We saw the glow of Matiassen’s lantern, a blue, unearthly light gliding past the snowbanks as they approached. Papa drove the horse all the way to the churchyard wall. The five siblings were huddled together, buried in woolen blankets with only their heads sticking out, as if someone were trying to smuggle them through the darkness. Papa fastened the oat bag on the horse, Nils helped him with the horse blanket, then all five scurried through the snow after Papa.
They barely made it.
“So the crazies are here too,” said Josef.
Ingrid’s cheeks were rosy from the sleigh ride, her nose was running and she wiped it with the arm of her coat. As the flock of siblings came stamping into the vestibule, Sløgedal stood by the door and greeted them in surprise.
“You’re coming in full force this evening,” he said.
“Yes indeed,” said Papa. “If there’s a concert, then there’s a concert.”
Sløgedal nodded and put his hand on Papa’s shoulder; then he handed out the evening’s program, and we went into the warm sanctuary.
The church smelled of smoke and the pleasant warmth of a summer long past. The raging fire in the woodstove crackled and sputtered up the metal pipe. People were sitting in the pews, and Josef nodded right and left as we walked up the middle aisle. First Josef, then Papa and I, and behind us came all five siblings. Josef went up to his place by the pulpit, opened the little door at the end of the pew, and let the rest of us in. I sat between Papa and Lilly. She had her hands in her lap, and I glanced down at the hand that had stroked my hair. We sat in exactly the same place as during the baptism five years earlier, and in exactly the same place as during the funeral just a few months ago.
We had no more than sat down before Anna began to play the reed organ up in the organ loft. First softly, sort of hesitantly, but then the notes grew louder and began to sparkle as they drifted down over everyone there.
When the organ music ended, Alma Kleveland came forward to read the Christmas prologue. I looked at the candles, which were bright and holy and cast a reddish glow through the pages she was reading from. When she finished, everyone sang “Beautiful Savior.”
After that the leader of the Mission Society, Syvert Maesel, gave a short talk, and then Nils Apesland read the entire Christmas gospel by candlelight. The church was silent except for his monotonous voice, the fire burning furiously in the woodstove, and the flies, revived by the surprising warmth, buzzing blindly toward the window just above God’s eye.
When Nils Apesland finished, he closed the Bible and came down to sit with the rest of us. I realized that now was the moment it would happen. Anna played a short prelude. I felt the blood pounding in my ears. Josef cleared his throat, Papa straightened up. Erling’s head wobbled and he laughed a little to himself, until both Lilly and Nils hushed him.
Then she came.
She walked calmly out of a door hidden behind the altar painting. Holding the music in her hand, she stopped next to the baptismal font and raised her eyes, but she didn’t seem to see that we were sitting right in front of her. She didn’t see that we had brought all the siblings. Instead she looked up at Anna, perhaps their eyes met in the organ mirror. Everyone knew Mama had screamed that time Lilly stood out in the river, everyone knew Tone lay under the snow with a red bow in her hair and white carnations in her hands. And at that moment, while the candles flickered and Mama took a deep breath, everyone in the church saw that she was going to have another child.
Mama stood there under the Roman arches and sang as I’d never heard her sing before. I closed my eyes, and saw her standing on the sandbar waving to us. I saw her walking up the road from the milk platform with Papa. I saw Papa carrying her suitcase as she clutched his arm, and then I saw her enter my bedroom; she turned out the night-light and just sat there until I opened my eyes, and at that moment she got up and left.
Mama stood singing only a few meters in front of us, but it wasn’t she who stood there. It was the person she perhaps really should have been. The person she was on the way to becoming when she suddenly stopped taking voice lessons in Oslo. The person she was on the way to becoming before she changed course abruptly, became a nurse at Ullevål hospital, applied at Dikemark, met Papa, and went with him to the end of the world. Now she stood there singing. Anna played, and perhaps she glanced in the organ mirror and looked at Mama too. Everyone sat as if paralyzed, gazing at her. The whole congregation, all the siblings, Papa, Josef, and I. And at that moment I heard Tone whisper: Listen, Mama is singing!
The fire no longer burned in the woodstove, only embers and white ashes remained. The concert was over, people got up from the pews, and I felt a cold draft coming all the way from the vestibule. The candles were still burning, but the flames flickered, the wax dripped, and soon Sløgedal came and blew out the candles one by one. Then he shook Papa’s hand.
“We’ll never forget this,” he said.
“Neither will I,” Papa replied.
Sløgedal stood there holding Papa’s hand and didn’t know what else to say, but I knew that after this nothing would be the same again.
Anna climbed down the steep stairs from the organ loft; the sheriff came over, he too put a hand on Papa’s shoulder, and as always, Josef made sure he stood next to the sheriff. Everyone wanted to greet Papa, and everyone was waiting for Mama to come out from the sacristy. But she didn’t come. When she had finished singing, she disappeared through the door behind the altar painting. After a while people began to move down the middle aisle; I felt the winter cold seeping from the walls now that the stove was no longer burning. Papa turned to Anna.
“I think you’d better go and see how she is,” he said.
Anna disappeared behind the altar painting and was gone for a long time. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what took such a long time. But finally both Mama and Anna appeared by the altar railing. Papa took a step forward, perhaps he shook his head slightly, perhaps he smiled. I don’t know. In any case, Mama smiled; I saw that, and I thought the reason Papa stood there under the Roman arches was because he was the only person in this world who could receive that smile.
“Come,” said Papa. “Let’s go home now.”
They stood for a moment by the altar railing, while Ingrid and I and the other siblings walked down the middle aisle, across the doorsill, and out into the bitterly cold vestibule. The church door was wide open, frost glittered on the inside, and I caught a glimpse of the shoveled path that disappeared into the darkness. We paused, and I turned to look back into the church. Mama and Papa stood together by the chancel, Josef helped Anna with her coat, Hans withdrew to the side and ran his hand slowly through his hair. Then they came down the aisle, all five of them. Mama moved heavily, she held Papa’s arm and her eyes had a warm, elated glow. I saw it as I stood there on the threshold of the sanctuary with the cold air at my back. We all saw it. Ingrid howled softly, but quieted when I took her hand. Lilly held Sverre in her arms, Josef went to stand beside her, Erling did the same, and Nils put his hands deep into his pockets. We stood peering into the lighted sanctuary. We just stood there, all of us, waiting for Mama to come.
GAUTE HEIVOLL is the author of Before I Burn (Graywolf Press, 2014), which won the Brage Prize and was a finalist for the Critics Prize and the Booksellers’ Prize in Norway. He studied creative writing at Telemark College, law at the University of Oslo, and psychology at the University of Bergen. He lives in Norway.
NADIA CHRISTENSEN has published literary translations of seventeen books, including two winners of the Pegasus Prize for Literature. A former director of publications at the American-Scandinavian Foundation in New York City, she established the foundation’s annual prize for literary translation into English from Nordic languages. In 1996 King Harald of Norway knighted her for her contribution to US-Norway relations.
The text of Across the China Sea is set in Minion Pro. Book design by Rachel Holscher. Composition by Bookmobile Design and Digital Publisher Services, Minneapolis,
Minnesota. Manufactured by Versa Press on acid-free, 30 percent postconsumer wastepaper.
Across the China Sea Page 20