Encircling 2

by Carl Frode Tiller

  “Ole,” Helen says again. “You can’t let her talk to me like that.”

  “Maybe he agrees with me,” Mom says. “Maybe that’s why he let’s me talk to you like that. Did that ever occur to you?” she asks.

  There’s silence for a few moments and then Helen seems to slip away from me. She just stands there waiting for me to say something and the more time that passes without me saying anything, the more convinced she’ll be that I agree with Mom. If I just go on sitting here saying nothing I’m as good as telling her it’s over, I know I am, and desperation grows inside me. A moment passes and then I start to rub the sides of my head with the palms of my hands, rub and rub, harder and harder, hear the chafing of hair against my scalp. I keep this up for a few seconds and then I abruptly stop.

  “No, that’s not why I’m not saying anything,” I burst out, and then I pause. “I’m not saying anything because I’m a fucking wimp, that’s why,” I say, suddenly raising my voice. I almost jump out of my skin at the sound of my own voice. “I’m a coward, I’ll do anything to avoid conflict, I’m scared and insecure,” I go on, my voice loud and angry, I scarcely knew I had that voice in me and it almost seems to give me some of the confidence I’m claiming not to have. “And it’s you who’s made me like this, Mom,” I say, and I raise my eyes and look at her, pause, feel myself getting worked up. “Helen’s right—you’re too critical, you’re always criticizing me and lecturing me,” I say, “you’ve been doing it ever since I was a little boy,” I go on, “picking on me for the slightest thing. If I’d been good enough to wash the dishes for you, I’d be told that I might at least have dried them while I was at it. If I brought you breakfast in bed, I’d always cut the bread too thick or put too much butter on it, and when I came home with something I’d made at school I’d be told that it was nice, but it would have been even nicer if I’d only done this or that. Even when things were good they were never good enough,” I say. I look at her, don’t quite know why I’m coming out with all this right now, I’m not sure where it’s all coming from, it just comes out, and one word leads to another, and I’m getting more and more worked up, getting carried away. “And you were always telling me how scrawny and weak and namby-pamby I was,” I go on, letting it all pour out of me. “You signed me up for the football team even though you knew I hated football and was terrified of the ball,” I say. “You put way too much food on my plate and refused to let me leave the table until I’d eaten it all up, because I was skinny as a Biafra baby, you said. Even when we had visitors you’d say things like that, you were never happy with me the way I was, you bought me cars and tractors and excavators for my birthdays even though you knew I hated playing with them,” I say and then I pause.

  I shoot a glance at Helen. She’s standing with her hands on her hips, glaring at Mom, crowing over her, everything about her saying that she agrees with me and that we’re on the attack now. I turn and look Mom again, getting more and more worked up, she’s close to tears now, I can tell.

  “And you … you’re still exactly the same,” I continue, not backing down. “When I finally find myself a girlfriend, she’s not good enough for you. You made it quite clear from day one that you didn’t like Helen,” I say. “And the farm … when you and Dad were running the farm it was barely ticking over. If I hadn’t reorganized things it would all have been in somebody else’s hands now,” I say. “And yet all I get is complaints. The fact that I’ve sold off part of the land as plots for vacation cottages, that I’ve leased out some of the fields and gone in for fish farming—that too is all terrible, according to you. I’ve saved the family farm from going bankrupt and having to be sold, Mom, but you try to make me believe that I’ve done the exact opposite. Nothing I’ve done is right, the … the way you talk anyone would think I’d destroyed your life’s work, yours and Dad’s, and I’m sick of it,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Helen says with a sharp intake of breath, as if to say she couldn’t agree more with everything I’m saying. She’s still standing there with her hands on her hips, standing there gloating. I turn and look at Mom again, see how much this hurts her, her eyes are glistening, she’s struggling to hold back the tears. After a moment or two I feel the guilt welling up. I can’t do this to her, it’s not even true, although it wasn’t all off the top of my head either, of course. I mean, when she was ill she might have been the way I’ve just described her; back then she probably was as full of reproach and accusations as I just said, especially right before she went into hospital, in fact she was probably a good deal worse. But before that she was a good mother and after that too she was a good mother. I can’t go reducing my mom to nothing but the person she was when she was ill, that’s not right of me, it’s not right at all, but that’s what I’m doing, maybe because I need to. Yes, maybe I’m taking advantage of this situation to have it out with the person she was when she was ill, maybe I’m taking this opportunity to give vent to all the anger and the hurt that’s been pent up inside me and that must stem from that time; all the sludge and the slag that I’ve done my best to suppress and forget and that we’ve never spoken about; maybe I’m simply taking advantage of this situation to get it all out of my system, maybe that’s why I’m lashing out at Mom like this; it’s as likely an explanation as me siding with Helen because I’m scared of losing her and Daniel.

  “I’ve never been the person you wanted me to be,” I continue. “You say you love me, but it’s not true, I’ve never been the son you would have liked,” I say and then I pause because it suddenly strikes me that I’m saying exactly what Helen said to me only minutes ago. You don’t really love me, that’s what Helen just told me. It’s not me you love, she told me, saying exactly the same thing to me as I’m saying to Mom now. Helen might almost be speaking through me. A moment, and then Mom starts to cry. She looks at the floor, takes off her glasses and wipes her eyes, but this won’t do, I don’t want this, I don’t want to say what I’m saying, but I’m saying it anyway. I just have to get it out of my system, it spills out of me. “I’ve never been good enough for you, Mom, so I could never like myself either,” I say. “You’ve made me the wimp I am. You destroyed my self-confidence, you’ve made me insecure and afraid of conflict and … and,” I say, pause, and then: “That’s your way of controlling me,” I say, “you’ve always done your best to make me feel as small as possible, you’ve always done all you could to dominate and control me by making me think I’m useless, so useless that I’m totally dependent on you,” I say, and yet again it strikes me that I’m saying much the same as Helen has just said to me. Just as she said I tried to control her by turning her into a poor pathetic creature, totally dependent on me, I’m telling Mom that she tries to control me by making me feel small and dependent on her. I’m simply repeating what Helen has just said, everything she accused me of I’m now transferring on to Mom, it’s almost as if she’s speaking through me, almost as if she’s a ventriloquist and I’m her dummy, almost as if she has taken control of me.

  “But there’ll be no more of that, we’re not going to put up with being pushed around any longer,” Helen says.

  I look at her. She’s standing there with her hands on her hips eyeing Mom triumphantly. She’s used me to break Mom and now she’s crowing over her. I stare at her and I feel a wave of anger rise up in me. It takes a moment, but then Helen notices that I’m staring at her, she frowns slightly and gives me a puzzled look, probably wondering why I’m suddenly looking like her like that.

  “You fucking ventriloquist,” I burst out.

  “What?”

  I look straight at her and I see how confused she is, she has no idea what I’m talking about, which isn’t so surprising, really, it sounds as though I’m talking nonsense, it sounds as though I’m losing my mind and now I’ll have to explain what I mean. I stare at the floor and put my hand on the back of my neck, stand like this for a moment or two then look up at her again. I open my mouth, about to explain what I mean, but nothing comes out, I don�
��t say a word, I can’t say a word, there’s so much, such an awful lot, where would I start? I’m not up to it, I don’t have the energy to explain or discuss what I meant, not right now. I glance across at Mom, she looks every bit as confused as Helen, she’s just as nonplussed by what I’ve said, stands there with her glasses in her hand, eyeing me gravely and Helen eyes me gravely and I feel desperation tearing at my guts, all the anger has drained out of me and I feel nothing but despair and bewilderment, I feel so powerless. I put my hands to my head and then all at once I start to cry again, I don’t want to cry, but I can’t help it, it simply happens and yet again I’m showing what a wimp I am. For once they see me lose my temper and then only seconds later I back down and dissolve into tears again. I gaze at the floor and then Mom comes into the bathroom and over to me.

  “Come on, Ole,” she says, her voice heavy with sympathy, then she puts her hand on my shoulder and draws me to her.

  Silence.

  “I know what you’re up to, Helen,” Mom says. “But it’ll be a long, long while yet before the ‘cripple’ and I move into the care home,” she adds, a note of sarcasm in her voice as she says the word “cripple.”

  Silence again.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Helen mutters under her breath.

  “From the day you moved in you’ve been out to get us, but we’re not leaving here and you can’t make us,” Mom goes on. “Even if you did succeed in your divide-and-rule strategy, even if you did manage to turn Ole against us, you still wouldn’t be able to kick us out. Because we’ve got a legal right to stay on the farm, we made sure of that when we signed the deeds over to Ole, so no matter what you do, we’re staying put.”

  “Ah, so it’s you who’s been reading my diary,” Helen says.

  A jolt runs through me at her words. I feel my mouth drop open, I don’t raise my eyes, just sit here open-mouthed, staring at the floor.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Helen says again. “You’re even sicker than I fucking thought … you … have you been sneaking into our bedroom when we weren’t home … and reading my diary?” Her voice rises steadily as she speaks, she starts out softly and shrieks out the last word. “Ole,” she shrieks. “Ole … wake up, for fuck’s sake, this is downright sick,” she shrieks. “Your mother’s sick in the head, Ole.”

  I still don’t raise my eyes. I shut my mouth, swallow and give my head a little shake, because if it wasn’t Jørgen who read her diary then it must have been Mom. Is this really possible? It reminds me of how she used to carry on just before Dad had her admitted to hospital. Going into our bedroom and reading Helen’s diary, it reminds me of the time when she tried to spy on Dad and keep tabs on him, and maybe Helen’s right, maybe Mom is falling ill again. Last time she was convinced that Dad wanted rid of her, now she’s convinced that Helen wants rid of her and in both cases she starts spying on and keeping tabs on the person concerned. And then there’s all the work she’s been doing, it occurs to me, the way she’s been racing around like the Duracell bunny recently, as Helen says, that too reminds me of what she was like when she was ill, although she’s always liked to work, it’s true, but lately she’s been going way over the score. There’s no getting away from it, she’s been far too hard on herself, exactly the way she was when she started to lose it last time. Back then, too, she tried to keep her illness at bay by taking refuge in work.

  “You fucking psycho,” Helen says.

  “You never stop. You do everything you can to turn Ole against me,” Mom says. “You even have the cheek to play on the fact that I once had a mental breakdown,” she says, and she stops for a moment. Then: “Ole,” she says, and she takes me by the shoulders, gives me a little shake. “Listen to me, this is important. I went into your bedroom to fetch Daniel’s pacifier, you’d forgotten to bring it with him when I was going to mind him three days ago and he was crying and crying, so I had to go and get it. I didn’t sneak in there to read Helen’s diary,” she says, “of course I didn’t. But it was lying open on the bedside table and the pacifier was lying on top of it. I couldn’t avoid reading a few words, and when I saw that it was about me and ‘the cripple’ as Helen calls him, I couldn’t help reading a bit more. I shouldn’t have done it, and I apologize, but … well, if nothing else it confirmed a lot of my suspicions and fears about the way Helen sees us,” she says, stroking my shoulder. And still I sit here staring at the floor, growing more and more confused and feeling more and more desperate. I don’t know who to believe, I don’t know what to believe, I can’t take this any longer. I feel my eyes filling up again, the tears start to pour down and my body is suddenly shaken by two shuddering sobs.

  “Oh no, Ole, Ole pet,” Mom sighs and she pulls me to her, tries to comfort me, but I don’t want to be comforted, not by Mom and certainly not by her instead of Helen. I don’t want to be this wimp who runs crying to his mommy the minute things get difficult, but she presses my head against her stomach, I try to resist, but she’s determined, she clamps me to her and I feel how I seem to shrink and become a little boy again, this is exactly what I was saying to her a minute ago and I was right, she makes me feel small, she turns me into that little boy who’s totally dependent on her and whom she can boss around. She’s doing much the same as she did that time when she was ill, so maybe she is losing it again. The moments pass and I feel anger welling up in me again.

  “Stop it,” I say, brushing her hands away. I straighten up and stare furiously at her. “You are sick,” I shout. “You really are,” I shout and yet again I hear Helen speaking through me. Helen has managed to convince me that Mom is sick in the head and now I’m shouting it at her. It’s true what I said about Helen too: she is a ventriloquist and I’m her dummy, she actually does speak through me, she steers and controls me, and Mom steers and controls me, the one’s as bad as the other, there’s nothing to choose between them. And maybe that’s why I’m with Helen, maybe I’ve found myself a mother substitute, maybe it’s as ridiculously simple as that. I stare at the floor, put my hand to the back of my neck again. Desperation grows and grows inside me. I have to get away from here, I can’t stay here any longer, a moment goes by and then I stand up and start to walk away. I hear Helen call after me, calling my name, but I just keep walking, walking quickly, down the hallway, across the front hall and out into the sun, take the steps two at a time and march off across the yard.

  “Uh, hey,” I hear someone say. I turn and there’s Jørgen, hunched over a rucksack with a yellow sleeping bag strapped under the flap. “Got invited to this festival, so I can’t start work on Monday after all,” he says.

  Silence.

  I just stand there staring at him. He doesn’t ask if it’s okay by me that he won’t be able to work, let alone ask if he can go to this festival, he simply tells me that he won’t be showing up for work after all. We had a deal, but he doesn’t give a damn about that, acts like there was no deal, like it doesn’t exist, acts like I don’t exist. I stand there staring at him for a moment or two and then something starts to rise up inside me, all the stuff that’s been building up lately, all the frustration, all the vexation and fear, all the anger, it all comes together into one great tearing rage and I start to walk towards him. He straightens up and looks at me, seeming a little unsure now, he tries to keep his cool, but he can’t, he stares at my face and the tough guy image seems to evaporate.

  “Whoa, chill out, dude,” he says.

  I don’t say a word, I walk straight up to him, clench my right fist and punch him smack in the face, punch him as hard as I can, feel the sharp edge of his cheekbone against my knuckles, he gives a little grunt and I see his head jerk to one side. He staggers back onto his right foot, struggling to stay upright, but he can’t, he topples backwards, his rear end hitting the dirt a split second before his head strikes one of the stones edging the flowerbed, strikes it hard. And then he just lies there, perfectly still, just lies there, bleeding, and I don’t take my eyes off him, I watch the blood spread slowly over the round
stone in the flowerbed, his head is bleeding and he’s not moving and I just stand here staring at him. After a moment he stirs, opens his eyes then closes them, opens them again, lifts his head off the stone and eases himself up onto his elbow.

  “What the fuck?” he mumbles, looking dazed.

  A moment passes and suddenly it feels as though a cold hand curls itself around the back of my neck, I feel my neck turn clammy with fear: what have I done, oh God, what have I done? I put my hands to my head, shut my eyes and stand like that, just stand there, feeling the fear well up in my throat, feeling sick with fear, because that’s it, I’ve lost Daniel. Helen’s going to leave and she’ll take Daniel with her, I know she will, she’s going to demand sole custody of Daniel and she’ll get it too, nobody’s going to consider me fit to take care of Daniel after this. I might even be denied visitation rights after this, oh God, what have I done.

  Suddenly I hear someone say: “Ole.” I open my eyes and see Helen. She comes out of the door, rests her hand on one of the porch posts and stands there looking at me. I don’t say anything, I can’t say anything, I just look at her, then she catches sight of Jørgen. He has sat up, he doesn’t say anything, puts a hand to his head, then brings it down and looks at it, blood drips from his fingers and Helen’s mouth drops open when she sees it, in a kind of silent scream. And then Mom comes out onto the porch as well and her eye immediately goes to Jørgen. There’s total silence. And then Daniel starts to cry, I turn around and see his stroller, it’s standing in the shade of the cottage, and Dad is out on the front step of the cottage, he’s in his wheelchair, scratching the cat behind its ear and looking at me, his eyes wide and solemn, and he doesn’t say a word. I stand quite still and Daniel is crying even louder now, dear little Daniel, poor little Daniel, I gaze at his stroller and swallow, once, then again, and then I start to cry as well, because I’m going to lose him now, they’re going to take him away from me and there’s nothing I can do, I’m totally paralyzed, every bit as paralyzed as Dad.