* * *
The tea is strong, I pour in some milk; the thick white jet plunges in and reappears as a wavy pattern. She holds her hands around the cup to warm them. She’s thinking about the boats, she’s thinking about him. Her whole face is horribly sad. Just under an hour ago, she was riding me, her fair hair swaying back and forth. Perhaps to make the time pass, saying his name inside.
* * *
“Shall we go?” I ask. We’ve finished our tea, he’s not here, he’s not going to come. I can see that she’s impatient. He’s out there somewhere. We don’t need to drag out the time. We don’t need to drag out anything. She gives me a wily smile, as though she’s realized what I’m thinking. “Yes, why don’t we?” she says, leans over and kisses me. We taste exactly the same, soft, a little bitter. We drag everything out with that kiss. Drag everything out with a couple of soft, sour tongues. We could just as easily call it a day. Draw a line, release ourselves from each other. She takes my face between her hands and looks me earnestly in the eye: “I love you,” she says. “And I,” I say, brushing her hair back from her temples with both hands, “love you.” She takes my hand, and we leave. Our hands are warmer from holding the cups of tea, we drag everything out by leading each other on like this. I just want to laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh. A small child comes running toward us pulling a green kite, running and running to make the kite fly, the kite bobs up and down in the air behind him. I laugh, without feeling. I feel a dull urge to shake her, shake her out of this, shake me out of this, I take hold of her upper arms listlessly and am about to shake her when we hear a voice behind us; I let go, we turn around at the same time and see the old man from the café coming toward us. “I’m sorry,” he says, out of breath, “but you forgot to pay.” “Oh,” she says, “it wasn’t on purpose at all.” She finds her wallet in her bag, takes out a note and gives it to him. “Keep the change, please.” He thanks her, says it’s far too much. She gives him a tight-lipped smile, wants to be friendly. Nods. Puts her wallet back in her bag and takes my hand again. Turns, looks toward the pond. One last time. A slight tremor in her hand. I turn and see that it’s him, that it’s him she sees. Or someone standing there who looks more like him than anyone else. He stands there, a long, thin line, with broad shoulders, two days too late, his face turned the other way, I can tell that he’s smoking, he looks impatient, he doesn’t intend to stand here for long. “Hello,” I want to shout, my stomach twisting, “hello! Over here.” Want to cast her off like a stone. See her spinning round and round in the air. She turns around again, says nothing, holds my hand tight, leads me away. There’s a rhythmic crunching on the gravel when the little boy runs past. Some yellowy-brown gravel showers one of my shoes, and I shout a swear word at him that he doesn’t understand.
From the Lighthouse
You grew up in a lighthouse that grew out of a tiny rocky island. When you were little, you were only allowed to walk around on the rock if you had a rope around your waist, and when the tide was in, the rock was completely covered by water. If there was a storm, it was impossible to leave the lighthouse, and the only window that could be opened was the small window in the bathroom, and you stood there whenever there was a storm, you stood there with your eyes closed, and felt salt water and finally, finally, fresh air on your face. The only place you had to play was a staircase, a spiral staircase that twisted up through all four floors of the lighthouse; it was your playground, your garden, mountain, valley, and country road. You ran up and down those stairs, ran all the way down to sit on the bottom step, dejected, on evenings when the sea was still and a cruise ship sailed by in the moonlight with music and dancing on the quarterdeck. You stumbled up those same stairs, legs leaden with shame, when you came home one evening after rowing out to the royal yacht to give the crown prince some of the rare shells that only grew on the island where you lived, and the crown prince had been so nice and asked about your schooling, and he was tall and handsome in a blue suit, and the crown princess had stood up on deck and thrown a bar of chocolate down to the crown prince and the crown prince had caught it gracefully, then thrown it down to you in the boat, where you sat in dumb desperation; you couldn’t stand up in the boat to curtsy—you had always been given strict instructions that you were not supposed to stand up in a boat, not even for a bar of chocolate from a crown prince, and then the deep blush when you tried to bow instead, but it was impossible, and idiotic, because you were sitting down. It perhaps goes without saying that in situations and surroundings like that, you might long for places where you can stand upright and curtsy, or wander around in any direction, not just up and down. And perhaps it goes without saying that when you then finally, finally get ashore and there are suddenly streets—dry, wide streets and sidewalks bathed in sunlight, and avenues and entire parks with endless grass—that you then lose your balance, feel dizzy and sick and trip up, and it perhaps goes without saying that when the dizziness doesn’t subside, and you don’t give up, but get up and try again, then stumble and fall, that then and there, it might seem like your balance nerve has permanently fallen out of your body and that the only way you can live (because you can’t live with this nauseous feeling) is up and down a spiral staircase in a slender lighthouse on an island out at sea.
* * *
Luckily, that was a misconception.
Grandma Is Sleeping
She got both glaucoma and cataracts early on in life, but she always managed, continued to crochet runners with tiny patterns, weave tapestries of small birds in a tangle of branches, colorful tulips twisting out of the soil and around each other, to the delight of her seven children and her seven children’s spouses and her seven children’s nineteen children. But today it bothers her. Today she stands at the kitchen window and looks up at the mountains and wishes she could distinguish where the mountains finish and the sky begins. She had such a strange dream last night, it’s still vibrating somewhere inside, she’s trying to understand her dream; she dreamed that the sun moved, or rather, slid, slowly, along the ridge of the mountains, while she sat in the kitchen and watched the sun slide, ever so slowly, at such an odd pace, first over one mountain, then the other, and then finally the third before disappearing out of sight. It was as though the sun was skating along the mountains, as though it had contact with the substratum, as though it had stepped down from the sky, as though it was peeping in at her, sailing along the mountain ridge, all the way along, to look in at her through the kitchen window, that the sun wanted to see. That it slipped over the mountains to look at her. That she herself was standing at the kitchen window looking at the sun. And that they were somehow measuring each other up. Then the sun disappeared. She was still shaking, because she felt it was a prophetic dream, it was the kind of dream she had had twice before, once when she was a young girl and dreamed about a bird that was hypnotized by a snake. That the bird was frozen in midair and just stared the snake in the eye, the snake that had uncoiled up from the ground and stood steady as a rod and held the bird’s gaze. Soon after, she had met the boy she married. The second dream was much later, after she had given birth to seven children who had grown up and settled on farms round about, all seven of them, and produced nineteen children; she dreamed that she was sitting by the kitchen window and saw her husband descend from heaven in a long white robe with his hands folded on his chest. He floated slowly down as he looked her steadily in the eye, until he was standing on the ground in front of her. Soon after that, he died. And their seven children and nineteen grandchildren did all they could to keep her company, they popped by at regular intervals, sat at the kitchen table and did crosswords, chatted, and it was nice, but she sometimes got the feeling that they came more for their own sake than hers, that they were salving their conscience. That they were so busy, that they had such full lives and she just sat there, day in and day out, at the kitchen table and crocheted, wove. Looked out the window. But it didn’t matter. They came, after all. And she sat there.
* * *
She looks out the window, can’t differentiate the mountains from the sky. She’s ninety today, and sees the first guests coming over the fields. She has set the table for everyone, used all the tables in her little house, put them all together. Found all the chairs and stools. She tries to count the shadows that are approaching, but can’t, she recognizes her sons and their wives by their walks, and some of the grandchildren. One is carrying a baby. Or is it a cake tin? She pulls the finely crocheted lace curtains. Hears them tramping up the steps, grasping the door handle. Trying the door. Knocking. She doesn’t move. The doorbell rings. She sees more people approaching, they’re often on time, her flock, she’ll give them that. There’s a knock on the door. A rattling of the door handle. But she sits still. She doesn’t want to open it. She’s not ready, she thinks it’s the dream that’s taken hold of her, she’s not finished with it, she wants to be alone. She sees their shadows darken the window, they knock, call her name. All of her family. But she won’t open up.
An Entire Family Disappears
THE GRANDUNCLE (stands up in the middle of the wake. Taps his glass with a spoon)
AN ENTIRE FAMILY (holds its breath)
AN ENTIRE FAMILY (fumbles with the napkins, knows what this particular granduncle is capable of. The candles flicker, tiny gusts of wind from the half-open windows ruffle the hair on the nervous heads of AN ENTIRE FAMILY)
THE GRANDUNCLE (clears his throat)
THE GRANDUNCLE (says something that makes AN ENTIRE FAMILY suddenly realize that their newly buried mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had been sexually active)
AN ENTIRE FAMILY (drops its eyes to the floor)
THE GRANDUNCLE (persists. Tells something that makes AN ENTIRE FAMILY suddenly realize that it was a close shave that their newly buried mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother married their late father, grandfather, and great-grandfather)
AN ENTIRE FAMILY (drinks blueberry juice, the last blueberry juice found in her cupboard, and reflects on this, perhaps remembers something about a summer in the 1920s when they were engaged, a summer when she was not with him, when she was haymaking on the island Innlandet, and that she always had a particularly happy expression on her face when she talked about that summer)
THE GRANDUNCLE (articulates their thoughts. Tells them that after the summer haymaking on Innlandet, she sent the gold ring and watch that AN ENTIRE FAMILY’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had given to her as an engagement present back to AN ENTIRE FAMILY’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather)
THE GRANDUNCLE (holds out his hand, imitates the movements of AN ENTIRE FAMILY’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, as he stood with desperation in his eyes in front of his own father, AN ENTIRE FAMILY’s grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather)
AN ENTIRE FAMILY (pictures the gold ring and watch cradled in the outstretched hand of their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, flashing in the sunlight under the somber eyes of their grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, sometime in the 1920s)
AN ENTIRE FAMILY (suddenly understands the truth about their own lives: they could just as easily have not been here)
THE GRANDUNCLE: But everything turned out for the best, as we know.
THE GRANDUNCLE: Hehehe.
AN ENTIRE FAMILY (laughs politely)
AN ENTIRE FAMILY (hopes that the granduncle will stop talking soon, or at least say something less controversial. They are angry and upset)
It’s Raining in Love
Roar is terminally ill.
But he doesn’t want to talk about it.
“No,” Roar says. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He looks out the living room window. A snail with a yellow shell drags itself slowly over the glass on the outside, leaving behind a shiny trail across the copper beech, which is in its prime, leaves shimmering in the evening light. It’s summer. “Period,” he says, then leans forward and taps the lowest drop on Grandma’s crystal chandelier. It tinkles gently. “Do you know what happened to Henrik the other day?” he asks. “No,” I say. “He was out walking…” Roar looks at me, asks me not to look at him like that, he’s said he doesn’t want to talk about it, and that’s that, he’s going to tell me about Henrik now, and what happened to Henrik the other day. “Are you happier with how I’m looking at you now?” I ask. He nods. “Henrik was out walking,” he starts. And then tells me about what happened to Henrik when he was out walking—that he yawned just under a low branch and ended up with a tangle of tiny spiders in his mouth—while I look at his eyes, which are big and light, light blue, with long lashes, and think that he seems to be gazing inward, it’s as if he can hardly bear to look at me, even though he is looking at me, that his irises are actually at the back, that they’re in fact looking inward, into his head, and I wonder why he doesn’t want to talk about it, even though there’s perhaps not that much to say. Maybe he thinks it would be too much for me, that one of us might start to cry, and that the other wouldn’t know how to deal with it. Even though we grew up together and know each other inside out, and have flicked the lowest drop on Grandma’s old crystal chandelier to hear it tinkling a thousand times before. He’s just hung it up. I gave it to him when I arrived, I wanted him to have it, thought that if he could tap the lowest drop and hear it tinkle … When he looks out the window that way his eyes are almost transparent, and his face is so pale, so pale that he’s almost black. “Ugh,” I say. “You’ve got that look again,” he says. “How about now?” I say, and raise my eyebrows as high as I can, while squinting. Roar smiles, we almost laugh. “Did you hear about Ole’s friend?” I ask, and he says that he hasn’t. “It’s not nice, just warning you,” I say. “Well, come on then,” he says. “He was out on his motorbike, had just come out of a tunnel when a bird flew straight into his chest, and then, because of the air drag, the bird was pushed up into his helmet, under the base gasket and into the helmet, dead and bloody, and Ole’s friend threw up instantly, inside the helmet, everything happened so fast, he wobbled along the road for a few meters before he managed to stop the bike, then pulled off his helmet, which was full of bird and vomit, ran down to the fjord and ducked his head in the salt water,” I say, and feel my heart racing because I said that the bird had died, I have to look at the floor. “Yuck,” Roar said. “I found a huge white maggot in a Toblerone once,” he says. “In the letter R.” “No more Toblerone,” I say, and bite my lip. Everything I say seems to come out wrong. But Roar laughs and says: “No, it’s a shame. It’s given me a complex about the first letter of my name, as well. Which is even more of a shame. I took it symbolically and thought that it must be a sign, simple as that; that my name is home to a huge white maggot. I’m thinking about changing my name.” “To what?” I ask. “Joar,” he says. “Well, you’d better change the last R too,” I say. “Joaj.” We laugh. “Just think, your name means loud noise in English,” I say. “Yes, just think,” Roar says, and I think about it and realize that I’ve said the wrong thing again, as his name will soon mean silence, was that what he meant?
* * *
“Do you want some whiskey?” he asks, and I say that I think it tastes of soap. Roar snorts, pours some whiskey. “Cheers,” Roar says. “Cheers,” I say, and take a sip. I shake my head without thinking. Roar smiles. “But I like the burning sensation in your throat,” I say. We sit in silence and drink whiskey. “To continue with our cavalcade of disastrous events,” Roar says, after a while, “I watched a magpie land in her nest in the apple tree down there, and then a raven came along and killed her.” “I didn’t know that ravens killed other birds,” I say. “No, but then you’re a person who thinks whiskey tastes like soap,” Roar says, and I have to look out the window to hide how thrilled I am that he said just that. It would be embarrassing if he knew how happy comments like that made me in a very special and hopeful way. It would be embarrassing if he knew that I was in love with him. “The raven pecked out all her feathers, d
ismembered her, and then only took the bits he wanted.” “That’s a bit cynical,” I say. “That’s nature,” Roar says. “And nature is cynical.” “Uncle Arve found a swallow once,” I say, “that was lying stone dead on its eggs. She’d killed herself brooding.” “Once,” Roar said, interrupting me, pouring himself more whiskey, eyes open wide, “once our kittens were eaten by a tomcat that had managed to sneak into the cellar.” “Yes, because otherwise it was Uncle Arve who bashed them on the head.” And we have to laugh. I look at his hand holding the glass, think that I want it in my hair; his hands are thinner, they’re about to fade into thin air, there’s probably something perverse about me being turned on by them, even now, despite everything, I should be ashamed, they pull a cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket, they put the cigarette between his lips, I want them to leave the cigarette hanging from his lips, want them to bury themselves in my hair, from the neck up. But it’s too late to think that now. We don’t touch each other like that. We hug each other, we kiss each other on the cheek, we nudge each other in the ribs, we pat each other on the back. But we don’t bury our hands in each other’s hair, from the neck up. We don’t stand looking into each other’s eyes without saying anything anymore. Especially not now. That might make us cry. And in any case, we always say something. “Listen,” I say suddenly, “there’s something I have to tell you.” I stop, feel my mouth getting drier and drier. But I have to do it now. “You know in films, how they often sit like we are and dread, dread what they have to say, so they say something else, that they haven’t hung up the washing, or something like that, or they tell each other what they’re dreading saying with a story about a friend.” Roar gives me a dark look. “Do you think that’s what I’ve been doing now, this evening? I said I don’t want to talk about it.” “I know, it’s not that, it’s something else.” “Okay,” Roar says. He waits. I look at him, take a deep breath, and say: “Well, all right. It was that.” Roar shakes his head. “To think that your name means ‘I’ve forgotten to hang up the washing’ in English.” “Yeah, imagine,” I say and laugh a little, saved.
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