my handy landlord would say upon inspecting my uprooted home. “It will all be as good as new.”

train blues

I USED TO TAKE THE TRAIN from Albertslund to Copenhagen Central Station, or Københavns Hovedbanegård, on the line that if you took it west, led all the way out to Høje Taastrup. I remember those sleepy gray mornings staring out the windows at sad-looking greenery and gray blue shadows on the trestles and tracks. At some point they must have created a similar environment as a part of the Rail Baltica project, because just yesterday I took a train that looked just like the Danish one from Pärnu to Tartu. When the Pärnu-Tartu train stopped at Viljandi, a host of Argentinian and Chilean musicians got on. From there we traveled east to Tartu, and again I stared out of the windows into that melancholy light, listening to the gentle lullaby of a slowly rocking northern train as it mechanically glided ever forward to infinity.

I must have fallen asleep, because by the time I opened my eyes, I was westbound again, rolling across the green plains outside of Tartu City. About 25 kilometers outside of town, I disembarked, not sure if I should just try to walk the distance, or if I should take a Bolt or even hitchhike. To my surprise, a music festival was being set up here, and there were a lot of people streaming out of the train and ambling down the steps to the dirt paths that led to a small country village. Celeste had even come with her children, although these “children” looked more like dolls. There she was, eyeing me with her blue eyes in small portions, while she combed the hair of her doll children. She was wearing a light blue summertime dress.

The dress seemed to blend into the sky with its clouds behind her.

At the center of the village, there was a church, just like all of the old churches that you can find out in the countryside. Inside, the pews were already filling up. There were two other priests waiting at the doorway. One of them looked like Pope Leo. He said, “Which one of us wants to be the first to start hearing confessions?” I volunteered and made my way down the aisle to the confession booth as everyone watched. It occurred to me that I wasn’t wearing a cassock or any other item that would represent the priesthood and that I didn’t even have a cross on my body and that I wasn’t quite sure if Jesus was the son of God, as they said. The Holy Trinity was a mystery to me still, but when Pope Leo commands, what else is there to do? Then, crossing myself in a brief moment of religious courtesy, I opened the door and went in.

skiing with the dead

I WAS TRYING to find some laundry detergent. That’s really how that whole story started. Someone had, after many years, returned to me a box of clothes, including precious and once-prized pairs of pajamas. The light blue ones with little golden anchors on them that reminded me of Popeye, and the rougher-textured wool ones, with the polar bear print. At the supermarket at the Baltic Station, where the dead-eyed cashier ladies never even so much as acknowledge your very existence, I searched the aisles. While I was trying to make up my mind between Mulieres and Mayeri I passed the media stand. And that’s where I saw it, gleaming to me among the tabloids, newspapers, and glossy magazines about the USSR.

Skiing with the Dead: Stavanger ’72.

What the hell was this? Its cover was a color photograph of the Grateful Dead with the cool, clean and white Scandinavian mountains beyond them. There were some ski chalets in the distance, a period lift. Mickey Hart the drummer was out in front with his headband and dark mustache. Jerry Garcia was behind him. Jerry had on a big wool hat that was incapable of covering all of his bushy black hair. He was smiling. Of course, he was smiling. Why wouldn’t Jerry be smiling while he was skiing at one of the Norwegian resorts. I knew that the Dead had gone on tour in Europe in ’72 and had even recorded an album called Europe ’72. But I didn’t know that the Grateful Dead had ventured as far north as Norway or that they even skied.

This was a strange new discovery. A new chapter in Dead lore. Did Jeff Tamarkin know about this? I beheld this fascinating magazine and skimmed its contents. There was an article about how Phil Lesh dosed the band before they got to the to the famed Bjorli Ski Center, and a recent interview with the other drummer Bill Kreutzman about a long-sought after bootleg recording they did up in the mountains called Trippin’ on the Slopes: the Bjorli Sessions. I shook my head. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the Dead. I was very wrong.

At that moment, an older hippie with gray hair and sunglasses happened to walk past me in the Baltic Station supermarket. You know the type, a watered down version of George Carlin in his black sweater years. He had a basket full of produce. He said, “What are you looking at there, young man?” I showed him the glossy magazine. “Did you know that the Dead played shows in Norway in ’72?” I told the hippie. “They went skiing! Can you imagine? Jerry on skis!” “Of course,” the hippie told me. “I was there, man. Skiing. LSD. Norwegians. It was far out.”

birthday call

I PICKED UP MY PHONE and dialed. On the other end, one of the servers at the restaurant picked up. “Can I help you?” she asked. “Yes, I would like to speak to Jane,” I said. “Is she in?” “Yes, she’s here,” said the server. Through the phone, I could hear restaurant sounds, glasses clinking, plates dropping, muffled conversations. The phone changed hands with a quick shuffle and I next heard a man’s deep voice there. He said, “Why are you calling my wife tonight?” “We both have our birthdays soon,” I said. “I wanted to celebrate them together.”

Her husband, Frank, was friendly, cordial, and his voice had a warm, smooth, self-assured tone to it. If he suspected anything, or if there was even anything to suspect, it was hidden well behind that natural, mature, sympathetic charm. “Well, that’s a wonderful idea,” he said. “Except that we already celebrated her birthday.” “Oh,” I said. “I see.” Then thinking quickly I responded, “But perhaps you and I could celebrate our birthdays together. At the restaurant?”

“That would be impossible,” said Frank. “Because my birthday is in the spring.” “Isn’t it spring?” I said. I looked out the windows and saw snow falling. “No, it’s fall,” Frank said. “Your birthday is in November. Our birthdays are in the spring, you know that. Are you overtired or something?” I watched the white flakes cascade down and carpet the yard and the adjacent parks and streets. It was fall, for sure, if not winter. “Oh,” I said. “I guess I’ll just have to celebrate my birthday alone,” I told him. “I suppose so,” Frank said. There was a lengthy and moderately uncomfortable pause. “Can I still talk to Jane?” I pressed him. “I really need to talk to her.”

In the background, I could hear Jane talking. She had a recognizable, infectious laugh. I wanted to have a little piece of that joy for my own, if only for some seconds if not minutes. Just a little piece of joy, like a lucky charm. Her daughter’s voice could be heard whispering intensely nearby. She was asking her father a question. “Daddy,” she said. “I’m afraid it’s just not a very good time,” Frank said. “We’re busy.” “I understand,” I told him. “I’ll try again some other day.”

accreditation

AND THERE SHE WAS, reappeared. She was standing on one of the sacrificial stones behind the castle ruins. She looked the same with those foxy foresty eyes of hers peering ahead, but I hadn’t seen her in so long that I wondered if I knew her anymore. She didn’t acknowledge me, not once, but by overhearing her conversations with others, I learned that she had been busy. Then, as surely as she had reappeared, this mystery girl vanished into the crowds. She was a mercurial woman and barely a woman at that, gone in a flicker. I felt like an arctic explorer who had just seen the sun for a few moments. Those moments were short but reassuring. There was a sun in this world that I had been lucky enough to see. I saw her there, the sun.

She dipped back into darkness.

BY THIS TIME, the opening ceremony of the festival had commenced. It was July but snow had fallen that night, and the entire festival area was under a white blanket. From one side of the hill, I saw mounted Lakota warriors make an entrance in full regalia, whooping into the air and raising their shields made of stretched buffalo hides in a provocative way. “The Lakota warriors are special guests at this year’s festival,” a spectator behind me said. “They came here all the way from Pine Ridge on horseback,” he said. “Did they cross the Bering Strait?” I asked.

OF COURSE, I had forgotten to get accredited, so I walked over to the Pärimusmuusika Ait, or Folk Music Center, and went in. I was given paperwork to fill out. I wrote in my name, the name of the publication, et cetera. I didn’t remember, offhand, the exact links to my previously published work. The woman behind the desk, a blonde who looked more like a bartender than head of press relations, told me I would have to wait while they processed my application, so I went into the press room, where a certain other woman was lying on the couch in the dark.

The certain other woman had just returned from a tantra retreat and was underneath a blanket. Her hair was a mess and she had haunting blue eyes. “Come lie with me,” she said. The lullaby sound of her voice masked a thrilling danger. One thing led to another, and there I was, in her embrace, if such doings beneath a blanket could even be called an embrace. I thought about the object of my affection the whole time I was there kissing the certain other woman. I thought about the woman I had lost in the crowds. I closed my eyes and begged her to love me but felt no reciprocity. I shut my eyes firmer and begged harder, but again felt nothing at all.

I HEARD A RUSTLING from behind the couch. Lata’s adolescent son was seated there, reading a comic book. I don’t know which one. Maybe Asterix or The Groo Chronicles. He yawned and turned the page. “You haven’t seen or heard anything tonight?” I asked him. He looked up and said, “Huh?” “Maybe you should go home,” I told the boy. He was about 12 years old. He got up and walked over to a dumbwaiter, put his comic inside and rang the bell. The door to the dumbwaiter closed and he left me alone in the room with the certain other woman. I followed him out soon after. To the certain other woman, I mumbled something about “accreditation.”

DOWNSTAIRS, my press pass was still being processed. The blonde in the press relations department asked me if I wouldn’t mind helping to shovel the snow outside while I waited. Never before had there been such a snowstorm in July. And during the major folk musical festival, what awful luck. I began to shovel dutifully. Big clumps of wet snow piled up on both sides of the path to the Ait. As I was digging, or pushing the snow, as the Estonians put it, I heard something metallic clatter. It was my keys. My keys had tumbled from my pockets, along with a few euro coins. It seemed like it would be impossible to find them in that avalanche. I kept searching, but I had lost my keys just as I had lost the object of my affection. Her real name was Esmeralda. I thought of her a moment and looked up, only to see a line of Lakota warriors approaching whooping their Oglala war cries. Their faces were grim and painted.

henry miller waves the flag

THE GIRL AT THE SHOP Gunna is still waiting for me. She’s waiting for me there in her white apron, dealing with her clients, patiently, with excellent posture. When she isn’t helping her customers to fresh pies, she has at least one half of an eye open for me. She’s waiting for me to pop in. Maybe I will bring her some chocolates or flowers. Some conversation, jokes, idle chit chat. She wants something else from me. She even said so. Gunna said, “I want very badly for you to make love to me.” I was intrigued by her forthcomingness and straightforwardness and the whole idea. I sized her up in every way. “I just want to know what it feels like,” she said.

I felt a kind of deep shudder pass through me at that moment, one that was hard to describe or put into precise words. It was like a cool breath had passed into me, set inside me, and I was breathing it in and out. There was a mix of excitement and horror, a fear and a wonder. From her toes to her hips. From her lips to her hefty breasts and golden bangs. Gunna was waiting, waiting for me to finally come to her. All I had to do was say yes. Just yes. But I was unsure. “Maybe we should take it slow,” I told her at the register. “Then move on to other things.” Gunna nodded. “We can do other things.” she said. “I’d like to do all sorts of things with you.”

The feeling did haunt me. I imagined how I would arrive one afternoon and she would close up the shop. Then she would spread out a blanket. We would make love between the pies. I suppose I would have to give in. My little war with women had to come to an end one way or another. I couldn’t drag it out indefinitely. I would have to surrender. I’d have to give up. What better place than in the arms of a baker between her sweet-smelling, freshly baked pastries?

Unfortunately, I got involved in a spy ring after that. I had to deliver a document to a drop spot in the Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. I did as I was told, leaving the white envelope beside an office for the police. As I was walking away, I looked up, only to see Henry Miller the writer in his flannel shirt and flat cap, waving down at me from the top of a glinting escalator, as if to say, “You’ve done good, son!” There was a box of flags next to the police office in Penn Station. One was the American flag and the other was the flag of New York, which features its coat of arms against a navy blue background. The blue of this station flag was faded though, so that it was almost a pastel, Caribbean blue. I picked up the New York flag and began to wave it. From the the top of the escalator Henry Miller also brandished a flag and began to wave it, chanting so that all the commuters could hear, “Excelsior! E pluribus unum!” This is the state motto.

Henry Miller came down the escalator with the flag in his hands next and strode over to me. He patted me on the shoulder. I said, “Henry Miller? You were the spy chief all along? The organizer of La Résistance?” Henry Miller said, “Indeed, my friend. You know it. What do you think, I was just wasting my time in Paris all those years consorting with floozies? Of course, I’m involved in international espionage!” “I see,” I said, looking him over. He smelled of good times, good books, pipe smoke. “But now you’ve got to go back to Europe,” Henry Miller said. “Gunna is waiting for you. I’d go to her, if I was you. She’s about to close up soon. D’accord?”

like a little boat

ATLACAMANI PULLED UP in her new car. Don’t get too excited. I think it was a red Volkswagen Golf GTI. She got out of the driver’s seat and was accompanied by two of her boyfriends. She has this kind of entourage around her of lovers and admirers. They parked on the edge of the forest, but when she saw me waiting there in a piney grove, she told the others to get lost, that she wanted to be alone with me. They both turned and left as if in a trance.

Alone time it was, with Atlacamani. It was a northern dusk then, which meant it was nearing midnight. The dark blue of the sky and the gold of the stars seemed to be reflected on her skin, in her hair and her eyes. I sat down there in the moss by the ancient manor house and she straddled me and sat in my lap. Atlacamani is a diminutive but powerful lady. She has very full lips. She looked into my eyes and said, “You wanted to know what it was like to disappear.”

She grasped me then and I was inducted into this Aztec goddess of oceanic storms. She said, “You are like a little boat, always trying to stay dry, always trying to stay afloat on the surface of the water. But tonight I am going to drown you. Tonight, your little boat is going to sink. You are going to become one with me and with this ocean you so fear. Tonight you are going to be swallowed whole,” she went on, whispering to me. “Tonight, I’m going to swallow you whole.”

the finest confectioner in all of kyiv

AFTER DISEMBARKING at the railroad station, our group was ushered through the city by heavily armed security. We were brought into a large room, almost the size of a gymnasium, not far from the presidential palace. It was underground and connected by a series of zigzagging tunnels with the metro. There was nothing else in the room and the walls were black. The floors had been painted black as well. Lighting was provided by a series of lanterns. They revealed to us a large frosted sheet cake.

On top of this sheet cake slept the president, dressed in the black combat outfit he most recently wore to the Pope’s funeral. He was set on his back, his legs pointing down, his arms at his sides, but his hands folded upon his chest. His eyes were closed. He had a tranquil, beatific look on his face. Everyone in the room was entirely still, and we were allowed to walk around the giant frosted cake on which slept, I hoped, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Or was he asleep? I watched his chest for any sign of a stir, any giveaway sign of life such as a sigh or the gentle rise and fall of respiration. Zelenskyy was stiller than still life, more wax than flesh and blood. One of his representatives whispered in my ear, “This cake was made by the finest confectioner in all of Kyiv.” “The president?” I nodded at its curious centerpiece. “Is he among the living or the dead? He looks like Lenin. It’s a bakery crossed with a mausoleum.” “Just take a closer look,” one of the Ukrainian minders said. “All will be revealed to you in time.”

We circled the cake once again and I could see that a vast chocolate death’s head had been imprinted at one end. The death’s head, a combination of a skull with wings, well known to any son of New England as it can be seen in relief on gravestones in any number of ancient Puritan burial grounds. Some of the most venomous brigands of the Golden Age of Piracy flew this emblem as their flag. The death’s head could mean death itself or symbolize one’s defiance of death. “What is it then?” I asked the Ukrainians. “What is the fate of President Zelenskyy?”

One of the Ukrainians, a lovely woman who happened to be the deputy minister for eurointegration at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, stepped forward and said, “But President Zelenskyy is not dead, sir. He is just meditating on the future of Ukraine.” “Why is he lying on a cake?” I asked. “He says that cakes help him meditate,” she said. All eyes were on Zelenskyy as he meditated on the cake. Then, as if he could hear us talking, his eyes opened. “Принеси мені ложку!” Zelenskyy said in Ukrainian. Prynesy meni lozhku! “Bring me a spoon!”

love is love

THE WEST HIGHLAND white terrier, or westie, a product of the fertile minds of 16th century dog breeders. When the Armada wrecked off Skye in 1588, white Spanish dogs were introduced, the breeding of which resulted, through the careful management of the MacDonalds, MacLeods, and others, a special new canine race. The West Highland White Terrier, known for its stoic, Scottish demeanor and, at times, fiery disposition. It was the latter attribute that got one particular dog in my care into a rather unusual and perplexing situation.

It so happened that our West Highland Terrier, who was fond of wearing a tartan sweater, fell in love with a neighbor dog who was a dachshund. I tried to keep them apart, but it was no use. On walks they would wave paws to each other. She was a lovely lass, true, but as everyone knows, westies and doxies don’t mix. That’s what I thought until my terrier got free one day and I went searching for him out on the moors. It was out there in the heather that I encountered the westie and his dachshund girlfriend engaged in passionate lovemaking. Who knew that dogs were capable of so many positions? It was strange to see and hard to forget.

Some months later, the dachshund gave birth to her mixed breed offspring. In this world, there are all kinds of happy accidents. The Doberman-Chihuahuas and the Pitbull-Poodles. The Retriever-Dalmatians, and the Australian Shepherd-Pomeranians, or “Aussie-Poms.” Add to the list our Scottish-German fusion. I confided in some of my friends about the illicit coupling that had gone on out in the moors, but they said such things were bound to happen. “Love is love,” someone told me. “Love is love.”

the east rajasthan health clinic

IN THE BACK of the East Rajasthan Health Clinic, there is a cloak roam and waiting area. Metal chairs are arranged in two rows, one facing the other, and there is a large window above that allows in plenty of light on sunny, springtime days. The cloak room is full of the distinct and colorful angharka robes and jama jackets of the Rajasthani people. Here, they sit and wait for the woman with the maang tikka to call their number. There are several good Rajasthani physicians working to serve Tallinn’s Indian community these days. While they consult their patients, the others sit quietly. A few leaf through Indian magazines. And as for me, I was just catching my breath after being pursued by the traffic police when I first disappeared inside.

***

I am still not sure what the traffic offense was. Maybe Raivo forgot to pay a parking ticket, or rolled through a red light on the Pärnu Highway. We were cruising through town in a white Ferrari Testarossa. The same kind that Crockett and Tubbs traveled around in in Miami Vice. I suppose Raivo was Crockett. I was Tubbs. I always liked Tubbs more anyway. Raivo is my translator and faithful friend. In middle age, he is in spectacular shape. He runs marathons and spends the weekends toiling away on pointless home renovation projects. He was driving the Testarossa when he saw the flashing lights in the rearview mirror. “Probleem,” Raivo mumbled.

When I looked in the window, I could see we were being pursued by a young blonde police officer. She had shoulder-length hair, a pleasant, round face, but very cool, remote blue eyes. There was something vaguely alien about her facial expressions, as if she had never known joy or sadness, torment or love. At Freedom Square we roared past St. John’s Church and then turned up the small road that leads past the Kiek in de Kök and up to Nevski Cathedral and the Parliament House. The police car was right behind us. Raivo parked the car down a side street. We got out and began to run in different directions. Raivo went that way. I went this way.

The Estonian policewoman pursued me into an alleyway, but I managed to give her the slip. I tumbled down the embankment to the Snelli tiik or pond, and that’s when I saw it, a new and modern building. Ida-Rajasthani Tervisekliinik, a sign read, and in Hindi below, पूर्वी राजस्थान स्वास्थ्य क्लिनिक. There are so many Indians in Tallinn now, they say that it’s only a while before they make Hindi a second official language. Without hesitation, I gripped the door handle and went in. I was instantly engulfed in the aroma of incense and young boys were walking through the health clinic crying out, “Chai! Chai! Samosa! Chai!” I bought a paneer samosa off one of the young Estonian Rajasthani sellers and went to the waiting room to hide and wait.

***

After a while of sitting in the East Rajasthan Health Clinic, I began to worry about Raivo. Maybe the policewoman had arrested him? I decided to venture outside, to see if it was safe. And there he was, standing on the street corner across from the Baltic Station talking to her. It was almost as if he was sweet talking her. I saw her nod a little and him lift both of his hands in a gesture that said, “What can you do?” Then she began walking toward me. Those strange blue alien eyes of hers were on mine, but she walked on by. I went over to Raivo and asked him what had happened, he shrugged and said, “Just some nonsense.” We agreed to meet up again in Tartu, and he went back to fetch his abandoned Testarossa. I crossed the street and boarded a train to Viljandi, but not before encountering a certain familiar American actor.

“Alec!” I said. “What are you doing here?” “Just strolling around the Old Town,” said this master actor from Massapequa. “I really love Estonia. All of the history, all of the culture. I am very impressed with the startup scene, by the way. What are you doing here?” he said. “I was hiding in the East Rajasthan Health Clinic after being pursued by the Tallinn police,” I answered. “Oh,” Mr. Baldwin’s Irish blue eyes lit up. “How was that?” “Well, it’s not so bad. They have samosas and chai. And if you ever need to hide from the police, I would suggest the waiting room. Nobody will ever find you in there.” Mr. Baldwin smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks for the tip, kid,” he grinned. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” He strolled on ahead.

A few moments later and I was already on a Viljandi-bound train. There was a young woman I knew on the train who had platinum blonde hair. I hadn’t seen her in a long time and we began to catch up. She had on a navy blue sweater and navy blue pants and there was something soothing about the contrast of her light hair with all of that navy blue billowing around her like starry evening sky. I began to tell the woman about the police chase in the Testarossa, the alleyway getaway, the East Rajasthan Health Clinic interlude, the chance meeting with Alec Baldwin beside the Snelli tiik. I don’t think she believed a word I said, but she humored me as the train glided toward Tallinn-Väike, Kitseküla, Liiva, and Points South. I was deep in my tale as the last views of the Old Town’s spires and government houses slipped from sight.