by Jon Fosse
You’ve sure got it good, spending your whole life painting, Åsleik says
That’s true, I do, I say
Really good, I say
You get by anyway, Åsleik says
Yes, I get by, I say
You could always get by, he says
and I don’t want to talk yet again about when I was young and painted pictures that I sold, because actually they were terrible pictures, beautiful lies, about as bad as pictures can be, only the shadows were painted well, and the copy I painted of Bridal Procession on the Hardangerfjord was even worse, that’s why I don’t want to talk about it, not now, it can wait, some time later I’ll tell Åsleik about it again, I think, and I think that I’m ashamed of those pictures I painted in my youth, but why? well, the fact is I was violating something, degrading something, those sunny pictures I painted back then were pure lies, except in the shadows, the darkness, the light, yes, sometimes I was close to something but then I tried to sort of hide it in the picture, I would paint over it, yes, I painted over the best things in the picture! and it’s awful to think about, but the picture looked real, it looked so real, and the fruit trees were in bloom and the sun was shining on the pretty white house and the water in the fjord was blue, and the only thing I needed to paint a painting like that was a photograph of a house, or farm, or whatever they wanted me to paint, and then I’d find out roughly how big they wanted the picture to be, and once they’d told me that I got started, and oh they looked so real and oh how ashamed I was of those pictures I painted, but really it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, I should’ve been proud of myself, actually, it’s not the worst thing in the world for a kid to be able to paint like that, it looks so real! they said, and they paid me and I painted and that’s still true today, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world for a kid to paint pictures like that, and yet I’m so ashamed of them, it was like I was disrespecting, yes, desecrating something by painting them, and I wish all those paintings would just disappear! let them vanish for all time! if I could’ve burnt every last one of them I would have, and that’s what I thought even well before I started at The Academic High School, and I really didn’t like painting pictures like that, and luckily I never wrote my name on those pictures, sometimes someone would ask me to and when they did I wrote my first name in the right corner but just my first name, no more than that, and however upset they got about that I didn’t write any more than that, it would have to do, but sometimes people would write on the back of the picture that I’d painted it, and in what year, and those ugly portraits I painted of my parents! I really wish they would just disappear from the face of the earth! they were total lies, they looked so realistic, just like my parents, and they looked so nice and pretty, it was all disrespecting, yes, desecrating art, pure and simple, to tell the truth, and those pictures, those pictures were what Åsleik liked to hear me talk about, and he just couldn’t understand why I was so ashamed of those pictures, he’d seen some of them himself, he had relatives in Barmen, his mother was from Barmen and he’d been there a few times and he’d seen those pictures of mine, they were the best and finest pictures I’d ever painted, that’s what he thinks, there was nothing I painted later that he liked as much as what I painted back then, he said and I thought he didn’t know what made a good painting any more than a horse’s arse, that’s who I was dealing with here, a fool, yes, this person I constantly saw was just an idiot, I think and I look at Åsleik making the stove burn well and he puts a birchwood log in and I go outside and get two shopping bags out of the back of the car and I go back inside and into the hall and open the kitchen door and turn on the light and then go in with the bags and put them down on the kitchen table and then go into the main room and I see Åsleik standing in front of the stove with the hatch open and he says that it’s burning nicely now so he can help me bring the rest in and then he shuts the stove door and we go outside together and I hand him two bags and he takes them and I say he can put them on the kitchen table and then I take out the last two shopping bags and put them down and I take the door to the back of the car and shut it and it clicks shut and I see Åsleik go up to the door of my house and I say it’s good we live somewhere where no one needs to lock the door
That’s for sure, Åsleik says
There’s never been talk of locking front doors here in Dylgja, he says
Never, he says
and he emphasizes the word as if he’s now said something that really means a lot, and he has, too, he really has, there aren’t too many places left where people can leave their front doors unlocked when they aren’t home
It’s good we can count on each other here in Dylgja, I say
Everyone in Dylgja can count on everyone else, yes, Åsleik says
and I see Åsleik from behind, standing in the doorway with the two bags and I know deep inside that I will never forget this exact moment, this exact flash, yes, a flash is what it is, because there’s a light in it, coming to it, or coming from it, there where I see Åsleik in the doorway with his back to me, his bent shoulders, that almost bald head with a ring of long grey hair below the bald spot, and I can see his long grey beard, I think he’s hardly ever cut his beard since he started growing one as a teenager, I think, and then those two plastic shopping bags weighing him down, one on each side, making his shoulders round, it’s like he’s framed by the doorway, and even though it’s dark and there’s no outside light on and there’s just a little light coming out from the light in the hall I can see him as a shape, as a shape with its own light, that’s how I see him, and it’s probably the light of his angel, I think, but if I were ever dumb enough to say something like that to him he’d have a good laugh and say I was like those old wandering fiddlers who learned to play from the Devil, that’s what I was like, but in a Christian way, something like that is what he’d say, and it’s always been this way, these glimpses of this or that thing that lodge inside me and never leave my head again, never, they lodge there as pictures and stay there and I can never get rid of them, so they have to be painted away, yes, that’s how it is, that’s how I am, I think, but this light, this flash is part of Åsleik the person too, I think, but why isn’t he going into the house? why is he just standing there in the doorway? or is it only for me that time has stopped? I think
You need to take those to the kitchen, I say
I am, Åsleik says
But I don’t understand, why did you stop in the doorway? I say
I didn’t stop in the doorway, he says
You need to go inside, I say
Yes that’s what I’m doing, Åsleik says
and he goes inside and I pick up the two bags next to me and I go inside and I see Åsleik walk through the open door into the kitchen and I go in after him and he puts his bags down on the kitchen table and then I go and put my bags down there
You sure bought a lot, Åsleik says
Six bags, he says
Yes, that’s a lot, it always turns out to be more than you think it’ll be, I say
and I go out into the hall and shut the front door and then go back into the kitchen and shut the kitchen door behind me
Do you need all that, a man living alone? Åsleik says
Not really, I say
You did buy a lot, Åsleik says
Anything to drink in there? he says
and he winks at me
No, I say
and I knew he was going to say that, it’s like he always wants to remind me that I don’t drink any more, I’ve stopped drinking, yes, it’s been many years, since, no I don’t want to think about that
No beer, nothing stronger either, he says
And Christmas coming soon and all, you know it’s a common custom, right, people usually have some beer in the house, or something stronger, Åsleik says
But you didn’t buy anything? he says
No, no, let’s not talk about it, I say
With Christmas coming? he says
No, I say
Don�
�t you like Christmas? Åsleik says
No, or, how should I put it, I say
You don’t like being alone on Christmas? he says
No I can’t say that I do, I say
I can imagine, Åsleik says
and we stand there in the kitchen not saying anything
And on Christmas you’re going to your sister’s house in Instefjord, same as usual, I say
Yes, Åsleik says
and then he says, the same as always, the same as he’s done for years, that ever since Sister, yes well of course her name’s Guro but he always calls her Sister, has lived alone, ever since her man ran off and never came back, that loser, yes, she’s always asked him, Åsleik, to come over for Christmas, she’s practically begged him, she has, and he has no reason not to, nothing against going to Sister’s house for Christmas, because she serves the best Christmas lamb ribs you can find anywhere, how does she get them to taste like that, you know he has no idea how she always manages to give those lamb ribs of hers that exact special flavour, and she, Sister, won’t tell him, but he can guess, he says, and anyway Sister is just joking around, or maybe more like trying to annoy him, when she refuses to tell him how she gets that flavour, it must have to do with how the lamb is smoked, but it can’t be that because she has a smoking room in the cellar not a special smokehouse like he has, Åsleik says, so that means it must be about what she uses to smoke the lamb with, yes, he’s figured out that much, he says
She gets the lamb from you? I say
Yes, Åsleik says
I kill and clean and carve it myself, you know that, he says
Sure, he says
Every year she gets a ewe lamb from me, he says
and he says that every autumn he takes a newly slaughtered and carved lamb with him and takes The Boat up through Sygnefjord to Øygna, where Sister lives, there by Instefjord, and I’ve seen her house lots of times, every time I drive to or from Bjørgvin I drive right by it, he says, a little grey house, it could use some repainting, anyway a lot of the paint has flaked off, he says, but yes, well, she salts and smokes the lamb herself, the old way, no one knows how old, Åsleik says, I know how he does it of course, I get lamb from him every single year, and if you ask him he makes a pretty good smoked Christmas lamb himself, good dry-cured lamb too, or mutton, they call it, but Sister always insists on salting and smoking hers on her own, he could easily do it for her but she’s right to want to do it herself because it gives her lamb a totally special and exceptionally good flavour and whether or not he wants to admit it Sister’s Christmas lamb ribs taste better than his, it’s not easy to accept that, not easy to admit it, but that’s the truth, and what’s true is true, Åsleik says, yes, Sister’s lamb ribs taste incredible, you’ve never tasted anything like it, he says, and anyway now that the man she used to live with, The Fiddler, skipped out, he, Åsleik, has taken The Boat and rowed across Sygnefjord to Sister’s every Christmas, because Sygnefjord never ices up, the currents are too strong for that, so even though she lives way up in Sygnefjord, by Instefjord, in Øygna, where there’s the inlet, and he lives as far out as you can, where Sygnefjord opens out into the Sygne Sea, out into the ocean, yes, it’s not without good reason that the place a bit farther in at the end of Sygnefjord where Sister lives is called ‘Inste’ Fjord, it’s the farthest in, yes of course I know that already, he’s just saying whatever comes into his head, Åsleik says, but still, well, every year during Christmas week he takes The Boat over to Sister’s, and the crossing takes some time, most of the whole short day, right, and up to now it’s always been good or at least pretty good weather but still, the weather can be rough at this time of year, the sea can get so choppy that only a fool would set out on it, only someone not used to the water, a landlubber, but he was no landlubber, not him, he knew when he should stay ashore and when he should set out, but, there’s no way around it, the weather does sometimes change all of a sudden and it’s practically impossible to predict even with all his long experience, no one can ever be completely sure about it, still if the wind picks up he just needs to reach land as quick as he can, and if he’s far from shore then it can be a hard job, it can, but up until now he’s always made it safe back to harbour, and that isn’t true of everyone now, there’s many a fisherman who never made it back to land, many a boat lying on the bottom of the Sygne Sea, yes, in Sygnefjord too, that’s for sure, everyone knows that, many a man’s found his grave there, yes, when all is said and done the sea is the biggest graveyard there is in these parts, that’s a fact, but it’s better nowadays, now people have motors on their boats, but before, when people rowed, or sailed, well that wasn’t the same at all, nowadays as long as your motor doesn’t stall, and that didn’t happen as long as you remembered to change the filter every so often, ideally once a year, and personally he always keeps a spare filter on board, in case the engine goes out, yes, truth be told he always has two filters with him in case there’s a problem with the first one or he damages it while putting it in, you never know when that might happen, because isn’t that always the way, filters almost always get clogged just when the water’s bad, yes, when it’s at its worst in fact, plus it’s not always so easy to get down there on all fours and take out the old filter, even if you’ve got needlenose pliers, which of course you do, and even if he’s changed the filters lots of times he’s had to do it in bad weather only once, yes, the motor stopped and a medium-strong gale was blowing, if not a storm, and the weather’d turned bad all of a sudden, the way it can sometimes do you know, and bam the motor cut out and he couldn’t get it started again and then he realized that the filter was clogged and he cursed himself for having been lazy and not having changed the filter, how long had it been since he’d changed it, no, he didn’t even know, but however long it’d been there it was and now while The Boat rocked from side to side and bobbed up and down and the water crashed over the sides he had to open the engine hatch and keep it open and, no, Åsleik says and he shakes his head, but it turned out all right, yes, the fact that he’s standing here chatting and complaining right now is proof of that, he says, but he’d had a tough time of it, he can’t remember exactly how he got through it but luckily he did, the motor started back up and he steered The Boat well in the choppy water, he could do that, whenever the motor was working he could always manage that, well, almost always, he says, but just almost, and Åsleik falls silent for a moment, yes, well, he says then, but there’s one thing he knows for sure and that’s that it’s not too fun being out on the water in rough weather, in a strong wind, in a storm, no, that’s for sure, he definitely avoids that whenever he can, of course he doesn’t go out when the weather is bad, he’s not that big a fool, but, yes, well, as he said before, you can never be sure, the sea changes so suddenly, it’s fickle, you never entirely know what you’re going to get, but there’s one thing you can know, if the weather’s good and the sky’s clear then you can assume the sea won’t get too rough, Åsleik says, and I say in English, Red sky at morning Sailor’s warning Red sky at night Sailor’s delight and Åsleik says let’s have none of that now, stop it, he remembers hardly any of the English they taught him in school, and his teachers weren’t good at English either, Åsleik says, and that’s why, since it’s so hard to know in advance how the water’s going to be, it’s really not a totally good idea that he waits until Christmas Eve every year before taking The Boat in to see Sister, the way he’s always done, Åsleik says, what he really ought to do of course is sail in during Advent on a day with good weather, then the weather most likely won’t turn around and get too bad, yes, when Christmas is approaching and the Sygne Sea is more or less calm or at least calm enough that it’s not too bad to go there, and there’s no hint that it’ll suddenly get rough, yes, that’s when he should go, even if it’s several days before Christmas, but he’d rather get to Sister’s house as close to Christmas as he can, then go home again as soon as Christmas Eve is done with, on Christmas Day, yes, that’s what he’s always done and strang
ely enough the sea has always stayed calm even on the first day of Christmas, yes, it’s almost enough to make you superstitious, those exact days, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, have had good weather every single year for as long as he can remember, but to tell the truth he likes it best at home, yes, this is where he belongs, where he’s comfortable, he says, but these visits to see Sister in Øygna have turned into a kind of habit by now, and if he’s going to be totally honest about it he doesn’t really like being all alone on Christmas, there are so many memories, about when he was a boy, when he and Sister lived at home, and about their parents, about Father and Mother, now long since passed, but they were good people, Father and Mother, and at Father’s funeral the pastor said he’s gone to a good place, and at Mother’s funeral he said the same thing, she’s gone to a good place, he said, and that’s the kind of thing he sits around thinking about when he’s alone on Christmas Eve, about Father’s funeral, Mother’s funeral, and the food doesn’t taste as good, however good the lamb ribs are they don’t taste good to him then, plus he just likes it at Sister’s, she doesn’t like being alone on Christmas Eve either, but when Sister was living with The Fiddler, well that’s what he calls him, never called him anything else, yes, then it wasn’t so festive being there with them for Christmas, the fact is he didn’t like it one bit, of course Sister still asked him to come spend it with her then too, with them, and one year he did go but it wasn’t an especially merry Christmas that year, yes, the fight they had that night, he’s never told me about what happened has he, he will at some point, yes, someday he’ll tell me about it but it’s got to wait, he’ll tell me that another time, because it’s not a secret or anything, far from it, still it’s not so nice to think about, The Fiddler sure liked his drink, yes, well, yes, well, as long as Sister lived with The Fiddler he preferred to spend Christmas alone, but every year since The Fiddler skipped out, and couldn’t she have found a better man? he did like to hit the bottle, The Fiddler, that’s for sure, to tell the truth, whenever he had one drink he couldn’t stop, he never really understood why she hadn’t found a better man, she wasn’t bad looking, Sister, she wore her years well, she’d had her hair in the same style for as long as he could remember, medium-length blonde hair with not a grey hair in it while the little he had left had turned all grey, not to mention his beard, that was all grey, no one would think they were brother and sister to look at them, and there wasn’t even much of an age difference between them, him and Sister, even though he was older, but yes, as long as Sister was living with The Fiddler, except once, he spent Christmas Eve alone, since their parents had died of course, and no, that’s probably not something he should think about, or talk about, it’s terrible how he talks, just talks and talks, Åsleik says, he spends too much time alone and that’s why he always talks so much whenever we see each other, he says, but anyway in any case he’s going to spend Christmas with Sister again this year, same as usual, he adds, she got the house in Øygna from her uncle and his wife, who died childless, while he, as the oldest son, got the farm in Dylgja, he says, she got the house cheap, practically free, yes, for little or nothing, to tell the truth, but then he didn’t have to pay too much to buy out Sister when he got the farm either, he says, and it’s not like she had money to pay him with, she doesn’t earn much sitting there sewing her Hardanger embroidery, tablecloth after tablecloth, big and small, table runner after table runner, short and long, and then the colourful embroidered bodices for folk costumes, there’s a little money in that but not much, just barely enough to live on, and some years, like after she finished school, she worked at a shop in Bjørgvin, called Hardanger Regional Products or something like that, but then the shop went under and she came back home and the house in Øygna was standing empty so she ended up there, and she did her best to take care of the house, when it needed a new coat of paint she painted it, once anyway, and then it was The Fiddler who painted the house, you have to give him that, before he skipped out, and actually it was Sister who got tired of him and sort of said he should go, she hinted at it and said she was sorry but he should go away and proud as he was that’s what he did, he left on the spot, but as long as he was living with Sister he did look after the house, and he made a little money from his music gigs, he’d come home with a few kroner, not drink it all up before he got home, plus he almost always had a few bottles of booze with him, Sister had told him, but anyway he painted the house, once, he did do that, Åsleik says, and he doesn’t drop by to check in on Sister too often, he says, except on Christmas Eve, since Sister’s been alone, it’s better to spend it at her house than to be alone anyway, and Sister’s lamb ribs, as he’s said, are unbelievably good, Åsleik says, and he stops for a second as if thinking something over and then he looks right at me and asks me couldn’t I come with him this year, just once, he says, and spend Christmas with him and Sister, it’s always been nice with just him and Sister together, it goes well, but it wouldn’t hurt to have someone else sitting around the table, there are always so many memories, about Mother and Father, and for Sister about her man The Fiddler, who skipped out and settled down somewhere in East Norway with another woman, people say, so why can’t you come along? Åsleik says, but he doesn’t have high hopes, he says, because he’s asked me about this plenty of times before, he might as well give up, he says, because I’ve never ever come with him, he says, and hasn’t he given Sister one of my paintings every single Christmas? a small one, always one of the little paintings, and every single Christmas since she’s been alone Sister has said that he needs to ask me to come spend Christmas with them next year, in fact he has to admit he wonders why she hasn’t given up asking him because I’ve never come, and Åsleik says he tells Sister he’s asked me to come lots of times, he says, and yes, yes he’s sometimes thought that Sister might have ulterior motives, because she and I are the same age more or less, and we’re both single, and some people, well, especially women, well, no, there’s no difference between men and women when it comes to that, some people don’t like to live alone, and after The Fiddler ran off, yes, he just left and never came back, that loser, he never even said goodbye to Sister, and now he’s probably, people say, gone off to East Norway or some other place, with some woman or another too, yes, it’s probably way out east in Telemark he’s gone, but he was a really good fiddle player, no one could deny that, and if he’s being honest he’d have to say that he thinks that’s why Sister wanted to be with him, because he played so well, he really was a virtuoso, you have to say, Åsleik says
