A Modern Family

by Helga Flatland

  It’s impossible to go back on it, I have to stand up for what I’ve said. God, this entire situation has turned into a bloody nightmare.

  ‘Of course I believe in relationships,’ I continued. ‘Healthy relationships in which we establish the rules for how they ought to work based on what makes us happy.’

  ‘So, what, an open relationship?’ Liv asks, she seems genuinely curious, not defiant or provoked, glancing every so often at Anna as if she’s asking in order to help me to clarify something to her, but I’m still convinced that this has nothing whatsoever to do with Anna.

  ‘You could call it that,’ I say.

  ‘What would you call it?’

  Dad, Olaf, Ellen and Anna are following with interest, Dad is leaning back in his chair as if he’s watching the football on TV.

  ‘I call it a relationship,’ I reply. ‘It is a relationship, it just doesn’t fulfil the same expectations that you and society have about what that concept means, there’s more to it for me.’

  ‘Well, sure, you can be in a committed relationship and reap all the rewards of that, while sleeping with other people,’ Liv says casually, her expression neutral.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ I reply, starting to tire of the way things always veer off in this direction. ‘Sexual freedom isn’t primarily what I’m talking about.’

  ‘So, it’s not a case of having your cake and eating it?’ Liv says, and I detect something else in her tone, something harder.

  ‘No, it’s about the freedom to live the way you decide, obviously in agreement with a partner,’ I reply. ‘For me it actually means that I’m able to connect with someone on a more intellectual level, I don’t have to devote all of my energy to living up to the expectations of others where my private life is concerned, expectations that result in most people spending a lot of their time suppressing their natural instincts.’

  Anna looks at us, nodding enthusiastically at me, she couldn’t be more on the same page, and I regret my words, our conversation, especially when all of my instincts are crying out for Anna, crying out to me to pin her down, crying out about the wonder contained in all that she is, that I am, that we are, the soft, thrilling, threatening, steadfast nature of the entire situation. But the acknowledgment plays out the contrasts within me, and in the next instant, in the silence that has fallen around the table, I carry on talking:

  ‘I think everyone should think more about how they do things and the way they live their lives, the rules they choose to live by.’

  ‘So, everyone should live by their own rules, basically?’ Liv says.

  ‘More or less,’ I reply.

  ‘OK, but have you given any thought to all of the systems and rules required in order for society to function? What would things be like if everyone just pleased themselves, ran red lights, stopped paying their taxes, stopped working, even?’

  ‘I have thought about it, but it’s not like I’m suggesting complete and utter lawlessness, and obviously I agree that there are plenty of fundamental structures that function remarkably well. I just don’t think that marriage is one of those, I think that love rooted in duty over desire is something that we, as modern, liberated individuals, ought to … well, free ourselves from.’

  ‘Has it occurred to you that duty and desire aren’t mutually exclusive? Or that one might naturally lead to the other in a healthy relationship?’ Liv asks, her cheeks flushed.

  ‘I don’t think that’s healthy,’ I say, and I want to bite my tongue, but I’ve also become intent on winning the argument. ‘Duty kills any sense of spontaneity and joy and freedom, something that any relationship is dependent on in order to survive.’

  Liv gazes at me. She pauses for a moment.

  ‘You know that Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir had a terrible relationship,’ she states loudly and scornfully after a few seconds. ‘This is all based on nonsense, de Beauvoir was so jealous that she didn’t know what to do with herself. Sartre was an egotistical bastard. Don’t come here with your undergraduate-level philosophies and think you can apply them to real life,’ Liv says, now half-standing up from her place at the table.

  ‘It makes no difference what kind of relationship they had,’ I tell her, but that’s not quite true, it reveals a slightly uncomfortable divide between theory and practice, but I forge ahead regardless: ‘The important part is what they thought, their theories.’

  ‘Sure, the theory that you can go to bed with whoever you like is ground-breaking stuff,’ Liv says, then sits back down, resigned.

  Silence falls. Dad looks amused, Ellen yawns. Anna is leaning forward where she sits.

  ‘Shall we call it a tie?’ I ask, as we so often do when we want to bring a conversation to a close without it ending in a disagreement, and at this point I have every desire to end this one.

  Liv smiles.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Half a point to me.’

  Nevertheless, Anna looks proud, as if I’ve won an important battle. I want to wrap my arms around her as much as I want to punch her for making me doubt everything I’ve ever believed in and stood for.

  A few days ago, on the evening after Anna had occupied the flat with her sounds and her smells and her routines and everything else that I grew used to and dependent on in the space of just a few hours, she was sitting on the sofa chatting to someone on Facebook for a few hours. With every persistent ping of her phone or computer, I felt my body tense with the uncomfortable, petty urge to have her all to myself, started having obsessive thoughts without even realising that they were over-the-top and – yes, quite frankly – paranoid, I pictured her naked body pressed against someone else, I imagined that it was this very scene that was being described or perhaps planned with each of the pings I heard; after a while I became convinced that they were talking about me, too, about how she was tricking me in order to be able to stay here, perhaps, while I, in my blind naivety, believed her to be in love with me.

  I was surprised at myself, at what my body and mind had activated in such a short space of time, when Anna suddenly turned her laptop around to show me a string of messages between her and her sister. Do you think we look alike? Anna asked me, pointing at the picture on screen. I nodded and laughed with relief, yes, you’re both really similar, I said, wanted to tell her everything that had been running through my mind for the past hour, but luckily I was interrupted by Mum, who called to explain that she was feeling nervous about her trip to the Hardanger Plateau with people she didn’t know. I mean, who actually goes on trips like this? And isn’t it a bit too much like I’m trying to make a point, leaving just as Sverre’s birthday comes around? she asked. No, I said in response to her final point, even though I wasn’t entirely sure. Think of it as exposure therapy, you’ve always said yourself that you should seek out the things you fear in life.

  I’m sitting on Dad’s balcony after dinner, the temperature is mild, it’s dusky. Anna had somewhere else to be, and all of a sudden I had no desire to return to the flat without her. I held her for a little bit too long as we hugged in the hallway before she left. I’ll see you later on this evening, she said, chuckling when she eventually found herself having to writhe free from my grasp.

  ‘She seems nice,’ Liv says, appearing in the doorway all of a sudden; I’ve no idea how long she’s been there.

  ‘Do you think so?’ I say, pleased.

  ‘Down-to-earth and genuine. Different,’ she says.

  Karsten and several others have often reacted to the fact that my sisters and I can talk about things, often apparently heatedly, as if we were arguing, only to speak to one another later on as if nothing has happened. For me it’s always felt natural, and I’ve come to understand that it’s the result of discussing a whole range of issues, as well as being thoroughly confident in the knowledge that we are there for one another, regardless.

  ‘Yes, she’s very different,’ I say.

  Liv comes outside and sits at the opposite end of the table. She looks younger in the candlelight,
just as she did when I was a child. I haven’t ever thought about the fact that she’s changed before now, I feel as if she’s looked the way she does my whole life.

  ‘Are you in love with her?’ she asks with the faintest hint of a smile.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, swallowing.

  ‘It’s fairly obvious,’ Liv says. ‘I’ve never seen you get so stressed over dinner before.’

  I say nothing.

  ‘Isn’t that a little bit contradictory, maybe?’ Liv asks.

  I nod slowly.

  ‘There’s nothing odd about wanting something to cling on to, Håkon, when everything that’s always seemed so secure has come undone,’ Liv says.

  Karsten’s gaze is fixed on me. I told him earlier on that if he gets too nervous, he should look at me, find his own calm within my expression. Now he’s staring at me with such intensity – rather than looking at Cecilie, standing before him in her white dress – that I have to give him a brief nod to indicate that he needs to compose himself, just so it doesn’t appear that the groom might prefer to be marrying his best man.

  Karsten marries Cecilie six weeks after Dad’s seventy-second birthday. He proposed two years ago – that’s something I find more absurd than marriage itself, just going around for two years or more, promising that you will marry someone – and asked me if I’d be his best man the day after popping the question. I’d only just returned from our fateful family break in Italy.

  After all, you’re my best friend, Karsten said. And to be completely honest, I think you’d have been offended if I hadn’t asked you, somewhere beneath all of your principles, he said. I laughed. My principles don’t pit me against the idea of you two marrying, obviously, I said to them both, I only hope it’s your decision. Of course it’s our decision, Cecilie said, I can’t think of anything more romantic than demonstrating to friends and family that I’ve chosen Karsten, that we’re committing to one another. I bridled: Everyone says that, that commitment is romantic, but why, I asked, other than because someone has taught you that sacrificing something and offering it up is a romantic gesture in its own right? Cecilie was offended. What do you find romantic, Håkon, hmm? Sleeping with as many people as possible?

  No, the most romantic thing I can imagine is living with someone in full freedom, and this person choosing to spend their time with me because they want to, mind, body and soul, not because they committed to doing so twenty years ago in front of someone or something they don’t even believe in. The whole idea makes me want to laugh! I can’t understand why any modern individual would voluntarily choose something so reactionary, something founded on a fundamental tradition of oppressing women, regardless of whether it’s a religious or a civil affair, I continued, unable to stop myself. Nice choice for best man, Karsten, Cecilie said before upping and leaving us both.

  I had to promise Karsten that I would limit my outbursts in the lead-up to the wedding if I wanted to remain his best man. She was the one who asked, I said in a somewhat insulted tone, but my obvious need to assert myself in such a way had left a slightly unpleasant taste in my mouth.

  Mum and Dad, who have been like an extra set of parents to Karsten ever since he cycled his way into our garden and my life when we were four years old, are sitting together in the third row at the church. Mum hadn’t met any promising candidates on her trip to the Hardanger Plateau, and in fact seemed relieved to have escaped the prospect. These men bring a lot of turmoil with them, after all, she said to me a few days after arriving home. Once you reach a certain age you have a lot of habits, don’t you? she continued defensively while rearranging her bookshelves in line with the change of season. And a person’s aptitude for change is limited for the same reason, I said, laughing. Anyway, it’s lovely not to have to change, she replied. There’s actually something very nice about finally being able to just be myself, not someone’s wife or someone’s mother all the time, if you see where I’m coming from, she said. I could, I knew what she meant. Family members are never truly able to see one another completely clearly, only ever through the veil that their relationship draws over things, I said. And there’s nothing wrong with that, Mum said, it has to be that way, of course, but that’s not to say that it can’t be liberating to step away from that slightly, to get a sense of who you actually are, just for yourself, she added.

  Anna is sitting beside Mum looking radiant in a pale-yellow silk dress with thin straps that cross over her tanned back, impossible not to touch. Do you want to be my no-strings date to Karsten’s wedding? I asked her a few days ago. A few weeks had passed since the discussion with Liv on Dad’s birthday, and we hadn’t spoken about the conversation or us since then. She had moved back into her flat once work on her bathroom had been finished, and without Anna there, the place had felt empty all of a sudden, less like a home than ever before. We continued to spend a lot of time together, but mostly over at her flat, and I interpreted the silence on the subject of us as a good thing: everything was fine, there was no hurry, and I could joke about keeping things simple, just as I did in reference to Karsten’s wedding. She took longer to answer than I had anticipated she would, I thought she’d laugh about it more, perhaps say that yes, she’d come, as long as it was to be a no-strings affair – but Anna only gave the briefest hint of a smile before asking when it was. Two weeks on Saturday, I said. Yes, I think I’m free, she said.

  I’ve actually always liked churches; in spite of the fact I dislike most things to do with religion, there’s something about the space and acoustics that I find soothing. Karsten has also calmed down, his gaze resting on Cecilie as the priest asks if, before God and the witnesses here present, he takes Cecilie, if he will love and honour her, be faithful to her until death they do part. Karsten responds with a loud, resounding yes. Both smile widely with such happiness and relief and love for one another when the priest pronounces them man and wife that, in spite of the reluctance that had built up within me, and the aggravating nature of the priest’s words, I need to blink away the tears that have welled up, touched by the moment in a way that has escaped any internal filter.

  I can hear Mum’s unmistakeable, squeaky sniffs from the third row, and out of the corner of my eye I see that both she and Dad are red-cheeked and shiny-eyed. Only Anna appears unmoved, but she doesn’t know Karsten, I think to myself, and for a moment I allow my thoughts to dwell on the idea of Anna in a white dress, kissing me with the same heartfelt intensity and delight as Cecilie appears to feel now, kissing Karsten; she doesn’t want to let him go, she’s making a point of it, clutching on to him, and Karsten lifts his hands in the air, seemingly helpless – they laugh together, mouth-to-mouth, as applause breaks out among their guests.

  I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my speech for Karsten. I’ve even humbled myself to the point of asking Ellen for help – she read and discarded the first draft, which I’d been working on for several months. This is just full of your own reservations, it’s plain as day that you’re jealous, Ellen said when she called me to provide feedback. Jealous? I cried. Either that, or that you don’t have a clue what you want to say, Ellen replied somewhat disarmingly. You and Liv are the same when it comes to this kind of thing, when you don’t know what to say you start blabbing away about yourselves. This speech is about Karsten, am I right? And about the woman he’s marrying. You have to be sincere. If you can’t say anything genuine about marriage, then find something you can talk about with sincerity, something you have an opinion on, and that way everything will be rooted in Karsten, rather than in your own stance on things.

  Every word I stand here saying to Karsten now, about love, about the sense of connection and security, every word is rooted in me and in Anna. Throughout the entire creation of this speech I’ve imagined her, considering the fact that she’ll hear it, that she’ll feel it, that I’ll cast glances in her direction, knowing looks laden with meaning. But Anna still appears unmoved, she smiles enthusiastically in my direction, laughs at all the right moments, but it’s o
bvious that she has no idea it’s all about her, me, us.

  My right hand on Anna’s bare back, the muscles and bones beneath her skin, her breath in my ear, her long, cold fingers in my left hand, the smooth fabric of her dress over her stomach and hips. I’m overwhelmed yet again, pull her close to me, totally unaware of the others around us on the dancefloor. Together we are one, I want to whisper in her ear, my hand starts trembling at the mere thought, at the drop height that has been revealed to me, at how intensely and genuinely I want her, don’t want to want her, don’t want to miss her, don’t want to fear – I just want to have her.

  ‘We agreed we’d be honest,’ Anna says, apparently genuinely surprised at my reaction. ‘Keep things simple.’

  I can’t speak. I picture myself grabbing him by the throat and squeezing, feeling the tendons pulled taut beneath his skin, then watching as his gaze, which has wandered greedily over Anna’s naked body, loses focus. I picture his body tensing with the lack of oxygen before it no longer puts up a fight, and he dies at my hands.

  ‘Håkon?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I reply eventually, swallowing.

  ‘But I don’t want to stop seeing you,’ Anna says. ‘I think we’re good together.’

  ‘Just not good enough?’ I reply, unable to let it go, crossing my arms, right over left, across my heart.