To Siberia

by Per Petterson

  “Heat shall there be,” he shouted with hand to forehead in a soldier’s salute, “hot as a Turkish bath in no time at all.”

  “A Turkish bath would be fine,” I said, “go ahead.”

  He pulled kindling from the pile by the wall with such enthusiasm that some of it fell on the floor, and I found a newspaper on a table. I tore the paper into big strips and crushed it up, but he heard what I was doing and turned to shake a forefinger.

  “Paper is cheating,” he said, “look here,” and knelt down in his big coat in front of the stove with a knife in his hand and began to whittle long flakes between his knees until he had a small pile on the floor before him. He laid them in the stove and lit one in his hand and pushed it under the others, and at first the flame was so small he had to blow on it carefully, and then it shot up with a crackle, and he put in a log on each side of the little blaze and pushed them together so the burning space in between was as narrow as a crack, then he shut the stove door again and left the draft vent open so air came in from underneath and blew upward, and it began to roar and crackle at once. “Dry wood and a good draft, that’s what you need,” he said proudly, and I clapped my gloves and cried:

  “Bravo!” He placed his hand on his chest and bowed so his curls reached the floor.

  “Are there any more stoves?” I asked.

  “There’s one in the loft.”

  “I must see that.” I went quickly up the steep stairs and he followed close behind me. The whole second floor was one room with a little window at one end and beds along both long walls, or actually the ceiling, for the sloping roof went right down to the floor, and there was a faint smell of damp bedclothes like the ones at Vrangbæk, and at the other end there was a small stove on four legs shaped like lions’ feet.

  “Does it get hot?” I said.

  “It gets red-hot.”

  “Let’s get some wood then.”

  We ran back, he first and I following him, between the beds and downstairs, and we each picked up an armful of wood from the pile by the wall and the knife for whittling and ran up again, we couldn’t be quick enough. He knelt down in front of the stove, and it wasn’t long before he had done the trick again. Outside the windows it was night now, and the wind blew vaporous white milk against the panes, milk over the forest and the fjord, but in here there were just the two of us and the stoves and the sound of the wood burning behind the black iron and sending waves of heat out into the rooms and into the walls and the timbers that sucked it in. I smelled the scent of wood growing warm, and it made me as white in my head as the whirling night outside, and hungry. We stood in the kitchen with our coats on eating the contents of two tins with one spoon we took it in turns to use, and we laughed, I didn’t even notice what I was eating. Soon it was warm enough for us to take off some clothes, his overcoat and my coat, and while he hung his on a hook, I let mine fall to the floor. I took off the sweater I wore underneath and dropped that on the floor too, I unbuttoned my blouse and still felt the cold against my neck. But the heat rose to the ceiling and up to the first floor and there was another stove there. Then I calmly walked across the room and upstairs with his eyes on my back, and at first he stood still, and then he followed, and when he got to the top my blouse was off and my stockings on the floor. I slowly turned around and stood there, me inside my skin, while he was fully clothed, and I cleared my head of every thought I had ever had and let them sink out into my skin till it was painfully taut and shining all over my body, and he saw it and did not know what it was he saw. I put my arms around my back and unfastened my bra and slid the straps over my shoulders, and I thought he might be going to weep, but his voice sounded hoarse as he whispered:

  “You’re lovely,” and I answered “Yes,” and didn’t know if that was true. But it did not matter, for I knew what I wanted and what to say, and his hands were as I’d thought they would be, his skin as soft and his body as hard, and it was so warm around us, and the whole time I smelt the dampness of the bedclothes like the ones at Vrangbæk, and then I just shut my eyes and floated away.

  I slept, and I dreamed I was in Siberia. There were the great plains with unbroken lines, and a sky and a light as from the dawn of the world, and timbered houses and flocks of birds like a thousand flamingos that changed into seagulls when they took off and flew and filled the world before they dissolved and were gone. There were herds of horses all of them black, and I was the only rider. We galloped alongside the train, and it was so long I could see no end in either direction. It traveled fast, I felt the horse rising and falling between my legs, and I liked it and wanted to go on like that, but I could not, I had to get over into the train. I rode the horse as close to it as possible and leaned sideways. My hair was long and heavy, it flew out in the wind and back in my face so my eyes stung and the tears ran down, but I caught hold of an iron handle and swung myself over onto the platform at the back of the carriage. It was not difficult, I had seen it in films. I ran into the carriage, but he was not there. The train was empty, the seats empty, and through the window I could see all the pretty horses. The closest was the one I had been riding. Now I saw it was Lucifer, and Jesper was on his back. I had not seen Jesper for four years. I remember the date exactly, the fourth of September, 1943. I said it aloud. He waved and called, but I could not hear, for the sound of the train on the rails and the sound of the hooves filled the carriage so there was room for nothing else. He waved again and called. I pressed my face to the window but the herd of horses with Jesper in their midst turned away from the train so the distance grew greater and greater until they vanished behind the horizon that was just as sharp and ruler-straight as the train. Now he will fall, I thought.

  When I opened my eyes everything was familiar. I blinked and looked straight at the open timbered wall at the end of the room. He slept beside me in the narrow bed. I felt his chest rise and fall next to mine. It was cramped but not uncomfortable. I moved my leg out carefully and quickly turned to look at him. He lay with his curls on the pillow and one forearm over his eyes as if he did not want to see. I picked up the clothes I found on the floor and walked naked downstairs. The stoves were still glowing, but all the same I felt gooseflesh on my thighs and back, and at first I tiptoed but then I put my feet down. That woke me up, and I wanted to wake up. I went out into the room with the big windows and sat on a chair looking out at the fjord between the trees while I dressed. The land on the other side was clearly visible now. There was a boat out on the water, completely still, with a man at each end, and the water shone like silver. They were fishing, their arms rose and fell rhythmically, kept still, then began again. All the snow had gone. All the leaves had gone. The night had been windy, now it was still, but the wind had been warm. Drops fell from the roof and everything that was white yesterday was green now and gray, and red on the trees where the rowanberries hung in heavy clusters like decorations someone had put up while I slept.

  I looked at the stairs. They were partly lit, in shadow at the top, and I knew I would not go up again. I found my coat on the floor and my snow boots, walked toward the door and opened it carefully so it would not creak, and then I went out. The air was soft on my face. I walked down the path to the gate and out between the big stone gateposts built together so they looked as if they had always been together, and on along the road in the opposite direction from the way we had come the night before. It ran level with the forest at first, and then down a slight slope. On the fjord side there were more cabins beside the road behind fences painted red and white, and in some places it was so steep that I looked straight down on the roofs. The sky was covered with pale gray clouds, or mist, but nevertheless it was easy to breathe, and I walked neither quickly nor slowly, and I felt as if I had no weight.

  At the bottom the road ended in a circular space. On the opposite side a bigger road continued in the same direction with large boulders on the fjord side, and another road led up into the forest. There was a kiosk here, it was closed with its windows shu
ttered, and behind the kiosk was a jetty. It was a big one, you could dance on it if you wanted to, and someone was playing music. I took a few steps on the wide boards that looked shiny and newly scrubbed. There was air in my head and air in my legs and at any moment I might rise and sail away, so I moved carefully as if it was the last dance before the lights went out. And then there was something new. I put my hand between two buttons of my coat and under my sweater and right in to the skin and stroked my stomach.

  A lady came out of the nearest house with a bucket in her hand. Only a smooth rock divided us. She wore a scarf around her head knotted over her forehead and came down to the water in my direction. I stopped my dance and stood still to light a cigarette. She had seen me already, she picked up the bucket and embraced it as if it were a man, took a few dancing steps then pirouetted over the rocks laughing.

  “Good morning,” she called.

  I didn’t reply, but I raised my hand holding the cigarette and waved. Soon she was so close I could see she was twice my age.

  “Isn’t it great,” she said, throwing out the arm that wasn’t around the bucket.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And the way it snowed yesterday and blew last night, yet today the world is new.” She laughed. “I’m getting quite poetic. And you are out dancing. Well, well, not bad. I suppose you haven’t one of those to spare?” she said, nodding at the cigarette. I took the packet out of my pocket and she put down her bucket. There were fish in the bucket and a knife for cleaning. I threw the packet across the little channel of water between the jetty and the rock, she caught it perfectly, and then I threw her the matches. She lit one and threw packet and matches back, then squatted down to smoke and look out at the water. She wore over her shoulders a knitted jacket with a multicolored pattern, and wellingtons on her feet.

  “I’ve always felt good here. We let our son take over our flat in town and moved out here during the war. He didn’t have a home of his own. There was a shortage of everything then. There still is, you know. But I don’t want to go back anyway.”

  “It’s great here,” I say.

  “You’re Danish,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, we wondered about you down there for a while, but when you got going, you really got going.”

  “The twenty-ninth of August, 1943,” I said.

  “That’s right. We heard about it from London. Oh, we were tickled pink about that.” She smiled at me.

  “I’m pregnant,” I say.

  “Are you? Good for you. You can’t beat having kids. The best time of your life, if you ask me. Having kids. If my man agrees, I wouldn’t know. Our eldest is twenty-five now.” She got up and threw away her cigarette stub. It sputtered and made rings in the water. You could just see brown seaweed waving beneath the surface.

  “Thanks for the smoke,” she said, “I’d better be getting on. He went out in the boat early, came home with a bucketful and then went back to bed. So it looks as if I’ve got to do the rest.” She laughed again. “Congratulate your husband from me, and tell him not to bother his wife too much.”

  “I will,” I said. “Can I get into town by that road?” I pointed at the big road with boulders along it.

  “Yes, you can, but it’s a long trek.”

  I just smiled and waved, and she waved back, bent over the bucket, picked up the knife and the first fish by the tail. I walked back past the kiosk and across the open space. When I had walked along the road for half an hour a car stopped and offered me a lift, and when I arrived in town it was still morning.

  There’s a slanting yellow light over the town, the mist has lifted and dissolved and everything is clear and yet mild as if it were early spring before the leaves come out and not yet autumn. The trees on Kiellands Square are bare, they look as if they’re waiting for something other than me when I go up Uelandsgate. The air is as bright as glass and leaves everything sharply defined; the eyes of the man sprinting towards the bus stop, the smile of the girl with a baby carriage in the other direction, I see a squirrel far away in one of the trees. The town was not like this before, not so clean and not so new, but I have no use for it anymore, and that is not even sad.

  I don’t walk quickly, nor slowly, I still feel the lightness and get to the café an hour late, Aunt Kari stands behind the counter watching the door. She puts her head on one side and questions without speaking, and I do not answer, just look suitably mysterious and ask:

  “Can I use the sink in the kitchen?” and she nods toward the door. I go in and have a thorough wash with the door shut and come out again with the white waitress’s apron tied around my waist. The sun shines in through the windows. They could do with a polish. I go straight over to the only breakfast customer and ask if he has had enough, if there is anything more he would like. He turns to look at me and smiles. I’ve never seen him before.

  “Maybe,” he says, stretching his lips over his teeth like Humphrey Bogart, but his hair is thinning and his cheeks are chubby.

  “What would you like?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, maybe you do?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” I say. I pick up his cup and plate and the half-full ashtray and everything I can find and put it on a tray without looking at him. He scratches his neck, the table is cleared, and I carry everything into the kitchen. I wait five minutes, and when I look out he has gone.

  For the rest of the day I walk restlessly from the counter to the tables and back again, I am obsessed with crumbs and dust, I clear away and straighten curtains, Aunt Kari says I am annoying the customers.

  “For God’s sake sit down and have a fag,” she says, but I cannot. I stand at the window looking out, but I’m not looking for anything special.

  “Anyone would think you had wanderlust,” says Aunt Kari.

  That night we see a red light above Kiellands Square. It was not there before, and we think it has something to do with the sunset. But it is on the wrong side, it flashes in the wrong windows, and we go on with what we are doing, and then the fire engines arrive. Salomon’s Shoe Factory is on fire. We go out on the sidewalk, people come from all sides, some on foot, others cycling. A bus stops, the doors snap open, the passengers stream out and most of them run across the square to get as near the flames as possible, but we stay where we are outside the café.

  “Good God,” says Aunt Kari, “I hope everyone escaped, we are going to lose some customers, though. Especially one.” She turns towards me, I can feel it, but I do not look at her.

  “It may well be he’s not even there,” I say.

  “What do you know about that?”

  “A bit,” I say.

  The glow above the square gets stronger, and at the same time it’s strangely quiet. We watch cars glide up and shadows running to and fro against the red, quickly and jerkily as in a silent film.

  No lives are lost. No one is hurt either, but the factory is ruined and the machinery burned out, so production will move to another part of town until a new factory is built, and that may take a long time. None of the workers come to the café any more. It’s too far away, and there are other cafés.

  The days go by, and I go with them, but I do not count them. I wait. It is a flowing feeling. I don’t read books anymore. I work in the café or sit on a chair and leaf through a paper or stand at the window looking out. My mother doesn’t write any more. “If you don’t write, I shan’t,” she said in the last letter, and she means it. She is iron. I am iron too. I don’t write. I have nothing to say to her. I go out in the car with Aunt Kari. We go for long trips on Sundays with a map and a picnic. She has a permit to buy gas because the Citroën is registered for the café, it’s a commercial car, and even though gas is hellishly dear she does not lift an eyebrow when she pays. We drive to the Lier hills outside Drammen, along the tops where we look out over the fjords. We drive to a farm near Årnes where she has friends, and I don’t know where she met them, but they are happy for us to come and give us cakes. I go on my own
to the barn and along the row of cows and feel the warmth of their bodies streaming towards me and stroke their backs and say words to them only they can hear. We go to Bingsfossen at Sørum early one morning. I sleep most of the way. Aunt Kari stops the car just above the suspension bridge, and we walk down to the river on the flat rocks. The water roars down the rapids and sprays a shower of drops over our hair and coats, and there are piles of timbers on the bank with the owners’ mark cut into the end of each log. The whole area and my coat smell of timber for several days. It’s chilly beside the river, but Aunt Kari wants to make coffee on an open fire, and I shiver and get the coffeepot from the car, I am still sleepy, but I make use of what I have learned and get a little fire going.

  I serve the coffee standing. We clasp our hands around the mugs and blow into the warmth while we look at the rushing river. Aunt Kari smokes a thin cigar and stands nearest to the river with her back to me, and that back is so broad, and we have done it all as she wanted, the river roars and thunders so loud we can hardly talk, the coffee is piping hot on our palms, and only then do I realize she has been to all these places before, with someone else, in the same car. She turns and smiles. She has a scarf around her head and sunglasses and a big black coat. She looks like a matron, the mother of many children. I smile back, we have a fine time. I take a big mouthful of coffee, and suddenly it’s bitter and fills every hollow of my body, nausea shoots up my throat, my stomach turns over and everything comes up all over the rocks in front of me. I’m not prepared, I drop the mug and mess my coat, the china splinters and breaks around us. I bend down and vomit again.

  “Damn it,” I say.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Aunt Kari says. She hurries over the rocks with a handkerchief and wipes my mouth and the front of my coat and looks me in the face: