The Half Brother

by Lars Saabye Christensen

  I went to the bathroom first. I stood in front of the mirror. You’re the one who’s won, I told myself. My eyelid slid down again, a wrinkled fold of skin that covered half my face. I pulled off my tie, put it in my pocket and got out the cognac I’d thought of saving till later. I took a gulp. When I’d drunk one, I drank a second. The first was for the best script, and the second was for the movie that would never be. Then we hurried through the rain to the wooden building on the other side, Norwegian Film’s canteen. That was where I was to become famous. It was there the prize was to be awarded.

  There weren’t many there. Vivian, Mom and Boletta were already sitting at a table eating halves of rolls. Two journalists with cameras around their necks were standing by the wine. They each took pictures. I managed to recognize one of them from before. It was Ditlev from the afternoon edition of Aftenposten. He hadn’t changed his suit. He was time that had passed. I couldn’t see Arne Skouen. The director pulled me over to a sharp-looking woman in big, brown clothes. She reminded me of Miss Knuckles — yes, for a moment, I almost thought it was her and could catch the dry whiff of chalk. “This is our dramaturge,” the director said. I greeted her. “You’ll have to change the beginning,” she barked. “Thank you,” I murmured. She let my hand drop as if she’d gotten a wasp under the nails. I wanted more to drink. Someone went past and slapped me on the back. “Good,” they said. “Good.” I was glad I’d taken off my tie. The director sat himself on a stool. “Friends! Welcome. We’re starting a frantically busy season here. The projects are lining up, a new generation of filmmakers is in the process of making their mark, and I can certainly say that we out here at Norwegian Film aren’t letting the grass grow under our feet.” Everyone, barring Boletta, laughed. The director clapped his hands. “And so the time has come to reveal the winner of Norwegian Film’s major script competition.” The director handed over to the dramaturge at this point. She stood up beside his stool and produced a sheet of paper that must have been folded at least nine times. “We received sixty-three entries and finally chose the script entitled ‘Fattening’ as the winner. This tells the strange story of a boy who stops eating because he wants to get taller, and who’s finally sent to a farm to be — yes, precisely — fattened up. Here he’s the victim of serious assault. He’s abused sexually by the other boys. The narrative can be read as a didactic and imaginative attack on a perverse society.” She turned the page. Mom was on the point of getting to her feet, but mercifully remained in her seat. “And the winner is Barnum Nilsen.” Everyone, barring Mom, applauded. Both the journalists took pictures. I was given a glass of champagne and a check by the director. “Would you like to say a few words?” he asked me. Utter quiet fell. Mom didn’t take her eyes off me and kept on shaking her head. I drank my champagne. And all of a sudden my mouth ran amuck again. I couldn’t remember the last time it had done so. I considered that time well and truly passed. “To hell with you,” I said. The quiet only intensified. Vivian went crimson and looked down. Mom couldn’t have been any more shocked than she already was. The dramaturge had to sit down. It was Boletta who saved the day. “Bravo!” she exclaimed. “Bravo!” And the whole lot of them began applauding once more, almost out of sheer panic, while the director filled everyone’s glasses with champagne. “Barnum Nilsen will now be available for press interviews,” he said very loudly. “If they have the courage!” he laughed in a rather raucous manner. Ditlev was the first on the scene. “Well, well,” he said. “It’s been a while now.” “Yes, time flies,” I said, and looked down at his worn shoes. He got out his notebook, then changed his mind and put it back in his pocket. “I was talking to your Mom for a little while just now,” he said. “Oh? And what was she saying?” Ditlev smiled. “She’s very proud of you.” “Thank you.” “Could you expand on your rather original thank-you speech, by the way Barnum?” It was then the other journalist began to grow impatient. She tugged at Ditlev’s jacket and turned on the charm. “You don’t intend to hog Barnum Nilsen for the rest of the day do you?” Ditlev looked sheepish, shrank into the background, found his umbrella and went out into the rain. He’d gone soft. He’d shuffle down to the broom closet at the paper and write his last article. “Shall we sit down?” The other journalist found a table. I found a bottle. Her name was Bente Synt, the woman we’d later call the Elk. She was five-eleven in height and never took any notes. “So you’re the guy who’s going to save Norwegian Film,” she said. “Well, I’ll certainly do my best,” I told her. She smiled. “Is this autobiographical, this story of yours that won?” And I added Peder’s words to Dad’s idea about spreading rumor and sowing doubt. “Perhaps. Perhaps not,” I replied. She sat there looking at me. I drank champagne. Then she stole Ditlev’s question. “Could you expand on your rather original thank-you speech, Barnum?” “No comment,” I said. Bente Synt laughed a moment. “Isn’t it a little early in your career to be so precious?” The director came past. “Everything going all right?” he inquired. Bente Synt looked up. “I’m just trying to get Barnum Nilsen to say something about his little speech. To hell with you.” The director laid his hand on her shoulder and became all sphinx-like. “It’s the prerogative of the young to call us names when they get the chance, right, Bente?” He continued on his way. “Exactly,” I said. Bente Synt got out a cigarette, which she didn’t light. “What’s your favorite film?” “Hunger,” I told her. She smiled, pleased with the answer. “So your script is a kind of response to Hamsun?” “You could well say that,” I agreed. “And your description of this farm, which is almost synonymous with a penal colony, is a kind of revolt against Hamsun’s fascism?” I mulled that one over. “Perhaps. Perhaps not,” I said. Bente Synt wasn’t pleased at all with this response. “Have you got any new projects going?” she inquired. “I’m working on a modern version of Dante’s Divine Comedy” “Really.” “I’m imagining the big city as hell and Beatrice as a guide in a travel agency.” “Interesting.” Bente Synt put her cigarette back in the pack and got up. “I really think I’ve got plenty,” she said. I was left sitting in her shadow long after she’d gone. Suddenly I sensed someone at my back. I turned around. For a moment I thought it was Fleming Brant, the cutter; it was as though I saw him going slowly through the room with a rusty rake in his hands — this illusion that would come back and back so many times. It was Arne Skouen. He leaned closer. “Never talk about things you haven’t written yet,” he whispered. “Because then they’ll never come to be.” And I remembered I’d heard something similar before — it was Peder’s mom who’d said it ages ago. Don’t say it aloud, because then you’ll never be able to write it down. I went off to the bathroom and had some cognac. When I reemerged, the dramaturge was waiting for me. “The narrative structure has to go,” she said. “The whole thing?” “It’s old news, Barnum Nilsen. Get rid of it.” She knocked back her champagne in great gulps. She didn’t get drunk. Alcohol had rather the opposite effect on her. It made her more and more sober, or perhaps it was just me who was getting drunker. “But the narrative structure’s the whole point,” I tell her. “The point?” “I’m trying to show that life itself is like a kind of film. And that God is the projectionist.” “Why isn’t God the director?” “I think it’s better having him as the projectionist.” The dramaturge stared at me in the same way one looks down on helpless, foolish children. “You ought to think rather of who the enemy is in the story,” she said. “The enemy?” “Is it the school doctor, the farmer or the other boys. You have to be clear about these things, Barnum.” I had no answer for her. “I can certainly get rid of the narrative structure,” I murmured. I poured more into my glass. She smiled. “Besides, isn’t it a bit high and mighty using your own name?” “Does that really matter when the film isn’t even going to be made?” I retorted. Now it was my turn to hope she might be stuck for an answer. She wasn’t. “We still want the script to be as good as it possibly can be all the same,” she said.

  I sat in the backseat when we took a taxi home again, and th
ey were no longer as proud of me as they had been. Vivian was silent and Mom was still uneasy. “How could you write something like that?” she hissed. “What do you mean?” She almost couldn’t bring herself to say what she meant aloud. “That things like that happened on the farm, Barnum.” Boletta came to in the front seat. “Let the boy write what he wants to,” she said. But Mom wouldn’t leave it. “He can’t write something that isn’t true!” She turned to me. “You had a good enough time on that farm, didn’t you, Barnum?” All at once I felt so very tired. For the second time that day I saw Fleming Brant, standing on a corner, leaning on his rake and looking at us as we passed. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “There isn’t going to be any movie.” Vivian took my hand. “Won’t there be?” “Never. The director said it would never be made into a movie.” Mom grasped my other hand. “Thank heavens for that.”

  I put the check into the bank at Majorstuen, and beside the bank was the “pole.” Afterward we walked slowly home. The rain had stopped. The air was thin and cold. “Are you down?” Vivian asked me. I stopped at the telephone booth at the Valkyrie. I had a few coins on me. I looked up the Theater Cafe in the book and called their number. I booked a table for eight o’clock. I left a couple of coins in the slot. Perhaps some kids would find them and have enough for juice and sweets from Barnum’s kiosk. I put my arm around Vivian. “No,” I answered. “Good, Barnum. It’s just a case of writing more, isn’t it?” And she kissed me until we all but dropped our “pole” bags.

  But I couldn’t write. I wanted to start on my divine comedy, but the words died as soon as they reached the page. Perhaps it was true, that when you talk about something it’s impossible to write it thereafter, for you take the power of the story and dilute it in everyone’s hearing. You’ve betrayed yourself. I wrote at the very top of the blank sheet: professional discretion. Then I leafed through my notebook instead. I felt like throwing it away. I felt suddenly that my ideas were pathetic. The notebook was weightless. If I chucked it in the garbage chute, it would never land. I could see the ideas before me, weightless, and the writing being rubbed out by rotting leftovers, grease, diapers, the dregs of coffee, cigarette butts, vomit, blood and other body fluids. Finally I got out “Fattening.” I put a line through the opening scene and changed my name to Pontus. But what difference did it make? That evening I drank faster than I thought.

  The first time the phone rang it was six-thirty. Vivian came out from the bathroom and hesitated before answering it. I could hear the voice all the way over to where I was. It was the director of Norwegian Film Ltd. Vivian handed me the receiver. “Perhaps he’s changed his mind,” she hissed. From the word go he started talking in an equally loud voice. “You’re a fox, Barnum.” “Am I?” “Bar-num’s no pseudonym, nor are you an only child.” I didn’t say a thing for a while. “Are you still there?” he inquired. “Where else would I be?” The director laughed. Quickly he became serious too. “Listen, Barnum, and listen carefully. I want this story. And only you can write it.” I grew quite bewildered. And underneath this bewilderment was an equally powerful disgust, a sense of nausea. “What story?” “The story of your missing brother,” the director said. Vivian sat on the bed drying her hair. She looked up sharply. “How do you know about that?” I asked him. He laughed again. “Haven’t you read the afternoon edition of the paper yet?” I put down the receiver. I rushed out to the stairs and pinched the copy belonging to the neighbor who always forgot to close the garbage chute. Ditlev’s last article was there on the last page. Now I knew what he’d been talking to Mom about. There was a picture of Fred, from the fight at the Central Boxing Club, taken just as he receives the deciding blow and his face twists, as if his skin is detached and being pushed around the side of his head. Underneath they had a much smaller picture of me being given my check by the director, and the cognac in my inner pocket’s visible — the protruding cork of it. The heading read: The winner and the loser. I went back to Vivian and sat down on the bed. I gave her the paper. “Read it,” I breathed. And she did: “Barnum Nilsen was today awarded first prize in Norwegian Film’s script competition. For readers with good memories, the name of Barnum Nilsen will not be entirely unfamiliar. Back in 1966 he was in Oslo City Chambers to receive his award for winning a junior writing contest for his story ‘The Little City.’ What lies behind his new tale, ‘Fattening,’ is something the author’s reluctant to reveal, but it’s possible his brother’s story’s more dramatic still. Fred Nilsen, our one-time hope in the ring, vanished twelve years ago. Vera Nilsen, the boy’s mother, relates that she’s sought the assistance both of the police and the Salvation Army, without success.” I tore the paper from Vivian, crumpled it up and chucked it out onto the balcony. I couldn’t even escape Fred’s shadow. “Come here,” Vivian whispered. I went over and lay down with her. “Who’s the winner, and who’s the loser?” I asked her. “Now you’re being stupid,” Vivian said. I turned away. “Fine.” “Don’t be angry with your mother,” she told me. I tried to laugh. “That’s rich coming from you.” “She just wants Fred back, right? Perhaps somebody reading the paper will have seen him in one place or another.” “I’m not angry” I said. Vivian unfastened my belt and pulled up my shirt. “Have you told her we’re going to have a child?” I lay there and for a moment froze completely. I had to defrost my voice. “Are you pregnant, Vivian?” She laughed. “Not yet, Barnum.” But she kept staring at my stomach. I could feel that she was naked. She sat over me. And while we were going at it, the phone rang for the second time. We didn’t answer it. Her hair came down over my face and was still wet. She lay down beside me and put her legs along the side of the wall. “What was it the director actually wanted?” she asked. “A script about Fred.” Vivian rubbed her hands over her stomach. “Do you want to write it?” I waited a moment before answering. “Maybe I’ve already begun it.” “Really?” “Yes,” I told her. Vivian swung down her legs and turned to me. “What’s it called?” “I think I’ll call it The Night Man” “Can I read it?” “Not yet, Vivian.” It was already seven. I showered, had a drink and got dressed. Vivian had put on a dress I hadn’t seen her in before — it was blue with black stripes. It suited her. We looked at ourselves in the mirror. We didn’t look too bad. We were off to the Theater Cafe. Then the phone rang for the third time that evening. I answered it. It was Peder’s mother. “Congratulations,” she said. “I see you’ve won a prize.” “Yes, by gosh,” I said. “Many thanks!” “I’m proud of you, Barnum.” And yet there was a strangeness about her voice. It was slow and joyless. “I have to tell you something,” she breathed. I sat down on the bed. I was stone-cold sober once more. “Yes?” “Peder’s father died last night.” “Died? But how?” Vivian turned around and dropped her ear stud on the floor, Peder’s mother was quiet a long while. I just heard her breathing. “He took his own life, Barnum.” “Oh, no,” I murmured. Vivian came a step closer — pale, shaky. “I’d so much like it if you could both be at the funeral,” Peder’s mother said. She put down the phone. I looked up. “What is it?” Vivian whispered. I pulled her down to me and told her. And I sensed a tremor pass through her — a quick breath of relief, just as I sensed it in myself — for it isn’t Peder that’s dead. And this relief becomes at once shame and sorrow. We’re dressed in our finest clothes. We stay at home. And I see before me the empty table at the Theater Cafe with my reservation there — Barnum Nilsen, 8 p.m. — the only table no one sits at. And this is an echo too, an echo of time, the shadow of a discus spinning through blinding sunlight. I put my arms around Vivian. “Now Peder must come home,” I whisper, and start to cry.