Welcome to America
Page 7
I’d be woken by an arm flopping from my side, or a sudden nod of my head. Who was I in sleep? It was as if a different time took over, with more room in it for life, a time that posed no questions to my existence. There, in dreams, I simply lived, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Nothing to ponder or worry about. I imagined that was what it was like for most people, perhaps even my mum and brother too. Maybe it was my worrying that was stopping me from growing, stopping the force that was meant to proceed on its own.
I took my mattress and cover with me onto the balcony. Were there thoughts in my head? Perhaps that my dad would not be shinning up the drainpipe again. That I felt safer now than ever before. I got my bed ready and sat down for a moment in the wicker chair with my feet up on the rail. I took one of mum’s cigarettes from the packet on the little table and lit it. The smoke made me cough, but I persevered and looked at the stars. It was after midnight. Mum was already asleep in her bed. I sucked the smoke gingerly into my lungs and wondered if it was something I could start to do. The warm air that drifted in over the balcony was slightly damp, with a suggestion of exhaust fumes. I switched the torch on that was lying on the table and shone the light into the darkness. A bird flapped out of a tree. I pointed the beam at the refuse room and the clothes lines, moving it from one thing to another.
So this is where you’re hiding. Mum’s voice woke me up. I was under the cover on the balcony. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Your brother’s gone to school. I pulled the cover up over my head again, wanting to remain where I was, nice and warm. Mum went away again; I stayed put. When she came back she was carrying a tray with breakfast on it. Two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice, two bowls of yoghurt and bilberries, bread topped with cheese and cress. She arranged everything on the table and sat down with the newspaper. We’ll have an easy day, she said. I sat down in the other chair and started to eat. Do you want coffee too? she said. Now that you’ve started smoking. It was like she could see everything, perhaps even my thoughts, so I tried to think of nothing in particular. The breakfast was lovely. I decided to spend the day on the balcony and felt joyful at the prospect. The coffee tasted bitter, though mum had put lots of milk in. I drank it in small sips and imagined the changing colours of the hours as they passed before my eyes. The morning was yellow, the afternoon green, the evening a purple blush. Mum looked content, she was reading an article and concentrating. Her pupils weren’t due until after lunch. She had all the time in the world. No rehearsals, only the play in the evenings. A play she’d been in for a long time, that didn’t demand much of her. She wasn’t nervous when she woke up in the mornings.
She lit a cigarette and offered me one. I took it and allowed her to light it for me, unsure what she was thinking. We smoked in silence. Each in our own world. Perhaps she was thinking about Ulrik now being back in Copenhagen, or perhaps she wasn’t thinking at all. I pictured my classmates sitting in the classroom having geography. I’d already got better at sucking the smoke into my lungs.
I fetched some comics from inside, put them down on the table and picked up the one on top. It was an old issue of Penny. I lay on the mattress with the cover on top of me and read about a fire in a stable. Every now and then, I lit a cigarette. Mum had left the packet on the table. I read one comic after another. After Penny I turned to The Phantom, then to Agent X9. The sun shone warmly on me, the hours went pleasantly by. A breeze tugged occasionally at the pages, flapping the paper gently as I read. Mum was in the kitchen with the radio on. She’d opened the window onto the balcony so I could hear too. It was classical, and framed my comic world and cigarettes perfectly. It occurred to me that I might be happy.
I helped mum with lunch in the kitchen, poured the egg yolks carefully into the carbonara and grated the Parmesan. We took linen napkins with us onto the balcony and sat down with our plates in our laps. Mum had turned the music up. It surrounded us completely. It felt like we were celebrating something without knowing what. Perhaps it was just the moment, perhaps it was something more. I ate everything up, and then mum decided we should have ice cream and chocolate sauce. I went to the kitchen and measured out one part sugar, one part chocolate powder, and one part water, stirring it all together in the pan until it thickened and I poured it over the ice cream in the two bowls. I devoured it and went for seconds, thirds, fourths, until I was so full I had to lie down on the mattress again. The sky was bright blue and I lay looking up at mum, who sat with her feet up on the rail the way I’d done the evening before when I’d sat smoking. The doorbell rang, a sonorous vibration in the kitchen, and she stubbed her cigarette, got to her feet, and went out to receive her first pupil of the day.
I returned to my comics. My thoughts followed the frames, exploring every pen stroke. The curtain flapped in the breeze and the music was still on loud. I lay back and closed my eyes, the songs of small birds filled my ears and before long I slept, their voices inside my head.
When I woke up, my brother was on the balcony too. He sat there looking at me. What did he want? He never came out there.
He went inside again and I wondered how long he’d been sitting there. I heard him nail the door shut and sat down in the wicker chair and looked over the wall into the next yard. A cold wind had come with him and the leaves rustled in the trees. I went back inside, dragging the mattress with me into my room, sensing that my brother wasn’t going to allow me to sleep one more night on the balcony. I thought about who actually decided things in our house and ended up realising that we all probably thought it was someone else. Maybe my brother thought it was me who decided, just as I thought it was him and mum thought it was her, even if she actually knew it wasn’t. It was as if the calm that sometimes descended on us was dependent on such a fine-grained network of understanding and good will that no one felt inclined to break with the implicit order of things. Everyone needed to contribute, otherwise it fell apart. The network felt strong and extremely vulnerable at the same time. My brother could pull things down whenever he liked. He knew that. Mum could decide to stop doing all the things she did to keep us together. And me? What could I do? I had stretched the system to breaking point with my refusal to speak, exerting a prolonged and steady strain on the structure, which had yielded accordingly to accommodate my silence. I had rearranged the furniture, and it was as if our home were still trying to get its breath back after all the upheaval. But soon we would settle. So far, we had come through this displacement of all things. We were still under pressure, from the school, from the headmaster and the specialists, but mum steered confidently around them now, as if she knew inside that they weren’t going to make things better. And then there was God. God, who was going to cut my life short. I could not imagine my mum and brother at the funeral, could not dwell on such fantasies. They scared me. The thought of my mum and brother without me was horrible. The two of them on their own. Had I consciously or unconsciously forgotten to pray to God these last evenings before bed?
One thing I did know was that we were still in a kind of ecstasy after dad had died. How could we have been so fortunate? It felt like we’d been living under the foot of a giant pressing us down and now suddenly the giant was gone. Maybe that was why I’d been so fond of being at the theatre. Dad had no sway there. At the theatre, art was in charge, and the people there would have done everything in their power to prevent him wrecking a performance. Not even dad could get onto the main stage and snatch my mum away. She was safe there, and I, sitting in the auditorium, was inside that safety zone too, that sense of total security that lasted a couple of hours and which appeared so magical and sparkling to me. Maybe that was why I no longer felt the same need for the theatre. Because dad was dead and nothing else felt quite as threatening to us. And yet something told me we were now beginning to drift apart, whereas previously we’d stood together. It disturbed me that this could be happening. I suppose I’d imagined a blissful existence in which all three of us sat watching films in mum�
��s big bed, the way we did after we were set free. We appeared at her bedside as if arriving for a party, with sweets and video cassettes we watched on the brand new video machine. That was the thing about growing up. Certain things belong to certain times. The thought of my brother and I in the same bed seemed inconceivable now. Did I miss it? Was I trying to relive my childhood, only this time without dad? Looking at the photos I could see myself as a baby, in a white sleeping suit, dad smiling as he lifted me up above the bed. I could see myself as a four-year-old standing next to a pike dad had caught, so everyone could see how little I was and how big the pike was. Happy snaps from a happy childhood. Mum’s smile at the flash bulb. You could sense the life force inside her vibrating in that small moment of immortalisation. A mother and father. Two young children. All the nights that turned into mornings. The festive occasions, visitors and friends. Mum and dad. Me and my brother. And then suddenly the day when dad collapsed at the table. The way he slumped in his chair, then took to his bed in the cabin and refused to get up. Mum had to deal with the nets. That was the first time. Nothing could make him get up, he lay there all summer. Mum packed the picnic basket even more meticulously than before, and we bathed on the island from morning till evening. We were a family of light. The meatballs tasted wonderful in the sun, and I gazed and gazed out over the glittering sea. Was that when we first realised we were better off without him?
After that came the degradation. I didn’t know the word for it then, but I felt it with every part of my body. Like the night I wasn’t allowed to go to the toilet, because I had to sit on the chair and listen to my dad sing that song he liked, all of a sudden it was so vitally important to him. As if somehow the song explained his whole being. His entire situation. I remember what it felt like to eventually wet myself, the feeling of it seeping through my pants and nightdress, running out over the chair and onto the floor. I remember crying, and dad, who carried on singing until morning, when eventually he went to bed without a word.
Usually, my thoughts would stop at that moment in the boat. Perhaps I hoped it would last forever then. My dad’s smile as my brother pulled in another fish. So meticulous he was, my brother. The way he followed the fish as they swam and scooped them up without disturbing the net. Mum, dressed correctly on every occasion. Maybe she was always in a play? Functional outdoor wear, hair in a perfect ponytail, her smile that seemed always to be directed towards some invisible camera. The family together, an outing. Perhaps the dead turbot floating at the surface was the first sign that something was wrong. My brother, thinking it to be alive, hauled it gleefully into the boat. That stinking fish, which the sea birds had already pecked. For a moment, we didn’t know what to do with it. My brother’s indignation and embarrassment when he realised. He felt stupid for having been so excited and directing dad to where the fish lay in the water. He’d shown himself up. We looked at him. We looked at each other. What were we going to do? What were we supposed to do with each other? Dad, who eventually dropped the fish back over the side, and mum, who didn’t know what face to wear. For a second, we looked at each other with fear in our eyes. What was happening? Subdued, we headed out towards another island, our brief exchanges lacking the ease mum normally ensured. She didn’t know how to act. She unpacked the cooler bag. Poured some squash for my brother and me. Coffee for dad and herself. We were a family of light. A family of light.
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On the Design
As book design is an integral part of the reading experience, we would like to acknowledge the work of those who shaped the form in which the story is housed.
Tessa van der Waals (Netherlands) is responsible for the cover design, cover typography, and art direction of all World Editions books. She works in the internationally renowned tradition of Dutch Design. Her bright and powerful visual aesthetic maintains a harmony between image and typography and captures the unique atmosphere of each book. She works closely with internationally celebrated photographers, artists, and letter designers. Her work has frequently been awarded prizes for Best Dutch Book Design.
The photograph on the cover is by Dana Menussi, an interior designer and photographer living in Brooklyn, NY. The image was taken in Phoenix, Arizona, and the girl in the shot is Menussi’s niece. The photographer says, ‘We were hanging out at my in-laws’ pool and I was struck by the strength of her expression. Veronica’s beauty and maturity had always captured me, and I often took pictures of her as she was growing up.’
The cover has been edited by lithographer Bert van der Horst of BFC Graphics (Netherlands).