― Claudia Kalb
“We’ve got another Iceman!” Gunnar Hutter’s voice yelps at me from the phone.
It’s been a particularly stressful day—Linda’s gone to bed and I’m sitting alone by the fire, trying to make sense of our lives.
“Calm down, Gunnar—I can’t follow you.”
“Is it too early in the morning for you?”
“Hardly—I haven’t gone to bed yet—it’s 2 a.m. Toronto time.”
“ Ach mein Gott! I’m sorry Reg—I forget time differences—it’s just eight in the morning here in Innsbruck.”
“Don’t worry about it. What’s up?”
“We’ve discovered another Ötzi—this one’s even older than the remains found on the Fineilspitze.”
He’s referring to the corpse of a Neolithic hunter found in the Alps, perfectly preserved in ice.
“That’s incredible, Gunnar. But, Ötzi was dated to 3300 BCE—you say this mummified corpse is older?”
“Our colleagues at the University of Innsbruck are dating it to about 3700 BCE.”
I whistle softly.
“This is incredible.”
“It’s still in situ—they dated the remains by radio carbon dating of samples of materials found with the corpse. This is even bigger than the 1991 discovery.”
“It is exciting, Gunnar.”
“Helmut won’t disinter the remains—he’s waiting for you.”
“You want me to fly to Innsbruck?”
“We’ve booked a flight for you—it leaves at eleven a.m.—Can you make it?”
I take a deep breath. The timing’s abysmal—we’ve got a family crisis, yet this is probably going to be the climax of my career.
What to do?
There’s no way I’m going to wake Linda—but then, I’m sure she’ll insist I go.
I make a snap decision—probably the only one I can.
“I’ll be on the flight. Meet me at the airport when I touch down.”
“I’ll be there, Reg—and thanks.”
I hang up and sigh, torn between happiness and grief—but then, that’s the bittersweet way our lives have been unfolding.
Pauline, our eldest, has been estranged from us—three years with no word—and then, out of the blue, a phone call.
Hi Dad. Raff and I are married.
Linda takes it badly. They’ve been so close—more like sisters, than mother and daughter.
We still have no explanation for why she decided to cut and run. Oh sure, we’ve had our run-ins with Raff—and he certainly wasn’t our choice for her.
But we sure as hell wouldn’t have blocked her. It may have been grudging and labored, but we would have given our blessing.
But that doesn’t matter now.
In one fait accompli, all plans of giving away Pauline evaporate. Now, we’re left to figure out what went wrong.
A newlywed…
And I, the father of the bride—not quite.
That walk down the aisle took place without me—I can never get that back.
As for Linda, and all her dreams about a daughter’s wedding day—well, let’s just say, time allows in all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs.
I won’t wake her. She needs to rest, and she’s taken a sleeping pill.
I’ll leave a note and phone from the airport.
What’s one more enforced departure in a series of unexpected events?
What’s one more dream deferred?
Hope dries up and dies like a desiccated corpse—then shrinks to a lifeless shell.
Amen. The story of our lives.