by Jon Fosse
When I was young, he says
and he looks at her
Yes, she says
and she looks at him and it’s like there’s a lightness and expectation in her voice and yet he’s still sitting there without saying anything else and she asks him what he was about to say
Yes? When you were young? she says
Yes, I sometimes stayed next to a playground just like this one, he says
You did, she says
It’s almost like it’s the exact same playground, he says
It’s kind of strange, he says
It seems like it’s the exact same playground, he says
But there’s not a grey brick house here, is there? she says
No, no, it’s not actually the same playground, of course, of course not, he says
It just seems that way? she says
Yes, he says
and then neither of them says anything, and again she stares straight ahead, and he stares straight ahead
It was a little house, a little grey brick house, he says
and she sits there on the swing, he sits there on the bench, they sit like that without moving and they’re not saying anything and then she says that he grew up on a small farm, on a small farm on Horda Fjord, with fruit trees, she says, and he says yes, that’s right, and he says that he stayed in the little brick house only sometimes, it was when they were staying with his mother’s parents, his grandparents, that they lived in a brick house like that next to a playground like this, he says and I know that I need to paint this picture away, the next picture I start will be of these two people, I’ll paint them away, I’ll paint them in towards my innermost picture, because when I do that, if I can do that, then the picture will disappear and go away and the uneasiness inside me will stop and it’ll bring me peace, I won’t be haunted any more, and if I don’t I’m sure that this picture will keep coming from inside me again and again, but I’ve probably always been painting this picture, or one like it, almost exactly like the one I’m seeing now, but in any case I need to paint it away yet again, I need to paint it away again and again, I think, but now I need to start the car again, I can’t just sit here like this in my car watching two people who don’t know I’m sitting here looking at them, I think and suddenly I feel miserable, I feel grief, yes, it’s like grief is bursting from inside me, from nowhere, from everywhere, and it feels like this sorrow is about to choke me, like I’m breathing the sorrow in and I can’t breathe it out and I fold my hands and I breathe in deeply and I say to myself inside myself Kyrie and I breathe out slowly and I say eleison and I breathe in deeply and say Christe and I breathe out slowly and say eleison and I say these words again and again and the breaths and the words make it so that I’m not filled with sorrow any more, with fear, with sudden fear, with this sorrow in the fear so strong that’s suddenly come over me and that overpowers me and it’s like it’s made what’s I in me very small, turned it into nothing, but a nothing that’s nonetheless there, lodged firm, unshakable, even clearer in its motionless movement, and I breathe in deeply and I say to myself Kyrie and I breathe out slowly and say eleison, I breathe from the innermost part of me, I try to breathe from the thing that’s most inside me, and I breathe in deeply and I say Christe inside myself and I breathe out slowly and I say eleison and I try to breathe from the thing that’s there in my innermost place, from the picture that’s there that I can’t say anything about, I try to breathe from what I am inside, to keep the sorrow away, or in any case keep it under control so the fear doesn’t take over, so the terrors don’t overwhelm me, and I know that this sudden sorrow, these sudden terrors that have welled up inside me will get smaller and I will get bigger and I think that that’s really ridiculous, if someone saw me now they’d laugh and laugh, if they saw me thinking I could sit in a parked car in a turnoff saying Kyrie eleison Christe eleison, it’s absurd, they’d have to laugh, but let them laugh, let them, let them, because it helps! it helps! yes, now I feel calmer again and I look back down at the man and woman in the playground and I think that it’s time to drive home to my wife and our child now, they’re at home waiting for me, but I’m here on the road to Dylgja, this is the way to Dylgja, isn’t it? yes now I need to keep driving to Dylgja, obviously, where else would I be driving to? and I’m driving back to my wife and our child, in a way, to wife and child, no, how could I think that? no, I have to drive back to the old house in Dylgja where I live, just me, alone, I live there alone, that’s how it is, how could I think I was going home to my wife and our child, maybe it’s because I wish I was? because I wish that that’s what I was doing? going home to my wife and our child? not having to go home to an empty house, my cold and empty house? not having to go home to my own loneliness? and that’s why I think I’m going to drive home to my wife and our child when actually I’m going to go home to an empty house, a cold house, although actually I left the heater on didn’t I? and it’ll be good to get home anyway, it will, to get home to my good old house, and really I can’t stay sitting here like this, in my car, on this turnoff, I think and I look at the playground and it’s already almost dark and I see that the young man has stood up and moved and is standing in his long black coat behind the young woman and he takes the ropes holding the grey wooden board she’s sitting on and he gently pulls her back
No, she says
I don’t want to swing, she says
I’m not a little kid, she says
and he lets go of the rope and she swings forwards
No stop it, she says
and she swings backwards
Stop it, stop it, she cries
and he goes on pulling her back towards him and then pushing her away, pushing harder each time, he makes her go faster and faster and she’s swinging back and forth and he thinks that if she doesn’t want to swing she can just put her foot on the ground and stop the movement of the swing, simple as that, she has shoes on, but she doesn’t stop the swing
I don’t want to swing, she says
Why are you pushing the swing when I don’t want you to? she says
I didn’t ask you to, she says
I didn’t say I wanted to, she says
I don’t want to, she says
You just started pushing me like it didn’t matter whether I wanted to or not, she says
and he keeps pulling her back towards him and then pushing her away and he thinks now why is he doing this? also, why is he pushing her away from him harder and harder each time? and pulling harder each time, and she steadily soars ahead, away from him, and comes steadily back, towards him, and then he pushes her again, back and forth, away and back
It’s just a game, he says
and he gives a push with all his strength and the swing flies away and she screams and her skirt flutters and her black hair is sticking straight out behind her, yes, that was a scream, she screams that he needs to stop, she doesn’t like it, he really has to stop now, she’s scared, she’s really scared, she could fall off the swing, she cries, he needs to stop, enough, she doesn’t want to any more
Stop, she cries
But you like it? he says
No stop, she says
You like it, he says
No, no, she says
You do too, he says
and she says no, she says what if she falls off when she’s at the highest point, and he gives another push, pushing as hard as he can, and she flies away, her black hair sticks straight out behind her when she’s on her way up, skirt flapping, and she screams, a kind of squealing shriek comes out of her when she’s at the top of the swing, even louder than before, and on her way back down her dark hair flies to the side and forwards and she shrieks no, no, stop it, I don’t like it, I’m scared, stop, I mean it, stop
You do too like it, he says
and when she comes back he makes her go faster again, he pulls the swing and gives her a good push and she flies forwards, up, and now she’s not yelling, now she’s starting to help, now when she’s at
the top she bends her knees back and as it were throws her upper body forwards and the swing comes back stronger and when she’s come all the way back she raises her feet forward and at the moment he pushes on her back she as it were flings herself forward and amplifies the swings, she goes farther forward, higher up, every time it’s farther forward, higher and higher
Faster, she cries
Push harder, she cries
As hard as you can, she cries
and she is out of breath and a little hoarse almost, and he pushes as hard as he can
Aahhh, she screams
Yeahhh, she screams
Like that, as hard as you can, she screams
and he thinks he can’t push any harder, he’s already using all his strength, he’s already pushed the swing as hard as he can, he’s starting to get tired, he thinks
Push harder, she cries
and he doesn’t push as hard but he gives regular pushes, almost the same strength every time, even, regular, they are now in an even rhythm, up and down, she swings evenly back and forth and she shouts this is great, it’s wonderful, she feels a tickling in her stomach, he can’t stop, he needs to grab tight and pull her and push her away, perfect, so evenly back and forth, she says, a little faster now but still evenly, she says and now he has to pull as hard as he can once or twice, push her as hard as he can a few times, she shouts but she’s shouting in a way softly, she keeps shouting softly that it’s tickling, it’s tickling so nicely in her stomach, all over her, but it’s scary, awful, horribly scary, but good too, incredibly great, she shouts softly, breathlessly
Pull, push, as hard as you can, she cries
Do it, she cries
Do it a few more times and then we’ll stop, she cries
and he thinks all right that’s enough, you get tired of just standing and pushing a swing, and it’s getting darker and darker, and at first she didn’t want him to push her, now she doesn’t want him to stop, that’s the way it goes isn’t it, he thinks and he steps back a little and the swing comes towards him
Push, push my back, she cries
and he backs slowly away
Can’t you do any more? she says
and he pushes and she pumps her legs and swings by herself as well as she can, she pulls the ropes with all her strength and throws herself forward as hard as she can and when she’s at the hightest point she shouts Aaahh, aaahh, aaahh, before she comes back down and back
This is great, she cries
More, she cries
and he looks at her and takes a running jump with the swing and hurls it forward with all his might
Yeahhhhh, she screams
and she draws it out, shrieks yeahh again, and then shouts yeahh more slowly
At first you didn’t want to, he says
I was scared, she says
And now you don’t want to stop, he says
No, no I like it, she says
But you’ve been swinging long enough now, he says
It’s so good, it’s great, she says
and the swing moves back and forth less and less, up and down, back and forth
It was scary in the beginning, but then I wasn’t scared any more, she says
That’s often how it is, he says
It was fun though, she says
and the swing has almost stopped moving, it’s moving back and forth only a little and she says that when she was young she never dared swing, it was so scary, she felt, or else she did dare but only barely, a little bit forward and a little bit back, and he says maybe he shouldn’t have pushed her so hard and she says it was great that he did, she liked it, even when she was saying she didn’t like it she was actually liking it, she says and he says yes well that’s how it often is, people often say one thing and mean something else, even the exact opposite, he says and she says she’s not sure that it happens all that often but anyway it did just now with her on the swing, she says, and the swing is now moving back and forth by no more than its own width and he grabs the ropes and stops the swing and stops her and he stays behind the swing holding onto it until it stops moving altogether, and then he’s just standing there and she’s just sitting there and then she looks up at him
That was fun, she says
Yeah, even if we’re grown-ups, he says
Or at least almost grown-up, she says
Kind of grown-up at least, he says
Kind of, yeah, she says
and he carefully pushes the swing again, pulls the rope
Kind of grown-up, she says
Kind of kind of, she says
and the swing is moving back and forth by itself, not very far each way now, but still up and down, gently now, gently back and forth
We’ll be grown-up soon anyway, she says
Yeah, he says
and he takes the ropes again and the swing stops
But it’s dark, he says
It’s still a little light, she says
One last time? she says
and he grabs the ropes again and takes a step back pulling her with him, he goes as far back as he can go, he pulls her back as high as he can, and then lets go of the swing and she howls no, no, no more, not so hard, not so strong, I can’t, no more, she shouts, aaahh, no, no, she shrieks and he moves away from the swing
Not so much, she cries
That’s too much, she cries
Aaahh, she cries
and he stands and looks at her and he sees her swinging back and forth, up and down, but more and more gently, and then she pumps the swing herself a little, back and forth, up and down, and then it gets slower and the swing just drifts back and forth and he moves a bit farther away from the swing
Where are you going? she says
Nowhere, he says
But you’re going to the gate, are you leaving? she says
No, no, he says
I’m not leaving you here, but it’ll be dark soon, maybe we should go home? he says
Just wait till the swing stops, she says
and she puts her feet on the ground and stops the swing and she looks at him and smiles and says that was really fun, she hasn’t been on a swing since she was a little kid, she says, and back then she didn’t like it very much, she was such a scaredy-cat, she was scared of everything when she was little, when she was a little girl, she says
You were too scared to go on the swings? he says
To go that high, she says
Yes, he says
No, I really didn’t dare, and when I did swing a little it was only to show I could do it, sort of, she says
and she says that that’s what she was like as a child, yes, and then neither of them says anything, and then she asks if he was brave enough to go on the swings when he was little
Were you brave enough? she says
and he nods and she steps off the swing and she goes over to him and he looks at her long dark hair hanging straight down now and then she raises her face to his with half-open lips and he puts his mouth on her mouth and their mouths meet, open wide
