Encircling

by Carl Frode Tiller

  I remember calling you once when I was drunk and cursing you for being a coward. I accused you of only having moved in with Silje in order to put paid to the rumour that we were gay. You’d never been the person you made yourself out to be, I said, you’d always done your best to appear self-assured, independent and liberated, I said, but behind that strong, silent façade there hid an anxious little boy who was terrified of what people might think or say – all of which was probably true, but it was no more true of you than it was of me and just about everybody else of our age.

  Today I’m not so sure that you backed out because you were scared. I don’t know, but I think you did it quite simply because you weren’t gay. I don’t really know whether I was gay or straight myself back then, I haven’t been with another man since we went our separate ways, and during the days I’ve spent writing this letter it has struck me more than once that various problems I’m wrestling with now may have led me to present us as being closer to each other than we actually were. Although, I’m not sure about that either: writing this, it occurs to me that it’s those same present problems that cause me to put such a negative slant on things, to give the idea that we might not have got on so well together after all. Because we did get on really well together. All the events and the conversations I’ve referred to in this letter seem to me like memories of a happy time, a time I miss, despite all the problems I’ve mentioned.

  So we parted, and it was some years before I saw you again. While you moved to Trondheim to study literature, I turned down my place there and stayed behind in Namsos, not because we had split up and I was depressed or anything like that, but simply because Mum was getting worse and worse and had no one but me to help her. I had the idea that I could get a temporary job, take an external degree at night school, then move to Trondheim once we had found a way round the situation she found herself in due to her illness. But what was meant to be one year in Namsos turned into two, and what should have been two years turned into three, and so it went on.

  It’s almost unreal to think back on what happened to me during those years when I was living at home, how I changed. The contempt I had once shown for small-town life didn’t merely disappear, after a while I almost began to cherish and value all the aspects of life in Namsos that I had once mocked. It was as if, quite unconsciously, I had gone all out to learn to embrace my own fate, and when you met me at the Wine Monopoly the night before Christmas Eve eight or nine years ago, you met a guy who, while you would never have called him a loser, you did nonetheless regard as just that: a loser, a failure, someone who had had the same urge to travel as you and many of the same dreams for the future as you, but who had never got away.

  I had just stuffed a half-bottle of Finlandia into my jacket pocket when I saw you standing at the head of the queue furthest away from the door. They didn’t have the wine you were looking for and the assistant had suggested another one that you didn’t look too happy about, but which – a little reluctantly, but with a smile – you accepted anyway. “Oh, all right,” I remember you saying, and when you’d been handed the bottles and paid for them you turned and looked straight into the eyes of a young, once plump, man with girlish features and a receding hairline, clad in a rather battered denim jacket. You, on the other hand, were wearing clothes I didn’t even know the names of, but which looked like the kind of thing I’d seen in the Sunday-paper style section. Your hair was short, you looked slim and remarkably fit, which surprised me a little I remember, maybe because it didn’t really seem to go with how a student of literature ought to look. We beamed at each other, shook hands and acted as if we were a little happier to see one another than we actually were. “Well, well, fancy meeting you here!” “I know! Long time, no see!” “Yeah, I know, far too long!” “Wow, great to see you!” “Great to see you, too!” And so on and so forth, talking loudly and effusively and clapping each other’s shoulders. I told you I was working in the music department at Øyvind Johansen’s, that I was still living at home, but that I was going out with Wenche Berg from the parallel class to ours in senior secondary and that we were planning to move to Trondheim in the autumn to study. You told me you were single, living in the Lademoen area of Trondheim and that you’d soon be a fully qualified man of letters. “So now there’s no help for it, I’ll have to get out there and find myself a job too!” you said, laughing.

  I remember being vaguely annoyed to hear you say such a thing. It sounded to me as if you felt sorry for me for the life I was leading and that you were trying to make me feel better by talking as if we’d both soon be in the same boat. But I didn’t comment on it. Instead I started to tell you about the subjects I was planning to take once we moved to Trondheim and what sort of career I was contemplating, but that fell flat as well. You smiled and nodded while I went on about my plans, but I could tell by your face that you thought it was all just talk and this only made me more annoyed. We chatted for a while longer, but once the most inconsequential, innocuous questions had been asked, we made it clear to one another that we ought to be getting on. I had nowhere I had to be, but I glanced at my watch and said, “Hmm” and you asked what time it was and when I said that it was just before twelve you looked a little startled and said, “Oops, is it that late?” But we told each other that we’d have to get together over Christmas, “have our own little party”, as I put it, and even though we both knew it would never happen you pretended to be all for it. “Yeah,” you said, “we really should.” “Okay, be in touch,” you said before we parted.

  Arvid

  Arvid

  Hospital, Namsos, July 4th 2006. Two-bed room

  I raise one eyebrow slightly and try to look as though I’m concentrating, eyes fixed on the page, seemingly engrossed in my book, but Eilert doesn’t take the hint this time, either. I hear him clearing his throat, hear him preparing to say something else, he’s the kind of person who simply cannot understand why anyone would choose to read rather than talk, he probably thinks he’s doing me a favour every single time he interrupts me. He thinks I’m reading because I’m bored and have nothing else to do, and it’s up to him to come to my aid by being sociable and telling me all about his own life, about the farm in Nærøy and his wife and his two daughters, about the older daughter who’s married to a doctor from Halden and who’ll soon be taking over the farm, and about his younger daughter who’s at university in Liverpool, studying to be a vet, blathering on about places I’ve never been and people I don’t know. He means well, I’m sure, just wants to cheer me up, but I get so sick of it him talking almost nonstop, telling the same stories again and again, it makes me so tired.

  “When are you going home?” he asks.

  I stifle a little sigh, give it just a second, then I peer over the top of my book. He’s propped up, half sitting in the bed, his ruddy moon face beams at me and he smiles as amiably as always, I don’t think I’ve ever met a more amiable man than Eilert.

  “Tomorrow probably, or the day after,” I say, then I pause for a moment, I don’t want to return the question, but I can’t help it, feel almost duty-bound to ask.

  “And you?” I ask.

  “My younger daughter’s coming to collect me this evening,” he says.

  I nod and smile, then I look down at my book again, trying to escape, but it’s no use.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing her,” he says, not giving up. “Haven’t seen her in over a year.”

  “Oh, really?” I mutter, glancing up and giving him the ghost of a smile before looking down at my book again.

  “She lives in England, you see. She’s at university over there, studying to be a vet,” he goes on. I don’t know how many times he’s told me that.

  “Hmm,” I say, not raising my eyes.

  “In Liverpool.”

  I glance up briefly at him, nod and smile that same faint smile, then return to my book.

  “I’m dreading that drive, though,” he says.

  “Yes, it’s quite a way,” I mut
ter.

  “I’m glad we’re doing it in the evening, though,” he says.

  “Yes, it’s a lot shorter in the evening,” I mutter.

  There’s silence for a couple of seconds and I feel a little twinge of guilt: he’s only trying to be nice, I can’t talk to him like this. I look up at him and smile again, try to give him the impression that it was a little joke, but I don’t think he gets it, it’s not his sort of humour, he just gives me a rather bewildered look.

  “I was thinking of the heat,” he says. “It’s murder being cooped up in a car when it’s as hot as it’s been lately.”

  “Yes, you’re right there,” is all I say, I can’t be bothered explaining, there’s no point.

  “But you don’t have to worry about that, living as close as you do,” he says, pauses for a moment, then: “Whereabouts in Namsos do you live again?” he asks, looking at me and smiling affably and I open my mouth, about to answer, but I stop myself, he’s just the sort of provincial character who’d be quite liable to drop in on a man he hardly knows. I wouldn’t put it past him to look me up next time he’s over for a checkup or a chemo session, and I couldn’t cope with that, I’m not having that, no way.

  “Fossbrenna,” I say, don’t feel like telling him exactly where I live, just give the name of the first housing estate that comes to mind.”

  “Ah, yes,” he says.

  “So,” I say briskly, hold his gaze for a second and smile as warmly as I can, then I look down at my book, seizing the opportunity to end this brief conversation before he can say any more. I raise one eyebrow, try to look as though I’m concentrating, but it does no good this time, either, he simply can’t not talk, I hear him clearing his throat again, getting ready to say something else.

  “What’s that you’re reading, then?” he asks, nodding at my book.

  “What am I trying to read?”

  “Yes,” he says, my little correction going right over his head. He just sits there smiling that same affable smile. I raise my book so he can see the cover properly.

  “A biography of Stalin.”

  “Phew,” he says.

  “Yes,” I say, “phew indeed.”

  “Aye, he wasn’t a man to be messed with, that’s for sure.”

  “No,” I say.

  There’s silence for a second, and I feel laughter bubbling up inside me, but I manage to pull myself together just in time, turn the laugh into a little cough. I put my hand to my mouth and cough again to reinforce the credibility of the first cough. Then suddenly my stomach contracts, a brief and relatively mild spasm that immediately passes, but fear of the pain that’s just waiting to strike promptly washes over me, my brow and the back of my neck turn cold and clammy. I quickly put the book down on the bedside table and sit there breathing rapidly and staring intently at the duvet, sit there stiff as a poker and simply wait, checking to feel whether there’s more to come.

  “What’s the matter?” Eilert asks. “Are you in pain?”

  I don’t answer, I sit perfectly still and wait, and then it comes. It’s like two strong hands grabbing hold of my intestines, squeezing and wringing them out like washcloths. I automatically curl up and heel over slightly, take a deep breath, squeeze my eyes shut, stay like this for a second, trying to gather myself a little, then I open my eyes and raise a hand above my head, groping frantically for the cord, feel the little plastic bob gently nudge the palm of my hand. I have to fumble around a bit before I catch hold of it, then I tug it, once and then again, short, sharp tugs. I slide down into the bed, draw my legs up to my stomach and lie there, completely rigid. It feels as though I have a huge red-hot rock in my stomach, I squeeze my eyes shut as tightly as I can, they should be here by now, I need something now. I open my mouth, take a breath, let it out and at long last the door opens and the blonde nurse comes in.

  “Can you give me something?” I gasp, groan almost. I try to smile, but can’t quite manage it.

  “I’ll be right back,” she says, turns on her heel and hurries out again. I hear the suction as her sandals hit the floor, the faint schwipp as they leave it again. Then the door closes with a heavy sigh and all the sounds from the corridor are shut out.

  “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Eilert mumbles from the other side of the room.

  I clutch my stomach and grind my face into the pillow, tensing every muscle in my body. After a few moments the door opens again and both the blonde nurse and the chubby one come in.

  “It hurts so much,” I say between gritted teeth. I try to roll over onto my back, but the chubby nurse places a hand on my shoulder and stops me.

  “We’re going to give you a Spasmofen, so just stay on your side,” she says. She pulls the stool over, sits down next to me, strokes my cheek. “Not long now and the pain will be gone,” she says.

  “He ate his elevenses a bit too fast,” I hear Eilert telling the blonde nurse. “I noticed, but I thought it better not to say anything, you know how it is,” he says. “Either that or it was that water he drank a while back,” he adds. Even now he can’t keep his mouth shut. The blonde nurse says not a word, I hear the quick swoosh as the curtain is drawn, hear the sound of a latex glove being pulled on, then my underpants are tugged down over my thighs and I feel a suppository slipping inside me.

  “There now,” the chubby nurse says. “That should help,” she says. She regards me with kind, gentle eyes as she strokes and strokes my cheek. A few seconds, then I feel the suppository beginning to take effect, the pain growing fainter and fainter, and the fainter it becomes the more clearly I feel the warmth of the chubby nurse’s hand. The fear gently drains out of me and I feel a calmness settling over me. I’m overcome by a sense of gratitude and I have the urge to say something they’ll appreciate.

  “You’re so kind,” is all I say.

  Namsos, July 6th–10th 2006

  Dear David,

  I’m sitting in the shade of the big cherry tree behind the house where we lived. When I look up from the computer screen I can see right across our garden and down the avenue we drove up on that first day, the day you and Berit moved in with me, the day the two of you came home. I can picture us in the yellow Simca I had borrowed from the parish clerk because there was something wrong with the gearbox of my Volvo. I picture the way the dun-coloured dust swirled up behind us as we turned in at the postboxes and how it hung like a curtain, billowing slightly in the shimmering, sun-warmed air before settling again. You were leaning forward, I remember, with a hand on each front seat, and you whooped with laughter because I had just taken my hands off the wheel so it looked as though I wasn’t really steering. You were eleven, almost twelve, and actually very keen to show that you found such things childish, but before long you always got carried away and became as were you then, eager, excited and full of life. Your mum was in the passenger seat and when she saw what I was doing she squealed and pretended to be scared and you laughed even louder and harder at that, of course. You bounced up and down on the seat and shouted at me to do it again. “No, please don’t, please don’t, we’ll end up in the ditch,” Mum begged. “Yes,” you cried eagerly. “Do it, do it.” And so I did, naturally I did. I took my hands off the wheel again and pretended not to be steering and you whooped and laughed in the back seat. “Oh, no, Arvid, please!” Mum cried, pretending to be even more scared. “What?” I asked insouciantly, turning to her, raising my eyebrows and acting as if I had no idea what she was talking about. “Well, keep your eyes on the road, at least,” she cried, pointing straight ahead and acting terrified. I put my hands back on the wheel, turned my head slowly and looked at the road again. “What’s so special about the road? I don’t see anything,” I said, and you roared with laughter on the back seat. “Oh, you, you daft idiot,” Mum said, poking my shoulder. “Ow!” I laughed and then I glanced in the rear-view mirror and caught your eye. I smiled slyly and winked at you. “You’re not right in the head, either of you!” Mum said, shaking her head and acting as though she despaired of us.


  That day saw the start of what was to be the best year of my life, David. Before I met Berit I had always taken a pragmatic view of the love between a man and a woman. The way I saw it, while we humans might not be liable to fall for just anyone, there had to be plenty of people out there whom we could well learn to love and live with, and when people talked to me about the one true love, I tended to regard it as an attempt to justify the choice of partner they had already made. But then I met Berit and I realized that I was wrong. Just as the newborn baby knows its own mother, so I knew Berit. I had never set eyes on her before, but everything in me instantly told me that we belonged together and, having once met her, to say “I love you” to anyone else would have made me feel like a liar, a traitor. I would put it as strongly as that.

  I looked up to her so much, I needed her, was hooked on her. If I had written something in a sermon or the “Thought for the Day” that I was particularly happy with, for example, I was not above longing desperately for praise and acknowledgement from your mum. Not that I would ever have admitted that, of course, it would never have occurred to me to read out anything without being asked, but I remember how I used to try to catch her attention by pretending to be unsure of something. “Hmm,” I would murmur and cock my eyebrow. And if Mum didn’t react straight away I would sit there shooting impatient glances at her to see whether she was soon going to turn round. “Hmm,” I would murmur again. “Oh, I really don’t know.” And at long last she would respond. “What was that?” she said one day as she was bending down to pick up a towel from the pile of washing in the green plastic tub. “We-ell,” I said a mite hesitantly. “It’s just this little sentence here, I’m not quite sure whether it’s all right or not.” “Let’s hear it, then,” she said, and taking the towel in both hands she lifted it slightly and shut her eyes as she gave it a quick flick. It made a little crack that echoed around the room. “Oh, well, you’re welcome to hear it, but …” Mum hung the towel on the drying rack and turned to me. “People buy one thing after another and carry them all home, but they have lost the key to the house,” I read, and then I lowered the sheet of paper and looked at Mum again. And she stood there, open-mouthed and smiling. “Did you really write that, Arvid?” “What do you mean, did I write that?” Inside I was crowing with delight, but I tried to look as though I didn’t quite understand why she should ask this. “Well, obviously I wrote it,” I added. “But it’s so … it’s excellent,” she said. “So you think I should leave it in?” “Yes, of course you have to leave it in,” she said, “I’ll be very annoyed with you if you delete it.” “Ah, well in that case I’d better leave it in,” I said and gave a little laugh as I turned to look at you. “What do you say, David? Better not get on her wrong side, eh, we know what would happen then, don’t we?” “Uh-huh,” you laughed.