The Half Brother

by Lars Saabye Christensen

  And I think of the small name tags Mom sewed into our clothes so no one would take them by mistake in gym, at the Frogner baths, at dancing classes or at the dentists. Mom was almost possessed with the notion after we got the sewing machine. All our clothes carried our names: shirts, sweaters, socks, the suede jacket, our plus fours, hats, gloves — even our underpants were equipped with tags. Fred Nilsen, Barnum Nilsen. Our clothes would never get lost. But it’s now, when everything that happened long ago is long behind us, that I think of the labyrinth, the boy in The Shining fleeing between the tall, snow-covered hedges, and Peder grabs my hand at Saga even though we’re both thirty years old. But we’re easily scared, each in our own way. And right inside our ears, where the hearing nerve lies, there’s also a labyrinth. It’s filled with a clear, rather thick liquid — the acoustic water — and it resembles the type of snail you can find near the water in the summer and use as bait. There ought to be a labyrinth in the eye too, right in at its heart, but the eye’s just composed of tears and muscle. And I see Fred slowly moving his finger through the dust under the living room table, along the letter, past the nylon stockings, over the line in our room and out to the washing machine. And he whispers as he tries to spell that day’s writing. “You should never have said that, Barnum.” I grow so afraid. “What? What should I never have said?” “That they lied to the Old One,” Fred says.

  The Coffin

  Fred came home with a coffin. It was nightime. I was sleeping but not deeply. I woke with the noise of him down in the yard; he was pulling something heavy over the snow, and a moment later he called my name, in that low way. I got up as quietly as I could, filled with anxiety for what he might have gone and done now. I opened the window and looked out. And there was Fred on his way past the clotheslines, which were hanging heavy with slushy snow and all but trailing on the ground. He was dragging a sled and on it was a coffin, a white coffin. He stopped by the kitchen entrance and looked up at the window where I was standing freezing. His breath drifted like a gray cloud around his face. “Are you coming to help or what?”

  Quickly I got dressed and padded through the apartment. The others were asleep. There was a draft from the keyhole when I peered through it. I couldn’t see Mom behind Dad, who was lying on his stomach, for all the world like a dead whale. If he’d lain on top of her, she’d have expired on the spot. I heard the sharp, whining sound emitted from his crooked, blocked nose. It couldn’t be right, that Fred had a coffin with him. I must have been seeing things. But most of what had to do with Fred was true. I was most tempted to lie down again and pretend it was just another dream the following morning. Instead I went into the dining room and folded the quilt more adequately over Boletta so she wouldn’t catch a chill. While Dad was growing larger and larger, so Boletta shrank and shrank. If things continued like this and she lived long enough, then in the end there’d be nothing left of her whatsoever. That would be some way to die. Her face was reminiscent of the head of a mummy that I’d seen a picture of in National Geographic magazine; it had lain for about 2,000 years under a pyramid. Carefully, I put my hand on her brow, but I’d stopped kissing her now because she smelled of cod-liver oil. Her forehead was as crumpled as a walnut, and she was smiling in her sleep. Of course I’d been seeing things. Fred couldn’t have gotten hold of a coffin. And so I ran down the kitchen stairs. Fred was pretty impatient by the time I got there. He’d lit a cigarette. His fingers were yellow. “Did you have to take a bath first, or what?” I just stared at the sled. I hadn’t been seeing things. It was a coffin that was lying there. “What is that?” I asked in a low voice. Fred pressed a finger hard against my temple. “What do you think?” “Is it a coffin?” “No, Barnum, it’s a bobsled. A one-man bobsled. I’m going into training for the Olympics. Have you gone soft or what, Barnum?” “But where did you get hold of it, Fred?” “Don’t you lose too much sleep over that.”

  He took his finger from my temple and gave me a drag instead. It was one of those strong, unfiltered cigarettes that the Old One had left behind; it was as dry as hay and probably rolled about the time King Haakon first set foot on Norwegian soil. I coughed violently. Fred twisted the remainder of it out of my mouth and chucked it into the snow. It didn’t burn out even there. He thumped me on the back. “What do you say, Barnum? Shall we wake the whole place or not?”

  I swallowed tobacco and looked up. Above us all the windows were black. Inside, most lay sleeping, ignorant of what was going on about them. And I contemplated the fact that for about half our lives or maybe even more (since many sleep for most of Sunday), we know nothing at all. For half our lives we’re in our beds, dead to the world, and the rest of the time we spend making our beds. I’d forgotten to shut our window. I’d get chilled during the night. I’d vanish that night. Fred shoved me in the direction of the sled. “Come on! Are you a complete moron or what?”

  I saw the cigarette burn out like an eye where it was and sink to nothing. We each took hold of an end of the coffin and carried it up the kitchen steps. We had to have a breather on each landing, and we kept silent so as not to wake a soul. I was at the top and Fred below, and up in the loft the cold came dry and sharp and scraped against our faces, for the heaters were either switched off or broken — almost no one used their drying loft any longer. The wind caused the walls to rattle. It was as if everything was moving, like on the sea, and I was part of it. I was swaying. The light in the ceiling was broken, but Fred had thought of that too. He had a pocket flashlight with him, and he stuck it in his mouth so he could carry the coffin at the same time as lighting the way. I would never have thought of that. But then neither would I have come home with a coffin in the middle of the night. Someone had left behind a pair of long underwear on a slack clothesline; the pants had turned completely yellow and stretched toward the floor as if they had in mind jumping down and running off for good. Then the light flashed elsewhere — cobwebs, a rusty key an empty brandy bottle, an old newspaper lying on the floor turning over its own pages. We carried the coffin through to the innermost chamber and carefully laid it down. The moon was shining through the attic window. A black dust rose up from the sacks of coal along the wall. I’d been here before, but suddenly it all seemed such a long time ago, and it felt as if everything was different now. I wasn’t going to break my arm. We just had a coffin with us. Mom didn’t like us coming up here. Fred spat out the flashlight and pointed its beam straight at my eyes. I had to shield them. “That wasn’t so heavy,” I whispered. Fred laughed. “Did you think there was someone in it?”

  I didn’t reply. All at once Fred flipped the flashlight over to me — a yellow arc through the darkness — and I just managed to catch it. I shone it toward the door, because perhaps someone we hadn’t seen was standing there. I wanted to empty the darkness and fill it with light. I wanted to see. “This was where Mom dried the clothes,” Fred said. Then I spotted it, the dead bird; it was lying right under the moon in the window. There was scarcely anything left of it, just the bones of one wing, which had become part of the black dust and almost resembled a footprint. I went closer. Now I could see an eye too, a puckered sphere, akin to a raisin. Fred took my arm and drew me back. “Shine the flashlight for me,” he breathed.

  I had to hold it with both hands and shone it in the direction of the coffin. Fred lifted off the lid. It was red inside, lined with something resembling silk that lay in folds along the sides. There was a pillow there too; it almost looked as if it would be good to lie in there. Suddenly my back felt freezing; a shiver of cold avalanched from my neck down. Fred turned to me and smiled. “Stylish,” he said.

  Then he took off his jacket and lay down in the coffin. He folded his hands on his chest and lay there deathly still, his eyes wide open. I felt he grew paler, and thinner too; it was as if his cheeks were hollowed out and his face collapsed inward. I clutched the flashlight and held it as steady as I could — and perhaps it was just the pale light and the dull glow of the moon that made him look like that,
made him look dead. The colors ran from his eyes too and still he hadn’t moved a muscle. “Stop fooling around, Fred,” I breathed.

  There was a draft from the attic window. There was frost and ice around the rim. I could hear the snow; big chunks that broke off and toppled down the roof. I wondered what time it was, how much time had passed — but I didn’t have the guts to look at my watch. The moon disappeared. Soon my shadow became one with the darkness.

  “Fred? Please, Fred.” But he just lay there with his hands folded and his fixed expression that was somehow empty, as if everything he’d ever seen somehow didn’t exist any longer. It was as if neither I existed nor the flashlight in my hands nor the light that met him. Somehow I didn’t know him at all; it was as though a stranger lay there dead in the coffin.

  Then finally he spoke, quietly and without looking at me. “Now put on the lid, Barnum.” I staggered backward. “No,” I told him. “Do it. Put on the lid.” “But why Fred? Please don’t make me.” “Do as I say, Barnum. Put on the lid. Then go and lie down and keep your mouth shut.” I went a step closer again. “Are you going to stay here?” I whispered. “That was the general idea, yes.” “But what’ll I say if anyone asks about you?” “Told you. You keep your mouth shut. Put the lid on, damn it.” “I don’t want to, Fred.” “Then would you like to lie here yourself, Barnum? Huh?” “No, Fred.” “No problem fixing you up with a kid’s coffin. ‘Cause that’s all you’d need.”

  I put the flashlight on the floor and lifted the lid. I think I cried a bit, but I shut my eyes so he wouldn’t notice. I hated him. He could just stay there in his coffin. I’d fasten the lid so he’d never get out again. I wouldn’t tell a soul where he’d gone and hidden. He’d starve to death after he parched with thirst, but first he’d suffocate. It was one and the same to me, so long as he died and no one found him before it was too late. And who would think of looking for him here? I fiddled with the lid to get it into place, and bent down to retrieve the flashlight. At that moment I heard two noises; the first was Fred’s laughter (he was laughing inside the coffin), and the second was a weak crackling sound. Before I got up the flashlight went out in my hand and the dark swallowed me as Fred kept on laughing. And it’s this I remember — the laughter and the darkness — in that order, but as time passed and I recollected that night in the drying loft, the laughter and the darkness merged into one. They were no longer two separate events that followed each other — Fred’s laughter and the flashlight going out — they were simultaneous and inseparable, and for that reason it’s impossible for me to hear someone laugh without feeling the weight of an equally powerful darkness growing in my shaking hands.

  I dropped the flashlight. It hit the floor with a bang. There was quiet from within the coffin now too. “What was that, Barnum?” “The lights gone,” I breathed. “Same here,” Fred said, and I think he thumped his fist against the lid. “Now go, Barnum! I don’t need you any more!”

  I found the door. I crept along the wall. I thought I heard the sound of wings — of a bird and of beating wings in the darkness. Perhaps it was a bat, perhaps it was just Fred’s laughter. Then I was out onto the staircase; light showed from below, and I rushed toward it. Everyone was sleeping. I lay down with my clothes on. I didn’t sleep. I lay awake while others slept. If only it could just be morning as fast as possible; if only the new could come with its gleaming eraser and rub out the writing of the night. Fred who couldn’t so much as spell the word coffin. I padded into the living room, took out the drawer in the cabinet and brought out Wilhelm’s letter. The ships company consists of First Lieutenant G. Amdrup, second gunner Jacobsen, Nielsen the blacksmith, first mate Loth, Hartz — a qualified botanist and geologist, Dr. Deichman — the ship’s doctor and naturalist, together with Madsen — an assistant from the zoological gardens whose task it is to capture a musk ox and bring it back to Copenhagen. If I could have chosen, I’d have been the second gunner, or maybe Madsen, who was to find the musk ox. But perhaps none of them came back, perhaps they remained there too in the land of ice and snow, in the great white silence that fastened them down into everlasting death.

  Boletta was looking at me; those small eyes scratched at my spine. I put the letter back where it belonged, pushed shut the drawer and turned in her direction. She lay there smiling. She said something strange. “How old have you actually become?” she asked. I told her my age, even though she knew it herself without a shadow of doubt. Boletta smiled with all her wrinkles. “In seven years you’ll be just as old as my father.” I had to go nearer to her. “What did you say Granny?” “I never met him. And had I met him now, I’d be three times as old as him. An old hag like me meeting her young, handsome father. Just think of that.” “Have you taken a long time to work that out?” I breathed. Boletta took my hand. “Each day and every day I work it out, Barnum. It keeps me alert.” She let my fingers drop and I went toward the door. I heard her sitting up. Perhaps even now she’d add a new day to her reckoning. “Hows your new friend?” Boletta asked. I turned around. “Peder? Fine. I’m meeting him this evening. I mean tomorrow. Or today.” Boletta smiled once more, but this time the smile was sad; her mouth was nothing more than a fold in her wizened face. “You have to look after Fred,” she whispered. “Me? I can’t look after Fred,” I told her. “Yes, you have to look after Fred too, Barnum. Now you’ve friends of your own.” “He doesn’t need me,” I exclaimed. “Yes, it’s now he does need you. Because it isn’t easy for Fred to find friends.”

  I ran into my room. I was almost angry. But I didn’t dare go up to the loft again. I sat at the window till the first light began showing in a narrow strip along the sky, midway between the pale moon and the city. Fred didn’t come down. I left before the others had gotten up, before breakfast — not even Esther had opened her kiosk yet, and she’d have to clear at least a ton of snow before she did. I cleared most of it for her with a shovel I came across in the entry-way below, so at least one person could be happy that day Because I was both full of dread and anticipation. That was just the way it was. I looked forward to the arrival of the snow, but I dreaded the snowballs. I looked forward to meeting Peder, and I dreaded what might happen. The thing I’d feared, as a suspicion, a feeling, was suddenly written in tablets of stone in my mind — that pleasures must be paid for with dread, that laughter is the voice of darkness. Fred was at the very core of my being, but how could I, little Barnum, look after him? It was Fred who had to look after me.

  The first thing I got when I came into the playground was a snowball in the face. It wasn’t especially hard, but what it lacked in solidity it made up for in wetness; it kind of melted on impact and ran down the inside of my shirt. My teeth just chattered, and I laughed. And there isn’t much more to tell, except that at recess it was my turn to throw. I aimed at the open school kitchen window. It was rather a good aim. I could hear the crashing pots and frying pans. The following period the head teacher came around to discover who the guilty party was. I put my hand up without the slightest hesitation and had to wait behind for three quarters of an hour. Basically I had no problem with that. In addition I had to write thirty times in my best writing I must not throw snowballs. When I had done that I started a new sheet. On this I wrote You must not lie in your coffin before you are dead nineteen times. Then my three quarters of an hour were up and I could go home. There was no one standing in the park waiting to wash my face in the great snow-plowed mounds behind the church. That was the good thing about having to wait behind. But I didn’t go home all the same. I went down to the corner of Bygdøy Alley and Drammen Road instead, and stood under the tree there waiting for Peder. There were still some leaves left on the branches. Winter had come too abruptly. Autumn hadn’t had time to finish properly. When I leaned my head backward and looked up into the great crown of the branches, the leaves resembled red water lilies floating in a white pond falling down over me. I stood like that for at least an hour. Then I felt someone shaking my jacket. It was Peder. “You look like
the son of the goddamn Abominable Snowman!” he exclaimed. He kept brushing away at my clothes. “Have you been standing here long?” “A while,” I admitted. “I got the time wrong.” Peder leaned against the trunk of the tree. “Snow is the most ridiculous thing I know,” he said. “Why?” “Why? Give me one good reason we should have snow.” I thought about it. “You can go skiing,” I suggested. Peder looked at me with something akin to disgust. “Skiing? Do you ski a lot, Barnum?” “No, not particularly,” I admitted hastily “No, you can see that. Ill tell you something. About forty inches of precipitation descend on Oslo each year, and I have to clear about five of them. Otherwise Mom couldn’t get out.” Peder produced an umbrella he had secreted under his duffel coat, and he put it up over us. We stood there for a bit not saying anything, sheltered from the falling snow. “What did you mean by that?” I asked. “You think Mom can clear snow by herself? And Dad can’t be bothered. But at least I get a weekly wage doing it. That’s the only good thing I can say about snow. That I make some money out of it. I insist on a tenner for every sixteenth of an inch.” “You said you could see I wasn’t a skier,” I breathed. “What did you mean by that?” Peder laughed. “You think I look like a cross-country skier, huh?” I shook my head. “Not in the least,” I admitted. “Well, neither do you!” We both laughed. Neither of us would be particularly efficient at it — we weren’t made for it. That was crystal clear. We’d be better off going in other directions. Then I thought of something. “Perhaps I know a good reason after all,” I said. “And what’s that then?” “Your mother can paint it. The snow, I mean.” Peder groaned. “Mom said that too. I think she likes you. There’s just one thing I keep wondering about.” Peder stood still, absolutely silent, under the black umbrella. “What?” I asked. “It must be possible to paint snow without having to clear it.”