by Lisa Strømme
Thomas grinned, and we rushed to the boat moored along the strip that stretched out before the Grand Hotel. It was only a small rowing boat, but it had a sail and room for five oarsmen and was enough to make Thomas feel like a captain. He stepped down into it and held his hands out to me.
“Madam,” he said, smiling so broadly his face must have ached.
I stepped down onto the slatted gangway and over the slime-covered edge of the pier. Thomas took my arm. The boat rocked as I landed and took a seat at the prow.
“Where would you like to go?” he said, settling down opposite me and taking up the oars. “Kristiania? Denmark? France?”
“Take me out to Bastøy,” I said, “to the lighthouse. We don’t have very long.”
Thomas’s powerful arms made light work of rowing. The boat cut through the calm waters, and soon we were out in the fjord, bobbing like the sailboats in Herr Heyerdahl’s paintings. The sun laid a white sheet over the water’s surface and brought a sparkle to the crest of every wave. I leaned back on my hands and lifted my face to the sun, feeling a familiar tingle as the light washed over me. It made me think about Munch and how subjects in paintings grow and change, how they are life. I sat up straight and looked back toward the shore, hunting for the little mustard hut and the sloping garden, but we were too far out now. Thomas raised the sail. The wind filled it quickly and carried us closer toward the island of Bastøy.
“What are you thinking about?” Thomas said when the sail was secured and our course was set.
“Paintings,” I said.
“What’s there to think about?” Thomas said.
“What inspires the painter—the colors, the emotions in them.”
“There are no emotions in paintings, Johanne. They’re just pictures of things.”
“Not if you look closely,” I said. “They can make you feel things too.”
“Like what?”
“Sadness, fear, joy, longing, love.”
The last word caught his attention.
“How can you feel love by looking at a painting?”
“I don’t know,” I said, thinking about the pictures Munch had painted of Tullik. “You just feel it. You feel what the painter felt.”
“How do you know the painter feels anything?” he said, climbing to the bench opposite me.
“Because that’s what art is. It’s an expression.”
Thomas laughed.
“I think you’ve been spending too much time with those la-di-das from Kristiania. You’re starting to sound like them,” he said.
“Oh? And how do you want me to sound? Like a fisherman’s wife? With talk of cod and mackerel and scales and fillets?”
“Don’t be angry, Johanne,” he said.
It was only then that I realized I was.
“I just want you to sound like you,” he said, coming to my side, “with your talk of fruit and the forest, and nature and seasons.”
“What makes you think I know so much?” I said as he embraced me.
“You grew up with it. You’re a child of that forest. You belong to nature.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Funny girl.”
He kissed my shoulder, and I waited for my anger to melt. I closed my eyes and listened for the voice of my soul to speak up, to tell me this man was my destiny, that I was following my heart.
“I will look after you,” he said, putting his strong arms about me, “when we are married. I will provide for you. You will never be lacking. You know that, don’t you?”
Again I urged my soul to speak up.
“Yes,” I said. “I know.”
I held his hand. Thomas was a good man. I did not doubt that he would care for me, or that we would have a good life together, but could he truly understand me? This urge to paint that I had, and the way it made me feel. Everything Munch had taught me. Would Thomas take it away from me? Would I have to give up my soul to become his wife?
I kissed him.
He cupped my face in his large hands and pressed his lips against mine. I allowed his hands to roam across my breasts. Deep-blue violet. Plum to pink. All my senses stirred, and we moved closer together, gradually leaning back against the tip of the boat. I ran my fingers through his hair, and he groaned heavily. Longing. He kissed my neck. Hot fire. Licked my earlobe. Sweet. A sweet gasp of pleasure. Burning. He held my hips. Pulled me closer. Tight together. Cerise. His hardness wanting me through his clothes. Hunger and lust. Blue. Red. Scarlet. Panting. Kissing. Unable to deny my own pleasure.
But my heart was silent. How could I follow it, to the exclusion of all else, if it wouldn’t tell me where to go?
“Have we reached Bastøy yet?” I said, sitting up and straightening out my dress.
Thomas’s chest was heaving. He sat up on his elbow.
“The lighthouse is around the next bay, where the rocks point out like a needle.”
“Take me there,” I said. “It’s so long since I’ve seen it.”
His chestnut eyes stung with frustration, but he pretended not to care and stepped across the boat to alter the sail. I watched him work the mast and the rigging as he steered us carefully around the rocks and brought the boat into the coastline where the lighthouse teetered on the very edge of the island.
“There!” he said. “There it is!”
I clambered around in the boat and looked up at the cylindrical tower, staring at the light that guided the ships. I wondered then if my heart might speak up and guide me to it like a boat lost at sea. I held my breath and closed my eyes, but all I heard was the aching call of the distant gulls.
14
DARK
As yellow is always accompanied with light, so it may be said that blue still brings a principle of darkness with it.
—THEORY OF COLOURS, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
By the time we reached the Åsgårdstrand pier, the afternoon was fading and the sun had lost the stab of its heat. Thomas moored the boat in the harbor and I climbed out swiftly, with a ferocious guilt biting at my heels. I scanned the harbor but didn’t see the face I feared the most: Mother’s.
“Thank you for the trip,” I said.
“I’ll walk you home, if you like.”
“You don’t need to. Mother will only remark.”
“So let her remark,” he said. “What can words do?”
Something sparked at the base of my stomach, and I smiled at him.
“There’s a dance at the end of the week,” he said. “I take it I’ll be seeing you there, with Miss Ihlen? The two of you are becoming quite the talk of the town.”
“What do you mean?” I said, thinking of Fru Berg’s warnings of “talk.”
“I suppose people think it’s strange, that’s all, a maid and her mistress out together. Miss Ihlen doesn’t act like the other ladies from the city.”
“Then let them remark,” I said. “What can words do?”
I was about to walk away when I heard my name being called. I turned to see a tall man in a white suit striding toward us. Delius.
“Johanne!” he said, removing his hat.
I shrank away from him. Thomas stared.
“We thought we’d see you this afternoon. Are you coming?”
“No,” I said. “I have to get back for dinner.”
“Oh, that’s a pity,” he said, grinning at Thomas, awaiting an introduction.
“In fact, I’m really very late,” I said. “My mother will be getting anxious. Good-bye, Thomas; good-bye, Herr Delius.”
I dashed away, leaving the two of them staring oddly at each other. Thomas called after me, but I didn’t answer.
I plaited my hair hurriedly as I walked, conscious of how ruffled and undone I must have looked. It was dinnertime, and the smoky smell of meat on the grill wafted from gardens and kitchen win
dows. Chimneys pumped out the aroma of stew and vegetable soup. People were setting tables outside, laying bowls brimming with fruit and baskets of bread. I watched Fru Nedberg carry a tray out to her husband, who was smoking his pipe under the trees. She placed a bottle and two tumblers on the table, then lifted her hand to wave as I passed.
The brew of flavors in the air made me quicken my step. I was pleased when the fishermen’s huts came into view. I would be home in time, and Mother’s questions would be minimal. I had almost made it to the door when a shrill, piercing sound stopped me. There was a dreadful shouting, and someone crying out as if in pain. I turned to follow the sound. It was coming from Munch’s garden.
I hurried over to the fence at the side that bordered the fishermen’s huts. Too afraid to go in, I crouched behind a bush next to Munch’s outhouse. When I peeked out to the side and saw a woman standing in the garden, I gasped hard and had to cover my mouth with both hands.
It was Ragna.
I was so shocked at the sight of her in Munch’s garden that at first I didn’t even notice Caroline standing farther down the hill with her hands on her hips. The sound was coming from her mouth.
“You thought you could hide it from us, didn’t you?” she was saying.
I dipped back and peered around the lower side of the outhouse, where I saw Tullik facing her sister, her hands clenched and her chest pumping.
She’d gone. To Munch’s. Without me.
“I knew you were here!” Caroline continued. “You fancy yourself as quite the little bohemian, don’t you? I’ve seen your books—all that filth you’ve been reading. All the filth that he’s filling your mind with!”
She pointed over her shoulder, and when I swung to the other side again, I saw Munch standing on the steps at the back of the house. He was smoking a cigarette and leaning over the back railing. His eyes were cloudy, and he was swaying unsteadily.
“Edvard and I love each other,” Tullik said. “I don’t care what you think about it. Neither of us does.”
“You’re a fool, Tullik! That man loves Milly, isn’t it obvious? You think you fit into this world, but you’re out of your depth. All you’re doing is making a damned fool of yourself. You’re coming home right now,” Caroline said. “Come get in the carriage.”
Ragna’s eyes flitted back and forth from Munch on the stairs to the warring sisters. She disapproved of all of it and seemed satisfied that Tullik had been exposed. I caught sight of other neighbors on the opposite side of the garden, peeping out from behind trees and bending around the sides of houses. I wanted to go to Tullik, to defend her, but I was too afraid—afraid of being caught by my mother and losing my job with the Ihlens and being sent to Kristiania. I suddenly found myself worrying, like Mother would, about how all of this would look.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tullik was saying. “I will stay here with Edvard.”
Caroline lowered her voice to a menacing whisper.
“I can’t believe you would stoop so low and act so selfishly as to do this to our mother,” she said. “Ragna, take her.”
Ragna grabbed Tullik’s arm, and Caroline followed, clamping her sister’s hands behind her back and jabbing her shoulder. “Get in the carriage!”
Tullik looked as though she might spit in Caroline’s face.
“This is not over,” she said, her words black with bitterness.
Lifting her chin, she was led away up the hill. She looked up at Munch, whose eyes dragged after her pitifully. Ragna and Caroline turned their backs on him as he lazily took the cigarette from his mouth and blew smoke out at them.
In that moment I hated him. Why had he not fought for Tullik? Defended her? Why had he let Caroline say that about Milly? Why didn’t he tell them he loved Tullik? Why didn’t he appeal to them at all?
After they’d gone, he stood there staring at the three easels as though watching the events unfold all over again in his mind. He flicked his ash into the hedge and slipped inside the hut to fetch another bottle.
I rose to my feet. Anger rushed in my blood. I was about to scale the fence to go after him when I heard my mother’s voice behind me.
“Johanne Lien, get away from there!” she screeched.
I spun to face her and saw her calling me.
“Dinner’s ready. Where’ve you been?”
“Out,” I said.
“Did you forget your head when you were out? Has your brain drifted off with the sea breeze? Get inside!” she said, poking my hips with her fingers. “Fru Jørgensen has written to her sister in Kristiania to inquire about jobs. I think that would be best, don’t you? We only want what’s right for you, Johanne, and that means getting you away from…from all this.” She smacked the air and grimaced, shutting the door on the invisible evil that swam about her.
The evening was intolerable. I could think of nothing but Tullik. I’d tried to warn her, but my words held no sway over the danger that seduced her. Her very soul seemed to feed off it. And now she would be punished. She would not listen to me. Despite all the secrets we had shared, the countless times I had placed myself in danger for her. Had my loyalty and friendship meant nothing?
I could not bear to imagine her punishment, having brought such shame on her family, having been humiliated like that. Julie would be distraught, knowing that all the local folk of Åsgårdstrand and Borre were talking about her daughter and that man, again.
I did not sleep. Even without the creak of Andreas’s bed above me. I could not have slept. Lying there in a fidgeting torment, with my chest aflutter like a cage of insects, I felt as though a pitcher of ice-cold water was being poured into a hole in the top of my head, trickling down and freezing my blood. I didn’t even try to close my eyes, afraid of the images my mind would conjure. Instead, I turned onto my side and stared at the uneven boards of the broken floor.
I rose before Mother and left without waking her. The morning was a gray monotone, with no convincing promise of sun behind the flat sheet of cloud draped across the sky. A haunting stillness had silenced the forest, and I walked through its pathways like the only living being in a desolate world. I made my steps small and slow, never wanting to reach the house or face the Ihlens. I would have to be informed of what had happened, to hear the story of Tullik’s shame. Ragna and Fru Berg would delight in its telling, relaying with relish the details I already knew.
There was no sun to brighten the house, and it looked wan with sickness. Hiding in the shadows by the wall, I tiptoed to the back door, brushing past the lilac bush in full bloom. I took my apron from its peg, found my gloves, and knelt by the stove, where I began to clear out the ashes from the day before. Above my head, the floorboards creaked. The admiral and Fru Ihlen were always the first to stir. I shoveled the charcoal into my tin bucket and swept around the feet of the stove. There was no wood left in the alcove, so I set up my kindling and went out to the wood store to gather some fresh logs.
When I turned back to the house, I saw Ragna looking at me through the kitchen window. Our eyes met, but even though she knew I had seen her she continued to stare, sending a threat with her keen, dark eyes.
“You’re late,” she said when I returned to the stove.
“Am I?” I said. “I left early.”
“They’re risen already. You’d better set the table. Only three places today. Miss Tullik can have a tray.” She said it triumphantly as though she was the one who had decided to banish Tullik from the dining room.
“Is Tullik unwell?” I said.
“Miss Tullik is confined to her room,” she said, taking her mortar and pestle from the shelf and a knife from the drawer. “She’s to stay there. All day.”
I lit the stove, then rushed to set the dining table, leaving Tullik’s place noticeably bare. To fill the void I slid the jam jars and butter dish to Tullik’s side of the table and laid the other places farther apart than u
sual. But when the Ihlens arrived to eat, there was nothing that could compensate for Tullik’s absence or the emptiness it brought. Fru Ihlen was downcast. She barely touched her food and left her coffee to stand, as though I had poured it for someone else. Caroline and the admiral talked about the weather. No one mentioned Tullik at all.
Fru Berg and Ragna were whispering in the pantry when I returned to the kitchen to make up Tullik’s tray. I clattered about with cups and saucers and threw the teaspoon against the china, making it chime like a bell. It was the type of childish protest Andreas made at home. He was an expert at shouting without ever opening his mouth.
“Straight up and straight back down with that,” Fru Berg said, emerging from the pantry and tying her apron behind her back. “Miss Tullik won’t want to be pestered by you today.”
I went to the back door and cut a sprig of lilac from the bush, placing it in a silver vase on the tray.
“It’s not her birthday,” Fru Berg said. “There’ll be no pleasantries for that one for a long time.”
I took the tray upstairs and let myself in without even knocking.
“Tullik,” I whispered. “I’ve brought you some breakfast.”
She was lying in her bed. The sight of her was so shocking that I had to turn away at first, muttering about the food I’d brought her to divert my own eyes. Her face was a pallid, sickly white and her cheeks and eyes sunken and gray. It was the most extinguished I had ever seen her. There was no vibrancy or life in her at all. Even her hair, splayed out around her face, was dull and gaunt.
“Tullik,” I said, sitting down on the bed beside her. “What happened?”
“They won’t let me see him again,” she said. Her eyes were fixed on the wardrobe, and she did not look at me when she spoke.
“Why didn’t you listen to me, Tullik? I told you not to go.”
“I had to go,” she said. “I had to be with him.”
I picked up her hand and held it in mine. Her fingers were limp and did not respond to my touch.
“What can I do?” I said. The ache in my chest had such a tight grip that I could barely speak.