The Cold Song

by Linn Ullmann

  When August came along, he tried to explain to Gerda why he didn’t have that many new pages to show her, why he would probably have to ask for a new deadline. Gerda said she would speak to Julian, but Jon sensed that she didn’t really have time to listen to his explanations. Gerda had actually been quite brusque on the phone.

  In October, Jon drove down to Mailund alone—to clean the gutters. He had never cleaned gutters before, but the strangest thing had happened: Irma had called him on his cell to ask if by any chance he had time to come down to Mailund and clean the gutters. Naturally Jon had been surprised that Irma should be calling him about anything. They had never spoken on the phone, or exchanged many words at all, despite having shared a house every summer for years, she living in the basement and he up in the attic, and neither of them needing to have anything to do with the other. But now: the gutters.

  “Why are you calling me about this?” Jon asked.

  “Well, because Ola was here and he said it was time we got the gutters cleaned,” Irma said.

  “Can’t Ola do it?” Jon asked. “Or you, for that matter?”

  “Ola’s too old,” Irma said, “and I’m too big and heavy, I’m afraid of heights. I don’t know anything about gutters.”

  “Well, neither do I,” Jon said.

  “Ola says the gutters are full of leaves and twigs, and something about if they freeze they could burst in the spring when it thaws.”

  Siri said Jon had to go. This was an overture from Jenny and Irma. And such an overture had to be accepted. Siri was afraid that suddenly one day Jenny would be on her deathbed and that she wouldn’t be there.

  “You know … be there for her,” she said. “And it could happen anytime, the way she’s drinking and going on. It’s not like Irma is taking care of her. Not really. And anyway, I should be the one taking care of my mother.”

  So Jon googled “cleaning gutters,” then drove down to Mailund, spent the night in the attic, and cleaned the gutters as well as he could, and since he was there anyway, Irma wondered whether he could do a couple of other little chores. He stayed for three days, but didn’t see much of Jenny or Irma, which suited him fine. He actually wrote a few pages too, in between the odd jobs, and he found himself thinking that it was nice to get away for a little while. Now and again he would get up from his desk and look out the attic window at the meadow, which was covered with frost in the mornings, and sometimes when he did that he thought of Milla. But he didn’t want to think about Milla and he didn’t want to think about the letter he had never gotten around to writing to Milla’s parents and he certainly did not want to think of how he might have been able to save her that evening, had he gone to meet her as she suggested.

  I’ll be around this evening if you feel like getting away from the party and having a glass of wine with me, at the Bellini, maybe?

  On his last evening at Mailund, Jon took a walk with Leopold down the long road to the jetties and the shop. They normally went for a walk in the woods, but Jon wanted to pick up a couple of beers and some peanuts. The evenings were dark now and he and Leopold barely missed bumping into a boy of about ten who came tearing toward them on his bike.

  “Hey, you,” Jon cried. “Watch where you’re going.”

  Simen stopped and looked back.

  “You’re Jon Dreyer,” he said, unfazed by Jon’s attempt at a stern voice. “You’re a writer, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right, yes,” Jon said with a little laugh. “But how did you know that? I don’t expect you read my books?”

  “No, I don’t,” said Simen. “Neither does my father, he tried to read one of your books, but he thought it was boring. My father likes books based on real life. But my mother likes you. She’s read all your books. But it’s a long time since you wrote anything new, my mother says. She’s in this book group in Oslo, with five other women, and I think they once read something by you. She’s talked about you because you stay at Mailund in the summer. You’re kind of like a neighbor, she says. You’re Alma’s father, aren’t you?”

  Jon nodded.

  “Alma used to look after me sometimes when I was younger. That was a long time ago.”

  “Oh, yes,” Jon said. “I think I remember you now.”

  “But you weren’t there this summer,” Simen said.

  “No,” Jon said.

  “That girl Milla, she lived in your house a year ago, when she disappeared?” Simen went on.

  “Yes, she did,” Jon said.

  “Was it because she couldn’t be found? Was that why you weren’t here this summer?”

  “No,” Jon said. “We were here for four days, but then we went back to Oslo to work.”

  He checked himself. He did not have to explain himself to this boy. His cell phone trilled and Jon pulled it out.

  She had so many plans. A.

  “I’m a Liverpool supporter,” Simen said. “Who do you support?”

  Jon stuffed his phone back into his pocket and said, “I’m a Liverpool supporter too, but I haven’t really kept up with them lately.”

  Simen had been cycling around him during this conversation. Round and round and round. His cycling was as effortless as his speech, as instinctive, or more so: The turn of the pedals, the whir of the wheels, the hum of his voice, it was as if, Jon thought, he were actually talking through the bike, breathing through the bike, as if he and the bike were one. Jon walked ahead and Simen and the bike circled around him as they carried on down the road.

  “You must know Irma, too, then,” Simen said.

  Jon confirmed that yes, he did know Irma, seeing that she lived with Jenny at Mailund.

  “She hissed at me once,” Simen said. “I hadn’t done anything wrong, nothing at all. Was just cycling around the way I am now. Wasn’t even anywhere near her with my bike and suddenly she grabbed my handlebars and hissed at me.”

  Simen reached his hand out to Jon and grabbed his arm, opened his mouth and let out a hissing sound, to show him what had happened.

  Jon nodded slowly.

  “I mean, I could have fallen off my bike,” Simen said.

  “Maybe you scared her,” Jon suggested. “Maybe she thought you were going to run into her?”

  Simen shook his head. “No, she didn’t look very scared.”

  Simen and the bike reared up slightly, possibly in an effort to regain Jon’s full attention.

  “Have you noticed that she glows?”

  “Glows?” Jon said. “How do you mean?”

  “That she shines in the dark,” Simen said. “I don’t know how to explain it.” He executed a perfect circle around Jon. “You’re the writer,” he added. “You explain it!”

  “I’ve sometimes thought that she has the face of an angel,” Jon said. “Maybe that’s why she glows, if that’s what she does. I think she looks like the angel Uriel in that painting by Leonardo da Vinci, the one called The Virgin of the Rocks. You’ve heard of Leonardo da Vinci, right?”

  “Irma doesn’t look anything like an angel,” Simen interjected, clearly annoyed with Jon for making such an inaccurate comparison. “I mean, she’s huge. She must be the biggest woman in the world. She’s even taller than Peter Crouch.”

  “Who’s Peter Crouch?” Jon asked.

  Simen slammed on his brakes and stared at Jon.

  “I thought you said you were a Liverpool supporter.”

  “What I said was that I used to root for Liverpool, but that I haven’t really kept up with them lately. Does Peter Crouch play for Liverpool?”

  “No.” Simen sighed. “He’s with the Spurs now, but he used to play for Liverpool. He’s big, he’s red, his feet stick out of the bed. You know?”

  Jon shook his head.

  “He’s REALLY tall. Just like Irma.”

  “Yeah, so you said,” Jon replied. “And you’re right, she is really tall. But I still think she has the face of an angel, and there’s no saying that all angels have to be small and sweet. Like the angels on Christmas trees—�
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  “The point,” said Simen, interrupting, “is that she glows. And I was wondering whether you’d noticed this.”

  “That she has a kind of inner glow, you mean?” Jon asked uncertainly.

  “No, that’s not what I mean,” Simen said. He thought for a moment. “She glows in the dark. I know she does. I saw it. It was like she’d just swallowed a fireball.”

  “Like she’d just swallowed a fireball,” Jon repeated.

  “Yes, exactly,” Simen said. “That’s exactly what it was like.”

  OLD AGE STRUCK quickly. Who would have thought that in the prime of her life Jenny Brodal the bookseller would get sick and then go lose her mind?

  One day in the early spring of 2010, on her way to the hairdresser, Jenny slipped on a patch of ice (or was she, in fact, drunk?) and broke her hip. From then on she was confined to a wheelchair and began to tell the same stories over and over again; people stopped coming to visit her and after a while they also stopped calling. Eventually her wits deserted her and she just sat in her wheelchair or lay in bed, rambling. She wasn’t suffering from dementia, the doctor said, as he endeavored, with a few carefully chosen words, to explain to Siri why, at the age of seventy-six, her mother had become this way. Jenny’s condition was the result of many little aneurisms.

  Irma the giantess appointed herself deathbed nurse and decided that it was time to bolt the doors, shut everyone out, including Siri. The story of Jenny Brodal as helpless old loony was not one to spread around, she said. “Certain stories have to be kept under wraps.”

  Siri stood in the garden, looking up at the big white house. The tall maple tree in the yard had started to rot and whenever it was windy large branches fell off and crashed to the ground.

  “She doesn’t want you here!” Irma said. Then she said it again, more softly: “She doesn’t want you here, Siri.”

  Siri pushed Irma aside and walked into the kitchen. She sank down onto a chair.

  “This is my home too, Irma. She’s my mother.”

  In the middle of the kitchen table Irma had placed a pink baby monitor. It was switched on, crackling. Siri pointed to the device.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s so I can hear her,” Irma replied. “If she needs anything. I carry it around the house with me.”

  Siri nodded.

  “It’s a big house,” Irma added.

  Siri nodded again.

  The baby monitor emitted a wail. It was Jenny squealing. A frail scream.

  “I think I’ll go up and check on her,” Siri said. “I mean, she’s lying there screaming.”

  “Oh, she makes noises all the time,” Irma said. “She can’t figure it out.”

  “What exactly can’t she figure out?”

  “I don’t know. But whatever it is, she can’t seem to figure it out. So she gets frustrated. She doesn’t want to be disturbed, though. And you’re not going up. She doesn’t want to see you.”

  Siri rose from the chair.

  “She doesn’t want to see you, Siri!” Irma repeated. “I promised to keep you out. Go home.”

  Irma marched up the stairs with Siri behind her. That interminable stairway. Irma turned to face her.

  “Go home, Siri. I’m sorry, but you’re not wanted here.”

  Irma opened the door to Jenny’s room and Siri caught a glimpse of her mother in the bed, saw the withered gray hair on the pillow, and then the door was slammed in her face and the key turned on the inside. Siri froze. She should probably have banged on the door, she should have screamed and shouted. She should be in there with her mother, not Irma. But she didn’t scream and she didn’t shout. She turned and walked down the stairs. She’d come back another day.

  SHE DID COME back, once, twice, three times, four times, as often as she could, and gradually she learned the routines that Irma had established. The new rules of the house. At a quarter to one every day Irma lifted Jenny out of her bed. Her old nightdress was pulled over her head, her blue-tinged body was washed with a warm, wet cloth, and afterward she was dressed in a freshly washed nightdress and her regular light blue terry-cloth robe. Then Irma would pick her up and carry her down the stairs, sit her in her wheelchair, and take her into the kitchen. Her wheelchair was parked at the kitchen table and a plate with an omelet on it placed in front of her. Always the same thing: plain omelet, ketchup, and a large glass of red wine.

  “One o’clock is omelet time,” Jenny would say, grinning at Siri.

  Siri wouldn’t give up on being there for her mother, not without a fight. She made the two-hour drive from Oslo as often as she could. It was spring. Alma would be fifteen soon, Liv would be going into second grade in the autumn. Both her restaurants needed attention. There were a thousand things that Siri would rather be doing. But she wouldn’t give up on this. It was always the same story: Irma refusing to let her in and Siri pushing her aside. There was no way Irma was going to take her mother away from her. Several times Siri had made an effort to befriend Irma. On one occasion she baked banana muffins, one of the brunch specialties at the restaurant, and took them down to Mailund. And when Irma opened the door, Siri smiled and said, “Muffins, here!”

  As if the word muffins would make everything all right.

  Siri held out the box of banana muffins. But Irma merely told her she could have saved herself the trouble.

  “Always showing up here, interfering, making a nuisance of yourself, upsetting things. Jenny doesn’t want to see you, and you know why.”

  Siri thrust the box at her and said, “Yes, well I baked them for you and I want to come in. You can’t shut me out. And no—I don’t know why. I think you don’t want to see me. I think you speak for yourself, not my mother.” And then she pushed Irma aside again and strode through to the kitchen.

  Jenny was in her wheelchair, eating. She looked pale and thin. Indistinct, disjointed words dripped from her lips and occasionally bubbles instead of words—as if she were under water, speaking the water language, at long last reunited with the child she loved. Jenny eyed her daughter dully.

  “Are you the lady that’s brought Syver?” she asked.

  “No, Mama. I’m Siri,” Siri said, sitting down at the table.

  Jenny shrugged. “Well,” she said, “are you the lady who’s come to take me to the palace?”

  Siri started to laugh. Irma glared at her. Siri said, “Why are you going to the palace, Mama? Planning to return your medals?”

  Jenny did not reply, instead she began to eat her omelet. She ate slowly, spilling egg down her nightdress. After a little while she pointed her fork at Siri.

  “Want some?”

  Siri shook her head.

  “Ketchup,” Jenny said. “Ever taste ketchup?” She chewed with her mouth open. “Ketchup’s good. Are you sure you don’t want some?”

  Irma had settled herself on a chair by the open window. She lit a cigarette.

  “You shouldn’t be smoking in here,” Siri said. “You know cigarette smoke’s not good for her.”

  “Why don’t you just mind your own business?” Irma retorted.

  “I can’t believe I could have lived for nigh on a hundred years and never tasted ketchup,” Jenny broke in. “Are you quite, quite, quite sure you don’t want a taste?”

  “No, thanks,” Siri said. “And you haven’t lived for nigh on a hundred years. You’re seventy-six.”

  Jenny shook her head, then she lunged at Siri, shoving the fork with the omelet and ketchup into her mouth.

  Siri flinched. The fork stabbed her lip and she caught the taste of blood and the nauseating taste of egg and ketchup.

  “Good, isn’t it?” Jenny said. “I told you it was good.”

  “No thanks, Mama,” Siri said. “I don’t want it.”

  “Have some more,” Jenny said, lunging forward again and pushing another chunk into Siri’s mouth.

  Irma stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and lit another. She looked at Siri and Jenny and laughed.

&nbs
p; “And here’s more,” Jenny said, offering her daughter yet another bite while glancing proudly at Irma.

  IT WAS NEARING the end of April and Siri had carried a chair out to the garden at Mailund and settled herself under the tall, rotten maple tree. Jon was in Oslo. He had called her immediately after his meeting with his editor.

  “Mortifying,” he said, “to hell with her, to hell with that whole bloody publishing house, I’m going to call Erlend at Gyldendal right now, you remember he said I’d always be welcome at Gyldendal.”

  “That was five years ago,” Siri murmured.

  “Jesus Christ, Siri, don’t you start!”

  “All I said was it’s a while since you and Erlend talked about you switching to Gyldendal—and what matters most now is not to switch publishers but to write.”

  “You don’t understand,” Jon said. “You just don’t get it!”

  “So what did Gerda say?” Siri asked.

  She gazed over at her white flower bed. It was dormant still, after the winter. It didn’t shine. It didn’t come surging toward her. She wondered what would happen to Mailund after her mother died. Should she sell it? Or should she and the children and Jon carry on using it as a summer house?

  There was silence at the other end.

  “Jon? Are you there?”

  She thought of how much he had been dreading this meeting with Gerda, dreaded telling her that he was stuck again. Dreaded asking if she could agree to a new deadline and maybe a very small advance—or even a short-term loan. They could no longer manage on the income from the restaurant, their mortgage was astronomical, and this year all of his applications for grants had been turned down. Siri had told him he would have to find other ways of earning money.

  “Jon, what did Gerda say?”

  “Gerda said I would have to work for my living like other people. That I could no longer rely on the publishing house supporting me. She said the book would just have to be published when it was ready, but that they would not be including it on their autumn list. She said: ‘I haven’t seen any new material for a year.’ She said: ‘Face it, Jon. This is it.’ So, anyway. It won’t be September, it won’t be November, I’m no longer a part of the plan. Oh, yeah. And then she had to go. She had a lunch date. And here was me thinking I was her lunch date. And she got up and told me again that it was time to face the truth.”