A Blessed Child

by Linn Ullmann

  Laura pulled her shopping trolley after her and said in an affected voice: “Thank you from all of us in the Residents’ Association. Thank you from all of us in the Residents’ Association.”

  Laura and Lars-Eivind and the children had been allocated the V when they had made the banner; Tuva and Leif Gran and their twin girls got the second Y.

  “We can all give free rein to our creativity and imagination here,” said Ole-Petter Kramer at the June meeting of the Residents’ Association. The only item on the agenda was the design and production of the banner, for which Ole-Petter Kramer and Alf Krag had responsibility. The team was to start work within the week. Laura was confused. It might in fact be Geir Kvikkstad who was in charge of the project. Or Lars Krogh. She knew Lars Krogh was on the banner committee. Geir Kvikkstad, too. But Ole-Petter Kramer had overall responsibility being on the design committee as well, which was different from the working committee she sat on along with Tuva Gran.

  “Is it meant to be ‘lively children’ or ‘love children’?” asked Laura.

  “Lively,” said Ole-Petter Kramer.

  Then Mikkel Skar said: “I think it’s important…I think it’s important not to let the lettering on the banner sprawl too much. We could end up with rather an overdose of variety and creativity and imagination and all that. We have to draw the line somewhere. Creating something is as much about working within limitations as it is about letting rip.”

  Mikkel Skar was a designer and the creator of the logo for the new breakfast cereal Krazykrunch. Mikkel Skar was often described as an asset. Lars-Eivind, Laura’s husband, was also described as an asset on the strength of his job. But where the banner was concerned, Mikkel was undoubtedly the greater asset of the two.

  Mikkel Skar thought there was a risk of the banner looking too…homemade. Laura sat on a chair, squeezed between Tuva and Leif Gran, and looked at Lars-Eivind sitting in his chair, flanked by the Åsmundsens’ three children. He was rubbing his eyes with his fists. Like a sleepy baby, thought Laura. She wanted to reach out and stroke his cheek.

  Lars-Eivind wasn’t really following the discussion. He was on one of the committees but didn’t know which and didn’t dare ask. Everybody in the Colony Residents’ Association was on some committee or other. Lars-Eivind was looking at an old man in a suit too big for him, who was sitting alone at a table at the end of the dining room, eating a plateful of brown scouse stew. He was a small, thin man; his suit, which must once have been royal blue, was stained. He ate slowly. There was a hearing aid lying beside his plate. His hands were shaking; from time to time he had to put one hand over the other on the table, as if the first hand’s job was to pacify the second hand. It was the shaking that made the meal take such a long time. The man lifted the glass from beside his plate and slurped a little water.

  Full meetings of the Colony Residents’ Association took place six times a year and were held in the dining room of the Fryden Nursing Home, but they rarely saw any of the old folk. The patients’ normal dinnertime was two p.m., and the meetings usually started at seven. By that time the old people had been put to bed for the night. Their lights had been turned out.

  Lars-Eivind looked at the man. He looked at Laura and then at Mikkel Skar. He said: “Good grief, Mikkel, how the banner looks isn’t that crucial, you know. This is for the sake of the children, isn’t it? We’re doing this for the kids.”

  “We’re going to see it every day,” said Mikkel. “And I’m thinking of the children, too. It’s important for children to see beautiful things. There is such a thing as aesthetic education.”

  “Is there?” interrupted Laura.

  “Is there what?” queried Mikkel Skar.

  “Is there such a thing as aesthetic education?”

  “I’m just saying we don’t have to make it all sparkly and over the top,” replied Mikkel Skar.

  Laura looked over at Lars-Eivind again. His eyes were fixed on the old man, who had been sitting alone until a moment before. Now another man was sitting at the table. The other man was neither eating stew nor drinking water. He was wearing a gray coat. Neither man spoke. Laura wondered whether the man in the coat was a brother or a son. Must be a brother, she thought. Tuva Gran leaned over and whispered: “You see him?”

  “Which one?”

  “The younger one.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s the one who’s moved in next door to us. It’s Paahp. He’s…I don’t know…He gave each of my girls a bracelet today.”

  “Bracelet?” Laura whispered back.

  “Yes, he made them himself, I think. Just some beads threaded on string. He stopped the girls on their way home from school and asked them if they’d like a bracelet each, and they said yes and accepted them. I’ve told them we’ll have to give them back.”

  “Are you going to?” asked Laura.

  “I wish someone else had moved in instead,” Tuva Gran said.

  Chapter 32

  Laura lay in the overwide bed she shared with Lars-Eivind.

  She said: “Are you in pain?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  “Well, what is it, then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then go to sleep!”

  Laura turned on her side.

  “Must you wake me up, too, when you can’t sleep?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t bear lying here on my own with all this.”

  “All what?”

  “I don’t know. Backache. Clammy sheets. Afraid.”

  Laura dreamt she was walking barefoot through the snow along the snow-covered road, over the steep, snow-covered ground, and she was dragging the banner behind her in the snow, but it was the size of a coat or a flying carpet or a circus tent. It was white and heavy and sometimes she dragged it along after her and sometimes she carried it with outstretched arms, as if it were a standard. Laura cut her bare feet on the stones sticking up through the snow. Her feet were bloody, but it didn’t matter. She felt no pain. She laid the standard over the spindly boy’s body in the overwide bed.

  “I thought you must be cold,” she whispered in his ear.

  “I kolnopowox yozou arose woxetov.”

  Chapter 33

  “We’ve definitely decided to sell,” said Laura.

  “And are the neighbors nice?” asked Jonas Guave.

  “Oh yes. Very!” said Laura.

  “Families with children, mainly?”

  “Mainly. Except for Paahp. He lives alone in a run-down house a bit farther up the road.”

  “Paahp?”

  “Yes. He makes bracelets of beads and gives them to the little girls in the neighborhood. Julia, my daughter, has had several of his bracelets.”

  “Is everybody okay with that?”

  “No, maybe not entirely,” said Laura. “There have been a few petitions to try to get him out.”

  “It might be a smart move to wait and sell in the spring,” said Jonas Guave. “When the lilacs are in bloom.”

  Laura smiled.

  “My sister can’t stand it when the lilacs come into bloom each year. She can’t stand the smell. It reminds her of when she was pregnant and was sick all the time. Did you know that morning sickness is very similar to the effect of chemotherapy?”

  Jonas Guave looked at her. He said: “But lilacs have such a wonderful smell.”

  “All I’m trying to say,” said Laura, “is that we want to sell the house now. By the end of January, preferably. As soon as possible, really.”

  Laura took Jonas Guave out into the garden. First they stood side by side in the tiny hall and put on their outdoor things. Anorak, scarf, gloves, warm shoes. It was a lengthy procedure. Laura didn’t want to look at Jonas Guave while they were doing it. When they finally got out into the fresh air and took a gulp, their frosted breath swirling from their mouths, Jonas Guave stopped in front of the old birch in the back garden, put his arm around Laura, and asked her if she
’d ever climbed to the top.

  “No,” said Laura.

  “You haven’t?”

  “No.”

  “You should always climb trees if you’ve got any,” said Jonas Guave. He put his hand more firmly around Laura’s waist.

  “But you know how it is,” said Laura. “Children…work…sometimes it’s as though you don’t get time for any of the things you really want to do.”

  Laura felt vaguely light-headed. Perhaps it was his arm around her waist? It was just a thought. A light-headed thought. She turned and looked toward the snow-covered gate at the end of the garden, thinking that it would be perfectly possible to go back into the warmth with Jonas Guave. Laura smiled at him and leaned against him. It was so simple. Like plucking a ripe berry. She could take him indoors, up the stairs, up into the overwide bed that she shared with Lars-Eivind, and let him part her legs and take her from behind so she didn’t have to look at him. Jonas Guave said he was a bit of a gardener in his spare time.

  “You know, Laura, a beautiful garden makes you live longer!”

  He added various suggestions for how to make your lawn look its best after the winter.

  “Our garden looks dreadful after winter,” said Laura.

  “I won’t put that in the property description,” he said, and laughed as if he’d said something very funny. But there was no trick to it, really. All you had to do was sow some extra seed and feed it well and not cut the grass too often to begin with.

  Not looking, thought Laura. Not knowing. Not thinking. Not speaking. Naked on all fours, strange hands around my waist, around my neck, through my hair.

  “That’s a mistake everybody makes,” said Jonas Guave.

  “What?” asked Laura.

  “Cutting the grass too often in the spring,” said Jonas Guave.

  He was warming to his theme, she could tell, because he started expanding on the topic.

  “It wouldn’t take much work to make this garden look fabulous, you know. As I said: Plant an apple tree. Build a playhouse. Keep the gate ajar to suggest openness. Closed gates indicate closed minds.”

  Laura nodded. Jonas Guave had cookie crumbs in the corner of his mouth though she hadn’t given him any cookies. How strange that she had noticed it only now and not when they were sitting next to each other on the sofa. He was tall, his physical presence slightly oppressive.

  “You stand on your veranda and your eye stops at the gate,” said Jonas Guave, “and when your eye stops, so do your thoughts.”

  Laura wondered how often he would say that.

  She was overwhelmed by the urge to open her mouth and laugh, but instead she tried to concentrate on a red spot on Jonas Guave’s chin, an old cut, she thought, the result of careless shaving, perhaps. She smiled at him. What else should she do? After all, it wouldn’t do to laugh. Or to hit him. When your eye stops, so do your thoughts. Blah blah blah. Idofiotov! Poqrosicodkol!

  Laura wanted Jonas Guave to go. He was welcome to sell the house, now or in the spring, but she wanted him to go. She didn’t want to explain…She didn’t want to have to explain the closed gate. Laura smiled. It hurt, but she smiled all the same. It was a sort of exercise in self-control: Don’t hit him!

  “We keep the gate closed so Yap doesn’t escape and get run over,” she said.

  “And Yap is…?” asked Jonas Guave.

  “My daughter,” said Laura.

  Jonas Guave looked disconcerted again.

  “I’m joking,” said Laura. “My daughter’s name is Julia. But I said that already, didn’t I? Yap would be a good name for her, though. But Yap is our dog. Well, it’s Julia’s dog, really. You know how it is. The kids nag you to have a dog, then they get one, and after a week they can’t be bothered to take it for walks and so it sort of became ours, mine and Lars-Eivind’s. Yap is with some friends this week, in the country.”

  Jonas Guave nodded. Laura talked. Don’t hit him. Be nice to Jonas Guave. It wasn’t Jonas Guave’s fault that Laura had wanted to go upstairs with him or climb trees with him five minutes before, and now just wanted him to go. Get lost. Laura talked softly. It had started to snow. It was snowing on them. They would be completely covered in snow if they continued to stand here motionless in Laura and Lars-Eivind’s garden. She looked straight at Jonas Guave. The red spot on his chin. Maybe not a cut. Maybe just a little birthmark he had scratched.

  “We got him from a shelter. And they warned us…I mean, this is why we keep the gate closed. They warned us. Yap has no traffic sense. He runs out in front of cars. Just like my sister. No traffic sense. She keeps ringing up and asking how to get to places. She’s distinctly helpless. Right now she’s on her way to Sweden to visit our father. He’s dying.”

  Laura paused for breath and could see that Jonas Guave would soon have had enough.

  “I’m going soon, as well,” she added.

  “To Sweden?”

  “Yes. I’m going to drive down and visit our father. He’s terribly old now. I may never see him again if I don’t go now. We’re all going at the same time, traveling separately and meeting there. My sisters and I.”

  Laura looked at Jonas Guave and laughed. Every morning she plaited her hair and the plait reached almost to her bottom.

  “And when I get back home we can sell the house, all right?”

  Chapter 34

  Laura decided to buy flowers. She would go into town to do some shopping, and she would buy flowers and make everything look nice at home.

  Jonas Guave had gone, and now she would spend the rest of the day cooking dinner and surprise Lars-Eivind when he got home late that evening. First she would serve a soup. Her mobile rang; it was Erika.

  “Have you changed your mind?” Erika asked.

  Erika was sitting in the car. She had crossed the border and stopped at a service station to have a coffee and perhaps take a nap in the car. Remembering that Magnus was in Poland on a school trip to some concentration camps, Laura knew Erika would be thinking about the boy all the time.

  “No,” said Laura. “Or rather, I don’t know. I’ve got so much to do here at home, things I have to sort out.”

  “So you might come after all?”

  “No. It’s difficult, I think. Maybe.”

  “I hope you will.”

  “In that case,” said Laura, “we all ought to come. I’ll ring Molly and ask her what she’s up to these days.”

  “It would give him a shock.”

  “A shock?”

  “It would give him a shock if all three of us showed up at once.”

  Laura suppressed a laugh.

  “Then a shock is what he’ll get.”

  And she added: “It wouldn’t be a bad idea for him to see who we are and to know our names, for him to see us face-to-face before he dies.”

  “He’ll never die,” said Erika, “but he claims this is his epilogue.”

  Laura could hear that Erika was preoccupied with something. Perhaps a paper cup of hot coffee. She hoped her sister wasn’t spilling hot coffee all over herself while driving.

  Erika said: “What is it you’ve got to sort out before you leave?”

  “Sort out?”

  “You said,” Erika reminded her, “that you had something to do at home. Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s okay, but I think we’re going to sell the house and move.”

  Laura heard Erika sigh. And then: “Why move, then, all of a sudden?”

  “I don’t know,” said Laura. “Because we’re not happy here. All the neighbors are so uptight. They’re virtually forcing an old man to move out because he gives bracelets to little girls around here.”

  “Why does he give bracelets to little girls?”

  “I don’t know,” said Laura.

  She wished the conversation would end.

  “I can understand people feeling uneasy,” said Erika.

  Laura sighed and said: “Yes, but they can’t force a man to move just because they don’t like him.”
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  “People do such strange things,” said Erika. “I wouldn’t let Julia accept any more bracelets from that man.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Laura, and changed the subject. “If you’re talking to Lars-Eivind…if you ring here, say, and he happens to answer, don’t mention what I just said about selling the house. It’s not as much of a priority for him at the moment as it is for me, if you see what I mean.”

  “I’ve got to go now,” said Erika.

  “Okay then,” said Laura. “Call me again in a little while and let me know how you’re doing.”

  She raised her head and looked out the window, at the snow covering everything, the grass, the flower beds, the birch tree, the green gate. Later today she was going to spend some time out in the garden with Julia and Jesper. She wouldn’t be in a rush or answer them irritably. She would take her time. As long as Jesper wasn’t feeling too poorly. He was always so sick once he’d gotten a fever; he woke up in the night, crying and saying it hurt, and it was impossible to comfort him. He wasn’t happy at that nursery, either; on the playground, he wandered about on his own with an old man’s frown and didn’t want to play with the other children. Maybe she should have kept him at home today? No, no, it was all right. His cold wasn’t that bad. His face was slightly hot and flushed from traipsing around the living room in his outdoor clothes while she was looking for Julia’s mittens. He’d be fine. Later today she would build a snowman with a carrot nose and a big checked scarf around his neck; she would make waffles and hot chocolate with cream for their supper; she would let them fall asleep in her and Lars-Eivind’s bed, both Julia and Jesper. She would let them sleep there all night and it wouldn’t matter if they kicked in their sleep or lay crossways. Laura and Lars-Eivind weren’t usually able to get much sleep when the children were sharing the bed, so the rule was no children in the bed at night, but tonight it didn’t matter if they got no sleep and it didn’t matter if the children slept in their bed. It would be nice. Everything would turn out fine.