‘Thanks. But I really must go now. My father will have breakfast ready.’
‘Yes? That was good and early.’ She looked at me calmly as if she knew who I really was and what I was up to, something I was not sure about myself, and I nodded a little too vigorously and turned on my heel and walked away between the stalls and out of the door and had almost reached the road before I had to throw it all up on the ground in front of me. I tore off a few fistfuls of heather and covered up the white vomit with moss so that she would not spot it immediately when she had finished milking and come up the path with the cows, and then maybe feel bad about it.
I followed the road until it narrowed into the track it really was and took a bend towards the river through the tall dewy grass on the level and it ended at a jetty that was almost hidden in the reeds in a backwater here on the east side. I walked onto the jetty and sat at the end of it with my legs dangling over the edge and boots almost in the water, and it was quite light now with the sun on its way up behind the ridge, and through the reeds I could see across to the other side of the river to the farm where Jon lived, or perhaps had lived, I did not know any more. They had a jetty too, and there were three rowing boats tied up to it; the one usually used by Jon, and the one I had seen his mother in when she came to the felling. The first was painted blue and the second red, and the third was green and was usually moored by our cabin if some idiot or other had not left it on the wrong bank, and the idiot was me. Now it was here. Someone had built a bench on that jetty, and on the bench sat Jon’s mother, and beside her was my father. They were sitting close together. He was shaven, and she had the blue dress on with the yellow flowers that she wore when she went to Innbygda. She had his jacket over her shoulders, and his arm was round her shoulders too as mine had been not twenty-four hours earlier, but he did something that I had not done. He kissed her, and I could see she was crying, but it was not because he kissed her she was crying, and anyway he kissed her, and anyway she cried.
Maybe in those days I lacked a certain type of imagination, and possibly I still do, but what I saw happening on the other side of the river came upon me so unexpectedly that I sat there staring, with my mouth open, not cold, not hot, not even lukewarm, but with my head almost bursting with emptiness, and if anyone had caught sight of me just then, they may well have thought I had run away from a home for backward children.
I could have convinced myself that I was mistaken, that in fact I was not able to see what was happening on the other bank because the river was too wide, and what I thought I dimly saw was a man comforting a woman who had just lost a child and whose husband had been taken to hospital many, many kilometres away, who felt lonely and abandoned. But if that was the case, it was an odd time of day to be doing it, and it was definitely not the Mississippi I sat there staring across, nor the Danube, or even the Rhine, or our own Glomma for that matter, but across this not so very big river that came in a semicircle, crossing the border from Sweden and down through this valley and this village here and back into Sweden some kilometres further south, so it was a moot point whether the water perhaps was really more Swedish than Norwegian, and whether maybe it tasted Swedish if that was possible when you had swallowed some of it. And the river was not even at its widest where I sat on my jetty and they sat on their side.
So I was not mistaken. They kissed each other as if it was the last thing they would do in this life, and I could not watch them, and yet I did, and I tried to think of my mother as a son certainly ought to do when suddenly he came upon something like this, but I could not think about my mother. She slipped away and dissolved and had nothing to do with all this, and then I felt empty again and sat there staring until I could sit there no longer. I stood up slowly, hidden by the reeds and walked over the planks of the jetty as noiselessly as I could and back onto the track and some way along it, and when I turned and looked the two of them were on their feet as well and were walking hand in hand towards the farmhouse.
I did not look back again, just went across the flat field through the tall stalks and round the corner to the place where the path turned into a road and on up past the summer dairy with the cow byre I had slept in. That seemed a long time ago. The light was different now and the air was changed and the sunshine came down over the ridge. It felt nice and warm. There was something in my throat that itched and hurt in a weird way, wanting to come up, but if I swallowed hard I could keep it down. I heard the cows going up the hillside towards the Furu mountain, which was not a real mountain, just a ridge with forest on top, and there were other herds making their way to the best pastures, and bells ringing to right and left.
When I came to the place where the logging had been and the path ran down to our cabin, I stopped and listened. With all the trees gone I had a clear view of the river, and I knew I would hear a boat on its way up. But there was not a sound from that direction. The cabin looked more friendly in this light, and I could easily have gone to it and into the main room and taken the bread out of the bread tin and buttered a slice, for I was hungry now, but instead I went on along the road towards the bridge and the shop. It took me twenty minutes. Franz’s house stood on a rise close to the river just this side of the bridge. From the road I could see his door open and the sun shining into the hallway. I heard the sound of music from a radio. I just walked down the gravel path right up to the entrance, took the three steps up and called in through the doorway:
‘Hello! Any breakfast going here?’
‘Hello, yes! Get the hell in here!’ was the answer from inside.
9
The gale roars all night. I wake up several times and hear the wind humming along the walls and more than that; it takes so fierce a hold of the house that the old timbers groan; sounds come from all sides, shrill, whistling, almost threatening sounds from the forest out there and metallic rattling and a powerful crash from somewhere I reckon must be close to the shed, and it does worry me a bit as I lie in the dark with my eyes open looking up at the ceiling, but it’s warm under the duvet, and I have no intention of getting up now. And then I wonder whether the slates will hold as they are meant to or whether soon they will fly off the roof and whirl across the yard and maybe hit my car and dent it. I decide that probably they will not and go back to sleep.
Next time I wake up it is possibly blowing still harder, but now like a sucking where the wind is being ploughed and split by the roof ridge; no rattling, no crashing, more like a booming in the depths of a ship near the engine, for everything is rocking now in the darkness and moving onward, and the house has masts and lanterns, and a foaming wake and is dressed all over, and I like that, I like being on a ship, and maybe I am not so wide awake after all.
It is half past seven when I open my eyes for the last time. That is late by my standards, far too late. There is just a hint of grey light in the window and all is strangely quiet on the other side of the glass. I lie there without moving and listen. Not a creak from the world out there, only the padding of Lyra’s paws and claws on her way across the kitchen floor to her water bowl. The universe has been almost bursting with sound, and now it has gone flat. All that is left is one patient dog. I can hear her loudly drinking and swallowing, and then she utters a low, discreet piping sound that says she would like to go out to do what she cannot do indoors. If it is not too much bother.
I sense that my back is not too good and roll over onto my stomach and push myself over the edge of the bed with my knees down on the floor first and then raise myself tentatively into a standing position. That goes well, but I am really stiff and sore after yesterday’s efforts. I go barefoot into the kitchen, past the dog and into the hall.
‘Come on, Lyra,’ I say, and she pads after me. I open the outer door and let her out into the semi-darkness. Then I go back and dress, open the woodbox, which fortunately is full of logs, and light the stove as systematically as I can. I never succeed at the first try, something my father always did, but as long as there is time it will burn in the
end. My sister could never do it. She would have plenty of dry wood at her disposal, and strips of newspaper and a stove that drew well, and nothing would ever burn except the paper. ‘How can a housefire even start? Can you tell me that?’ she asked. I miss my sister. She too died three years ago. Of cancer. There was nothing to be done, she was diagnosed far too late. As time passed she and my wife became good friends. They would often chat on the phone in the evenings commenting on the affairs of the world. Sometimes I was the subject of their discussion and they would laugh themselves helpless over ‘the boy with the golden trousers’, as they called me. You’ve always been the boy with the golden trousers, you can’t deny that, they said, laughing. I think it was my sister who used the nickname first. I did not mind, there was never any malice in their laughter, they just had a sense of humour and wanted to tease me. I have always been pretty serious myself, but you can overdo that too. And they were right enough, I have been lucky. I have said that before.
In the course of one month they both died, and after they were gone I lost interest in talking to people. I really do not know what to talk to them about. That is one reason for living here. Another reason is being close to the forest. It was a part of my life many years ago in a way that nothing later has been, and then it was absent for a long, long time, and when everything around me suddenly turned silent, I realised how much I had missed it. Soon I thought of nothing else, and if I too were not to die, at precisely that point in time, I had to go to the forest. That’s how it felt, and that simple. It still is.
I switch the radio on. It is halfway through P2’s morning news. Russian grenades are pouring down on Grozny. They are at it again. But they will never win, not in the long run, that goes without saying. Tolstoy knew that already in Hadji Murat, and that book was written a hundred years ago. It is really incomprehensible that the great powers cannot learn the lesson that in the end it is they themselves who will disintegrate. But of course the whole of Chechnya can be demolished. That is rather more possible today than a hundred years ago.
The stove is crackling well. I open the bread box and cut a couple of slices, put water on to boil for coffee and then I hear Lyra give her short sharp bark on the steps. It is her way of ringing the bell and is easy to distinguish from the other sounds she makes. I let her back in. She goes to lie down by the stove where warmth is gradually spreading. I lay a breakfast table for myself and prepare Lyra’s in her bowl, but she must wait her turn. I am the boss. I eat first.
Day is coming now, over there by the forest. I lean forward and look out the window, and I am more than a little dumbfounded at what I see in the morning light. My yard tree, the big old birch, has been knocked down by the gale and lies huge and almost unreal between the shed and my car; the topmost branches practically reaching to the kitchen window, other branches on top of the roof rack of the car, and others again have torn the gutter off the shed and bent it into a large V so that it hangs down and bars the door to the woodshed. It’s a good thing I have filled up the woodbox.
That explains the thud from last night. Automatically I get to my feet, about to go out, but of course there is no sense in that. That birch is not going anywhere. So I sit down again and go on with my breakfast, looking out the window while I try to think out a plan for the removal of this giant that has lain down to rest in my yard. First I must rescue the car, that’s obvious, and then move it away. Then the branches, the ones in front of the woodshed, too, to see if it is possible to get in there. I must have firewood, and I must have a car to drive. That is vital. The chainsaw will need filing again, there is no way around it after yesterday’s work, and I may need more petrol and two-stroke oil, it will have to be checked, and in which case I must drive for more, but the car is probably trapped. I feel a touch of panic and cannot understand why. This is no crisis. I am here of my own choice. I have plenty of food in the fridge and water in the tap, I can walk as far as I please, I am fit and well, and I have all the time in the world. Or do I? It does not feel like that. It does not feel like that at all. It suddenly feels claustrophobic. I could die at any minute, that’s the way it is, but this is something I have known the last three years, and not given a damn and still do not. I look at the birch. It just about fills the whole yard and is so huge it overshadows everything. I get quickly up from the table and go into the bedroom and lie down on the bed with my clothes on, which is contrary to all my rules, and I gaze up at the ceiling and my head is churning like a roulette wheel, and the ball hops from red to black to red again and finally comes to rest in one bowl, and of course it is the one for the summer of 1948, or more precisely the day that summer was over. I stood under the oak tree in front of the shop and looked up and saw the light swirling through the rushing leaves as the wind came up and dropped again, and it blinded me in small flashes and made me blink hard and the tears started to flow, and I closed my eyes and felt red heat on my eyelids and heard the river behind me as I had heard it each day for almost two months, and I wondered what it would be like when now I would not hear it any more.
It was hot under the oak. I felt tired. We had got up early that morning and had breakfast almost without talking, and then walked from the cabin up the gravel track to the bridge and past Franz’s house where the sun was shining in through the open door, in a bright shaft across the rag rug and slanting along one wall, but he himself was nowhere to be seen, and I felt sad that I had missed him.
The bus was waiting in the sun, vibrating from the running diesel engine. I was leaving the village and making the long trip home to Oslo, changing to the train at Elverum. My father stood close behind me in front of the shop on the square with his hand on my head, and he lightly rumpled my hair and bent down and said:
‘You’ll be fine. You know where to get off at Elverum Station, and from which side the train leaves, and at what time,’ and he carried on like that with more details, and all this he said as if it really did mean something, as if at fifteen I could not make the journey alone without instructions. Actually I felt much older, but I had no way of showing it that I could think of, and if I had, it would not be anything that he could accept.
‘This summer has been quite something,’ he said. ‘We can surely agree on that.’ He stood behind me still with his hand on my head, but he did not ruffle my hair any more, just gripped so tight it almost hurt, and I do not think he realised, and I did not say anything to make him let go. He bent forward again and said:
‘But that’s life. That’s what you learn from; when things happen. Especially at your age. You just have to take it in and remember to think afterwards and not forget and never grow bitter. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ I said aloud.
‘Do you understand?’ he said, and I said yes again and nodded, and then he realised how hard he was gripping my hair and let go with a little laugh which I could not make out, I did not see his face. And I heard what he said, but I did not know if I had understood. How could I? And I did not understand why he used those exact words, but I have thought it over a thousand times since, because in the next moment he turned me round with a light hold on my shoulder, and ran his hand through my hair once more, looked at me almost squintingly and with that half smile at his mouth I liked so much he said:
‘Now you’re going to get on this bus and then change to the train at Elverum and it will take you home to Oslo, and then I will finish up here, and when that’s done I’ll be right behind you. OK?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘OK.’ And there was an icy feeling in the pit of my stomach, for it was not OK. I had heard those words before, and the vital question I have put to myself again and again during the time that followed is whether something happened he could not control, or whether he knew already then that he would never follow me. That this was the last time we saw each other.
I boarded the bus, of course, and I sat down with my rucksack on my lap and turned to stare out of the bus window at the shop and the bridge over the river and my father standing there
tall and dark and lean in the flickering shadows under the oak tree and at the sky which had never been wider or deeper blue than in that summer of 1948 over precisely that village, and then the bus moved in a big semicircle out to the road. I pressed my nose against the glass and gazed into the cloud of dust slowly rising outside and hiding my father in a whirl of grey and brown, and I did everything you are supposed to do in a situation like that, in such a scene; I rose quickly and ran down the gangway between the seats to the last row and jumped up on it knees first and placed my hands on the window and stared up the road until the shop and the oak tree and my father had vanished round a bend, and all this as if I had been thoroughly rehearsed in the film we have seen so often, where the fateful farewell is the crucial event and the lives of the protagonists are changed forever and take off in directions that are unexpected and not always nice, and the whole cinema audience knows just how it will turn out. And some cover their mouths with their hands, and some sit chewing their handkerchief with tears running down their cheeks, and some swallow in vain to get rid of the lump in their throat while they squint at the screen dissolving into a jumble of colours, and others again are in such a fury they almost get up and leave because they have experienced something like this in their own life which they have never forgiven, and one of those jumps up from his seat in the dark and shouts:
‘You damn prick!’ at the figure under the oak tree now showing against the back of his head, and he does it on behalf of himself and on behalf of me, and I do thank him for his support. But the point is that I did not know how things would turn out that day. No-one had told me! And there was no way I could know what lay behind the scene I myself had just been through. I just kept running up and down between my seat and the window at the back with a sudden, directionless alarm in my body, and I sat down and stood up again and walked up and down the gangway and sat in a different seat and left that too, and I went on like this the whole time I was alone on the bus. I saw the driver’s eyes in the front mirror watching me and at the same time manoeuvring the vehicle along the winding dirt road, and it obviously frustrated him, but he could not stop watching, and he did not say anything at all. And then two families got on at a stop halfway to Innbygda, where the river took a bend and disappeared into the forest towards Sweden, and they had children and dogs and bags in tow, and one lady had a hen in a cage, and it cackled and cackled, and then I forced myself to sit still on my seat and finally I fell asleep with the rattling window banging against my head and the drone of the diesel engine singing in my ears.