I’m not sure, but sometimes it occurs to me that she describes their relationship as she would like it to have been, not only when talking to me about it, but also in her diaries. She hasn’t allowed me to read everything in them, you see, far from it, but in those entries I have read, she keeps mentioning how close they were, how much they meant to one another and what wonderful times they had together. She lays it on so thick that I find it hard to swallow. I’m not sure why she does this; maybe it’s easier to live with the knowledge that she switched you and that other baby if she idealizes her relationship with your mother. This is pure speculation, of course, but perhaps her diary entries and this letter are both ways of forgiving herself. I mean, if Berit of all people could forgive her—yes and not only forgive her but go so far as to become what Paula calls her soulmate—then surely anyone could forgive her, even Paula herself, and maybe even you, David. Maybe this letter is her way of asking you for forgiveness too.
Anyway, when I ask Paula why she has chosen to break the promise she once made to Berit and tell you all this now, she doesn’t say a word about forgiveness. I feel pretty certain that this mattered a lot to her, but she says it was the news that you were only pretending to have lost your memory that made her change her mind. It made her realize how terribly important it was for you to learn your true origins, she says. And besides, she was starting to worry about what might happen if you were not told that it wasn’t only your father you should be looking for but your mother as well. You might disregard letters that you shouldn’t disregard and you might not disregard letters that you should disregard, and she couldn’t live with that.
And finally, the question that must occupy you more than any other: who were your mother and father? Paula doesn’t remember their surname, she says. All she knows is that they were living in Namsos when you were born and that your mother suffered from postnatal depression for a while afterwards. But it should be quite possible for you to trace the family yourself. As far as I can gather your parents’ names will be in the files at Namsos Hospital and, if for any reason they have gone missing from the files, well, there are only five possible alternatives and with your date of birth as reference all of these families ought to be easy to track down and to contact. In any case, Paula and I wish you good luck.
CARL FRODE TILLER is the author of five novels—the last three forming the Encircling trilogy—and four plays; all of them are written in the distinctive language of Nynorsk (“new Norwegian”). One of the most acclaimed Scandinavian authors of his generation, Tiller has received multiple prizes, including the EU Prize for Literature and the Nordic Critics Prize, and The Encircling Trilogy has been twice nominated for the Nordic Council’s prize.
Tiller was born in 1970 in Namsos, Norway. He now lives in Trondheim with his wife and three daughters. He was, until recently, a member of the rock band Kong Ler.
BARBARA J. HAVELAND is a leading translator of Norwegian and Danish. Her recent published works include The Cold Song by Linn Ullmann and new translations of Ibsen’s The Master Builder and Little Eyolf. She lives in Copenhagen.
The text of Encircling 2 is set in Trump Mediaeval and SansSemiLight to a design by Henry Iles. Composition by Sort Of Books. Manufactured by Friesens on acid-free, 100 percent postconsumer wastepaper.
Also available from Graywolf Press
The groundbreaking first novel in The Encircling Trilogy
The audacious and daring opening novel in The Encircling Trilogy begins the story of David’s search to recover his identity after suffering from amnesia. When he places a newspaper ad to ask his friends and family to share their memories of him, three respond with letters: Jon, his closest friend; Silje, his teenage girlfriend; and Arvid, his estranged stepfather. Jon’s and Silje’s adult lives have run aground on thwarted ambition and failed intimacy, and Arvid has had a lonely struggle with cancer. Each has suspect motives for writing, and soon a contradictory picture of David emerges. Whom should we believe? Or do they all hold some fragment of the truth?
Praise for Encircling
“What makes this novel, the first of a trilogy, extraordinary is the suspense: like the best mystery novels, it transforms the reader into an obsessive gumshoe—though, in this volume, at least, David’s identity is a question with no definitive answer.”
—The New Yorker
“A beautiful meditation on the subtler ways we fail each other, our quieter forms of grief…. It’s thrilling to know two more books will arrive to tell its story.”
—USA Today
“[An] impressive and ingenious novel…. [Tiller’s] authentic voices consistently entrance and intrigue.”
—Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
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