The Birds (17 page)

He turned toward the mysteries of the deserted shore in an effort to make them reveal themselves.

“Give a call, if you’re there!” he shouted up at the hillside. He was tired out and crazy with suspense, forced himself up onto his toes so he stood taller and straighter than usual, leaned on the oars, ready to push off at once if whatever appeared should prove too horrible.

“Come out!” he said.

No one came. The hillside lay before him with a thousand hiding places. He was becoming frantic, grew white-faced and frightened because no one came.

“Here I am!” he yelled. His feeble head couldn’t take anymore.

“Right-oh!” came the reply at last. High up on the tree-covered hillside. A single word of reply.

Mattis jumped as if he had been stung. This wasn’t Hege, this was no mystery voice – it was a real person like himself, the call of a man.

Who have I called?

Well, it’s a real person at least.

It was quiet up there now, but there was a man on his way down.

Mattis stood in the same position as before, ready to flee at short notice. No one told him that this wasn’t the way for a ferryman to behave. He pushed the boat out and lay bobbing up and down close to the shore with his oars out of the water.

I bet ferrymen often have to sit like this, he said to himself as an excuse.

Oh no! he thought from time to time. Oh no!

Meanwhile the unknown person was coming down the hillside, hidden by the forest. After all the shouting this felt uncanny, too, although it was natural enough. But it was no doubt a test, and Mattis was determined not to fail.

“Here!” he shouted, to give his position.

“Alright,” came the reply, much nearer than before.

A man’s voice.

There he was.

Suddenly a man emerged from the shrubs at the edge of the forest and stood in full view on the shore. He caught sight of Mattis, waved to him and came across.

Mattis sat for a bit letting his ridiculous fears trickle gently away, like the rain running off a hat. What had he expected to see?

The person coming toward him was as ordinary as could be: a man with a backpack. Mattis let the boat bump against the shore, stern foremost, to make it easy for the man to get in. It was wonderful to be a ferryman for the first time.

“It’s the ferryman you’re looking for, I suppose?” he said eagerly, before the stranger had uttered a word. “That’s my job on this lake.”

The stranger looked pleased.

“Yes, things have turned out very well,” he said. “The weather was so nice today that I came straight over the mountains, and what I thought I’d do was walk along by the lake till I reached habitation. Then I reckoned I could get someone to row me across if I paid them. I didn’t realize it was so desolate on this side, I’ve never been here before.”

“There’s a proper ferry service here from today,” said Mattis. “It’s my very first day. And you’re my very first passenger. Do you want to go straight across? My home’s straight across from here. Well, and Hege lives there too, of course.”

Mattis was so happy he forgot to explain what he was talking about. The man didn’t seem to care much, either.

“It’s all the same to me,” he answered a bit crossly. “But take the shortest route. That is, if this boat’ll take two. I’m not sure if it will. So I wouldn’t really call it an actual ferryboat.”

While he was talking disparagingly about the boat, he got in and took off his heavy pack. An ax handle stuck up by the flap – the man was probably a lumberjack coming to look for work. A really fine lumberjack – with muscles that tore his sleeves perhaps? That was what he looked like.

“Give me a chance,” said Mattis. “You can’t expect me to have made enough money to buy a new boat if you’re my first passenger. I haven’t earned a penny so far.”

“What do you live on, then?” said the man. The answer clearly didn’t interest him, he’d half-turned away from Mattis and was just letting himself be ferried. Mattis was able to take a good look at him. The way he spoke showed that he came from a long way off. As for age he might be about as old as Mattis himself or perhaps a bit older. His face was neither handsome nor anything else, it just was. He was no tramp as far as clothes were concerned. Everything was just as it should be. The first thing that was obvious was that he was one of the strong and clever ones – like everyone else. But anyway, Mattis was rowing and he was happy.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Forty-three, why?”

“Nothing,” said Mattis. He would have liked to have said how old he was, but the tone of the other man’s voice stopped him.

“I might have known it!” said the stranger, angry all of a sudden, grabbing his rucksack which now lay in a pool of water. The boat had been plugged recently, it was true, but only well enough for one person apparently. With two in it, fresh cracks sank below the water line at the same time as the pressure increased.

Mattis didn’t dare offer any excuse. The boat was letting in water, and the clever stranger had reacted sharply enough. Mattis hurriedly changed the subject and asked: “So had you lost your way? You came down in a place where there was no road.”

The stranger had explained all this before, but now he answered with a sneer: “I couldn’t have lost my way, could I, ending up just by the ferry like that?”

My word, this fellow was sharp-witted all right. There he was again: “Do you have a scoop though, or anything like that? We’re not meant to swim, are we?”

Mattis bent his head. The boat wasn’t good enough. He brought out the scoop, and the man started bailing. He looked pretty angry. Mattis felt exhausted and was rowing slowly, but he kept a straight line.

They got across. Just before they reached land, the man started speaking again; it was a long time since he’d said anything.

“Can you help me find somewhere to stay for the night? I’m tired, mind, I don’t want to have to go far.”

His last words sounded almost like a complaint against Mattis, because he’d taken so long to cross the lake.

“You can stay with us, seeing the boat let in so much water,” Mattis mumbled shamefacedly.

“Where do you live, then?”

“Here, of course,” said Mattis, pointing up at the little cottage in the hollow.

“Well,” said the man in a slightly more friendly tone, “that would be the best solution, if I could.”

“The best solution?” Mattis repeated. His attitude toward the man changed all of a sudden.

“I’ve come here to try and get work as a lumberjack,” said the stranger. He was in a more friendly mood now, too.

They arrived. The clever stranger no doubt saw what a ramshackle house it was. At the same time his eyes took a quick look at Mattis. Hege was sitting outside with her work. She stared at them in friendly surprise.

“I’ve rowed him across,” said Mattis, “on my very first day! But gosh am I tired!”

“Good evening,” said the stranger, “do you think it would be possible to stay the night here?”

“I’ve promised him he can already,” said Mattis, who wanted
to be in on this too. “He can sleep in the empty room in the attic, can’t he?”

Hege was a little bewildered. This was something new. She seemed to be pleased about it, the look she gave the traveler was friendly and curious.

“I’ve promised him something to eat, too,” said Mattis, although he hadn’t done anything of the sort.

“Do you know one another, then?” Hege asked her brother.

“No,” said the man.

“No, he didn’t say anything while we were rowing across,” said Mattis, “didn’t even tell me his name. He was too busy bailing.”

The man stepped forward and gave his name as Jørgen.

“But I’ve got food here in my pack,” he said, “you don’t need to bother about that.”

“I promised him something to eat!” said Mattis obstinately.

A room, food, stay here perhaps? Hege was both bewildered and excited. Mattis began to feel proud of the fact that he was the cause of all this, he followed Hege into the house and told her more about Jørgen: “He’s clever, too,” he said to her. “You’re not angry with me for this, are you Hege?”

Mattis was simply fishing, he could see very well that Hege wasn’t angry at all. Something had come over her, she was tense, she crossed the floor in a different way.

“Maybe there’ll be someone else to row across tomorrow,” said
Mattis. “If only I could bring someone home to you every day! But it was quite a strain, I can tell you.”

Hege climbed the ladder to get the attic room ready. Mattis sat down next to Jørgen in the room below. Neither of them said anything. Mattis was so tired he couldn’t sit straight.

AS IT TURNED out, Jørgen didn’t leave at once. He got work straight away in the forest close by – so he asked if it’d be all right if he just stayed on in the attic. Mattis and Hege said yes, surprised and happy. Hege most of all.

Hege was different already; Mattis couldn’t help but noticing it, and he noticed that he was different, too.

Jørgen had his own, curt way of behaving. When he got back from the forest he pottered about in the kitchen for a little while, cooking his dinner. Then he climbed up the ladder to his own room, to rest. He didn’t try to make friends with the other two. But brother and sister never ceased to be amazed. A man had come to their house and wanted to stay.

In addition Mattis had his job as ferryman.

He was at it every day. But he never repeated his first success – in fact there was never anyone who wanted to be taken across. Sometimes motorboats went chugging over toward the western hills and came back again and went somewhere else, but this was something that went on outside Mattis’s world. Mattis was a real ferryman with a rowboat, and he had his job even if there was no one to ferry – and he’d stopped hearing imaginary calls and shouts now. He soon got into the habit of dozing off while he waited by
one of the shores. He made a couple of journeys across every day, provided there wasn’t too much wind; and anyway the boat was just about right for one, it didn’t let in too much water like that. It was wonderful to have a job he could manage, and that Hege approved of. It wasn’t his fault that nobody came to use the ferry.

The only thing that was wrong, of course, was that he wasn’t earning any money for his new boat, but things could easily improve. Each new day could bring a whole load of passengers.

On top of all this, Jørgen had settled down with them, and looked as if he intended to stay.

One day Mattis said: “Now we’re like other people.”

Hege got upset.

“Don’t say such stupid things! Of course we’re like other people, we always have been.”

“Yes,” he said meekly.

“I don’t want to hear that sort of talk, Mattis.”

Hege was different in many ways, Mattis felt. She wasn’t as kind to him as she used to be. Now and then she looked at him with an expression he couldn’t fathom.

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t behave like that,” she said every so often, when he’d done something that wasn’t as clever as it might have been.

“What’s the matter with you these days?” he asked unhappily. “What are you so cross for? I’m the same as I’ve always been, but you’re cross.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

“I’d expected something quite different,” said Mattis, gazing steadily at her. “I wouldn’t have expected you to be at all cross, but still.”

“What exactly do you mean, Mattis? I don’t understand you.”

“You don’t want me to say it now, do you?” he asked, reluctant.

“Alright, then stop this nonsense.”

They both withdrew.

Mattis certainly noticed how much attention Hege paid to the strong and clever lumberjack Jørgen. Jørgen on the other hand just walked past, smelling of the forest and saying nothing, or at the most commenting on the weather. In the evening he returned, bringing the smell of the forest back with him. Hege asked if she could help him with one or two things in the kitchen? No, he was used to managing on his own. And Hege had to leave again. He didn’t talk about himself, either. If the subject was mentioned he pretended not to hear. Or he said: Does it really matter? But don’t worry, I haven’t done anything wrong.

Hege sent him furtive glances. Mattis noticed the way Hege’s face sometimes changed beyond recognition, came alive and was full of expression – and the slightest thing made her irritable. I would have expected something quite different, he told her.

MATTIS CARRIED ON rowing in the same way, day after day. No one came to use the ferry, but ferrymen have to remain at their posts just the same, waiting.

He didn’t dislike it. On the other hand he liked his sister less and less. She grew worse with every day that passed and was always keeping a watch on him. Almost everything he said or did was wrong. As soon as they were alone she started nagging him.

“Really,” she kept on saying, “that’s not the way to do things. Please try and remember.”

She dressed more neatly than before. He noticed that she often stood primping herself instead of spending every available minute on the eight-petaled roses.

He noticed that her whole appearance was smarter – and he rather liked it. Girls were smart-looking. Yet it made him feel uneasy.

“Going somewhere?”

She gave a start, she’d been so absorbed.

“No.”

“What are you making yourself up for, then?”

“No particular reason.”

“But I can’t take a step without you snooping around after me,” she added.

He felt ashamed; what she said was true.

But she wanted to be more beautiful than she was before, that much was obvious. She was making herself more beautiful for the lumberjack. Why? I won’t think about it! he decided.

It didn’t look as if it made much impression on Jørgen. Mattis was glad to see that. Jørgen worked in the forest, and looked after himself at home, and never came out of his shell.

There’s no danger.

Won’t think about it.

Mattis pushed it aside with both hands.

One Saturday evening Jørgen came rushing down the ladder and made straight for Mattis. Mattis had spent the day rowing about in an empty boat as usual. Now it was after supper. Mattis was in the main room, Hege in her bedroom. I bet she’s standing in front of the mirror, Mattis thought bitterly. Outside, the moon was shining. Then Jørgen came clattering down from his room with unusual speed. Mattis held his breath.