“So, how’s school, Johnny?” I ask, smiling at him. “Aw,” he says with a little shake of his head. And Odd Kåre suddenly turns to him. “Yeah,” he says and there’s a sharpness to his voice again and he grins sourly at Johnny. “Why don’t you tell your gran how it’s going at school?” he says. There’s silence for a moment and then Johnny turns to Odd Kåre and snorts loudly at his father and I look at them, oh no, no please don’t let them start arguing and falling out again, why can’t they just get on?
“For God’s sake,” Johnny says, jerking his head at Odd Kåre. “As if you were any better. You dropped out of school and started working as well,” he says. “Yeah, but back then there were jobs to be had for somebody who hadn’t finished school,” Odd Kåre says, his voice low but shaking with anger. “There are jobs to be had now too, there are plenty of vacancies I can apply for,” Johnny says. “Yeah,” Odd Kåre sneers. “Working at the checkout in some supermarket,” he says. “So, what the fuck’s wrong with that?” Johnny says, raising his voice a little again, and I shoot a glance at the others in the room. They’re all staring at us again, and I feel the heat rising into my cheeks. “You’re the one that’s always complaining about the powers that be and singing the praises of what you call the common people?” Johnny says. “Yes, I am,” Odd Kåre says. “It’s just that you can’t live on what you make working at a supermarket checkout.” “Yeah, well I’m not planning on working there for ever,” Johnny snarls. “Well, if you don’t stay on at school and get an education you might have to,” Odd Kåre says. “Oh, Jesus Christ, would you just shut up!” Johnny cries, looking daggers at Odd Kåre, and Odd Kåre sneers back at him and I’m getting hotter and hotter. Okay, now they have to stop this and be friends again, this isn’t how I want people to see us when we’re together, we have to show a better side of ourselves when we’re finally together.
“Well, well,” I say, because now I’ll have to butt in, I’ll have to bring the conversation around to something else, something more pleasant. I look at them and smile, but they don’t even look at me, they’re so angry at one another and they just go on arguing and arguing and Sylvia and her family are just sitting there staring at us, they look almost frightened, they exchange worried glances, I simply don’t know where to look, this isn’t nice, and here I was saying such good things about Odd Kåre and my grandchildren, boasting about them to Sylvia’s son, so I was, telling him how proud I was of my family, so I was, and then they do this.
“Yeah, yeah,” Odd Kåre says, sneering at Johnny. “Go right ahead and drop out of school, it’s your funeral,” he says. “That’s right, it is,” Johnny says. “So I don’t know why you care, it’s not up to you anyway,” he says. “Oh, no?” Odd Kåre says, with a laugh meant to show how ridiculous this shot from Johnny is. “But I think you’re forgetting one important point here,” Odd Kåre says. “I’m the one who pays for your food, your clothes and the roof over your head.” “Yeah, and that’s exactly why I want to find a job as soon as I can,” Johnny says. “So I can leave home. So I can move as far away from home as I possibly can.” And Sylvia and her family are staring at us in horror and I’m getting hotter and hotter, so embarrassed that Sylvia and her family should see us like this, that this is the side of us we let people see when we’re finally together, it’s not nice, not nice at all. I can just imagine what they’ll say about us afterwards. What a dreadful way to behave, Sylvia’s family will say, never seen anything like it, they’ll say, as if it wasn’t bad enough that they hardly ever come to see her, when they finally do show up they behave like that, they’ll say. And then Sylvia will get on her high horse and tell them what she’s probably been dying to tell them all along, out she’ll come with all those spiteful comments. Parents can’t expect to be shown more love than they’ve given, she’ll say, or something along those lines. No wonder Odd Kåre hardly ever comes to see her, she’ll say, and no wonder he’s turned out the way he has, she’ll say, molested by his father the way he was, she’ll say, molested by his father for years, ever since he was a little boy, she’ll say, that whole dirty business, it’s past, it’s all in the past, but she’ll drag it all up again, all the stuff that Odd Kåre and I have spent so much time and energy on putting behind us, she’s going to drag it all up so her son can compare himself to mine and tell himself what a great upbringing he’s had, oh yes, because that’s what Sylvia wants, of course, she wants to be seen as the good, successful mother. Our family’s a disaster and she’s lapping it up because it makes her look like such a great success.
I look at Sylvia, but she isn’t looking at me, she’s looking at Odd Kåre and Johnny. She and the rest of her family are looking at Odd Kåre and Johnny, and Odd Kåre and Johnny are still arguing and I just sit here smiling, trying to make light of it all by smiling, but no one else is smiling, no one thinks this is anything to smile about. Sylvia’s son is looking at me with pity in his eyes and there’s pity in Sylvia’s daughter-in-law’s eyes too, and Odd Kåre and Johnny just go on arguing and arguing, their voices low and fierce.
“Now, now, you mustn’t argue like that,” I say, as pleasantly as I can, still smiling, and Odd Kåre is about to say something but before he can say it the new assistant comes over to us again. She’s carrying a tray with coffee and almond tart on it and she sets the tray down on our table. “Here you are,” she says. “Thanks very much,” I say. “Yeah, thanks,” Odd Kåre says. He glances down at the almond tart. “Gosh, you didn’t go baking a cake just for me, did you?” he says, and he looks at the new assistant and laughs and the new assistant gives a strained smile but doesn’t meet his eye, then she straightens up, looks down at me and gives me the kind of smile that Sylvia’s son and daughter-in-law just gave me, a smile full of pity, and I smile back at her as naturally as ever I can, then I look at Odd Kåre and Odd Kåre looks at Johnny.
“You’re supposed to say thank you when somebody gives you something?” Odd Kåre says, but Johnny doesn’t say thank you, he just glares at Odd Kåre, who grunts and looks up at the new assistant. “Yeah, we live a bit farther out on the island, you see. North of manners,” he says and he roars with laughter again. “Oh, right,” the new assistant says, forcing another awkward smile, then she turns and looks at me again and gives me that pitying smile again and I feel a little surge of annoyance, because she needn’t think she’s any better than us—her, drinking during working hours, she needn’t get all uppity and think she’s got the right to look down on me or Odd Kåre or Johnny, because that’s what she’s doing when she looks at me like that, as if she feels sorry for me. That’s what they’re all doing actually, her and Sylvia’s son and Sylvia’s daughter-in-law, they feel sorry for me for having the son and the grandson that I have. As if my son and my grandson weren’t worth loving, as if they didn’t have their good sides too, as if we didn’t have our good times together. We’ve had our ups and downs over the years, God knows we have, but who hasn’t. I look at the new assistant and I’m feeling more and more annoyed, but I keep smiling.
“Did you see that Paula’s bought herself a new dress?” the new assistant says suddenly, looking at Odd Kåre. “Isn’t it lovely?” she asks. She pauses for a second, then she turns to me and smiles. “Oh yes, lovely,” Odd Kåre says and he looks at me and my new dress. “That’s right, Ma,” he says. “You spend your money. I mean, you haven’t exactly spoiled yourself in the past, so just you go right ahead,” he says, and it feels good to hear him talking like this and I look at him and smile and Odd Kåre smiles back, then he looks up at the new assistant again.
“I keep telling her she ought to treat herself to a vacation in the sun,” he says, nodding at me, and I look at him. I don’t remember him ever saying anything about a vacation in the sun to me, but never mind, it doesn’t matter. I look at Odd Kåre and smile. “Oh yes, that would do you good, I’m sure, Paula,” the new assistant says. “D’you hear that, Ma, you should take yourself off to Gran Canaria, get a bit of heat on your bones,” Odd Kår
e says. “Spend your money while you can, enjoy life,” he says. I look at him, and I hope that the other people in the room can also hear what he’s saying now, I hope Sylvia and her family are hearing this, because if they are they’ll see that there’s more to Odd Kåre than they thought, and if they do that they’ll also see that Sylvia’s not the only one with children who care about her.
“I can book a ticket for you any time,” Odd Kåre goes on. “Oh, the way you go on,” I say, laughing and shaking my head. “Aye, that’ll be right, an old body like me sunning herself on the beach,” I laugh. “What a sight that would be,” I say. It feels so good to be talking like this, I laugh and shake my head. “No, but you get these vacations designed specially for the elderly,” Odd Kåre says. “It’s all organized for you so you don’t have to worry about a thing,” he says. “Oh, get away with you, I’ve never heard such nonsense,” I say, laughing and waggling my head. “No,” I say, “my traveling days are done.” “Your traveling days?” Odd Kåre says. “You’ve never been outside Norway,” he says. “That may be so,” I say, “but at least I’ve seen my own country,” I say. “Johan and I, we drove the length and breadth of Norway, so we did,” I say. “And there’s not many that can say that.” “No, that’s true,” the new assistant says, nodding at me and smiling. “But still, I’m sure a couple of weeks in the sun would do you the world of good,” Odd Kåre says. “You’re retired, you’ve got plenty of money in the bank and you’re withering away up here. You could be having the time of your life,” he says. “Oh, don’t be silly,” I say. “Silly?” he says. “If you wanted you could be sitting on your balcony, soaking up the sun and gazing at the sea right now,” he says. “With a glass of sherry in your hand,” he adds. “Eh?” he says, nodding at me and smiling. “Who knows, you might even find some Spanish gentleman to dance with you,” he says. “Oh, stop it, you silly thing.” “Wouldn’t that be something, Ma?” Odd Kåre says, and he looks up at the new assistant and laughs, and the new assistant smiles at him, and Odd Kåre looks at me again and I shake my head and laugh at how silly he’s being, and it feels so good to be able to show this side of ourselves as well, so the other people here can see that we love each other too, it feels so good.
Otterøya, July 10th, 2006
This morning I took your newspaper advertisement over to the care home to speak to the residents about you. Otterøya isn’t a big place, as you know, so just about everyone up there remembers you and Berit and Erik and they were bursting to talk about the old days now that they had the chance. You should have seen them: people who’ve been more dead than alive for years suddenly perked up and launched into descriptions of family histories and connections, of working life and everyday life, births and deaths, good times and bad, accidents and disasters, progress and optimism. You should see what you’ve started up here, David, you’ve breathed life into the old folk, something I’ve been trying to do ever since I retired. I go up to the residential care home almost every day to read the newspapers to those who can’t manage it themselves. I’ve filled in pools and lotto coupons for them, I’ve read poetry and epigrams, told tall tales and funny anecdotes, organized bingo sessions and quizzes and occasionally I’ve taken along my accordion and got them up for some old-time dancing. But even though they’ve taken an interest in and enjoyed most of these activities it’s nothing compared to what I witnessed this morning. At long last someone was interested in hearing the stories these old folk had to tell, not just listening out of politeness, but really listening to them, taking what they said seriously. Because presumably this was what had fired their enthusiasm: the thought that they were being taken seriously, being appreciated, being of use.
It was particularly interesting to listen to my former fellow teacher, Odd Aune. He is an old local historian and co-author of several books on the area and he treated me to a vivid and detailed account of how your great-great-great-grandfather on your mother’s side brought the steam-powered saw to Namdal, thus enabling Namsos to grow into the largest and most important town in the Namdal region. Prior to that, all the timber in Namdal had been cut with a water-powered saw, he told me, and for a water-powered saw to work you had to have falls and rapids with a drop of at least twelve feet. This meant that all sawmills had to be built farther up the valley where the falls and rapids were. The timber was felled in the forest, transported to the water-powered sawmill, cut there and then floated down the River Namsen to Namsos for stacking and shipping.
But one day in the 1840s a ship docked at the mouth of the Namsen and on board this ship was your great-great-great-grandfather Oliver Dyrbakk, a young engineer, entrepreneur and businessman. With him on this ship he had a steam-powered saw and this, along with the abolition of the sawmill monopoly some years later, spelled the start of a new era in Namdal. Not only was the steam-powered saw far more efficient than its water-powered forerunner, it was not dependent on falls and rapids. The timber could be floated down the Namsen and cut at the river mouth where a large, ice-free shipping harbor had been built.
All this was to have great, not to say massive, consequences. As you probably know industrialization came only relatively slowly to Norway, but in the latter half of the nineteenth century, in timber production hubs such as Namsos, here in Namdal, there really was talk of an industrial revolution, of a fundamental transformation of society, economically, politically, socially and culturally. Within a very short space of time more than twenty sawmills sprang up in Namsos and the surrounding area, some small, some large, and all of them in need of workers. Many of these workers brought wives and children with them when they moved to the area and naturally these workers and their wives and children had to have food and clothing and medicines, so then came the general store and the chemist and the draper’s shop. They had to bury their dead and christen their newborn, so a church was built and a vicar hired. They wanted their children to go to school, so a schoolhouse was built and a schoolteacher hired. They wanted help when they were sick, so a hospital was built and doctors and nurses hired. In due course they discovered that they also needed a newspaper. And a townhouse. And a public hall and so on and so forth. And in no time at all Namsos was unrecognizable. Within just a few years what had once been a handful of buildings clustered around a jetty had grown into a small town, a sawmill town. According to Odd Aune one can gain some impression of what happened here by looking at the censuses for this area. In the nineteenth century the county of North Trondheim was divided into three bailiwicks, he told me, and while the population of the Stjørdalen and Verdalen bailiwick remained static and the population of the Inderøen bailiwick fell during the latter half of the century, the population of Namdal rose by fifty-five percent. And this despite the fact that migration to America had been as great from Namdal as from the other two bailiwicks. Given that more or less the whole increase occurred in Namsos itself, then it is quite clear that we are talking here of a genuine industrial revolution.
And your great-great-great-grandfather played a central part in this revolution, David. Not only did he introduce the steam-powered saw to Namsos. His sawmill, Vigen Sawing & Planing Mill, was also the most successful in the keen competition that gradually developed between the local mills. As a qualified engineer he kept abreast of new developments in sawmill technology and since he had the capital to invest in new innovations he was always able to run his mill more efficiently and systematically than his competitors. He also had an excellent head for business. He bought up the quotas of the smaller mills as one by one they went bankrupt, and by cultivating various diplomatic contacts he also succeeded in securing contracts which, in practice, granted him sole rights to export sawn timber to England and the Netherlands, where there was a great shortage of forest and timber and a desperate need for wood. Of all the Namdal mills Vigen Sawing & Planing was also the one with the highest sales to the tree-poor areas of Nordland County and Svalbard.
It’s no secret that all of this made Oliver Dyrbakk a rich man. Just how rich w
as brought home to me when Therese Skorstad disappeared into her room and came back with a Lions Club Calendar containing pictures of old Namsos which she handed around for everyone to see. In this calendar was a photograph of the house that your great-great-grandfather built for himself and his family on the leafy outskirts of the town at Bjørum. I have that photograph lying in front of me as I write and what I am looking at is nothing short of a mansion, not unlike the houses in that television series on Norwegian mansions. It is a black wooden house with arched windows, two balconies and an imposing flight of steps sweeping from the veranda down to a huge garden full of fruit trees and shrubs, with a fountain in the middle of the lawn. The grounds are surrounded by a wall of what looks like fieldstone and at the bottom of the gravel path is a black, cast-iron gate leading to a long avenue lined with oak trees that runs up to and round the side of the house, to what I assume must be the front entrance.
Vigen Sawing & Planing Mill has been in the hands of the Dyrbakk family ever since, and even though the fortunes of the sawmill business and the timber trade fluctuated during the rest of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, the family has always been extremely wealthy, and major shareholders and directors of the company have wielded a lot of influence in Namsos, both politically and financially.
But there was one specific chapter of the family history, an incident which occurred during the first half of the twentieth century, that got everyone talking at once when it came up in the conversation in the dayroom this morning. At some point your great-grandfather, Erik’s father that is, severed all ties with the Dyrbakk family. He changed his surname and after a brief period during which he worked in the planing yard of the Namsen Timber Association he moved to Otterøya, where he supported his family by fishing and farming until his death in the late 1950s.
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