‘Well, if you start thinking that way it’ll never end,’ the Librarian says. ‘How many ants did I kill off when I walked from the gate to your front door? We’re daily mass murderers, all of us.’
They laugh.
The room grows quiet, the way it does when good food is digested. Everything feels fat. Then Mrs. Thorkildsen, a propos of nothing, pulls out an old classic of hers:
‘Getting old is a drag.’
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard Mrs. Thorkildsen utter these words and, after all, I can only count to four. But the Librarian does what I never do. She asks the right question:
‘In what way?’
Mrs. Thorkildsen thinks carefully before answering. This is new:
‘There are so many ways getting old is shit, but since you asked, I’d say that first and foremost, it’s the fact that you don’t.’
‘Get old?’ The Librarian seems alert.
‘If only I could have all of me age at the same tempo—well, that might not be so easy either, but I might not constantly forget how old I am, only to have it brutally thrown in my face every time I see my own reflection. If the mind aged at the same rate as the skin, to put it that way. But the soul doesn’t wrinkle. Not in that way. On the inside, I’m not getting any older. My body, my brain, everything about me is getting old, but I’m not getting old. In my dreams I’m still sixteen years old, and I don’t think the soul gets any older. Not mine, anyway. But there it is, trapped in the prison that is me, while the building slowly crumbles around me thanks to wear and tear and lack of maintenance. I see a handsome man on the street, and I think and feel what I might think and feel, and he might do as I hope and throw a glance my way, but I feel it going right through me. I’ve become invisible to that glance. The impulse to run across a field and roll into the summer night doesn’t go anywhere, but I can’t run anymore, and God knows what would happen if a young Adonis took me in his arms and fulfilled my innermost desires. He’d probably break every bone in my body. Or maybe it would simply catch fire, dry as it all is.’
More laughter. More Dragon Water. More Mrs. Thorkildsen: ‘One can hope to get wiser as the years go by, but that very “one” remains the same. The joys and the fears remain the same, so that you shall truly realize how many of your joys depend on the body’s power, while fear is driven by its own renewable energy. Am I boring you now?’
‘Not at all. I’m just glad you’re telling me this. That you can be bothered to have an honest conversation about something real. Something serious. One big difference I see between Mom and Dad’s homeland and my own is that the connection between older and younger people is so much weaker here, and that death is totally absent from our lives.’
‘It’s not death that’s the problem—it’s life,’ says Mrs. Thorkildsen. ‘One of the old Greeks said that the gods envy people because people know they’re going to die, they just don’t know when. The fact that life won’t last forever, that it could be over at any minute, is what gives life to life, the way the Greek gods see it. Isn’t the world much more exciting when you know it could be gone in the next moment? But what the gods forget to imagine is how it feels to sit and wait for the moment to come, when you’ve had your fill of life long ago. When you’ve done all you plan to do and you don’t have much use for life anymore, but you still don’t know when your time will come.’
‘Is that what you’re doing?’ the Librarian asks quietly. ‘Waiting impatiently to die?’
‘On the contrary, I’m being very patient. If I were impatient, I’d certainly find an escape hatch. I just want to live without the death-denial that’s become a scourge for so many in our time, which hits us old folks the hardest. They talk to us as if death is the enemy. They have us exercise and diet and stimulate us so you’d think death was defused. Past its expiration date. But that’s not our fear of death. That’s our children’s, those who are still at an age when death makes its mark unfairly and randomly, those who still think death can be conquered if you only exercise and live a life of moderation, preferably with a diet full of vegetables.’
‘I think I know what you mean,’ the Librarian says. ‘When I see the joggers in the park where I live, I always think: Why? What’s driving you to do this? I think. A better body? Okay, have at it. Higher self-esteem? Meh. Is there any reason to have higher self-esteem just because from time to time you switch from a walk to a gallop?’
‘And they all have those wires coming out of their ears,’ Mrs. Thorkildsen points to her ears.
‘Guilty as charged! I don’t run, but I like to listen to music when I’m walking or biking. Come to think of it, that’s the only time I have to listen to the music I want to hear. Are you worried about the future?’
Mrs. Thorkildsen answers without thinking:
‘Yes.’
Then she takes a long pause, before adding:
‘Well. Hmmm. Or maybe not. As you can tell, I don’t plan to spend a big part of my life in the future, but when I do think about it, I am worried. I don’t know what it is that worries me, exactly. Financially I’m just fine, I can safely live here as long as I want, whatever they might come up with. I have my health. What’s left of it, anyway. Getting old is a drag, but it only gets worse if you start whining about it, and since old age paints everyone with the same brush, at least it feels … fair.’
‘You spend a lot of time alone,’ the Librarian says. I don’t know whether that’s a question or a statement.
‘Yes,’ says Mrs. Thorkildsen, ‘and sometimes I worry about what it does to me, spending so much time alone. On the other hand, I’m just happy my family isn’t pounding down the doors more than they already do. I thought it would make me happy when they told me they were thinking of moving home, but instead it made me feel unsettled. Now they’re talking about moving away again, and I’m just as happy. I know that somewhere in their thought process they’re considering that the little one should be able to see his grandmother, or that the grandmother should be able to see her grandchild. But when I really think about it, all I see is myself babysitting a boy who knows how to take care of himself. Truth be told, my own grandchild is a stranger to me, and I don’t feel any sadness about that. On the contrary. Is this sounding cold?’
‘I don’t think so,’ the Librarian says. ‘Would I feel differently if I had kids of my own? Maybe. But seen from the sidelines, the fourth commandment is the worst of them all. If there’s one verse in the Bible that reveals it was written by men rather than God, it’s this one: Honor thy father and mother, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. I mean, it’s the only one of the ten commandments that empowers people, and nowhere near all people, but exclusively parents,’ the Librarian continues, growing excited now. ‘Notice that it’s the only commandment that uses a concrete reward to entice people into following it. It’s strange in many ways. “Honor thy father and mother.” Okay. So, when your mother and father die, you’re suddenly free from one of the ten commandments? The nine others are permanent and eternal, but this fourth commandment is apparently the only one that’s circumstantial. Dependent on family circumstances, even. You can almost hear Moses going: “Maybe we should just add a few lines to keep those bratty teenagers in line? It’s not like someone’s going to notice.”’
34
They never did finish talking, but eventually it becomes time for the Librarian to leave us after all. As she stands in the hallway lacing up her boots, Mrs. Thorkildsen comes trudging out of the kitchen with a book in her hand and a secretive smile on her face.
‘As long as you’re here,’ she says, ‘could you do me a favor and bring back this book I forgot to return?’
Mrs. Thorkildsen is lying! For once it’s not my nose that catches her, but my eyes. For there, in Mrs. Thorkildsen’s outstretched hand, is the book about Adolf Lindstrøm, the one on which she spilled red wine. And if there’s one book Mrs. Thorkildsen hasn’t forgotten about, it’s that one. Like a red-hot bal
l of guilt, it’s been sitting there on the shelf, day in and day out, and now she just gives it away with a smile, just like that. Perhaps that was her plan all along? To get the Librarian so liquored up that she just accepts the tarnished book without noticing Mrs. Thorkildsen has dunked it in Dragon Water? Either that, or there’s something I’ve missed, which would be a shame.
I can barely wait until the Librarian, after an eternity of giggles and hugs (and a few scratches, I have to confess), is out the door:
‘You’re shameless in your shamefulness,’ I say. Laconic, I hope. I’d like to be a little laconic.
‘What are you babbling on about now?’ Mrs. Thorkildsen says. Alcoholic.
‘This whole charade,’ I say. ‘It was all so you could return a library book?’
‘Nonsense, I could have returned that long ago.’
‘But it was damaged. What happened?’
‘I saved it,’ Mrs. Thorkildsen says with a secretive, mocking smile.
Behind my back, God knows when she’s found the time, Mrs. Thorkildsen has sought out the black market. She’s visited a rare bookshop, she admits. That would not have happened on my watch.
‘You could have been killed!’ I say.
If you’ve never set foot in a rare bookshop, be glad. Consider yourself warned. Rare bookshops, you see, are built on the premise of taking full advantage of sick people. There might be a fine line between being a bibliophile and a bibliomaniac, but it’s a very important line. Bibliophiles can typically make do with the Library, but bibliomaniacs have to have it!
Mrs. Thorkildsen is in no way a bibliomanic—on the contrary, she stays on the right side of the line. Still, I don’t think the rare book pusher has any problems recognizing a person walking into the store with a desperate need for precisely that book. And Mrs. Thorkildsen had that need. The book hawker probably only had to take one look at her to see the desperation and anticipation. God knows how much he cheated her out of before she could grab the book with her arthritic hands and stuff it into her wheely bag.
‘But what about the smell code?’
‘Can you imagine, there was a code on it already. Isn’t that what you’d call a stroke of good luck? All it took from there was a pair of scissors, some contact paper, and the old stamp I grabbed before I left the job.’
I’m tempted to tell Mrs. Thorkildsen that she’s becoming more and more like the Chief with each day that goes by; on the other hand, it’s probably unwise to give her any ideas.
The Librarian has gone home, or wherever it is young librarians spend the night, and Mrs. Thorkildsen sits in her chair with her glass and a newspaper clipping that she reads over and over again. The Librarian gave it to her, one last thing she remembered while attempting to wedge the Lindstrøm book into her overstuffed handbag. Maybe to make space, she pulled a newspaper clipping out of the bag and handed it to Mrs. Thorkildsen.
‘You should read this,’ the Librarian said. ‘It was in the paper yesterday.’
And that’s what Mrs. Thorkildsen has done. Over and over again. It’s not easy to sniff out exactly what it is the little piece of text has done—and is doing—to Mrs. Thorkildsen, who’s already full and tired and drunk.
‘Are you sad?’ I ask. ‘Do you want to cuddle?’
‘No, I’m not sad. And, yes, I’d love to cuddle.’
‘What did she give you?’
‘A letter to the editor. Let me read it to you.’
And then she read it to me.
When I think back on my childhood, I realize now that I took you for granted. I didn’t know how lucky I was to go to a school with its own library, and a librarian who knew me and always led me to new reading experiences.
Mrs. Thorkildsen sounds like she has a bit of a cold, I think.
Through the books you showed me, I traveled all over the world, and lived many lives. I now have an idea about what it’s like to be adopted or to be a gypsy girl during the Second World War. I was there when Pompeii was buried in volcanic ash and I have memories of being plundered by Vikings.
The library gave me a safe place to read while I waited for rehearsal or when I got to school early, and sometimes I was lucky enough to be able to meet a real author.
All kids should have a librarian in their lives.
And that seems to be the end of it. At least there’s nothing more to say. The heart beats and the breath goes on, and Mrs. Thorkildsen is sad and content. I’m full and content.
‘Is it about you?’ I have to ask. ‘Are you the librarian?’
‘I’m not that librarian,’ Mrs. Thorkildsen says. ‘But it is about me.’
35
As she begins the next leg of her story, Mrs. Thorkildsen is wearing her green dress for the occasion and is standing by the fireplace, where again it’s now magically tighter quarters than it used to be. She’s been drinking, but only enough to get the required flush in her face. Mrs. Thorkildsen’s interest in ‘The Big Pissing Contest in Antarctica’ is located somewhere within a condition defined in both ends by a glass of Dragon Water. Without Dragon Water in her body, Mrs. Thorkildsen has no interest in telling stories. With too much Dragon Water on board she’s incapable of telling them. She has to hit a certain window of light and chatty tipsiness, which is right where she is now.
‘There are thirty-nine dogs here, Tassen,’ she says. And maybe it’s the way she says my name, but suddenly the mood seems a bit conspiratorial. ‘This according to Thorvald Nilsen.’
‘You’re not going to trick me into asking who Thorvald Nilsen is.’
‘Was. Thorvald Nilsen was the Chief’s second-in-command.’
‘A beta,’ I say with ice-cold irony, but it goes straight over her head.
‘Nilsen sailed around the world two and a half times over the course of the South Pole expedition. Can you imagine!’
‘So that makes him a good man?’ I ask, possibly a bit curtly, but I am trying to be a good dog, believe me. I could have said something about Mrs. Thorkildsen’s relationship to men generally, be they fathers, sons, or lovers. Not to mention if they’re naval captains on distant seas. But I let it go, a choice I don’t regret. I don’t get an answer to my question, though. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, right?
They are going home with seventy-seven dogs less than when they first arrived in Antarctica, Mrs. Thorkildsen says, less than a quarter of all the dogs on the expedition, including the fish food. All eleven South Pole dogs are among the thirty-nine on board.
‘So they set sail, away from the giant block of ice where the Englishmen are still fumbling their way towards death without the help of a single dog. But great stories are just like great deeds: they’re all about coming first. And given the choice of coming first with the deed or with the story,’ Mrs. Thorkildsen explains, ‘always choose the story.’
‘I’ll try to remember that,’ I say.
The Chief sits in the ship’s cabin, writing the story of his victory and feeling his old creeping anxiety about coming last, the one he thought he’d left behind in that little tent he pitched on the South Pole. What the Chief really thinks about the loser in the race, as he sits there carving his legacy into something he thinks is stone, but really is ice, nobody knows.
Mrs. Darling gives birth to eight puppies, four of each. Half of them get to live, two of each sex. Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash! But now it’s the boys’ turn to drown and the girls’ turn to live. And that’s that. Mrs. Thorkildsen moves four new dogs to the floor.
‘Forty-three,’ she says, and it sounds just fine to me. And she places four new figures on the mantle.
The Chief ran ashore and telegraphed his feat to the whole world as soon as Fram, after a long rough sail, arrived in Tasmania. The expedition got rid of a whole new batch of dogs at that point. These dogs weren’t murdered, but sold as slaves to some crazy local imperialist with Antarctic ambitions. He probably wasn’t hard to find.
All eleven South Pole dogs stayed with the Fram as it wearily wobbled its w
ay through the Pacific towards Buenos Aires without the Chief on board—he’s now traveling separately aboard a passenger ship, under an alias to be safe—and with a fake beard!
‘You see, he doesn’t give up!’ Mrs. Thorkildsen says. She can’t help herself. ‘Lies his way to the South Pole and, God help me, he lies his way right back.’
‘If you all didn’t have such a ridiculously bad sense of smell, it would be impossible to fool someone with a fake beard,’ I allow myself to point out.
There, in the hot, humid harbor city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Chief’s team falls apart. He has already sailed off on his own, he’s wrapped in the arms of fame now, the embrace that will slowly suffocate him throughout the rest of his life.
The lie is fading, but it still has a pulse. Fram is still on course for the North Pole. That assurance is the only thing protecting the Chief from being branded as a liar in official circles. But the truth is that Fram isn’t really headed anywhere other than the ocean floor, at least over the long haul. The polar ship should have kept going long ago, but she’s still docked in the harbor, stinking as the provisions for the North Pole expedition sit rotting onboard.
The South Pole dogs are still alive. One of them is already on his way to Norway; the rest are starting to become a problem. And what do people do about problems? Stuff them away where they can’t be seen. Lock them in if they can. That was exactly what happened to the polar dogs.
The dogs get stuffed away in Buenos Aires’s hot and humid, stuffy zoo. An establishment that apparently had a certain degree of experience taking care of polar dogs as long as there was money to be had. So that’s the way it went.
‘And that’s where the journey ends,’ Mrs. Thorkildsen says.
Good Dogs Don't Make It to the South Pole Page 18