The Unseen

by Roy Jacobsen

  But one day Maria shows her the letter at last, where it says that she has got a placement, with Oskar Tommesen, the son of the owner of the Trading Post, and his young wife Zezenie, who is from somewhere in the south of the country, they have two children who are to be taken care of in a newly built house opposite the Post.

  “Tha should a left years back.”

  Ingrid nods.

  “It’ll be ne’er s’ hard nu tho’,” says Maria, as if she is aware that all roads lead home. Or perhaps it is envy. Or the nascent sense of loss. But the milk route has become a clock, it has brought them into line with the time system on the mainland.

  *

  Fru Tommesen and her children are waiting as Ingrid steps ashore at the Trading Post, they say hello, and Zezenie is welcoming and relaxed and speaks dialect. Ingrid carries the small suitcase up the hill, away from the sea and the nerve-racking sounds and into the silence. Her new home has dragon’s heads at the ends of the roof ridge and a weather vane and is surrounded by tall, swaying trees, their leaves rustling in the evening breeze, but this too is a form of silence.

  She feels stupid as they go inside, like when she started school, but, tactfully, Zezenie doesn’t notice, and shows Ingrid where she will stay, as if she has created the room with her own hands. Ingrid admires the drawers and cupboards and doesn’t see the lady of the house walking closely past her, sniffing, to check whether she smells, but she does see when Zezenie takes her hands to welcome her for a second time, and examines her nails. However, Ingrid has scrubbed them under the watchful eye of Maria, so she stands there calmly as the inspection takes place, and as they go downstairs, for further instruction in the kitchen, she considers she has passed the test, and will also be able to surmount the challenges ahead: a stove with blue tiles from Delft in Holland is, after all, lit in the same way as a black cast-iron stove on Barrøy, it just doesn’t heat as well, though it stays in for a longer time, and coke is no more difficult than peat, it is easier.

  Here we have the living rooms, Zezenie says, three rooms which form a kind of step up to the most private area of the house, where there is a stove too, but Ingrid has to light the fire here only once a day, at five o’clock in the afternoon, so that it is warm at seven o’clock, when the man of the house comes home from work, and there is the clock she should go by, an heirloom with pendulums and Roman numerals and brass bobs, which she has to wind up once every fourth day. Otherwise she has no business in here, and the children are not allowed to play here, either.

  Ingrid wonders why she was ever fearful, perhaps she just waited on the island too long, she thinks, it wasn’t that the world didn’t want her, she may have misread the situation, and she is not going to make the same mistake again; the possibility that it might have been her mother who held her back, Maria’s loneliness, doesn’t cross her mind.

  40

  After the happy period preparing for confirmation at the rectory, the transition to life at the house of Oskar Tommesen and his wife was not so wonderful. And it was certainly complicated. In the first place, the children were not like the priest’s. The older one was seven, and for some reason didn’t go to school. His name was Felix and he screeched like an animal when he didn’t get what he wanted, then his mother went out of the room and left it to Ingrid to calm him down.

  The other child was a girl of three, Suzanne. Most of the time she lay in a cradle big enough for a man, or sat on her mother’s or Ingrid’s lap and didn’t seem interested in anything. At other times she was pushed around by Ingrid, outdoors as well in a small wooden pram decorated with flower patterns, when Zezenie sent her to do the shopping or down to the Trading Post to get some fish.

  Ingrid enjoyed these walks to the Store, which was a daily occurrence, wheeling a pram with a small child made her feel five years older, a person with responsibility. She took pride in her appearance and the clothes she wore, and talked to people as soon as they talked to her, and smiled, so they carried on talking to her, Ingrid was a good-natured, friendly young person from the islands, strange as it may seem.

  But then there was this feeble child, who wasn’t toilet-trained yet, and couldn’t even sit upright on the floor, let alone walk. Ingrid thought there might be something wrong with her. Zezenie would hear none of it, Suzanne was just a bit delicate. The word had an elegant ring to it, like porcelain.

  But there was something wrong with the mistress of the house too, unless she was just doing what people of her class normally did. She would be sewing and then suddenly jump up with a cry and run out of the house and down to the Trading Post, where her husband Oskar had reigned since his father became poorly, then return with either a smile on her lips or crying her eyes out, and with dishevelled hair, occasionally in both states at the same time. Then she would question why Ingrid had given Felix something to eat, which she’d had to do, partly to quieten him down, but mainly because the clock had struck.

  His mother patted him cautiously on the head, as if afraid of burning her fingers, then went up to the first floor to rest, but only after opening the window to give the room an airing, a procedure Ingrid had never heard of, fancy airing a room there weren’t any fumes in, and she didn’t reappear until after darkness had fallen, when Ingrid had long since given the children their supper and the man of the house came in and sat down in the most private of the living rooms to smoke his pipe.

  From the kitchen Ingrid could hear husband and wife laughing and arguing and shouting at each other and then laughing again, switching from one to the other so quickly that after a week or so she began to go to bed early; the same exhausting form of coexistence was played out across the dining table, she didn’t feel able to provide satisfactory answers to their questions or follow what they were laughing at.

  *

  The Trading Post owner’s son was polite and distant, vague and jovial. He collected stamps in a big ledger and copperplates of Napoleon and Danish and Swedish kings who had reigned in Norway, which he spread out over the large living-room table and which it was Ingrid’s job to tidy up in the correct order. He also had a particular way of eyeing her, and winking, when Zezenie wasn’t looking. And he didn’t know how to separate fish from the bone, he just placed a large piece of cod on his plate, plunged his fork into it and lifted the fish with the skin and bones into his mouth, only to pick out with his fingers all the bits that didn’t belong in his stomach, which was very difficult when he was talking at the same time.

  In addition, he wore spectacles, which were always fogged up. Ingrid asked whether she should clean them. Then he sent her such a nebulous look that she didn’t catch what he said. She thought there must be something bothering him, he was fragile, just like his son, whom he never talked to, it was a house where the parents and children lived in separate worlds.

  All this amounted to one small disappointment after another in a wealthy household where there was absolutely no need for anything at all not to live up to Ingrid’s expectations.

  There wasn’t much to do, they didn’t even have any animals, and every week an elderly woman from a small farmstead in the gorge behind the church came to scrub all the nine rooms with green soap – except for Ingrid’s, she had to do that herself – and the kitchen too. She arrived in darkness and left in darkness, and was often not paid, Ingrid noticed. Zezenie stood there without so much as a hint of embarrassment on her face and declared that she didn’t have any money today, Ingeborg could buy things on credit for the time being, couldn’t she?

  The old lady never said a word, she was silent and crooked and surrounded by a strange smell – lard? But she shooed away the children as if they were in the way, and they weren’t, Ingrid saw to that, Ingrid saw to most things, she had made the house her own, including its strange customs, she had begun to defend it, to herself too, soon she might even be able to regard the master of the house’s fish-eating habits as normal.

  *

  But she hadn’t been there for more than three months when a message cam
e from the Trading Post to the effect that Oskar Tommesen had taken the steamer to the town, as planned, but hadn’t returned.

  There might of course have been many reasons for this, but none of them plausible, and Zezenie spent the rest of the evening walking around the house wringing her hands, unable to answer the questions Ingrid had inferred it could be of advantage to ask from time to time, for a maidservant.

  When the husband didn’t show up the following day either, nor the next, the mother quite simply lost all interest in the children and wandered around like a bedraggled ghost taking stock of the fixtures and furnishings and noting everything down in a book with a hard cover, then sorting and packing it all in large suitcases. She was surrounded by light and sound, at night too, three days and two nights. Then she too disappeared, without a word, she simply wasn’t there when Ingrid got up one morning and went down to get the stove going and make coffee, the house was as quiet as the grave and dark, quieter than it had ever been before.

  She waited until the clock chimed, got the children out of bed, fed them and started waiting. Nothing happened. She went up and knocked at the parents’ bedroom door, no answer, she peeped in, the double bed was made, no-one there. Ingeborg arrived to scrub the floors, obviously understood what had happened and mumbled, well, that was the way of the world, this bankruptcy that everyone had been expecting, maybe it wasn’t written in the stars, but it was certainly written between the lines in the newspaper.

  Ingrid had no idea what a bankruptcy was. She didn’t read the newspaper either, it came out three times a week, and when the old woman muttered something about the Tommesens probably having gone to America, her head began to spin.

  Ingeborg hadn’t even removed her coat, she sat in the large, empty kitchen drinking coffee for the first time, from a cup with a gold rim, telling Ingrid that things had gone from bad to worse with the business ever since the old man fell ill.

  Ingrid felt confused relief that at least this didn’t have anything to do with her. But it certainly did, she had been left sitting in charge of two children who were not hers. And there would be no floor-washing today, Ingeborg drank up her coffee and said she definitely wouldn’t be coming back.

  “But hva am A goen’ t’ do?” Ingrid exclaimed.

  “Well, hva ar we goen’ t’ do?” the old woman said, and left.

  Ingrid regretted not crying a long time ago. Now, when no-one could see, it was too late.

  41

  From her window Ingrid had a view of the sea and the islands. Barrøy was darker than the others, perhaps because it had more grass than cliffs and rocks. She saw the island every evening, said goodnight, and saw it again in the morning, sometimes clearly, at other times like a hovering shadow, now it was autumn and dark and there was nothing to see.

  She got up and made some food, extinguished the lamps and played with the children, lit the lamps, played with the children, it was Felix’s turn for a bath, supper, Suzanne to bed, followed by Felix, who didn’t ask for his mother a single time, but walked around the house hitting the furniture with a stick, Ingrid took it off him, which occasioned more screams.

  The next night she didn’t sleep at all. But yet again she got up at six, prepared breakfast for three and ate alone, waited beside two unused plates until the clocks struck before going up to wake the children, fed and dressed them and set off on a walk with them, it was raining and of course she ought to knock on a door somewhere and ask what she should do.

  But where?

  She went to the rectory, but it was all dark there. She walked back home and played and ate and washed up, lit the lamps and wound up the clocks, no one had a bath today, thank God.

  This time she slept like a log.

  But was woken by the silence. And her crying. She opened the window, listened to the sea and went back to sleep, got up and went downstairs and set the table for three adults and two children, she was one of the adults, waited for light to stream through the windows, woke the children and made Felix dress himself, slapped him when he howled. She went downstairs with Suzanne, and Felix followed, semi-dressed and whining. She helped him to put on the rest of his clothes and said that a seven-year-old not being able to dress himself was a disgrace. He ran outside in his stockinged feet, she ran after him and dragged him back in and forced him to sit at the table. After the meal she helped him to put on his outdoor clothes, dressed Suzanne and walked down to the wharf with both children where she waited for the steamer.

  The steamer arrived in light snow, unloaded goods, took on board milk and fish and was gone.

  What were all the glares supposed to mean?

  There was another walk around the village, in the hope that someone should catch sight of them. But no one stopped and no one asked and thought it was nice of her to take on the burden of two rich man’s children. She arrived back home and lit the lamps and cooked and bathed Suzanne and sat talking to deaf ears until she fell asleep, not even Suzanne mentioned her mother.

  Next day the steamer came.

  And left.

  Ingrid walked around with the children. Without attracting any attention. Margot at the Store said of course the parents would be coming back, but added that Ingrid perhaps shouldn’t take all the items she had placed on the counter, who was going to pay for them . . .?

  Ingrid looked at her with a vacant expression.

  There was talk of new owners taking over the Trading Post, but . . .

  Another sleepless night. And the next morning brought neither new nor old owners. Ingrid packed her little case and again stood on the wharf with two children watching the steamer dock and depart.

  But there was also the milk-run boat, loading empty milk churns, the converted fishing smack belonging to her father’s childhood friend, Paulus.

  Ingrid walked down the gangway with Suzanne in her arms and holding Felix’s hand and said she wanted to go with him. From the window of his wheelhouse, Paulus said that was out of the question. Ingrid went back ashore and collected the suitcase and the little pram, put Suzanne in it, covered her with blankets and sat down on the ground holding the pram between her knees. Felix sat down beside her. Paulus came down to the deck and repeated that he couldn’t take them, if he did he would need the parents’ permission, on top of that the weather was bad, he wasn’t even sure he could make it to Barrøy. Ingrid didn’t answer. She cried and sat motionless. Felix was silent.

  42

  They were received by Barbro and Maria, who were standing on Barrøy’s quay in the gale with two milk churns, staring down at the deck, in absolute amazement, where Ingrid had gone to sleep and was now waking up, stiff and sore. The children were seasick and had thrown up. They managed to get them ashore, Paulus, cursing, lifted them up one after the other, also the pram, for which there was no use on the island. But at least they could carry it between them, like a stretcher, with Suzanne in it.

  Felix perked up and walked without assistance. And now he was holding Ingrid’s hand.

  Ingrid had to repeat her story four or five times once they were in the warm, until she fell asleep on the kitchen bench, she babbled on and was full to the brim with feelings no-one can articulate, the relief at being home again isolated in the sea with two children who weren’t hers and whom she couldn’t stand.

  *

  Two days later Maria went to the mainland in an attempt to find a solution to the mystery, but returned none the wiser, the children’s grandfather was muddled, the priest’s wife still wasn’t back, and Margot at the store . . .?

  Another week passed.

  With bad weather and two days without the milk run. Maria went over again, with the same meagre outcome.

  Meanwhile Suzanne slept with Ingrid while Felix was on his own in the double bed in the North Chamber. He had stopped screaming after trying it once and being stopped by Barbro, who forced him to go with her to the cowshed and wanted to teach him how to milk, her son could, even though he wasn’t a woman. Felix cried and milked the cows wit
hout ever saying he missed anyone. He wanted toys and was given tools to play with. That stopped him crying. They gave him clothes that Lars had grown out of. And after three days he was on the sea with Ingrid holding a jig, although he could neither row nor bleed a fish, a boy who had grown up in a family dealing in fish and he couldn’t do this.

  But Ingrid was patient and back home in her own waters. Felix listened and fumbled and was there again the day after. He fetched wood and peat when they asked him to and could turn the handle of the cream separator, with Barbro, and in the house Suzanne crawled around on the kitchen floor babbling and ready to walk at any moment.

  She had her potty training on Lars’s chair. Maria sat holding her between her knees and let go. She fell. Barbro did the same. Suzanne fell and crawled and fell, and later the same evening Felix climbed up into Barbro’s lap and was impossible to budge. She sat with him until he fell asleep. Then they carried him up to bed. And Ingrid sensed this power that only a bird can feel as it sits on the ridge of a hill, wings outstretched, letting the wind do the rest.

  *

  When the children had been there for ten days Lars returned from school on Havstein. Rowing. He had been fishing on the way, moored the boat to the ladder beneath the crane on the quay, looked up and caught sight of an unfamiliar face.

  “Hvo’s tha?”

  “A’m Felix,” Felix said.

  Lars clambered up, hauled a fish onto the quay and cleaned it on the workbench while Felix stood watching. He split the fish and salted most of it in a tub and cut up the rest to eat fresh, put the bits in a pail and carried it home together with his satchel. Felix followed him. When they went in Lars asked once more who the boy was. His mother gave him the same answer. Felix. So did Ingrid, who was sitting by the window knitting. On the floor sat a little girl chewing the wooden handle of a gaff.