They drove down Danmarksgade and along Søndergade, where Aunt Else lived, heading south. At Møllehuset, with the bandstand and the little river and the small bridges and the swans, they turned right up a hill and then they were in the woods and carried on up. It was nice to be in a car, Arvid rarely was, just the taxi home from the ship a few times and on the back of the ‘Blåmann’, Sveen’s lorry at their house back home in Norway. Sveen worked at a toy factory and his cellar was full of them, because he had these light fingers and drank so much it was a mystery he still had a driving licence.
The forest wasn’t big, but it was dense and a little gloomy as the trees weren’t spruces like at home, but oak and beech, and the crowns met high up and made a ceiling. Everything was dim and mysterious and the few places where the sun burst through it were so bright they couldn’t see a thing.
They drove past the café in the clearing, where Arvid thought they were going to stop and eat a hot Danish pastry, but they didn’t.
‘Look there, Arvid,’ his mother said, pointing, ‘under the big tree.’ Under an oak tree two deer stood, chewing and staring at them with almond eyes as the car rumbled past. They didn’t stir, just stood with their heads held high and their ears pricked and Arvid said: ‘In Denmark we go through a little wood and we see deer, while at home in the Lillomarka forest we go for mile upon mile, Sunday after Sunday, and don’t see so much as a fox. There isn’t even a single spruce tree here.’
‘They aren’t wild, you know,’ Gry said. ‘The forest ranger keeps an eye on them and feeds them. They eat from his hand if they’re hungry enough.’
‘Makes no difference. A deer’s a deer. I’ve never seen deer before.’
He turned and saw them through the rear window, they were standing in the same place and were beautiful and slim and could surely run as fast as lightning if they wanted. One of them slowly turned its head with the big antlers and watched the car leaving, and its long horns were grey against the greenery behind, and Arvid just had to swallow.
Then they suddenly turned out of the forest, and past the tall tower you could see from miles away when you came in from the sea, and on to the road that took them over the ridge facing south, and everywhere there was light and air. The road wound its way along the ridge’s back and to the left the sea was almost standing upright. It was so blue it seemed as though the colour was not a real colour at all, and on the horizon the island of Læsø was balancing. He had never seen that far.
‘Can we stop?’ he said, and Søren pulled in because it was Arvid’s birthday, and Arvid opened the door and jumped out on to the verge and walked a few metres down the slope and lay in the grass. It was so steep it was almost like standing, he could rest his body and at the same time see as far as he wanted. He took deep breaths again and again, and there was air enough for a lifetime and he promised himself he would never start smoking. His mother could never inhale as much air into her lungs as he could. His chest was a balloon that couldn’t burst, it just filled up and sent blue air to all corners of his body and his body turned into something so light and delicate he could jump off the nearest cliff and fly like Peter Pan.
Afterwards it felt narrow and clammy in the car. They drove on into the country and down from the ridge and they came to a place with a few farms huddled together surrounded by vast fields. One of them was Grandfather’s farm and they stopped there and Grandfather got out of the car, walked to the gate and stood there looking. The farmhouse was freshly painted and what had once been the midden was filled with rocks now and in the cracks flowers had been planted. It looked nice and Grandfather stood stock-still without saying anything, no one said anything. Arvid gazed out over the fields and tried to imagine Grandfather before the plough with his father at his back holding a whip, but it was not possible, for Grandfather was only Grandfather the way he was now, with a bent back and a moustache and not like he must have been then. Grandfather got back into the car still not saying anything, and they drove on, along an empty road. Then his mother made faces and squirmed on the seat beside Arvid and finally she said: ‘I think we’ll have to stop again.’
‘What?’ Søren said.
‘Needs must!’
‘Oh,’ he said, but it was bare here, there was not a bush to crouch behind, not a fence, and he scratched his head and looked around.
‘You’ll have to go behind the car,’ he said. ‘Everyone look straight ahead.’
His mother got out and went behind the car and squatted down. They waited for a while and suddenly Søren grinned and winked at Grandfather. He put the car in gear and they set off.
‘No!’ Arvid said, and Gry said: ‘Stop, you idiot,’ in a voice so sharp it didn’t sound like hers at all, but Grandfather laughed and Søren laughed and drove on a way before he stopped the car. Arvid looked out of the rear window and there was his mother squatting in the distance and then she got up and started to run, faster and faster, and now Arvid could see her contorted face, and she caught up with them and raised her arm and banged the boot with her fist. She banged her way around, so hard there were bound to be dents in the coachwork. She wrenched open the door on Grandfather’s side, grabbed his jacket and said in a low voice: ‘That’s the last time you leave me in the lurch! Absolutely the last! You watch it or you won’t see your grandchildren for years!’ and she slammed the door and Arvid wondered why she had taken out her anger on Grandfather.
Grandfather sat like a statue on the front seat, as if the stone he was made of would shatter if he so much as moved a finger, and Søren stared through the window, hands in his lap. His mother got on to the back seat, next to Arvid, and there was total silence until Gry could stand it no longer and had to cough and then his mother said: ‘Drive!’
Søren slowly shook his head, but he raised his hands and finally the car moved off.
There were the farms again, and a cluster of spruce trees, as small as toys, Friesian cows and then mustard fields so yellow the light seemed to come up from the ground, not down from the sky, and on a hill stood the church where Great-grandfather’s plaque was. The church was pretty with its white plastered walls and red-tiled roof, but no one dared ask Søren to stop. When the hill was behind them his mother began to sing in a voice that was dark and not like Grandmother’s, for his mother’s voice was suddenly full of laughter, and she sang: ‘Come prima più di prima t’amerò / Per la vita, la mia vita ti darò / Sembra un sogno rivederti accarezzarti / Le tue mani fra le mani stringere ancor,’ all the way through the song and when she started a second time around Arvid joined in. His mother had taught him the song several years ago, he didn’t understand a word, for the text was Italian, but he could sing it anyway and the words had a sound to them that he liked.
‘Oh, my God!’ Gry said, and started to laugh and Arvid laughed and Søren laughed wildly, he banged the wheel with both hands, making the car swerve in the road, and howled as if he had some kind of illness. The only person who wasn’t laughing was Grandfather, but he was moving at least, he kept chewing his moustache and the car turned off the road and now they were in Sæby forest and that was their destination.
In a clearing stood a former hunting manor, but now it was a restaurant and had been one for a long time and the road they came on was narrow, bushes scraped against the car doors, but there was plenty of room to park in front of the main entrance.
They sat down by one of the big windows. The dust looked dense in the sunlight, but it didn’t catch in your throat, which was strange, and there were pheasants on the grass outside. Søren walked across the chequered carpet into the kitchen to tell them they had arrived.
There was no one else in the room and it was so quiet that when they spoke it was still quiet. They sat as if inside a bubble and talked about what they would eat and that was hot apple crumble with ice cream. When the woman came with the crumble and hot chocolate Arvid thought he had never tasted anything so good and never would again.
Afterwards they went outside and looked at the for
est and the pheasants, but there was something about the day that had ended, no one could think of anything more to do or say and Søren walked nervously around the car to see if there were any scratches from the bushes, but what he found were small dents from Arvid’s mother’s fists and he touched them and said nothing.
Grandfather stood in front of the old manor house, hands in his pockets and his threadbare suit shining where his crooked back had chafed, and then he raised one hand and stroked the length of his moustache with his index finger. He came over and stood by Arvid and put one hand on his shoulder. Arvid’s shoulder twitched, but he didn’t move away and Grandfather said: ‘Do you know when I was last here, Arvid?’
‘No.’
‘More than forty years ago. A friend and I came here to dance the tango. This place was a dance hall then and the only one on the coast where they played the tango. Mostly soldiers came here from their barracks, but we too wanted to come here, so we got dressed up and set off. That is, we walked. It was a long way, you know that now.’
Arvid had seen pictures in Norsk Ukeblad magazine of men in black hats and tight trousers, and women with flowers in their hair and dresses that were tight across the bum and wide at the bottom, dancing the tango.
‘Was it fun?’
‘We never got that far. At the entrance we were stopped by a breathless soldier who said we should turn and go back home at once. He had lost his fine cap, I remember. There was a police raid going on, he said.’
‘Why was that? Were they drinking moonshine?’
Grandfather laughed. ‘No, it was the tango, it was forbidden. Then I married your grandmother and that was it. I haven’t been here since. Until today.’
Arvid looked up at his grandfather, who was stroking his moustache again, and then his mother called, it was time to go, enough was enough.
That night Grandfather danced the tango in a flat, broad-brimmed hat in a large dance hall with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and a pheasant pattern on the floor. His moustache was sharp as a dagger, it had a matt gleam in the light and the shadows covered the rest of his face and when Arvid woke up and remembered the dream, Grandfather was never quite the same again.
YOU KNOW I DON’T DRINK
GRANDMOTHER AND HIS mother were in the kitchen peeling potatoes. It was plaice for lunch, and not for the first time this summer. The kitchen was too narrow for more than one person, and through the half-open door Arvid could see how his mother drew back her shoulders and moved away, and now and again, with a flick of her hand, she removed a lock of hair from her forehead. Grandmother started crying, and not for the first time this summer.
Arvid sat in a chair by the living-room window reading the book Gry had given him for his birthday. It was called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and was written by Jules Verne. It was raining in Lodsgade, it was still morning, though dark as if it were evening, water streaming down the window-panes, and Captain Nemo standing on the little deck of the Nautilus with his arms crossed, watching with steely eyes an English warship sink. Arvid felt a chill down his spine, it was something so terrible and wonderful that he couldn’t sit still, he jumped up from the chair and went over to his mother to tell her about it. But she was on her way out of the kitchen with the potato peeler in her hand, and it stuck out like a knife, and Arvid leaped to the side. She looked down and when she saw what she was holding, she threw it to the floor and said: ‘I have to go out for a walk.’
‘It’s raining outside,’ Arvid said.
‘All the better,’ she said, making for the wardrobe.
‘I want to go with you.’
‘No!’
‘Yes. I want to go with you,’ he said. ‘I’m twelve years old. I can go with you now!’ She sent him a look he didn’t like, but then she gave a little laugh.
‘All right, you can come along, but stay behind me, is that understood?’
‘Sure,’ he said, and glanced into the living room where Gry was watching them and she wanted to come too, but he had asked first and now it was too late for her. He opened his palms, as if to say sorry, but she turned to the wall.
His father came up the steps from the backyard and he looked at them in surprise. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Out!’
‘But why? It’s raining and soon it will be lunch-time.’
‘I walk where I want, all right?’ his mother said, and Arvid waited, but his father didn’t know what to say, and Arvid bent down and put on his boots.
They put their raincoats on and under her chin his mother tied the kerchief that she wore when she couldn’t care less what she looked like, and they went down the steps and into the street. It was still raining as they walked down Lodsgade and it got worse when they came to the harbour and along the quays, and there was a wind too, the waves beat against the mole and Arvid realised he should have had his sou’wester on, and he turned his head to avoid the rain blowing straight into his face.
‘Are you sure you want to come with me? We’re still not far from home.’
He just walked on a bit faster without answering, and his mother shrugged. ‘Have it your way,’ she said.
The shipyard cranes swung round on themselves and disappeared into the grey rain above, so tall were they, and lightning flashed in the sky, a welding flame flashed from inside a rusty boat and a clap of thunder boomed. They had reached the fishing harbour, the blue-painted boats rocked and bumped against the timber structure of the quays. Many of them had come in from the sea to dock because of the weather, and there was a smell of fish from the boats and fishmeal from a nearby building, of wet ropes, of wet dust on the ground, and tar. Arvid looked around him and imagined he was in a film, in Salka Valka, which his mother liked so much, with Margaretha Krook and her little daughter walking in the rain from house to house knocking on doors, but no one would take them in, not even the Salvation Army, and then they were at the foot of the mole and his mother began to walk out along the narrow footpath.
‘Is this where you’re going?’ Arvid called.
His mother nodded.
‘But it’s dangerous. You could be blown into the sea!’
‘Ha! I’ve walked here ever since I was a little girl, and I walked here when I was expecting Gry,’ his mother said, and walked on.
‘You don’t have to come with me,’ she said into the wind.
‘But I do,’ Arvid said, though only he could hear that.
The wind was coming off the sea, but a timber windbreak had been built along most of the mole and when he lowered his head it wasn’t so bad, for he was small, but the rain beat against his mother’s head and shoulders and she crouched and drew the kerchief tighter around her face.
He stayed close to her back and they walked quite a distance, almost the whole way out to the little grey lighthouse by the harbour entrance. The wind kept coming and every now and again she stared up into the air and then wiped her face, for it was soaking wet, and not once did she look at Arvid and so he didn’t dare talk to her. Again there was thunder and lightning and she turned and said: ‘The weather was just like this when your sister was born. I was in bed looking through the window. One window was open and the rain was coming in. No one had thought to close it.’
‘At Aker Hospital at home?’
‘No, on a little island south of here.’
‘Wasn’t Gry born in Norway?’
‘No.’
‘Couldn’t Dad have closed the window?’ He turned his back to the wind so she could hear what he was saying.
‘He wasn’t there.’
‘Grandmother or Grandfather then?’
‘They weren’t there either.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because, as they saw it, I had stumbled from the path.’ She laughed drily. ‘Jesus!’
He held on to the windbreak and looked out over the sea. It was a leaden grey and the waves rolled towards him with their white crests and thundered against the big rocks by the shoreline and the spray was taller than him.
‘What are you thinking about,’ she said in his ear and he considered what he was thinking about and it was still the same.
‘About Salka Valka.’
She gazed at him in surprise. ‘The film?’
‘Yes.’
‘The opening?’
He nodded and ran a hand over his wet face.
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Just now.’
He didn’t think that was so strange and perhaps she didn’t either and they were standing by the little lighthouse now, it was the middle of the day, but so dark the light was on. A lamp turned inside sending flashes out into the stormy weather and he started to cry and the light was orange and it went round and round and he was crying and he didn’t know why.
He cried and felt his chest grow big and then contract to almost nothing, he gasped for breath, clenched his fists and she held his shoulder with one hand and his chin with the other and turned his head round to look into his face. He shoved her away roughly.
‘Don’t you touch me! I’m twelve years old. I can take care of myself!’ He turned on his heel and began to run back and she followed him at a more sedate pace.
‘Hey, you, boy. You’re supposed to be behind me, don’t you remember?’ she shouted and then he stopped and waited until she had passed him and he walked behind her, a few steps from her back now, until they were in the harbour again.
On their way up Lodsgade she suddenly stopped and went into the Ferry Inn. He glanced up the street at the dairy shop and followed her in.
The room was empty except for a woman who was playing a one-arm bandit in the corner and the landlord behind the bar. They sat down at a window table.
‘Shouldn’t we go home for lunch now?’
‘They can have their plaice,’ she said. ‘I’m sick of fish. What would you like?’