The Obituary
One morning Mom screamed. We were sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast. Fred had been talking again for a good while, though he was saying nothing then. In fact it was Dad who was the quietest. He missed the gramophone. And not least he missed the Buick. The rest of us weren’t particularly talkative either. We missed the Old One. Sometimes I thought to myself that perhaps it wouldn’t do any harm if we were all to lose our voices at the same time, to be inflicted with aphasia, since there was so much we couldn’t talk about anyway. It was then that Mom shrieked. And she came tearing out toward us, her hair a crow’s nest and her nightie all to one side, and in her hand she was waving that Aftenposten like a flag. “We’re in the paper!” she cried. “We’re in the paper!” Never had I seen her so worked up — nor did I ever see her like that again either. She swept breakfast things to the four winds and threw the paper down on the table. There we could see it with our own eyes. It was about the Old One. It was her obituary, two years too late. Mom sat down with us, already crying. Boletta, who generally couldn’t see clearly before the arrival of the afternoon edition of the paper, leaned over the table, pale and shaken. “Read,” she whispered. And Mom lifted the paper and read aloud, in her grandmother’s voice, and this is how I remember those crooked, soft words in her mouth.
THE INVISIBLE STAR
The beautiful Ellen Jebsen has relinquished her human role and left the ever-changing scenes of the times in which we live. Those of us who knew her now feel a deep sorrow in our hearts, a sorrow that may only be assuaged when we follow into darkness in her wake. She was born in K0ge in 1880. Her father was a highly respected saddler and upholsterer, but it was her mother she took after, early on in life when she learned to love the art of storytelling, when in the evening she listened to her tales as the scent of baked apples on the stove filled the living room with an aroma that opened the pores of her imagination.
But it wasn’t before she met her beloved Wilhelm, then a young and gifted mariner, that her life took its first abrupt change of direction — the first of many. They met when the Jebsen family was on an excursion to Copenhagen, on the skating rink at the S0 Pavilion, and he wasn’t about to let go of this magnificent girl. There is no blame to be assigned to her parents, even now at this juncture in the closing chapter of her story, for their refusal to look with favor on this alliance, and indeed their attempts to do all in their power to prevent it.
I do not mention this to cast any doubt on their own renown — not in the least; I include it solely to illustrate the sheer strength of the young ones’ love. Yet as the great poet wrote: It is the truest love that leads to the greatest misfortune. They never married. In June 1900, Wilhelm left with the SS Antarctic, which was sailing from Copenhagen to Greenland to carry back a musk ox for the zoological gardens. He never returned. Wilhelm vanished up there in the ice. He never came back to the ship in the wake of a hunting expedition when he and the second gunner were searching for musk oxen on the other side of the fjord. His tracks disappeared beside a fissure in the ice and his body was never recovered. May he rest in peace. But she who awaited his return was still in K0ge. She waited in vain. And in the same year she gave birth to their daughter, who was christened Boletta. I will not dwell on this, which was unheard of in its time, save to establish that she broke with her family and moved to Copenhagen, where she was to be found thereafter in the ticket office in the first cinema in Denmark. This was at Vimmelskaftet, in the pioneer days of the silent film, when films had titles like Susanna in the Bath and An Emigrant’s Story or the Vanished Bag of Money. And many there were, from gentlemen to one-time servants, who would rather have turned their eyes on Ellen Jebsen than on the mystical women of the screen. And one of those who could not take his eyes off her was the legendary Ole Olsen, the juggler and cinema manager. He came upon Ellen Jebsen in the ticket office at Vimmelskaftet, and he knew that her face had been made for the silent film. For after her beloved, the father of her daughter, vanished in the blue ice, her beauty had deepened — tragedy itself was sculpted in Ellen Jebsen’s face and love’s very features were visible in her expression. She spoke to him without words. And right away Ole Olsen offered her a place in what he called his actors’ stable, and that same summer she and little Boletta went out to the Visby development, where the studio consisted of a rickety shack that would later become Nordic Films. A magnificent epoch began! We attacked comedies and dramas alike with gusto, and little did we realize the future we were setting in motion, in those days when Visby was bigger than Hollywood. Here the early Storm-P was rapidly developing; here were real Chinese, wild lions, trees painted with palm leaves, murder and romance. And in the midst of this creative anarchy, Ellen Jebsen stood like a pillar of sorrowful beauty. She could have been an Asta Nielson, yes, she could have become a Garbo. It is, therefore, a double calamity and disgrace that our generation is unable to see her. The films from the Visby days have been lost, and later she was cut out entirely. Ellen Jebsen’s moment in the electric theater was rubbed out. She was the forerunner left in the shadows by those who came in her wake.
And soon she left us. Two separate events coupled with deep longing led her north, to Norway, in 1905. The Danish prince, Carl, was to be crowned king. In addition she had been offered a role in the first Norwegian film drama, The Trials of the Fisherfolk. In this way she would also be closer to her beloved, the one she waited on with constancy — for thus was her heart, faithful to the end and always defiant, no matter what. But when life swings dramatically one may never be certain what will happen around the corner. Ellen Jebsens role in The Trials of the Fisherfolk was cut out either on economic grounds or else for erroneous artistic reasons. Only three characters appeared in the drama — the parents and their son — who in the course of the action drown in the Frognerkilen Baths, used to represent the turbulent and perilous ocean. Let it be said at once that this passing over was not only a personal disappointment to Ellen Jebsen but a tragedy for Norwegian film per se, which barely made it onto its feet after this wretched start. The film would have gained an added timbre and moved audiences profoundly had she starred in the supporting role of the drowned son’s lover. For is not this the primary objective of film, to move its viewers, transport them to laughter and tears, pain and pleasure? Ellen Jebsen put her career to one side after all this and was given an appointment at the Telegraph Exchange, where her daughter Boletta also came to be employed. Ellen Jebsen lived in Oslo until her death on the selfsame day that King Haakon, her prince, passed away himself. There was a predestined quality to her life, which surpassed her own art and which met the unexpected head-on.
I write this two years after her death (having only now become aware of it), certain that it is never too late to remember and honor an extraordinary life. We lost Ellen Jebsen. Would that these simple words, written in sorrow and gratitude, might hold her intact and raise her to those skies where her star belongs.
Respectfully,
Fleming Brant,
Bellagio, Italy
After Mom had finished reading and put the paper down, we cried too. The words from the newspaper grew in us; the words that had come long after it was all over — just as the letter from Greenland first reached its destination long after the sender had vanished, lost in the ice. In the end Mom sighed. “It’s a shame the Old One never read this.” Dad got up abruptly. “Who the hell is Fleming Brant?” Mom looked at Boletta, who was paler than ever, but she just shook her head and lowered her gaze so that we no longer saw her eyes. “I have no idea,” she murmured. Fred opened his mouth. “Where’s Bellagio?” he asked in a low voice. “Italy,” I told him, quick as a flash. Fred stretched across the table and hit me on the temple. “Do you think I can’t read, or what, Tiny?” Mom interrupted the dispute before I started crying. “No arguments now, boys.” She got a pair of scissors from the drawer in the kitchen and carefully cut out the obituary and I can remember too, clearly and sharply as if I’d never left the table at al
l that morning but was sitting there yet — the sound of the slow, blunt scissors cutting the paper. Mom has to clip hard, twice each time, to get a grip, and the remainder of the obituaries are tossed in the trash, crackling like flames. Black columns of names they are, like credits in a movie that no one has ever seen. We don’t go to school that day Mom writes sick notes for us. The two of us clearly have tummy aches. I laugh out loud and am told to be quiet. We go to the graveyard instead. All those whom we meet on Church Road greet us in a different manner now; they nod and keep turning around long after we’ve passed them by They’ve read Aftenposten and know which star we come from. It’s been there in black and white beside the other obituaries and can’t be denied. Esther opens her kiosk window and waves with fingerless gloves. “Congratulations!” she shouts. Mom waves back. “Thank you very much!” But when we come to a halt by the Old One’s grave, Fred’s vanished. He slipped away among the trees at the back of Frogner Park. I just saw his back. Mom calls him. Fred doesn’t hear us. The headstone, with its famous name — ellen jebsen 1880-1957 — is standing crookedly in the ground. Dad attempts to straighten it; he puts his shoulder to the dark stone and shoves, and I stand behind him and push, but we can’t manage it. The ground has frozen around it. Water has frozen in the earth. The dead are freezing in their beds of ice. But Dad still won’t give up; he’s taken a dislike to this stone. He’s going to get it back to where it should be. Mom wants to stop him, but Dad’s determination has turned to ice too, his stubbornness has frozen solid. He puts everything he has into shifting this obstinate pillar, standing there lopsided and blasphemous. He swears, and Mom covers her ears, Boletta grips my hand — but the stone is stronger, it’s the stone that pushes him backward. It knocks him down and overpowers him completely, for all at once he’s blue in the face, lying sprawling on the Old One’s grave. Mom falls to her knees and cries his name. He scrabbles on the grass. Then he lies utterly still, his chin against the ground, as if he’s fallen asleep there at the foot of the crooked headstone. Boletta runs over to the chapel to get help. My feet are freezing. I can hear the sound of an organ. Mom shakes Dad. Then he sits up slowly, looks at me surprised, brushes the earth from his coat and turns toward Mom. “Don’t be angry,” he murmurs. Mom holds him and cries. “I‘m not angry. Why should I be angry?” She laughs instead. Dad closes his eyes once more and rests in her arms. They sit together like this on the Old Ones grave until Boletta comes running back. “The church wardens calling an ambulance!” she cries. Dad pushes Mom away and looks at Boletta, who’s stopped breathless in a cloud of frost “An ambulance?” he repeats. “Are you sick, Boletta?” Mom strokes his cheek. “You may have had an incident, Arnold. You should go to the hospital.” Dad wants to get back up, but his legs won’t support him. He tumbles over and swears worse than ever. “I’m not going to any hospital! Do you hear me?” He tries to get up again, but it’s just as if a mighty hand is keeping him down. “Help me, damn it!” he shrieks. “Help me!” Eventually we get him into a vertical position. He can barely stand unsupported. We can hear the sound of the approaching siren. Dad presses his hat down on his head. “Farewell,” he says. Mom tears at his coat. But he’s not going to be stopped. He walks incredibly slowly, as if each and every step demands enormous concentration. The ambulance backs in through the gates, and two men in white coats hurry over toward us. Mom points to Dad, who’s tottering away between the graves. They rush after him. But Dad has no intention of giving himself up. He waves the doctor away, and for a time it looks as if they might take him away by force. But in the end they give up and let him be, while Mom stands there covered in shame, apologizing to the ground. Boletta reckoned the Old One would have refused to be pushed like that. The stone was meant to stand just as it was, an irregularity in Wester Gravlund’s serried ranks of stones, a crooked reminder of her greatness. But the following spring, once the sun had washed winter away from under our feet, the gravestone stood straight once more — a black, stone ruler — as if the Old One had moved one final time in her sleep and turned her pillow.
But I lay awake that evening. Mom sat up waiting for Dad; restlessly she paced back and forth, stopping by the window, sitting on the sofa, unable to keep still. Boletta put the obituary in the same drawer as the letter from Greenland. For a while I thought Mom’s false sick note was going to be true after all. My stomach was unsteady; it listed and was on the point of being upset. Suddenly something hit me on the forehead. It was a hard ball of silver paper. Fred had thrown it. When Fred threw something it generally hit its target. He stank of tobacco, I could smell it from where I was lying awake. “Was he dying?” Fred asked. “It looked like it,” I whispered back. “How did he look?” Fred demanded. “He was blue in the face,” I told him, my voice low. “How blue?” “What do you mean?” Fred chucked a second ball of silver paper at me. “Was he dark blue or light blue, Barnum?” I had to think hard. “He was dark blue, Fred.” Fred snickered in the dark. “Did he say anything?” “Yes,” I whispered. Fred stopped snickering and grew impatient. “Do I have to beat everything out of you, Barnum?” “Don’t be angry,” I told him. Fred groaned. “I’m not angry. Just tell me what he said.” “That was what he said, Fred. Don’t be angry.” He lay quiet a long while. “What did Mom say?” he asked eventually. “That she wasn’t angry.” “Damn it all,” Fred murmured. And just then Dad came home. He crept carefully along the side of the wall. He wasn’t stooped, and he didn’t make himself smaller than he was. That was him to a T, knocked flat one minute and up on his feet the next — the blows he took just glanced off him. The fact that he’d lain prostrate on the Old One’s grave, blue in the face, was quite forgotten — swept away by triumph and loud talk. I ran into the living room. He was down on his knees unfolding an enormous map on the floor. I stood between Mom and Boletta. It was Europe, and Europe was almost as big as our carpet. Dad thumped his fist into the map with a bang. “There!” he exclaimed. “There’s Bellagio!” We bent closer. Bellagio lay at the top of Italy by a narrow, blue lake called Como. “It’s far away,” I whispered. Dad glanced at me. “Far? It’s no farther than to Røst, my boy.” Dad shook his head and laid his other hand on R0st. “Europe’s no bigger than what I can blow my nose with on this map!” “Be quiet,” Mom said and laughed. Dad did anything but keep quiet. He was warming up. He was sunning himself now. “But if you were to add America then we could begin to talk about distance.” “Where’s Greenland?” We turned toward Fred. He was leaning against the wall, his face sulky. Dad smiled. “That’s a good question, Fred. Because Greenland isn’t on this map. But if you look under the sofa you might find Greenland there.” Fred didn’t move a muscle. “I thought you were dead,” he said. It grew so still. And Fred went back to bed before anyone could say anything. Dad laughed, but too late, as if his face and his laughter somehow didn’t go together. I rummaged under the sofa and searched for Greenland, but didn’t find anything except an old dusty candy and a used cork with a strong, sweet smell. Dad had to drag me out again. “Look,” he said. “You can drive through Europe with this car!” He gave me a box of matches. I looked at it for a long time. “It’s not a car,” I whispered. “Oh, yes, Barnum, it is a car.” “It’s a matchbox,” I said. Dad breathed heavily. “No,” he said, his voice just a shade sharper. “If you look at it really closely, you’ll see that it’s a car. It’s actually a Buick Roadmaster Cabriolet!” I had a really good look. “Now I can see it,” I whispered. Dad laid his hand on my shoulder. “But if you want to go by boat instead, there’s nothing to stop it from being a ship too.” He took a match from the box and stuck it through the lid. “See? Now you could sail, for instance, all the way up the coast to R0st.” “I’d rather go by car.” “No problem, Barnum. Just as long as you remember to drive on the left-hand side of the road in Sweden.” Dad lit a cigarette with the mast, and the matchbox became a car again, a Buick, with room for all of us. I lay down on the map and began the journey south from Oslo. But before going the length of Svinesund,
I felt carsick and collapsed over Skagerrak. I have no recollection of Mom carrying me off to bed. It’s all I can do not to be sick. The curves were too sharp. The speed was too great. The moon behind the window’s a golden steering wheel. I’ve parked. Night is a garage. Fred is sleeping fitfully And each time you close your eyes you jump. Each and every blink is a clip from the movie of your life. In my sleep I join together the pieces of film; I splice time, not in a long dissolve but a sudden cut. I am the demigod who throws away everything that isn’t in the script. And when Dad wakes us up again, the room’s full of light, it’s summer, and it’s Mom’s birthday.