“Me, too.”
“Sit.”
She does so. He busies himself at a stove and countertop beneath the east window, taking a kettle, coffee tin, steel bowl, and whisk from shelves on either side of the window frame. From a shelf above the window he grabs flour and baking soda and fetches milk and eggs out of a mini-fridge below the south window. He works fast.
She finds it unpleasant to speak to anyone she doesn’t know, so instead she examines the room. Everything is made out of wood. The floor, ceiling, and walls are old and darkly gleaming, the bookshelves, table, chairs, and counters are of a newer blond material, maybe birch, designed simply and built with precision. Surfaces are immaculate. The window frames and muntins are weathered wood, freshly painted white. Each window is square, divided into twenty-five small square panes. For some reason it looks nautical. Maybe old galleons had windows like these in the captain’s quarters. Or maybe it’s the view of the sea outside the south window. The walls slope inward so that the individually anchored shelves give the impression of bookcases that ought to fall over, but somehow don’t. The books seem to float around her head. Below the west window is a wooden storage chest, built with the same neatness. Two shelves on each side of the south and west windows, making eight in all, are hinged, so that they can be lowered when needed, then raised again and hooked to eye bolts to keep them out of the way. A wooden ship’s ladder next to the coat hooks to the right of the door leads to the upper floor. Efficient use of a small space. Maybe it’s that Danish predilection for “coziness” Mette’s mother has told her about. Whatever it is, Mette loves it. Get rid of the old man, move this excellent room to Brooklyn.
He hands her a cup of coffee, saying something that sounds like vairssko.
“Thank you.”
“Milk, cream, sugar?”
“No, thank you.”
“Biscuits will be ready in seven minutes. I love biscuits. So American! Fast food before McDonald’s.”
“Mm.”
“I noticed you were examining my little place. You like it?”
“Yes.”
He gestures to the shaft, rotating next to them. “My apologies for the creaking. You get used to it.”
“It’s okay, it sounds like a ship in a storm.” Or to be precise, like a video-game sound effect for a ship in a storm.
“Exactly.” He sits down, leaning toward her.
She leans back.
He says, “This mill was built a hundred and fifty years ago, to pump seawater out of the marsh. After that it was turned into a grist mill. These old mills, once they go out of service, the vanes, or the arms—what do you call them in English?”
“Sails.”
“Perfect! In Danish we call them ‘wings.’ I like sails better. The sails don’t last long, the canvas rots, the frames fall apart. I rebuilt all that.”
“Nice job.” It’s what he seems to want.
“Thank you. The grindstones were still in the cellar when I bought the place. I grind my own wheat and barley. I ran a horizontal shaft through a culvert to pump seawater out of my garden, so I grow most of my own food. I also have batteries under the mill cap, so I make my own electricity and sell part of it to the grid.”
“You’re like Thoreau.”
“Please. Thoreau was a lazy tourist.” He pops up. “Biscuits are ready. Can you smell them?”
He brings them to the table wrapped in a cloth in a wicker basket, sets out two plates, forks, butter, and knife. “What do you Americans say? ‘Dig in.’ I love it.” He forks open a biscuit, starts buttering. “When Danish housewives had guests for tea in the old days, they always served rolls and butter first. The hope was that the guests would fill up on the cheap stuff, before they brought out the cake. I don’t have any cake, so eat up.”
She tries a biscuit. It’s very good.
“No butter?” He pushes the dish toward her. For the first time she notices that his right hand is missing the ring finger and pinkie. “Danish butter is the best in the world.”
“No thanks.”
“Biscuits without butter?” He looks skeptical.
“I prefer it that way.”
“Suit yourself.” He pauses for a second. “I’m trying to remember an American phrase I always liked. Oh, yes—‘It’s your funeral.’”
“What happened to your hand?” she asks. Her mother never mentioned anything about that.
He holds the hand palm up in front of himself, traces the scar line from the middle finger to the medial edge of the palm with the first two fingers of his other hand. “I lost an argument with a bomb I was making.” He’s turned on an eye-twinkle, like a battery-powered Santa Claus.
“Why were you making a bomb?”
He waves that aside. “Good liberal reasons. Wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone. Like a good little liberal I ended up hurting only myself.”
“Did you get in trouble? You must have been caught.”
“You’re imagining this happened in a well-regulated country.”
She waits for him to go on, but it seems to be all he’s going to say. She wonders if he’s doing what her mother says he likes to do, i.e., make shit up. The scar forming the diagonal edge of his reduced palm is dramatic, but neat. Would a bomb leave no peripheral scarring?
“Have another biscuit,” he says, holding the basket toward her.
She takes one. They really are exceptionally good.
“I briefly considered attaching what you Americans call a lazy Susan to the mill shaft just above the table,” he says. “But the shaft turns too fast most of the time. Did you know that the lazy Susan was invented by the Oneida Community? You must know about them.”
“No.”
“Shame on you. They were in upstate New York, not far from the old commune. A hundred years before us hippies and our
