The Half Brother

by Lars Saabye Christensen

  And so we came to the long-distance message section. There was a line. It was from here the most urgent communications were sent, those that were a matter of life and death and which couldn’t be calculated. Because the voice is an imprecise instrument; the voice is full of misunderstandings, changes of emphasis, slips of the tongue and exaggerations. But the telegram is unmistakable, silent and clear — the telegram is reserved for catastrophe and for affairs of the heart. Eight women were sitting here, each at individual desks. None of them knew Boletta either. We said nothing. The telephone is wearing on the nerves and on one’s hearing, and telephone operators shouldn’t work for any more than four hours at one stretch. The sending of telegraphs primarily affects the hand and the fingers, and can lead to cramping and arthritis. Mom had scribbled down her message on a scrap of paper, and she handed this to the operator once her turn came, and the operator found the right codes and keyed in the scant but significant words. And I saw in my mind’s eye that at that very moment, the wireless operator on board the Polar Bear could interpret the message, translate the various dots to letters, and go up and deliver it to the new boy, who wasn’t so much as green about the gills on this his first passage, and who’d seemingly been a promising boxer given a drubbing by a fairly mediocre opponent from Melhus. “Hi, Nilsen! Mommy’s missing you!” And the rest of the crew, all those there with him in the mess, would snicker and cackle, and Fred, I imagine, would simply crumple up the message and stuff it in his pocket, fed up and embarrassed. And later, when he was on watch, he’d dig it out again, read Mom’s scattering of words and chuck the bit of paper into the sea, where already the icebergs were drifting past like dirty crusts, thudding against the hull and keeping him awake when he should be sleeping.

  He didn’t send Mom any reply. Every day she waited for a telegram from the Polar Bear — just a word, some sign of life, a ray of hope. It didn’t come. She rushed to the door whenever anyone rang the bell, only to discover it was some salesman or other wanting to palm off Tupperware, or else a rag-and-bone man or Jehovah’s Witness. She chased every one of them back down the stairs. She turned gray in the course of that time. Boletta and I walked on eggshells; the least thing could make her blow her top — and yes, for a time we really feared for her sanity. Boletta whispered to me that waiting was an art, one that took time to learn — few master it, and time itself is the teacher. And after a certain period had gone by without any sound, a single letter or message in Morse from Fred, she calmed down again. It was as if she accepted her fate and submitted to it — a quiescent rage — and one evening, just before the summer holidays, the bell rang once more and Mom didn’t leap for the door. We knew then that she’d entered that quiet time of waiting when one does nothing more than wait — just as the Old One had, before her, made an art of waiting, made it an element of the soul. It was me who went out to open the door. It was Peder. And right behind him was Vivian peering over his shoulder smiling. It was a while since I’d last seen them. I was delighted. I had friends over to visit. “Would it be here that the great, but rather small, writer lives?” Peder asked. I gave a deep bow and let them both in, and we sat down in our room, the room I still didn’t call my own, and Vivian wanted to listen to the laughter machine but I’d forgotten to change the batteries. Instead she asked, “Has Fred gone away?” “He’s in the army,” I replied. And I’d no idea why I said exactly that, but that was my answer all the same, that he was in the army. Peder gave a long, loud whistle. “Well, the country’s in safe hands. Now we can all sleep peacefully in our beds at night.” Vivian looked at me. “Where?” she asked. I had to think. The lie had started growing already. Like a worm it quite simply divided in the middle to become two lies, and in that way it would go on — it was pure science. “That’s secret.” Vivian lowered her gaze. “Secret?” Peder began to whistle again, and the liar had to find something else to talk about. I thumped Peder on the shoulder. “Couldn’t the model get us into that film club again?” I said, rather louder than necessary. Peder stopped whistling abruptly. “Mom’s finished with him.” “Finished? Is she completely finished with the painting?” Peder suddenly got annoyed and stood up. “Did you hear what I said, or not?” I’d heard what he’d said all right, but I didn’t understand what he meant. Vivian looked away so there was no salvation there. If only I’d remembered to buy batteries for the laughter machine, everything would have been different. I hurried to find the essay I owed Peder. He was still standing facing away. He just snatched the piece of paper out of my hands. I’d chosen Describe a job you’ve done. Peder looked at the title. “I said you should choose The advantages and drawbacks of modern technology. Damn it all!” “I’ve really managed to cover both topics in the same essay,” I told him cautiously. Peder started reading. “You’ve written about when we were extras in Hunger, you idiot!” “Yes, and so I’ve written about the development of the movie camera.” “Gosh,” Peder said. Vivian wanted to see it too and read aloud. “It’s beyond all doubt that the lighter and smaller the camera becomes, the better it is for filming, because the director can follow the actors, or that which he might otherwise be filming, in a simpler way. But the cameras size mustn’t affect its ability to film in breadth as well as in depth. This was one of the things I came to realize when I, along with my two best friends, acted as an extra in the new film Hunger, which unfortunately has not yet had its premiere.” Peder turned slowly and smiled. “Good, Barnum. This is good. I get the distinct whiff of an A here.” But Vivian just sat facing even more deliberately away. Peder and I looked at each other, and there followed a conversation I’ve pondered over a long while. And I really wish a telegraph operator had been present to punch everything out in Morse, so that a ribbon with those symbols could tick out one night when I understood more, a night when I was the great wireless operator who could see behind the signs and beneath the words. “What is it?” Peder asked. Vivian said nothing. “What is it?” I asked. Vivian glanced over her shoulder. “Am I just your best friend, Barnum?” I was confused. Just? And it struck me that a lie is more comforting than being bewildered — bewilderment had nothing in it to dull the pain, whereas a lie was total narcosis. Perhaps Dad had been right that time when he said it was only possible to understand about two percent of a woman, and that it would take your whole life to do so. “Yes, you and Peder,” I whispered. “Aren’t we?” And now Peder said something even stranger, to Vivian, something I’d really have liked in writing. “This is my essay, right. Not Barnum’s. He’s just written it for me.” We were silent for a time after that until Peder clapped his hands and clambered up onto a chair. “And anyway, I know when the premiere’s going to be!” Vivian got up too, and my hand slid quickly down her light blue sweater that lay in folds along the sharp ridge of her back. “When, you sot!” I shouted. Peder looked down at me. “It’s exactly 84 days away. And tomorrow it’ll be just 83.”

  They left before Mom had finished making supper. I ran out to the kitchen. She was still cutting wafers of goat cheese. Waiting had made her meticulous and slow. “The premiere’s on the 19th of August!” I told her. She was just as sluggish turning around. “Have they left already?” “Yes, and the premiere of Hunger will be on the 19th of August!” Mom gave a sigh. “Perhaps Fred’ll have come home by then.” At that moment the bell rang again and I saw a tremor pass through her, and she dropped the cheese slicer on the floor. I ran to get the door. It was Peder again. “I forgot something,” he breathed. He brought out an envelope and pushed it toward me. “Don’t exactly think your brother’s in the army,” he muttered, his voice even quieter. I stared at the envelope. Branum Nilsen, Miil’s Stamps, Oslo, Norway. One corner was plastered in Danish stamps. Fred had sent it to Peder’s dad. Now Peder was giving it to me. I said nothing. I just stared at the envelope. “Well, well,” Peder murmured. “Everything has a meaning.” He turned and retreated down the stairs. I sneaked back into the bedroom, the letter secreted under my shirt. Once there I hid it under the mattress. Suddenl
y Mom was behind me. “Was that Peder again?” she asked me. I nodded. “What did he want?” I swallowed and sat down on the bed. “He was just giving me some math questions he’d forgotten.” “Didn’t he want any supper?” I shook my head. “He didn’t have time.” Mom smiled. “If he didn’t have time for supper, then he really is in a hurry.” “Yes, you’re right.” “Are you going to bed already?” I gave a long yawn. “I’m pretty tired,” I said. Mom sat down beside me. She was searching for the right words. Under the mattress was the letter from Fred. “It’ll be fun with the movie,” she said. “To think we’ve got a second actor in the family.” She laughed a little. “An extra,” I reminded her. “Well, it’s almost the same.” Mom was silent for a time. I wished she’d go. I yawned again and stretched out my arms in the air, and it struck me, as I opened my mouth, yawned loudly, and lifted my arms — that everything I did was exaggerated, each and every action was larger than life, as if that would render me more genuine, as though the exaggeration was twice as real. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I can’t sleep as long as he’s away.” “I’m sure Fred’s fine,” I breathed. “He’s a night man.” A tremor passed through her once more, as if my words had given her an electric shock. She took my hand and clasped it, whether in anger or sorrow I don’t know — perhaps in love, too. I don’t believe she slept that night either. But when things were sufficiently still, I brought out the envelope and opened it carefully. Inside there was a postcard. It was a picture of a musk ox. It was standing on a barren slope, head bent, and it looked pretty shabby and lost. And on the back Fred had written in his clumsy handwriting: Don’t say anything. Fred. That was all. Don’t say anything. Fred. I’ve no idea how long I sat staring at those words. And I made up my mind. I’d say nothing. Yes, I could have said something, I had a choice — isn’t it always about that, a choice one has to make, and for which there’s no excuse? I could have done otherwise. I could have broken my promise to Fred, gone in to Mom and shown her the card. I didn’t. I kept my promise and let her lie there sleepless. I cried a little. “Satan fanny shit!” I shouted and bashed my own mouth. I listened. Everything was just as still as before. Then I put the card back in the envelope once more and hid the envelope somewhere I knew Mom would never find it. And so began the lie that lasted so long.

  And each and every day that passed was a continuation of that lie. I said nothing, so I lied. I kept my word, and I lied at the same time. I have two tongues and one face, or rather, I have many faces and one tongue. Mom lies sleepless each night. She visits Willy sporadically to get any news of the Polar Bear. When she comes back she’s more silent then ever, and Boletta sits in the living room and shakes her head. I compose the first draft of “Fattening” but am dissatisfied with it and discard it as soon as I’m finished. I have to change the typewriter ribbon. We wait. Time is slow and reluctant. Fred does not come back. A summer fades. Peder starts at Katta that autumn and is elected treasurer of the college club. Vivian sits at home reading, studying one subject at a time, and I go through the Fagerborg gates to begin yet another first day of school, the sun at my back. I see the whole crowd of them turning away as one and weighing me up with their eyes, and I decide to set a new record in skipping school. I manage that fine.

  Three days later, Hunger has its premiere. We warm up at the Stortorget Inn, but don’t get the beer we order, just tea. That’s of no consequence. For Peder has gotten hold of a bottle of champagne and has it hidden under the table, and Peder’s the only one ever to have taken the cork out of a bottle of champagne at Stortorget Inn without getting caught red-handed. A bit of a damp lap is all he suffers. We gulp our tea as fast as we can and slosh champagne into our cups. We’re sitting at the table farthest in. There’s a strange scent coming from Vivian. After two cups of champagne I get a wildness in my head and twist my face down into the hollow of her throat. Vivian shoves me away, but I only come back. “Barnum!” she bursts out. “You’re biting me!” She disappears to the bathroom, and Peder stretches over the cloth on the table and laughs. The other customers turn in our direction; dark faces in the golden light of the pints they raise with both hands. The waiter’s expression becomes rather stony, and he comes to empty the ashtray Our teacups are bubbling. “I trust you’re not consuming alcohol you’ve brought onto the premises?” “Musk ox,” Peder replies. The waiter shakes his head, walks around the table and slowly goes back to the counter. I lean toward Peder. “Musk ox?” I murmur. Peder manages to get more champagne into our glasses. “Vivian’s perfume, Barnum. Tapped from the balls of musk ox.” “Musk ox balls?” “Makes you really horny.” “Horny? Who?” “You.” Then Vivian comes back from the bathroom. The scent’s gone. Perhaps she’s washed her throat. I say nothing. I can’t think straight. There’s too much to consider, and my thoughts just don’t fit together. Peder looks at his watch and raises his cup. “Time to hit Saga,” he says. We drink up and head over to the theater, arm in arm, for our very first premiere. It’s the evening performance. There’s a line outside. And I’m the one who has to produce my identity card to prove my age. Peder puts his hand on the ticket collector’s blue arm. “Let me inform you that we are in this evening’s film,” Peder explains to him. “And you surely aren’t going to refuse actors admission?” “Extras,” I put in. “Shut up,” Peder says. “If he’s old enough, he’s old enough,” the ticket collector says. Peder gives a loud sigh. “If he’s old enough to have a part in the film, then he’s got to be old enough to see it.” Vivian laughs, and we get in. And everyone’s there. I see them the moment we take our seats, down in the front row — Mom and Boletta, Esther from the kiosk, Peder’s parents (his mother is in her chair at the bottom of the steps), and yes, Vivian’s father is there, and behind him is Ditlev from the afternoon edition of Aftenposten. He can’t see a great deal and is moving about in his seat and gets told to be quiet. They’re all there because the news has missed no one that we — Peder, Vivian and myself — are in the film; we’ve even written about it in essays and spoken about it in interviews. I spy Bang the caretaker, Knuckles, the Goat, Aslak, Hamster and Preben — distant faces in the sloping theater. I see Tenner, the twins, Talent and Tommy — the boys from the boxing club, with their crooked noses and slightly longer hair. I see the parents of T, pale and thin and closest to the emergency exit; and I think to myself as the curtain slides to one side and the lights are dimmed, that almost everyone who’s played a part in my life is here. Some have just passed by in the background while others have loomed large, and as the darkness and the silence fall together I think to myself that there are perhaps more here than would be at my own funeral, were I to die now. And just before Vivian takes my hand and Pontus comes into view on the screen with his back to us, leaning against the railing on a bridge over the Aker River, as he writes furiously on a scrap of paper which he then puts in his mouth and eats, I see that someone’s sitting in the shadows beside Mom and that someone is Willy.

  We’re not in it. We’re not in Palace Park. We’re invisible. We’ve been cut out. We’re on a roll of film that’s been tossed into a can somewhere in Denmark — surplus to requirements, rejected. And so it’s a kind of funeral after all. It’s Barnum’s ruler again. Barnum’s ruler’s too short. There’s always one inch missing. We leave before the credits have finished. “At least you got to keep your souls,” Peder’s mother whispers as we hurry past her. We’re already outside. The streets are wet. Autumn’s arrived. Peder and I have to pee be- hind a corner. We throw away our tickets and pee on them. “Shit movie!” Peder exclaims. And that’s all that’s said before we get to Solli Square. Our tree is red and shining in the dark. Then Peder says, “If he was so damn hungry why didn’t he just go up to Nord-marka and pick a few berries? Huh?” “Maybe it was another sort of hunger he was feeling,” I whispered. “Oh, really? He damn well went on about sausages the whole way through the film! All he had to do was make a hook, use his shoelaces as line and haul in a couple of cod, you know! Goddamn lunatic!” “At least h
e could have eaten the chocolate twirls,” Vivian puts in. We look at her. “Twirls?” Peder repeats. “Didn’t you notice? There were a couple of caradamnmels and a licorice twist left in the leaves in Palace Park.” Peder looked at me. I looked at Peder. “Really?” Vivian nods. “Absolutely.” Peder’s on the point of shaking the tree down he’s laughing so much. “We ruined the film! Chocolate twirls in 1890!” I laugh too, but something makes me so sad all the same — everything that comes to nothing, that’s cut and thrown away — as if scissors were my own emblem. “See you!” Peder suddenly says, and he starts walking away over Bygd0y Alley, between the chestnuts. “Hang on!” Vivian calls after him. But Peder doesn’t wait. He keeps on going. I let go of Vivian’s hand and chase after him. “What’s up with you?” Peder leans against the fence and smiles. “Is there something up with me?” I lay my hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need to go home yet, surely?” “Maybe I’m hungry.” And his smile, his laughter, has a softness to it, a fragility — as if his mouth might start crying at any given moment. “It’s you two now,” he says. “It’s the three of us,” I tell him. Peder shakes his head. “No, I’m one too many. I’ll see you.” And he keeps on going over the crossroads. He doesn’t turn around. I just stand there. I don’t know what to do. I want to run after Peder. And I want to go back to Vivian. It’s she who comes over to me.