Billion-Dollar Brain

NURSERY RHYME

8 (#ulink_f018ef7c-17d8-5450-b5b7-b77848d19eda)

Under the armpit of Scandinavia, Finland fits like a gusset; and if this gusset was a piece of rotten calico then it would rip in the ragged shredded way that Finland has done. The rips are lakes. They are large and numerous and they contain islands that contain lakes that contain islands until the tatters of the coastline fray into the cold northern sea. But at this time of year there is no sea. For miles and miles the shadow of the aeroplane has flitted across hard shiny ice. It is only when a glimpse of brown forest is seen through the snow that one can be sure that the coast has been crossed.

I saw Signe standing among the red-roofed airport huts even before we landed, and while we taxied in she was running and waving and smiling a gigantic smile. As we walked towards an ancient Volkswagen she took my arm and rested too heavily upon it and asked if I’d brought her anything from London.

‘Only trouble,’ I said. She made me get in the driver’s side and we followed a Volga police car and did a careful legal speed all the way into town.

‘Did Harvey tell you to meet me?’ I asked.

‘Certainly not,’ said Signe. ‘He doesn’t tell me whether to go to meet my friends. Anyway he is in America. Conferring.’

‘Conferring about what?’

‘I don’t know. That’s what he said. Conferring.’ She grinned. ‘Turn left here and pull up.’

We entered that same comfortable flat off Siltasaarenk where I had met Harvey the previous week. Signe stood behind me and helped me off with my coat.

‘Is this Harvey Newbegin’s place?’

‘It is an apartment house that my father bought. He installed a mistress here. The girl was a White Russian of an aristocratic family. My father loved my mother but this girl Katya he loved foolishly; as she indeed loved him. Last year my father …’

‘How many fathers do you have?’ I said. ‘I thought he died of a broken heart when the Russians bombed Long Bridge.’

‘That wasn’t true about him dying.’ She ran the tip of her tongue along her upper lip as she concentrated. ‘He asked me to circulate the story of his death. Really, he and Katya … you’re not listening.’

‘I can listen and pour a drink at the same time.’

‘He went with this girl Katya who is so beautiful that it would hurt you to touch her …’

‘It wouldn’t hurt me to touch her.’

‘You must listen more seriously. They are living at an address that only I know. Even my mother thinks they are dead. They were in a train crash, you see …’

‘It’s a little early in the day for a train crash,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you take off your overcoat and relax?’

‘You don’t believe me.’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘I am your credulous court buffoon and I hang upon every syllable, but how about fixing a cup of coffee?’

When she brought the coffee – elegant little cups on an embroidered tray cloth – she knelt on the floor and put the cups upon the low coffee table. She was wearing a man’s sweater back to front, and under her hair – cut high and short now at the back – there was a triangle of white skin as soft and fresh as a newly broken bread-roll.

I fought down an impulse to kiss it. ‘You have a lovely trapezius,’ I said.

‘Have I? How nice.’ She said it automatically. She poured out the coffee and presented it to me like John the Baptist’s head. ‘I have a flat in New York,’ she said. ‘It’s much nicer than this. I spend a lot of time in New York.’

‘Really,’ I said.

‘Well, this flat’s not mine.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘When your old man and Katya come back …’

‘No, no, no.’

‘You’ll spill the coffee,’ I said.

‘You are just being nasty.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘If we are telling stories, we are telling stories. If we are not telling stories, we tell the truth.’

‘That’s a good arrangement.’

‘Do you think a woman should be able to smile with her eyes?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ve never thought about it.’

‘I think they should.’ She covered her mouth with her hand. ‘You tell me when I’m smiling just from watching my eyes.’

It’s not easy to describe Signe, for she left you with a memory out of all relation to her true appearance. She was strikingly pretty, but her features were not regular. Her nose was too small to balance her high flat cheekbones, and her mouth was made for a face at least two sizes larger. When she laughed and giggled it stretched from ear to ear, but half an hour after leaving her you found yourself remembering Harvey’s claim that she was the most beautiful girl in the world.

‘Now?’ she said.

‘Now what?’ I said.

‘Am I smiling with my eyes?’

‘To play this game fairly,’ I said, ‘you would need to have a hand that was bigger than your mouth.’

‘Stop it, you are spoiling it.’

‘Don’t hit me,’ I said. ‘You’re spilling my coffee.’

For two days Signe and I waited for Harvey Newbegin to return. We saw a gangster film of New York during which Signe kept saying, ‘That’s near where I live.’ We had dinner on top of a tall building in Tapiola and looked out across the ice-locked offshore islands. I almost learned to ski at the cost of a torn jacket and a twisted elbow.

On the evening of the second day we were back in the flat near Long Bridge. Signe had cooked a fish with a sloppy skill which enabled her to read a pulp magazine and prepare dinner simultaneously without having anything burn or boil over. When dinner was over she brought a plate of petit fours in silver wrappers and a bottle of schnapps.

‘Have you known Harvey a long time?’

‘I’ve seen him on and off over the years.’

‘He runs things here, you know.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Yes. He’s in sole charge in this part of Europe. He’s gone back to New York for a conference.’