by Karina Halle
Texts keep coming in from my sister, Astrid. Normally I spend a night at the hotel here next to the bar before driving home. But she’s back home, in the remote village town of Todalen, where I live when I’m not on the boat, along with one of my other sisters, Lise. They’re visiting for May 1st, our labor day, which is in a few days. Astrid lives in Paris, so I rarely get to see her.
Also, if I’m being honest here, being for weeks without mobile phone reception has me aching to catch up on a few things and I don’t want to spend my time at the bar, with Epsen, on the phone. He might have to revoke my manhood card after all.
After the beer, we say our goodbyes and I know Espen will be at the bar all night, maybe into tomorrow, before he finally crawls back to his wife and kids down the coast. I walk over to my car, patting it affectionately on the hood, always happy to see her. She’s a ‘74 Datsun, 260Z, red like spring cherries. She’s purring like a kitten now, but it took years of work on her to get her in optimal condition. I bought her after the first voyage out at sea, with my first paycheck. Everything else went to my uncle.
When I inherited the vessel after my father’s death, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. It had been years since I’d been out fishing, and I’d only gone out once with my father, when I was sixteen. That was two weeks of hell that was supposed to bring us together—or so he hoped—but it only drove us further apart and me to America. So even though I needed to take over my father’s legacy, mostly out of guilt, mostly out of need, I brought on my father’s first mate, Dag, who took command for a year and taught me the ropes. It was a hellish year but I learned a lot, and even though I still question if I should be captain, I’m the man with the ship, and that trumps everything.
The drive from Kristiansand to Todalen takes under two hours, through numerous tunnels, past the ever-present fjords and small towns, and one ferry crossing. At the moment, the temperamental spring weather is being held at bay, with shafts of sunlight coming through the high clouds, and I pull over to a touristy look-out point to snack on an apple and try to get my head in the right place.
There’s always a big shift between my life at sea and my life in Todalen. In my village, there is constraint. As gorgeous and scenically inspiring as the town is, it’s also the place I grew up, the place where my life fell apart, the place I tried to escape. No matter what I did, where I went, who I became, it brought me back, shortening that leash. It’s where everyone knows your name, and knows you—or, at least they think they do.
Out at sea, you’re alone. Yes, there’s your first mate, like Epsen, and deckhands, but as the captain you’re alone a lot of the time, with only fuzz on the radio for company. There’s no constraints that you can see or feel, just the dark grey rolling swells, the familiar pitch of the boat, the horizon that’s always moving, always beckoning you to keep going. But the sea is a dangerous place. It took the life of my father. It promises you freedom, but that freedom only leads toward death.
I live two lives.
I wish I could live a third.
Even though I’ve been doing this for years now, I always need a moment to adjust before I get back home. Especially now with Astrid and Lise on the farm. I’m just glad Lise’s twin, Tove, isn’t there. Sounds awful to say of your sister, but she’s a total mess and the queen of passive aggression. To say the relationships in our family are complicated is a complete understatement.
The ferry chugs along and I lean on the hood of the car and watch as dark clouds come billowing over the mountains to the north. My mind spins on a poem. I haven’t written in a long time and I’ve been okay with that. Maybe I should let that part of me go, like a bird into the wind. But these clouds are coming in from Trondheim and they rolling with the promise of her.
The clouds roll with impunity
Full, round, curves
Lips, hips, legs
Sliding smoothly over the crest of a mountain
That was once a man.
Or maybe it’s the man
Who was once a mountain.
Unmoveable.
Impenetrable
Stuck.
And here she comes
Not to set him free
But to move on past.
Without ever looking back.
Fuck. I think. Complete shit, as usual. If I could crumble up the paper in my brain, I would.
But the fact still remains.
Shay will be in Trondheim tomorrow.
I shouldn’t have downloaded Instagram last month. It was a mistake. I was bored and waiting for Epsen to arrive on the docks, hours to kill, faint sunlight on my back.
Everly Madison added me as a Facebook friend years ago. I hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from that year in America, so it was a surprise. I couldn’t say it was a nice surprise, but I liked Everly. Even at a young age, she had this tough-girl, gum-chewing attitude that somehow put you at ease. That’s all I ever want in people—no bullshit.
I couldn’t pretend though, that Everly wasn’t my next step to Shay. So maybe I was full of bullshit. I never got the nerve to add Shay, to message her, to tell her I was sorry, that I still am sorry for everything I did to her.
So I stayed friends with Everly and, though we rarely talked, other than a random like or comment on a status, I went through her photos every once in a while, scoping out Shay.
Liking what I saw.
No, loving what I saw.
Just total heartbreak over what I saw.
The girl with the unruly hair and acne scars and sweetest lips to have ever graced my body turned into a woman to whom words could do no justice. Believe me, I have tried.
It became an addiction of sorts. Soon I was always lurking, feeling guilty over doing that, like I was some sort of creep. Hell, I am some sort of creep, there’s no use skirting the language here. Then I was feeling guilty over the way things ended between us, the shit I left in the dust.
Then Shay was in Europe. In Italy.
With her boyfriend, but still.
Close. Yet so far.
And then last year, just like that, like she knew, all her photos became private. I couldn’t see her anymore. Then, last month, I saw Everly post a photo from Instagram to Facebook. She mentioned Shay in the caption, tagged her.
I downloaded Instagram.
I found Shay. Her profile, public.
And my world began to spin once again.
I spent the whole hour going through every photo of hers, from Italy to Ireland. Then I got on the boat, left her images and reception behind.
Until this morning.
She was in Oslo.
Now she’s in Trondheim.
She’s here.
I sigh and shrug my shoulders, trying to get the knots out of them. One of the deckhands hurt his arm a few days ago, so I was putting in work when I could to help bring the nets in. I watch as the clouds continue to roll toward me, reaching for the water, reaching for me, then turn before it can catch me.
I head back home.
“So, Anders, who’s the girl?” Astrid asks.
I freeze, my forkful of potato paused halfway to my mouth. I eye my sister as she heads to the fridge to grab a beer, mindful enough to get me one too.
“What girl?” I ask, before shoving the food in my mouth.
“Yeah, what girl?” Lise says with a tilt of her head, smiling at me wickedly. “Anders has so many, it’s hard to keep track.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Astrid says, plunking herself back down at the table and sliding one of the beers over to me. She smiles at me, her front teeth have this slight gap that makes her look eternally like a little girl, despite what she does for a living. “Last I heard, Britt Solberg had caught your fancy. She’s got a loud mouth, that one. Not sure why you couldn’t fool around with one of the quieter girls in town.”
“In this town, there are no quiet girls,” Lise adds with a laugh, brushing her dark hair off her face. “Everyone always knows everything. Why do you think I moved to O
slo?”
Meanwhile, Uncle Per is staying silent through all of this, though he does shoot me a sympathetic glance before going back to his meal. That’s Per. Always silent, always listening. Always eating.
I aim to take in some of his resolve. I say nothing. Especially about Britt Solberg. Or Anita Dahl. Or Heidi Olsen. The stereotype of the sailor is no different from that of the fisherman. After weeks at sea, a woman is exactly what you need to get your head—and body—back in reality. The only problem is, I always come back here to see the same old girls. They all know my reputation by now, but that doesn’t stop them from having some fun every now and then. Thank god for that.
Besides, I’ve never been one to kiss and tell. The girls will—usually followed by the words, “that fuckface” or something similar, but I just smile and move on.
Still. I can’t help it. I haven’t seen Astrid in weeks and it wouldn’t be very sibling-like if I didn’t knock her down a peg.
“You’re one to talk,” I tell her. “How many French men do you have lined up after hours?”
“Anders,” Per chides me.
“What?” I exclaim, palms raised. “That’s not fair that she can make a jab at me but I can’t make one at her. Where’s the equality in that?”
Meanwhile, Lise is laughing softly to herself and Astrid is giving me the stink-eye. She’s frighteningly good at it and I know growing up that she was using it on all the men in town. That’s why my comment is more funny than anything.
“I’m a burlesque dancer, not a whore,” Astrid says, raising her chin in a haughty manner. “And even if I was, so what?”
“I’m not a whore either,” I remind her.
She keeps on glaring until I finally look away. She wins again.
Astrid was always a handful growing up. After my mother left our family for America and got married to a damn New Yorker, she left me, the oldest, in charge of my sisters. With Uncle Per busy with the farm and my father always away fishing, all the responsibility fell on me.
And at the time, responsibility was poison to my soul.
Astrid was the one getting into the most trouble, not exactly with the boys, but with her group of girlfriends who seemed to run amok in this town. Because we are only two years apart, she didn’t take any orders from me, or anyone else. Lise and Tove weren’t even teenagers at the time and were so distraught by our mother’s departure—as we all were—they were a lot easier to manage.
I guess it came as no surprise that when Astrid turned eighteen, she moved to Oslo. Then to Copenhagen. Then Amsterdam. And now Paris, where she’s been living for a few years and working as a burlesque dancer. Naturally, being her brother, I’ve never seen any of her shows and have absolutely no desire to, though Lise and Tove tell me she’s good at what she does.
I don’t have a problem with it—whatever makes her happy. But I have to admit, sometimes I envy her greatly. It’s a strange feeling to be jealous of your sibling, like it goes against the grain, but the feeling is there. Astrid is doing what she wants to be doing with her life. She’s doing what she wants—period. I don’t have that luxury and, to be honest, I wouldn’t even deserve it if I did.
With the spat between me and Astrid over, she and Lise start arguing over some book they both read. Sitting in the kitchen that I grew up in, I can still smell the waffles that my mother used to make every morning, the loads of freshly made jam and cream from the cows. My mother was never very nurturing, but she did know her way around the kitchen. As usual, my gut bubbles up with toxic nostalgia.
I take a long gulp of my beer then ask Uncle Per how the lambs have been doing. He offers up a few words, letting me know what I’ll be helping out with over the next month—spring is busy—before I’m off to sea again, though he can’t hide his grimace when he adjusts in his chair. Uncle Per’s health has never been the best. “Too much butter, too much Scotch,” my father used to say, and they’ve been slowly catching up with him throughout the years, now delivering their blow. He’s been going to the doctor and so far everything seems fine, but he’s an old and unhappy man, and I fear the latter may be the true death of him someday.
My uncle never married. Astrid once told me that he had fallen in love with a woman when he was very young and they were engaged to be married, but she died in a car accident. I guess he swore off love—and at least women—after that. I’ve never really known anything different. I grew up in this farmhouse with my parent’s room at one end of the long upstairs hall and my uncle down at the other. I know both of them inherited the farm from my grandparents and they made a go of it, working together. We were one big, somewhat happy, family.
Then, when times got tough and the farm took a hit, my father became a fisherman to supplement the income.
To say I’ve become my father’s son terrifies me in its accuracy.
“What do you think?” Astrid says, and I realize she’s speaking to me.
I raise my brows. “Don’t tell me this is about a girl again.”
She looks at our uncle. “Do you need Anders to start helping out tomorrow, or can it wait a day?”
“Why?” I ask, suspicious.
“I thought you, me and Lise could go to Trondheim for the day. Roar is coming, I’m meeting picking him up at the train station.” She eyes our uncle. “Uncle Per, you can come too. May be good to get away from this place.”
But I’m barely listening as they talk back and forth about it.
Trondheim.
It would be funny if only I hadn’t actually entertained the idea of going there anyway.
Going there on a whim.
For all the wrong reasons.
Very wrong reasons.
Trondheim isn’t a big city, but it’s busy. The chances of me seeing Shay there are slim to none, even if I stalk her on Instagram, trying to plot her every move through her stories. And even if I did happen upon her, what would I say? I’m sorry? She’d hit me so fast I wouldn’t even be able to get the words out, and I still remember what her fist feels like. I still remember what all of her feels like, and fucking Britt Solberg a million times will never, ever erase it.
First loves are supposed to be bullshit, and I still stand by that.
But hell, if that shit doesn’t stink forever.
“I’m in,” I say quickly, glancing apologetically at Uncle Per. “If that’s okay.”
He nods, his jowls wobbling and adjusts his glasses. “Yah. It’s fine, Anders. But I will stay here. The city isn’t what it used to be.”
What I think he means is he doesn’t want to be stuck in a car for two hours with his nephew and nieces. I’m not even sure I want that either.
But the pull is there.
The clouds are rolling in over the mountains.
And she’ll be on the other side.
4
Shay
The scenery flying past my window is almost too beautiful to be considered real. I take photo after photo, cursing at myself when I’m too slow to get that beautiful red house standing amongst a field of gold wheat, or when I get the glare of the sun instead, ruining a shot of cotton candy clouds above a treeless alpine vista. I can’t believe I almost wrote off this country because of a few bummer days in Oslo, because this train ride alone is one of the most breathtaking I’ve ever been on.
I have a comfortable window seat with no one next to me, across from a woman who is traveling with a miniature greyhound bundled up in layers of blankets and looking every bit at home. The train has a bar cart and though it’s just before noon, I’ve already started on a can of crisp pear cider and a flattened waffle you’re supposed to eat with sweet brown cheese.
If I was worried about finding my place, my direction, that’s all being left behind on the train tracks. Now I really feel like I’m traveling. I’m moving forward and seeing the country as I go.
Sometimes the train speeds along rivers so opaquely turquoise it looks like God dumped watercolor paint in them. Other times we pass picturesque farms with
giant red barns and white houses with dark trim and a lawn on the roof. Yes, a lawn. Everyone here has grass on their roof, everyone also seems to keep the neatest yards and houses in the history of ever. There’s not a spec of garbage anywhere, there’s no peeling paint or fading colors. Town after town, all I see are the quaintest, cutest, tidiest houses I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Even the forests here seem to be orderly, the tall stately pines all marching off in a row, flanking pristine lakes like guards at attention.
By the time the train pulls into Trondheim, I feel like I’ve drowned in visual sensations. I’m also pretty sore and tired considering that was an eight-hour ride, even though it proved to be fascinating the entire way. I’m pretty sure I’ve annoyed everyone on my Instagram with my photos, even though most people back home are still asleep. No one wants to see a million posts of blindingly green fields or alpine vistas or photos of my cider, but that doesn’t stop me. What else are you supposed to do? My journal is already full of my nonsense and my brain is getting a little tired of myself.
Plus, a part of me wants Danny to see it. After he broke up with me, I booted him off my social media and upped my privacy settings to the maximum. But Instagram is my forte and I keep that account public, so I sometimes wonder if he’s secretly following me. Though Danny doesn’t occupy my thoughts as much anymore, there’s that petty part of me that wants to prove to him how much fun I’m having, how I’m better off without him. Time only softens the sting of rejection, it never erases it completely.
When we come to a stop, I shrug on my jacket, peering out at the rain that’s just started to pelt the train station, running down the windows, and grab my backpack from the luggage rack between the cars. For some reason, when I imagine myself traveling somewhere, I always imagine the weather being sunny. I do this regardless of the season and it always comes to bite me in the ass.