Will and Testament

by Vigdis Hjorth

  Søren remarked and he sounded rather glum, I thought, that perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Åsa and Astrid would inherit more than ‘us’, given how much time they spent with my Mum and Dad and how fond they were of them.

  If I didn’t know that your parents had two other children, he said, I would think it was a normal, happy family.

  The first time I met Bo Schjerven was a Sunday, on Book Day at the Norwegian Theatre. The event included readings from that autumn’s new publications in the theatre’s several auditoria, and various arts and literature magazines had stands in the foyer including the latest arrival, Incomprehensible Publications, founded and developed in the early morning hours in Klara’s flat by one of her friends from Renna Bar who had literary ambitions. Klara was staffing the stand between one and three in the afternoon, and I had promised to stop by. When I arrived, I spotted her under a parasol with Incomprehensible Publications printed on it and stuck into one of the theatre’s big plant pots. She looked uncomfortable, she had had several hostile encounters with authors whose work had been criticized in the magazine, a crime writer had even threatened her with a knife. Writing the reviews had been more fun than publishing them, she acknowledged, she needed a beer. She went to the café and I had taken her place under the parasol when a man came towards me, snatched a copy of the magazine, sat down on the stairs, started reading it and let out a loud sigh, please come back soon, Klara. The man got up, came over to me and informed me that he had translated the poetry anthology which Incomprehensible Publications had described as a particularly incomprehensible publication. I said that I had nothing to do with the magazine. The small, bespectacled man looked at me over the rim of his glasses and asked if the editor of Incomprehensible Publications knew anything about the political situation in Russia in the 1920s. I said that I didn’t know and reiterated that I had nothing to do with Incomprehensible Publications, so he asked why I was then staffing the stand of this ridiculous magazine. He asked me if the editor knew anything about the revolutionary ideas popular with literary circles in 1920s St Petersburg; I said I didn’t know, that I suspected that she didn’t. The pale, stern man then asked if the editor had ever heard of Ivan Yegoryev, the essayist. I didn’t know, please come back soon, Klara. He asked if the editor of Incomprehensible Publications had read any Russian history or Russian poets, if she knew of the tradition of which the poetry anthology Autumn Apples was a part. I didn’t know, I suspected that she didn’t, please come back soon, Klara. The serious man leaned forwards and declared that the lines which the moronic reviewer in Incomprehensible Publications had found particularly incomprehensible were absolutely crucial because they paraphrased the politician V. G. Korolenko’s speech at the Communist Party’s Fourth Party Congress. The small man, who by now had become quite loud, said that if one was to review a poetry anthology like the one he had translated, one had a duty to familiarise oneself with one’s subject, it was the critic’s responsibility because if the critic didn’t take poetry seriously, who would? He said that if the presumably young and hopelessly arrogant woman who had reviewed Autumn Apples in Incomprehensible Publications had bothered to get to know her subject, she would have got so much more out of the anthology to the point where it might have changed her life. He studied my face. Changed your life, he said, and my heart sank. Fortunately someone he knew turned up at that point, he put down the magazine and left. I looked around for Klara, I didn’t want to sit there any longer. Then the man suddenly came back and asked me to lend him a hundred kroner. His brother had turned up and wanted to have coffee with him in the café, but he had no money and didn’t want to say so because he didn’t want to worry his brother. I gave him a hundred kroner and he insisted on getting my bank details. The following week one hundred and ten kroner were paid into my bank account, the extra ten kroner being interest.

  We had arranged to meet at the Grand Hotel. It was my idea. I went out so rarely that I simply blurted out the name. I texted Bård, please would he book the table?

  On my way there I suddenly remembered that Mum always used to meet her friends at the Grand in the old days when they went out shopping and were ladies who lunched. I myself had been out shopping with Mum a couple of times, was it the memory of Mum that had made me pick the Grand? I hoped my childhood wasn’t coming back, I hoped I wasn’t going back to my childhood, and that that explained why I was shaking. I opened the door, there was a queue to get into the restaurant, the pre-Christmas rush, and many smartly dressed older people, I shouldn’t have picked the Grand. I might bump into Mum and her friends, surely there was a woman who looked like Mum, like I remembered her, in the corner, I turned away, I wanted to leave, then I saw someone who looked like him, like I remembered him, his back and the back of his head, Bård, I said, and he turned around and it was him, twenty years older. He recognised me, also twenty years older, we hugged one another like you do when you’re brother and sister and there are no inheritance disputes separating you—as far as we knew. A woman who knew him came over, they said hello and hugged one another, and he introduced me as his younger sister, my oldest younger sister, he said. Then we fell silent. We couldn’t very well start our conversation while we were queuing, we hadn’t spoken for over twenty-three years. The last time we saw one another was when his older daughter was confirmed. That had been ten years after the previous time I’d seen him, I’d worked out on my way here, and both times had been formal events in public venues, restaurants not unlike the Grand. We hadn’t, I’d realised, had a private conversation since we left school, and hardly ever even then. We had both distanced ourselves from our family, but not together, not in unison, we had distanced ourselves individually and separately. I heard news of Bård from Astrid on the two occasions every year that I spoke to her, but there was little to report was my impression, his children did well at school. I didn’t know that he no longer lived in a house in Nordstrand but had moved to a flat in Fagerborg. Astrid hadn’t said anything about that, I learned about the move at the Grand after I had taken our coats to the cloakroom while Bård found the table he had booked for us. He trusted me with his coat because we had once been squashed into the back of a car with our sisters. I hung up our coats in the cloakroom and found him seated at the table, he looked like Dad as he had once looked, Dad had aged a lot, Bård said. We ordered coffee, he had come here on the tram, he said, when I asked if he had driven here by car, and that was when he told me that he no longer lived in Nordstrand, but in Fagerborg, and he was surprised, such was my impression, that I didn’t know that, the move was eight years ago, that Astrid—with whom he knew I was in touch—hadn’t mentioned it. He served himself first, went up to the buffet with a gait I didn’t remember and came back with an open sandwich. I went to the buffet and came back with an open sandwich. So there we were together, at the Grand.

  It turned out that the cabin dispute had gone on for much longer than I had assumed. Mum and Dad had decided that Astrid and Åsa would inherit the cabins several years ago. Bård had learned this from his daughter. She had been visiting her grandparents who told her that Astrid and Åsa would inherit the cabins on Hvaler. Bård’s daughter had been taken aback, what should she say, a granddaughter who had been going to Hvaler since she was yea high, but who was too young and shy to voice her embarrassment and disappointment. Was that why they had told her, a young and polite grandchild who wouldn’t argue with them, so that they could later say that she hadn’t objected? Bård’s daughter went home and told her father what his parents had said, and Bård went to see Mum and Dad who confirmed that Astrid and Åsa would indeed inherit the cabins. Did they realise the magnitude of what they were saying? How shocking it was to say this to their only son, who had spent every summer on Hvaler since he was a child and later brought his own family there every summer until his relationship with Mum and Dad became too strained, who had imagined and hoped that when Mum and Dad were gone, he and his siblings might grow close again. He had asked them to reconsider; they had r
eplied that they had made up their minds. Some weeks later he received a copy of their will in the post which made it clear that Astrid and Åsa would inherit the cabins, and if they—contrary to expectations—didn’t want to inherit the cabins, they would be sold to the highest bidder. Bård and I would not inherit them.

  They don’t want us there, he said.

  We had probably picked up on that and it explained why we hadn’t gone there.

  A year later he had written a letter to Mum and Dad, he placed a copy of it in front of me, he had brought all the paperwork, a friendly letter where he argued that all four children should share the two cabins. Because everyone had strong links to Hvaler, because we could then share the maintenance work and the costs, because more people would thus benefit from the cabins, the plots were large, new cabins could be built in the future.

  They replied that they had made up their minds.

  He had then written to Astrid and Åsa, making the same points, they had replied that it was for Mum and Dad to decide how they wanted to dispose of their property. In the last email Bård had sent on the matter, he wrote that Hvaler was the place that held the happiest memories for him. Why couldn’t the four siblings own half a cabin each? It needn’t be complicated, he wrote. Several of his friends had inherited cabins jointly with their siblings, and it usually worked out fine. I ask you to reconsider please. It would mean a lot to me and my children to own half of one of the cabins when one day you’re no longer here. He concluded by writing that he didn’t understand why Mum and Dad would rather see their sons-in-law on Hvaler than their own son and his children.

  He got no reply. And there was nothing he could do about it. They were perfectly entitled to do what they had done. But did they know what they were doing? The hurt they were inflicting, how they were twisting the knife in the wound? Did Astrid and Åsa understand the consequences of Mum and Dad doing what they were doing with their blessing, didn’t they realise that it would impact on their relationship with Bård? Did Mum and Dad think the relationship between the four siblings would remain unchanged? Did Mum and Dad want Bård and his children or me and my children not to own half a cabin each on Hvaler? Bård had asked politely and argued his case without knowing that it was already a done deal. Mum and Dad would rather holiday with their sons-in-law than their own son and his family. They didn’t want us on Hvaler. They were happy to see Bård and his children, me and my children at Christmas, Easter and big family birthdays, but they didn’t want us on Hvaler. They liked having Astrid and Åsa with their husbands and children with them on Hvaler and everywhere else because there was no history with Astrid and Åsa.

  Mum and Dad and Astrid and Åsa had decided that the cabins would go to Astrid and Åsa and carried out their plan. They were complicit. Bård had believed that the decision could be changed and had pleaded with them in vain. Some people knew what was really going on, others didn’t. It was clearly unfair, but Mum and Dad and Astrid and Åsa continued to act as if everything was just fine, which made it odd that Astrid had never mentioned the matter to me, didn’t it?

  A catastrophe was looming, didn’t they understand or did they understand and not give a damn and were hoping to ride out the storm?

  Bård wouldn’t be getting a cabin on Hvaler, he would have to learn to live with that, and he did, but the damage had been done.

  Bård had popped by in August to see Mum and Dad in Bråteveien to say hi after the summer, and Mum had said that Dad had grown too old to do the things he used to, maintenance work on the cabins, cutting the grass and weeding, and so they had transferred ownership of the old cabin to Astrid and the new cabin to Åsa. Bård, who had accepted that he wasn’t going to get a cabin, asked at what price. When Mum told him, he got up and walked out. It was the final straw. The ridiculously low price. The preferential treatment was deliberate. They wanted Bård and me to receive as little recompense as legally possible. It was intentional, and Astrid and Åsa had gone along with it. How would they have felt if it had been the other way round? And would they one day do the same to their children, they had two each. Give the cabins that they now owned to just one of them? No. Of course not. Because it would be awful for the one who didn’t get a cabin, they would feel like their parents loved them the least.

  As Bård left, Mum called out to him that he should count himself lucky to be getting anything at all.

  We should count ourselves lucky to be getting anything at all. The will we had been told about at Christmas three years ago, and which Bård had asked to be sent to him so he could read it, could be changed at any time, presumably it had already been changed, if indeed it still existed, perhaps there was no valid will, in which case the old cabin would be treated as a gift to Astrid and the new cabin as a gift to Åsa and we, Bård and Bergljot, which rolled off the tongue so easily, risked getting nothing at all.

  It had rattled him, I could tell, that Mum and Dad had shown such blatant favouritism, that Astrid and Åsa had accepted the injustice apparently without a moment’s hesitation, hadn’t tried to talk Mum and Dad out of it so that the relationship between the siblings wouldn’t be ruined, so that Bård wouldn’t feel overlooked and ignored, so that Bård wouldn’t be upset as he had been, as he was, because they so very clearly didn’t care about his feelings, didn’t care enough about him to treat him decently. Bård had had a few knocks along the way and had now been dealt the final blow, he was beaten, I realised. I, too, had received some knocks along the way and was dealt the final blow fifteen years ago when I decided to end all contact.

  It happened in the Narvesen kiosk in Bogstadveien on 13 March 1999.

  In the years leading up to that date I had tried to have some contact with my family for the sake of my children because they were young and depended on me for seeing their grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins; so that Mum wouldn’t nag, push or tug at my conscience, but it was exhausting to act politely towards people who presented themselves as loving me. If I wrote Mum a simple postcard from Rome, I would immediately get a letter saying how much she was looking forward to seeing me at Christmas and to celebrate Christmas like a normal family. I would then be unable to control my emotions, I would get affronted, hysterical and feel taken for granted because things could never be normal again, they weren’t normal, I had explained this to them over and over, but they refused to listen, they didn’t want to listen, and how could they celebrate Christmas like a normal family? The mere thought made me want to throw up, I rang them and when they didn’t pick up the phone, I left a vicious message saying I did not look forward to Christmas, that I did not look forward to seeing them, that the thought of seeing them filled me with horror and revulsion, that it was physically impossible for me to be in the same room as them. And yet the next morning I was ashamed of my anger, my aggression, my excessive, uncontrollable, juvenile emotions, so I called Astrid and begged her go to Bråteveien and delete the angry message, but they had already heard it, she said, her voice trembling, so I realised that Mum and Dad were upset and distraught and that Astrid thought I was a terrible person for upsetting and distressing my aged parents. And I did feel bad, but I was upset too because I wanted Astrid to care about my feelings as well, but she didn’t.

  When I met Klara by the Narvesen kiosk later the same day and poured out my heart to her, she said I had to cut contact for good. You must stop seeing them.

  Are you allowed to do that, I sobbed. Yes, she said, many people do so. And the thought of never having to see them again gave me instant relief. Not having to deal with them, to be free from tears and recriminations and threats, not having to make up excuses, not having to constantly defend and explain myself and yet never be understood, to sever all contact, was that even an option? Yes, she said. I didn’t have to say or write anything, just make up my mind and I already had, I’ll stop seeing them, I decided outside the Narvesen kiosk in Bogstadveien, and it was done.

  Mum tried. Astrid tried, but I stayed silent. Eventually they gave up, the year
s passed, then Astrid started trying on special occasions. When Mum had surgery. Mum is having surgery, I just thought you ought to know. As if that changed everything. As if it meant that now I had to call them. As if I would change my stance in the light of illness, in the light of death. Would I? It would appear not because I soon forgot about her text message. When I happened to see it again the next day, I was pleased that I had forgotten it, but my reaction also caused me to wonder: Had a part of me always feared that such a message would make me doubt myself? If so that hadn’t happened and I was pleased about that, I had succeeded in my efforts to cut the cord, I had silenced their reproachful, threatening, disappointed voices which had existed so powerfully inside me for over forty years. I texted her back saying I was sorry to hear that, that I hoped the operation would go well and that I wished Mum a speedy recovery. I soon gathered from Astrid that she didn’t think that was enough, but what more could I do? Call and say what? Go to the hospital and throw my arms around Mum? I imagined myself driving to the hospital, entering the side ward where she lay, and everything in me rebelled. I imagined it again in order to relive the emotion, how everything inside me protested. It was impossible. I had no face with which I could meet her undoubtedly pitiful demeanour. I couldn’t sit by her bedside, take her hand in mine and say that I loved her because I didn’t. I had loved her once, I’d been incredibly close to her and dependent on her once, she was my mum, but that emotion belonged to the past and couldn’t be resurrected because of the impact of what happened later. I felt no love and no longing for Mum and this lack of love and longing for Mum was, I knew, regarded by my family as a character defect in me, something I had to justify and defend. And I justified it and defended myself every time Astrid sent me messages along the lines of ‘I just thought you ought to know.’ Sometimes I had sent furious replies to such messages because Astrid treated me as though it were a matter of will, as though I could simply decide to turn up, to be nice, to make conversation. But Astrid deleted my furious emails unread, she wrote to me when I apologised for them the next morning, when filled with shame I wrote to her to apologise for my furious emails. Astrid had deleted my furious emails without reading them, she wrote, and that was her right, it was understandable, but it didn’t stop me from feeling rejected and disappointed that Astrid didn’t deal with their contents, never commented at all on the reasons I gave, didn’t seem to reflect on where that enormous rage of mine came from. I just thought you ought to know. So that it would be on my mind or I would call or turn up at the hospital. And so I didn’t call, I didn’t turn up and thus confirmed yet again that I was who they had decided I was, the heartless daughter, selfish and destructive. I just thought you ought to know and realise how bad you are. Forcing me into the role of the black sheep yet again and I was distraught because I just couldn’t do it! My legs refuse to carry me! I jumped whenever the phone rang with an unknown number in case it was Mum. I looked her number up and stored it so that I would be able to see if it was her and not pick up. She might well decide to call me when she was ill because surely I wasn’t so cruel that I would ignore a sick, possibly dying person?