It was beautiful there, she says as she finishes her coffee, especially at night. We used to walk barefoot in the forest, and the cows roamed around with bells on.
It’s nice to walk barefoot, Bengt says; it’s almost the best thing there is.
He has also finished his coffee, but he knows they have to keep on drinking, so he gets up to get the pot. When he leaves the stove, he notices that the strap of her black shoe has come undone. Then he remembers that they were just talking about walking barefoot. He isn’t barefoot himself; he is wearing slippers, brown leather slippers that he got from his mother for Christmas. He didn’t like them then and neither did his father. They’re for hermits and oldsters, his dad had said. So it wasn’t until after his mother’s death that Bengt started wearing them. And he didn’t mean for Gun to see them, but she does anyway.
Nice slippers, Bengt, she says as he pours the coffee.
His hand is so tremulous that five drops fall on her plate.
Got them for Christmas, he says, from Mama.
After that, she doesn’t say anything else, nearly nothing the entire time it takes them to drink the next cup. Nor does Bengt say anything. He is looking down at his coffee, which is capped by a skin of cream. When his cup is empty, he stares down into the bottom of it, the whole time thinking of his mother. Then a ridiculous thought occurs to him. He thinks Gun might be wearing his mother’s shoes, but he isn’t sure, and he doesn’t really want to be, either. So he sits there thinking about the time his father came home with the black shoes. It must have been a Saturday, since he got home very early and was very drunk. He had a box under his arm, and he dropped it as he stepped over the kitchen threshold. His mother picked it up and put it on the table. She knew it was for her, but she didn’t bother to open it, because she was annoyed. So the father tore the strings and ripped off the paper himself and held up the shoes under the light. Do you think I’m seventeen? he now remembers her saying. Not particularly loud but she said it, although she was no longer annoyed. It sounded more as though she was sad that she wasn’t seventeen anymore.
But when the memory is over, there is nothing left to distract him. He slowly puts his cup aside as he leans over the edge of the table and looks down at Gun’s shoes. He can’t help it. No one can help it. He recognizes them all too well. But he doesn’t let her know.
The strap has come undone, is all he says.
To fasten the strap, he kneels down next to her, very gently and very quickly.
Bengt, I have to go, she says. But she knows it’s already too late.
Wait, I have to fasten the strap, he whispers, whispers quite helplessly and puts his hand around her ankle.
But he does not fasten the strap. Instead, he takes off her shoe and sets it down by the leg of the table. She is not surprised. She doesn’t say anything, though she knows that she should. Instead, she places her other foot into his hands. Then he unfastens the strap of the other shoe, and carefully, as though it were made of glass, he places it next to the other one. Then he gazes up at her, not afraid but trembling, like someone on the edge of a diving board being forced to jump. She leans over and looks down at him as one looks down a well, uneasy yet very enchanted. She can’t help herself. But it isn’t his eyes at the bottom of the well. It is his lips. Slowly, they part as if somebody dropped a rock down the well.
After the kiss, he fumbles after her hands as if he can’t see a thing. Nor can he see anything, nothing but her blonde hair with the curved white comb in it. When he finds her hands, one on each hip, he pulls her down to him. She sinks silently to the floor. They sit for a long time between the chair and the table, like two children in the sand. Even though they know the situation is absurd, they are sincere and do not dare say a word. It’s completely silent in the kitchen. The evening casts nothing but shadows through the closed window, and the only thing they hear is each other, though no one is saying a word. Silent and afraid, they hold each other’s hands, each seeking the other’s help against their own bodies. They know that if they let each other go, they will be lost, but if they hold on any longer, they will be just as lost.
I’ve dreamt about your foot, Bengt whispers.
And it’s probably true. As she bends her nyloned foot, he realizes it’s the same foot he has already held in his dream. Then he frees his hands – though Gun tries to hold on to them – takes her foot, and raises it slightly off the ground. It is warm and dry, like a stone that has been basking in the sun. When he puts her foot back down, he says:
You have beautiful shoes.
He knows that he shouldn’t have said it. He just can’t help it. Nor can she help answering.
I got them from Knut, she says, almost inaudibly.
At once, they notice she said “Knut.” She could have said “your father.” But now he is glad she didn’t, because Knut is not his father. Knut is a stranger. And this stranger has given Gun a pair of shoes. This doesn’t really matter to him, but the way she says it makes it clear that she doesn’t know whose shoes they had been. This makes him happy, and it makes her pure. And the one you love has to be pure. Otherwise, you cannot love her.
But to love someone is also to make her pure. So he shoves the shoes into the darkness under the table and asks with burning cheeks:
You have a beautiful dress, too.
A question, indeed, but perhaps a question unnoticed. In any case, she does not answer. He takes her gently by the shoulders and feels how naked the material is. But it’s only so naked before he finds out what he needs to know. And to get the answer, he looks directly into her eyes, afraid yet hopeful at the same time, and of course he sees what he wants to see: she has never found out who the dress was meant for. Then he starts to unbutton the red dress. One by one, he takes the soft, tiny buttons and slips them through the holes. Gun watches in silence, watches how his hand sinks lower and watches how calm and beautiful it is.
She knows she shouldn’t. She knows there’s still time to get up and leave. She is very discerning and knows very well what would happen if she left now. They would suddenly hear all the noises from the street again. All the noises in the house, too. For a brief moment they would stand and face each other in shame. Then he would bend down to get her shoes, and as he put them on her feet, she would button up her dress again. How simple everything could be. In spite of knowing this, she doesn’t leave.
She doesn’t leave, because she is paralyzed. Not paralyzed with fear, or desire either. What binds her and what binds him, too, is the beauty of the moment. Nothing is ever as beautiful as the first isolated minutes with someone who might be able to love you – with someone you yourself might be able to love. There is nothing as silent as these minutes, nothing so saturated with sweet anticipation. It is for these few minutes that we love, not for the many that follow. Never again, they realize, would anything so beautiful ever happen to them. They might be happier, more impassioned, too, and infinitely satiated with their own bodies and with each other’s. But never again would it be so beautiful.
This is why she doesn’t leave, and why he continues to hesitantly unbutton the red dress, trying to get it to last as long as possible. But when there are no more buttons, she slowly pulls the dress over her head. Carefully, she pulls the white comb from her hair and places it between them without making a sound.
But the moment before it happens, they look into each other’s eyes. Her eyes are bright and soothing; they hypnotize him into tranquility. It’s because of her calmness that he loves her. And the one we love has to be calm because nothing is as loathsome as anxiety. Never before has anyone he loved been so calm. Never before has he himself been so still. When they come together, they come together in a great moment of peace and stillness. They are not afraid of the unimaginable thing that is happening. All they can feel is that one calm is joining another calm, like a great calm wave washing over a warm calm rock. They do not even pant, but they breathe rapidly yet without difficulty. Their bodies are hot but not sweaty, their
lips are not bleeding, just slightly moist, and when they look into each other’s eyes, their pupils do not gleam with the hysteria of desire but with a tender and unexpected serenity.
Afterward, he places the white comb in her hair, delicately, like a flower. They go into his room and lie quietly next to each other for a long time. He doesn’t cleave to her, because he knows he doesn’t have to. She’s not like someone else who you could never let go of, someone who, through her fear of being quickly forgotten, tensely clutches you and forces you to think, think the entire time it lasts, Now I’m lying with her. Now I’m stroking her. Now I’m moving my hands up higher.
They aren’t surprised even after it happened. They speak peacefully with each other, lying on their backs and letting the words fly up to the ceiling as if they were talking to themselves. Because they are so calm, they can tell each other everything without shame and without it sounding like a confession. Nor are they surprised by what they learn about each other. Quite openly, she tells him how she has longed for him every night since that evening when Knut invited her over for tea. Quite openly, she lets him know that she always expected it would happen if only he wanted it to. She also admits to him that she knew Knut wasn’t going to be home tonight.
Just as candidly, he talks about his solitary promenades – always in her direction – about his cold nights outside patrolling the cinema, about his dreams, and that whenever he kissed Berit, he always closed his eyes and imagined it was Gun he was kissing.
Everything is natural and free of shame. A bit later, when they are at Bengt’s desk and leafing through his books like lovers do, Gun finds his letter to Berit. He has already sealed the envelope, but she doesn’t ask him to open it, just as he doesn’t reproach her for the time she locked herself in the cottage with his father. All she says about the letter is that he should send it and that he should write more letters more often. And they aren’t cynical when they tell each other, once again, that Berit is sweet and that they can’t hurt her. They are only considerate because their tenderness toward each other also makes them compassionate to others. As for Knut, they say that everything should go on as usual. Gun will continue to see him, will continue to let him love her, because it’s the only possible way if they are to go on loving each other. They speak calmly and without bitterness about Berit and Knut, two poor strangers who are not allowed to be hurt.
Later still, when the light is off and when the roar of the city sounds like the humming of a gigantic shell, they carry on whispering in the darkness about the future. They will meet seldom and in secret, but one time they will meet for a long time. In this future, there is nothing threatening, nothing that could not be dealt with, because through their calmness they have disarmed all dangers.
Perhaps all but one, and it’s her fault that they notice it. She suddenly lays her hand over his eyes as if there were something he wasn’t allowed to see in the dark and then whispers over his face:
I’m so afraid.
Of what? he whispers back.
That I’m too old for you.
Then her hand cools but only for a moment. He spreads the blanket over them along with all the thoughts he had during the loneliness of spring. Then he folds his hands around her back, as if protecting them both from all threats, and whispers:
I’ll make you young, just as young as I am. Now you’re just as young as I. Don’t you feel it?
She does feel it and then takes her hand away from his eyes. For a long time, she is just as young as he, and there is nothing silly about it. Only something beautiful.
But much later, no magic can help. They are not asleep, nor are they fully awake. Peaceful and relaxed with all desire dormant within them, and happy as one is when there isn’t anything more to ask for, they rest in each other’s arms – he on her right and she on his left. Then, suddenly, a car door slams on the street below. At first, they don’t grasp what it is, because they’ve forgotten all reality. This causes their fright to descend all the more rapidly, tearing them violently apart. And when he slightly opens the window shade, the magic is gone.
For the one leaning quite drunkenly on a taxi and searching his pockets for money with one of his tired hands is not a stranger named Knut. It is Bengt’s father, and this is why he shivers by the window. Not because he is naked, but because he has instantly discovered the truth. For a moment this discovery is so horrible that he wishes something dangerous would happen to the man down there. That he would fall flat on his face under the car just as it takes off. Then Bengt feels Gun’s nails digging into his chest. She was leaning over his shoulder, and he can tell from her nails that she also recognizes the man staggering on the sidewalk and waving his hand at a moving car. It’s not someone named Knut whom they hardly know. It’s a terrible man who is Bengt’s father as well as the lover of the woman Bengt loves, too.
This man bends down to pick up a coin on the sidewalk. Then he falls, of course, but he doesn’t stay down. As he slowly heads up to them, Gun swiftly gets dressed under the light of the lamp. And before Bengt turns the lamp off, they look at each other for a brief, shameful moment. Neither of them is particularly beautiful then because they are both flustered. He turns off the lamp just as the key begins fumbling after the lock. With her shoes in her hands, Gun crawls into his bed. He hides her securely underneath the blanket, pressing her as close to him as he can so that she will take up less space; he crumples the red dress in the same way. But the darkness and intimacy provide them with some comfort, which allows them to endure it to some degree.
Otherwise what is happening is quite horrible and unbearable. They hear him fumbling about the entrance, trying to find the light, and almost in unison they whisper:
We haven’t forgotten anything, have we?
It’s a dreadful thought that they could have forgotten something, but they soon realize he’s too drunk to be able to notice anything anyway. As the father makes his way through the darkness with dragging steps and sudden outbursts of rage against everything he bumps into, they both try to remember that the doors to Bengt’s room are locked. Finally, they hear him find the daybed and thud into it, as if falling from a blow. After that, it’s silent for a while. Gun is no longer afraid, but she is crying. Nor is Bengt afraid, but he isn’t proud either. And he’s not at all pleased that his father has made her cry. If Knut had been a stranger, he could have been amused by it, but now he can only hate. He recognizes the hatred at once. It’s an old, familiar hatred, as firmly attached to him as his own ears. It’s the hatred he’s known almost his entire life – every time his mother cried on account of his father.
Once they hear him snoring, they jump up and turn on the light. Bengt slips Gun’s shoes back onto her feet and fastens the straps around her ankles. This time, when they look at each other they are genuinely beautiful again, and they kiss each other even more beautifully. When they are done, everything is almost as natural as before. He gives her Berit’s letter to put in the mailbox so that she will get it sooner. He unlocks the door, and they sneak hand in hand across the dark hallway. At the entrance, they kiss each other again, childishly long. Gun will call him. In the future she will always call, but they will only meet occasionally.
When he opens the shade, he sees her standing in the moonlight and waving to him from the other side of the street. He sees her lean far over the gutter, as if trying to reach him. Then she starts to walk away, going slowly past the butcher shop and all the other shops up the corner. Turning the corner is difficult when you are in love, but once she has done it, she isn’t truly gone. The light itself has taken on a reddish tinge from her dress. And when he pulls down the shade and turns around, the entire room is saturated with her. He flings himself on his bed and buries his face in his pillow. The pillow is saturated with her, too. His pillow will never be lonesome again.
After some time, he opens the door to the father’s room and goes inside. He turns on the ceiling light and tiptoes to the daybed. Then he kneels over the sleeping m
an and takes off his shoes. Without a sound, he sets them down on the floor and then loosens his collar. As he watches the slumbering face, he is struck by a tenderness so unexpected and so overwhelming that he puts his hands over the father’s face and caresses it. While caressing him, he is filled with an irrational joy. He gently peels off his father’s jacket and unbuttons his vest. He hangs the jacket on a hanger in the hallway and pulls out an overcoat. As he spreads the overcoat over his father, his eyes begin to cloud with tears. Then he sits on the floor next to the daybed, and with his father’s hand in his, he gazes up at the ceiling as he cries and cries with joy. Joy, because the room is filled with her and because the room is devoid of his mother. He doesn’t go back to his room until all of his tears are drained.
There, he immediately falls asleep and sleeps so deeply, dreamlessly, and peacefully, as one can only sleep when the unimaginable has happened. The night after discovering America, Columbus must have slept as he never slept before.
A Letter to an Island in Autumn
Beloved!
I’ve done what we’ve agreed upon, and I’ll be coming to the island soon. I didn’t enjoy doing it, but I knew I had no other choice. It was harder to forge the draft papers than I thought. In fact, making your telegram was much easier. Of course, I just took an old one and found a new envelope and stamp; the hardest part was changing the date. I didn’t need to go to so much trouble, after all, because Knut hardly looked at it. He just found it a bit strange that I was being called up for military service now, but he was convinced when I reminded him of the four weeks that I got off last year for my studies. I can assure you that it’s quite painful to have to deceive him like this. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever forged anything, and I’ll never become a great forger – this much is certain. My conscience is much too delicate for that. And as soon as the draft papers served their purpose, I burnt them up and blew the ashes out the window. It wasn’t until then that I started to feel a little better.
A Moth to a Flame Page 17