airport cat

IN MY TIME AWAY from Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport they had constructed a gleaming towering hotel on the eastern flank with views of Ülemiste Lake on one side and the runways and tree lines on the other. The architecture and interior was Nordic noir. The joint was decked out like an IKEA store at Christmas. Spare and white. Glass and metal. The words of a Romanian comic came to mind, “Estonia is like Norway, if Norway was made in China.” There was something to that, I thought as I rode the glass elevator down to the Departures area.

Descending, I noticed that the cat was sleeping in the hallway on the second floor. How did she even get there? She looked lost, with that inquisitive pink nose of hers up in the air, sniffing at the dry hotel air. Quickly I pressed at the buttons in the lift, trying to get out to rescue the cat, but the elevator arrived to the ground floor, some irritating tourists got in, and on the way back up to the top of the hotel, I saw that the cat was no longer on the second floor, but had gone up with the other elevator to the eighth floor. Again, I pressed the buttons in the elevator, but it was impossible to get out on the right floor. I was worried. What if she was to venture out onto the runway, only to be crushed, pancaked and splattered by the rubber wheels of a jet? My children would never forgive me for allowing the death of the cat.

Something had to be done.

When the elevator opened its doors again though, I was on the backside of the airport. I got onto a bus that took me all the way around to the other side of the airport, where the various rental car companies have their offices. Other irritating and slow tourists departed the bus here. Some were hugging each other on the escalators. As soon as I got off that bus, I began running through the airport. This part of it had changed too. It looked more like Arlanda, with Pippi Longstocking-inspired play areas for children, as well as counters loaded with cinnamon buns and open-faced sandwiches. Bookstores with Pride flags. There I was, rushing through the airport, trying to save the beloved black-and-white family cat. About halfway through, my wife came walking my way with the children. She was not amused by this funny airport scene.

“Why are you running through the airport like a lunatic?” she asked. “What’s wrong with you? I can’t take you anywhere.” “But I was trying to save the cat! She could get runover by a Ryanair jet.” My wife gave me a strange look. “What are you talking about, save the cat? The cat’s right there. She’s enjoying herself.” She gestured at the cat, who was sitting beneath a fake palm tree in the play area, biting her paws. “Come along,” she said to my youngest as they walked away. “Your father is weird.”

mons

ON INDEPENDENCE DAY, we went to visit a producer in Helsinki, an older man whom I suspected of carrying on an extramarital liaison with my wife. We all went to visit him, and I decided to keep my mouth shut and not say anything, even as the two of them disappeared into the back garden to “talk about things.” I was in the living room with the kids, both mine and his own grandkids, I believe. We were watching TV and then we all fell asleep. There was a large tabby cat beside me. I could hear the cat purr. In the middle of the night, the cat awoke and went outside and I followed it out into the city shadows. I wandered past the cathedral.

I found my way to the Helsinki train station, the Helsingin Päärautatieasema. I got on the first train I saw, seconds before it was about to leave the station, found a seat inside, and again shut my eyes and began to dream deep. When I opened them, it was daylight and we were surrounded by the heather of the Scottish countryside, some ways south of Glasgow. Riken the Japanese mountaineer was seated across from me with his knapsack, looking over a paper map. He was marking his route with a short pencil. “Where does this train go?” I asked him. “Mons,” came the response. “This is the train to Mons.” “But where is Mons?” “It’s a little city to the south of here.” “I’ve never heard of it. I need to go back to Finland.” The train pulled up to an elevated platform in the middle of nowhere and Riken disembarked. “Don’t be such a nervous nelly,” Riken said, with that handkerchief of his on his head. “Just stay on the train.”

I leaned back in my seat and watched the Scottish countryside roll by and again shut my eyes for a while. When I opened them again, I was in the back of a truck driving up the sandy roads of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. We passed through Rodanthe, Pea Bridge, Whalebone, and Kitty Hawk, until the road would go no further. I could see fishermen out in the inlets pulling in nets full of fish. We began to hike into the jungles that separated the Carolina line from the Virginia line. The seawater was warm here, and we encountered a group of indigenous people diving for lobsters and crabs and filling buckets with them. This was a local tribe that was doing work for some company, but the owner was not there on the job site. His lone, shake-sided house stood on the sandy bank that separated the bay side from the Atlantic Ocean. “Which way should we go to get home?” someone asked. One of the Natives showed us into the forest. There was a trail that began here, leading deeper into the swamps and jungles.

The Native gestured with his head. “This is the way home,” he said.

crane neck

DR. STERN’S HOUSE was at the end of Crane Neck. He was a gynecologist, I think. Or an orthodontist. Something like that. He wasn’t home when I arrived to this cedar-shaked masterpiece of architectural fusion, a crisscross of colonial and modernist influences. The property was green, the driveway pebbled. Birds glared down silently from the oaks and the maples. The taxi driver left me at the gate and I walked up to the house and went inside.

Inside the house, there were various characters hanging out and passing through. One of them was a businessman of the old breed, with a pocket watch and pince-nez glasses. He said he had made a fortune rigging baseball games in his day, but had discovered a new source of wealth and materiel: diamonds. He had on a red coat and was walking through the kitchen talking about his dealings in the gem business. There was a skylight and the gray light of the day shone down on his whiskers. “Indeed, the gem business is the best business, if I say so.”

Behind him, my grandmother emerged. Her hair had taken on a golden hue and she was more animate than ever. “Grandma? Is that really you?” She grabbed me by both hands and we spun in circles. “I’m 106 years old,” she said, “and I haven’t felt this good since the New York Yankees won the 1941 World Series!” There were others behind her carousing and I wondered what kind of parallel reality was dawning on me. Grandma kept telling me how great she felt and looked now that she was dead. She said so in her very genteel and proper Virginia accent.

Grandma let go of my hands and like that, I was out in the garden and the grounds were covered in snow. I was with my daughter and we began walk through a series of stalls, not unlike the little putkad that dot the Town Hall Square in Tallinn during the Christmas Fair. Everywhere I looked though, I only saw stacks of baked goods. Flour, flour, and more flour, covered with sugar, sugar, and more sugar and some chocolate. I bought my daughter some tasty candied quince in a paper bag and we walked away from the market, only to be chased down by several wild big black dogs. When a hellhound like that falls on you, it’s a real terror. My daughter fell in the snow as the dogs got closer, so I ran over and pulled her back into the house by her arm. I remember just seizing her by the hand and pulling the girl back inside.

And then I opened my eyes. We were back in the kitchen of the house and the sunlight was on our faces. Someone announced, “Dr. Stern is here to take you home now.” We went outside and there he was, standing beside a black 1934 Buick Victoria. It was a beauty of an automobile. He was wearing a purple tie-dye Grateful Dead shirt and had on a pair of khaki shorts. He had curly hair and seemed like the kind of doctor who had smoked a lot of dope back in med school. “Well, what are you all waiting for?” said Dr. Stern, opening the door to the black Buick. “Just get in!”

two gunnas

I GOT MYSELF a little helicopter, just like James Bond’s Little Nelly from You Only Live Twice, flying out to the east of the island, admiring all of the pine trees and swamps. Keeping close to the estuary, I looked down only to see Jack, a British adventurer in a khaki jacket, hiking across the wetlands with his son. Beside them was an enormous brown lump. It looked moist, pungent. Jack looked up at me and waved, I could see his gray hair. “Ahoy, what is that thing down there?” I shouted above the rotor sounds. Jack shouted back, “It’s a giant poo, mate!”

At the other end of the bay, I set Little Nellie down. Gunna was there, with her fringe or bangs cut across the front. She was at her usual position in the shop, wearing her apron, and appearing rather matter of fact. But over at the juice and taco bar, I encountered Gunna again, blending fruits and vegetables and scooping salsa. I looked back over to shopgirl Gunna, only to discover she was there at the same time. How could it be? How could Gunna be in two places at once? “But didn’t you know there are two of us?” Gunna said. She had a lovely, toothy smile. I once told Gunna that her smile was my greatest birthday present. I kept looking back and forth at the two Gunnas. “Yes, she is me and I am also me,” Gunna said. “We’re all me.”

“But how can that be?” I asked, scratching my head. “Because there are as many of me as there needs to be,” Gunna said, making another taco. She really was a cute girl. She looked like a three year old in a full-grown woman’s body. I reconciled myself to the idea of there being many manifestations of Gunna, just as all seven Matrikas were thought to be manifestations of Lakshmi. Each manifestation of Gunna, the Hindus had said, embodied some different aspect. Indeed, temple art unearthed by archaeologists showed the many faces of the goddess Gunna.

“She is me and I am also me,” she said. “She is me and I am also me.”

minor swing

I HAD A GO at the guitar playing “”Minor Swing.” There was even a small audience around me. To be honest, it was the only tune I could convincingly play and my hands were clumsy. It was recognizable, and it gave one the impression that I knew what I was doing. Most people had heard “Minor Swing” somewhere, maybe in a movie, or maybe playing the back of some coffeehouse. I was surrounded by women dressed in silvery gowns, again those flapper women from the 1920s parading around my subconscious. They were supple, silverwhite, and lovely.

This was all taking place at some neoclassical mansion on the coast of oligarchy and oblivion.

Of course, Rhys Jonathan had to show up at this point. We used to sit next to each other in AP History. He was wearing a blue polo shirt and a baseball cap. I handed the instrument over to him and he began to wow and astonish. Zola, one of the silver-draped flapper women, draped her hands over his shoulders and neck. I grunted “yeah,” because that’s what fellow musicians do during gypsy jazz performances. Yeahhh. This is how we all show how pleased we are. Watching Zola caress Rhys, I understood I had lost her. She was with him now, him and his agile fingers. “I told you,” I said to Rhys. “You’re the next Al Di Meola.” “No way,” he said, strumming and plucking away. “No way I’m Al Di Meola.” “Yes way,” I said. “You are Di Meola.”

I left Rhys with his flapper groupies and went for a walk around the terrace. Adam, another old high school classmate was there. This lanky, sandy-haired troublemaker had later joined the Israeli Defense Forces, and was trying to chase away shellshock and PTSD by consuming handfuls of mochi. I put my hands on his shoulders, told him that everything would be jake.

Halfway down the terrace, between many other partygoers, I encountered Igrayne. She was crying because she hadn’t been invited to one of her friend’s birthday parties. Igrayne was seated there on the edge of the terrace with tears in her eyes. She was wearing a crisp white blouse. Her gold hair was pulled back. Up on the terrace, I could still hear Rhys Jonathan serenading the women playing “Minor Swing,” just better. Then I started to kiss young Igrayne. Her lips were full and pink. I didn’t know what else to do. “They didn’t invite me,” she sobbed.

How else do you stop a bereaved girl from crying?

soul brothers

SOME THINGS IN LIFE shatter us into pieces. There’s nothing solid left. We become free-floating mosaics, like those icy rings surrounding Saturn and Neptune. When viewed at a distance, we almost look whole. Get a closer look and you can see the light between these diverse leftover chunks of soul, feelings and memory. They are suspended there in time.

This was the condition I found myself in while wandering through a strange place. The name of the place was Crown Heights, at least as far as I knew, but it looked a lot more like the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. It had snowed for days and the landscape was thickly white. But the sun had come out and various soul brothers from the neighborhood were out catching some rays. I could tell they were soul brothers because they were all wearing leather jackets and sunglasses. Some of them built little nests out of snow and ice and sat back there, soaking up the sunshine on this January day. A few of them were jazz cats of the old school and were holding conversations about Miles Davis and the Coltrane Quartet.

I slipped inside a house nearby, which was surrounded by small children. They were Dutch or Danish. Blonde children with slight accents. They were building snow forts and having snowball fights. In the house, there were only more people coming in and out. Through a shadowy hallway, I was approached by Celeste, who I hadn’t seen in forever. She was wearing a white t-shirt and she looked as beautiful as ever. Jungles of redgold hair bobbing all over the place, plus those fierce and somewhat frightening blue eyes. She walked past me several times, ignoring me each time she came by, as if she was allergic to me. I tried my best to be invisible.

At last, Celeste looked up and said, “Why have you been such a jerk to me?” I hugged her at once and said, “I haven’t been a jerk. I just loved you.” “If you really loved me, you would be happy for me,” she said. “See how happy I am here!” “I am,” I said. “I am. But this is the kind of sadness that just never goes away.” I started to weep then. I wept so much, I soaked us in tears. Her shirt was all wet. It was embarrassing. There didn’t seem to be any remedy for these blues.

They were neverending.

a new map of long island sound

I NEVER KNEW there were so many islands in Long Island Sound. Long, stretching, sandy islands, islets, and shoals covered with driftwood, birds, seals, and poison ivy. No mariner’s map demarcated them but they were there, about halfway between Drowned Meadow and Connecticut. Maybe the Navy was using them for bombing practice, just like Nomans Land off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. I know the islands in Long Island Sound are real though. I saw them when we crossed the sea by ferry on our long journey up into New England and Canada.

When we returned it was a sunny day in Bridgeport and, to my surprise, the harbor was full of cranes and trucks. They were building a bridge to Long Island from Bridgeport, which would now live up to its name. A high, winding four-lane highway to carry car traffic from Connecticut to its younger brother Long Island. There were also pedestrian paths along the sides of this to-be completed highway and I hiked up them with my family. The first third of the Connecticut-Long Island Highway came down on one of the secret isles. Here we paused to rest, picnic, and admire its dreamy, desert-like beaches and nesting terns and cormorants.

training

RIKEN SUGGESTED I get in shape by running to the airport. We were going to do this Rocky style. He would ride a bike and supervise the run. There he was in his desert camouflage hiking gear. The bike was second hand. He had only paid €5 for it. He had related this to me with some typical understated pride. Riken the Japanese mountaineer was known far and wide for his thrift and his ability to subsist on under €20 per day, sometimes getting by only on a few cans of precooked lentils and boiled rice to survive. He carried herbs and spices in his pockets.

I wasn’t sure what airport I was running to, but in my mind it was JFK. Yet the terrain was unfamiliar. Perhaps Tallinn Airport was the real destination. Or even Tartu? The first 20 kilometers or so went smoothly. I ran down a slope by a school where children were out playing. Riken was up on his bike. “Steady,” he called out to me. “Steady.” I felt depressed when I reached the end of that road though. Only 20 kilometers and maybe 100 more at least to go.

It seemed like an impossible objective to accomplish. How would I ever make it there on foot?

Instead, I went into a diner by the roadside. There were some women inside, Klaudia among them. She was sitting in the back corner in a booth. I could barely see her, but went to sit with her and ordered a full breakfast with lots of black coffee. It was so dark, but I could make out her curly blonde hair, her red blouse. She was wearing some kind of necklace. I got closer to the necklace and began to study it. It looked like some kind of archaeological find. Could it be from the Ming Dynasty? Late 16th Century? “You know, if you’re going to get so close to me like that,” she said, “we might as well just take things all the way.” That’s how I wound up making love to Klaudia in the back of a diner in nowheresville. Klaudia smelled like breakfast.

Riken was outside all this time, standing stoically beside his bike, engrossed in meditation.

the gift

LATA FOUND ANOTHER LOVER, but he was doing it all wrong. His technique was off. I know because I watched them make love. He was on the surface a solid choice, in good shape, what women consider handsome. But his performance was suboptimal. Cut and dry. Same old, same old. Curiously, I was not jealous, probably because I never formed that kind of emotional attachment to her. Later, after they were done, we also made love. Lata was just insatiable.

Afterward, I went to visit Brynhild. I had a gift for her. It was something like a tapestry that had various declarations of affection written all over it. When I got to Brynhild’s house, she was sleeping. The idea of having any relationship with her seemed out of the question. She sat up in bed, beneath the blankets. Brynhild had aged since I was away. She seemed very confused.

Then Lata showed up. She told me to give her the gift. “I’m the one who came up with that template, that design,” she said, pulling on one end of it. “Give it to me, give it to me now,” she said. She was aggressive. That was a side of her that I had never found appealing. It kept me away. There was real hardness in her. “Give it here,” she said, tugging away. “Give it to me now.”

I’m not sure what happened after all of that. I could hear someone vacuuming out in the hall.

veeriku thieves

I WAS ROBBED outside of Veeriku Selver in Tartu. It happened just last night. There were three of them, but a ringleader, of course. I’m seldom violent, but the joke about “stealing his backpack” turned into a non-joke. I don’t remember what the other two of them looked like. One was thinner and had darker hair. The other one was chunky. The ringleader was named Andreas or some variant on the name Andrew. Only later, I recognized his physical similarity to Bree van de Kamp’s son from Desperate Housewives, whose name was also Andrew. But he was speaking Estonian. So I was robbed by Andrew van de Kamp’s Estonian doppelganger.

She, a lady of my life, was AWOL meantime. She had reconnected over social media with an old lover from the Canary Islands. A British traveler who had retained a faded photograph taken at night on a beach in Maspalomas. In the photograph, he was noticeably older, with white already intruding into a red-colored beard and a flat cap. She was who she was at that time, looking somewhat naively out at the camera (and who took that photo? Probably some other tourist who had been passing by). That had all happened back in 1999. They had found each other. “Can’t you see,” she said, showing me the photo. “He was the real love of my life!” He was older now. Back then he was late forties. Now he was 70+. Age, they said, was just a number.

God, I hated my life, having to contend with undying 1990s soap operas and getting mugged at Veeriku Selver. It was almost as bad a lifetime sentence to suburbia. But, as Rage Against the Machine once sang, anger is a gift. I made short work of the Veeriku thieves. The other two retreated into the alleyways, and I picked “Andreas” up and brought him inside. He called me a coward and unmanly for not settling things the old-fashioned way and for leaving him with the guards. I told him that I wasn’t a policeman, it wasn’t my job to deal with criminals. Later, he tried to tell the Tartu Police that it had all been a gag, that he had just been pretend-stealing.

Inside of Veeriku Selver, I encountered Erland and his Musi examining some carrots and potatoes. They were gathering ingredients for soup, but seemed lost in their cooperative world of steady relationship. Upstairs, I discovered a room for guests and sat on a couch. I turned on the old-fashioned TV set. The TV was showing M*A*S*H. Alan Alda was making another one of those jokes I could never understand. And there was that other character, Radar. I can’t say I ever enjoyed M*A*S*H but it was the only thing on Estonian television.

Uncle Frank then appeared at the door with a box of pizza. Uncle Frank was a family friend, so he was not a biological uncle, but he fulfilled many uncle-like duties in his time. He had gray hair, blue eyes, wore a blue polo shirt open at the collar. He reminded me, vaguely, of the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island, though a more sober, slimmed down version. Uncle Frank was also my godfather and he was also dead. Uncle Frank sat across from me on the couch. He opened the pizza box and began to eat a slice and I did the same. We both sat there watching M*A*S*H and eating pizza. Uncle Frank sighed. He said, “Well, kid. You’ve had a hell of a life.”