13 Little Blue Envelopes(52)

Pink fish. White fish. Fish with little green herbal specs on it.

He took out some dark bread and piled these things onto a slice.

“Good stuff!” he said. “All organic, of course! All fresh! We take care of the earth here! You like smoked herring? You will.

Of course you will!”

He set the heavy, fishy sandwich down in front of Ginny.

“I work in iron,” Knud said. “Though I have also done some of these wood carvings. All of my work is based on traditional Danish art. I am a Viking! Eat!”

She tried to pick up the overloaded piece of bread.

“Now,” he said, “you are probably wondering how I know

your aunt. Yes, Peg was here, three years ago now, I think. At the arts festival. I liked her very much. She had a great spirit.

One day she said to me . . . What time is it? Five o’clock?”

Somehow, Ginny didn’t think that was Aunt Peg’s big

proclamation in Denmark.

Knud gestured for her to continue eating and then stepped out of a small doorway by his two-burner stove. Ginny ate her sandwich and looked across the canal at the row of stores on the other side. Then she turned her attention to a metal plate that sat on the table. Knud was etching it with a complicated pattern.

It was amazing that such a big guy could do such delicate work.

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When she looked up again, the stores she had been looking at a moment before were gone and had been replaced by a

church, and even that was drifting away. The floor rocked gently underneath her, and her brain managed to put together the fact that the entire house was moving. She went to the window and saw that they had left their place at the boat sidewalk and were quickly moving through the canal.

Knud swung open the little door at the front. She could see that he was standing in a tiny booth where the boat’s controls were.

“How do you like the fish?” he yelled in.

“It’s . . . good! Where are we going?”

“North! You should relax! We will be some time!”

He shut the door.

Ginny opened the door that had just led from a sidewalk

and found only a foot of deck and a calf-high rail separating her from the churning water. Water splashed her legs. Knud was driving his house quickly now, as they’d made it to a wider body of water. They passed under a massive bridge. At the front of the boat, Ginny looked out at the silvery channel of water that separated Denmark from Sweden.

So, she was going north. In a house.

“I live alone,” Knud said, “and I work alone, but I am never truly alone. I do my ancestors’ work. I live the entire history of my country and people.”

They’d been sailing for at least two hours, maybe more.

Knud had finally docked his house at a utilitarian pier along a road, next to a field of skinny high-tech windmills. He was a 237

folk artist, Ginny had learned. He studied and revived crafts that were over a thousand years old, using only authentic materials and processes and sometimes getting authentically ancient injuries in the process.

What he had not explained was why he had just driven her

so far north in his houseboat so that they could park along a highway. In lieu of an explanation, he made some more sandwiches, once again impressing on her the quality and freshness of all the ingredients. They sat next to the houseboat, eating these.

“Peg,” he said, “I heard she died.”

Ginny nodded and watched the windmills furiously spin—

ning. They looked like mad, overgrown metal daisies. A bright orange sun gleamed behind them, shooting sharp and silvery beams off the blades.

“I am sorry to hear this,” he said, landing a heavy hand on her shoulder. “She was very special. And this is why you are here, am I right?”

“She asked me to come and visit you.”

“I am glad. And I think I know why. Yes. I think I do.”

He pointed at the windmills.

“You see this? This is art! Beautiful. Also useful. Art can be useful. This harnesses the air and makes beautiful clean power.”

They both watched the windmills spin for a few moments.

“You’ve come at a special time, Virginia. This is no accident.

It is almost midsummer eve. Look. Look at my watch.”

He held his wrist in front of her, revealing what most people would have considered to be a wall clock on a strap.

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“Do you see? It is almost eleven o’clock at night. And look. Look at the sun. Peg came here for the sun. She told me this.”

“How did you know her?” Ginny asked.

“She was staying with a friend of mine in a place called

Christiana. Christiana is an art colony in Copenhagen.”

“Was she here long?”

“No so long, I don’t think,” he said. “She had come to see the midnight sun. She had come to see what an extreme place this is. You see, we spend much of the year in darkness, Virginia. And then we are bathed in light, constant light. The sun bounces in the sky but never goes down. She wanted very, very much to see this. So I took her here.”

“Why here?” Ginny asked.

“To see where we grow our windmills, of course!” He

laughed. “She of course loved them. She saw in all of this a fantastic landscape. You come here, you understand that the world is not such a bad place. In this, we try for a better future where we do not pollute. We bathe in light. We make the fields beautiful.”