The Girl Between

by Lisa Strømme

  I sank back down onto the bed.

  Scream had finally been silenced.

  • • •

  Mother and Father delayed the return to our own house because I was too sick and weak to be moved. Herr Heyerdahl stopped by to deliver the key before he left for Kristiania. The sight of his portly frame at the door delighted Mother almost as much as his arrival had.

  “She’s definitely on the mend,” she said, grasping at the hope that he might want to paint me in my sickbed. Perhaps the sight of me, frail and emaciated, would provoke a revival of the trend for painting girls dying in their beds.

  “Johanne.” My name sounded like the peal of a church bell when it exited Herr Heyerdahl’s booming mouth. “I heard you’d been ill,” he said, entering the room and pulling up a chair by the bed. “I brought you these.”

  He handed me a bunch of flowers: purple clover, blue asters, and white bindweed.

  “Oh! Aren’t they just divine!” Mother said. “Let me put them in water for you.”

  She clattered about the kitchen, desperate to find something more elegant than the cracked ceramic jug we used at the table.

  “How are you feeling?” Herr Heyerdahl said.

  “Strange,” I said. “Empty. Cold.”

  “We all feel like that at the end of the season,” he said.

  I leaned forward to the edge of the bed and dropped my voice to a whisper.

  “Munch?” I said. “Where is he?”

  “Oh, he’s gone. Germany,” he said. “To the exhibition in Berlin.”

  “He’s left?”

  He nodded. “We all have to leave at some time.”

  “And Tullik? Did she see him before he left?”

  “No, Johanne.” His face darkened, his eyes sloped with sadness. “I’m afraid not. Listen, he gave me this. Take it, please.” He handed me a rusting key. “It’s for the studio. He wanted you to have it. You might want to hide it.”

  I took the key and slid it under my pillow as my mother swept back in with the flowers that had been forced into a tall beer glass. “Aren’t they splendid?”

  She put them on the windowsill, and we all looked at them with pity and regret, as though they were not just the last flowers of the summer, but the last flowers ever to grace the earth. I studied the blue stars of the aster, the open white petals of the bindweed, and the sweet purple clumps of the clover with a feeling of things coming to an end. It struck me then that all three of these flowers were food plants for larvae, and as such were part of its transformation. They helped the larva become a butterfly. Perhaps it wasn’t the end of the summer after all? Perhaps it was just the beginning of autumn?

  “Will you stay for some tea, Herr Heyerdahl?” Mother said in her sugarcoated voice.

  “Thank you, but I must go,” he said. “Christine and the children are waiting at the pier.” He reached out and placed his hand on my brow. “You’re not burning anymore. I think she’s out of danger now, Sara.”

  “Thank the Lord,” Mother said. “She gave us a dreadful fright.”

  “I’m sure she’ll make a full recovery once she gets back home again. Here’s the key. Thank you again for your kind hospitality. I’m afraid the place probably won’t meet your high standards, after I’ve been there with my paints and easels and rowdy children.”

  “Not at all,” Mother said. “It’s a pleasure to have you. We hope to see you again next year.”

  Herr Heyerdahl tipped his hat like the perfect gentleman and swooped out of the hut.

  I looked again to the flowers. All the stems were squashed together in the glass: lines of green and yellow that varied in shade and texture. The morning sun streamed through the window and lit the petals, firing them with a bronze glaze. As people passed by outside and cast their temporary shadow, the petals darkened: purple to indigo, blue to black, white to gray. And then they were all plunged into darkness as a man stopped and looked in at the window, hands cupped around his face.

  How dare he? I thought at first, but on closer inspection I saw it was Thomas.

  “Come in!” I said, beckoning with my arm.

  “She’s still very fragile,” I heard Mother say at the door.

  “Let him in!” I shouted, my weak voice wavering.

  “Just for a few minutes then,” Mother said.

  He strode in, carrying all the rays of the morning sunshine with him. His face was bright, his cheeks flushed, his brown eyes gleaming like polished chestnut.

  “Johanne!” He stood by the bed, holding his cap in his hands.

  “Sit down,” I said, pointing at the chair Herr Heyerdahl had just vacated.

  “I was so worried,” he said. “We all were.”

  “There’s no need to worry anymore,” I said. “I’ll be well again soon. Mother won’t let me be idle for too long.”

  I watched his long lashes sweeping up and down as he blinked. There was something calming about him. He stretched out his arm and slipped my hand into his big square palm, where something warm and tingling was rekindled. I heard a quiet voice begin to whisper again. It was not a wild, screeching demand but a subtle innuendo, a hint that something, in time, would grow. The flowers may have been shedding their petals and the trees humbly unleafing, but it was the only way they could return again, resplendent, more glorious than before, the next time summer came around.

  “Now, about that adventure,” Thomas said, “to Denmark and France and Egypt. Do you still want to come?”

  “Yes, Thomas. I want to come with you.” I smiled.

  “And we will return decked in jewels, and they will call us the king and queen of Åsgårdstrand.”

  “Yes.” I laughed. “The king and queen of Åsgårdstrand.”

  As soon as my mother heard my laughter, she rushed back into the room to scold us.

  “Johanne needs rest now, Thomas. If you don’t mind.”

  “Of course, Fru Lien. You’re right, she must rest.”

  He stood up and returned his cap to his head.

  “We’ve a haul of coalfish over at the pier. I’ll bring you some, if you like?”

  Thomas was so amiable that my mother struggled to hold her stern expression in place. It cracked at the corners of her mouth, where a smile was begging for release.

  “Thank you,” she said. “That would be very kind.”

  He was not an admiral, nor was he a prince, but Mother could not disguise her pleasure at the benefits Thomas’s courtship brought. There was much to be said for having an ordinary fisherman as a son-in-law.

  “You’re too young for marriage,” she said when he had gone. “Charming as he may be, you’re too young.”

  “Yes, Mother. I know. I don’t want to get married, not yet.”

  “Good. You must make sure you find the right man,” she said. “Look where it got Miss Ihlen, falling for that painter.”

  “Tullik,” I said, revived by the name on my lips. “Is she well again, Mother? Have you heard any news from Solbakken? Has Fru Berg been to call?”

  “They brought you here the night Miss Ihlen became ill,” she said. “Fru Ellefsen and her daughter, Isabel. They said that Doctor Karlsen had instructed them to bring you home as quickly as they could. He said he would have brought you himself, had he not been going back to Horten immediately with Miss Ihlen.”

  “Tullik’s in Horten?” I said.

  “No, Johanne.”

  “Well, where is she?” I said, suddenly remembering how Herr Heyerdahl had looked so sad when I asked about her.

  Mother was shaking her head.

  “Where is she?” I pleaded, sitting up in bed.

  “We didn’t want to upset you,” Mother said. “Look how excitable you’re getting. You need to rest. Fru Ihlen said you could be released from their service, now that the season is over. You don’t need to go bac
k there again. You don’t need to think about the Ihlens now. Not anymore.”

  “Tell me. Tell me, Mother! She’s my friend,” I screeched, grabbing her arms. “Where is Tullik?”

  Mother sat down on the bed.

  “Very well. But do lie down, Johanne,” she said. “You’re still very weak.”

  I settled back reluctantly onto my elbows.

  Mother was quick and sharp.

  “She’s been committed to the asylum. Gaustad. Doctor Karlsen thought it would be the best place for her. The family agreed.”

  All my nightmares had come true.

  “Gaustad?” I said. “At Ekeberg?”

  “Yes. It’s a facility for women. She will be cared for by professional people. Fru Berg said she was beyond the reaches of the Ihlens. There was nothing more they could do for her.”

  “Will she be locked up? In a cell?” I said.

  “I don’t know what goes on in these places,” Mother said, “but she will stay there until she’s feeling better.”

  Gaustad. It was the place where Munch’s sister, Laura, was confined, wrestling with madness, unable to talk, lost in the darkest depths of her own mind. I thought of Laura and the painting and how Tullik had said she could be that way too. Munch had sketched Tullik into the painting, merged her with his sister, entwined them with strokes of charcoal. It was Munch who had brought them together, and now they were both languishing in Gaustad, trying to escape their own shadows.

  21

  HARMONY

  Thus, if two opposite phenomena springing from the same source do not destroy each other when combined, but in their union present a third appreciable and pleasing appearance, this result at once indicates their harmonious relation.

  —THEORY OF COLOURS, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

  Returning to our own home was both liberating and confining at once. Free from expectation or demand due to my convalescence, and without the constraints of employment, I was able to fill my time as I pleased. However, being stuck in the house with only my parents and Andreas for company was not conducive to recovery. I moped from room to room, much to the irritation of my mother, and was only really happy in the garden. I sat outside for hours at a time, wrapped in blankets. Eventually I managed to convince my mother it would be good for me to paint. Although she was alarmed by the idea, Father brought me a tin of oils and two horsehair brushes, and after that no one could stop me.

  The garden was changing, but although it was almost October, some orange asters were still flowering, and the rose bush by the potting shed was a breathtaking sight, full of fist-size cerise flowers with petals like silky pink handkerchiefs. It was this bush that I painted, over and over again. Just as Munch had said, the subject of my paintings grew and changed, depending on my mood or the time of day. The internal reflected the external. When Thomas came to visit, or on sunny afternoons, the roses came out large and bright, the petals formed from generous globules of paint that I dabbed on loosely with my biggest brush. On days when I could not remove Tullik from my mind, the rosebush seemed to shrink in size. It became a muddy burgundy and the leaves dark like coffee beans. On those days, all I could see were the shadows.

  Some days my heart was so heavy that I could not paint at all. I sat there on my chair in the garden with my eyes closed, listening to the sounds of nature. In my head I chanted Goethe: Nature speaks to other senses, to known, misunderstood, and unknown senses: so speaks she with herself and to us in a thousand modes. He was right. It was there in the hectic cries of the birds fanning the skies in their wide V shapes, preparing to migrate; the rustle of the breeze through the trees, building its strength, gently plucking the leaves, one by one, from the branches; the occasional tapping of the woodpecker; and the furtive patter of a squirrel. Even in a quiet garden, nature spoke if you listened hard enough.

  It was on one of these mornings, sitting alone, with my eyes shut, that I heard something unusual, something unnerving. It was a Sunday, and the others had gone to church. Everyone was at church. But approaching the garden were footsteps. Smacking against the road. Hard and fast. Gasping breath, interspersed with a low lamenting whine. And then my name, unsteady and fluctuating: Jo-han-ne. Johan-ne. Jo-hanne.

  When I opened my eyes, I jumped from my chair and threw off the blankets, leaving them in a heap on the grass. There was a woman at the gate. She was dressed in dark red and had a head of wild, flaming hair.

  “Tullik?” I shouted. “Tullik! Is it you?”

  “Johanne! You must come quickly!”

  “Tullik! You’re back!” I ran toward her, tears springing in my eyes.

  She grabbed me fiercely, and we clung to each other, both of us crying.

  “You must come,” she said. “You must come back to Solbakken with me at once. I don’t have time to explain—just come. Now.”

  Her words were slurred, her eyes manic and intense. I wondered if she had escaped from Gaustad, if she was still crazed? Regardless of her state of mind, I had no choice but to obey her. She spoke in a way that told me to run, to run as fast as I could, even though I had barely used my legs for weeks. She dragged me from the garden, and we tumbled down the hill, crying, shaking, and gasping for breath. My legs were as flimsy as flower stems, and the pathetic weight of my body felt too cumbersome for me to carry. Blood surged in my mouth, the metallic taste that told me I was going too fast, too soon, with nothing to fuel my efforts. When we reached Fjugstad forest, I leaned against a tree and vomited.

  Tullik was ahead of me. She was running so hard it took her a few minutes to realize I was no longer at her side.

  “Hurry, Johanne!” she screamed when she turned back and saw me retching. She could see that I was unwell but did not come to help me. She seemed locked in her own space, unable to move forward or back. “Johanne, hurry. Hurry!”

  “Tullik, please!” I said. “I have not been well. I must rest.”

  “There’s no time to rest,” she said.

  “What in God’s name is so important, Tullik?” I said, spitting strings of saliva from my mouth.

  “Ah!” she cried, running back toward me again in brisk, reluctant strides. “You must hurry. It’s Ragna.”

  “What? What about Ragna?”

  “Oh, Johanne, she’s found the paintings, every single one of them. They emptied my wardrobe. Mother has ordered her to burn them after church. They’ve stacked them up in the garden.”

  “No!” I said, wiping my mouth. “They can’t do that!”

  “They can! They are! You must help me stop them. I ran from the church. Said I needed water. They didn’t stop me, but they will be home soon. Johanne, please hurry.”

  She yanked my arm again, and somehow I started running. My head was a fire of anger and fear. Burning the paintings? All of them? Munch’s work. Destroyed.

  We tore through the forest and emerged on the other side, a pair of heaving wreckages. Crowds of people were gathering in the graveyard. The service was over. I couldn’t feel my legs, and my chest was a whirlpool of nausea and fear. Then the house appeared before me, its windows watching me, judging me as they had before. I was a stranger once again.

  The smell of smoke and turpentine clogged the back of my throat.

  We were too late.

  Tullik was weeping.

  We ran to the back garden, past Tullik’s hens, which were agitated, clucking, and flapping erratically.

  Behind the house, it had already begun. Where the white table and chairs had been, a heap of canvases were stacked on top of one another. Several sketches lay around on the ground. Images of Tullik were everywhere. Ragna and Fru Berg held more in their hands: sketches and scrolls of paper. There were more even than I knew of: small drawings and paintings that Munch must have given Tullik every time they met. Ragna saw us coming and casually tossed one into the flames that had begun to lick the base of the pyre.


  “Stop!” Tullik screamed. She cast herself forward and thrust her hands into the fire, despite the growing flames. Fru Berg grabbed her arms and pulled her away.

  Ragna threw on another painting and another. I rushed out. Circled the fire. Pictures burning. Columned moon. Tullik’s hair. Tullik in the woods. Tullik on the beach. Canvases peeling back to the frame. Black lines. Paintings shriveling. Flapping. Charred edges. Thick smoke. Fire belching. Spreading. Flames licking. Tullik on her knees. Howling.

  Helpless, I watched Moonlight burn. The black charring spread in seconds, crossing the painting from right to left, wiping out the tranquil sea, the column of the moon, the beach, the trees. Gone. Then I saw the couple on the beach. I reached out my hand, but in seconds that charged moment—that pull of desire so effortlessly captured—was erased from the world.

  Before I even knew what I was doing, my hands were grasping at Ragna. First her shoulders and then her neck.

  “Why?” I shouted, plunging my fingers into her scrawny neck. “Why? When she’s been so fragile, so tormented? What are you trying to do to her?”

  Ragna’s mouth was round, her black eyes so wide I could see red feathered lines straining outward from her inner eye.

  I shook her hard, shocked by my sudden strength. Her bones were as vulnerable as a bird’s beneath my angry hands. I could have twisted them until they snapped. I wanted to.

  “Just following Fru Ihlen’s orders.” She coughed. Her face was full of spite and hatred. Even with me at her throat, she was still trying to throw another painting on the fire.

  “You!” I snarled. “Just because you’ve never known love. Just because you were rejected, cast aside for another, someone better than you!”

  “Johanne!” Fru Berg shouted, prying me from Ragna’s neck. “That’s enough!”

  My grip was so tight that my nails left red scratch marks on Ragna’s skin. She slipped out of my grasp and hurried about the garden, picking up the remaining pictures and tossing them on the fire that was now roaring out of control in a blazing conflagration.

  The last painting to burn was the beautiful mermaid. A searing pain tore across my chest when I saw black circles begin to scorch the yellow moonlight, then her golden skin and her mesmerizing eyes. The picture burst into flames, and the fire ate through it with a ravenous hunger. Seconds later, it was gone.