by Jon Fosse
Food’ll be ready soon, I say then
and I say it kind of to break the silence and I think that I almost never do that usually
And I sure am hungry, Åsleik says
Those onions are going to make it taste really good, he says
Onions kind of make everything taste different, he says
and Åsleik says that bacon and fried eggs are always good but they’re especially good when you make them with onions, he says
and I think it’ll be good to have something to eat because it’s nighttime and I’ve had almost nothing to eat all day, I think, yes, my stomach’s grumbling, so it’ll be good to have something to eat, yes, I think and Åsleik says that this is a real meal fit for a king, he says, and he says it again, a meal fit for a king, yes, fit for a king, he says and again it’s like Åsleik is proud that he knows the idiom, because that’s how he is, there are words he has to emphasize, give weight to, and sometimes that’s fine, with a term like St Andrew’s Cross, because there aren’t actually that many people who know what that means, but fit for a king, such an ordinary phrase, old-fashioned even, yes, why would anyone be proud of knowing that? I think, and I say that the eggs are done and then I put them and the onions on the two plates and then I take one plate, the one with the bacon that’s less burnt, and put it down in front of Åsleik and then I get a knife and fork and give those to him
Looks good, Åsleik says
and then I go get the other plate and knife and fork and I put them down at the end of the table where I’ve always sat, right here at the head of the table, is where I sit, and Ales always sat to my left, that’s where the two chairs are, and when Åsleik ate with us he always sat on the right side, on a bench that’s along the wall so a person sitting there could lean his back against the wall, and that’s where Åsleik is sitting now, where he’s always sat, I think and I sit down and I say bless this food and then we start eating and we eat without saying a word, and it tastes good, yes, it’s unbelievable how good simple food can taste, the eggs are just eggs, the onions are just onions, and the bread I buy is just bread I pick out at random, whatever’s cheapest, so the bread usually tastes the same but sometimes a little different, while that’s not true of the bacon, there can be a big difference there, sometimes it shrivels up into almost nothing and sometimes the fully cooked slices are practically as big as they were raw, and the taste is different too, yes, I think, but today, today everything tastes unbelievably good, and maybe it’s because I’m so hungry, I think and then Åsleik says it tastes good, yes, I always cook bacon and eggs and onions in the best way but even so today it tastes even better than usual, he says and I want to say something to him but I agree so I don’t say anything and then Åsleik puts the knife and fork down next to each other on the plate and says yeah that tasted great and I finish and then put my knife and fork down on my plate too and Åsleik says thank you so much for the food, but now he really should be getting home, because I must be tired after all that driving, two round trips to Bjørgvin, one after the other, he says and I say yes you really start to feel it after you’ve eaten and Åsleik says yes well he’s looked at the pictures but he isn’t totally sure which one he wants, so maybe he can come back tomorrow and take a painting then? he says
But if you still want to drive the paintings to Bjørgvin tomorrow maybe it’s better if I just pick one now, he says
You can if you want, sure, I say
But I’ll have to drop by tomorrow anyway, because it’s supposed to snow so much tonight that I’ll have to clear your driveway tomorrow too, he says
and then Åsleik says that he’ll stop by tomorrow, early tomorrow, both he and I get up early, so he can probably pick out a picture for Sister tomorrow, that way he’ll have time to sleep on it too, because he’s deciding between two pictures, he says, so if it’s all right with me he’ll come over tomorrow morning, and then he can help me load the pictures I’m taking to The Beyer Gallery into the car too, he says
Yes, you usually do that, I say
Well it needs doing, Åsleik says
Yes, I say
You need to be careful handling pictures, he says
And every one of them needs to get wrapped in a blanket, he says
Yes, I say
That’s how I do it, yes, I say
I use a whole blanket for each big picture, and half a blanket for the smaller ones, as you know, I say
That’s right, Åsleik says
Yes, I’ve often wondered where you got so many blankets, he says
and I knew he was going to say that, because he says it every time, and I’ve sworn to myself that I’m never going to tell him, he will never know, I need to keep some things to myself, I think, even though it’s nothing, the answer is totally normal and boring, I just bought the blankets at The Thrift Shop in Sailor’s Cove, a little north of the centre of Bjørgvin, in fact on the block where Asle lives, and obviously I didn’t buy them all at once but I’ve been to The Thrift Shop lots of times and sometimes there’d be a blanket or two there and I’d buy them, and that’s how after a while I got to have so many blankets
So, see you tomorrow morning, Åsleik says
See you then, I say
and Åsleik gets up and picks up his plate and knife and fork and Bragi is already at the ready next to the table wagging his tail and Åsleik puts the plate down on the floor and Bragi licks it and then Åsleik puts the plate and knife and fork into the sink and I fill Bragi’s bowl with water and put it where it goes in the corner behind the hall door and Bragi runs over to the bowl and slurps up the water and I pick up my plate and put it in the sink and I see Åsleik standing in the door to the hall and he says yes Bragi needs his too, he says and then he says see you tomorrow morning and he’ll pick out a painting for Sister then and I can think some more about whether I want to come with him this year to celebrate Christmas in Øygna, since I think maybe I can this year, because then, well, then we could probably just drive there together? he says, since I have a car, and a driver’s licence? but no, that wouldn’t be right, in all these years he’s always gone to Øygna in The Boat for Christmas, there’s a good landing there in a small bay, so that’s how he’ll go this year too, he says, but no one’s getting any younger, so if I start coming regularly to celebrate Christmas with Sister, with Guro, then maybe some other year, when it gets too rough to go in The Boat, maybe we can take my car to Øygna? he says, well I should think about it, he says, because Sister’s hardly some kind of a monster, maybe I’ll even be glad I met her, and talked to her, yes, there’s aren’t that many people I talk to during the year, no, there can’t be many, there’s him, Åsleik, and then Beyer, the gallerist, and then I probably talk every now and then to the man with my Name, Åsleik says
But there’s something I wanted to ask you about, Åsleik says
and I look straight at him standing in the doorway
Yes, I say
Yes, I’ve thought about asking you lots of times, but I’ve never done it, he says
But now, well, now that you’re maybe thinking about coming to spend Christmas with me and Sister, since this might be happening for the first time, yes, well, I feel like I can ask you, he says
Go ahead, I say
Why is your hair so long? Åsleik asks
and I realize I’m about to start laughing but I manage not to
Beats me, I don’t know, I say
Yeah? Åsleik says
I’ve had long hair almost since I was a kid, I say
Yeah, Åsleik says
and I say that one time when I was young I decided I wanted long hair, and so I grew my hair out, and then my mother dragged me to a hairdresser’s, because even in Barmen where I grew up there were places where ladies would cut your hair, and now that she was getting her first chance to cut my hair she really went at it, I was left almost bald, it was a disaster, and since then I’ve never let any lady at a hairdresser’s touch my hair, any barber either, and all my mother had to
do was mention that I needed a haircut and I’d almost go after her with my fists, I say, even though I’m not a violent person, I’ve never hit anyone, but Mother eventually realized she had to give up on getting me to cut my hair and she let it just grow, and when it did get too long I would cut it myself, the way I still do, I just need two mirrors and a pair of scissors, I say
But now, well, now that it’s gone all grey? Åsleik says
And so thin too, he says
That doesn’t matter, I say
And with that bald spot you’ve got, too, it’s pretty big, he says
and there’s silence
When my hair started thinning out, I started tying it back with a black hairband, I say
Yes, a ponytail they call it, Åsleik says
The name says it all, he says
and I say I don’t know how many years I’ve been doing it, wearing my hair in a ponytail, but yes, it’s been a long time, because my hair turned grey early, I say, and I think I should have asked Åsleik why he has such a long grey beard, but I know what he’ll answer if I do, I think
So it’s because your mother made you get a horrible haircut once that you still have long hair? Åsleik says
If you want to put it that way, he says
Yes it’s partly that, I say
I also just like having long hair, it’s like it helps me in a way, it gives me a kind of protection, I say
Protection? Åsleik says
Helps you? he says
Yes, it helps me, helps me paint well, kind of, I say
and Åsleik says that he can’t understand a thing like that and he says I look tired and I say that I am tired
I’m going to go right to bed, I say
When you’re tired that’s the best thing, Åsleik says
Even if it’s early, he says
Yes, I say
So then it’s probably time for me to go, he says
and Åsleik goes out into the hall and I follow him with Bragi at my heels and I open the front door and Bragi runs out and I see Åsleik standing there pulling his brown snowsuit on
He was sure in a hurry, Åsleik says
and I see him put on his boots and the brown fur cap with the earflaps
He must’ve needed some fresh air, I say
Yes, probably had to get some fresh air too before he lay down, Åsleik says
No big difference between dogs and people there, I say
Good point, Åsleik says
and he goes outside and I think now he’s going to start talking about why he doesn’t have a dog and I can certainly listen to all that, I’ve heard it so many times already, but I’m too tired now and I say goodnight to him and he says see you tomorrow, because he wants to come pick out a picture for Sister, yes, before I take the pictures to Bjørgvin, of course, yes, he says and I think that he’s already said that and I say yes yes see you tomorrow and then I call Bragi and he comes running over and into the hall covered with snow and then he stands there and shakes off the snow and I see Åsleik climb up to the cabin of his tractor and I remember the bags of groceries I bought in Bjørgvin to give to Åsleik, they’re still under the hook with the scarves, and I pick up the bags and I step into my boots and I hurry over to the tractor with Bragi at my heels
Wait a second, I shout
What is it now? Åsleik says
and I know perfectly well that he knows why I’m asking him to wait
Just wait, I say
I was just leaving, Åsleik says
and I hear Åsleik start the tractor, with a grinding sound from the engine, and I hold up the bags of groceries
Here, I say
You know I don’t need anything, Åsleik says
I don’t need any charity, he says
It’s payment, for clearing the roads, I say
I don’t need to get paid for that, he says
and I put the bags down at his feet and he just barely audibly mumbles thank you and then he starts carefully driving off and I go back to the front door with Bragi at my heels and I see him run into the hall and then I shut the front door behind me and then I go and make sure the burners on the stove are off and then I turn off the light in the kitchen and go into the main room and I stop in the middle of the room and I think that before I lie down I want to take a little look at the picture I’m working on, the one with the two lines that cross in the middle, and I think that maybe I should shut the curtains, I usually do, but now it’s so dark out that I can look at the picture in the dark just fine without closing the curtains like I usually do, maybe it’s a strange habit, always wanting to look at my paintings in the dark, yes, I can even paint in the dark, because something happens to a picture in the dark, yes, the colours disappear in a way but in another way they become clearer, the shining darkness that I’m always trying to paint is visible in the darkness, yes, the darker it is the clearer whatever invisibly shines in a picture is, and it can shine from so many kinds of colour but it’s usually from the dark colours, yes, especially from black, I think and I think that when I went to The Art School they said you should never paint with black because it’s not a colour, they said, but black, yes, how could I ever have painted my pictures without black? no, I don’t understand it, because it’s in the darkness that God lives, yes, God is darkness, and that darkness, God’s darkness, yes, that nothingness, yes, it shines, yes, it’s from God’s darkness that the light comes, the invisible light, I think and I think that this is all just something I’ve thought up, yes, obviously, I think and I think that at the same time this light is like a fog, because a fog can shine too, yes, if it’s a good picture then there’s something like a shining darkness or a shining fog either in it, in the picture, or coming from the picture, yes, that’s what it’s like, I think, and without this light, yes, then it’s a bad picture, but actually there’s no light you can see, maybe, or is it that only I can see it, no one else can? or maybe some other people can too? but most other people don’t see it, or even if they do sort of see it it’s without knowing it, yes, I’m completely sure about that, they see it but they don’t realize that it’s a shining darkness they’re seeing and they think that it’s something else, that’s how it is, and even though I don’t understand why it’s at night, in the darkness, that God shows himself, yes well maybe it’s not so strange, not when you think about it, but there are people who see God better in the daylight, in flowers and trees, in clouds, in wind and rain, yes, in animals, in birds, in insects, in ants, in mice, in rats, in everything that exists, in everything that is, yes, there’s something of God in everything, that’s how they think, yes, they think God is the reason why anything exists at all, and that’s true, yes, there are skies so beautiful that no painter can match them, and clouds, yes, in their endless movements, always the same and always different, and the sun and the moon and the stars, yes, but there are also corpses, decay, stenches, things that are withered and rotten and foul, and everything visible is just visible, whether it’s good or bad, whether it’s beautiful or ugly, but whatever is worth anything, what shines, the shining darkness, yes, is the invisible in the visible, whether it’s in the most beautiful clouds in the sky or in what dies and rots, because the invisible is present in both what dies and what doesn’t die, the invisible is present in both what rots and what doesn’t rot, yes, the world is both good and evil, beautiful and ugly, but in everything, yes, even in the worst evil, there is also the opposite, goodness, love, yes, God is invisibly present there too, because God does not exist, He is, and God is in everything that exists, not like something that exists but as something that exists, that has being, they say, I think, even if good and evil, beauty and ugliness are in conflict, the good is always there and the evil is just trying to be there, sort of, I think and I can’t think clearly and I understand so little and these thoughts don’t go anywhere, I think and I look at Bragi and I see life shining in his eyes and I think I understand so little while it’s like these dog eyes looking at me understand everythi
ng, but they will rot too, will pass away, the same as all human eyes, they’ll rot, they’ll pass away, or else flames will consume them, once it would have been on a bonfire and now it’s in an oven, for an hour or two or however long it takes now in an oven and then the whole visible human being, the body, is gone, but the invisible human being is still there, because that is never born and so it can never die, I think, yes, the invisible eye is still there after the visible one is gone, because what’s inside the eye, inside the person, doesn’t go away, because there’s God inside the person, it’s the kingdom of God there, yes, as stands written, and yes, yes, that’s how it is, in there, there inside the person is what will pass away and become one with what is invisible in everything, and it’s like it’s tied to the visible but it isn’t the visible, yes, it’s like the invisible inside the visible, and it’s what makes the visible exist, but out of everything that exists it’s only people in whom the invisible in the visible is so closely related to what’s invisibly visible in everything else, but different from everything that exists because it belongs to everything that exists, even though it doesn’t exist itself, not in space, not in time, it is not a thing, it’s nothing, yes a nothing, I think, and only while the person is alive does it exist in space, in time, and then it leaves time, goes out of space, and then it’s united with, yes, with what I call God, and that, yes, invisible thing in the visible, which acts within it, which sustains it, yes, it shows itself in time and space as shining darkness, I think, and it’s that and nothing else that my pictures have always tried to show and once my eyes get used to the darkness so that I can see a little, yes, then I can see if there’s any of the shining darkness in the picture, and if there isn’t then I’ll usually always paint a thin coat of white or black, either one coat or a few thin coats of white or black, in some place or another, a glaze, they call it, and then I keep doing it, sometimes with just white, sometimes with just black, but always with a thin coat of oil paint, I keep doing it until the picture shines darkly, I paint with white or black in the darkness and then the darkness starts to shine, yes always, yes, yes, sooner or later the darkness starts to shine, I think, but now I’m so tired that I just want to go lie down, I think, but first I have to look at the picture with the two lines crossing in the middle in the dark, because maybe there’s the shining darkness in the picture and maybe there isn’t, and I have to see if it’s there before I lie down, I think, and I turn off the light and I can’t see anything in the room and then I stay standing up to get used to the darkness, until I can see a little, because I do need to be able to see a little even if I’m painting in the dark, of course, and it doesn’t take long before my eyes get used to the dark so that I can see a little and then I go stand a few steps back from the easel and I look at the picture, step closer, step back a little, and I see that the black darkness is shining from the picture, from almost the whole picture, the black darkness is shining, yes, I’ve hardly ever seen the black darkness shine like that from any other picture, I think and I stand there looking at the picture and I think that this picture is done, I won’t do anything else to this painting, and I won’t sell this painting, I’ll put it up in the attic with the other pictures I want to keep for myself and not sell, the pictures I go look at every now and then when it sort of stops for me, when I sort of can’t start painting any more, my best pictures, and the ones I think no one else would get anything from anyway and wouldn’t want to pay anything for, like this picture with the two lines crossing, and I stand there and I look at the picture, I step a little to one side, I look at the picture from that side, then from the other side, from below, from above, and it’s the same however I look at it, yes, the picture has its shining darkness and I think that tomorrow the first thing I’ll do when I wake up is take this painting up to the attic and put it in the stack in the storage space with the other pictures I don’t want to sell, because this picture, yes, it’s finished, and I don’t want to sell it, and if someone did want to buy it I’d get paid barely enough money to cover the cost of the stretcher, the canvas, and the oil paint, at least after Beyer takes his cut, because he takes half of whatever a picture sells for, I think and I am so tired so tired, I think and now I’ll lie down, I think, but first I have to sign the picture and I turn on the light and I pick up a tube of black oil paint and a brush and then I paint St Andrew’s Cross on the back, on the top of the stretcher, and then in the lower right-hand corner on the painting itself I paint a large A and then I wipe the brush off with turpentine and put it back where it goes and then I open the door to the side room where I sleep and I feel a rush of cold hit me, because I’ve always slept in cold rooms, but now the open door will let a little warmth into the side room and I turn on the light in there and go back into the main room and turn off the light there and go back into the side room and I get undressed and hang my clothes on a chair and then I’m standing there naked and shivering a lot and then I turn off the light and lie down in the bed and I tuck the duvet around me and I think I’m too tired to go brush my teeth and then I call Bragi and he comes right away and he jumps up onto the bed and crawls in under the duvet and I tuck the duvet well around both of us and Bragi lies down against my side, all the way under the duvet, and I press the duvet against his body and I feel so tired so tired and then I feel Ales lying there next to me in bed and we’re holding each other tight and giving each other warmth and I can’t think about Ales, not now, and then I say I’m so tired and I want to sleep now and so she should have a good rest and it won’t be long before we see each other again, I say, and I feel how close Ales is, because even if it’s been many years since she died she is lying next to me in bed and I say I don’t want to talk any more now, I can’t talk with you tonight, Ales, I say, because then I’ll start just missing you so much, so terribly much, I say, and I have my arms around Ales and I hold her and she holds me then I say that it won’t be long before we’re together again, she and I, and actually we are always together, now too, I think, but now I want to sleep, there’s been too much today, and yesterday, I say, and then Ales strokes my hair and then I take the cross on my brown rosary that I got from Ales once and I place the cross down on my belly, and I’m lying there, and I realize I’m so tired, so tired, and I think even so I need to say a Pater Noster before I go to sleep and so I make the sign of the cross and then I take the cross between my thumb and index finger and hold it tight and I say to myself Pater noster Qui es in cælis and I pause after those words and already I’m starting to drift off into the fog of sleep and I say Sanctificetur nomen tuum Adveniat regnum tuum and I think yes Hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come, yes, God’s kingdom must come, your kingdom, come, I think and I breathe deeply in and I say to myself Kyrie and I breathe slowly out and I say eleison and I breathe deeply in and I say to myself Christe and I breathe slowly out and I say eleison and I breathe deeply in and slowly out and then I see Asle standing at the side of the road, with a tin milk canister in his hand, and he sees a white car come driving up, and it’s The Bald Man’s white car, the man who lives in the big yellow house, on the downhill side of the road by The Dairy, and it’s a big car, a wide car, taking up the whole road, and so Asle is standing a good ways back on the hill with a tin milk canister in his hand, because Mother has asked him to go shopping by himself, so he’s going to go to The Bakery to buy bread and then to The Dairy to buy milk, and then he’ll go to The Co-op Store to buy what Mother has written down in a shopping list, and the person at the cash register in The Co-op Store will write down what it costs in a little notebook, and Asle thought he would go to The Co-op Store first, since it’s farthest, and then to The Dairy, and then up the hill to The Bakery, and then he’ll go home to Mother with the things, he thought, and Asle sees the white car stop and The Bald Man rolls down his car window and asks Asle if he wants to come with him and take a drive with him and why not, Asle thinks, he could do that, even though both Mother and Father have told both him and Sister that they must never get into a car with T
he Bald Man and never go into his house if he asks them to, Asle thinks, but he’s never entirely understood what’s so dangerous about sitting in The Bald Man’s car, and it might be nice to take a little drive, Asle thinks and The Bald Man looks at Asle and he’s obviously waiting for an answer and it might really be nice to take a drive, Asle thinks as he stands there at the side of the road with the tin milk canister in his hand and he asks where they’d drive to and The Bald Man says he needs to go see a man at Innstranda to discuss something with him and Asle thinks yes sure he could always go for a little drive with The Bald Man, yes, as long as his parents don’t find out, he thinks, because he’s not that busy, after all, there’s no big hurry to buy what Mother said to buy for her, and he thought he’d go to The Co-op Store first so this way The Bald Man can drop him off at The Co-op Store after they come back, Asle thinks