by Lisa Strømme
“He ignored me,” she said, her voice quivering. “All because of her. I hate her. Why did she have to come here?”
I guided her toward the shore, where the water was unmoving, and we found a rock to settle on. Across the fjord I could see the faint glowing light from the bonfires that dotted the coastline of Bastøy. Our own fire was still roaring, sending sparks high into the air.
Tullik gnawed at her thumb.
“They went into the forest, didn’t they?” she said.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see.”
“Maybe they went up to his house?”
“Do you think Milly would have done that? With her husband just—”
“She only cares about herself,” Tullik said. “It was the same with Carl. He was powerless to stop her from doing as she pleased.”
“Were they married long?” I said.
“Ten years. I was only nine at their wedding. She was twenty-one. She always used to brag about how terribly good he was, letting her do whatever she liked. There were other men too, not just Edvard; there were actors, writers. That’s why she liked the idea of the bohemians. Their lifestyle gave her permission to do whatever she wanted.”
“And what about this marriage, with Ludvig?”
Tullik raised her palm toward the pier.
“Where is he now?” she said. “And where is she?”
We sat there in silence on the shore with the festival going on all around us. Tullik was a fuming ball of fire in her red dress. She clenched her teeth and ground them together, huffing and sighing. She threw stones at the water with the force of a warrior. When she could no longer contain her anger, she sprang to her feet and strode back toward the pier.
“Wait! Tullik!” I said. “Where are you going?”
“You don’t have to come with me,” she said. “Not if it will get you into trouble.”
“Wait,” I said. “I’m coming.”
She marched ahead of me without speaking, heading for the path along the shore. Her elbows pumped at her sides as she passed the Central Hotel and the bathing house, then the Kiøsterud house and the Grand Hotel. She didn’t stop until she reached Munch’s garden. Heedlessly yanking her dress after her, she cast herself over the fence, pulling and tearing her skirt in several places.
Tullik stormed up the garden through the gallery of paintings that had so charmed her the day we went swimming. Now she hurried past them without giving them a second glance. The house looked abandoned. The door was open, but there were no lights, no candles at the window.
“Edvard!” she shouted, charging up the back steps. “Edvard? Are you here?” She banged on the door and the window, but there was no reply. “Very well. I will stay here and wait for him,” she said, letting herself in.
I followed her inside. The hut was a dim collection of three connecting rooms. It was dark and cluttered and smelled of cigarette smoke and turpentine. Tullik lit a candle and rooted around for a glass on a shelf that was packed with tubes of paint.
“Tullik,” I said. “You can’t stay here. Your parents—”
“Who cares about them?” she said, disappearing into the kitchen.
As my eyes adjusted to the glow of the candlelight, small details began to emerge: the low roof, the thick floorboards, and the brown flowery wallpaper. Canvases were strewn about the floor, and easels lined the walls. The bed came out into the room, perpendicular to the wall. It was covered in a gray bedspread with a golden trim. At the foot of it sat a small folding table covered with a pipe and packets of tobacco.
Tullik reappeared with a bottle of port. She poured herself a glass and sat down on the bed.
“Tullik, do you really think you should be—”
“Oh, stop it, Johanne!” she snapped. “You sound just like the rest of them. Shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t do that. I’ve had it with them! From now on, I will do exactly as I please. If Milly can do so, then why can’t I?”
Her outburst silenced me, and I lingered in the doorway for a moment before moving back outside and sitting down on the steps.
In the distance I heard the cries of the dancers and the music from the beach. Mother and Thomas would be wondering where I was. I had promised Thomas a walk to the forest later to pick herbs. It was common for girls to pick herbs at midsummer. Tradition said that if a girl could pick seven different herbs on midsummer night’s eve and put them under her pillow, that night she would dream of her one true love. Thomas joked that a girl like me could easily find a hundred different herbs in Fjugstad forest, but now I might not even find one. The festivities would continue long into the night, and it could be hours until Munch returned.
I sat there thinking about Sankthansaften and the evil spirits, wondering if they were in the air tonight and if that was what had hexed Tullik. On the beach they were singing songs of dishonest folk, the wicked and the cowardly. The old folk songs told tales of lazy farmers and loose women. The songs were meant to teach us the merits of moral virtue and lead us in the footsteps of the faithful, which made me think of Milly and her lack of conscience. The bonfire’s flames were still licking the sky, and I willed them to banish whatever had possessed my friend.
Peering back into the house, I saw that Tullik was now lying on Munch’s bed, staring up at the ceiling with her hands clasped at her breast. I didn’t want to disturb her but couldn’t leave her there either, so I waited on the steps for Munch to return. At first I looked out at the paintings, finding outlines of figures and shapes in the darkness. Some shone clearly: a large painting of Inger in a luminous white dress, sitting on a rock at the shore. Others, like Laura and Tullik staring at their shadow, disappeared entirely in the gloom.
I leaned my head against the hand railings and stared emptily into the garden. Then I noticed that the studio door was ajar, open like an invitation. Tullik was still lying on the bed. She had turned onto her side and was facing away from me. She wouldn’t notice. No one would. I sneaked over to the studio and let myself in.
I was met by the painting Munch had been working on in the garden, the man on the bridge looking out into the fjord. Munch had added some color to the lower right half of the picture, a muddy green, layered on in feather-like strokes and aggressive dark-blue dashes, like scratchings on the man’s back. What struck me the most, though, was the sky. Above the boats in the bay and the distant mauve mountains, Munch had added a blaze of fire, a white-yellow flash covered in angry vermilion, a red that had grown incisors and lacerated the sky. The glow from the flaring heavens lit the man’s face and highlighted his hat and collar as he stared, eyeless, into the fjord beyond.
The ache returned to my chest, and I leaned closer to study Munch’s brushstrokes. They moved quickly, as if painted in a panic. The intense reds and yellows were a battle waged by two painters, arguing and fighting for space on the canvas like gods in combat for power. The lonely figure gazed out in despair, knowing the overhead battle could not be won.
Without thinking, I picked up a brush. I lifted the painting down from the easel and searched the studio for my own. I found it propped against the wall in the corner, the bright sun with snakelike arms whirling like a talisman. The paints and palette were easy to find, scattered about the room in disorganized clusters. I lit a candle and grabbed a palette. Blue. I needed blue. My fingers rummaged through the tubes and grasped everything dark. I squeezed dollops of oil paint into the palette and lifted my painting onto the easel.
Sad.
Heavy. Aching. Dull.
Indigo. Ultramarine. Dark like the depths of the ocean.
Darkness all around me. Shadows. Long and mournful. Sinister. Black.
Tullik drunk. Lying on the bed.
Sorrow. Sorrow like nature. Cawing crows. Squawking flocks.
Umber. Charcoal. Smearing, thick. Curdling. Condensing.
Tullik. Wading through the swamp. Seeking.
Gasping. Drowning.
Tullik. Lost in the marsh. The doomed black pits of her heart.
Paint dribbling, spilling like tears.
“Johanne, what in God’s name are you doing here?”
I dropped my brush, sending paint splattering to the floor. Heat rushed in my chest; my mouth was suddenly metallic and dry. My hands trembled, and the palette hung limply on my thumb.
“Johanne? Are you painting?”
I turned.
It was Herr Heyerdahl.
His burly frame filled the doorway, and he had me trapped.
“Don’t tell my mother,” I blurted.
He laughed.
“Does Edvard know you’re here?”
“No,” I said. “But he gave me this canvas to practice on.”
“Who’s the woman?” he said.
“The woman?”
Did he mean me? Had he finally allowed me to grow beyond the Painting?
“In your picture,” he said, pointing over my shoulder.
“Oh, no one in particular,” I said, surprised to find a forlorn figure had appeared on my canvas. Her back was turned away from the sun.
“It’s really rather good,” he said, “the contrast.”
I returned my painting to the floor and cleared away the paint and brushes.
“Edvard sent me up for a bottle of wine. There’s music and dancing,” Herr Heyerdahl said. “Don’t you want to join us? He said the house was open, that I could just let myself in.” He began to walk away.
“Miss Tullik is there,” I said, running after him. “She’s waiting to see Munch.”
“Edvard’s down at the beach,” he said, opening the cabin door.
“Tullik!” I shouted. “Tullik! Herr Heyerdahl is here.”
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over, drinking.
“Pleased to meet you, Herr Heyerdahl,” she said. Her lips were dark, stained by the port, her hair messy and rough.
“Hello, Miss Ihlen,” he said, lifting his hat. “I am acquainted with your sister, Milly. I met her several times a few years back.”
“How unfortunate for you,” Tullik drawled.
Herr Heyerdahl pointed into the kitchen and mumbled something about a bottle. I looked at Tullik, but her head sank and she turned away.
“This is the one he was after,” Herr Heyerdahl said, returning to the room, holding up the wine as though inviting us to inspect it. “Munch is at the beach,” he said to Tullik. “Would you like me to fetch him?”
“No,” she said. “I will wait for him here.”
“But it could be hours before—”
“I’ll wait,” she said.
“Very well,” he said. “Johanne, would you like me to accompany you back?”
I looked at Tullik.
“Go,” she said.
“Tullik, I’ll stay with you, if you like.”
“Just go,” she said, reaching for the port and pouring herself another drink.
With Herr Heyerdahl I was a child again; I would always be his Strawberry Girl. Afraid of Tullik and unable to help her, I walked back down the garden with the painter whose picture would never let me grow up.
Herr Heyerdahl did not ask any questions, despite the obvious tension at the house. He talked about Åsgårdstrand and how wonderful our cottage was, how he’d been productive since his arrival. I listened to him talk but thought only of Tullik.
We crossed the fence and walked along the path, past Kiøsterud and the Grand Hotel. When we reached the bathing house, I saw Caroline approaching us. Ignoring Herr Heyerdahl completely, she thundered at me, waving her arm.
“You!” she shouted. “Johanne! Milly said you and Tullik went running off the moment her back was turned.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “They walked away to the—”
“Are you calling my sister a liar?”
I shook my head.
“Where’s Tullik?” she said. “Where is she? You know where she is, so don’t lie to me!”
“I don’t know,” I said feebly.
“You don’t need to,” Caroline said. “I’m sure I can guess. Come with me.”
She took my arm and marched me brusquely away, leaving Herr Heyerdahl, stunned, on the path.
“In here,” Caroline said when we reached Munch’s garden. She pushed me over the fence, then mounted it herself, wavering and cursing the wire and the post. Caroline walked ahead of me up the hill. Startled by every painting, she let out a string of gasps and shielded her eyes with her hands.
“Tullik!” she shouted, looking around the garden.
When she reached the house, she stood there with her hands on her hips, staring out into the darkness.
“Tullik! I know you’re here somewhere. Come out! Tullik? Where are you?”
“I’m here,” Tullik said, appearing, disheveled, in the doorway.
Caroline turned.
“I knew it!” she said. “This is where you’ve been sneaking off to every day.”
“You brought her here?” Tullik said, looking at me, her sloping eyes heavy with disappointment.
“She didn’t have to,” Caroline said. “I know you fill your head with pathetic notions about artists and bohemians. I knew you were coming here. What are you looking for, Tullik? Excitement? Attention? Are you hoping this man will paint you?”
Caroline couldn’t have known that Munch had already painted her sister and sketched her several times.
“Edvard loves me, and I love him,” Tullik said as the fire returned to her eyes.
“Don’t be such a stupid little fool!” Caroline spat. “Edvard Munch is a madman and a drunk. Everyone knows that. He doesn’t love you—he loves Milly.”
Tullik put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “That’s not what he says when he’s kissing me,” she shouted, “when he’s making love to me.”
“You little whore!” Caroline screeched. “You’re just as delusional as he is. If you’ve allowed him to kiss you, then you’ve fueled all his fantasies about Milly. It’s not you he’s making love to, it’s not you he even cares about—it’s her. They had a love affair. There, now you know. He’s obsessed with her. But he couldn’t have her, so now he’s using you as a poor man’s substitute.”
“What would you know about love anyway?” Tullik sneered. “I bet you haven’t let Olav touch you. I bet you’ve never even kissed him. You’re as frigid as a nun.”
Caroline lurched up the stairs and flew at her sister, but Tullik was unmoving.
I ran after them.
“Get out of here, you simple girl,” Caroline shouted, swiping at me with her arm.
I tried to move between them, but Tullik already had her hands on Caroline’s shoulders and was pushing her back down the stairs. They clawed at each other, pulling clumps of hair and baring teeth, hissing violent cerise like a pair of tormented cats.
“Stop it!” I shouted. “Tullik! Tullik! Let her go!”
They continued to wrestle. Savages. They would kill each other.
I wailed at them in my desperation, but neither of them listened. All I could do was call out their names and keep shouting.
Then there was a gruff voice behind me, and I heard someone running up the hill.
“She said ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ That’s enough!”
I turned to see Thomas striding up the garden. His face was fixed in a grimace and I cowered away from him. I’d been gone for ages, missed the dancing, missed the walk to the forest. I’d let him down. I thought he might strike out at me, but he strode right past me and waded in between Tullik and Caroline to pry them apart. The women were wafers in Thomas’s strong arms, and he peeled them off each other as though they were infants.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” he said.
“Tullik, come with me. We will settle this at home,” she said in her best Kristiania voice.
Munch wasn’t coming, and Tullik knew it. She left the hut and closed the door. The two sisters walked silently past us, then Caroline stopped and glared at me.
“Our mother will not know about this, about any of it,” she said. “Do you understand?”
I nodded.
Tullik’s face was wet with tears. I watched her with a pain in my heart. My lips rolled inward, and I wanted to say something, but the circumstances would not allow it.
“Come on, Johanne,” Thomas said, his voice softening as he curled his arm protectively about my shoulders. “You have herbs to pick tonight. You promised me a walk, remember?”
I threaded my arm around him and we drifted to the front of Munch’s cabin, coming out into a moonlit Nygårdsgaten and heading, once again, into the woods.
11
PALETTE
Both are general, elementary effects acting according to the general law of separation and tendency to union.
—THEORY OF COLOURS, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Milly stayed in Åsgårdstrand for three more days. She brought her husband, Ludvig, and her daughter, Lila, to Solbakken for tea every day, and I waited on them in pastel shades of silence. The little girl was so royally dressed it seemed difficult for her to relax in the heat. Tullik played with her from time to time and made polite conversation with Ludvig, who was amiable enough, but she did not speak to Milly at all.
Julie returned from Kristiania to a house full of friction. She was unaware of Caroline and Tullik’s fight but still seemed afraid of what she saw in Tullik’s face. She appeared to be bracing herself, as though she knew something sinister and damaging, a hurricane, was on its way.
After luncheon on the third day, Fru Berg and I were hanging sheets on the line when I overheard Caroline and Milly whispering in the garden. They were sitting at the iron chairs by the table. Milly was perched on the edge of her seat, her back poker-straight and her chin erect. Her face was shaded by the brim of her hat.