“I think they’re saying their prayers,” I replied.
It was quiet for a long time. We lay there without moving and listened, almost like when we occasionally heard English bombers roaring in from the sea in the southwest. But this time no airplane approached. It was absolutely quiet upstairs, but we listened anyway. And then we heard Lilly singing. Lilly sang, Erling and Sverre sang, and Nils sang in falsetto, so he sounded like a child too. It was some sort of prayer, an evening song, but I couldn’t make out the words. When the song ended, we heard quiet footsteps. It was Lilly: she went over to the door and switched off the light, then walked across the floor in the dark and lay down in her bed.
6.
The next day Tone and I were upstairs with the siblings. It must have been a Sunday because Papa was at church with Josef and Jensen, Matiassen was alone in his room rocking on his stool, and Mama was busy downstairs in the kitchen. Tone and I stole up the stairs and I knocked on the door. After a moment’s silence, we heard footsteps approaching. We glanced at each other. At that moment I was sorry we stood there, but it was too late. The door opened slowly. A face appeared. It was Lilly.
“Can we come in?” asked Tone.
Lilly gave her a distrustful look.
“Why?” she said.
“We were wondering about something,” said Tone.
“About what?”
“Just something,” said Tone.
Lilly regarded us for a long time; I thought she was going to shut the door in our faces, but then she stepped aside and let us in. Sverre sat on the floor playing with the fringe on the rug, Nils lay on one of the beds staring at the ceiling as he ran his hand slowly through his hair, Erling sat on his chair by the table, and Ingrid stood gazing out the window.
It was like going into a stranger’s house.
“We wondered if Ingrid and Erling wanted to come outside with us,” said Tone.
Ingrid turned around, Erling looked up. Nils sat up in bed. They looked at us in surprise, then at Lilly.
“Ingrid and Erling?” said Lilly
“Yes,” Tone replied cheerfully. “Can they come?”
Perhaps eight seconds went by. Then Lilly nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “But no crying.”
We took them down the stairs and out into the yard. As we led them through the snow, Tone held Ingrid’s hand, I held Erling’s, and for a long time all four of us stood under the ash tree, about where Matiassen put his stool during the summer. It had snowed all night. But now the clouds had disappeared, the weather had cleared, and Tone, Ingrid, Erling, and I made the very first tracks in the smooth, white expanse. Our cheeks froze and the snow crunched under our feet. Blue smoke swirled from the chimney at Hans and Anna’s house, but there was no sign of anyone. Tone pulled her hands into the arms of her coat. We heard the frozen branches of the ash tree creaking above us.
“Should we play a game?” Tone asked.
Neither Ingrid nor Erling answered. The snow was ankle deep, a frigid wind blew right through our clothes, and Ingrid and Erling just stood there.
“What should we play?” Tone said.
No one replied. Tone looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders. Then Tone pointed to the house.
“Uncle Josef lives up there,” she said. “And Jensen and Matiassen live in the room next to him. Matiassen is crazy, and so is Jensen. But they aren’t dangerous, so you don’t have to be afraid.”
Ingrid and Erling still stood silently in the snow, but both seemed to follow what Tone said. She took a step closer, as if to include them in a secret.
“Are you crazy?” she asked, so softly it was almost a whisper.
Ingrid looked at Erling, his head wobbled slightly.
“Are you mentally disabled then?” said Tone.
Neither of them replied this time either.
Ingrid howled softly. Erling shook his head, but he did that all the time, so it didn’t mean anything.
“Are you Chinese?” said Tone, even more softly.
Ingrid turned and gazed at her with dark, impassive eyes.
“Are you Chinese?” Tone repeated. “You look Chinese.”
At that point Ingrid opened her mouth, I saw her glistening tongue, I saw how her lips and tongue tried to form a word that perhaps was yes, perhaps was no, but sounded more like thanks; and that was when I first realized she could not talk.
Ingrid truly was not able to speak a word, even though she may have wanted to. But she could howl, softly and pleasantly, loudly and piercingly, perhaps almost evilly. When she howled it was as if something deep within her listened and understood what she meant. She could howl, and she could look at us with encouragement or acceptance, and somehow with love, as if she understood, or wanted us to understand.
I don’t know how long we stood under the ash tree that winter day, at the spot that in reality was Matiassen’s. An icy wind cut through to our bones. The thin ash tree branches looked like cracks in the clouds overhead, as if the sky were shattered and soon would tinkle down like broken glass. But the sky didn’t fall. We stood there so Ingrid and Erling could see their new world: the rolling fields, the mountain ridges in the west, the edge of the forest, and the tall pine trees behind the house.
“Just think—you’re going to live here with us!” Tone exclaimed enthusiastically, and then Erling began to laugh, while Ingrid howled softly and pleasantly.
Afterward we led Erling and Ingrid back through the snow. We walked in the wavering tracks we had made, up the steps and into the front hall, where we stamped the snow from our feet and took off our coats. Then we took Ingrid and Erling upstairs, knocked on the door, and delivered them across the threshold to Lilly.
7.
Every morning, spring, summer, and fall, Matiassen took his stool and tottered down the stairs and out to the ash tree. He would stand there several minutes before placing the stool exactly where it stood the day before, and the day before that. Every day the same, painful precision. When the stool was finally placed, he checked that all four legs rested firmly in the grass, and then he sat down with a kind of loving caution. It was as if there wasn’t actually a stool under him, as if he sat down in midair and had to practice each day to believe the stool was really there. He sat down, placed his hands flat on his thighs, and began rocking his upper body back and forth, chewing his saliva constantly.
Every day the same routine.
I was the one who told Tone that Matiassen was crazy. One fall day I took her hand and led her toward the ash tree, until we stood several meters behind Matiassen’s stool and saw him rocking.
“You see?” I said. “He’s crazy.”
Tone looked at me wide-eyed. Maybe she was afraid.
Matiassen sat there chewing his saliva so energetically you would think something was growing in his mouth, something that threatened to become too large, that was growing and wanted to get out, that he had to chew and chew in order to restrain it.
“Watch now,” I whispered.
I let go of her hand, crept close to Matiassen, and stood directly behind him. The woolen blanket had slipped from his shoulders and lay on the ground; there were leaves in his lap.
“Hi,” I said suddenly.
Matiassen did not react.
“Have you been in America?” I continued.
Matiassen chewed and chewed, without shifting his glance.
“Can’t you talk?”
Still no answer. The stool creaked slightly. Leaves fell around us.
“Say something, you idiot!”
Matiassen sat exactly as before, rocked and chewed and paid no attention to me. I noticed that the four legs of the stool had made four deep cavities in the ground that were constantly getting deeper. The grass by his shoes was brown and trampled flat, and I saw that he had no shoelaces.
“Why don’t you have any shoelaces?” I asked.
Matiassen did not reply.
I took a few quick steps forward. I don’t remember what I had expected.
Maybe I thought the rocking would stop, that he would spit out what was in his mouth, turn around, and talk to me. I lay my hand cautiously on his shoulder, and I would never have dared to do that if Tone had not been standing right behind me watching.
My fingers touched the coarse material of his suit jacket, and he gave a tremendous start, as if I had touched him with a branding iron. Matiassen lost his balance, the stool tipped over, and he ended up lying in the grass. I was terrified and started to run. Tone followed me, and we ran all the way to the edge of the forest. At the stone fence we stopped and looked back. Matiassen had gotten to his feet, placed the stool in the four cavities, and sat under the tree as before. I still felt the coarse material of his suit jacket in my fingers; I had touched him, Matiassen had collapsed from the touch, and Tone and I no longer had any doubt that Matiassen was crazy.
It wasn’t always like that. Matiassen had once been a railroad worker in America, and Christian Jensen had studied theology at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Matiassen and Jensen must have been among the most well-traveled in the entire parish. Both had crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice, they had seen two continents; both lost their sanity at some point; and both finally ended up in the room upstairs in our new house. Matiassen brought with him from America an old miner’s lantern with two burners, and also a medal that was possibly pure silver. The lantern burned with a bluish, supernatural light, and we soon began using it when we went to the outhouse. Matiassen had worked on the railroad in the American West, and it was during that time that he lost his mind. It happened deep within a mountain: an explosive charge went off, parts of the tunnel collapsed, and several workers were trapped in total darkness. Matiassen was one of them. He never talked about the experience, but he had clippings from several American newspapers that reported the accident. Matiassen had been imprisoned for three days with a group of four men, and one of them—Mr. Edwards, who had worked in diamond mines in the Congo—told the New York Herald Tribune afterward that they could see nothing at all during those three days. But, he maintained, there was a reflection of light from the souls of the men that, after a while, began to gleam like the diamonds he once mined in the heart of Africa. Matiassen lost his sanity, but his soul had glittered faintly in the dark. After they were rescued, each of the four men received a medal for courage, and in the clipping from the New York Herald Tribune Matiassen stood with his medal beside Mr. Edwards and the two others. In the picture he looked much younger, but not especially happy or honored by the distinction, and I wondered if it really was Matiassen. It may have been someone else, but the medal for courage was the same. He brought it with him, along with the miner’s lantern, when soon afterward he was sent by train across the prairie to New York, from there across the Atlantic, and then over the North Sea, until he finally ended up at Eg asylum in Kristiansand, where both the lantern and the medal for courage were taken away from him.
Everything was taken away from him, but nothing was thrown out. All his belongings were listed meticulously and stored in a secure place at the asylum, so when Mama and Papa took responsibility for Matiassen they also received his few possessions.
After Matiassen came to live with us, Josef somehow got permission to wear the medal for courage. I don’t know how that happened; perhaps he asked to borrow it, perhaps he received tacit consent. In any case, Josef wore the medal very naturally, and with great dignity. He pinned it on his left lapel each Sunday before the church service, and then he sat and sang in the front row, on the right-hand side just below the pulpit, with the morning sun sparkling on the silver. Josef took charge of the medal and kept it so brilliantly polished you could see your reflection in it, and the rest of us shared the miner’s lantern. So Matiassen’s few possessions were useful to everyone. Josef wore the gleaming medal for courage, and the glow of the miner’s lantern shone through cracks in the outhouse walls as if an angel of Our Lord had been revealed in the small cubicle above the manure cellar. Sometimes I saw the radiant light when I came out to the yard, and then there was nothing to do but turn around, go back into the house, and wait until the angel had gone.
8.
When Christian Jensen came to live with us he could walk almost normally, but could not hold a pen; his arms would suddenly fly up unexpectedly, and it had long been evident that he would never become a pastor.
Christian Jensen was originally from Mandal, and had been very gifted. Or too gifted, as people said. He lived with his mother, there was never any mention of a father, and early on it became clear that Christian would pursue a higher education. The plan was that after graduating from high school he would study theology in Oslo, but then unforeseen circumstances took him across the ocean to America. Some immigrant relatives wanted him to come, perhaps one of his father’s sisters or perhaps his father himself. Nobody knew exactly. There was a school named the College of Wooster. Nobody knew where it was located either, at least not until he came to live with us and we saw the large brown envelopes postmarked Ohio. In any case, the college was apparently among the best in America, and the pastors trained there were said to have a special relationship with Our Lord. It was Christian’s mother, Mina, who most strongly supported the idea of her son going to America. She told everyone how extremely bright Christian was. There was no end to the boy’s talent—people said he had written an entire volume of poetry in just a few weeks, and the manuscript was being considered by Olaf Norlis Publishing Company in Oslo at the time Christian left on his long trip.
The poetry collection was never mentioned later.
Christian Jensen traveled alone across the Atlantic Ocean wearing his confirmation suit, and it was like going to the moon, or even farther. Back home in Mandal, Mina waited for a letter from her son. Weeks passed, but no letter arrived. Not until a college administrator wrote to say that Christian had been sick for a long time because he’d worked so hard at his studies. Later, another letter arrived saying her son suffered from a mysterious illness, perhaps the result of overexertion, which prevented him from holding a pen steady, so he couldn’t write to her himself. The disease was called Saint Vitus’ dance, but at the College of Wooster they believed the young Norwegian was losing his faith. He didn’t stay long, and took no exams. However, he did have a special relationship with Our Lord.
He brought home a bundle of magazines from the college congregation, which had welcomed him warmly during the months he studied on the other side of the Atlantic. Later, when the war was over, large envelopes addressed to Mr. Christian Jensen arrived regularly at the rural post office in Vatneli. They were marked Air Mail and were plastered with stamps portraying American presidents. The envelopes came from the College of Wooster, were postmarked Ohio, and always contained new magazines from the congregation. Perhaps they thought there was still hope for Jensen, that there was a way back. In any case, he read the magazines thoroughly, and afterward his nightly conversations with Our Lord were intense. Tone and I would be awakened by his pacing. Slowly, stumbling a bit, he wandered back and forth, from the window to the stove, from the bed to the door, and over to the window again.
“Listen,” Tone whispered. “He’s speaking English.”
And it was true, Jensen always spoke English when he talked with Our Lord. He said a few words, occasionally a question, occasionally a complaint, and then he seemed to listen to the answer he got before continuing in the same hushed way. In the morning he could sit quietly upstairs with the Wooster congregation magazine open on his lap as he pondered an idea that was somehow utterly bright and transparent, and at the same time dark and dangerously difficult. Sunlight streamed through the window that faced south and glided across his thighs while the idea took hold of him. Or he took hold of the idea. In any case, he got nowhere with it, not before the evening when he could talk with Our Lord again. Then at last he seemed to come alive. A guarded question. A trembling, indignant complaint. At times an almost forgiving tone. Afterward everything was quiet for several minutes, and in that stillness Our Lord
answered him.
9.
One late winter day we went upstairs and got Ingrid and Erling and took them to the hayloft. The weather had become warmer, the sun shone above the forest and snow-covered fields, water trickled from the roof. The snow by the house had melted completely, the grass was brown, the earth dry. Matiassen had taken his stool outside and sat rocking in the sunshine wrapped in several layers of blankets. Suddenly Jensen appeared in the doorway. He stood on the top step for a long time. Thin, dressed in black, with a full beard, he looked like the picture of Jesus with a lamb and a shepherd’s staff. The four of us stood watching him. Jensen waited awhile before he hobbled down the front steps, then he concentrated on holding on to the downspout at the corner of the house, and finally he let go of the wall and staggered across the yard toward the outhouse. It looked comical, and sometimes we laughed at him. But not that day.
“Come on, let’s go upstairs,” I whispered to the others. I don’t know what I was thinking, but Ingrid, Erling, and Tone raised no objections. We hurried down the hayloft ramp and across the yard, splattering mud as we ran, and on our way up the front steps I heard Jensen fasten the hook on the outhouse door.
While the other three kept watch in the upstairs hall, I slowly pressed down the door handle. The air in Jensen’s room smelled of old clothing and tobacco, medicines, ammonia, and possibly urine. There was nothing on the walls and the room looked bare, but the ceiling light was on, as it always was, even in the middle of the day when sunlight streamed through the windows. As I stole across the smooth floorboards, Tone and Erling stood in the doorway, with Ingrid right behind them vigorously licking her mouth. I walked as if on thin ice. The magazine from the College of Wooster lay open on the chair where Jensen usually sat. His neatly folded glasses lay on top of the magazine. I picked them up carefully, they were surprisingly heavy. Standing there holding the glasses, I had an urge to put them on to see if my eyes grew bigger, the way Jensen’s did when he pushed them to the edge of his nose. But instead I picked up the magazine. It had long columns in small type, and everything was in English. Here and there I saw drawings and a few pictures, and I understood they were illustrations from the Bible, but also from a strange country that must be America, or perhaps hell. The pictures were full of terror and despair—faces contorted in pain and open hands raised toward a sky dark with thunderclouds. They were surrounded by devils no bigger than dogs, and floating in the air were dirty angels with huge, tattered, swanlike wings fluttering in the wind.
Across the China Sea Page 3