Snow Man

Life with Ivo was unpredictable at best. No sooner had I adjusted to his rhythms and felt we had arrived at some level of domestic stability, he would surprise me. This was not always in a negative way – he could be as gentle as he was brutal.

The first snow day, I did what any other student would do – stayed in bed. I assumed we might read, alternate coffee and tea and wine, probably have some sort of love making at various intervals in the course of the day. But whatever the day would involve, I assumed snow meant staying indoors.

Ivo was up at 7 am, dressing hurriedly and ripping the covers off to exhort me to follow suit. When I protested, noting that classes were cancelled and outside it was cold, he gave me a withering look that informed me I was completely inadequate as a human being.

"Where are you off to?" I rather thought I was enticing, all naked and warm in bed.

"To build a snowman." He may as well have said, "to Mars".

"What?" I was astonished. "Why ever would you want to do that?"

"It's tradition," he said, looking at me as though I were daft for failing to ascertain that on my own.

It struck me as odd that Ivo should follow any tradition. He seemed such an iconoclast. I had never thought of him as being from somewhere - as having a past, a family, any connection to the world apart from his sporadic forays into the wild of Alaska. This was my first glimpse into that other side of him, that secret part of him he hid so well.