by Jon Fosse
Yes you’ve told me that before, I say
Yes well is there anything I haven’t told you before? he says
Good point, I say
and it’s quiet and we both stand there looking down
Won’t you come this year either? Åsleik says
No I’d rather stay home, I say
You’re going to paint on Christmas this year too? Åsleik says
Yes, I say
and it’s quiet again
Even on Christmas Eve? Åsleik says
Yes, I say
But you’ll at least eat some Christmas lamb ribs on Christmas Eve? Åsleik says
and I say no and hum and haw a bit and Åsleik says yes well since you get lamb ribs and lutefisk and wood and other things in exchange for the painting I get to give Sister, mutton too, now Sister has a whole collection, almost a whole wall of her living room is covered with pictures you’ve painted, yes, and then there’re the three pictures hanging above the sofa, and more in the hall, they’re everywhere, so actually it’s a good thing that you’ve always given me small pictures in exchange for everything, Åsleik says, even if it’s just out of stinginess that you’ve only given me small pictures, he says
You can have one of the big ones this year, I say
Well thank you, Åsleik says
and then he says that what makes it better is if, after I’ve eaten all the mutton from the lamb bones he’s given me, I add potato dumplings and cook them with the bones and then have him over for dinner, he says, yes, he always looks forward to these meals, he has to admit, yes, and add a little Voss smoked sausage, some bacon, carrots, turnips, it makes him hungry just thinking about it, Åsleik says and I say yes I eat lamb ribs and lutefisk too over Christmas but not on Christmas Eve itself, you know that Åsleik, I’ve told you that before, I say, and of course I’ll have him over for the potato dumplings that you cook when there’s not enough meat left on the bones to have on its own and you cut the bones into pieces and cook them, I say, and Åsleik says yes of course he knows that, and besides he comes over every Advent to have some lamb ribs or lutefisk, we take turns, this year I’ll serve the lamb ribs and he’ll serve lutefisk at his place, and the food I serve him is always really good, because food always tastes so much better when you’re not eating alone, he says, that’s probably why the two of us always have no less than three meals together around Christmastime, two of them during Advent and then we always spend New Year’s Eve together too, either over at his place or here at my place, one year at one place, the next at the other, and we always have lamb ribs, Åsleik says, but he, Åsleik, has provided both the lamb ribs and the lutefisk, of course, Åsleik says, he’s caught the fish and cleaned it and dried it and soaked it in lye and raised the ewe and slaughtered it and skinned it and salted and smoked the lamb, he says, and I say I never liked Christmas, it’s a bad time, the worst part of the year, and Christmas Eve day is the very worst day, I say, and I go into the main room and Åsleik follows me and then we’re standing in the middle of the room and I think that the only thing I want to do on Christmas Eve is make the day disappear, paint it away, and that’s what I do, and I’d rather not eat anything on Christmas Eve either, I just fast, as they call it, and paint, I paint from early in the morning through the whole time I’m awake until night, except for when I nap for an hour in the middle of the day, and fortunately I get tired early, I usually go to bed early, by nine o’clock, and yes, however stupid it is to think so, and whether or not it’s true, but there’s some truth in it too, the one thing that makes Christmas bearable, other than going to mass on Christmas Day at St Paul’s Church in Bjørgvin, and other than painting of course, yes, the one thing that makes Christmas bearable is thinking about a young man and a young woman in love, yes, a little like Ales and I once were, it’s just that we never had children, it just never worked out, no, I can’t think about Ales, I think, it’s too terrible, I’d rather think about a young woman with child and a young man in love with her even though he’s not the father of her child, the two of them are the only ones in the world, and he, the young man, is thinking that the young woman makes him so happy that even though he isn’t the father of the child she’s carrying he has to help her, they have to find a place where she can give birth, the young man thinks, and then the two of them, the man and the woman, go off to find a place somewhere and someone who can help, but as they’re walking it starts to rip and tear inside the young woman’s body and then they’re at a farm, they go up and knock on the door but no one opens up, so either there’s no one home or else no one wants to open the door for them, but the house is dark so probably there’s no one there, so they go into the hay barn, there are some cows in the stalls, some sheep walking around in the main part of the barn, and it’s probably the heat that the animals are giving off that makes it less cold in the barn than it is outside, so the girl lies down in the straw and there she gives birth to a baby and she says that an angel has told her she would give birth to a baby boy so it must be a boy, she says, and she says that the angel told her not to be scared because God was with her and the young man sees that a light is coming from the child, an incomprehensibly beautiful light, and then the young woman takes her breast and she gives it to the baby and the boy falls silent, and he sucks, he sucks, the young man thinks, and everything about it is unbelievable because there’s such a strange light shining from the baby lying there at the young woman’s breast, then she looks up at the young man and she smiles at him and the young man thinks that this, this light, no, he can’t understand it, because this light from the child in the darkness, in the dark barn, no, it’s impossible to understand, he thinks, and he goes outside, because even though it’s cold at this time of year he’s covered in sweat now, so he stands out there in the wind, in the cooling wind, and he lets the cool air brush his face and he looks up and sees a star shining bright in the sky, yes, so much brighter and stronger than all the other stars, and it’s shining straight down at the barn, the light from the star is just like the light that’s coming from the child, he thinks, and he sees the star send a beam of light right into the barn, such a sharp clear line of light, and the light coming from the star is precisely the same light as the light coming from the child, he can’t understand what’s happening, the young man thinks as he stands there looking at the beam of light, following with his eyes the line of clear strong light down from the star through the sky until it goes straight into the barn, no, he can’t understand it, he thinks and now he has to go back inside and help the young woman, he thinks and then he hears footsteps and then he sees three strange men, three men he’s never seen before, three men unlike anyone he’s ever seen, come walking up, they have long hair, and long beards, and are wearing very colourful dishevelled clothing and they come walking up to him and he sees that their hands are full of beautiful blankets and clothes and food and jewellery and wine and who knows what else they’re carrying and when they see the young man they say that every night they sit and look at the stars and try to figure out what meaning the stars might have and tonight they saw something they’d never seen before and something they’re never going to see again, they saw a star start to shine so much clearer and brighter than any other star and then they saw a beam of light come down from the star, a mysterious, incomprehensible light, it was beautiful and warm and there to look at and disappear into, they say, and the beam of light was pointing somewhere, and then they knew, they said, that this light meant that God had now sent his Human Son to earth, they were sure of it, it had finally happened, so they followed the light from the star and set out and then miraculously arrived at the place the star was shining at, and now here they were, outside a barn, and the light from the star is shining straight into the barn, they say and now they want to go give their gifts to the newborn child, they say and I think that it’s this light, yes, this exact light, yes, that this light is what I think about to get through Christmas Eve day and to stop thinking about all the other things that it’
s so awful to think about, I think, and also I paint, on Christmas Eve day the same as every other day, and there has to be a light in everything I paint, an invisible light, I think, and maybe the light I try to paint has something to do with the light coming from the child in the barn? and from the star? I think, but no, it’s not like that, and what’s strange is that the easiest way to get pictures to shine is if they’re dark, yes, black, the darker and blacker the colours are the more they shine and the best way I can tell if a picture is shining, and how strong or weak the light is in it, and where, is to turn out all the other lights, when it’s dark as blackest night, of course it’s easiest to tell when it’s as dark as possible outside, like now, during Advent season, but in summer too I try to cover the windows and make it as dark as possible before looking at where and how much a picture is shining, yes, to tell the truth I always wait until after I’ve seen a picture in pitch blackness to be sure I’m done with it, because the eyes get used to the dark in a way and I can see the picture as light and darkness, and see if there’s a light shining from the picture, and where, and how much, and it’s always, always the darkest part of the picture that shines the most, and I think that that might be because it’s in the hopelessness and despair, in the darkness, that God is closest to us, but how it happens, how the light I get clearly into the picture gets there, that I don’t know, and how it comes to be at all, that I don’t understand, but I do think that it’s nice to think that maybe it came about like this, that it came to be when an illegitimate child, as they put it, was born in a barn on a winter’s day, on Christmas in fact, and a star up above sent its strong clear light down to earth, a light from God, yes, it’s a beautiful thought, I think, because the very word God says that God is real, I think, the mere fact that we have the word and idea God means that God is real, I think, whatever the truth of it is it’s at least a thought that it’s possible to think, it’s that too, even if it’s no more than that, but it’s definitely true that it’s just when things are darkest, blackest, that you see the light, that’s when this light can be seen, when the darkness is shining, yes, and it has always been like that in my life at least, when it’s darkest is when the light appears, when the darkness starts to shine, and maybe it’s the same way in the pictures I paint, anyway I hope it is and I’ve tried to tell Åsleik that but I’ve never been able to make Åsleik understand anything about that, that’s why I don’t say anything about it to him any more, because he’d just say that he, Åsleik, is not a believer, someone lives and then he dies and that’s that, no more no less, and he doesn’t want to hear anything about any invisible light, that’s exactly what Åsleik would say and that’s why I don’t want to say anything to him about it, someone lives and then he dies and that’s that, no more no less, Åsleik says and he’s probably right about that too, but then again maybe it isn’t so simple, because life isn’t something you can understand, and death isn’t either, actually to put it in other words it’s like in a weird way both life and death are things you can understand but not with thoughts, this light understands it in a way, and life, and paintings, I think, get their meaning from their connection to this light, yes, when I’m painting it’s actually about an invisible light, even if no one else can see it, and they definitely can’t, or don’t, I don’t think anyone does, I think, they think it’s about something else, it’s about if a painting is good or bad, something like that, and that’s why I can’t stand thinking about the pictures I painted to make money when I was young, they were just pictures, they didn’t have any light in them, they were just pretty and that’s why they were bad, they looked so real and the sun was shining and there was light everywhere in the picture and that’s why there was none of this light, because this light is only in the shadows, maybe, I think and suddenly I hear Åsleik say that even if he’s just a fisherman he knows a thing or two about how everything goes together, everything fits into a big unbreakable whole, people catch fish, for food, and for the fish to be caught this and that has to happen and for someone to successfully catch the fish this and that has to happen and so everything goes together in a mysterious way, everything is one big whole, but you believe in God and I don’t, he says, and I say what I always say, that no one can really say anything about God and that’s why it’s meaningless to say that someone does or doesn’t believe in God, because God just is, he doesn’t exist the way Åsleik imagines, I say and I think that Åsleik and I have talked about this so many times, it’s something that’s nice to talk about again and again, and also boring to talk about again and again
