Encircling

by Carl Frode Tiller

  But I remember how upset your mum was after such episodes. I remember how worried you were once when she fled into the bathroom in tears the minute Erik was out of the door. You couldn’t understand what had got into her and since I didn’t want to ruin the good relationship you had with your grandfather it was hard for me to explain it to you. I was at my wits’ end and I didn’t manage to say much except that you weren’t to worry about Mum and that you must on no account think that it had anything to do with you.

  But you figured it all out eventually, anyway. You would have been about fourteen, maybe fifteen, I don’t remember exactly, but you were mad at Mum and me, at any rate, because we wouldn’t let you go to a rock concert in Trondheim, and you threatened to go and live with your grandfather because he let you do whatever you liked. “And why do you think that is?” your mum asked hotly, slamming her hand down on the table and staring at you. “It’s because he doesn’t care,” she screamed, “it’s because your grandpa’s a drunk who doesn’t give a shit about you, me or anyone else, and he never has.”

  Nothing good came of saying that. I don’t blame Mum, it’s not that, it hurt her to hear you say that you’d rather live with the man who had destroyed her childhood than with her, and she couldn’t stop herself from saying what she said. She simply snapped. But in the long run it led to you giving your grandfather a wider berth. You began to reflect on and reassess memories from your early childhood and slowly but surely you formed a new picture of your grandfather and possibly, indeed, of your whole childhood. All of a sudden you were no longer so keen to go to Otterøya and when Erik visited us you always made a point of being busy with your chums. Erik pretended not to notice, joked with you, asked if you were off chasing the girls again, but we could tell that it hurt him to lose you like this and that it rankled him. Mum and I did our best to play along with him, but he knew that we knew and I remember how embarrassed he looked at one point when our eyes met and it was clear to us both that we were thinking the same thing.

  I tried to talk to you about it. You were in the same situation as your mum, you found it impossible to forgive him and it didn’t only bother Erik, it bothered you too, I could tell. “Grandpa loves you and I know you love him, and that’s all that matters,” I said. But you only grunted and said, “Yeah, yeah,” and tried to pretend that this was just soppy minister talk that you had no wish to hear.

  You know, there were times when I tormented myself with the thought that Mum had only married me so that you and she could escape from Erik. But this was sheer fancy on my part – if she had been that desperate to get away she would have found herself some other man to move in with long before she met me. And the looks she gave me, the things she said to me, the happiness she radiated, everything about her also told me that this was not the case, it was the brooder in me that came up with this. I loved Berit and I knew that she loved me too, although I probably wasn’t the easiest person to live with, especially those early years. I had lived alone until I was in my forties and had acquired habits and mannerisms which got on your and your mum’s nerves, but which it was hard for me to change. Worse, though, was the fact that I wasn’t used to being contradicted and overruled; that and the discovery – something of a surprise to me – that I was pretty stubborn and found it hard to admit when I made a mistake. I remember when we went fishing down at Gilten, a lake just south of Namsos. The forest down there is a maze of narrow dirt tracks running hither and yon and it’s extremely easy to get lost. I had been there before two or three times, but I didn’t know the area all that well. On the way home you and Mum were sure I had turned right when we should actually have turned left and that we ought to turn around and drive back, but you had never been there before, so I wouldn’t hear of it. Even when we came to a sign clearly stating that we should have taken the road you and Mum had said we should take I refused to admit that I had made a mistake. Somebody must have been playing around with the signs to mislead people, it was a well-known ruse to keep the best fishing spots to themselves, I claimed, and not even when the next sign and the one after that also told us that we were driving in the wrong direction would I admit defeat. Or at least, I did admit that I ought to have turned left rather than right, as you had both said, but I steadfastly maintained that it was perfectly possible to take this road too, and besides, the scenery was much nicer and we had the whole evening ahead of us.

  Worse still was the time when the bishop gave me five kilos of venison that proved to be on the turn. I refused to admit that a gift from the bishop himself could be such a disappointment, I remember, and I forced that meat down, smiling all the while at you and Mum and saying that this certainly was a far cry from dry roast beef. “A little unusual,” Mum said tactfully. “Quite tangy, actually.” “That’s because the deer eat so many rowanberries in the autumn,” I said. “Is that so?” “Did you know that, David?” I asked, smiling and trying to persuade myself and you and Mum that the venison tasted of the Norwegian countryside and that everything was just as it should be. You two weren’t fooled, though, and after a while I noticed that you weren’t touching the meat but were only eating the meatballs, potatoes and gravy and, childish though it may have been, I took umbrage. It was bad enough that you refused to buy my attempted explanation of the way the food tasted, but that you could sit there tucking into those delicious meatballs while I felt compelled to force down rotten venison was like adding insult to injury, and when, to top it all, Mum began to giggle, I simply lost my temper. “What are you laughing at?” I asked. I tried to keep smiling and pretend I didn’t see what was so funny, but Mum knew that I knew and she giggled more and more and I got madder and madder, and she clearly seemed to think that this made the whole thing even funnier. Finally, she laid her fork down on the plate, put her hand over her mouth and laughed outright.

  Generally speaking Berit had a good way with me, she joked and poked fun at me when I was grumpy and difficult, but there was never anything snide or spiteful about the way she did this, and before I knew it I would find myself seeing the funny side and laughing along with her. And because I discovered that I liked myself better when I could laugh at myself instead of getting huffy and disgruntled I found it easier and easier to do it, and slowly but surely I changed and became a better person to live with. I began to accept my own faults and failings and this made it easier to accept those of others. Oh, David, Mum turned me into the man I hadn’t even known I longed to be, and she did it with love.

  But even though I was less stern and dour than I had been, I was still a serious-minded man. Not that I had anything against a bit of fun and games, because I didn’t – no one enjoyed a practical joke more than I did. I’ll never forget the time I sucked the Cognac out of a chocolate liqueur with a syringe and injected it instead with the juice from the jar of Brazilian chillies. I plugged the hole with a little piece of chocolate fudge cake, rewrapped the chocolate and put it back in the bowl. I’ve never seen a face change colour as fast as that of the visiting catechist who greedily plundered our sweet dish.

  Then as now, though, I was a thinker, I liked peace and quiet, I liked to contemplate and philosophize on matters great and small and I didn’t need to talk all the time, even if there were several of us in the same room. Your mum found this side of me very odd, she was such a gregarious person herself and so enjoyed a good chat, and during our first years together she often thought there was a problem when I went around the house saying nothing – that I was angry or annoyed about something or other. I tried to explain to her that I was just thinking, but when she asked what I was thinking about I could never give her an answer that would satisfy her. Had I said that I was thinking about the new drain we were planning to lay or which route you and I ought to take when we went hill-walking the following week, she would have said, “Oh, right,” and been content with that, but that a man could ponder the big questions in life while doing the washing-up or gazing out of the kitchen window, that she simply could not comprehend. It d
idn’t matter that I was a vicar and that such questions were central to my education and my work, she simply did not get it, and because I didn’t want her to think there was anything wrong I frequently chose to tell a white lie and say that I had been thinking about what to say at the funeral on Wednesday or in my sermon on Sunday, because that was fine, that she could understand.

  And in this you and I were so alike, David. We were both thinkers. Even when you were very young you could withdraw into yourself and sit perfectly still, staring into space and thinking about one thing or another. You read a lot and like me you had a great thirst for knowledge and would not give up until you had the answers you were looking for. If Mum came across a word she didn’t know when she was doing the newspaper crossword and neither you nor I could tell her what it meant, or if we were arguing about something, we would promptly turn for answers to our stock of dictionaries and reference books. “Is it really that important?” Mum would ask when we’d been at it for some time. “Heavens above, sit down the pair of you.” But we couldn’t rest until we’d found the answer and if we didn’t find it at the time we would remember that question for later and whichever one of us did eventually come up with it could hardly wait to tell the other – especially, of course, if it was a point on which we had disagreed and it transpired that the person concerned had been right. Particularly when you were a little older we used to tease one another and pretend to gloat over having put the other in his place, it was a kind of game we played. “A-ha, so you thought Pluto had only one moon, did you?” I would say. “Oh, well, anyone can make a mistake, even you,” I would add. “I do not esteem you,” you would say, having just discovered Hamsun. “What are you two on about?” Mum would ask, looking at us and frowning, having long since forgotten the whole thing. “Well?” she would say. But we wouldn’t answer. You would cross your arms and gaze at the ceiling as if to emphasize yet again that as far as you were concerned I didn’t exist, and I roared with laughter at this little show and thought you charming and witty. “Well, tell me, what is it?” Mum would ask, raising her voice slightly, getting annoyed now. “What are you laughing at?” she would ask, eyeing me crossly, which only made me laugh even more, and in the end she couldn’t help but laugh herself. I feel a surge of happiness when I think back on scenes like that: the quietly glowing embers are the warmest, David, not the raging flames, and so it is with happiness, too, it lies in the everyday things.

  Hospital, Namsos, July 4th 2006. Father and daughter

  I open my eyes and find myself looking straight at the drawn curtains. I don’t move, lie quite still and check how I’m feeling; it’s not too bad, it hurts, but not nearly as much as it did this morning. I feel pretty good actually, not all that nauseous either, my mouth’s not even dry. I lie still for a few moments, then roll gingerly onto my side, lift my head off the pillow and rest it on my hand, stay like this for a little while, gazing vacantly into space, give a little yawn. The air is close, it’s hot and the whole room seems full of sleep. I’d better get myself out of bed, get the window opened and let in some fresh air, clear my head a little. And I do actually manage to pull back the curtains and let in some light, it looks like it has brightened up and the sun has come out while I was asleep, I can’t lie here in the gloom with that glorious evening light out there. I grab hold of the duvet and pull it back. The smell of warm body wafts up into my face. I dig my elbow into the mattress and ease myself up into a half-sitting position, gently, to save my wound from hurting too much. I shut my eyes, take a deep breath and let it out, then ease myself up a little more, until I’m sitting upright. I open my eyes, gaze down at my bony legs. I still can’t believe these are my legs, after all this time I ought to be used to them, but I still don’t get it: that these skinny, snow-white calves, these long, slender thighs, these bulging kneecaps that look so much bigger than they are, that all of this should be part of me, that this should be me.

  I swallow, still with my eyes fixed on my legs. The old me is almost gone now, nothing left but skin and bone, no wonder people look the other way when I shuffle down the corridor. It’s not surprising that they pretend not to see me, I can scarcely stand the sight of myself, can’t even look at myself in the mirror any more. I just stare into the washbasin when I wash my hands, and when I go to dry my hands I kind of sweep my eye across the washbasin and over to the towel hanging next to the bathroom cabinet, do all I can to avoid catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I can’t take the sight of that gaunt, grey face. It revolts me, it’s so stripped of fat and flesh that the outline of my teeth is almost visible behind my lips, my cheeks are like two small bowls turned upside down and my jaw muscles jut like thin, taut roots on either side of my face. I can’t take it. And I certainly can’t take the look in my eyes. Meeting my own eyes in the mirror is the worst, I don’t know why, possibly because the eyes are the only part of the man I used to be that I still recognize. It has taken time and energy to reconcile myself to the idea that I’m going to die soon, and each time I see my own eyes I see the old me, and when that happens I feel as if I’m set much further back in that process of reconciliation. The sight of my eyes kindles a spark of hope in me and I don’t want that, I don’t want my old self to trick me into false hope. Maybe this is what lies behind the fear of meeting my own eyes, I’m not sure.

  I sit quite still, and now I feel black despair creeping over me, feel my body grow somehow numb, no longer have any desire to get up. All I really want to do is crawl under the warm duvet and go on sleeping, escape into dreams, be somewhere else, anywhere but in this body, anywhere but in this head. But it’s no use, I won’t sleep now and besides, Dr Claussen will be coming to chase me out of bed soon. Dr Jonassen, Dr Hartberg and most of the nurses can be talked round, but come hell or high water Dr Claussen will have me trudging up and down those corridors, no matter what sort of shape I’m in.

  I close my eyes and emit a sigh, open my eyes, plant both hands on the mattress and start to haul myself towards the edge of the bed. I might as well pull back the curtains and open the window a bit, let in some fresh air and some sunlight, it’s bound to help a little. Am just about to set my feet on the floor when I hear the door handle being turned. Someone’s coming in, oh no, I’m not up to it, I’m not up to talking to anybody right now, it’s too much, I’m not in the mood. I shove myself back up onto the bed, lie down, grab the duvet and pull it up to my chin, lie very still, listening. I hear the door open, hear all the sounds from the corridor being let into the room, the sounds of voices and footsteps, laughter, coughing and the rattle of a trolley laden with cups and dishes, a brief burst of life before the door is closed and everything goes quiet again. After a second or so I hear Eilert’s slippers shuffling across the polished floor and a little sigh escapes me: Eilert’s the last person I want to talk to right now, I can’t take all his blathering, all the stories about his family, I can’t cope with it, not right now. I press my cheek into the pillow and shut my eyes, try to make him think I’m still asleep.

  I hear him shuffle past me and over to his own bed, hear him open the drawer of his bedside table and take out something that rustles, a bag of humbugs it sounds like. A couple of seconds and then I hear the low click-click of a boiled sweet knocking against teeth, he gives a little slurp and says “mm” and then he starts to hum, humming the same tune he always hums, this jaunty old-time dance tune, a schottische or a polka or something. Moments pass and he doesn’t let up, alternates between humming and sucking on his humbug, and now I feel myself getting annoyed, feel myself getting angry. Sharing a room with Eilert is almost worse than sharing a room with the sort of character that breaks down at regular intervals, I would almost prefer uncontrolled bouts of weeping or fits of rage to the way Eilert tackles the fear of death, this exaggerated cheerfulness, all this humming and whistling and all the chirpy chatter about his wife, his daughters and the farm in Nærøy, all the waffling he does in order to forget the mess he’s in, that’s just about the worst, this
incessant, frantic denial of the facts, this way of escaping.

  After a little while I realize I’ll have to shift position, I’m lying on my arm, it’s going to sleep, so I’ll either have to move slightly or ease it out from underneath me. I’ve got pins and needles in my arm, all the way from shoulder to fingertips. I lie for a moment, then I raise my upper half off the mattress a fraction and ease my arm free, very carefully so as not to attract Eilert’s attention, I just can’t be bothered talking to him, can’t be bothered bucking myself up and being as cheery as he always wants me to be.

  And then: “Arvid.”

  I don’t answer. I stiffen, don’t open my eyes, pretend to be asleep still, pretend to just have been shifting a little in my sleep.

  “You asleep?” he asks softly.

  I still don’t answer.

  “Arvid,” he says.