Then the heat from the fire was burning the paint on his shins. Blister bubbles were speckling the layer of black lacquer and his bones felt like they were being gnawed, but still he could not move. He was mummifying.
His breath became first a silent shriek and then a sigh in the raw corridor of his throat. He exhaled like a busted squeezebox.
‘Thank you, goodnight,’ said Lemmy, just seconds before Karen slipped her key into the lock, walked into the house and found Bomber sitting stiff and upright in the chair, his hands on the armrests, white eyes pulled wide open and staring at the mantelpiece, on which there sat a box of matches, three spent candles, a wrench, an engine gasket, several wing nuts, some loose change and a faded postcard of the Parthenon.
Snorri & Frosti
Snorri and Frosti are brothers.
They live in a wooden cabin on a remote hillside above a village in a northern European country. They are in their seventies. Snorri is the elder of the pair by two years. The cabin has one bedroom, a kitchen and one main room with a wood-burning stove in it. They have lived there all of their lives. Snow covers the surrounding slopes for more than half the year. Snorri and Frosti chop wood for people and tend to the land for a living. Once a week they walk into town to buy supplies.
It is winter. It is cold. Frosti has a headache.
I. BREAKFAST
Are you awake?
. . .
Snorri.
. . .
Snorri.
Yes.
Are you awake?
No.
There’s been a big fall in the night, Snorri. Look how light the room is. Hear how the world is muffled.
I’m sleeping.
Brother, I can’t sleep. I have been awake for a long time, just lying here, not moving, except for my toes. I think the snow will be up to the porch today.
. . .
I said I think the snow will be up to the porch.
Frosti.
Yes.
Go and see the snow if you like. But I am sleeping.
That’s OK. The snow can wait.
Then light the fire.
I think I’d like to just lie here a little longer and enjoy the silence.
What silence?
The silence of the valley.
I don’t hear silence. All I hear is you.
Can you even hear silence? That’s my question. I am not so sure that silence can even make a sound.
Now you’re being pedantic. Let me sleep. It is too early for this type of discussion.
Sometimes the silence is deafening, Snorri. I find that odd. That silence can ring in your ears.
That is a contradiction.
You have never stood in the wood and listened to the roar of silence?
Yes. Yes, I have.
Then you know what I mean, Snorri.
Yes. I do.
Today the silence is deafening. I can hear it. And the early-morning fall is so fresh and the sun so low over the ridge that the snow is as pink as a side of salmon.
. . .
Snorri.
What now.
I think I’m going to go and light the fire after all.
So light the fire.
Are you going back to sleep?
I’m awake now. But I may have another ten minutes.
You used to get up two hours before daylight.
I used to do a lot of things. We’re old men now.
Speak for yourself.
I don’t speak for anyone else.
You know, sometimes I wake up and for a few moments I think I am a teenager again. Sometimes I feel like I am a young man and all the people who have died are still here, and I have my whole life ahead of me. Then I remember.
Sleep plays tricks.
Yes, it does. Sometimes sleep is like time travel. I’m going to light the fire now.
Did you hear the geese in the night, Frosti?
No. I missed them. I always miss them.
One day.
One day.
It is your turn to make the coffee.
I believe I made the coffee yesterday, Snorri.
No. I think you are wrong there, little brother.
In this instance I think it is you that is wrong. I specifically remember because I spilled a little hot water on my hand.
I don’t remember that.
It blistered.
Let me see.
Here – take a look.
That’s not a blister, Frosti.
Yes, it is.
No, that is a callus.
I scalded my hand.
Maybe you did. But that is a callus. Look: I have one too, in the exact same place, but on my other hand. We both know where they came from.
Did you spill hot water on yourself too, Snorri?
Funny. That’s funny. No, mine is from the axe, Frosti. And so is yours. If it were a blister it would be as white as the snow and full of liquid. That mark is dry and hard. It is a callus. It is your turn to make the coffee.
But I made it yesterday.
Must we go through this every morning.
If it is to prove that I am right, then yes, I suppose so.
If I make the coffee then you have to make it tomorrow and then the day after that.
Why?
It is like a debt, says Snorri.
A debt?
Yes. Because I will then have done it two days running and the cost of that to you is that you then have to make the coffee for two days. I should be charging interest.
Interest.
Yes.
How?
I don’t know. Maybe you should have to light the fire that day too. It would be a penalty for avoiding your duty.
But I made it yesterday.
How do I know you are not just saying this to get one over on me?
Dear brother. How could you say such a thing.
I know what you are like, Frosti. You do these things for your own amusement. You like to think you are fooling me, but we know you are not.
We can’t be certain.
Well, says Snorri.
Well, says Frosti.
I’m cold. I need coffee. Will you make it, Frosti?
OK. Just this once I will make it. But if I scald myself again it will be your fault.
Why would you?
I don’t know. Sometimes these things just happen.
Well, take care pouring the water into the coffee pot and you will be alright.
OK. I’m going to make the coffee now, Snorri. How would you like it?
How would I like it?
Yes.
You know how I like it.
I do? says Frosti.
I have been drinking it the same way for sixty years. As have you. Now I know you are trying to make a fool out of me again.
I thought this time you might like a drop of milk in it.
After sixty years of taking it black you suddenly ask me if I would like it with milk?
Yes.
But we do not have milk.
Maybe we do.
But we don’t, says Snorri.
No. Perhaps not.
Have you acquired a cow in the night?
No, but –
Then we do not have milk. Look, the longer you talk, Frosti, the colder we get. The fire is just at the right temperature for coffee. See how the logs are glowing white and the embers are dancing up the flue?
Is that right?
Yes. I’m usually right. You should know that by now.
One day you will be wrong.
We’ll see, Frosti. We shall see.
I’ll make the coffee now, Snorri, but tomorrow you will make it.
Tomorrow is another day.
You will get no argument from me about that. Once again you are right.
Thank you. Careful you don’t scald yourself.
See how the snow falls, Snorri.
I see.
Oh boy. It’s really coming down.
Never goes up.
; That thing about no two flakes being the same, says Frosti. Do you think that’s actually true?
We have no way of knowing.
You’d have to compare every single snowflake that is falling to one another.
Yes.
That would be madness, says Frosti.
Yes.
And not just every single snowflake that is falling but every snowflake that ever fell, and ever will fall.
Yes.
They would melt before you could do that.
Yes, says Snorri.
All my life I’ve been watching snow and I never tire of it.
I’ll tell you something, little brother. Don’t they say that over in Greenland the Eskimos have dozens of words for snow?
I believe they say that, yes.
Well, that’s not true, says Snorri. They have many words for different types of snow, or the conditions in which the snow is created, or the variations of snow, just as we do. But only really a handful of words for snow in its simple, basic form.
I bet someone who doesn’t live in the snow made that up, Snorri. Southerners.
Probably. Everyone knows it’s not the Eskimos anyway but the Sámi that have many words for snow. Hundreds of them.
These people that say these things must be idiots, says Frosti.
Yes. Even the little child just starting school knows this. But out there in the world these ideas get passed around and suddenly they become fact even if they are not true.
They should do their homework.
The children?
No, the idiots who say these things about snow.
You’re right, Frosti.
It’s really heavy today. It has been falling for two weeks straight now.
We’d worry if it wasn’t.
That’s true.
Big flakes. See how the fall sits on the bough of the tree.
Like frozen smoke from an underground chimney, Snorri.
And see how the tree fattens and strains under the weight.
Like Harold the Baker.
I see what you mean.
The trouble with Harold is he eats too much of his own produce.
Yes.
And now he’s a bloated triangle, like that pine. His grey hair makes him even more so.
I like Harold.
I like Harold too, Snorri, but he should cut down on his sweet buns. I heard they are bad for the heart.
Maybe.
It’s really coming down now.
Doesn’t go up.
Will we still go chopping today?
Of course, Frosti. Why wouldn’t we? It’s not stopped us yet.
Sometimes I just like to watch it fall.
I know you do, Frosti.
I often think this must be how some people feel about their televisions. Like they could sit and watch them all day.
Yes.
But I don’t think television programmes are like snowflakes.
Well, yes.
Because they show the same shows over and over again. You don’t get that with snowflakes.
No, Frosti. You don’t.
Also, there is only one word for television.
True. You should finish your oatmeal and get ready.
Let me just watch a little longer, Snorri. I’ve not seen this programme before.
Snorri, I was thinking.
You’re always thinking, Frosti. Too much thinking can be a distraction. You know, sometimes it is fine to just be.
Thinking gets me through the day. When I’m chopping wood, I mean. That’s when I do all my best thinking. That and on the toilet. But only in the summer. Wintertime you can’t hang about on the thunderbox.
So.
So I was thinking about how I think I’d like to build a sweat lodge. When the spring thaw comes, I mean.
You say this every year, Frosti. Always when the snow is thickest on the ground.
I do?
Yes. You know you do.
Because I’m fairly certain that the thought just came to me this morning.
Trust me. You’ve had this idea before.
I really don’t recall.
I do.
Oh.
Yes.
Still, though. It’s a good idea, isn’t it? I’d like to build it the old way.
Which way do you mean? says Snorri.
Well, first we’d need to dig a pit –
We?
Yes, we. You and me.
So suddenly I’m building the sweat lodge too, Frosti?
It’s for both of us. We could both use it.
Go on.
So we dig the pit. Not too wide, not too deep. Just deep enough to sit in. Then we make a roof for the pit, but with a hatch or doorway to climb in and out. We could cover the roof with soil too, to make it more efficient. To disguise it.
Why would we need to disguise it?
I don’t know. That’s just how I picture it in my mind.
OK.
Somehow I see it as an underground sweat lodge.
Right.
Then what you do is you build a nice big fire nearby and then when it has settled down you put some stones in the ashes.
I know how a sweat lodge works, Frosti.
River stones are best. Nice smooth round ones. When they are hot – I mean really hot, Snorri – you then move them down on to the floor of the lodge, where we’ll have cut out a sort of hole within a hole. A little fireplace.
How will we move them?
A bucket should do it. Then you ladle some cold water on the heap of hot stones to create the steam. Then you sit back and sweat it out.
I have to admit, it does sound nice.
Refreshing.
Yes, refreshing, Frosti.
Like being cleaned from the inside out.
Yes.
It would be dark in the sweat lodge but that wouldn’t be a problem because we would have candles in there. And anyway, what does a bit of darkness matter when you feel so good.
And then when you’ve sweated as much as you can stand –
Well, that’s the best bit, Snorri. When you’ve sweated as much as you can stand you jump in the lake.
But the lake is five kilometres away.
So we build the sweat lodge close to the lake. Or beside the stream. It would still give you a nice jolt. It’s not a problem, dear brother.
And you’re going to do all this, Frosti?
Sure. As soon as the snow melts.
Is this before or after the toboggan run?
Which toboggan run?
The one you were threatening to make just two months ago.
Oh, that.
Or the ice cave you were going to carve and fill with your own line-caught spring salmon that you never catch. Or the boat you were going to build to sail to the island on the lake.
Well.
Where you would sleep in the tent you were going to hand-stitch.
OK.
Or the bees you were going to keep for honey.
Bees aren’t so easy to keep.
You may need to start soon, Frosti. You are seventy-five years old.
I do not see age as a barrier. In old age we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the past, we have arrived. I read that somewhere. I live in the present moment.
Well, so do I, but laziness could be a hindrance.
You think I am lazy?
No, actually I don’t. The way you chop wood is admirable. And you help run a fine house. You have worked the land all your life, of that there is little doubt. But you are a dreamer, Frosti. Every year you have these winter dreams.
Winter dreams?
Yes. These ambitious visions. These grand plans that never reach fruition. Winter dreams.
You say that like it is a bad thing, Snorri. Tomorrow I will rise and make coffee and chop wood, but today I shall dream. It is what I am good at.
You take after Father. And you do it very well. What you are not so good at is making sweat lodges,
boats, ice caves, tents, toboggan runs and beehives.
One day, Snorri. One day.
After the spring thaw?
Sure, why not. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.
I’m not laughing.
Yes, but I will be laughing. I will be laughing and sweating and telling you to fetch another bucket of ice-cold water from the mountain stream.
Frosti. If you make this sweat lodge that you have been talking about for as long as I can remember now, I will gladly fetch you the bucket of water. I will bring you a thousand buckets of water. I will put them in my brand-new toboggan and the bees will give me a push.
You’re mocking me now, Snorri. But one day.
After the spring thaw?
After the spring thaw.
I shall look forward to it.
Do you know what I like most about coffee?
If I said, I would only be guessing, Frosti.
So guess.
I don’t know.
Come on, Snorri. A conversation needs two people.
I don’t know. The taste?
Wrong. Guess again.
I don’t know. The way it warms you up when it’s fifteen below, as it surely is this morning?
Nope, though I do like that. Again.
Come on, Frosti, I don’t have time for this. There is work to be done. You’re acting like a child.
Just one more guess.
No. I need to get ready. See how the sun is climbing.
It’s my movements, Snorri. I like the way it helps my morning movements.
Do I need to know this when I have been living with you all these years?
Regularity leads to good health, Snorri. That’s all.
Brother, the walls of this cabin are thin. I know enough about you as it is. Please.
There’s something about coffee. The way it flushes you out like that.
Frosti. That’s enough.
I’m just saying.
I think I’d rather you didn’t. Civilised beings don’t need to discuss these things at the breakfast table.
You can set your watch by it.
You don’t have a watch, Frosti.
Ah, well, you see. That’s because I don’t need one. I have coffee. My body is my clock.
Well, then your body should tell you that soon we will be late. I am going to work now.
Me too, Snorri.
But you’re not ready. You don’t even have your boots on.
I’m right behind you.
If I set off now you won’t catch me up.
Yes, I will.
No, you won’t.
Male Tears Page 14