vance

AFTER VICE PRESIDENT JD Vance returned from his trip to Tallinn, it was said that a great change had come over him. No one was quite sure what had catalyzed this right-on-time midlife crisis onset, but it could have been the sum of experiences. Maybe it was viewing the Anton Corbijn retrospective at Fotografiska, or merely watching men and women the same age as him engaged in stirring table tennis matches in the many yards and alleyways of Telliskivi. Maybe it was his first taste of a delicious VLND Burger. Nobody knew what had caused it.

The changes were visible. The Ulysses S. Grant-inspired beard was the first to go, followed by that sharp suit he had worn when famously lecturing Zelenskyy. After the Tallinn trip, Vance had started wearing a pale blue, long-sleeve shirt that read TALLINN on it. The shirt was one-size too large, which gave Vance a billowy, college-freshman-getting-over-his-hangover look.

It was this changed Vance that I encountered at the Elliott School of International Studies in Washington, DC, a few weeks later when I went to retrieve a few books I had left behind in the student lounge during a six-week crash course in Baltic Studies. I went into the sparse, multi-level area, climbed a set of stairs and found the books in the corner where some older couples were sitting around and chatting. One of the women, with dyed blonde hair, wore a pink dress, the amount of cleavage visible was on the level of the grotesque. Who were these people?

It was then that I noticed a van pull up outside the school, and Vance and his entourage — a mix of press pool, Secret Service, and Hillybilly Elegy fans — follow him in. With his pink, cleanly shaven face and TALLINN long-sleeve t-shirt, it occurred to me that Vance was starting to look more ex-boyband star than vice president. He came into the lobby and was mobbed by students. Then he told his followers that he needed a rest and sat down on a couch across from me. I was nervous. What could I tell Vance? Was now the time to do some lobbying on behalf of the Baltics? What would Kasekamp say? How would he handle this? I decided to play it cool, to let him do the talking, to make him think that I was his friend. If I came at him with some slogans, he was more likely to tune me out. For whatever reason, the president had not yet turned on Vance, despite his new look. Perhaps after having alienated the British and Italian prime ministers and the Pope, he had decided that annoying the man who could make him redundant with one flip of the 25th Amendment was not the best idea.

“Well,” Vance said. “I came to hear your ideas.” Something about that Ohio drawl made “ideas” sound like “odors.” His put his hands on his thighs, leaned in. “You want to smell our odors?” I asked. Vance gave me a strange look. I gave him a strange look. It occurred to me that I might be tripping. Had I been dosed? How else to explain the weird 1950s couple in the student lounge, especially the woman with the pink dress and obscene cleavage. What was going on?

I noticed some other students in the back, leftwing university alumni, familiar to me from my undergraduate days. They began to circle each other. I was mortified. They were going to mess up my lobbying on behalf of the Baltics. We had Vance right here in the palms of our hands. He was becoming one of us, the seventh friend, so to speak, in addition to Ross, Phoebe, Joey, Monica, Chandler and Rachel. Or was JD Vance the replacement for Chandler? All we needed to do was give him some good coffee and his transition to the light would be complete. And those boneheads wanted to insult him? To my amazement, they began singing a familiar song. It was “When You Wish Upon a Star,” the Disney anthem. One of the protestors had even dressed up like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia and was dancing on the hands of the protestors.

“Anything your heart desires will come to you!” Mickey shouted down at JD Vance. I clasped my hands over my eyes. I was certain that I had been drugged. None of this could be true. But when I looked back, I saw that JD Vance was crying. The impromptu singing of the Disney song had moved something in him. “I love that song,” he said. “I just love that song.” Vance turned to me and said, “I’m staying here with you guys.” Happy collegiate faces surrounded him, encouraging his big change. Someone shouted out, “Get this man a latte with coconut milk!”

“No, sir,” said James David Vance, shaking his head. “I ain’t ever going back to the White House.”

connery

AFTER THE EVENT, I was approached by a woman who looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure where I knew her from. People were slowly leaving, many of them taking their time as they walked back to their cars. It must have been some kind of outdoor concert, or maybe a spring wedding in the countryside. It was light out, but a dim, dusky sort of light that hung in the air. We found ourselves at a small playground, and the woman took a seat on a seesaw across from me. We balanced each other out. She told me that she knew who I was, but that we had never met. She said that she worked for the BBC. The woman from the BBC had light-coloured hair, but there was mischief in her features, in the shape of her lips or behind those eyes. Then she said, sliding across the seesaw to me, “I have wanted to do this since I saw you in Dr. No,” and she began to kiss me. Ferociously. Violently. I felt like I was being consumed by her. Something about the seesaw encounter with the woman from the BBC unsettled me to my core. Especially those words she said to me while sucking on my ears, “I loved you in Thunderball.”

After we parted ways, I went home and decided to wash up. It was then that I saw what she had been talking about. There, peering back at me in the mirror, was Sean Connery, the actor who had played James Bond in the 1960s. I looked just like Connery in the mirror, the suit, the tufts of brown hair, that slightly amused expression. But how could it be? When I looked down at my hands, they were my hands, not Connery’s hands. My arms were my arms. I could make out the slope of my nose if I focused closely on it. But in the mirror I was Connery, suit, tie, and everything. When had this happened? At what point had I turned into Sean Connery?

I tried to find out more about the woman from the BBC, obtaining information from various intelligence contacts. She had once had short hair, in a Princess Diana-inspired period, and had been married to some New Wave singer who had committed suicide, or was it autoerotic asphyxiation? What was I to do about my newfound predicament? Or, well, being Sean Connery wasn’t all too bad. It had its perks, certainly. When I was in the shower, washing up, there was a knock at the door and Tarja came in, dressed in white. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood,” she said, “and …” Her eyes went downward and a dreamy look settled across her face. “What?” I said, lathering myself with soap. “Do you see it?” “Oh, I see it,” she said. But then I realized she was referring to my physique, not the fact that I had turned into Connery. Which made no sense. Had I merely been Connery to the woman from the BBC? Maybe every woman was seeing her own desires in me? “I have to go to Stockholm,” I told her.

“I am coming with you,” Tarja decided. She left the shower and when I exited and dried off, a towel still around my waist, I could see her white suitcase there, next to mine. But I didn’t want Tarja to accompany me to Stockholm. Wasn’t she married? How could this have ever been a good idea? A man in a 1940s suit was standing there with my things and said, “I think I see her husband coming.” “You do?” “Yes, he’s just over the hill.” “Can you please just tell her that I needed to go to Stockholm alone.” I put on my clothes, went outside and found her seated beneath a tree with her husband and children. She looked up at me sorrowfully. “It looks like we just broke up,” she said. “All on account of you. The good news is that I can come!”

“No,” I said. “I need to go to Stockholm alone!” I needed to catch the next LuxExpress bus to the capital, to get on the right ship. But Tarja’s interloping had cost me 10 minutes and when I looked back, from beneath that outdoor tree, I saw the bus drive by. The man in the 1940s suit then appeared and said, “Looks like you two will have to drive up, come I’ve got the car ready, your bags are in the trunk.” So it was settled. An overnight cabin with Tarja, an adulterous liaison. I began to miss the woman from the BBC. She had been so upfront with her feelings and desires. She just took me right there, on a seesaw. There was no weirdness, there was no hesitation. I wondered if Connery’s life had been like that. Women seizing him at parties, no questions asked. There was no way to know anymore though because the old chap was dead.

double plastic

A DIM BEDROOM, sprawled on the bed. She told me that she had sworn off men, for all time, on account of our serious inadequacies in every department, but that didn’t stop her from walking in and climbing into bed alongside of me, while we watched some long-forgotten TV show from the Nineties, something action fantasy, like Xena: Warrior Princess. We began to kiss then, which surprised me, but I went with it, then quickly I had the shirt up, revealing pleasant rolls of womanly middle-aged fat. Like pre-baked pastry dough. I disappeared into her chest with soft and long licks until her son came into the room for a moment. With a certain deftness I repositioned us in an instant, so that it looked like we were just reclining.

The moment he was gone, the sex continued. I wore a condom and she inserted a female condom, which looked like one of those clear plastic bags you get at the supermarket, you know, the kinds you fill up with bananas or chestnuts. The friction of my plastic against her plastic rendered the whole experience double plastic. I couldn’t feel a thing. I didn’t know if anything was happening. Somehow I had lost all sensation in my body. Her own freckled face wore a haunted, sleepy expression. “Are we making love?” I asked her. “Because I just can’t tell.”

After the double plastic incident, I left the house, took a long drive. It was a sunny day, I was cruising down some boulevard in a sprawl of gas stations, supermarkets, and telephone poles. Sonja was there, waiting on the street corner, about eight months pregnant. She looked beautiful with her blonde hair, all dressed in black, plus that big fat gut showing beneath her.

What else was there to do but give her a ride?

“But why are you still being nice to me?” she asked. “Can’t you see I’m carrying another man’s child?” She wasn’t very happy about being treated so royally by me, with the chauffeur escort business — we had just pulled into a home improvement store parking lot. “Because you are you,” I told her. “And I still like you, wherever you happen to be in your life.” I went on, “Plus I am going to miss you. Once that baby pops out, you are going to disappear for a while. You are going to be in the baby cave or cocoon. It’ll be years before we ever have the chance to have a normal conversation again.” Sonja found all of this disarming, but she softened upon hearing it.

Inside the home improvement store, there was a carnival, and Sonja paid a few euros to throw giant balls at some targets. Maybe she would get a prize. She threw another ball and struck the target. Lights began to flash. Then my eldest daughter walked by and started to watch Sonja. “Who is that woman?” she said, almost in awe of this pregnant Amazonian throwing balls at a home improvement store carnival. “She is amazingly beautiful,” she said, as if she was observing an especially colorful fish at an aquarium. “She is,” was all I could say to that. “She is.”

community cinema

ON MY BACK on the kitchen floor, she was facing me, her hair all done up in curls. She was very proud of herself because of the success of her latest exhibition. She was wearing a white gown, I imagine she had been sleeping, or was in the midst of preparing for bed. I looked up from my spot on the floor and said, “Come here,” and pulled her on top of me. She laughed when I did this. There was of course the question of how far this kitchen game would go.

The kitchen hadn’t been remodeled for decades. There was blue tile on the walls, one window with a raggy curtain. Two other Viljandi ladies sat behind her on chairs. They were enjoying the scene, it was just like their community cinema, kogukonnakino. Our faces were face to face, and her dark curls were everywhere, and then the lips parted. There was that hesitancy that’s always there, the heft of a warm figure across my abdomen, and then the tongues that began to probe each other, like playful little snakes. One went in and the other went around.

As this was going on, the Viljandi ladies from the community cinema approached her from the back and began to massage her legs. She laughed out of pleasure and joy, and the kissing continued. Then, from downstairs, I heard the creak of a door, and the fourth woman arrived, a young artist in a corduroy jacket. Somehow I could see her in the foyer even though I was on the floor. Her eyes smarted with happiness. Her reddish hair was pulled back, her cheeks were rosy pink. She had a package in hand. Another birthday gift! “Well,” she said. “I’m here!”

easter

BLUE CHOCOLATE EASTER EGGS, stolen from somewhere. I was seated in the Viljandi Library, assembling baskets for the librarians. But how many eggs to give each? They needed to be allotted according to size. I wasn’t going to let any single librarian be the favorite. I filled the baskets, each one had an equal amount of smaller and larger ones. These were beautifully decorated with golden designs ringing the metallic blue. When this was all done, I stepped out

I noticed I had a broom in my hand. Strange. I had never tried to fly with a broom. Like a real witch, or male witch. What were we called? Warlocks? It was a bright day with a strong cool wind blowing from the north, and I rose up into it with the broom between my legs. This proved hard to steer, I pointed the broomstick toward Kodukohvik, clawing at the cold air as if trying to swim, but the winds blew me back toward the shopping center and I struck a giant billboard of my daughter’s fourth grade teacher Miss Madu before sliding down to the ground.

There I was, on the hard stones of the sidewalk, when Ignacio came walking by, looking like a true troubadour. He had on his black cap; this only drew more attention to his folk singer’s mustache. Ignacio said, “I have to go back to Chile, man, but I don’t want to,” he pulled at his eyelids as he did it. “I don’t want to go back.” He said Chile was full of liars and manipulators.

After that I went in a nearby cafe, where I ordered up a cappuccino. Who else should be sprawled out on the couch but the poetess Els Stenbock, nestled beneath a blanket in the blue light, her eyes all fire and her hair all gold, beads of sweat on her brow. I dove into her like one dives into a swimming pool. Struan Peel was there. He was jealous. Frowning, moping. He said, “You two are going to get married,” I said, “But we can’t, she’s already married.” She was.

Struan looked back with some agony at the baristas, but they were all attracted to the same sex, be they man or woman. There was no love to be had for this young straight Englishman who looked like Shakespeare, and so he walked sullenly out of the bar. I gave Els another kiss, and she purred. It felt good to be kissed, to have any intimacy at all. I had started to doubt in love all together and then … So there was one woman who did not despise me in this world? She was hiding out at the cafe on Tallinn Street? “Come back here,” Els Stenbock demanded.

But I couldn’t. I had to find Struan, who was stricken with grief and self-doubt after having been rejected by the gay baristas. “There’s no love left for me,” he had muttered before leaving. “There’s just no love.” Outside things in the streets had changed. This was no a longer town, these were the frozen wastes. A musket ball went whizzing by. When I looked down, I saw that I was in the uniform of the Swedish army. Embroidered into my blue uniform was a golden XII.

I was in the Great Northern War. I scrambled down a snowy hillside, more musket balls went flying by, and I heard the sounds of Russian being spoken from a nearby grove of spruces. The soldiers had built a barrier made of branches, and as I stood on these branches, I could see that I was standing on top of a deep, open well. I looked down into this frozen well and saw the branches emerging. What even was this? The tree of life? The branches circled, almost as if they were arranged into constellations. Space, time and trees intertwined. What good fortune that I hadn’t fallen in. Who knew how deep this was. It was all just too puzzling. Where was I?

I decided after that to go back to the cafe after that, to the safety of Els and the couch, where she no doubt lied in waiting for me, warm beneath a blanket. But there was no street anymore and there was no cafe and there was no door. There were just fields of snow, forests full of trees, cannons blasting in the distance. I was stuck here in the great war. Where was that door?

princess

I DON’T REMEMBER how I met the Princess. I do remember that I was in Italy, just outside of Corigliano, on my way to the Sila, when I stopped into a gas station and was nearly seduced by another woman, whose nerves I calmed in Italian. After that, I stole a candy bar from the gas station and was on my way. Later, I heard a lot about the candy bar, but at the time, I was just trying to outdo my scofflaw friends, who had never bought a train ticket in their lives. When I calmed the Italian woman, I told her she was beautiful, of course, that most men were in love with her, but for various reasons why I could not accompany her on the next part of her trip.

Then I went back to the apartment we had rented on the coast and I think that’s where I met the Princess and her entourage. She was undoubtedly the Princess of Wales, but not that Princess of Wales. She looked almost identical to Annikki, except she spoke the Queen’s, or King’s English, and had incredible, royal posture. Her hair was golden and almost alien to the touch, her skin was milky colored, smooth and flawless. The group captain assigned to protect her carried out a very thorough interview with me. This was a younger lad who could have been an ex-quidditch player. Somehow I passed the test. The night was spent watching romantic comedies on a fine couch and sharing bites of cookies. I think the Princess liked me.

And then she was off again, with her dresses and entourage, to complete her tour. Eventually, when I returned home, I heard about two things. One was the deep shame my family felt upon hearing about the candy bar stolen from a gas station in Italy (“And you know, they have it all on video! The owner is so disappointed in you, a fellow Italian stealing!”) but also the elation that their son had finally met a new woman and that she happened to be the Princess of Wales.

“Is it true that she really likes you?” my mother asked. “Yeah, we get on great,” I said. I somehow wasn’t quite sure what all the fuss was about. She was just a princess. “You know,” my father said after a turn. He was standing there dressed in sober black, my consigliere. “This could be good for you. Have you thought about asking her for a royal appointment?” I shook my head vehemently. “You know, I knew you were going to do this,” I said. My father stepped back, as if struck by a dart. “Do what? All I am saying is, she happens to be a princess, you happen to need a job. She likes you. She happens to be in a place where she could get you a gig with a high-paying salary.” “I might have met the new love of my life and all you can think about is how I can benefit financially from it?” I said. “No, no, just listen a minute,” he said. “Don’t forget, you were so desperate you stole a candy bar!” “Oh, I’ll send Mario a whole box of goddamn candy bars!” I shot back. “Same old shit,” I said. “Same old snaky manipulative shit!”

After I left the room, I could hear them argue about who had done what wrong. My mother blamed my father. My father said he was only trying to help. My brother was there in the corridor with a package, wrapped up in plain brown paper and tied with a ribbon. He was standing there patiently in a jacket and tie, like the doorman at a Manhattan hotel. “I thought I’d get you this for your birthday,” he said, then gesturing with his head, “Don’t listen to them. They don’t know anything about princesses.”

I removed the paper and saw what it was, a new Jack Kerouac book. Discovered in the vault of an old mobster, published for the very first time. There were pictures of Jack on the cover seated at a typewriter, or standing somewhere in the desert beside a cactus. The cover and the paper were smooth to the touch and they aroused a kind of tingling curiosity within me. Good old Jack. “I knew you’d like it,” my brother said. “Thanks,” I said. “Now this is a good gift.”

hotel

IT WAS CALLED the Fairmont Hotel. These words I remember clearly from the entrance way. I had been standing in the parking lot there, for whatever reason, when a black van pulled up and a group of armed men jumped out. Maybe they were border patrol? Or were involved in busting some drug trafficking ring? Or maybe someone had bombed another Tesla? Whatever the case, it didn’t seem like the kind of place you wanted to just hang out. It was a hot day too, and I found the air-conditioned lobby of the hotel offered up cool sanctuary. More men with guns headed in one direction and I headed in the other, passing the many posh hotel guests.

Until I found myself in Annikki’s kitchen, where she was preparing food. I was standing in the dimly-lit space, with my hands on the counter. She was chopping onions and carrots, and at the center of the kitchen a big pot of soup was boiling away on the stove. Annikki had on her blue dress, with its white pattern, so that it looked as if she had clothed herself in a patch of sky. She had been attending various therapy courses and we were talking and talking about relationships, and the onions were sliced and fed into the bubbling pot. She did this in a rather matter-of-fact way, with her blonde hair pulled back and brow furrowed. “But Annikki,” I said. “All we do now is talk. We spend all of our time talking. Won’t you just let me give it to you?”

This produced no word in response, but one light eyebrow arched up as if she was evaluating different service packages at a car wash. Annikki replied, with a shrug, “Why not try?” There was a small bed fitted on one of the kitchen countertops and we lied in it. I felt very warm lying there next to her and my body came to life. It took some real talent to uncover that right breast from its hiding place beneath the dress fabric and the lacy bra underneath. When I at last came face to face with it, I admired it, as one might admire a new find in an ancient Egyptian tomb. This is what she had been hiding from me all this time? Gradually, I sank into it, as one might ease into a bioluminescent bay. All of these secrets rippling before me, making sublime patterns in the water. I heard Annikki sigh. She too seemed to be floating and drifting.

Then came a pounding at the door. I was afraid it was going to wake up her brood of kids. Another knock. A little boy’s voice could be heard from the other room. “Mommy?” he said. “It’s nothing, kallis.” “Open up!” a man’s voice could be heard. “Open up now! This is the police!”

baby

THE BABY was not mine. It was my ex-girlfriend’s baby. I know this because she brought it with her when she came to visit Estonia with her friend (or was she her girlfriend?) They looked alike, two lesbian women from the West Coast with pale faces and orange curly hair. We were standing behind the Raekoda or Town Hall in Tartu on a wet, gray streaky day. Student activities were underway, something like a race or marathon. People lined the cobblestone streets, my ex-girlfriend and her friend included. They were unassuming American tourists. For them this was all just taking in the culture. That’s when she handed the baby to me. “Can you take care of her?” she asked. “We would like to do some sightseeing.”

Sightseeing? I walked across the Town Hall Square to Katla’s apartment house, then up that flight of stairs to her door. Inside, I discovered that its rooms were full of boxes and guests. “Whose baby is it?” someone asked. They were standing around a Christmas tree, having a kind of packing holiday party. They were wearing festive sweaters. “It’s not my baby,” I said, cradling her. “But she sure is sweet.” She was a lovely child with yellow fuzz for hair. And despite being maybe half a year old, the baby somehow had learned to talk quite impressively.

This I found out later when I lost the baby. I had just set her down for a moment in the busy apartment and then couldn’t find her. How could I have lost someone else’s baby?! What was my ex-girlfriend going to say when I told her she was gone? Why was I watching my ex-girlfriend’s baby anyway? That was just like her, you know, to hand all the responsibility over to some fool like me while she went out and got her things done. I raced from room to room, hoping for a sign. Then I heard some happy giggling. From the corner of the back room, I saw something move from beneath a blanket. The blanket lifted and the baby peaked out, chubby and pink. “Hey, silly,” the baby gurgled and laughed at me. “I’ve been hiding here all this time.”

an inventory of souls

IT ALL STARTED with a letter. Handwritten on lined paper in black ink, the letters clear and neat. It had arrived in the mail, my daughter had left it on the kitchen counter, unopened. Inside the envelope, I also found two paparazzi-style photographs of me having lunch with two young Estonian women. One of them was blonde, the other had that famous “potato brown” hair they talk about. They were both thirtyish and well dressed, as they should have been, because these had been interviews for work. Nothing out of the ordinary in the slightest.

The author of the letter had other ideas. “You have been seducing my niece Kätlin and my neighbor’s daughter Tiina!” the writer wrote. “You are commanded to at once cease your lecherous Mediterranean liaisons with these wholesome country Estonian girls!” I rubbed my eyes after reading it, looked out the back window. The house was situated in a wooded area, and in the hollow below the back terrace there was a graveyard, dotted with Victorian-era tombs, which had since been overgrown with moss and ivy. Despite its ancientness, visitors were still passing through this green area to bring candles or flowers to the grave of some ancestor. I watched some of these strangers romp through the graveyard from the window, contemplated the threatening letter, then thought nothing of it. For whatever reason, I was used to threats, just like I was used to living next to dead people. It just didn’t bother me.

Until one day when I came home, only to find the author of the letter sitting in my kitchen, looking nonchalant, as if he owned the place. An older man in an orange raincoat with white hair and a scruffy beard. He looked like an Icelandic sea captain. His eyes were a striking blue color and he had a boyish quality to him, as if he was waiting for his mother to pick him up.

I came into the kitchen and said, “To make things clear, I’m not having an affair with your niece or your neighbor’s daughter. I’m a professional. Strictly professional!” The old man pushed at the air, as if to get rid of the topic. “That’s not what this is about,” he said. “I just wrote that letter to scare you.” “Scare me?” He stood up and began to walk around the kitchen, looked out the window. “Have you ever noticed that this place is different?” he said. “Special?”

“Sure, it’s special, that’s why I live here,” I told him. “Would you mind leaving? My daughter will be home from school soon.” The man agreed to leave, but before he left, he gave me his business card. On it was written just his name. He was called “Jaan Allik.” As soon as he was gone, I called up Vello, who is an old Afghan War veteran and knows everyone in town. I asked him about Jaan. “Allik?” he said through the phone. “He’s an okay fellow, I reckon, but a little off, if you know what I mean. Bit of a strange bird.” Jaan Allik had also been in the Afghan War.

He had never really recovered.

I tossed the business card onto the table and again was done with it. Down in the hollow more strangers were coming and going from the graves. They often wore brown or green coats, and so they blended in with the natural scenery. It gave me the sense that it was a kind of meeting place, maybe for friends or relatives. I was so lost in thought that I forgot all about Jaan Allik.

Until the next day when, while standing by that same window, there came a knock at the door. When I went to it, I saw not only Allik standing there, but a group of strangers, all of them dressed in black, like Orthodox priests. One of them was an Indian woman. She came into the house, leading the others. She did most of the talking. “We want to take over your house,” the woman said. I told her that it was not for sale. “But money is not a problem,” she went on. “You see, we are a special group of people. We call ourselves the Autumn Club.” The Indian woman approached the kitchen window and stared out on the old graveyard. As always, people were coming and going from it, like squirrels. Such a damp place. How had I ever come to live here?

“We help souls transition from one world to the next,” the Indian woman told me. “And this is the perfect place for our club to operate.” “Why?” I asked. Why would anyone need a house for such purposes? It made no sense. “Come here, see for yourself,” she said. The Indian woman gestured down at the cemetery. “So many are still there, seeking peace.” “Seeking peace?” “Yes,” said the Indian woman. Allik stood beside her and other strangers from their peculiar organization. “You could say this place is rich in souls,” she said. Her eyes lit up and she said the words and I noticed she had light gray eyes. “This place has quite the inventory of souls.”

oakland

MY MOTHER bought us tickets to the US, but they were from Frankfurt to Oakland, California. She said it was the cheapest deal she could find. This did result in some quarrelling. I told her I didn’t want to fly all the way to Oakland and then drive cross country. Over desert sands, mountain peaks, rolling plains? None of that. But the tickets to Oakland were booked.

It was all pre-arranged.

I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t a bad deal. I imagined little Oakland down there, gleaming beneath the silvery wing of the plane, the high bridge over the bay. The friendly taxi drivers, the friendly toll takers, those friendly Hells Angels, et cetera. And didn’t you know that in Oakland some families were now trying to live as they do in the country, keeping their own backyard goats? Hipster dads would disappear with their saucepans to collect the fresh milk.

Something unsettled me about the thing. Tickets acquired, with no input from me. I had to sit on that long flight whether I wanted to or not. A long, lengthy flight over half the world, and all of the North American landmass. “It’s only three hours longer than usual,” she said. I suppose I was going to go, and in the end I did. We packed our things and were off in that big shiny jet.

When we got there, I was dead tired. We checked into a boutique hotel on the corner of Bush and Powell. I had missed the San Francisco Bay. Maybe this wasn’t too bad. And maybe we could fly to New York. No need for a perilous road trip. My daughter slept on the floor, for some reason, and there were two single beds, like in those old Hollywood movies. I was in one bed and my wife slept in the other one. She looked sort of like a young Anu Saagim, during her notorious ’03 milk photoshoot. “Oh, you’re not going to sleep just yet,” she said. “Not without a good …” She climbed out of her bed and into mine with enthusiasm. The last thing I remember is those breasts dangling like fruit, freckles in between. Two freckly warm jugs.

That was all.