The Cold Song

by Linn Ullmann

  “Yes, but what Jenny wants most of all is to be left alone,” Jon said.

  And now the big day had arrived. That miserable seventy-fifth birthday. Jenny was drunk after having been sober for nearly twenty years. A lifetime. It had certainly felt like a lifetime. Jenny’s speech was slurred when Jon ran into her on the stairs.

  “Good afternoon, Jon,” she said.

  Jon stopped and looked at her. “Jenny, are you drunk?” Jon peered at her.

  “I’ve been sober for more than twenty years. Which is more than can be said for you, is it not?”

  “Well, you do pick your days,” Jon mumbled.

  “Yes,” Jenny said, “that’s right. I do pick my days!”

  He glanced around and lowered his voice. “Does Siri know you’ve been drinking?”

  “I’m seventy-five years old and I do what I like.”

  Jenny ran a hand through her hair and signaled to Jon that she wanted to get past—they were still on the stairs—but Jon stayed her with his hand and stepped right up close to her.

  “I’m going to say this just once, Jenny, so listen,” he whispered.

  She nodded while at the same time trying to push him away. Jon carried on whispering: “Siri has worked very hard to arrange this nice party for you. How about showing a little …”

  He searched his mind for the right word. Consideration? No, that was too much to ask for. Gratitude? No, he refused to resort to emotional blackmail. And, to be fair, it wasn’t as if the old witch had asked to be celebrated. Decency? Maturity? Maternal feeling? He began again, released her arm, and spoke in his normal voice.

  “Jenny, how about pretending that you appreciate what Siri has done? I mean the party and all. It would mean a lot to her.”

  She shook her head and began to walk away.

  “Did you hear what I said, Jenny?”

  Jenny made no reply, but simply continued her descent of the stairs, slowly and with exaggerated dignity.

  The suckling pigs were vacuum-packed and crated. Jon pictured them lying in the supplier’s freezer room in Oslo: pink, bordering on white, their snouts creased in a gentle grin. The skin of their necks and front legs lying in folds like that of a well-fed infant. They were deep-frozen, imported from Spain. Five pigs, 170 kroner per kilo plus VAT, six kilos per pig. Siri got them wholesale.

  “Okay, we’ll have them some other time,” Siri said, having either changed her mind at the last minute or succumbed to pressure.

  Because nobody wanted those suckling pigs. Alma had googled “suckling pigs” and found pictures of whole pigs burning on barbecues; she had begun wailing, and did not stop until Jenny took her to the beach for a swim. Irma had muttered something about the slaughter of animals and cannibalism and disappeared into the basement. So now, instead of the pigs, Siri was in the kitchen putting the finishing touches to a menu that she had no heart for: scampi, chicken skewers, meatballs, salads, and other stupid fiddly finger food. Happy now, everybody?

  Days, no, weeks before the birthday, Jon had done everything he could to talk Siri out of the suckling pigs idea. He had done all he could to talk her out of the party. Jenny didn’t want it! No one wanted it! He had sat his wife down on their bed, kneeled in front of her, and taken her hands in his.

  “Why are you arranging this party, really?”

  “Well, who else is going to do it?” Siri said. “Her birthday has to be celebrated.”

  “Yeah, but does it really?”

  “Of course it does!” Siri looked at him. “Why are you bringing this up now?”

  “She won’t thank you for it, you know.”

  Siri stood up, her voice shrill: “Come on, Jon. I’m organizing a party for my mother, both you and I know that deep down she’ll be happy about it, she loves the attention, she’s already decided what dress she’s going to wear, this is my present to her, it’s as simple as that. And now here you are, doubting my motives, insinuating that I’m, I don’t know, crazy or something, stupid little Siri, throwing this big party for her mother. Well, to hell with you!”

  “Would you listen to yourself?” he said. “You’re getting so wrapped up in this, it’s like I’m losing you.”

  “You’re losing me …” Siri gasped. “You’re losing me? You’re the one who’s lost, Jon, you’re the one who’s never around, out with the dog, out buying bread and milk, out, out, out, and concocting some crappy theory about me and my mother and this whole fucking party …?”

  Jon took a deep breath. “It’s getting totally out of hand, Siri.” He waved his arm. “This … all this … this whole celebration, it’s tearing you apart. She doesn’t want it, I’m telling you, she doesn’t want it!”

  He put his arms around her. She tried to wriggle free, but he would not let her go.

  “Let me go, Jon,” she said.

  He held on to her, tried to rock her back and forth, whispered, “Why don’t you sit here with me? Just for five minutes. Don’t say anything. Just let me hold you.” He laid his head on her breast, whispered, “Stay with me.”

  Sometimes he could get through to her like this.

  “Come back, Siri.”

  But not this time apparently. She wrenched herself free, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and pulled, screaming, “Let me go!”

  He just had time to remember the pain of hair being yanked before he slapped her face. She hit him back.

  And at that moment he could have killed her. “I hate you,” she screamed, and he yelled “No” and hit her and held on to her and pushed her away and he would never, never, never be able to beat his way out of her, into her, and she shouted “I hate you” and all he could say was “No, no, no.” So he shouted it out loud, howled “No, no, no,” held on to her until suddenly, without any effort, she wrenched herself free of his grasp, his arms seemed to wither, she simply broke free, as if everything had grown withered and weak, he didn’t know what to do with his arms, or his hands, and she got up off the bed and shook herself (the way Leopold did after he’d been swimming) and took a deep breath.

  Her cheeks went scarlet when they fought like this. It wasn’t the blows that turned them red. He hadn’t hit her hard. She had hit harder. But he was afraid that one day he would hit too hard. He was not a man who hit women. But he was afraid that one day he would strike Siri and the blow would be irrevocable. But the red flush was not brought on by the blows. Her cheeks always turned scarlet when she got angry like this, looking as though she had clawed her face.

  “You haven’t lifted a finger, Jon, to help me with this party.” She was shaking. “This party that I’m arranging while at the same time working at the restaurant. Would you like to know how it’s going? Are you interested? Have you actually worked lately? Or do you just sit there staring at your phone? Taking walks with the dog. And guess who was up most of last night, after coming home late from work, paying the bills? Are you at all aware that we receive bills, and that they get paid?” And then, in a perfectly normal voice, she added: “A life without you, Jon. I dream about it, you know. A life without you and those cold hands of yours.”

  He had done everything he could to talk her out of it, but it did no good, and now the dreaded day had arrived. Jon looked out the window.

  He peered down at Alma, Liv, and Milla out there picking flowers for the trestle tables. More than once Milla turned around and seemed to look straight at him; he closed his eyes, did not want to meet her gaze, even though he knew, of course, that there was no way that she, so far below and so far away, could see him standing there. And yet maybe she did know after all. He had mentioned to her that sometimes, when he could not bring himself to sit still in front of his computer, he would stand at the attic window and look out across the meadow and the woods.

  But then he looked at his daughters and felt like crying.

  He had messed everything up, hadn’t he?

  JON RETURNED TO his desk, but the image of the girls in the grass stayed with him. He thought of Alma, remembering her birth
day. What was it, he wondered, about the Brodal women and their birthdays?

  When Alma turned eleven, Siri and Jon invited all of the girls in her class to a party—and almost all of them said they would come. The day before the party Jon took Alma into town to buy her a birthday outfit. Alma was small and chubby and together they settled on a skirt and blouse in the same shimmery silver fabric. They also bought shoes. And had scones and cocoa at a coffee shop. Then they went to the hairdresser to have Alma’s short black hair trimmed.

  “Maybe you could feather the edges around her face,” Jon whispered to the young female hairdresser. He studied his daughter in the salon mirror. “Soften it up around your face so you don’t look so gruff. Don’t you think?”

  Jon smiled lamely, patted Alma’s cheek, and went off to sit by the door, where he found a woman’s magazine to hide behind.

  Why wasn’t Siri doing this? Taking her daughter clothes shopping, getting her a hair cut? Because she was working, yes. Earning money. Paying the bills. And he wasn’t working. His book, his volume number three, his grand finale, was no longer considered work.

  He looked at his computer screen.

  Today he had written the following: Note to self: Must elaborate.

  When the girls from Alma’s class began to arrive for the party, Alma ran up to her room, got into her bed, and hid under her blanket. Jon followed her, sat on the edge of her bed, and told her, as gently as he could, that her guests had arrived, that they had brought presents, that Alma really did have to come down now. Reluctantly she followed her father downstairs to the living room where eleven girls were waiting for her.

  The sound of high-pitched voices, giggling, and squeals of excitement had filled the house, but silence fell when Alma walked into the living room with Jon right behind her.

  The eleven girls looked at Alma, Alma looked at the eleven girls.

  Jon thought they looked like two armies facing each other across a plain, with Alma the only soldier in her regiment.

  But then the silence was broken.

  “Hi, Alma,” said one of the girls.

  “Hi, Alma, happy birthday,” said a second.

  “You’re hair’s really nice,” said a third.

  “Aren’t you going to open your presents?” said a fourth.

  “I like your silver skirt,” said a fifth.

  The group of girls broke up and flocked together again—this time around Alma. They patted her, they hugged her; suddenly, for a moment, she was their chosen one, their best beloved, they could not get enough of her. It reminded Jon of the day when he had gone to pick up Alma from school and had taken their puppy, Leopold, into the schoolyard and how he had been besieged on all sides by small, avid, affectionate, pleading little girls, all wanting to stroke the dog’s fluffy coat with their soft, eager little hands, he remembered the girlish mouths, so much tender skin at one time, a choir of piping voices: Oh he’s so cute! Can I pet him, please? His ears are so soft!

  All the girls in Alma’s class were at least a head taller than Alma, most of them had shoulder-length or long hair adorned with beads and clasps, and now here was Jon’s daughter, in the living room, surrounded by them, Alma with her pitch-black hair and shining eyes, engulfed by them.

  She had deigned to be petted, had offered no resistance, had made no faces, she had opened her presents (four books, a board game, a hairdressing set, lip gloss, sparkly tights, a blue short-sleeved top, a glass-bead necklace, a bracelet) and given each and every girl a polite thank-you hug. Siri whispered to Jon, “I think Alma’s enjoying herself,” and Jon had nodded, but he could not tear himself away from his daughter’s eyes, burning.

  After an hour the birthday girl and her guests took their seats at the long, festively decorated dining-room table to continue celebrating Alma’s special day with pizza, lemonade, and cake. Siri and Jon worked their way slowly around the table, pouring lemonade into paper cups and helping to lift slices of pizza onto paper plates. The girls were all babbling and chattering, all except Alma, who sat quietly watching her guests.

  They were now oblivious to her. She was no longer their best beloved. They no longer loved her shimmering silver skirt, or her short black hair with its new bangs, or her eyes, burning. The birthday party was almost over, after the pizza there might be some dancing and then everybody would be presented with a goody bag and home they would go. The guests had done what their parents had asked them to do: They had gone to Alma’s birthday party and they had been nice! It had gone well.

  Yes, we had a great time.

  Yes, yes, we had pizza.

  And yes, Alma liked her present.

  But then Alma got up from her chair and put her arms in the air. Her cheeks were red, her eyes burning. All the girls stopped talking and stared at her.

  “Look, Papa!” she cried. Her body was trembling, tears spilled from her eyes.

  Siri dropped what she had in her hands (a slice of pizza, a yellow paper napkin) and started to run around the table, Jon got to her first and caught Alma in his arms as she collapsed onto the floor.

  “Alma, darling. What’s wrong?”

  Alma looked up at her father, eyes brimming with tears, and laughed. “I know everything’s going to be okay now. I’m so happy.”

  Alma flung her arms around her father’s neck and he sat down on the floor with his daughter in his arms. Siri stood over them, but what was she supposed to do with her hands? There was silence. Eleven speechless, big-eyed girls waited to be told what to do. Jon looked at Siri and saw his own despair reflected in her eyes. Alma clung tightly to her father, laughing loudly against his chest. Her laughter was full of light. Jon felt her breath on his skin, through the thin fabric of his shirt.

  He nodded to Siri, Straighten up, see to the girls, you have to say something. Say something, for God’s sake, Siri, do something, don’t just stand there!

  Siri straightened up and looked at the girls—soft hair, soft skin, soft voices. She forced herself to smile, although Jon could see that all she really wanted to do was put her hands over her ears, as if she were just a little girl herself.

  She looked at the girls.

  “Alma …” she began helplessly, spreading her arms. “Alma isn’t feeling … well.”

  The girls stared at Alma lying on the floor in her father’s lap.

  Then one of them said, “But if Alma’s not feeling well, why is she laughing?”

  AND AGAIN HE looked at the screen. Note to self: Must elaborate!

  Fuck that!

  Then he wrote: I love my family. I am an asshole. I will never finish this book.

  He got up from his chair for the fiftieth time that morning. He was more restless than usual today, dreading the party. The large majority of the guests were old, many in their eighties, one or two past ninety. The thought of these very old people coming here to dance with cobwebs in their hair, and of Jenny there on the stairs, quite clearly drunk, of himself as a dead man in a swimming pool (not that there was a swimming pool in the garden at Mailund, but this is how he imagined his life at the moment), reminded him of Sunset Boulevard, which he had made up his mind to see again as soon as possible, and the thought of this cheered him up. He and Siri could watch it together.

  Jon logged on to Amazon and ordered Sunset Boulevard to be sent express, it cost three hundred kroner extra, but that way he would have the film in just two days. He envisaged his wife, her asymmetric form, her slender bones, her white filmy dress, tablecloths billowing around her.

  Did she know that Jenny was drinking in her room?

  He didn’t have the heart to tell her. Or maybe he just couldn’t get up the courage. As far as this party was concerned, he had no fight left in him.

  Leopold got up and put his paw in Jon’s lap. It was Siri who had wanted a dog. He hadn’t wanted a dog. But now they had a dog and he was the one who took care of it. And even as he felt his annoyance at this rising (he hadn’t wanted a dog, had put his foot down, had said “I think we should
wait,” yet now the dog was his responsibility, no one else bothered with it, why was that?) a text message from Karoline chimed in on his cell phone: What are you doing?

  Without hesitation he replied: Thinking of you.

  Which was not exactly true. He wasn’t thinking of Karoline at all. But that was probably what she wanted to hear.

  He put down the phone and looked at the computer screen: Must elaborate!

  Then another message came in. He picked up the phone. It was her again: That’s nice to know, and kind of wistful too.

  What the hell did that mean? What was nice and kind of wistful too? Jon clicked on MESSAGES SENT. There it was: Thinking of you.

  Oh yes, right. He had written that he was thinking of her and she thought that was nice and kind of wistful. Because they were both married? Because the world could never know about their romance? Darling Karoline! Wistful? Really? He laughed. Leopold raised his head and looked at him. What kind of a laugh was that? Jon wasted no time in deleting his messages, both the messages in his INBOX and those under MESSAGES SENT, and he remembered to delete the ones in the DELETED MESSAGES box too. He knew that Siri read his e-mails and also the texts on his phone, so he never forgot to delete the DELETED MESSAGES, although it felt equally pointless every time.

  The whole idea behind deleting a message was to actually delete it, no? Not to assign it to another box, or file, or whatever, called DELETED MESSAGES.

  Because your message was not, in fact, deleted if you pressed DELETE. It was simply reassigned to DELETED MESSAGES. It was not deleted, effectively and decidedly deleted, as in gone, until you clicked on DELETED MESSAGES and answered the question: Are you sure you want to delete this message?

  Jon liked the idea that she, Karoline, had a summer house just down the road. He liked that they could run into each other at any time and that he could run his hand down the inside of her thigh whenever he felt like it and under anyone’s nose. He liked that he could take the dog for a walk or go to the store for some milk or bread and she’d be there. He could just send her a text. It was so easy. She was so close. Just down the street. Nobody had to know. It was right there in front of them—his wife, her husband—but nobody had to know. Difficult romances were overrated. To Jon, Karoline represented the thrill of convenience. She was always available and nobody had to find out.