“How did you get into the Motherlands?” I asked low.
Slowly, Magni turned his head to look at me. “Why?”
I took a long sip of my beer and met his eyes. “You know why.”
A slow smile pursed his lips. “Told you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did and it fucking sucks.”
Magni was tipsy and his movements slow when he lifted his hand to pat me sympathetically on my shoulder.
“So how did you get in?” I asked again.
“You wanna go after Christina?”
I looked around the room before I gave a discreet nod. “I have to.”
“She doesn’t want you,” he slurred slightly. “Just like Laura doesn’t want me.”
“It doesn’t matter, I still need to see her.” I sighed and fired my next question. “Do you ever wonder if Laura was pregnant when she left you?”
“Fuck yeah, all the time.” Magni rubbed his face. “We had sex the same morning she left me and now I wonder if she was lying there planning how to make a fool of me. She must have known that she was leaving. It’s not something you do on impulse, you know?” he looked absolutely horrible. His eyes were glassy, his cheeks sunken.
“Did you ever tell her that you loved her?” I asked and swallowed a large gulp of beer as if somehow that could numb the self-blame I felt for my last night with Christina. Maybe if I had told her how much I cared and made love to her instead of the awkward séance that took place between us, she would have changed her mind about leaving. Maybe if I hadn’t been too proud to beg her to stay…
“No,” Magni finally said. “Those words don’t come easy, do they? And Laura sure as hell never told me either.” His nostrils flared from his deep intake of air. “And now I know why.”
“Why?” I asked.
He scrunched up his face. “Because she didn’t love me of course.”
“Do you regret fighting in the tournament for her?” It was a question I’d thought about a lot, but every time I asked myself that question the answer was “no.” I would have preferred a lifetime with Christina, but the weeks I got were the best in my life and I wouldn’t give them back for anything.
“Sometimes,” Magni said. “When someone picks a fight and calls me names and ridicules me, then I curse her to hell for picking me as her champion.” He rested his head in his hand. “But mostly, I just fucking miss her. You know?”
“Yeah, I know!”
“So?” He gave me a scrutinizing glare. “You’re going after Christina, are you?”
“That’s the plan.”
“And if she rejects you again?”
“I don’t want to think about that. Just tell me how to get into the Motherlands.”
“Okay.” He nodded solemnly. “But I have one condition.”
“What?”
“I come with you. Maybe this time I can find Laura.”
“Deal.” I stretched out my arm to shake his hand. “Let’s go find our wives.”
Boulder
Magni took me on a journey to a small town I’d never heard of.
“When you see him, don’t stare,” Magni had warned me, but I still took a double glance at Papa Hunt when I saw him. The man was missing an eye, and his mouth and right cheek were severely disfigured from a large angry scar running from his jaw to his hairline. The way he had let his beard grow around it made him look even more asymmetrical because he had a perfectly normal beard on the left side while the right side had chunks of hair mixed with bald spots.
