Encircling

by Carl Frode Tiller

  The time when a fat middle-aged woman hurled a sour remark at us:

  The boathouse had just been oiled and a little metal ladder covered in old paint stains was still propped against its wall, so we’d been able to climb up onto the roof, dripping wet after our swim. We lay on our backs on the rough, black, sun-baked roofing felt, you with your hands under your head and me with my arms by my sides. The warm breeze brushed my slightly goose-pimpled skin and, while my hair, which was long and caught back into a red band, was still wet and lay cold and rather heavy on my shoulder, my bikini was already dry, as were your blue Adidas shorts by the way – I noticed this when I turned my head slightly to check whether your dick was making a bulge in the flimsy material but, disappointingly, it wasn’t.

  I almost asked you whether the water had been really cold, but I had learned that you had to be very careful when it came to joking about the size of somebody’s dick, so I restrained myself. Instead I turned my head the other way and gazed out across the sparkling blue sea, to where a motorboat carrying two boys in red life vests was chugging by. As they passed the boob-shaped skerry where the gulls nested, the birds began to dive-bomb them, swooping down over their heads, then up into the air again in long, sweeping curves, then dive-bombing the boat again, shrieking and plummeting from high above and scaring one of the boys, who put his arm up as if to shield himself. I nudged you and laughed and when you lifted your head off the roof a fraction and shaded your eyes with your hand to take a look I said something about the mother gull wanting to protect her young. This may have been what prompted you, shortly afterwards, to start talking about your mother and how she wouldn’t tell you who your father was.

  I had always had the idea that you preferred not to talk about your real father, but you had now broached the subject with me twice in a relatively short space of time and I took this as a sign that you were thinking about him a lot just then, a suspicion which was indirectly confirmed when you told me the following story.

  On one of the first days of the Namsos Fair you and Jon had stopped at one of the many stalls selling old military gear, and when you came home from the fair with a pair of army boots and a jacket with three stripes on the shoulders that gave you exactly the cool, freaky look you were after, Berit flew into a quite unexpected fit of rage and snapped at you to take that Nazi get-up off that very instant. According to you, she had been almost as taken aback by her own angry outburst as you were and a second after saying what she had said she had tried to smooth things over with what you described as a very unsteady and anxious laugh (as if it had been a joke). You had asked what the hell was the matter with her and she had said nothing was the matter. Then she had simply turned away and you had stomped upstairs to your room, not quite knowing whether she was laughing or crying.

  This incident was by no means unique, you told me. You had never given it much thought before, but Berit had always reacted in unexpected and, for you, inexplicable, ways when she saw you in certain situations or circumstances. She thought, for example, that it was disgusting when you did this, you said, jutting your chin out and up, as if to stretch your jaw a little or smooth out the skin of your throat. And she had to look away when you did this, you went on, curling your upper lip slightly and inhaling deeply through your nose (as if you had a cold).

  There was a connection, you believed, between such responses on her part, her sudden fury at the sight of you in army gear and the identity of your biological father. In the same way that the unknown woman in the orange Audi had relived her rape on seeing a young man she had never laid eyes on before, so your mother relived her rape on seeing you in situations in which you looked particularly like your father.

  “So now you’re on the look out for a middle-aged army officer with a facial tic?” I remember asking and you roared with laughter for so long that eventually we heard a crabby, tobacco-roughened woman’s voice down below say, “Yeah, yeah, we hear you. The whole bloody beach can hear what a great time you’re having.” We immediately pushed ourselves up onto our elbows and peeped over the edge of the roof. Beneath us we saw three flabby white women in their late thirties lying on their stomachs on the rocks. The backs of all three were slightly bowed, their upper bodies raised half off the rock, and this – along with the damp, glistening skin, stretched so tightly over the flab that it looked as though it was about to burst – made them look like three sea lions, all set to slip into the water.

  Cheeky and fearless as we were, and somewhat provoked by this sour remark, we started firing snide comments back at them. I find it a bit scary, though, to think that at the age of eighteen I knew exactly how to get at women the same age as I am now, because while you, as a young man, could only venture a rather silly remark about periods and PMS, I sat up to give them a good view of what was then a slim, shapely figure with firm breasts peeking out of my bikini top, smiled wryly, and in a loud, clear voice said: “Well – I didn’t know you got sea lions this far south.”

  I remember one of the women responding to this by trying to act as though she thought we were ridiculous, but she was far too hurt and het up to carry it off, and her affected laugh gradually petered out into a seething, impotent hiss.

  The time when Berit turned and looked at us:

  Arvid was mowing the lawn, Berit was painting the garden gate and we were sitting at the little stone table under the cherry tree, our heads bowed over my notebook, on which I had just spilled coffee, washing away some of the writing and turning the words into a gritty blue mess, all but impossible to decipher. “It’s kind of like when you’re out paddling and you disturb a flounder,” I remember saying, and when you asked me to explain what I meant and I described how a flounder will dart off across the sea bottom, sending the sand swirling up and turning the water round your bare feet all cloudy and muddy, you shifted your hand until it was almost touching me, and I remember the lovely warm feeling that flowed up my arm when your fingers grazed mine. But the next moment, when Berit laid her brush across the top of the paint tin, stood up and turned to us, you drew your hand away again, kind of casually. “I’m a bit tired,” I remember you saying, then you sat back in the camping chair, stretched your arms over your head and yawned.

  But, contrary to what you obviously thought, Berit wasn’t jealous. I realized this when, since she found it hard to talk to you about such things, she came up to me a few days later and asked if we were using contraception. She was smiling and almost friendly in a kind of all-girls-together way, and when I nodded and said that, yes, we were (you were very careful about using a condom, far more careful than I was), she put a hand to her chest and let all the air out of her lungs in one breath, as if very relieved. “I know what it’s like to have a baby when you’re young and I wouldn’t exactly recommend it,” I remember her saying, and before we parted she made me promise not to tell you about our little chat. “He’ll only think that I’m trying to control him,” she said, and she winked slyly at me as she added: “You know what he’s like, he does so want to be free and independent.”

  And it may have been this as much as the fear of Berit being jealous that moved you to pull your hand away when she turned to us. Because it wasn’t just that you didn’t want your mother to regard us as a couple, you didn’t want anyone regarding us that way, and when I asked you why not, you always came out with some tired old line such as: “I don’t want to be tied down, or not yet anyway.”

  Trondheim, July 3rd 2006. Dinner at Silje’s and Egil’s

  We sit at the table, eating, and no one says anything. I hear Else’s knife scraping her plate and on the other side of the table I hear Egil say, “Mm,” and I hear the glug-glug of wine being poured into a glass and I see that it’s Trond who has refilled his glass and Trond sets the bottle down on the table with a little thud, then he looks at me as he raises his glass. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come on Thursday,” he says, his voice deep and slightly husky. He takes a big swig of his wine, tucks his long, thick hair behind his ear and
leans over his plate. “That’s all right,” I say, looking at him and smiling. “I heard it was a good funeral,” he says, then he takes a big mouthful of fish and eyes me with interest as he chews. “Yes, it was,” I say, and I picture the funeral, I picture all those sad, sombre faces and in my mind I hear the voice of the earnest, stammering vicar. “Yes, the funeral went well,” I say and I chuckle at my rather frivolous choice of words, then I look at Trond and smile, give a little shrug. “It was like any other funeral,” I say, and Trond nods and smiles back. “So how are you doing?” he asks. “Oh, I’m fine,” I say, “although it was a bit sudden,” I add, and I look at him and give a little wag of my head and he smiles warmly as he takes a sip of his wine.

  “The strange thing about your parents dying, though,” I say, “is that you start thinking of yourself as being next in line,” I say. “It’s like in gym class at school, suddenly you find yourself at the head of the queue and it’s your turn next,” I say with a little laugh. “Yep, you’ve got to live while you can,” Trond says, and he too gives a little laugh. “Yep,” I say and I lean over my plate, take a little bit of my fish, then look up at Egil, and now I see that Egil is sitting there staring at me. He gives me a wry little smile. What is it this time, what’s he looking at me like that for?

  “She was your mother, Silje,” Egil says, and a moment passes, and I look at him and I frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. “I just think you could show a little more respect,” he says. “It was like any other funeral,” he says, staring at me, still with that wry smile on his face and there’s silence for a moment and I glance across at Trond and Trond looks straight at Egil and I glance across at Else and Else lowers her eyes and straightens the napkin on her lap. Her long narrow face is suddenly tight, she looks rather aggrieved, looks a little put out, and a moment passes and then, all at once, I realize what this is about, it’s not me but Else that Egil is addressing, it’s not me but his mother he’s talking to, and I turn to Egil and hold his gaze and I feel myself growing annoyed.

  “Yes, well,” Trond says suddenly, and he looks at Egil. “We all know how fond you are of Mum, Egil,” he says, just like that, and I almost jump when he says it, and there’s total silence for a moment and I feel a little ripple of delight run through me, it’ll do Egil and Else good to hear this, there’s silence and Else purses her lips and becomes even more tight-faced. She’s breathing a little faster than usual as she straightens the jacket collar of her beige trouser suit and Egil is looking daggers at Trond. “What?” Egil says and Trond grins and shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says, and there’s silence again and a moment passes.

  “Could you pass me the salt, Egil?” Else asks and I stare at her, she still looks strained and aggrieved and I realize she’s starting to annoy me. I turn to look at Egil and he lays his knife and fork on his plate, his face looking so tight and stern, and he lifts his chin slightly as he reaches across the table and curls his slender, white shopkeeper fingers round the salt cellar. I notice how finicky and feminine this action makes him appear, it’s almost disgusting how unmasculine he is. “Here you are, Mum,” Egil says. “Thank you,” Else says, and I look at Else, then I look at Egil and I’m struck by how alike they actually are, with the same clean-cut features, the same brilliant white teeth, the same narrow shoulders and the same slender fingers.

  “What are you grinning at?” Egil snaps and he looks up at Trond and I turn and look at Trond and Trond chuckles and shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says, raising his eyebrows slightly, and he chuckles as he drinks the rest of his wine, then he refills his glass and there’s silence and I look at Egil again and yet again I’m struck by how alike he and Else are. I’ve always known that he looked like her, but not that he looked so much like her. I feel almost as though I’m seeing Egil in a new light, almost as though I’m seeing him for the first time; I don’t take my eyes off him and the moments pass and then he suddenly looks straight at me.

  “What?” he says, and a moment passes and I simply sit there staring at him. “Silje,” he says a little louder and he frowns and shakes his head and a moment passes and then I seem to come to my senses a little. “Yes?” I say. “You’re giving me such a funny look,” he says. “Am I?” I say. “Yes,” he says and there’s silence and I don’t take my eyes off him. “No, really – what is it?” he says. “Nothing,” I say, giving him a rather stiff little smile. “Nothing?” he asks. “Just something I thought of,” I say. “Ah, so there was something, then,” he says, and a moment passes and it annoys me that he’s so persistent, sitting there giving me the third degree when we have guests, and my annoyance grows. “I’m simply trying to say I don’t want to tell you what I was thinking.” It just comes out and I almost jump at what I’m saying, and Egil flinches as I say it and there is total silence and Egil stares at me, shocked and furious, and I look him straight in the eye, and I can tell that he expects me to back down, he expects me to lower my eyes, but I hold his gaze and I smile a stiff little smile, and a moment passes, and one of us is going to have to look away soon, we can’t go on sitting like this, not when we have guests, and another moment passes and Egil is looking more and more furious, but I don’t back down, and Egil leans over his plate and goes on eating, eating a little faster than usual, and I can see how furious he is and I realize that I’m enjoying this and I carry on eating and there’s an awkward silence and the moments pass.

  “This sauce is delicious,” Else says, then there’s silence again and the moments pass, then Trond starts to laugh, and his laugh is deep and husky and Egil lays his cutlery on his plate, sets it down a little more firmly than normal and glares at Trond. “What exactly is all this?” Egil asks, blinking steadily at the end of this sentence, blinking as if to command respect, and I look at his slender wrists and clean-cut, feminine features, and I find it hard not to laugh, he’s so unmasculine that it’s funny when he tries to seem intimidating. “What is it?” Trond asks, and he chuckles and shakes his head. “I don’t really know,” he says. “But one thing’s for sure – nothing’s changed.” “Trond!” Else says, giving Trond a shocked look, then her shock turns to anger, her upper lip tightens into a fan of fine, vertical creases, and she stares at Trond, and Trond stares back at her. “Yes?” he says, and he smiles at her with feigned tenderness. “Behave yourself,” Else snaps. “I’m to behave myself?” Trond says. “Yes, you,” Else says. “But what did I do?” Trond asks. “Behave yourself,” Else says, a little louder this time, then there’s silence again and the moments pass. “But this sauce is delicious,” Trond murmurs, and he looks at his plate and grins.

  “Hey!” Egil snaps, jerking his head at Trond. “We didn’t invite you dinner just so you could flash that mocking grin of yours,” Egil says. “I didn’t exactly come here for a laugh, either,” Trond says, still grinning. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Egil asks. “What do you think it means?” Trond asks. “You can leave whenever you like, you know,” Egil says. “Oh, thanks,” Trond says. “But if I can just finish eating first. I’m hungry,” he says, and a moment passes and I just sit there gazing at them and Egil is looking daggers at Trond and Trond drinks the rest of his wine, tucks his long, thick hair behind his ear, picks up the wine bottle and refills his glass, and Egil snorts, shakes his head angrily, leans over his plate and carries on eating and for a little while everyone concentrates on their food and there’s silence.

  Then: “Trond, do you mind!” Egil snaps, eyeing Trond sharply. “Huh?” Trond says. “Do you think you could possibly show some manners,” Egil says. “Oh, what now?” Trond asks. “You’re smacking your lips,” Egil says. “Oops, sorry, I forgot where I was,” Trond retorts sarcastically. “Spare me your sarcasm,” Egil says. “Sarcasm?” Trond says. “I wasn’t meaning to be sarcastic, it’s just that for a second there I actually felt at home,” he says. “But it won’t happen again, brother mine,” he says and I simply sit there listening to them, simply sit there looking at them and I see how angry Egil
is and Egil glances wearily at Else as if signalling to her to take over, and Else takes over.

  “Trond, I think you should apologize,” Else says. “What for?” Trond asks, and he looks at Else and smiles and Else glares at him. “You’re getting more and more like your father,” Else says. “Well, thank heavens for that,” Trond says. “At least he lived till he died,” he says. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Else demands. “Oh, nothing,” Trond says. “No, go on, say it,” Else says. “It was nothing, I said,” Trond says. “Lived till he died,” Else says, and she sniffs. “If you mean to say that he was, and you are, more alive than anyone else in this family, may I just remind you that it’s us and the work we’ve put into that shop that made it possible for him to live the way he did, the way you would so like to live. If it weren’t for us there wouldn’t have been so much as a peep from either of you, because you’d have had to work and earn your living,” she says. “Like other people have to,” she adds. “Yeah, right,” Trond says. “Yeah, right?” she says. “Are you saying that’s not true?” she says. “Oh, sure,” Trond says. “Keep a civil tongue in your head when you talk to me,” Else says. “I was only saying you’re right,” Trond says. “If it weren’t for you I’d have had to work,” he says. “I mean, what I do isn’t work, is it?” he says smiling at Else, and Else is getting more and more het up. “You keep a civil tongue in your head,” she says again. “I’m only saying you’re right,” Trond says. “I’m a layabout and a leech, and I should be eternally grateful to you and Egil for the fact that I even exist,” he says. “To you especially, of course,” he adds.