by Lisa Strømme
Tullik’s own dress was stunning in its simplicity. An effortlessly stylish silvery-white gown, it hung like a waterfall and tied with a silk charcoal band at the waist. It had a modern scooped neckline, and she wore no jewelry, leaving her décolletage bare. The most eye-catching part of Tullik’s outfit was, of course, her flaming hair that hung in wavy tresses about her shoulders.
The night was balmy, and in our fine clothes, we were like two young starlings about to take flight. The forest grew louder as we entered its depths. I listened to the murmur of its secret messages as they fluttered through the sway of the never-ending trees. The mutterings high above our heads spoke like warnings. Tullik was subdued. Her playfulness had been supplanted by melancholy, and I walked alongside her in silence, sensing the branches of the trees watching me.
Somewhere in Fjugstad forest the spell was cast, and Tullik and I emerged again in Åsgårdstrand as equals, if only in my own mind. Walking along Nygårdsgaten, Tullik awoke from the spell and spoke to me for the first time since leaving the house.
“What a beautiful evening,” she said. “If God were a painter, He would spend His summers here, marveling over the fruits of His creation, allowing them to inspire Him and fill His senses. That’s if there is a God. Do you believe in God, Johanne?”
It was a question I had never been asked before, and something I had never truly contemplated. God was someone I met on Sundays in Borre church, someone who didn’t like the house to be untidy, didn’t like Munch or his paintings. I had never felt the urge to question His existence.
“Yes,” I said. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Christ said, God is in me. I am in God. The Father is in me. I am in the Father. Isn’t that just what you or I could say? It would be just as true for us, wouldn’t it?”
Her questions perplexed me. I tried to think carefully and form a meaningful answer, but my mind was not in the mood for thinking, and my thoughts were like heavy freight. All I could feel was the fjord and the waves and the sound of the night. Then I remembered something from the book.
“Goethe says, If the eye were not sunny, how could we perceive light? If God’s own strength lived not in us, how could we delight in Divine things?”
“Precisely,” she said. “I wonder what Edvard thinks?”
Edvard? When had she started calling him Edvard?
“If he is here tonight, I will ask him,” she said.
We passed the huts and Munch’s cabin without stopping. Tullik’s eyes twitched toward his house, and when it was out of sight, she looked back over her shoulder several times, pulled by invisible strings.
When we arrived at the Grand Hotel, it was already throwing its light and its gaiety out into the sea like a flamboyant dancer. Music greeted us in the foyer, where a flourish of color seized our eyes as the Kristiania ladies came into view. They were fussing and fawning over one another with insincere compliments and overblown flattery. Tullik ignored them and deliberately set herself apart, preferring to align herself with me, the housemaid.
“Let’s go downstairs and see if we can find Thomas,” she said. “He’ll be looking for you.”
She led me by the arm, and we went down the sweeping staircase, following the sound of the fiddlers’ jig. When we entered the dance, I was not as anonymous as I had been the last time. Countless pairs of eyes were on us, pinning us to the door. They zigzagged backward and forward between Tullik and me, all of them wondering why we were together. The local townsfolk eyed me disapprovingly; who did I think I was, dressed in my finery with my new Kristiania friend? The Kristiania guests were no better, throwing daggers at Tullik for her disassociation from them and her open friendship with me.
“Let them stare,” she said. “Who cares what anyone thinks?”
We swept in boldly, and Thomas was soon at my side.
“Johanne! You’re here!”
“I told you she would be,” Tullik said. “Aren’t you going to dance with her?”
“Of course.” He reached out for me, and I floated into his arms. We spun onto the dance floor, and soon I was submerged.
“You look fine,” Thomas said, pressing his lips against my neck.
He twirled me and spun me around in his arms, and again, I was lost in the rhythm of the dance. We whirled around like the paint on my canvas. Quick brushstrokes, flicking, flicking, feeling something new and vibrant. I closed my eyes and saw yellow, gold, lemon, corn, bronze, and tinges of crimson like the arms of my sun. Faster and faster I felt the painting grow within me, and I happily merged with it, just as I had merged with the trees in the forest.
We continued like this, spinning and twirling, dance after dance. Yellow, bronze. Yellow, bronze. Yellow, bronze, crimson, gold. I didn’t even think about Tullik until the music faded and Thomas was handing me a glass of beer.
“You’re dancing like a city lady now,” he said. “What happened?”
“I had a good teacher.” I smiled. “But where’s Tullik?” I said. “Have you seen her?”
“I’ve seen no one but you,” he said. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”
I craned my neck, searching the dancers and the clusters of guests mingling at the side of the room.
“We promised Fru Ihlen we’d go back together, that we wouldn’t be too late.”
“She’ll be here somewhere,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me back toward the dance floor.
“No,” I said, remembering Tullik’s melancholy mood. My head jerked from side to side as I peeled myself away from Thomas and searched for her flaming hair.
I left him by the fiddlers and hurried through the crowds, with voices booming all around me. Men in vests and shirtsleeves lifted glasses of beer and clinked them together with uproarious laughter while women tittered in groups. They huddled together, exchanging jokes and gossip, devouring wine and champagne with unquenchable thirst. I cursed their merriment. Where was Tullik? I scoured the lounge, then ran out into the hall. When I didn’t find her there, I darted through to the dining room, only to find it dark and deserted.
“I’ve lost her,” I said to Thomas when I returned, my voice a thin thread.
“She’s a grown woman, Johanne. What does it matter? She can take care of herself.”
“But we promised Fru Ihlen,” I said. “I don’t know why she would desert me. I can’t think where…” Before I had finished the sentence, I had already found the answer. “I have to go,” I said. “I have to go to Nygårdsgaten.”
“Then let me come with you,” he said.
We left the hotel before the dance had ended. My hurried steps kept me a few paces ahead of Thomas as we scaled the hill of Havnegata and turned into Nygårdsgaten.
“Why is this so important?” Thomas complained.
“It was her mood. She was different,” I said, not expecting him to understand.
“Why do you care what mood she’s in?”
“I care, that’s all.”
“Why? You’re with me tonight,” he said, reaching forward and taking my hand. “Why should you care where she is?”
“She’s my…” Friend. I wanted to say friend.
“Employer,” he said. “But you’re not at work now, Johanne. Come on. Let’s go back to the dance.”
“I have to find her first,” I said, shaking him free and rushing ahead again. “To make sure she’s safe. You don’t know what she’s like.”
I heard him groan and thought he would leave, but he followed me, keeping a tense distance between us.
When I reached the gate to Munch’s garden, I stopped and waited for Thomas to catch up with me.
“What are we going in here for?”
“Shh!” I said. “And don’t let yourself be seen.”
The windows were incandescent with a subdued light: the fading remnants of candles. The garden was quiet, and the only sound was the faint
rush of the evening breeze. I lifted the latch on the gate and felt the cool metal beneath my fingers. Peering into the garden, I saw the startled faces of the people in the street still rushing from the painting in terror. Beyond them was a flame of red hair. Tullik was standing with her back to me, facing the painting of Laura Munch with her shadow. I was about to go in when I heard the back door open and close, followed by footsteps on the porch. I released the gate and sprang backward, stepping on Thomas’s toes.
He slipped his arm around my waist, and we stayed there, crouching together at the gate.
“I had to come back,” I heard Tullik say. “I had so many questions.”
Munch answered in his gentle voice.
“Of course,” he said.
“Do you believe in God?” Tullik said, laying the profound question out before him as though she were offering him a drink.
“Why do you ask?” he said.
“It’s just… It would sadden me if you didn’t. Not because of your lack of faith, but because when I look at your pictures, I see something so spiritual, so beautiful, something that could only come from God.”
Munch moved closer toward her.
“It’s true,” he said. “I have questioned God. I prayed for my mother and my sister, Sophie, but my prayers were ignored. Where was God then? My father was so convinced our prayers would save them, even in their final breaths. I prayed for him at the end too, but God didn’t spare him either. Does that mean God does not exist? I don’t know. I have been faithful to the goddess of art, and she has been faithful to me. It is the soul you see in these paintings. A true artist uses their art to express the soul’s journey, to express that which cannot be answered by the intellect. Do you read Dostoevsky, Miss Ihlen?”
“Tullik. You must call me Tullik, if we are to be friends.”
“And are we to be friends?” he said. Their bodies were moving closer, their voices weakening in the night air.
“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Yes, we must.”
“Won’t you walk with me, Tullik? The evening is so mild.”
When I heard their footsteps approach the gate, I shoved Thomas backward, and the two of us stumbled into the lane by the houses next door.
“They’re coming out,” I said, crouching behind the hedge.
Thomas could not have been less interested.
“Can we go back to the dance now, then?” he whispered. “Now that you know she’s safe?”
“No,” I said. “I can’t lose her again.”
Tullik and Munch came out into the street and began to walk toward Fjugstad forest.
“Come on,” I said. “We must follow them.”
“Into the woods?” Thomas’s interest was suddenly roused.
“Yes, into the woods.”
Careful to keep our distance, Thomas and I crept behind them as they edged closer to the forest. Their bodies were almost joined as they walked. Tullik’s silvery-white dress was like a shadow in the sunset, and her hair a silky veil that wanted to protect them. She leaned her head toward Munch’s shoulder and eventually, at the hungry gape of the forest’s mouth, he slipped his arm around her waist, and the two figures merged into one.
A red glow burned through the trees as the forest was cast in Tullik’s light. The dark depths of the pines shone auburn as they embraced the pair, entering the forest in that way, the way of lovers.
“Come,” said Thomas, swift in his gait. “Who cares about Miss Ihlen or crazy-man Munch? Tonight you are mine, Johanne Lien.”
8
CERISE
All nature manifests itself by means of colours to the sense of sight.
—THEORY OF COLOURS, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Afraid and excited, I took Thomas’s hand and rushed toward the woods. The breeze was exhilarating as we surrendered to the cover of the branches.
“Come to me, Johanne,” he whispered, leading me off the path and into the ruddy darkness of evening.
He kissed my neck, and then his big hands were in my hair. Twining it around his fingers. Tugging. His mouth engulfed mine quickly. Hot and hard. Red. Cerise.
He pressed himself against me as we kissed and touched me as he pleased. His hands were on my breasts, hips, legs. Down, down beneath my hem and back up again. Tracing lines up my inner thighs. His caresses brought longing. The blossoming of desire. Ruby. Scarlet. I was ready. Soon my hips were moving on their own. Rising. Falling. Inviting his hand. But he did not touch me. Not yet. He replaced his fingers with the hard bulge of his groin. Pushing. Pulsing. Pleasure. Crimson. Fuchsia. Gold.
Perhaps it was wearing Tullik’s dress, or simply the budding of love in the forest, that made me so loose. I hooked my leg around him. Again he lifted my dress, my petticoat. This time his hand touched me, softly, where no one had ever touched me before. He groaned and delved. Stroked. Circled. He slid his finger through my wetness, then pushed it firmly in. I gasped and let him do it again and again.
A surge of guilt hit me like a slap. Indigo. I pushed him away.
“No,” I said. “No, Thomas, stop!”
He froze and bit the air as though in pain.
“I can’t. Not now. I’m too young. I’m not ready. I’m sorry,” I said, smoothing the ripples of my fear from Tullik’s beautiful dress.
He moved away from me and slumped against a tree. When he found his breath, he turned and smiled.
“Johanne, why don’t you marry me?”
“Is that a proposal?” I said.
“Yes.”
“I’m too young to get married. I’m only sixteen.”
My hand twitched up to my shoulder and felt for the fabric.
“Engaged then? We could get engaged. You do like me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. Alone, I would have wept.
“So why that look on your face?”
“I just hadn’t thought that far ahead yet,” I said, hitching the edge of my sleeve up and pulling it toward my neck.
“You don’t have to answer me now,” he said, taking my hand and kissing my fingers, “but think about it.”
I swung his hand in mine childishly, scared by his seriousness and scared of what I had done. It was getting darker, and I was afraid. Again, I had lost Tullik.
Drawn to the comforting slosh of the sea, I suggested we go to the beach. A pale moon was rising through the smooth chop of the waves. There was something pure about it that urged me into its embrace. We passed the muttering stream and found a gap in the trees where the path curved away from the thicket and down to meet the shore. It was here that I found them, alone among the pines.
Tullik was standing with her back to the water. Her face was lifted to the sky, her eyes half closed. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and her chest was pressed out. The subtle moonlight found flecks of gold in her hair and on her dress. Her lips were poised as though waiting for a kiss. Munch was watching her, studying her. They did not speak.
The sea stretched out behind Tullik, a flat expanse of blue violet. The rocks peeped out from the shallows and dotted the surface, stirring and making faces. Between the tree trunks the moon flashed luminous and yellow, a wide golden column across the blue water.
Munch pushed his sleeves to his elbows and went to her. He began arranging her hair, teasing some of it forward over her shoulders and letting heavier strands fall behind her back.
“You look like a mermaid,” he said.
Tullik stretched her neck out and lifted her chin farther; her parted lips were begging to be kissed. Munch slipped his hand behind her head and softly pulled her mouth to his. Only then did Tullik release her clasped hands from behind her back. She wrapped them around his body and returned his kisses. I watched as Munch, powerless, was gently sucked into Tullik’s world.
• • •
By the time I made my presenc
e known to Tullik, the forest had cast another spell, the consequences of which I could not yet know, but the promise of its colossal power was immediately palpable. The summer sky was as dark as it was ever going to be. Unable to produce a cloak of blackness in which the stars could shimmer, it settled for an insipid lavender that challenged the moon to work twice as hard.
The arrival of voices and laughter in the woods told me the dance was over. Fresh bands of revelers came and went, some drifting drunkenly to the water and splashing like fools in the sea. I sent Thomas home. We had spent the evening strolling in Tullik’s radius, keeping a safe distance, as I was anxious not to lose her again. I didn’t mean to spy but couldn’t help myself. I was close enough to witness the growing fervor of their kisses, the way he touched her, how she succumbed and returned his passions. Something about their exploration and hunger for each other fascinated and excited me.
When Tullik saw me over Munch’s shoulder, she gently released him. Munch strolled sheepishly out to the beach, and Tullik came skipping toward me. Relief and fear mixed in my stomach as I saw that her melancholy had vanished and she was restored to her usual self, full of fire and danger and life.
“Johanne,” she said, beaming the widest smile. “Surely it can’t be time to go home yet?”
“It is. We promised your mother. And you left me at the dance—I’ve been looking for you.”
“I was going to come back,” she said. “I didn’t know what time it was, and it was such a lovely evening.”
Again, Tullik had stretched the time to suit her world.
“The dance is over now,” I said. “We must go home.”
“All right,” she said. “I’m coming.”
She turned back to Munch, who was standing at the shore.