The Stager: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

ceiling above the stairway landing and makes a sawing motion with his hands. He is Slavicly emphatic, his Polish accent thick, but I understand him perfectly, and I explain to Bella that he means to carve two skylights into the roof.
    “Yes, I get that,” she says.
    Then Jorek turns to the window, which looks out onto the back garden, and he says, “Too small. We take these out. One very big one from here to here.”
    I begin to explain this to Bella, and she interrupts me and asks if Jorek has a license.
    I try to translate, but Swedish and Polish are not even remotely the same language, and we are not communicating as effectively as we might. English seems better. He pulls from his back pocket some papers.
    Bella studies them, scowls, and then says that for all she knows, these could have been made at home on a Word document template. My wife, she is really a computer whiz, so she thinks that just because she might be capable of making a fake license on the computer, everyone else might be.
    Jorek begins to say something in Polish, and again I try to translate, and then Bella interrupts.
    “It’s cloudy today, Lars,” she says. “You know that famous London fog they name the raincoats for? It’s because there isn’t a lot of sunlight to be had here. Could you at least consider the possibility that the light in this house is poor because there is no light outside, and not because the house is lacking in windows?”
    “But it is lacking in windows,” I explain. “Wouldn’t you agree, Jorek? It has fewer windows than it should.”
    “Yes, this is true,” says Jorek. “It should not take so much to brighten it up. Skylights is where we begin. That may be enough.”
    “Please, Bella? A little more light is all I need to be happy here.”
    “What if we install a chandelier? A big beautiful one with lots of crystal. The glass will even refract the light. Think of that, Lars. It will bounce light all over the place. Triple the bang. And we can fill the place with lamps. That will be a fun outing. You love to shop. You can take the credit card this afternoon and pick out anything you like! Maybe Jorek can go with you.”
    “It needs to be natural light, Bella. I think you know that. Artificial light offers no nourishment.”
    Bella looks like she might begin to cry, and I feel awful about this. Please believe me when I say I don’t want to make her life more difficult, nor do I mean to insult the house she has purchased for our family. Now that there is an easy fix, now that I have stumbled onto Jorek, I am actually relieved, and I wish I could do a better job of making her understand that we are now on an upswing. I worry sometimes that we are so connected, me and Bella, that I have unintentionally transferred to her my initial grief, that it has transmuted like particles of light (did you know that ν is the Greek letter nu, which stands for the frequency of the light wave?). Maybe with physical contact I can now transfer to her a few nus, and some of my newfound optimism.
    I take her in my arms and hold her tight. She sinks into me for a moment, but then her cell phone rings and she frees an arm from our embrace and wrestles the phone from her pocket. She looks at the screen and hits a button, and then she looks back at me. She runs her palm across my stubbly face the way you might if you were staring into your lover’s eyes, preparing to lean in for a kiss, except that in this case she quickly retreats.
    “Okay, we can do a skylight, but what if we wait until we move in? I’ll ask around at work, get some contractor recommendations. Or”—she looks at Jorek apologetically—“we can find someone to help … him.” Her phone makes a different sound this time, and she pulls it out and looks at the screen. “Elsa,” she says. “Another ‘socks’ message. Also, I really need to return that other call.”
    “I’ll help supervise Jorek,” I say. “We’re here for four more days, and I have nothing