The Half Brother: A Novel (92 page)

I can’t write that night. I plug in the telephone again. There’s a further disquiet within me I can do nothing to prevent; a nerve of unhappiness. I drink up what’s left and tidy my papers. I read through what I’ve written.

SEQUENCE 1. SEA. EVENING.

A ship with a dragons head prow. There’s no wind. The crew must row. The only sound that can be heard is the steady command before each new pull on the oars. The ship is like a shadow gliding past.

SEQUENCE 2. GRAN FARM. MORNING.

Vår, a pretty girl of nine, is amusing herself by making tracks in the snow. She’s on her own. She moves farther and farther from the settlement toward the edge of the forest.

She drops something in the snow and stops to retrieve it; it’s part of a necklace, one half of a star-shaped amulet. As she bends down she discovers something else
—
other footprints in the new snow. They’re much bigger than her own. They disappear into the forest beside her.

Vår remains crouched there, looking toward the settlement and looking toward the forest. Carefully she puts the amulet around her neck.

Her mother appears from the main building and waves to her daughter.

Vår doesn’t dare wave back. Her mother stands there looking at her. She waves again. Vår hears a sound from the edge of the forest. The breaking of a twig. A sword being drawn.

The stillness is violently broken
—
a dozen armed men ride out of the forest.

SEQUENCE 3. EXT. SHIP. MORNING.

The ship is nearing land. The sails are hoisted now. Everyone is working feverishly to ready the cargo, except for one man. He’s lying at the back of the vessel sleeping. His face is hidden by a hood. But around his neck we can see one half of a star-shaped amulet, the same as Vår was wearing.

Three men put down a cage full of birds close by. They look at the sleeping man, then at one another, and nod. One of them pads over, bends down and cautiously reaches out for the adornment to try to work it free. Then an arm seizes his own in a vicelike grip. The “sleeping” man holds him thus in this agonizingly strong grasp. The thief sinks to his knees. Now we see the man’s face. He’s twenty-five years of age, haggard. His name is Ulf.

Ulf lets the thief go, gets up and looks out toward the land.

VOICE-OVER: Seven winters have passed since he first set sail, from the forests to the seas, from the land to the wind. That first winter he was missed. The second passed without any word of his whereabouts. In the course of the fourth he was seen in three countries at the same time. By the seventh winter he was forgotten. He came home like a refugee, and he came too late.

The phone rings. I don’t have the guts to pick it up. I have to get finished first. That’s what it all comes down to — getting finished. The ringing doesn’t stop. I unplug the phone yet again. The paper boy races down the steps. I can hear my neighbor quickly retrieving her copy of
Aftenposten
from the doormat. And an even greater and more profound anxiety gnaws at me. Maybe Boletta wasn’t able to stand the cold. I go over to Blåsen. My tracks are uneven in the snow. The bench is empty. There’s no one there. I’m done with this place. I have to get all of these places out of my system if I’m to move on; I have to find somewhere else, somewhere that’s my own, and I still don’t know where that is. I go off to the “pole.” The guy serving looks at me long and hard but doesn’t demand identification. I take a taxi home with what I’ve bought and go on writing
The Viking.
The run-up’s done. I’m onto the jump. And I can’t get Fred’s suede jacket out of my head. It disturbs me. I have to free my mind of it too. I’m a tailor with a typewriter who reworks this garment to a blue leather hood — and this I give to my hero. I secrete it in what he’s carrying, and by the midpoint of the tale I have him clad in this shimmering hood that, from far away, shines like some dark flame. And later I let him pass the hood on to a treacherous serf, who, because of a misunderstanding, loses his life — and as a result causes the enemy to believe that the hero, the son who’s come home, is dead. One morning (or evening perhaps; I’ve been asleep at any rate and it’s dark outside), I can see that Christmas trees are being lit over in Sten Park beside the playground. I can just make out the sound of children singing. The good old songs. I sit down at the desk and read through the last of what I’ve written. And it’s only then I realize I’m finished. A gentle voice-over rounds it off as a ship sets sail once more and the wind of an eighth winter begins to blow. I feel a kind of gladness, and it amazes me that a few words I’ve stolen and reordered into a triple jump could make me so happy. Or maybe it’s the children singing at the foot of Blåsen. It hurts, and I feel happy.

Later on I walk through the Christmas streets to find Peder. He’s mended the sign. All our letters are shining again. He’s sitting between two phones and turns around a quarter of an hour after I come in. He shades his eyes. “You look absolutely hellish,” he tells me. “You’re an awfully superficial individual, Peder.” He just shakes his head at me. “Can I tell you something, Barnum?” “Be my guest.” “I couldn’t give a damn if you drink yourself to death as long as you finish
The Viking
before you do.” “Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Peder. You’re too kind.” “Nothing to thank me for. But can you just tell me one small thing?” “What’s that, Peder?” “Are you absolutely sure you’re not dead? And I don’t mean skin-dead. I mean really dead, as in coffin and candles dead?” “I’m not dead, Peder.” He picks up a handkerchief and holds it under his nose. “Are you aware just how long the moment of death can last? Whole weeks, Barnum. Years.” “I’m alive,” I murmur. “And how the hell can you be so sure?” he demands. “Because I’m thirsty,” I reply. One of the phones starts ringing, and an American voice immediately begins speaking on the answering machine — the voice speaks quickly, loudly and briefly. I just catch some of the words — Christmas Day, New Year, Vikings and dollars. Peder looks at me, his face tired and sinking into its double chins. “That was our man in L.A., Barnum. He wants to know how things are going. But how can I know how things are going when you don’t tell me how things are going?” Peder gets up heavily, opens the closet and changes his shirt. “What do you want for Christmas?” I ask him. Peder’s quiet for a moment. Then he sits down again. “I’d like a script and a good friend,” he says softly. I take the parcel from my jacket and put it down in front of him. Peder gives the fat envelope I’ve secured with a red rubber band a long, hard stare.
To Peder from Barnum.
“What the hell is this? A letter bomb? Your will?” “The one who opens it will see,” I tell him. He’s suspicious and grumpy. “You’re not playing games with me, are you?” “Barnum never plays games,” I reply. And finally Peder pulls out 102 pages comprising
The Viking, A Northern
— an original filmscript by Barnum Nilsen. “Now I’ve got everything I wanted in one,” he breathes. “Yes, a good script and a bad friend.” Peder gets up and puts his arms around me. “I love you, Barnum.” “Don’t get all American,” I tell him. “Deep inside we’re all American,” he laughs, and kisses me on the brow. And we stand like that holding each other and holding the moment, until his fresh shirt is wet too. “What now?” I inquire. Peder lets go of me. “Now you’re going to go home and rest a bit, Barnum. And I can do some work.” “And that means?” “It means I’ll read, translate and fax the script to Black Ridge in Los Angeles,” Peder says. He sits down by the phone once more. I keep standing where I am, looking at him. Peder’s into his stride now. It’s good to see him like this. We’re on our way. After a while he becomes anxious. He looks up. “Did you say you were thirsty?” he asks. “I meant happy” I tell him. And so I leave him and start off home. But I go a really roundabout way. I just want to be rid of all the other places too. I have to tidy up. I give the tree in Solli Square a last pat, and the hard bark scratches my palms; I hear the music from the dancing school’s record player go quiet in the dust in the innermost grooves of childhood, and the steps on the parquet floor fly to the four winds. I sit at the corner of Palace Park and Wergeland Road and hold a one-minute silence for the Old One, and when I close my eyes I can see the shadow of Fred finally rising from the gutter, putting the shiny comb in his back pocket and going on with her to the Palace. I put the place behind me. I go on over to the summer house in Frogner Park. It isn’t white any longer. The frail walls are all daubed with graffiti. Someone has written
I
was here.
That’s always true. The person who writes
I
am here
is right only for the time it takes to write the words. I spit in the snow and hurry on. I get the last bottle from the kiosk; I’ve hidden it away under the loose floorboard, and this place is now forgotten just as it fled Esther’s memory long ago to become a dream composed of sugar candy and loose change. Then I run over to the Little City, which is nothing more than a small ruin lying in gray and heavy sleet. The Little City’s gone already, and I bury it for good. I wipe it off the globe. Then I go up to Vivian’s. I ring the bell. It’s Mom who opens the door. She lets a bag fall to the floor and looks at me in amazement, just as I look at her with equal surprise. “Vivian’s at the hospital,” she says. I try to appear calm. I’m quite composed, and there’s nothing to get worked up about. “Already?” “They just want to be on the safe side.” “The safe side? There’s nothing wrong?” Mom lets me in. She fills the bag with toiletries and puts in some of Vivian’s clothes. I go after her. “There’s nothing wrong?” I repeat. “Vivian’s so slender,” Mom breathes. That’s all she says.
Vivians so slender.
And those words fill me with a sense of great and supple strength that make me think of a ladybird crawling along a gently bending stalk of grass. I put my hand on Mom’s shoulder. “It’ll all be fine?” Mom zips up the bag and straightens up. “You can come with me, Barnum.” I turn away and don’t say anything. Mom stands there like that for a bit. “Have you fallen out with Boletta?” she asks all at once. “No, has she said so?” “She hasn’t said anything at all, Barnum. She just lies on the divan moping.” Mom takes the bag and goes over to the door. Her voice is brittle. “I don’t know what’s happened between Vivian and you, nor do I want to know, Barnum.” I take a step toward her and raise my hand. “No, you’d rather not know anything, wouldn’t you?” I shout. She looks at me sharply, and a shadow crosses her eyes. “What do you mean by that?” My hand falls, hangs from my fallen arm. “Tell Vivian I’m here,” I murmur.

I push a chair under the ceiling window and sit down. The door slides shut. I count Mom’s steps going down the steep staircase till I can hear them no longer, and then I open the bottle. I was right. It still sways. The brandy rocks from side to side like an interior wave. When I look up, the dark window becomes a mirror in which my face trembles and dances. The snow falls and slides away without a sound. I drink slowly. It takes time to be rid of this place, and I take the time required. This is my memorial service. I rehearse my forgetting, and I’m the only one present. Three floors below, Boletta lies moping on the divan. Somewhere else, close by, Mom’s looking after Vivian. I forget the coffin Fred carried up here. I forget the war, the clotheslines and the dead pigeon. Once or twice I hear church bells. And it’s then I remember the fact (so simple and obvious) that there’s just one thing here that’s mine — the ring, the ring I bought and never got to give away but hid in the coal shaft: t for Tale, t for tongue-tied, t for time. I find a knife in the kitchen and begin working away at the whitewashed wall. I hack, I hit, I jab and I dig — I’ll find that goddamn ring. But it’s impossible to get into the aperture; I hammer and I poke about and I get nowhere — there’s just a shower of paint and dust, and it isn’t the church bells I hear now, it’s suddenly the telephone. I don’t know where it is. It’s in the bedroom, and when finally I get to it the person’s hung up. There’s just a single bed there with the cradle in the corner. The place is swaying. I have to sit down, and the moment I do the phone begins ringing again. Slowly I lift the receiver, and as I do so I think to myself that now Bo-letta’s at the switchboard in the Exchange connecting all the calls, and that it’s me she’s discovered amid the electric darkness of the lines. It’s Mom. “Vivian’s had a boy,” she says.

His name’s to be Thomas.

The ring remains in the wall, invisible to everyone but myself. Then I go home. There’s a bottle of champagne on the table and a bouquet of twelve roses. On a card Peder’s written
To the great little genius. Congratulations.
He’s sitting out on the balcony leafing through a script and smoking a cigar. When he sees me there, he gets up, brushes the snow from his shirt and comes in. “Did you break the door down?” I ask him. Peder smiles. “I got the keys from Vivian.” I look down. “Have you been to the hospital?” “Fine boy,” Peder says. “Screamed his head off.” We’re both silent for a moment. Peder puts his hand on my shoulder. “The Americans are over the moon, Barnum. They just love you.” I take the script from him. It’s the American translation. Peders suddenly all self-conscious and opens the champagne, fills the glasses. It’s the last one I’ll have for at least seven years. “Who the hell is Bruce Grant?” I ask him. Peder shrugs his shoulders. “Who are you babbling about?” I stab my finger at the front page. “It says here
revision by Bruce Grant,”
I tell him. “Oh, right, Bruce Grant,” Peder says. “He’s the script doctor at Black Ridge. He’s just embroidered this and that.” “Embroidered?” “Don’t get bogged down by technicalities, Barnum.” I start reading. But Bruce Grant, the script doctor, hasn’t just embroidered here and there. He’s operated on my voice and my words. He’s amputated my imagery. Peder pads back and forth restlessly. “Pacino’s almost a sure thing,” he says. “Not impossible Bacall will come on board herself. And Bente Synt wants an interview.” “But this is abuse,” I exclaim. Peder lays a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t start putting on airs now, Barnum.” “Putting on airs? Bruce Grant’s ruined the entire thing. He’s a fucking quack! The patients dead!” I shake off Peder’s hand. “You know how it is,” he says. “A writer for film ought not to be too good.” I take a step toward him. “Was that an insult or a compliment?” “I’m just trying to say that you’re too good. The Americans need to be a bit more straight and to the point. If you get my drift?” “Straight and to the point? Vikings screwing on fur rugs and crying in alternate scenes!” “Feelings, Barnum.” “One eye doesn’t see the other!” I shout. “He’s even ripped that out as well!” “You’re too good,” Peder says again. I chuck the script at him and collapse on the sofa. “Whose side are you on, Peder Miil?” He gives a deep sigh. “I’m on our side, damn it!” I look up at him. “Now I finally know who it is I’m dealing with,” I tell him. Peder puts the keys on the table between the flowers and the champagne. “Maybe you should go and visit Vivian too,” he says. I can barely speak. “Nothings mine any more,” I whisper. “Nothing.”