The Half Brother

by Lars Saabye Christensen

  SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: The quantity of food for dinner is increased. Eighty grams of meat, grilled potatoes and butter, kidneys and boiled testicles.

  Philip looks up at the sky. It starts raining. He throws the spade away and runs for all he’s worth toward the woods.

  30. EXT. AFTERNOON. FOREST

  Philip stops out of breath among the trees, and leans against one of the trunks. There’s utter stillness. He turns around. No one’s following him. Then he keeps going.

  And then he sees that the wood is full of boys. They’re sitting on the ground, half-naked and blue with cold. Some are already dead. The others are simply waiting to die.

  Philip turns around once more. The farmer and his wife are standing hand in hand at the edge of the wood, dressed in their finest garb, smiling at him.

  31. INT. EVENING. FARM.

  Philip’s standing naked in the communal shower, washing mud and earth from himself. He’s the only one there. He stares at the filthy water swirling into the drain. He feels the rolls of fat around his belly.

  Then he hears the strains of now our land is living. Philip turns the shower off at once and hears the song more clearly now. It’s coming closer and closer. Philip reaches for his towel, which is hanging on a hook. But he doesn’t get it in time. Preben and Aslak are standing in front of him. They’re singing and looking at him. Then there’s quiet.

  Preben takes the towel from the hook.

  ASLAK: Are you better than us, huh?

  PHILIP (in a whisper): No.

  PREBEN: Do you need the towel?

  PHILIP: Yes, please.

  Preben stretches out the towel, but snatches it back again. Philip remains standing where he is. He tries to cover himself with his hands.

  ASLAK: Are you sure you aren’t better than us?

  PHILIP: I don’t want to get fat. I just want to be taller.

  Preben and Aslak look at each other and laugh. Then they drag Philip with them into the dormitory and over to the hole in the floor. They force him onto his knees and press his face to the floor.

  Philip sees an empty kitchen. A kettle of waters on the stove, and it’s beginning to boil. Philip screams. The screams muffled. Preben secures the towel tightly over his mouth. Aslak kneels behind him.

  SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: He who does not follow Weir Mitchel’s Remedy will go to thin hell.

  Philips face is twisted in agony and fear.

  32. INT. EXT. MORNING. DORMITORY.

  Philips standing by the window looking down over the yard. Aslak and Preben appear, smartly dressed, each with suitcase in hand, fat and polite, in the company of the farmer’s wife. They stand there, beside the flagpole, the flag waving from it.

  Then the truck comes into the yard and stops. The farmer’s wife says a tearful goodbye to Aslak and Preben. They clamber onto the back of the truck and sit there with their luggage.

  From the cab there appears an extremely thin and stunted boy with a cardboard suitcase in his hand. It’s Barnum, whom we recognize from the cinema as the boy who was thrown out. He’s frightened and bewildered. The farmer’s wife gives him a hearty welcome.

  The farmer drives off with Aslak and Preben.

  33. EXT. MORNING. FARMYARD.

  At last Barnum frees himself from the arms of the farmer’s wife. She bends down toward his face.

  WIFE: Now you’re going to get good and fat, Barnum.

  She takes Barnum by the hand and drags him toward the farmhouse. He looks up at the windows. He sees Philip. He sees his fat face up on the top story staring down at him.

  THE CHOIRBOYS SING: God is God though every man were dead.

  Barnum struggles and tries to pull himself away. The farmers wife drags him on.

  34. INT. EVENING. MOVIE THEATER.

  The USHER drags Barnum out of the theater toward the foyer. We hear the sound of the film in the background — the boys singing god is god. Barnum tears himself loose and rushes up some stairs. The usher pursues him for all he’s worth, but trips on the stairs. Barnum pushes open a door and enters a dark, cramped corridor.

  Barnum stops and looks about him. He sees a pillar of light slanting across the darkness. He continues toward it. He fumbles forward toward the light.

  35. INT. MORNING. FARM. DINING ROOM.

  Philip sits at the head of the table. Now he’s the heaviest of the lot of them. His face is bulging with fat. He’s stuffing himself with food. Fat dribbles from his lips.

  The farmer stands behind Philip and pats him on the shoulder.

  Barnum comes in and sits at the bottom of the table, thin as a rake and petrified.

  SCHOOL DOCTOR’S VOICE: Day one. At six-thirty a pint of milk, to be drunk slowly over three quarters of an hour.

  Barnum looks down at the mug of gray, impure milk, swimming with globules of fat.

  36. INT. EVENING. MOVIE THEATER.

  Barnum’s standing right in the beam of light. He doesn’t have much time. He’s in a panic. He tries to push the light away. He whirls his arms around in the air.

  From the theater there’s booing and catcalls and the shouting of insults.

  We see Barnum’s moving shadow all but obliterating the screen.

  37. INT. EVENING. FARM. DORMITORY.

  Philip’s standing beside Barnum’s bed. Philip is naked and fat. Barnum’s awake and terrified.

  Philip drags him over to the wall and pushes his face down to the floor.

  38. INT. MOVIE THEATER. EVENING.

  Barnum opens a low door. The PROJECTIONIST — an elderly, friendly man — is standing inside a cramped, low room that’s little more than a closet. The man is keeping his eye on the running of the film.

  Barnum goes into the projection room.

  BARNUM: I don’t want to see any more.

  PROJECTIONIST: What’s that?

  BARNUM: I don’t want to see it any more.

  PROJECTIONIST: I thought you wanted to see it.

  BARNUM: Not any more.

  The projectionist looks at him sorrowfully.

  PROJECTIONIST: I can’t stop the film before it’s finished. You know that well enough.

  39. INT. NIGHT. KITCHEN. FARM.

  Barnum’s eye is visible in the hole in the ceiling. It presses down into the hole, a wide-open eye. And then it tumbles, the eye tumbles down into the boiling pan of water on the stove.

  40. INT. EVENING. MOVIE THEATER.

  Barnum has sat down now. The Projectionist is standing beside the reels of film he has to change.

  BARNUM: I thought it was you who decided.

  PROJECTIONIST: You have to see the rest, Barnum.

  BARNUM: But I don’t want to.

  PROJECTIONIST: You don’t have any choice.

  BARNUM: I thought you were God.

  PROJECTIONIST: Yes, unfortunately I am God. But I don’t have any choice either.

  The projectionist turns toward Barnum.

  PROJECTIONIST: There’s something familiar about you. Haven’t I seen you before?

  BARNUM: Haven’t you seen everyone?

  PROJECTIONIST: But I have a bad memory you see. I’m starting to get old.

  The projectionist peers through his little window once more.

  PROJECTIONIST: Come here. Hurry!

  Barnum goes over and looks through the window.

  Barnum sees the screen down below, a long way off. The beautiful field and the boys working there — happy and industrious in the glorious weather. Birdsong. And Barnum, a black patch over one eye, appears with the farmer at his back, and is put to work beside Philip.

  In the background the woods are visible like a tall, dense shadow.

  PROJECTIONIST: Now I know who you are.

  The projectionist glances quickly at Barnum and smiles.

  PROJECTIONIST: It’s not what you see that matters most, but rather what you think you see.

  Barnum lifts a box in which reels of film have been stored and hits the projectionists head with it for all he’s worth. The proj
ectionist sinks to the floor.

  Barnum tears the film from the projector.

  From the theater comes the noise of catcalls and shouting.

  41. INT. EVENING. MOVIE THEATER.

  The screen is black and the theater lies in empty darkness. There’s no one there. Only the audiences things are left behind — their jackets, candy wrappers, umbrellas, gloves, shoes and scarves. There isn’t a sound to be heard.

  And then a crackling strip of light appears on the screen.

  A faded black-and-white picture is finally shown — of the door frame in the original bedroom. Different marks and dates. The last of them — 9/4/1962.

  THE END

  THE ELECTRIC THEATER

  The Nameplate

  We got married at the platemaker’s in Pilestredet. We’d chosen a copper plate with large letters: vivian and barnum. I’d have preferred it to be wie and nilsen. That had a better ring to it. But I let Vivian have her way. The shop assistant wrapped it in brown paper and put in four screws. I paid for it, and we went home and screwed the plate onto our door, vivian and barnum. On the mailbox down at the front door I’d just glued up a piece of paper on which I’d written our surnames — Nilsen and Wie. That was our engagement ring. Now it was for real, vivian and barnum was etched in copper on the second-floor door in Boltel0kka, a small red-brick block of apartments entered from Johannes Brun Street. It was Vivian’s father who’d gotten us the place — one room, a sleeping alcove and an ample balcony. We sat down there. It was early autumn, a Saturday, and the air was clear and sharp, the sun still warm. Right behind the dwellings to the west I could see the spire of Sten Park — Blåsen; I was in my landscape, I was there where my story belonged. To the south we could see the fjord; it lay clear and still and colorless, as if it had frozen over already. I opened the first bottle of champagne and filled our two glasses. A neighbor stood below on the small lawn; she waved up to us, earth on her fingers. I drank. Vivian closed her eyes and leaned back. The light became gold on her face. I sensed a happiness I hadn’t known before — the ease of alcohol and the peace of the moment — the dizziness and the occasion fused to become as one. “How long do you have to be missing before you’re presumed dead?” I asked. “Your whole life perhaps.” Vivian didn’t open her eyes. I sloshed more drink into my glass. I drank. I laughed. “Your whole life? That means people who’re missing have eternal life. They never die. They just keep on living.” Vivian turned toward me. All of a sudden there was a tiredness in her eyes. She held the tall, thin stem of her glass in both hands. “Do you miss Fred?” she whispered. I could have asked her the same question. I didn’t reply I went in for a new bottle instead. I drank a first glass. When I came out once more, Vivian had put on sunglasses. I sat down beside her. Half the balcony had fallen into shadow. Soon it would get colder. “I want to have kids,” Vivian said. I drained my glass. “Then we will,” I said. I took the bottle in with me; Vivian pulled out the sofa and made up the bed, and we lay down together. It didn’t take long. We were — how shall I put it? — to the point and single-minded in bed. After that bit of madness in Frogner Park by the summer house all those years ago, an event we never talked about again and didn’t so much as allude to, we’d become scared and shy, except when I’d had a drink. It was as if we opened up to a kind of darkness when we made love, and for that reason didn’t dare look each other in the eye. We just wanted to get it over and done with. But I could still get a faint hint of musk ox. I filled our glasses again. “Did I reach?” I asked. “Oh, stop it,” Vivian said. “Did I reach my public?” Vivian laughed too. I made her laugh, for the time being. I bent down to her stomach and listened. “Do you think there’s a child there now?” I breathed. “Perhaps, perhaps not,” Vivian said. I sat up. I was cold. There was still a little left in the bottle. Vivian held my hand. “Aren’t you drinking a bit too much?” she said. “A bit too much?” “Yes, a bit too much. You’ve all but taken care of two bottles on your own.” “Are you counting?” “Not all that difficult, Barnum. One and one’s two.” “You’re as good as Peder,” I said. Vivian let go of my hand. I lay down once more. “I drink because I’m happy,” I whispered. She got up and went out into the bathroom, where there was room for just one person at a time — one and a half when things were desperate. I heard her turning on the shower. I drank up what was left. Vivian tended to take a long time in the bathroom. When she came back, I got up. “Can we go to bed early tonight?” she sighed. “I have to write,” I told her. She turned away. She just had her red towel around her. Her wet hair lay fanned out on the white pillow and made a dark shadow that grew and grew. “You mustn’t get cold, Vivian.” “I’m warm. Are you cold?” “No, fine. Shall I put out the light?” “Sure you can, Barnum.” I turned out the bracket lamps above the bed and sat down at the narrow work table we had just enough room for in front of the window, between the balcony door and the bookshelves. But when I put on the lamp there, it lit up the rest of the room too, even when I bent down as close to the paper as possible. Vivian pulled the quilt over her head. That was how small the place was. We had two pictures on the wall — the photograph of Lauren Bacall and the poster of Hunger. All at once I thought of “The Little City.” Now I was grown up at last and lived in the little apartment. I was, if not old, then at least over the first threshold — that which follows innocences meridian, and where laughter changes color. All the same there were still lots of people who didn’t think I was twenty yet, and must therefore still be something of a threadbare teenager. From time to time I’d be refused admission to an over-18 film and had to show my identity card. I stopped going to see them. The last time I got stopped it was for The Shining, and Peder laughed his head off. After that I had to produce some form of identity in bars instead. That came to an end too. But those who came close enough and had a really good look, who didn’t let themselves be fooled by my curls and my small stature (which in better moments I called my quiet length), could see by my facial features what the reality was, and those features were unmistakable. Vivian was already asleep. I often envied her that sleep. I got myself ready. This is an inventory of my tools: 400 sheets of Andvord paper, my ruler, a pencil, three pens, M. S. Greve’s Medical Dictionary for Norwegian Homes, an eraser, correction fluid, and my typewriter from Fred. I went out into the little kitchen and had a drink from the little bottle. And had a little thought — “The Little City,” part two (or part one and a half) — a dwarf who lives in the world’s smallest studio begins a relationship with the world’s tallest woman. I drank a second bottle, made some coffee and sat down at the desk again. I got out my notebook. These were my ideas. 1. Laughter and tears, Bar-num’s account of the human condition. 2. The swimming pool. 3. Close encounters with the famous — The Beatles, Per Oscarsson, Sean Connery, etc. 4. Fattening. 5. The triple jump. 6. The Night Man. These were just some of my titles — my working titles — each listed precisely and with a detailed breakdown of direction and dialogue, and a character list. This was my finest hour, when I brought the paper down between the rollers or raised my pencil instead, so as not to awaken Vivian. Then I reigned supreme. Then I was my own master and master of time too. Darkness hugged the window. The lights down in the city center were never still. It was raining. Someone was playing the Sex Pistols at full blast. The Boltel0kka cats were yowling. Then, all at once, there was silence. I heard nothing more than Vivians easy breathing. She was our engine. This was my time. I would make my stories tall — not small and slow — no, I’d lift them higher than the marks on the door frame, higher than myself. Was this too great an expectation? And it’s at that moment, when the hand holding the pencil nears the page, when the finger falls toward a letter on the buckled, worn keyboard, that I’m in my element. From this moment on anything can happen. I am the little god. Now I’m heavier than my own weight, bigger than my own thoughts, wider than my own authority — in this in-between place, in this hesitation of a second, like a drop of water under a leaky tap or a nose, and this drop has th
e power to become an ocean. Vivian turned over and moaned softly. Perhaps she’d dreamt something. Perhaps a person was growing inside her now — that was the way my mind began working — my cell and her egg, no less; the characteristics already lying embryonic in there in the warmth — a boy’s wrinkles, a girl’s dimples, a child’s heart. In M. S. Greve’s Medical Dictionary this was the definition: Fertilization, the process through which the fertile egg cell is readied in order to develop a new independent individual And my pencil landed on The Night Man. I wrote the first scene. A BOY, eight years old, thin and pale, runs through the streets. When I shut my eyes, I could see him running through the empty streets in a deserted city in the early morning. His clothes are old-fashioned; I can hear his breathing, his labored breathing. I can hear music too, because this scene has to have music — something soft, slow and symphonic. Where is the boy going? What is it he has to reach, given that he’s running so fast? I put down my pencil. It became too much for me. I wasn’t ready for this story yet — my cornerstone, my major work — this story that would center around absence. I wrote the word in the margin and underlined it. Absence. I knew the things I wanted to write, but not the order in which I wanted to write them. This is what the narrative is: the order of things, the course of events, what comes next — that lopsided logic that isn’t composed of cause and effect but with another sort of humanity, the poetic chronology I still wasn’t tall enough for this task. I had to grow with it, stretch out beyond my mandate to become my own superman. I would fill the absence and so cancel it out — Fred, who’d been gone for ten years, our great-grandfather, Wilhelm, who’d disappeared in the ice, Boletta’s unknown husband, Dad’s shadowy journey from the time when he carried his suitcase of applause around the corner of the road to the day he came driving up Church Road in a shiny gold Buick. And I couldn’t forget Peder either — Peder who’d studied economics at the University of Los Angeles. Perhaps it’s these very people the boys running to meet? Vivian slept. I went to get myself a beer and tiptoed out onto the balcony. I could see the shadow of Blåsen. That’s where the Old One used to sit and where Mom would go to find her. I had yet another idea and hurried inside so as not to forget it — that was my great fear already forgetting things, and it’s for this reason I went and recorded it. I wrote: Places. Stories about peoples attachment to individual, set places. For instance, the Old One to Blåsen. Boletta to the North Pole. Esther’s kiosk. The backyard. A place is not a place before a person has been there. A person isn’t a person before they have a place in which to be. And is it in these places that our memory lies? Where’s my place? I don’t know. But can’t time be a place too? I would have my place in time. I wrote at the bottom in large letters: Graveyards. Whose are they? Then I leafed back to an old and trusty idea — the Triple Jump. I would make the triple jump my poetics. The various stages of the triple jump are inescapable and definitive — the fast run-up, the springy takeoff and equally springy contact with the ground. The hop, the stride, then every atom of strength gathered for the last mighty leap toward the sandpit, as the legs stretch forward in descent — an almost impossible and yet more beautiful movement. I imagine an account of the triple jump’s history, how the technique has been refined over the years without disturbing the quintessential properties of the discipline itself — the hop, stride and leap — the very trinity of the triple jump. In particular I’m interested in the run-up; it’s here the foundation is laid, for a bad jump may be detected as early as the run-up. I’d imagine there’s a whole series of stock shots from various sports tournaments and championships, both from home and abroad, that can shed light on the triple jump’s composition and significance. I have, after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, made up my mind to have Bang the caretaker as the main protagonist — the lame hero of the triple jump. This is what I imagine — the old caretaker has brought in sand to the backyard and dug a pit for it. Everyone has now gathered to see him jump. It’s springtime, a Saturday afternoon; we’re leaning out of the windows and crowding the steps; we’ve positioned ourselves along the length of the run-up, the narrow path strewn with gravel. We cheer, and now Bang the caretaker makes his appearance, clad in his worn shorts and yellow jersey, to the sound of great jubilation and much applause. Determined and limping as he runs, he hits the wooden platform and leaps upward with a groan, and it’s right there I freeze him — I let Bang the caretaker hang like that in midair, and from that point I go backward in time to the morning of the jump. Who was the first in the world to devise the triple jump?