by Linn Ullmann
At that, an elderly woman with eyes as big as saucers turned to look at me and held my gaze. Everyone was singing, but this woman had heard me. I knew because the look she gave me was a stern one, and this so unsettled me that I let out another ahhhh!, this time putting into my voice all the anguish I could muster, in order to persuade her that what she was hearing were the sounds of an old man sobbing over the death of a young woman and not the blissful sighs of an old man easing his aching foot. The strange woman’s eyes promptly softened, and she even smiled a sympathetic smile. Then she nodded, and I nodded, confidentially, sorrowfully, eloquently, as people are wont to nod to one another at times of mourning.
I was sitting well to the back of the chapel. I did not speak to anyone except Amanda, little dark-haired Amanda, with fury in her blue eyes and one arm wrapped protectively around her sister, the quiet one. There weren’t many people there. Martin, of course, and three old women, each uglier than the one before, the least hideous being the lady with whom I had exchanged such eloquent nods. There were other people there, too, but, as I say, not many. The chapel was empty and silent. I thought it odd that not more people had shown up. But perhaps another ceremony was being conducted elsewhere. Perhaps Stella’s friends and workmates were actually somewhere else, in a church maybe, not here with us. I ran an eye over those in attendance: pale unapproachable strangers, not here with us, the dying. In my mind’s eye I saw people bursting with life, a packed flower-bedecked church, eulogies, comforting hands.
I have tried, over the years, to imagine Stella’s day-to-day life. Did she laugh and cry with girlfriends, attend dinner parties, cast her vote at election time, talk on the telephone, read the newspaper, dance until the wee small hours, write letters, go skiing (no, now that I come to think of it, she never went skiing; that I do know), frequent cafés, take part in demonstrations, campaign for—yes, for what?—read books, see films, listen to music? Oh, dear little Stella. My dear Stella.
Once the coffin had been duly lowered into the floor, I slipped my right foot into my shoe, tied the laces, and walked out, more or less erect, into the late-August light. I offered my condolences to Martin, that pompous ass, who did not deserve her. He thanked me and looked away. Finally, I limped off in the sunlight to pick up my old blue Volkswagen Beetle from the repair shop.
That was when it happened. Just as I was getting into the car to drive off after a lot of hemming and hawing, Amanda suddenly whipped open the door on the other side, jumped into the front seat, and said, “Come on, drive! Let’s get out of here!” Her mischievous blue eyes were full of tears, her hair messed up, her cheeks blotched. Over her plum-colored dress she was wearing a long baggy black cardigan.
“But Amanda, dear,” I whispered, “why aren’t you with your family?”
“Drive, Axel!” she screamed.
I started the car and turned out onto the road. The miles don’t exactly fly by when I’m behind the wheel. Amanda sighed under her breath, obviously wishing I would step on it. With what in mind had the child followed me from the crematorium to the repair shop and jumped into the car? That we would drive off a cliff and into the sunset, like a couple of outlaws from the Old West? It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that if you’re going to turn your life into a drama, you need to choose your co-stars with care. An old man with a Volkswagen Beetle was not what she needed right now. Had I been seventy years younger, maybe, and driving an old Ford—but I bit it back. I felt deeply sorry for her, but there was nothing I could do other than drive her to the house on Hamborgveien where she lived. And I was tired. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be alone.
“I don’t have a family,” Amanda said.
“Excuse me?”
“You asked why I wasn’t with my family, and I said, I don’t have a family.”
“You have a sister who needs you,” I said. “You have to be brave now, for Bee’s sake.”
It occurred to me that I was being rather harsh, telling a fifteen-year-old who had just lost her mother that she had to be strong for someone else, even if the other person was younger and weaker than herself. After all, it was true what she said: Amanda had no family, apart from Bee. As far as I knew, Amanda’s father was in Australia—if he was still alive, that is. Stella never talked about him.
“Bee’s too good for this world,” muttered Amanda. “That’s what Mamma said. And now she’s got nobody but the ostrich king—”
“And you, Amanda,” I interrupted.
“I don’t know about that,” she mumbled. “Don’t know about that.”
We drove for a while in silence. At Ullevål Hospital I turned into Sognsveien.
“Are you taking me home now, Axel?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t I come to your place for a while instead? Please? Couldn’t we play cards, or drink cocoa, or do magic, or just have a bit of a chat … about Mamma or whatever? I don’t want to go home!” Her voice was close to breaking. “I don’t want to go home!”
A little girl, a little dark-haired girl, sits in my car, crying and saying she doesn’t want to go home, and there is nothing I can do. I cannot, I don’t know how.
“Not now, Amanda,” I said wearily. “I’m taking you home.”
“Please. I—”
“Not now!”
She’s not mine, I thought to myself. She is not mine.
Stella was mine … my friend. Amanda is not mine.
I drove, and the girl wept, and all I wanted was to get out of this.
“I think he pushed her,” she said, out of nowhere. “The police were at the house all night, talking to him. Martin’s a murderer, just so you know.”
“No, he’s not, Amanda,” I replied despairingly. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you. In cases like this the police always interview the immediate family. It’s … routine.”
She turned and looked at me. Even from where I sat behind the wheel, I could see the look in her eyes, the fury.
“Why couldn’t you have died instead?” she blurted out. “You’re old, you’ve been around for almost a hundred years, you’ve got no children who care about you, you’re tired, worn out, decrepit, you’ve got no guts, and you probably can’t wait to die.”
“You’re right about that, Amanda,” I replied softly, turning into Hamborgveien. “And if it were up to me I’d be only too happy to take Stella’s place.”
I brought the car to a halt outside the house. A garden with a scattering of withering flowers in a bed next to the fence, a lawn that needed cutting, and a flag at half mast. No lights in the windows. There were no plans for any sort of reception after the funeral. Martin’s car was parked on the street outside, so I took it that he was home.
“Is it all right if we say goodbye here, Amanda?”
I had no wish to see her to the door and have to stand there talking to the widower.
Amanda made no move to get out.
I opened the door on my side and squirmed my way out, bumping my head on the rim; I was aching all over—my head, my back, my hip, my right foot. Okay, I thought, now this young lady is getting out whether she likes it or not. I limped around to the other side, opened the door, and said, “Amanda! You’re going to get out of my car this minute, and then I’ll get back in, shut the door, and drive home to my apartment. I am an old man!”
She buried her face in her hands and wept. “I’m so alone, Axel. I’m so awfully alone.”
I cast a glance all around. Wasn’t anyone going to come and help me out here, keep me from having to ring the doorbell and explain the situation to the man in there? No one came. But Amanda stopped crying, pulled her cardigan tight around herself, and got out of the car. She did not say a word, merely sniffed a little. Wiped her face with the back of her hand. She walked up to the house, without looking back.
“Goodbye, Amanda,” I called.
No reply. I saw that slim back, a child’s back, and the new angular hips that would soon be catching men’s eyes
, if they weren’t already.
“This is a difficult time,” I called. “Maybe you could come and see me in a day or so, and I’ll teach you a new trick … or we can just talk, if you like.”
She did not turn around. I saw her stop outside the main door, hunt for something in her cardigan pocket, produce a key, and let herself into the house.
Nothing today has gone as I planned. I did not, for instance, have time to buy my entrecôte of venison or my bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and there’s nothing in the house to eat except half a loaf in the bread bin, a banana, and some instant coffee. Two hours until the evening news. Money Sørensen went home hours ago. She has cleaned and dusted, but in her usual slapdash fashion. There are fingerprints on the mirror in the hall. Next time she comes I’m going to tell her what I think of her. Not that she’s an old hag, I won’t say that. I will be extremely civil, but I will make it quite clear that I feel the time has come for us to go our separate ways.
I fetch a cloth and try to wipe off the fingerprints. For a moment I think I see Stella’s face in the mirror.
“I miss you,” I sniff. “I’m aching all over.”
She looks puzzled.
I shut my eyes. She is still there. Her face, back there, in my mind’s eye.
“I want to be with you,” I whisper. “Come, let me be with you.”
And now what? What about the remainder of this wretched day? First of all I am going to put on my gleaming-white sneakers and walk down to the newsstand manned by the girl with the blank eyes. I am going to say, “You don’t know me, you don’t remember my face, but every morning I buy the same five newspapers from you, as I did today before getting dressed to go to my friend’s funeral. Right now, though, I don’t want any newspapers. What I want is cigarettes. Give me a pack. Doesn’t matter which brand. And to hell with everything and everybody.”
Amanda
I’ve laid myself down on the bed beside Bee. Her red dress was itching, so I took off her funeral clothes and found her a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. Bee’s room has never been fixed up. It’s mostly white—white walls and a wooden floor painted white—not bright white but dingy. The ceiling is blue, but in a lot of places the blue paint has flaked off and underneath the blue it’s red, and under the red it’s yellow. I tell Bee that lots of people have lived in this old house, and in this very room, too. The first person to live here was a lady who painted the ceiling yellow to remind her of the sun.
“Why did she do that?” whispers Bee.
“Because this lady was never allowed to go outside and look at the real sun,” I say. “She was held prisoner by a beast who was in love with her. But then the lady gave birth to a little boy, and he lived in this room with his mother, and together they painted the ceiling red to remind them of” —I had to think for a minute—“to remind them of sugar candy, because sugar candy was the boy’s favorite thing of all.”
“So did the beast let him have sugar candy?”
“No,” I say. “Of course the beast didn’t let the boy have sugar candy, but his mother had been given sugar candy when she was a little girl, and she told the boy all about it. Just listening to her made him long for sugar candy.
“They used to lie side by side in bed, like we’re doing now, before they fell asleep, and while they were lying there she would tell him about the times she had sugar candy when she was a little girl.”
“But who painted the ceiling blue?” asks Bee.
“That was the beast,” I say. “One evening the mother wrapped her arms around her son, got out of bed, and jumped out of that window over there, and they fell and fell without ever hitting the ground. They rounded one world after another and never had to come back here. And the beast was so sad he painted the ceiling blue.”
We are both stretched straight out on the bed. Bee runs her hands down the legs of her sweatpants. She’s breathing softly and steadily, but her eyes are open, full of wonder. Maybe she’ll fall asleep soon. I stroke her cheek gently. Her skin is dry. Mamma used to put cream on her face. Bee would sit perfectly still on the bed, gazing at Mamma. Sometimes she would fling her arms around Mamma’s neck before Mamma had finished putting on the cream. This made Mamma cross. I could tell by the look on her face, but she would stay where she was until Bee let go of her. Bee gives long hard hugs. It’s kind of difficult to break free.
Nobody knows Bee better than me, but there are lots of things I don’t know about. There are lots of things I don’t know about being in charge of children, I mean, because now I’m in charge, and we can’t stay here with the ostrich king. No way. Lots of fifteen-year-olds have children. There’s this girl at school who got pregnant. She had an abortion. I’ve even read about twelve-year-olds who’ve had babies. It happens all the time. Twelve-year-old girls give birth to their babies when they go to the bathroom. Suddenly there’s a plop and there it is: a baby. I wonder what it’s like to stare down into the toilet bowl into those eyes. I think I’d pull the plug fast, flush it away before either of us started crying.
Before, when I was younger, I used to think about things like that a lot. Especially that summer we spent in Värmland— Mamma, Martin, Bee, and me. There we had to use an outhouse. And when I sat there, particularly once darkness had fallen in the evenings, I used to bang my feet on the walls of the outhouse to scare away rats and any other nasty things crawling around down there. The beast has long skinny arms. I was sure that one day I would feel his hands on my behind, that he would curl his fingers round my hips and drag me down into the shit alongside him.
And now Mamma’s been buried. Or, not exactly buried. The coffin disappeared into a hole in the floor, down and down until we couldn’t see it anymore. I didn’t know that was how they did it. There’s this secret hatch that slides open and the coffin disappears. And the minister didn’t so much as blink an eye, not once. It was a bit like the time the plumber and I managed to round the last world and finally found ourselves within striking distance of the king’s palace. A hatch opened in the floor, and we were imprisoned in a castle, but then another hatch opened and we got free. But what about the coffin? Is there a floor underneath the chapel floor and another floor underneath that one? She won’t give in, not Mamma. She’s still falling. She goes on falling and falling even after she reaches the ground. Do you hear me, Bee? Mamma’s still falling. She falls through layer upon layer of fire and earth and sand and roots. I don’t think there’s any bottom.
The plumber didn’t come to the chapel. He said he would be there, but instead he packed his things and left. Pappa wasn’t there either. To be honest, I’m glad he wasn’t. I don’t think Pappa and I would get on very well. I heard Mamma say once that Pappa went to Australia because he wanted to get as far away from her as possible—and Australia was the farthest-away place he could think of. I wasn’t supposed to hear that. Mamma was talking to the old geezer. But the old geezer doesn’t hear what people say, that’s the trouble with him.
Mamma said a lot of things I wasn’t supposed to hear. She would talk and talk: to Martin and to the old geezer. But I have two big ears. I don’t miss much. And one day I’m going to tell Bee all the things I can’t tell her right now.
Axel
When Dr. Isak Skald, my only true friend, insisted that I stop smoking, he did so on the grounds that if I did not it would kill me. This has never struck me as being a decent argument. Nevertheless, I did stop. When I attempted to start smoking again I was prevented from doing so by his widow, Else, that marvelous woman with the hands that could change a man’s life. In any case, the joy was gone. I smoked cigarette after cigarette, but joylessly, so why bother? But if I had gone on smoking, and if Skald’s medical observations were correct, as I have no doubt they were, I would probably be dead by now. I make myself a cup of instant coffee. Half an hour until the evening news. I, Axel Grutt, widely known as Gruesome Grutt the schoolteacher, am still alive. Why do my days on this earth never end? I am nothing but wasted flesh, and yet my heart is sti
ll beating. Is it really just going to go on like this?
Who leads me then to your refreshing rill?
’Tis death so still.
WHEN THIS DAY, Stella’s day, is over, I shall light a candle, or two, or three.
First I will light a candle for my wife, Gerd. Now listen to me, Axel, because this is going to hurt. I can see her now. That yellow sweater. The defiant look in her eyes. The provocative air about her that I was to come across again, years later, in Stella. I have suffered physical afflictions for as long as I can recall. But afflictions of a physical nature were not what Gerd had in mind. That is not what she was talking about.
“So what was she talking about?”