by Linn Ullmann
And it could have ended there, and everything would have been different, if Siri had not run into him again on a rainy night three weeks later, on the 7. Juni Square, where that selfsame statue of King Haakon VII stood in state, in all its valor. Siri was on her way home from work, it was pouring with rain, water gurgled under her feet, she was frozen to the bone, the chill late-summer rain a relentless herald of autumn. And all of a sudden there he was, standing in front of the statue of King Haakon VII, not looking at all like King Haakon VII. The king himself was quite unaffected by the weather. But Jon, whom she still did not know as Jon, was as wet and cold as a big black dog.
Siri peered at him. She immediately remembered him as the vain, good-looking man whom she had ignored three weeks earlier. The one she had recognized as the sort who thought he could stare all women to him and had put her in mind of the statue he was now standing in front of. Was he waiting for her? Siri did not believe in fateful coincidences, but this really was a fateful coincidence. That she should come upon him here, in the middle of the night, with King Haakon VII as witness. He could not possibly have known that she had thought of this particular statue, thought about him at all (she had ignored him!) when she saw him standing there on the corner of Akersgata and Karl Johans Gate. He could not possibly have known that she walked home this way every night after work. She, unlike the blonde in the elephant miniskirt, was not a woman who fell for tricks—not for staring eyes, not for pathetic pickup lines, not for the notion of fateful coincidences. (The very word—fateful—no, it was too stupid.)
“Hello,” he said.
The 7. Juni Square was deserted. It was almost three o’clock in the morning and the nights were no longer bright. But Siri was not afraid. She never felt afraid in Oslo, this was her city. He had to shout just to make himself heard above the rain. They stood there, on either side of the statue.
“Hello,” he repeated. “Did I scare you?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
He pointed to himself, the soaking wet gabardine coat plastered to his body and said, “His clothes are dirty, but his hands are clean, if you know what I mean.”
She did not know what he meant. And not until long after they were married did she realize that he’d given her a line from a Dylan song.
“Not dirty, but wet,” she said. Siri was a stickler for accuracy, you had to get things right, not fudge facts, she spent a lot of time trying to get things right and was therefore much given to correcting other people too.
“Your clothes aren’t dirty, they’re wet,” she said again and smiled hesitantly. “There is a difference.”
He looked at her first, then he smiled back and walked up to her.
“Absolutely wringing wet,” he said and gently touched her cheek, wiping away a raindrop, “and so are you.”
ALMA DIDN’T GET IT. Her grandmother didn’t want a party. Nobody wanted to have a party. But Siri was turning Mailund upside down. Of course we will have a party.
Jenny was speeding down the road to the jetties in the old Opel with Alma next to her in the passenger seat.
“Slow down Grandma, why don’t you just tell my mother that you don’t want it?”
“Tell your mother …?” Jenny shouted, almost driving into a ditch. “But you see, your mother is very insistent.”
Jenny had brought Alma with her to buy a French novel she had read about in one of those literary journals to which she subscribed, but the girl who worked in the bookshop—the same one that Jenny herself had presided over for so many years—had not heard of it. Nor had she heard of the writer, nor of the literary journal, she obviously did not know who Jenny was and had no idea how to go about ordering a book from abroad. Alma had watched her grandmother get more and more agitated until she finally shouted at the heavily made-up girl.
“Spit out that chewing gum!”
“Wipe off all that black makeup around your eyes!”
“Read a newspaper!”
“Get a life!”
Alma touched her grandmother’s arm and whispered that she would help her order the book on the Internet. It wasn’t difficult. They could do it as soon as they got home. And Jenny had looked at Alma and said it was a good thing there were still some people in this world with a bit of gumption.
Alma walked behind Milla and Liv, and Milla had long dark hair, much longer than Mama’s or Grandma’s. Liv skipped about. The day was finally here—Jenny’s birthday party and everyone, thought Alma, was going crazy. The day before, Siri had picked a long thick strand of hair off the kitchen counter, dangled it before Jon’s eyes as if it were a worm or a slug or a snail, and screamed that she’d had enough. Hairs everywhere, Siri said. In the bathroom. In the kitchen. In the food. Jon asked her to keep her voice down or Milla would hear her, but that made Siri even angrier.
“Her hair in my hair!” she screamed, tugging at her hair.
Alma sat at the kitchen table, drinking tea with hot milk. They did not notice her sitting there.
Every evening Siri made tea with hot milk for Alma, to help her sleep. Soothing tea. She used to have cocoa, but now that she was older she had tea.
Alma had a habit of waking up in the middle of the night and coming in to Siri and Jon, even though she was twelve and too big for that. She didn’t like being in her own bed alone at night, it was horrible to wake up the next morning in the musty adult bed, but more horrible to wake up in the middle of the night alone and scared.
Her mother was round and tender at night, so different from who she was during the day. At night she’d say It’s all right, Alma. Just you sleep here with me.
It was the nightmares that woke her—hence the soothing tea with hot milk in which Siri had great faith.
More often than not Siri was alone in bed when Alma woke in the night and came in. Jon would be asleep in the attic room. Her mother and father pretended that they slept together in the same bed, it mattered to them that everyone in this family at least give the illusion of sleeping in the beds they were supposed to sleep in.
Alma loved to race toward Jon and throw herself into his arms, but she was too big for that too. She saw how he would brace himself to take her in his arms.
“Mind your father’s back,” Siri would shout every time Alma threw herself into his arms.
Twelve years old and things you can do:
You can sit quietly drinking tea while your mother dangles a strand of hair in front of your father’s face and screams.
You can listen to your parents talk about you as if you weren’t there.
You can run really fast into your father’s arms and see him brace himself before he takes you in his arms.
Siri was always being complimented on her hair—and oh how she liked that. She acted as though she didn’t like it or as if she didn’t care, but she did. Siri’s cheeks and nose reddened and her eyes narrowed into slender arcs whenever someone said something nice about her.
Now Siri said, “Go on out and pick some flowers to decorate the tables.”
As if Alma and Liv were her little flower girls.
The meadow and the woods were behind the house. To the front of the house was the big garden and in the garden Irma had set up rows of trestle tables; Jon had helped her suspend two old cotton sails between the trees, in case of rain. Early on the morning of the big day Siri had covered the tables with linen tablecloths that fluttered in the breeze, but some hours later, when it started to drizzle, she ran out, removed the cloths one by one, and hung them around the house, over chairs, doors, the banister, and a little later, when the sun appeared she went back out to the garden in her well-worn, filmy white dress and spread the cloths over the tables once more, then the mist crept in and she removed them again.
Alma and Liv kneeled on the couch in the living room, still in their nightdresses, with their faces pressed against the window. They watched their mother, who could never decide whether to leave the cloths on or not.
“Tablecloth, cover thyself with al
l manner of exquisite dishes,” Alma whispered to Liv, and Liv laughed and wrinkled her nose and said she thought Mama looked pretty out there in the sea of mist, drifting between the tables with all those white cloths swirling around her.
Liv wrinkled her nose when she laughed. She was the only one in the family who did that. And she laughed even more when Alma said, “What shines and shines and never becomes a princess?”
“Don’t know,” she said eagerly. “What?”
“Nope,” said Alma. “Figure it out for yourself.”
Siri and Jon worked constantly during the summer, Siri most of all. Siri knew exactly how much time she would have to spend at work and I can’t really rely on Jon, can I (she would mutter under her breath, just loud enough for everyone to hear), which was why she had insisted on hiring someone to help with the children. Not that they really needed help with looking after Alma, but they did need help with Liv, who had only just turned four. Alma could look after herself. Alma could look after others too. Sometimes she looked after Liv (but only for short spells) and sometimes she looked after a little boy called Simen who lived at the foot of the road, but only occasionally and only for short spells, and this summer Simen was so big that he no longer needed looking after.
The day after her family arrived for the summer, Alma had rung the doorbell of the house where Simen lived. Simen’s mother had opened the door. She wore a little diamond crucifix around her neck and looked very serious, she always did. Simen had once told Alma that his mother called him “little song thrush,” like in the song. She wasn’t sure exactly why. Simen didn’t look like a song thrush, a crow maybe but not a song thrush, and his mother didn’t look like a song thrush either.
“Hi,” Alma said, and came straight to the point. “Maybe I could look after Simen for you this summer.”
But Simen’s mother was shaking her head even before the words were out of Alma’s mouth. Alma wondered why. Did Simen’s mother think she was odd? Sometimes that dark cowlick of hers stuck straight up and then she looked really odd. Or was there something wrong with her voice? Had her voice been too shrill? Had she said something stupid? Should she have gotten the conversation going with a few chatty remarks before coming to the point, said something like: Long time no see, Mrs. Dahl, hard to believe it’s been a whole year, how have you been? Or something like that?
Simen’s mother stood behind the door, which she was clearly keen to close again as soon as possible.
“No, Alma, Simen’s too old to have a babysitter,” she said. “He’s nine now, you know. You’re almost the same age, you two.”
Alma looked at her feet, ran a hand over her bangs.
“No, we’re not,” she said, “I’ll be thirteen soon, actually.”
“Yes, well anyway,” his mother said. “Simen has his friends to hang out with and doesn’t need a babysitter. But thanks for offering. Talk to you soon.”
Alma looked at Simen’s mother.
“Yeah, but will you, though?” she asked.
Simen’s mother was already closing the door on her, now she opened it again.
“Will I what, Alma?”
“Talk to me soon!” Alma said. “Will you? Or was that just something you said?”
Simen’s mother gave a little laugh. It was the first time Alma had ever seen her laugh. She had a nice smile. They looked at each other.
“A bit of both maybe,” Simen’s mother said. “I’m pretty certain I’ll talk to you soon, I mean we are neighbors during the summer and bound to be bumping into each other. But yes, it was also something I just said. Okay?”
The summer before, though, Alma had been paid two hundred kroner to mind Simen for four hours. For the first hour Simen had been at home with Alma, at Mailund. He had thought it great fun to run up and down the big stairway that went from the basement to the attic (and counting the stairs—twenty-seven) where Jon worked. Then they had played dress up in Alma’s room and Alma had brushed his long blond hair and then he had started screaming and protesting like a little girl. After a while Jenny emerged from her room upstairs and told Alma and Simen it was time they went out or found something else to do, she’d had enough of them running up and down the stairs and screaming inside the house, they were getting on her nerves.
Siri was about to leave for work, which meant that Jon would soon have to stop writing in order to take his turn with the children. That was the arrangement the summer before Milla. They split the day between them. Before Siri left she made up a picnic basket for Alma and Simen. Sandwiches, apple cake, and red lemonade. Liv wasn’t allowed to go with them. She was too young.
“Don’t go near the lake,” Siri told Alma.
“No, no,” Alma said. “We know.”
“And take good care of Simen,” Siri said. “Don’t let him wander off, out of your sight.” Then she stroked Simen’s head and said, “Hi, Simen, how are you today?”
“Fine,” Simen mumbled.
Alma rolled her eyes. Her mother always had to interfere.
“I’m the babysitter, you know,” she whispered. “Why are you always interfering?”
So Alma and Simen went off to the woods and ate their picnic by the lake. It was possible to swim there, as long as you watched out for the water lilies, and Alma told Simen about the time when Syver had drowned somewhere around here years ago, and then she tipped her red lemonade into the water. She didn’t like red lemonade. How many times had she told her mother that she didn’t like red lemonade? She only liked the regular kind. Not the red stuff. Red lemonade tasted like puke. But, and Alma said none of this to Simen, her mother didn’t listen. Siri never listened to anything Alma said. Siri probably wished she’d never had Alma. Alma looked out across the lake. Simen sat close beside her and she told him about Syver, and as she went on the story changed into a kind of fairy tale. She liked it that Simen listened to her, that he pressed close against her and listened.
IT WAS IMPERCEPTIBLE and almost painless. The way she divided herself in two, sometimes in four. She was about three or four years old the first time it happened, and she remembered feeling dizzy—as though she had inhaled an invisible gas. After Syver disappeared, she ran through the woods to the lake looking for him, and it was as if one Siri remained standing by that still, water-lilied surface (and never left), while the other went home to get help.
The year before he drowned she said that he wasn’t the only one, just one of many.
“I have lots of sisters and brothers,” she said. They were playing in the yard. “Sometimes we’re invisible and sometimes we’re not.”
“You’re Siri,” Syver cried, “and you don’t have any other sisters and brothers, you have me.”
“But I do,” said Siri. “And we all have different names.”
“You’re Siri,” Syver cried again. He pulled off his gray woolly hat and planted himself in front of her. “You’re Siri and I’m Syver.”
He tried to take her hand, but she shoved him away.
“It’s just us,” he insisted, reaching for her one more time, his voice very quiet, “and we’re the only ones.”
It had to do with her mother’s anger. It was absolutely necessary to divide herself. After a while it became a habit. She didn’t even feel dizzy. It came as a relief, all she had to do was breathe and let the invisible gas do its work.
Jenny’s wrath was so vast and black and impossible to check once it began to build up that it was sometimes best to divide herself and become a whole army. One who kept a lookout. One who fought. One who cried and begged for mercy. One who tried to reason. One who danced and fooled about. One who said sorry. One who brought fruit and comfort and hot tea. One who tried to make everything all right again. And one who ran away but did not get very far.
Her mother’s body was a beautiful and complicated structure, like an empress’s palace. But every week it was attacked—by demons and trolls and a good deal of liquor—and each time it crumbled, everything, all of Jenny, had to be rebuilt. Brick by
brick, plank by plank, nail by nail. It could happen on Monday, or maybe Saturday, or maybe not at all that week, and that was scary, because then there was the waiting and the dreading—Siri knew that sooner or later it would happen. The palace would fall apart. Sometimes, though, Siri would allow herself to relax. She would get sloppy, speak a little too loud, hug her mother’s body a little too tight, barge through the door, muddy the floor.
Forget to tread carefully.
When Jenny was in one of her good moods, she would prepare sumptuous dinners in the huge kitchen. The dining table, which could seat twelve, would be set for two with the best china and crystal, and both Jenny and Siri would put on their prettiest dresses and patent-leather shoes and lipstick and perfume; the freezer was full of ice cream (green pistachio)—as many helpings as you liked for dessert—and Jenny made her special casserole, which consisted of one tin of pork hash, one tin of cocktail sausages, one tin of spaghetti and meatballs in tomato sauce, and one tin of reindeer meatballs, a generous dollop of tomato puree, corn niblets, chives, a chunk of brown goat cheese to give it a nice gamey taste, and a sprig of parsley on the top.
The main thing was not to be sloppy. But Siri kept forgetting. Was not sufficiently alert. That was the problem.
She’d lose sight of the bigger picture.
She’d mess up.
And Syver lay in the water and Siri stood at the water’s edge and Jenny opened the door wide and gazed down wonderingly at the skinny girl standing outside, gasping for breath.
“Oh, Siri, darling,” Jenny said, “what is it? What’s the matter with you?”
And then, more softly, but without the slightest trace of disquiet: “And what have you done with Syver?”