Dad made something happen, and I cannot live without it. Life on an even keel is a deathlike condition. Depression. Tying me up and packing me in so tightly that drama suddenly breaks out. Driven by rage, a yearning so strong I cannot live with it. I cannot live with it and return to what is steady, to well-balanced life, to emptiness.
Inherited.
A black hell.
Come on now.
Yes, I am close to clearing it up, but not quite, I am not able, it is too simplistic.
Yes, what if there is only simplicity behind the blackness?
It does not make any sense, that there is no connection, that the rupture is just a rupture and does not hold something together. There has to be something more, there has to be something.
The black dog.
The scrape from the leg of a chair in a living room in Marienlyst. The room is cold, no fire in the grate, it should not be necessary to light a fire so late in April. The garden, sleet. Gravel paths.
Anxiety. Who experienced this? Not me, not me. I was a different person in a different time, but someone entered me. Reactivated.
I was sitting in Baker Hansen, but I was nowhere, me, but not me.
After the rain comes the sun comes spring comes summer comes the dripping wet gooseberry bush in August when the sun breaks through after drizzle.
Blankness, the body shakes, trams trundle past, shaking that propagates, movements, chaos, electrons, sound waves, something that could be systemised, but not to the naked eye. People were dangerous. They could disappear. Hands on the tabletop, mere atoms. All that could hold me tight was other people. The only thing.
The new trams were Italian. Sleek, but jerky. Not rickety, like the old ones.
The man with the scarf looked up from his newspaper. I was standing, a pool of melted slush underfoot, put on my coat. Sunshine. It soon disappeared behind the crest of the hill. I walked to Majorstua and turned onto Harald Hårfagres gate. The transport museum was situated in one of the old tram sheds. I had to walk around the building to locate the entrance. The big, blue tram carriages. Not dirtied by exhaust fumes and splashes of mud, as they would have been outside. I placed a hand on the metal.
From Majorstuhuset you took the tram up to the heights of Holmenkollen. You fastened your skis to the outside, nervously, no time to lose. That was how it used to be.
14
Just a narrow track trodden in the snow, on the edge of the pavement. In her hand she holds a box wrapped in brown paper, bound by string, the shop assistant tied a loop in the end with which she carries the box of millefeuille, Hartvig’s favourite cake. Because it is Saturday. And it is snowing. Upon her hat, her coat, the package. On her ice-cold fingers holding the string grocery bag – what good are gloves in the cold, they are no use at all, but isolate each finger, make them blue with cold, frozen stiff. The string bag contains fish, bread and half a kilo of butter. She does not usually do the shopping at Sundby’s in Majorstua herself. The girl does it now and again, or else they order their groceries and have them sent up on the goods tram.
She walks down Schulz’ gate in the direction of Bogstadveien.
There is the tram at the bottom of the hill. She stops, wavering. Will she ride it for two stops? It is not far to go, but the snow is hard to walk on with smooth-soled boots and she has a lot to carry. And so many tears bottled up. Anger! And the cold, good God, she is freezing. It is too much for her. All the same, she would rather have worked. Run a dressmaker’s shop. Like Coco Chanel. Smoked cigarettes in the breaks with the other women, laughed loudly. Handled material and evening gowns, turned on her heel and smiled at customers, watched the day move towards night, the lights of the city going on. The sounds inside a tram are quite different then, full of people on the way to parties, to the theatre or the darkness of the cinema, to restaurants and clubs. She would walk through the city arm in arm with a man. Not Hartvig. A gloved, big and manly hand would rest upon the back of her small hand. One could only imagine what might happen, where they were going. Back to his. She would feel his forearm tense through the sleeve of his overcoat. He could barely control himself. He was madly in love, with her. Biting down hard on his teeth, making the muscles in his jaws visible. Because she, she, was the one he wanted. And he was kind, this man was constantly kind and supportive. Not like stupid, boring Hartvig. And yet she buys cake for him, why does she do that, it will soon be over anyway, the kind of relationship they have cannot last.
It is mild, around zero degrees perhaps, still her feet are freezing, because she has to wade through all the snow. Oh. Enough. The tram comes driving up the hill with heavy snow on the roof and she climbs on. Standing room only of course, even so. All these looks, women staring and staring. Well, it is not as if she has anything to be ashamed of. New hat, new hand-sewn coat, nice make-up, nothing is wrong. Nevertheless. She is a Mrs, she is out of the running. A Mrs buying groceries, youth is in the past, she has wrinkles around her eyes. She will soon be fifty and is a mother of three. She wants to get away, maybe to the mountains, to a hotel preferably, she needs to be waited upon. Cold, it is so cold. Her stomach aches, maybe her monthly is on the way, she cannot remember, has lost track. Such a sticky mess, but at least she still gets it, and she does still have a social life, a slim waist, slim enough in any case, the childbirths do not show yet, not when she is wearing clothes, only the varicose veins are visible, but at this time of year, underneath tights, they are not so noticeable. Yes, it is most likely the monthly, she feels so angry. The stupid pot-bellied men sitting on the tram. Not getting up, none of them making any sign of offering her a seat, not seeing her. The one sitting nearest raises his walking stick at regular intervals, tapping it gently on the floor. Exactly like Hartvig. Finicky, smug. Men adorn themselves with canes as though they were items of clothing, think they are something, even when they are nothing more than conceited. Trotsky was something, that is true. She thinks about the picture of him in Årsrevyen, a few years ago now, but it caught her eye. How he protected himself, as it were, with his cane, holding it in front of his face as he arrived in Oslo. To shield himself from the journalists. How idiotic. You cannot protect yourself, not in her experience. Whether it be against questions, looks or demands. Or the days, dragging her ever on. So you are better off gritting your teeth, defending yourself. Dear. What a grey day, and the start of the weekend on top of it. No doubt there will be ructions and racket in the house with everyone home, no, she really has no desire, does not want to do anything. Sit in a chair in peace, read the weekly magazines, smoke a cigarette, drink coffee. That is what she wants, nothing else. She wants to be left alone.
There is always a familiar face on the underground, today is no exception. Mrs Vange is as usual wearing all too much make-up, it is tasteless, and the way she speaks, so the whole tram can hear, about the most private matters, her husband and children, mixed with all kinds of gossip. The people in the seats around listen breathlessly. Dear, oh dear. She is looking forward to telling Alice about it, thank God she has Alice, there would not be much cheer without her, not a single person who understood her.
Mrs Vange may be foolish, but everyone envies her the husband she has. He is a surgeon and my word he is handsome. The son of a shipping magnate into the bargain, and a good family as far back as can be traced. A sensitive, slightly weak aspect around the mouth, but manly all the same, and polite, considerate. Rumour has it he is a homosexual. Because Mrs Vange is really not much to look at. But Mr Vange’s gaze, she has noticed him looking at her, lingering on her breasts. Yes, it is women he likes all right. Oh. Her stupid Hartvig. Feeble, and short, the little legs on him. No, he is not hers, he is just something she happened upon, something that could not be avoided. Who else would have had her back then? She was already well over thirty and afraid she would be alone for ever, filled with anxiety, it was bordering on, well, God knows what. Things were not good with her, oh no, she could have been committed, could well have. If Hartvig had not turned up, cycling slo
wly by her at the tram stop on Niels Juels gate one summer evening, and she had not suddenly called out to him, hello, you there! Excuse me, would you happen to know the time?
Perhaps she had seen how proper and dependable he was the moment he passed, perhaps everything within her understood that this was an opportunity presenting itself. No, oh she did not know. Yet it was strange, her calling out to him like that, as though she knew that here was a man she could get. Here he comes.
For a long time she thought her innermost wish was to start a family with Hartvig, to be a wife and mother, and maybe it was, but it might also have been something she chose to believe, pure self-delusion. All she wanted was to settle down, to put a stop to those evil feelings flaring up within. Oh yes, she wanted to be miles away from that painful pressure on her chest, away from everything that reminded her of the uncertainty about Mama’s rented flats, because they never knew, her and Mama and Finn, if Papa had paid the rent for them, as he was bound to by law. Or if he would suddenly turn up and ring the doorbell, drunk and furious. True, these worries ceased when Mama got her divorce, but all the same, Cessi wanted something quite different, more solid than how it had been back then. Besides, Hartvig liked her. She found that hard to accept, finally someone who liked her, someone blessed with infinite patience, that was how it seemed. God knows she needed it, she was on the verge of going under. That the whole thing should tip over was something she could not predict. What had seemed proper became pedantry, patience resembled obstinacy more and more. His good family turned out to be patronising and narrow-minded, and Hartvig himself was dull as ditchwater. She could weep tears of blood, at everything, at nothing. Mama, if only you could come and help me. But she cannot expect that, neither can she ask her again, not this weekend as well. She has only just come from there after all, eaten lunch and been looked after. But everything comes to an end and she has to leave, she has to go back home.
Mama dear, can’t I stay here?
She did not say that, but it was what she was thinking: can I not stay, be your little girl for the night, you and I together here? No father, no brother – oh, my darling brother, who is never coming back – but you and I at least. Can I not sit quietly in your armchair and look out at the sky between the green plants on the windowsill, at the snowflakes falling, hear the city far off, the trams?
She is going in circles. One day laughter, the next seething rage, followed by remorse over everything she has said and done. It is not her fault, one thing leads to the other and it just carries on from there. Exaggeration, Cessi, you’re exaggerating, Hartvig says. Because when she first strikes out, the bouts of crying and screaming are usually not far behind. Then it does not matter that it was the boy who provoked the whole thing. He has such a vile mouth on him. Jealous he is, jealous of his little sisters. But none of them listen when she tries to explain. Mummy is so tired, she says, all this bickering is bad for Mummy’s nerves. Oh, that boy. Had it not been for his behaviour things would be quite different and wonderfully calm in their home. She likes the bedroom, for example, her bed, the curtains, the silence, she seeks refuge in there, rests while everything is going on, yes, she needs the house, so must endure Hartvig. That tyrant. It is exactly what he accuses her of being, tyrannical. You tyrannise us with your erratic moods, he says. He says this, him, the one who wants to control everything and everyone. You know I am hurting, she says, that my threshold is very low. And they agree to a new convalescence for her. That is what she thinks they have agreed upon. But then he comes home having spoken to Dr Vold about admitting her to hospital. After all, Hartvig says, after all your nerves never get into shape, truth be told they’ve got worse. That is the way Hartvig speaks. At first she is afraid, then she gives way, gives up, in fact, as long as she can rest.
The County Governor of Oslo and Akershus proclaims the following: as spouses, high court lawyer Hartvig Viker and Cecilie Brodtkorp Viker, née Brodtkorp Lütken, both Oslo, are agreed to annul married life, and as mediation in accordance with the Marriage Act § 44 has been attempted by the priest in Ris, authorisation is hereby announced for separation pursuant to § 41 of the Marriage Act of 31 May 1918 cf. Law on changes in marriage legislation of 25 June 1937.
Oslo, 9 June 1950
So nothing comes of the hospital admittance. Suddenly Hartvig does not want to be married any more. Damn him damn him. He stole a march on her. Not that she would have left him, she did not want a divorce. She just wants to be in the house, she misses her bed, the flapping curtains and the sounds from the garden. Hartvig does not understand. And what about the children? She had said that of course. How could you do this to the children? Your outbursts are far worse, he said. She knew he would say that, but he was so unexpectedly calm. Indifferent, cold. Have you met someone else? she shouted, he had denied it, but she can feel in her bones how foolish she has been. She immediately sees him with new eyes, as though she were another woman, and realises he is attractive. With his broad wrists, his hairy arms. Now he is unreachable.
She had cried, screamed, fainted and demanded meetings with Dr Vold. So they sat there in a chair each, she in a dark outfit with a pressure in her chest, she suspected what was coming. Still deep down she believed that the doctor would help her, take her side, make Hartvig understand. That was not what happened. It was worse than she could have imagined. Her marriage with Hartvig was finished. Did not exist. She understood that from the moment Hartvig opened his mouth, but at first she did not want to go along with it, because she did not feel that way herself, their marriage was not supposed to fall apart. But after that meeting she was certain he had met somebody else. Otherwise he would never have had the strength to leave, in the long run he never refused her anything.
God, she grew so angry, her rage almost got the better of her as she sat listening to him. She was, in his opinion, prone to pretence, highly strung, unstable and a bad influence on the children. Not a word any more about her lively disposition and beautiful hair. He described violent outbursts she herself had forgotten, striking out, and the time she had thrown a plate at the boy, but it didn’t hit him, she interrupted. And your hysterical screaming, Hartvig continued, the episodes when she pulled him by the hair, shook him. The objects she had hurled at him, how she constantly called him repulsive, said he smelled, was a cripple.
Hartvig made things out to be much worse than they actually were. She found herself unable to describe the way he sneered. My God, what was that compared to a smashed plate? How he laughed when she became angry. The tapping with a fork or fountain pen on the table before he said something, the way he cleared his throat before making a big fuss out of some deathly boring point. How he pawed at her. The smell of him, the smell. How he had to decide everything. The details. The rules. Written down to the letter. The long-winded explanations. Everything had to be done his way, whether it concerned her or the children. He held the purse strings, after all. So you had no choice but to stand and listen. She screamed it all out in the end, all of it, but afterwards did not remember how the words had fallen, only Hartvig sitting there in his chair with his self-satisfied smirk. That made her even angrier, because she knew what he was thinking and what he would say when they got home, that now Dr Vold had seen it for himself. Hysterical shrew.
Dr Vold made her lie down on the divan. It was the first and only time she got to lie on it. He fetched her a glass of water himself, and she was told to keep quiet for a few minutes. Hartvig had to wait outside. Dr Vold sat at his desk and leafed through some papers. The tram passed by beneath the windows. Her heart pounded, but most of all it was terrible to lie on her back that way, because she felt an awful welling of tears working its way up, the lump in her throat preventing her from breathing properly. God, it was so painful, but she had to hold the tears back, they were too great, contained everything she knew, everything that had happened and could not be undone. Everything had an explanation, yet she knew it was impossible to explain, there were no words and no one could understand. There w
ere too many small paths and tracks running parallel or crossing one another, like all the nerve fibres of every single leaf on a large tree. And it was so painful.
When they took their places on the chairs in front of Dr Vold’s desk again, she was calm, leaden, almost as though she were asleep, and Hartvig was indifferent to her, he was just Hartvig as usual. She was so much stronger than him, had been for many years, nothing could change that, there was nothing they actually needed to change and soon they would be going home. It seemed like such an interminably long way, first the walk to Nationaltheatret station, then all those minutes waiting for the train before departure, followed by the rattling ride uphill on the red seats, neighbours and acquaintances you had to greet, a journey as long as a bad year, with Hartvig sitting next to her. Then finally they would arrive home, and she could lie down in her bed.
The situation seemed heated, Dr Vold said, and Mrs Viker was overexerted, they could surely agree on that, so perhaps a break was in order. In his opinion it would not be wise to act too hastily regarding the divorce, but Mrs Viker did need rest, so perhaps they could be apart for a while, a couple of months say.
Hartvig could arrange for a stay in the country, he said, but he still wanted a separation, that he demanded. Enough was enough.
Yes, don’t believe for a moment that I want to stay with you after this, she screamed, she had to, he was stripping her of all dignity. But she did not want to go away, no, she did not want to go anywhere, just to be left in peace. There, in the house.
But she was banished, to a little cabin on farmland belonging to a woman, a domineering, coarse and rude old bag. In much the same way as Hartvig was also coarse and shallow. And letters arrived from Hartvig, dry, businesslike letters. The following is an inventory of mutual household contents, he wrote, with a suggested division attached. She could look over it and come back with possible alternative proposals.
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