And you shook your head; I was terribly dizzy and bent over. Now more shrilly: “I wanted to make out with you!”
Then you shoved my shoulder hard so that I nearly lost my footing.
“Say something!”
I slowly got up. But I couldn’t say anything. I saw your mouth move, quick and hostile, but I couldn’t hear you. Then at last you left. You tripped on a rock. You moved quickly over the white lawn, but then you turned. You stood there a while looking at me. And then, then you made that movement with your hand. And my heart sang. A pile of snow slid down from the roof and landed with a muffled sound next to me. I saw you turn by the linden trees. It occurred to me that maybe you were under the influence, or upset about something. And then again, maybe not. My breath pumped everything out of me. I was freezing. The pale sun was low in the sky, and the sky was white. My heart sang. Your disgusting kiss had postponed death. And your hand had waved me back to life. That’s the way it was, there was no doubt about it. The time of waiting was over. Slowly, slowly. I rose up the same way a turtle moves toward the surface of the water.
THE CAR TRIP
Nikolaj slams the car door, and then they realize that Tobias isn’t in the car. “God damn it,” he says looking at Mia who unfastens her seat belt and gets out. He follows her with his gaze as she walks back to the house, and watches her fumbling with the keys. “When are we going to be there?” asks Signe, and Baby Brother starts to cry. Nikolaj turns and reaches for the pacifier on the floor, but it rolls under the front seat. “Give him the pacifier,” he says to Andreas who’s engrossed in a comic book. “Give it to him right now!” Andreas grudgingly sticks his hand under the seat and grabs the pacifier. Baby B becomes quiet. Nikolaj watches the house impatiently. Then at last Mia comes, pushing Tobias in front of her. The sulking, lanky fifteen-year-old boy looks straight ahead. Nikolaj senses a rustling, like a gust of wind blowing through reeds, as if the reeds are growing inside him. He clenches his teeth and starts the car. Tobias squeezes into the back seat. Andreas says, “He’s sitting on my leg.” Signe says, “Ow! Shit!” “Alright,” says Mia with a stern, decisive tone, “let’s go.”
She looks at the children in the backseat as the car pulls out of the driveway. Signe pushes Andreas, Baby B sucks energetically on both his pacifier and his thumb, and Tobias, who’s put his hood on, presses his head against the window. “We’re going to be late,” says Nikolaj. “Why did you take so long?” “My mother called. She’s still in the hospital.” Mia turns on the radio. “I said we’d stop by on our way home.” Nikolaj isn’t listening to her. He leans forward to see the road better. It’s raining. The windows steam up quickly and they have to open the window a crack even though they’re driving on the highway and Mia’s neck is getting rained on. She passes out candy. Signe says she’s car sick. Andreas says he has to pee. And a little while later: “If you don’t stop now, I’m going to pee on the seat.”
At the gas station Tobias climbs out and lights a cigarette with his back to the car, bending over his phone. By the time they’re ready to go, he’s drenched. “Tobias reeks of smoke,” says Signe, holding her nose. “And wet dog,” says Andreas. “Leave Tobias alone,” says Mia, who’s in an awkward position with one arm reaching into the backseat to give Baby B a bottle. “Can’t Signe do it?” asks Nikolaj. “I don’t want to,” Signe answers. “It’s not about wanting to,” says Nikolaj, and Mia says, “It’s all right. I can do it.” The rain is really coming down now. Big trucks pass them, spraying their windshield with dirty water. “We’ll never make that ferry.” Nikolaj is chomping anxiously on a piece of nicotine gum. “Let’s see,” says Mia. At last, Baby B falls asleep. Mia watches his pale face and the blood vessels that tint his eyelids blue. She rubs her aching arm and hand. Tobias’s phone is constantly making noises. “How come Tobias gets to use his phone in the car and I’m not allowed to?” Signe kicks Nikolaj’s backseat rhythmically. “Why aren’t you answering me?” “Stop kicking your father’s seat,” says Mia. “If he can then I can, too,” says Signe, taking her phone out. Intolerable noises from Signe’s phone mix with noises from Tobias’s. “Stop KICKING, Signe,” Nikolaj says. “Put your phone away,” says Mia. But Signe, who has now stopped kicking continues to play different ringtones. “You’re going to wake up Baby B,” says Mia, turning around so she can grab Signe’s phone. Laughing, Signe lifts it up so she can’t reach it. Mia loosens her seatbelt and twists her body around, she’s practically on her knees, pressing herself between the two front seats. “I can’t see shit when you’re sitting like that,” says Nikolaj. Mia grabs Signe’s arm and wrestles the phone away from her. “Ow! Ow, shit, my fucking arm!” “Watch your mouth.” Mia is sweating. Signe pretends she’s crying. The baby wakes up with a scream. Mia lifts her hand as if she’s going to give Signe a hard slap on the head. “Look what you’ve done! Give him the pacifier, Andreas.” Andreas gives Baby B the pacifier and pats him mechanically on the cheek as he continues reading the comic book. “I want that comic book, it’s my turn,” whines Signe with a tearful voice. “Mom said we had to share it.” “Leave your brothers alone, Signe,” says Mia. “I’m not doing anything! You said yourself we had to share it!” She’s becoming hysterical. Mia gives her a candy. Then it becomes quiet in the backseat, the only sound is Baby B’s wheezing inhalations. “I hope he’s not getting sick,” Mia says to Nikolaj. “He was coughing so much last night.” Nikolaj doesn’t answer. She notices how his jaw works when he chews. Mia presses her cheek against the cold damp window. She listens to the windshield wipers and drifts off a bit. Dreamlike thoughts dart around like restless insects. There’s something with Nikolaj’s hand sliding up in her. Her own mouth that’s sucking on his fingers. A bird landing in a treetop. And there are dark images of herself moving down a long corridor where doors on both sides are banging open, but there’s no one else there, only these empty offices that open when she walks by and the sound of her shoes hitting the shiny floor. “Are you sleeping?” asks Nikolaj. “No, no.” “I don’t think he’s getting sick,” says Nikolaj. And after a brief pause: “When we get there we should make a plan.” “A plan?” “For how we want the vacation to go.” “What do you mean?” “It’s important that we lay down some rules.” “What?” “For the kids.” Nikolaj glances at her. “Yeah, which chores we want them to do, how far they can go alone, and when they need to be home by.” She watches Nikolaj’s profile, and reaches over to touch his hair. He glances at her again. She smiles at him. He puts his hand in her lap, and she puts her hands over his. “Tobias is going to babysit once in awhile so we can have some time to ourselves,” he says in a low voice. “No way,” says Tobias. “I’m leaving on Friday. Niki’s getting back from her vacation, and there’s no way I’m going to rot in that summerhouse.” “Tobias,” says Mia, “we’ve already talked about this, now stop it. Niki’s welcome to join us.” Tobias shakes his head under his hood. He stares at her coldly in the rearview mirror until Mia slides over to the side so that she’s out of his view. “That’s what I’m talking about,” says Nikolaj. “We need to make clear agreements.” “But we’ve already done that,” says Mia. “I want that comic book now. That’s what we agreed on,” shouts Signe, who has apparently finished eating her candy, judging from her long silence. She rips the magazine out of Andreas’s hand and begins kicking the front seat. “I’m hungry,” says Andreas. “I’ll die of starvation if you don’t stop now.”
They can see the ship far out at sea when they drive down to the ferry landing. The rain is letting up, and there’s one hour before the next boat leaves. “We should’ve taken the bridge, that’s what I said,” says Nikolaj. “How much money do we get for candy?” asks Signe. “You said we were going to get money for candy.” Mia gets out. Signe pulls on her coat. “Give us the money!” Nikolaj heads for the bathrooms, and Andreas is nowhere to be found. Mia looks down the long row of cars. She looks over at the waiting room where Nikolaj just opened the door and is walking in. “Where’s Andreas?�
� Tobias shrugs his shoulders. She looks toward the sea. “Where IS he?” She calls out. She yells his name. She runs past the cars. She goes all the way over to the first car in line and then runs to the gangplank connecting the harbor to the ferry. Andreas isn’t there either. She hears the waves hitting hard against the pier and stops, out of breath, to look up and down the coast. There’s no sign of his green windbreaker, or his blonde hair. She now imagines the boy dead, the funeral, her own derangement, and she even starts to imagine how she’ll lose interest in the other children if Andreas is gone. She’ll lose interest in Nikolaj, and won’t be able to live with him or anyone else. The wind rips through her coat and blows her hair in her face. Suddenly a red burning hate for all of them surges through her, then she breaks down and starts crying uncontrollably with strange, ugly sounds that are quickly carried away by the wind. Then she can’t breathe in between the wails, as if the wind is preventing it, and she becomes overwhelmed by an even greater and terrifying anxiety for her own life, her own death. That’s how she’s standing there, swaying with her coat flapping, one hand on her mouth, her eyes wet and wild, when Tobias appears, walking toward her at a very slow pace. He has his hands in his pockets, his hood tied around his face, and the wind fills his oversized pants with air. He looks ridiculous. He stands next to her. Mia is overcome by a new fit of crying. She tries to say Andreas’s name but all that comes out of her mouth is sobs. “Calm down. They found him.” She takes her hand away from her mouth. “Where?!” she screams. “Who knows. He went down to look at some car.” “A car?!” she screams. Tobias gives her a look of contempt. “Yeah. A car.” He pulls his shoulders up and lets them fall, then he turns and begins to walk away from her at the same slow pace as before, back toward the endless row of cars. One last time, Mia looks out across the water. She sighs deeply and rubs her eyes. Then she staggers back after him.
Andreas is sitting in the backseat reading his comic book. He doesn’t react to Mia’s outburst of fury and affection, he turns away when she tries to hold his face, he pulls his arm back when she searches for his hand. Signe is sitting next to him stuffing herself with candy. Nikolaj has taken Baby B out of the car seat and now he’s bent over Nikolaj’s arm, in that heavy snowsuit that makes his body look stuffed and deformed. His arms stick out helplessly, and he babbles with delight when he sees Mia, snot bubbles blowing out his nose. Nikolaj looks at her with a puzzled, tender expression. “Were you crying?” he asks. She sticks her hand into Tobias’s pocket and pulls out his cigarettes. “What the hell are you doing?” says Tobias. She turns her back to the wind and lights it. Nikolaj furrows his brow and takes a step back. “Mom! What are you doing?” Tobias rips the cigarette pack out of her hand. “Mia, what the hell…” says Nikolaj. “We agreed we weren’t going to smoke.” Mia walks over to the waiting room. He shouts after her, “You quit smoking, Mia!” She pulls the door open and sits on a bench. It smells of old, cold smoke. Two young girls are giggling sharing a cigarette. Mia smokes intensely until she becomes nauseated. Then she goes to the bathroom and drinks some water from the tap. In the mirror, her face is puffy from crying, her mascara and eye shadow run down her cheeks, it looks like someone has rubbed ashes all over her face.
Nikolaj has already started the car when she gets back. The children are sitting in their seats. Signe has given Baby B a lollipop, and clearly one of them has farted because it smells like a rotten egg. Mia rolls down her window. No one says a word. Nikolaj looks inquiringly at her, and Mia thinks: All is lost. His face looks sad. He looks as if he’s undone. She puts her hand on his knee. “I’m sorry,” she says, even though that wasn’t what she wanted to say. “You owe me a cigarette,” Tobias says. Signe starts singing the same two lines of a song over and over, and Andreas kicks her in the shin, Baby B grabs Signe’s hair and tries to stick it in his sticky mouth that the lollipop has dyed bright green. Andreas and Signe burst out laughing over Baby B’s green mug. They can’t stop pointing and shrieking, even Tobias can’t hold back a smile.
On the ferry, Andreas and Signe get some money to play the slot machine and, in return, they have to take Baby B to the playroom when they’re done. Tobias disappears with a can of coke and his phone. Mia feeds the baby applesauce from a jar and Nikolaj goes to get coffee. The ferry rocks. After the older children take Baby B, Nikolaj sits down next to Mia. He puts his arm around her and pulls her close to him. “Sweetheart,” he says. And they sit like that for a little while, silent, with the steaming coffee in front of them, watching the crowd of people around them. “What was that about your mother?” asks Nikolaj. “How is she? Better?” Mia nods. The coffee sloshes around in her stomach every time the ferry leans to the side. She’s hungry. Nikolaj looks like he wants to say something else, but suddenly Signe appears with Baby B in her arms. “He pooped in his pants,” she says. “He stinks like shit.” Nikolaj takes the stinky child. She hands him a diaper. She notices how he smiles to Baby B as he walks away, kissing him and saying something in his ear. At first when Tobias sits down at the table she doesn’t recognize him. It’s not until he says something to her that she realizes it’s him. “I’m going home on Friday, Mom. There’s a party at Johannes’s, and anyway, Niki’s coming home.” He’s sitting across from her with both hands flat on the table, leaning forward, and looking her right in the eye. “I’m going whether you give me permission or not. Just so you know. I can stay at Dad’s house.” “He’s in London.” “I have a key.” Mia shakes her head, thinking that it’ll end up with her letting him go, having no idea if it’s the right thing to do. Tobias gets up abruptly and goes off. It’s as if a gust of wind is blowing through the reeds, and the reeds are growing inside her; she holds her breath. Nikolaj comes back and puts Baby B on her lap. “Tobias is going back on Friday,” she says. “That’s exactly what I was saying,” says Nikolaj. “We should’ve just let him stay home.” “But didn’t you say you wanted him to watch the kids at the summerhouse?” Baby B sticks his hand in her mouth, digging into her lips with his small sharp nails. “As long as he’s here, he can just as well help out. Don’t you think?” Mia looks down at the table. Violent hunger, her stomach rumbles. “Honey,” says Nikolaj, removing Baby B’s hand from her mouth. “It’s a good arrangement, don’t you think? He’s with us a few days, and then he goes home. Everyone gets what they want.” Mia looks up, he pushes a lock of hair away from her cheek and tucks it behind her ear. He puts his hand on the back of her neck. Then all of a sudden, he kisses her, his tongue gliding over her teeth, the blood rushes between her legs, she grabs his hair, and Baby B whimpers, he’s getting squished between their bodies as they try to get closer. At that moment, she recognizes Andreas’s loud crying, he’s sprained his left foot jumping off the slide in the playroom and landing wrong.
The car is full of candy wrappers, toys, and empty Coke cans. Tobias is now sitting in the front, and Mia has squeezed herself into the backseat with the children. She sings for Baby B. Signe sings along. Andreas sits between them, pale and silent. Mia strokes his hair. After awhile, Nikolaj and Tobias begin talking. She hears snippets of their conversation in the pauses between the children’s songs, something about a rally that apparently Tobias has been to, something about the EU soccer championship, something about the number of absences Nikolaj had in German class when he was in high school. It’s clearing up, but the sky is still dark in some places, dark gray, dark blue, and deep purple. Mia sings looking out the window. Wet plough marks, and now and then a strip of forest. The road winds through the hilly landscape. She remembers sitting on the bench freezing when she was on vacation at her aunt’s house. She can distinctly feel the goose bumps on her arms, her hair that tasted like snot, and in front of her, there’s a Nutella sandwich with flies landing on it. She’s sitting at a table with a plastic tablecloth, to the right of the cupboard, on that smooth wooden bench, and she pinches herself on the knees and spreads Nutella around on the plate. She sniffs and sucks on her hair, the flies tickle her bare feet, she kicks at
them, and in the background the radio is playing in the kitchen, pots clatter in the sink. And all the while there’s a terror inside her, which her aunt calls homesickness, a very physical longing for her mother’s body: to lean against her legs wrapped in nylon stockings and her hard hip, to reach out and grab hold of her. And mother’s breath is often sour, but she lets her mother breathe on her anyway without turning away, even though it’s so unpleasant, she sits there anyway, close to her large angular body, while she picks at a little sore near mother’s mouth, that’s it, that’s the way it should be, and now her aunt comes into the room, puts her hands on her hips, and asks if she’s really still sitting there playing with her food. Mia slides back and forth between the child’s body on the bench and herself sitting here in the crowded car, where she can’t even move, her wet feet in rubber boots, squeezing Baby B’s pacifier in her hand. And it’s not until Signe shouts, “Mom! Are you even listening to me?” that she opens her hand, allowing the pacifier to fall to the floor of the car, and she stares into Signes’s outraged face, “Holy shit, Mom, you’re so weird. Are you sleeping or what?” “Watch your mouth,” she says sternly. Nikolaj smiles at her in the rearview mirror, she smiles stiffly back.
They stop at a cafeteria in a small town about twenty miles from the summerhouse. Andreas limps and needs help getting up the stairs. Signe bursts out and begins to run around and around on the lawn, shrieking with delight. Nikolaj and Tobias get the food, and Mia tries to give Baby B his milk, but he can’t concentrate on sucking. When they sit down to eat, Nikolaj slides his hand up under her blouse, and she fumbles for his cock under the table. They look at each other. His eyes are blurry, a strong desire rises in her, and he tries to stick his hand down her pants. Then Baby B lets out a cry and hurls himself back in his high chair. He shrieks so loudly that people around them are shocked and turn their heads to see what’s going on, and she gets up, lifts him, and goes outside. He gasps for breath between his earsplitting cries. He flails about wildly. She walks back and forth in front of the cafeteria, rocking him and speaking to him in a soothing voice, but nothing helps. Nikolaj comes out with the bottle, and now they’re both standing there in their thin shirts chilled to the bone as they try to get him to take the bottle. The milk goes down the wrong way and he starts coughing. It looks like he’s choking to death. Mia shakes him. Then he begins to cry again, furious, and with renewed energy. Mia catches sight of the children still sitting at the table in the cafeteria. It looks like Signe and Andreas are fighting over some french fries. Signe hits Andreas on the head. Andreas pulls her ponytail. They tumble to the floor. A man at a nearby table gets up to intervene, while his wife sits there shaking her head in disgust. Nikolaj runs to the car with the screaming baby, and Mia runs up the steps into the cafeteria. The children are still on the floor. Signe is sobbing. Andreas licks ketchup off his fingers. The couple at the next table watch her as she gathers the coats and bags, yells to Tobias, who can’t hear her because of the music blasting in his ears, that they’re leaving. She grabs Signe and Andreas and hustles them out. Andreas whines, “Why are we leaving already? I haven’t finished eating.” “God, take it easy!” yells Signe, jerking her hand free, “I haven’t done anything! What have I done?”
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