“But what about Ingrid and Erling?” I asked.
“They can come along.”
We walked single file along the path to Lake Djupesland, all five of us. Mama went first, carrying the sandwiches and clinking juice bottles, and the forest was fragrant with juniper and warm sunshine. We stood quiet as mice on the little bridge over the stream and peered down at a school of trout eerily moving to and fro in the current. The water was so clear we could see the yellow-green patterns that stretched along each fish and looked like old maps. Erling gleefully threw pebbles and dirt into the water, all the fish darted under the embankment, and we continued on our way.
Mama had changed recently. She walked ahead of us humming softly to herself, stopping now and then to bend branches aside, and when we were all sitting on the beach I thought she must be happy. Papa’s eleven happy years truly had continued in the new house with Josef, Jensen, Matiassen, and the siblings from Stavanger, and now we all basked in the sunshine by the water and were happy together.
We sat with our feet in the coarse sand while we ate sandwiches and drank juice from the wide-rimmed milk bottles. The juice ran down the corners of Ingrid’s mouth, she laughed and burped and got a big wet spot on her chest. A shallow inlet curved toward the east, and a forest of beach reeds rustled and bowed in the morning breeze. I was feeling full and sleepy from the food and sun, but then Mama stood up, brushed the sand off the back of her legs, and looked at us.
“Should we go for a dip?”
Mama held her arms out slightly from her hips as she waded into the water. When it was well up her thighs she stopped, and I watched her surreptitiously. She wore only her underwear and her body was large and white; I’d never seen her like that before, at least not in daylight, and never under the open sky. The tips of the horsetails growing at the water’s edge looked like the heads of huge matchsticks. Near the shore, tiny new broad-leaved pondweed sprouted from the water, while farther out on the lake, glossy water lily pads swayed with the slightest ripple. It was strange to see her like that. It felt like the night at Hotel Bondeheimen in Kristiansand when I lay next to her and felt her stomach against my back and her breath on my neck. I got up, brushed the sand off the back of my pants, and walked to the edge of the lake. I waded out a little, but stopped knee-deep in the water. Tone sat naked on the beach playing with pinecones, Erling thrashed the water with a branch nearby, and for a moment I caught the smell of mud and sun-warmed skin. Mama waded farther out, splashing water all around her; suddenly she leaned forward, or maybe she fell, water rushed against her breast and neck and she almost lost her breath, but soon she recovered, and calmly swam out toward the sandbar.
“Where are you going, Mama?” shouted Tone.
Mama turned onto her back and waved to us.
“Come on, children!” she shouted. “The water is wonderful!”
Suddenly a bird flew out of a tall pine tree on the other side of the lake. It had been perched there the whole time. Now it began a long, strangely silent flight just above the water’s surface. Then it rose higher, soaring above the forest. It turned black against the sky, and then it was gone.
Mama hadn’t seen anything. She swam steadily, with slow strokes, stretching herself, and I could see her tall, golden-white body as sunlight rippled over her back and hips. She headed toward the sandbar, and before long she reached it and could stand up, about forty meters from shore. Suddenly she was standing in water only ankle-deep. She was almost naked and not shy, and even though Ingrid and Erling stared at her, she just laughed and waved to us.
“Come on, come on, children!”
I’d never seen her like that before. She was thirty-six years old, something had changed. She stood on the sandbar and laughed, and it was like having her stomach against my back and feeling her breath on my neck.
I never saw her like that again.
18.
Her laughter echoed from the tall pine trees along the water. I could still hear it after we had gone to bed that evening. Tone was asleep. Her hair smelled like sunshine. A moth flew back and forth toward the ceiling, casting huge fluttering shadows.
The air was humid.
The next day the sky darkened. A mass of iron-blue clouds towered in the north, leaving the forest below in cool shadow. The birds stopped singing; only the bees still circled peacefully from flower to flower. From somewhere deep within the clouds came a dark, rumbling avalanche. Mama hurried across the yard carrying the zinc washtub and pulled the half-dry clothes from the line. As she stood there, the wind began to blow. Her skirt fluttered around her knees. A strong, cold wind came from somewhere far away, causing the lilac bushes to scrape against the house. Matiassen was still sitting on his stool under the ash tree when the first lightning slit the sky. His stooped figure became sharp and clear. Then a new, icy bolt of lightning slashed the clouds, and everything trembled in the sudden glare: the murmuring leaves of the ash tree, Matiassen’s stool, and Matiassen himself. Next came a deafening clap of thunder, so loud the glasses in the kitchen cabinet rattled. Josef peered out his window, terrified. Ingrid, Tone, and I sought refuge in the front hall. Papa ran into the yard, lifted Matiassen off the stool, and carried him on his back into the house while the lilacs rustled violently in the wind. A new flash of lightning tore the heavens, the wall sockets crackled, and Lilly came running for refuge with us in the front hall. Then the rain began. Lightning and thunder followed on each other; Papa put Matiassen as far away from all outlets as possible, and I saw how the wild light flashed in Papa’s eyes. The rain turned into a powerful hailstorm, pelting the windowpanes upstairs; water streamed over the gutters and knocked lilac leaves to the ground. Each flash of lightning struck a spot on the top of my head. It split my brain, ran down my spinal column, and tore me in two so quickly I almost didn’t notice it. The thunder and lightning were like the picture of dancing devils and dirty angels in the Wooster magazine. I don’t know how long the storm lasted, but it finally moved farther east. The time between flashes increased, but thunder still rumbled in the distance, like English bombers on their way across the sea.
Afterward the world was like new. Clean, shining, cool. The sun came out. Steam rose from the gravel, steam rose from the fields and the tree trunks behind the hay barn, steam rose from the barn wall itself. When Ingrid, Erling, Tone, and I went into the yard I noticed the curtains in Jensen and Matiassen’s room were hanging out of the window and had become dark with rain. There were no bees, no birds. Mama’s shoes stood at the bottom of the front steps filled with icy water. Everything was wet; water dripped from the trees, blades of grass glittered in the sun. Papa had put the four-wheeled horse cart by the hayloft where the yard sloped gently down toward the shed. During the last few days he had helped Hans haul sand for some concrete steps in the barn, but then the rain came and they had to wait for the sand to dry. He had turned the front wheels crosswise and placed stones by the back wheels so the cart would not move. There was a large box in the cart filled with sand that had become wet and heavy after all the rain. I climbed up and pressed my hand into the sand, leaving a clear imprint. Before long, Ingrid came and stood beside the cart; she kicked a wheel and tried to say something. I helped her up, and then Erling and Tone came too, but they climbed up by themselves. I made a handprint next to the first one, Tone made an imprint next to that, Ingrid and Erling just stared. My handprints looked like the tracks of a large, strange bird. Tone’s prints were those of a slightly smaller bird. The two birds had wandered back and forth in all directions across the sand, as if looking for a place to build their nest. But then they had flown away.
“Look, Ingrid,” said Tone eagerly. “Do it like this.”
She took Ingrid’s hand and pressed it into the sand, and after that Ingrid managed to do it by herself. We kept on for a long time, making a swarm of bird tracks in the wet sand, and in the end we were looking for the bird that had disappeared above the pine trees.
Then the cart tipped over.
&
nbsp; For a moment it was as if I were flying; I flew, waving my arms, but surprisingly enough, landed on my feet. I heard the crash as the cart hit the ground. The box of sand fell over, and some sand spilled across the grass. I caught a glimpse of Ingrid’s bewildered expression; the wind had been knocked out of her when she landed on her back. I heard Erling scream, but I didn’t see Tone. She had suddenly disappeared. But then I saw one of her shoes under the wagon. And I realized what had happened. Tone lay with the cart partially on top of her; she didn’t move, she didn’t cry, and the silence made the blood freeze in my veins. I tried to lift the cart, but it would not budge. I shouted to Ingrid that she should run and get Papa, but she just lay on the ground gasping for breath.
I was underwater. Everything was quiet, or almost quiet; I heard a rushing sound bubbling around my ears. The bubbles rose and my heart pounded, and someone shouted my name, but the voice came from the depths beneath me.
Perhaps eight seconds went by.
At first Papa came walking calmly across the yard with windblown hair and his shirtsleeves rolled up. But then he must have seen a look on my face, or perhaps he saw Ingrid gasping for breath, because suddenly he began running. His shirt was open and flapped in the breeze. Hans arrived within minutes, and together they managed to lift the cart so Tone’s back was free.
“Now, Tone,” I shouted. “Now you can crawl out.”
And she did.
She crept forward, perhaps as much as a meter, perhaps even farther—enough so that her back and legs were clear of the cart. And she was free. She was free, and there was blood on the ground, and in the grass, and on her dress. Erling screamed. Papa turned Tone over, her face was ashen. Her eyes were open and she gazed, as if astonished, at Papa and at Hans and at me, but then her eyes slid backward, her pupils disappeared, her eyes became white and empty, and Papa picked her up in his arms and raced toward the house with her feet dangling.
Mama was standing on the front steps when we came running. I saw her face stiffen. I saw how she dropped what she held in her hands, how everything just fell to the ground, limp and heavy. Her eyes, uncertain at first, abruptly grew frightened, and then darkened. Papa sprang up the steps with Tone in his arms, then ran through the front hall and into the bedroom, where he laid her on the bed. Ingrid and I stood in the front hall with no place to go. Josef was sent to get Dr. Rosenvold in Brandsvoll, and he rode off on his bicycle so fast the bicycle bell shook. I heard Mama’s desperate voice in the bedroom, while Papa spoke calmly, and Hans tried to keep the door closed. Jensen tottered down the stairs, Lilly and Nils and Sverre followed, and I felt a terrible anger rise darkly from my stomach.
“Go back upstairs!” I shouted. “Go away!”
Jensen gave me a bewildered look through his glasses; for a moment I thought he would be furious, but he just made a little bow and hurried back to his room. Lilly took Nils by the arm and led him up the stairs, Sverre and Erling held hands and followed their big sister. Just then the bedroom door opened, Mama rushed out clutching her head and disappeared into the living room. She screamed, a flower vase fell to the floor, and I heard thundering tones from the piano. Then she slammed down the keyboard cover so hard the ominous sound reverberated long afterward. She came into the front hall again, and I didn’t dare to look at her. I swallowed repeatedly, and Ingrid howled softly, softly, the way she did when she cried. Mama disappeared through the front door, out to the yard. I saw her down by the horse cart, which still lay overturned; she walked around frantically, as if looking for something she knew wasn’t there. Then she disappeared into the hayloft. She screamed, she howled, and now and then she seemed to laugh a dark, unearthly laughter. Finally she ran toward the house, her face aflame. I held Ingrid’s hand, deathly afraid of what would happen. Mama stormed right past us and into the bedroom. Through the open door I saw her lift Tone from the bed as Papa and Hans tried to stop her. Tone dangled in her arms, and Papa wanted her to leave; then she screamed again. The screams split the room apart. Everything cracked around us: the walls, the floor, the ceiling, finally even the sky above the ash tree outside.
“Karin!” Papa shouted. “Karin! Karin!”
He tried to take hold of her, but she stepped back, back, until she was standing against the wall. Papa put his arms around her, but Mama twisted out of his grasp. It looked as though they were fighting. It looked as if she hit him. Tone lay on the bed with her dress above her stomach, and one of her shoes lay on the floor in the front hall. Once again Papa tried to hold Mama, and this time he held her fast. He stood behind her, she threw back her head and let out a scream that pierced to the bone, but he held her tight, tight—so tight she could no longer scream, so tight he almost squeezed the breath out of her. Mama stood in his arms gasping for air, and then he loosened his hold. Slowly, slowly, until he held her no longer.
PART TWO
1.
In the fall of 1994 I cleared out the closet in Mama’s bedroom. It was October, I was alone in the house. I had decided to start with the clothes. It was only her clothes; she had given away all of Papa’s things after his death ten years earlier. There were blouses and sweaters, dresses, hats, and coats—clothes I hadn’t seen for decades. Pantyhose, underwear, belts, and shoes. Her smell still lingered in the closet. It was in every piece of clothing; it gently surrounded me as I took the dresses off the hangers, folded them, and put everything neatly into black garbage bags. By the time I came to the bottom shelf in the closet I had five full bags standing in the upstairs hall.
The bottom shelf was full of shawls, mittens, leather gloves. They were an entire armful, and I started filling a new garbage bag. When I turned back to the shelf, I discovered a plastic bag that had been hidden under everything else. I had no idea what was in it; I stood with the bag in my hands for a moment, then emptied its contents onto the bed. It was Tone’s clothes. I recognized them immediately, even though I hadn’t seen them for almost fifty years. How could that be? I thought everything had been burned. But there was no doubt about it. This was her yellow sweater with the loose buttons and her pink wool dress, and these were her little brown woolen stockings. The sight of the small clothes hit me harder than the smell of Mama. I had to take a break. I went out into the yard without a jacket, and stood there until I began to feel cold. The leaves on the ash tree were still green, but much lighter than during the summer, as if the green was on its way back into the tree, into the branches, into the soil. The clothes must have lain there the whole time. A whole life. I took a few deep breaths, then went upstairs again. The little dress smelled faintly of mildew and wood. Although the garments had surely been washed and ironed and folded nicely, they still seemed dirty. The zipper was rusty. The stockings had holes in them. But everything was there. Everything, everything.
I took the wool dress down into the living room and over to the painting that still hung above the piano, and I saw that, yes, it was true. It was the same dress. That was a strange moment. I felt as if time itself opened up and gaped at me forebodingly. I stared at the painting and Tone gazed at me with that gentle smile of hers as she clung to the kitten.
Herbert Andersson had clearly not followed the strict instructions he received. After he finished the painting, he sent the clothes back, and Mama had not burned them when they were returned from Oslo. She had saved everything. For almost fifty years they had lain neatly folded, ready to be worn, while the little zipper rusted. Mama must have known that I would be the one to find them. Nothing had been thrown away. Everything was there, except for the red hair ribbon.
2.
When Dr. Rosenvold finally arrived, Papa was standing in the front hall, completely stunned. The knees of his trousers were covered with sand and his shoes made a crunching sound when he accompanied the doctor into the bedroom. Mama was sitting on the bed; she didn’t make a sound, just rocked her upper body back and forth. Tone’s shoe lay on the floor in the front hall. I grabbed Ingrid’s arm, and we ran out into the yard and down behind the hay
barn. I threw myself on the grass, which was still wet after the rain, but Ingrid kept standing until I ordered her to lie down too.
“Come here, Ingrid,” I said. “Lie down. We need to pray.”
Ingrid merely stared. Her eyes were dark and narrowed, her hair tousled as usual. She just stood there, and I shouted to her again.
“You need to pray,” I hissed. “Do you hear me, Ingrid? You need to pray!”
Soon afterward Anna and Tilla came running across the yard and disappeared into the house. I heard their voices, but then everything grew quiet inside. Absolutely quiet. The front door banged in the wind. Before long Josef appeared, but he didn’t run. He paced back and forth on the front steps with his hands in his jacket pockets, as if waiting for someone. But nobody came, and finally he went inside again. I heard Mama’s voice far away and covered my ears. After a while Anna came out on the front steps with Papa. She held Papa’s arm tightly. It looked as though he was going to fall, but he didn’t. They went down a few steps, then they stopped, and Papa held on to the railing. He ran his hand over his face a few times, as if trying to tear it off, and then he called to me; he called my name several times, while Anna held on to him. Ingrid and I lay absolutely still. I didn’t have to order her, suddenly she seemed to understand. She folded her hands so tightly her knuckles turned white, and I did the same; I prayed with my face in the grass and breathed the smell of the earth.
We lay there for a long time. I heard the wind in the ash tree. The bees buzzing in the lilac bushes.
Finally, Hans came and found us.
I didn’t hear him until all of a sudden he stood in front of us with shiny wet boots. I don’t remember what he said, and I don’t remember what I replied. I remember only his voice, deep and slow and ordinary. Ingrid was sent upstairs to Lilly and the siblings, and Hans carried me down to Anna’s kitchen. I could have walked on my own, but Hans carried me anyway. He grasped me around the waist and picked me up. It was strange and unusual, but I didn’t object, and Hans didn’t say anything. I heard his breathing and his boots rhythmically brushing against his calves. He smelled of horses, of earth, of hard work. I wanted him to talk to me, but he didn’t say a word, and before long I felt listless and indifferent to everything. I must have closed my eyes, because I don’t remember anything else until we were in Anna’s kitchen. Everything was quiet and peaceful there, as it usually was. Hans set me down on the kitchen floor, and disappeared out the door. Anna fixed some food for me; she buttered slices of bread and poured milk into a glass, talking all the while about small, everyday things as if nothing had happened.
Across the China Sea Page 6