Aftermath

by Carl Frode Tiller

That was how you went on. No matter what the LAG volunteers said and no matter what they did, out you would come with some caustic remark designed to remind them that they weren’t as Latin American as they tried to make out. But your sarcasm did not have the desired effect. In your head these volunteers were a bunch of excessively earnest individuals desperately seeking authenticity and since you were of the opinion that nothing rattled such people more than sarcasm, you were both surprised and disappointed when they proved to be neither annoyed nor angry, but were actually able to laugh at themselves and at what you said. You kept up your Oscar Wilde act for a while longer, but then you gave up and took to criticizing them as openly as you had when you and I were alone. You repeated what you had said to me more or less word for word and almost as heatedly and concluded with an almost bitter tirade in which you declared that joining a solidarity brigade was the nineties’ equivalent of self-proletarization. The Marxists of the seventies were a crowd of middle-class kids who had decided to fight for the workers, the solidarity volunteers were a crowd of middle-class kids who had decided to fight for the poor and the oppressed of the third world. The Marxists dropped out of university and resigned their academic posts to work in the factories, the solidarity volunteers took a break from their studies and left safe, wealthy Norway to live like impoverished farmers in the third world, and both parties identified so strongly with the people they had taken it into their heads to liberate that they did their utmost to erase their own identities and backgrounds and become exactly like them. “How pathetic can you be?” you sneered indignantly. “And who do you think you’re fooling with your stupid little slumming exercise. The workers laughed at the Marxists when they showed up with their pen-pusher hands, all set to get stuck in, and they roared their heads off when the Marxists started talking about revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. What makes you think those poor Nicaraguan villagers don’t do the same thing the minute your backs are turned? Do you really think they’re fooled by your peasant getups? Do you think they don’t know you’ve got your Visa cards in your fanny packs? Don’t you realize that it’s only thanks to those Visa cards that you’re allowed to be up there at all? Don’t you realize it’s your money they’re after? You’re so fucking naïve and so gullible it’s unbelievable,” you said, before going on to ask what on earth had possessed them to do something as stupid as joining a solidarity brigade. Did they feel a need to be part of a project that was bigger than themselves? Was this Generation X searching for something meaningful and important in which to invest their energy, was that what we were witnessing here? Or was it the eternal guilt and self-loathing of the middle classes, was that what drove them? As young middle-class Norwegians born after the advent of the country’s oil boom they had never known hardship, they had never gone hungry, never been oppressed, they had never really had to fight and struggle to survive. Could it be that this, the knowledge that they were so incredibly privileged, filled them with so much guilt and such self-loathing that they actually felt the need to erase their Norwegian identity and become poor Latin American farmers for a while?

  While you sat there on that terrace, pouring all this vitriol on the somewhat taken-aback volunteers, I was growing more and more incensed. Eventually I could stand it no longer. You accused these young people of being ridden with guilt because they were affluent Norwegians, I remember saying. You said that slumming it with the solidarity brigade was a way of doing penance for this, but you’d got it all back to front. You had also grown up in a society where everything had been mapped out for you, with the result that you weren’t used to getting involved. You weren’t used to taking action, you saw yourself as individualistic and independent, but in fact the opposite was the case. You were just another sheep, I cried, just another member of the whole fucking postmodern flock that had taken over Norwegian universities today. If you had ever stopped to consider what was the right thing to do and acted accordingly, you would probably have done exactly what these young people were doing. You would have got involved, you would have tried to make a difference. And as for self-loathing, I went on, getting more and more steamed up, there was no one here as full of self-loathing as you, you, a backpacker who hated back packers, a young middle-class man who hated the middle class, a romantic who hated romance. It was yourself you were talking about when you sat there lambasting the LAG volunteers, I yelled. It was your own shame and self-loathing, your own need for meaning and a sense of belonging you were talking about, didn’t you see that?

  At the time I didn’t know where my anger came from. Not till I was back in Norway did I realize that I had changed and that this change had occurred when my eyes met those of a prostitute in a brothel in Matagalpa. Until that incident in the brothel I had, as I’ve said, been going around in a kind of bubble, I had been closed in on myself and more or less cut off from the everyday realities for people living in this country. Indeed, during our first weeks in Nicaragua I believe I actually came to agree more and more with your criticism of the backpacker culture. Granted, I thought you were exaggerating, but the way we merely seemed to skim the surface, our inability to delve deeper into the culture of the countries we visited became increasingly clear to me as I wandered around Matagalpa alone. But when I saw that girl with the skinny wrists in her “I ♥ New York” T-shirt, it was as if the thin film separating me from my surroundings dissolved. All at once I saw myself as part of a world that, till then, I had observed and approached as a tourist, and from that moment on it was impossible for me to accept your detached and sardonic attitude to traveling. Viewed in that light it is possibly easier to understand why I saw red when you criticized and ridiculed those young volunteers.

  Only a few days after this we were back on Norwegian soil and very glad to be there. Simply being able to walk past a newsstand or a shop and recognize all the advertising signs and all the newspapers on the racks, simply being able to walk down the street and catch words and snippets of conversation in one’s own tongue, the pure relief of not always having to struggle to understand and be understood, it made me feel more Norwegian than ever before—this was where I belonged, it was as simple as that.

  But the joy was short-lived.

  Torkild had had his contract with Friends of the Earth renewed several times during the nineties and because he was so brilliant at what he did, the organization wanted to renew it again, but they simply didn’t have the money. So his position was scrapped and Torkild suddenly found himself unemployed. But then he was offered a job with an environmental project on Svalbard run by the Norwegian Polar Institute, his partner applied for and got a research post at the university up there, they said yes to both, and moved to Longyearbyen with Malin. Torkild had done everything he could to let me know, he told me, but with no luck. Which was not so surprising. I mean, we had been completely cut off from the outside world for long spells of time. Neither of us had a mobile phone back then and except for a couple of times very early on in the trip we had never tried to find a pay phone and call home. When we were in Guatemala, we had occasionally visited internet cafés to check and send e-mails, but we hadn’t seen a single internet café in Nicaragua so I hadn’t read the e-mails he had sent me. If Torkild had known where we were, he would have got in touch with the Norwegian embassy and got them to pass on the message, he said, but he didn’t even know which country we would be in at any given time. Yes, he had the postcards I had sent to Malin to go by, but they took so long to reach them and we were moving around so much that they weren’t really much help. In short, I had been impossible to get hold of and he was very sorry about the whole situation. He knew this must be a terrible blow to me, he said, but I had to remember that they wouldn’t be living on Svalbard forever, it was only a one-year project. He and his partner would definitely be moving back to Trondheim after that. And of course I was very welcome to come to Svalbard anytime, I could live with them and stay for as long as I liked.

  Trondheim, June 29th, 2006. The dog needs water


  “I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER been so happy,” Mom sighs.

  “I know, me neither,” Mette says.

  I part my lips, sit openmouthed for a moment as if about to say something, then close them again and shake my head, trying to look as though I can’t describe how happy I am, and I am happy, of course I am, just not as happy as I’d thought I would be if Agnes regained consciousness, I don’t know why, maybe because my anger from before hasn’t quite left me, that must be it. I was so stung by the way Mette was talking and acting and I still haven’t got that out of my system. I curl my fingers around the stem of my glass, tilt it slightly so that the few drops of white wine left in it run almost all the way up to the glistening imprint of my lipstick. I look at Mom and smile again, hear one of the aging rockers let out a loud yesss as another number comes on, sounds like the Rolling Stones, that has to be Mick Jagger singing, anyway.

  “Know what, I feel like buying us a bottle of champagne,” Mom says, beaming at us as she puts her hand into her purse and pulls out her wallet. “Weekday or no. What do you say?”

  “Yes!” Mette says with a big smile, straightening her back and clapping her hands lightly, as if applauding the fact that we’re going to celebrate with champagne. “This is definitely the evening for champagne.”

  I try to smile even broader, I wish I could be as happy as my smile would have it, but it’s no use, I’m in a bad mood because of what happened earlier and it doesn’t help that Mom and Mette are so overjoyed, it simply reminds me that I’m not as happy as I should be, and that in turn makes me feel even more depressed. And there’s worse to come, I know, because pretty soon Mette is going to tell Mom that she and Göran are getting married, there’s nothing stopping her from doing that, not now that Agnes has woken up, and then there will be no containing them. The very thought makes my heart sink even further, because then I’ll turn back into the ugly, huffy little sister I used to be. I’ll allow myself to be forced into the role I’m always forced into when I’m with the rest of the family and I’ll end up saying and doing things guaranteed to wreck their happiness, I’ll drag them down with me so I don’t have to wallow in the dumps alone. But I don’t want to do that, I find it hard to be as happy as I would like to be, but I don’t begrudge them this chance to celebrate and be glad.

  “Well, have fun, you two,” I say abruptly, keeping the smile on my face and rapping the table lightly with my hands to indicate that I’m going to call it a night, because I have to go home now, I have to get out of here before I turn into the horrible little sister.

  They stare at me in bewilderment.

  “You’re not leaving, are you?” Mom says.

  “I’m afraid I have to. I just remembered that I forgot to put out water for Rex before I left,” I say. I could hardly have come up with a worse excuse and I feel my cheeks start to burn as soon as I hear myself say it.

  “Rex?” Mette says.

  “I got myself a dog,” I say, smiling quickly as I turn to the side, unhook my purse from the back of the chair, lay it on my lap, and turn to face Mom and Mette again. They gaze at me, they know I’m just saying this, and I feel my cheeks grow even hotter. “I know it sounds stupid,” I say, it may seem more credible if I admit that it’s stupid, no one would willingly make a stupid excuse, not if it wasn’t genuine. “But I haven’t been home since this morning and it’s been a scorcher of a day, he must be absolutely parched, poor boy. I’d love to stay here and celebrate with you, of course, but that would be nothing short of animal cruelty.” I can tell that saying this makes my excuse sound even more credible. I feel the heat recede from my face and I smile a little more confidently. They still say nothing, Mom nods and gives a rather disappointed smile, but Mette gives me a look that says I can’t possibly be serious, the kind of look she used to give me when we were younger, when she would roll her eyes at everything I said. I feel an instant surge of annoyance. I’m about to ask her what she’s gawping at, but instead I just keep on smiling, pop my hand into my purse and rummage around a bit, I’ve got a pack of gum in here somewhere.

  “For God’s sake,” Mette says. “All this time you’ve been going on as if you wanted to spend the whole evening here, you just said you had no intention of going and leaving a full bottle of wine, but when we actually have a good reason to stay, you suddenly have to go home.”

  “Mette, didn’t you hear what I said?” I say as I push my keys to one side with my finger, find the pack of gum, and lift it out of my purse. “I only just remembered that I hadn’t put out any water for Rex, if I’d thought of it earlier obviously I would have gone home then,” I say, growing more and more annoyed, but still smiling. “I might pop back after ward, though, once I’ve seen to him.” I won’t, of course, but my real reason for leaving will be obscured still further if I say I might be back—like I couldn’t possibly be leaving to avoid being with them.

  “I’m sure it won’t kill the dog for you to stay and have a glass of champagne with Mom and me,” Mette says, tucking her hair behind her ear.

  “No, I don’t suppose it would,” I say, flipping the top stick of gum out of the pack with my thumb and into the palm of my hand. “But he’ll feel pretty shitty,” I add as I drop the pack back into my purse. Just then there comes a brief explosion of laughter from the old rockers, it sounds rather like the volume on the stereo being turned up full, then hastily turned down again. I go to put the gum into my mouth, but Mom lays her hand on my arm and squeezes it gently a couple of times.

  “I know things aren’t easy for you at the moment,” she says softly, giving me a sudden, sad little smile, and I see threadlike cracks appear in her red lipstick as her lips widen. “I know this isn’t about the dog, it’s about Malin.” I gaze down at her hand for a moment, this hand with the gnarled veins that run from her wrist to her fingers, this hand that she lays lightly on my arm as if to say that she knows everything and I don’t have to pretend anymore. I look at her and raise my eyebrows, I mean, what is it she thinks she knows? What the hell is she blathering on about? I do still think about Malin from time to time, but not as often as I used to and I certainly wasn’t thinking about her just now. I realize, of course, that Mom believes that’s why I got Rex, to have something on which to lavish all my maternal affection, all the love I can’t give to Malin, and I’m sure there’s some truth in that, but still, my desire to go home now has nothing whatsoever to do with her.

  “Malin?” Mette mutters.

  Mom turns to her, closes her eyes, and nods slowly, then turns to me again.

  “Agnes’s accident has taken its toll on all the family,” Mom says, replying to Mette, but looking at me and smiling her sad smile, still with her hand on my arm. “It’s been worst for May Lene, obviously. But we mustn’t forget how hard this has been for Susanne. Not only did she almost lose a dearly loved niece, she has also had to relive the loss of Malin. Almost losing Agnes like that took her back to the time when she lost Malin, and all the grief, all the guilt she must have felt then, but which I think she refuses to admit to, has come flooding back,” she says. She speaks slowly, with sympathy in her voice, never taking her eyes off me, and I just sit there gazing at her wide-eyed. What the hell is she saying, it’s quite a while since I last thought about Malin, and anyway, what the hell does Mom know about what I think or don’t think, going on as though she knows me better than I know myself. “It’s no coincidence that Susanne got herself a dog just after Agnes landed in the hospital,” she says, still speaking to Mette but looking at me. “And no wonder she’s terrified of neglecting her dog, no wonder she would rather go home and give him some water than sit here drinking champagne with us. It’s Malin she wants to look after, she abandoned Malin to go off and enjoy herself, and refusing to have more wine, insisting on going home now, it’s … oh, I don’t know … a way of trying to make up for that, if you like. Right, Susanne?”

  I don’t answer straightaway, I just look at her. I can hardly believe my ears, she sits at home
day after day, drinking her cheap supermarket coffee and watching those awful American talk shows in which stupid pop psychology is used to resolve personal traumas that their guests claim to have suffered. She doesn’t understand that it’s all utter fiction, pure entertainment, she thinks that having watched a few seasons of Oprah somehow qualifies her to practice as a psychologist, she thinks it gives her some special insight into what I’m thinking and feeling, and now she’s got it into her head that nigh on everything I say and do relates to Malin, it drives me mad, but I’m not going to get mad, I’m going to stay cool, because if I don’t, Mom will only take this as a sign that she’s hit a nerve and then she’ll only be even more convinced that she’s right. I give a little chuckle and shake my head as I pull my hand away. Again I go to pop the piece of gum into my mouth, but then I stop and drop it into my purse instead. I don’t feel like gum now.

  “Oh, Mom, I think you’ve been watching too much Oprah,” I say, in much the way an adult would talk to a child: patronizing, benign, and teasing all at once. But she believes absolutely in what she’s just said, I can tell by that quiet, confident smile, a smile that says she knows she’s right, it’s so annoying, the fact that she thinks she knows more about me than I do, but I keep smiling. “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, you know,” I add, raising one hand and scratching the left side of my nose, it’s not itchy, but I do it anyway.

  Mom closes her eyes and opens them again, looks me straight in the face.

  “When I came to see you yesterday … ,” she says, then she pauses and gives me that sad smile, just as Mick Jagger goes into the chorus of “Wild Horses.” “You weren’t yourself, Susanne. You were behaving the way you did as a rebellious teenager. When I walked into your apartment, I felt as though I was stepping back into the eighties and nineties. Everything you said and did seemed to be an attempt to dissociate yourself from the straight, conventional life that you so despised when you were younger. Drinking wine in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, and so … so nonchalant. The nonchalance of someone desperate to show that she’s an independent woman, a free spirit who doesn’t care about bourgeois things like cleaning or tidying the apartment or rinsing the coffee machine or … I mean, you scarcely turned a hair when I handed you that wallet you left at the hospital. There was a thousand kroner in it, but you behaved exactly the way you used to do when you were eighteen or nineteen and an avowed anti-materialist. The money didn’t seem to matter to you, and … and—”