A Bend in the Night

Hannah Pass

 

I knew they existed. I’d see pictures of them.

A green ribbon along a dark nowhere sky. A celestial map.

But after three weeks, I still hadn’t seen any sign of the Northern Lights.

“I’m starting to lose hope,” I say to Inka, who assures me they’ll appear in August. I’ve called her while baking bread. Actually, we’re both baking bread. A sour dough rye. It is a coincidental phenomenon.

“Be patient,” Inka says. Her oven squeaks open. “The lights are always there, like an old callus beneath the skin.”

“If you say so,” I say and press my knuckles deep into dough. It pains me to know all that beauty’s above, outshined by some sun.

How long is too long to wait for something? Back in the States, I see friends prepare for Totality. An eclipse in the north. It is scheduled. A 9:05 show. Moon moving over the sun. I see pictures of solar glasses, of tents. Of a real good time. Laughs and cries sprinkled all over. My best friend, Margaret, with someone I don’t even know. When I lived in the States, I was lucky to see twinkling stars, a cityscape, or one lone meteor plunging to Earth.

At 12:30 a.m., European time, I sit at my window and wait. Try to demonstrate patience. Sometimes, I linger until I see someone walk by and I crack open the door. “Do you see them?” I call.

“See what?”

‘The Northern Lights?”

This person stops to look up. They hadn’t thought about it. I don’t believe they care. They only look for so long because it strains the neck. “No, I don’t,” they say.

Other times, I think, I will simply walk out and join someone on their walk. I close the doors, get halfway down the path and will run back for a heavy sweater, a sip of wine, a blanket because of the chill. And when I’m finally out and bundled, that someone is long gone.

I ask Inka more questions. “Is it a gradual lightening? I mean, what do I look for? A sudden illumination?”

Her answers feel shorter and shorter until she says nothing in response. Inka runs a yarn store. She is the queen of soft things. I met her the other week when I went in to buy a button. My blouse had popped loose. She has buttons made of fish skin, of silk, of anything you please. Inka reminds me of my old boss back home, who is almost an older, more refined version of me—big round glasses that enlarge the eyes and high cheekbones like rock. A seed of gratitude she’s buried in her heart. But Inka can be a little pushy, and it is this boldness that inspires me to create what I long for, the light, all by myself. I plop my dough into a pan and wait for the yeasty flavor to rise.

The next morning, I go to the market, buy chalk. A bucket of greens and pinks. Nightfall, I walk down to the road. I start at the sewer and draw a long green stripe, smudge the edges, make a wave. I keep going for hours, blending in some violets.

Then, an old man walks by in a red winter hat. “What are you doing there?” he asks.

“It’s the Northern Lights,” I say.

He inches slowly along the road, touches his shoe to the chalky green pavement, inspects it. His dog runs up from behind a bush. “Is it the real thing?”

“Depends on how you define real,” I say.

Then a woman walks by, a downy coat engulfs her, a face like a peachy button I want to press in. “What is she doing?” the woman asks.
“It’s the Northern Lights,” the man says.

The woman gasps. “Really?” And she calls over a man named Harold, who I imagine is her husband. “Harold! Get over here.”

I keep drawing and drawing until I reach the Samkaup store. The sight really is spectacular. That green color, rippling, illuminating the street. I think of all the things that happen once in a lifetime, a parent’s death, a baby’s birth. Antarctica as it once was. Virginity, lost. The possibilities really stir me.

Now it’s 12:00 a.m., my time. Totality is long gone. People are settling back into their own light. Golden and eternal. And before I know it, the man named Harold is over, along with a group of Americans. Tourists, huddled around the pavement. They pull out their phones, snap photos. They all look the same. Every one of them looks intensely in awe. “What a sky,” someone says. “Look at this fucking miracle!” another says. And it really is, a fucking a miracle. I wish everyone could see.

“I need to call Inka,” I say and drop my chalk.

“Who’s Inka?” the woman asks.

“She’s my mother,” I say, which is a flat-out lie. But I like to imagine that; I like to think of Inka as my mother. I go inside, retrieve my phone. More locals show up. Outside, I push through the crowd until I am at my very own creation. That chill sets in. It’s lonely. Above, you can almost see the other side of the world, if you bend your mind.

I dial Inka. I let the phone ring and ring and ring.

 

Hannah Pass’s stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, Wigleaf, Tin House, and Kenyon Review Online among other places. She lives in Portland, Ore.