LITMIR.BIZ

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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.’

      ‘So you said.’

      ‘I don’t think he’s the sort of man who is good at controlling a whole …’

      ‘Network?’

      ‘Yes, network. He’s too … emotional.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Yes.’ She bit into one of the little cakes with her ice-white teeth. ‘He’s madly in love with me. Do you think that’s good?’

      ‘It’s OK as far as I’m concerned.’

      ‘He wants to marry me.’

      I remembered all kinds of girls whom Harvey had wanted to marry at some time or other. ‘Well, you’re young yet. I imagine you’ll want to think about that for a little while.’

      ‘He’s going to divorce his present wife.’

      ‘He said that?’

      ‘No, his analyst told me at a party in New York.’ She folded the silver square of wrapping paper in half and made it into a little boat.

      ‘Then he’s going to marry you?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘There are lots of men in love with me. I don’t think a girl should be rushed into bedding down.’

      ‘I think they should,’ I said.

      ‘You’re wicked.’ She put the little silver-paper boat on to her fingertip like a hat and wiggled it. ‘He’s wicked,’ she said to the finger, and the finger nodded. ‘Harvey’s wife is awful.’

      ‘You are probably a little biased.’

      ‘No, I’m not biased. I know her. We were all at a party at Mr Midwinter’s. You don’t know Mr Midwinter, do you?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘He’s a dear. You’ll meet him. He’s Harvey’s boss.’ She fingered a coffee mark on my shirt. ‘I’ll remove that before it stains. Give me the shirt. You can borrow one of Harvey’s.’

      ‘OK,’ I said.

      ‘At this party everyone was wearing really pretty dresses. You know, with jewels and silver things in their hair and some really great shoes. All the women had really great shoes. Sort of that shape.’ She took off her shoe and put it on the table and modified it with her two index fingers. ‘You can get them in Helsinki now, but at that time … anyway I had only been in New York for a couple of days and I only had the clothes I had taken with me. You understand.’

      ‘Sure, it’s a real problem.’

      ‘No, it really is a problem if you are a woman. Men can have one dark suit and wear it all day and no one will even notice, but women are expected to have the right clothes for lunch and afternoon tea and working in and then have some stunning outfit for evening. Then next day people think you should have things they haven’t seen before. If you …’

      ‘You were telling me about a party.’

      ‘Yes. Well I’m telling you. I went to this party at Mr Midwinter’s and it’s a wonderful house with footmen and things, and I went in just the sort of clothes I’d wear for a party here in Helsinki. I mean just a friendly little party. So there in the middle of all these men in tuxedos and women in three-hundred-dollar dresses …’

      ‘Didn’t Harvey tell you what they would be wearing?’

      ‘No. You know what he’s like. He daren’t go near me when his wife’s around. Anyway I’m standing there like a creep. Creep?’

      ‘Creep, yes. That will do.’

      ‘Well I’m standing there like a creep in this dress with dots on it. Dots. Can you imagine?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Mrs Newbegin comes over to me. She looks like that.’ Signe narrowed her eyes to slits and sucked her

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