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Chapters (21)
  1. Praise
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. CONTENTS
  5. IN A DEER STAND
  6. SUN DOGS
  7. HYGGE
  8. BY SYDVEST STATION
  9. BETWEEN OFFICES
  10. THE FAIRGROUND
  11. COMPACTION BIRDS
  12. PERSHING SQUARE
  13. HONEYSUCKLE
  14. ON NARROW PAVED PATHS
  15. INSIDE ST. PAUL’S
  16. THE FREEZER CHEST
  17. MANITOBA
  18. WILD SWIMS
  19. PUSHKIN PRESS
  20. ALSO BY DORTHE NORS
  21. COPYRIGHT

When I reached the far side, I found a small set of steps down to the Mississippi. The bank consisted of large rocks, and gravel, and tree trunks lay barkless and stranded in the shallows. It smelled of fresh water. My black shoes were glossy in the evening light, and I thought of Mom. Between offices, I​ 45try above all not to be touched. I keep disinfectant gel on me, I never dry my hands with cloth towels or air dryers. I bring Kleenex, sneeze into the crook of my arm, rarely stay more than a single night. The Mississippi is no doubt polluted, and the current is strong in a southerly direction. It winds along easily up against the border before gravity takes hold. I would have sunk into it but it would have borne me in the wrong direction, so I just sat there. Later on I lay down. When I’d lain there awhile, the bird came.46

47

THE FAIRGROUND

48 49

THERE’S A STUBBLE FIELD IN FRONT OF THE RENTED house. Over by the side of the small wood is the country fairground, trampled and singed. A fox might make its rounds there, but otherwise it’s deserted. Her bare feet are stuffed into the clogs she found in the closet. Both fairground and field have been baking all day in the late-summer sun. It’s September now, and when she walks around the field, the stubble scratches her ankles. But now she’s standing still, in her trench coat and clogs. The moon’s on the rise too.

She thinks a lot about what she did to deserve his silence, which tempted her to assume things that weren’t true. And then came the rejection. She’d grown panicky and he’d become cynical, she thinks, gazing across the field to the fairground. They must have had a tombola there, maybe a merry-go-round and roller coaster.

For a time he’d been everything; she supposes it was a kind of obsession. Whatever he did, and even what he thought, haunted her. She read signs in offhand remarks, she researched his past, his possible sorrows. One evening she hid behind the beer taps at a party because his best friend came through the door and looked at her. That face, as horribly unpleasant as foil between one’s teeth, was impossible to ignore and she’d hidden behind the kegs. There was a sweet smell of warm grass and public opinion, and it felt as if she were spinning slightly.​ 50Like a suckling pig, she thought. Well spitted, and with an apple jammed in her jaws.