Jörn’s parents are well into their second or third round of “skål!” over akvavit as Andreas and I return
“Are you all right?!” —Josef rushes over, when no sooner inside —I do walk head first into a wall.... Maybe it is the shock of warm air from the cold —as Jörn pulls me from the wall by the arm as I’m about to hit it again
“Oh—whoa!” I say and notice he gives me a disapproving look sniffing my hair
“We need to talk,” he tells me and leads me to a quiet part of the kitchen. But first he looks at me and takes hold of my face to look at him; he shakes his head at me and smiles but asks, “are you comprehensive?”
I get the feeling he is aware of what his son does in the farmhouse
I clear my head and look directly at him
“Yes....” then ask, “they are going to do your opera? —Andreas told me what has been going on, so.... Jörn, does this mean you are leaving—going ....to do your opera in Stockholm....?” and so now I realize it is what I have feared about this because ....then he would go —and events have a way of changing everything so I turn my eyes from his as he searches me
He says,
“I still have to finish it but.... and it would not be right away ....but that doesn’t mean—“ but we get interrupted by Josef who comes over with a glass for me to toast with them and insists
So I do not get to know what Jörn was about to say and find I brood about it
I don’t remember much about the dinner only that there was salmon and leek soup ....the colors distracting me ....along with all my fears
to see them all happy and me an outsider .... I find that I cannot look at Jörn all night because I fear I would burst into tears ....but still I rationalize with myself that .... maybe this is why I came into his life; he had to write his opera so now.... it will end because I served my purpose
these emotions I could not work out before, I suppose, along with the sense of losing him to a world that I am not a part of; his world that I do not belong ....and find I wonder what it even was he sought in me ....as his lover.... I mean, I never really fit his life, did I? a feral vagabond
and it makes me wonder about the notion of purpose; “to be or not to be”
It is later once everyone has gone to bed and all the bedroom doors are shut that I find him at his piano. He plays lightly and thoughtfully and the sounds that bounce from the walls are light, like waterfalls and does not disturb the night sounds of the house even as music is like white-noise to his family as they fall asleep to Wagner
Jörn looks at me and spontaneously asks me,
“Of all writers, who would you say was your most influential?”
“As a writer particularly? Not as an artist? F. Scott Fitzgerald—why—which opera composer most influenced you?” I walk over to him and lean across the piano to watch his long fingers
“F. Scott Fitzgerald —? I did not expect you would say that....” he looks oddly at me and I see the creases deepen as he seems to read significance. At first he seems distracted by this and he goes back to playing the same troubling part of his opera but then he gets frustrated and moves to punch the keys but restrains himself because everyone is sleeping
He sighs,
“my biggest influence—? Not opera, but—Johan Helmich Roman; baroque.... and not just because he was from Sweden, his style has influenced the way I write.... I haven’t many opera favorites, to be honest, that is why I wanted to compose my own,” now he laughs as he looks at me and says in a low whisper, “I had to listen to my mother’s operas growing up and all my life, they drove me crazy! .... Saturday mornings, glasses breaking everywhere, her singing even before the sun came up....”
it is something about his smile. and his laugh.... the way it changes his serious features.... I move to him and touch his face, across his cheekbones and along the bridge of his long nose and look into his eyes
“Can you tell me now? We are alone .... when do you go? Or what is happening?” I ask him and move to sit on the floor by his feet but he reaches for me
“I told you, I still have to finish it ....and .... there are other things,” he says, “the case is at a delicate point and I would have had to delay it even if my opera was completed.”
“I don’t think I believe you,” I say but.... I hear something else he doesn’t say in his voice or, rather how, whatever it is, it leaves me with some sense of relief
because no, we never say and I often fear to know ....if he does
I move down to the floor
“What are you doing?” he asks me
“I think my earring fell .... “ I say but he laughs as I unbutton his jeans
but stops laughing soon after
“Duva, as much as I like to perform publicly, I’d rather not give someone like my son or my mother this kind of shock so.... what about the sauna?”
