Will and Testament

by Vigdis Hjorth

  Peer wore a white suit, Peer drank champagne and got high on his own ego, Peer was a stranger to moderation, Peer was hubristic and arrogant, he knew no boundaries and helped himself to women and adventures, power and sensual pleasures, Peer wanted to get ahead, to become emperor, he focused not on limitations, but possibilities, Peer told himself that the sky was the limit, that he could get away with anything, a man after Dad’s own heart, a man who wanted to become rich and became rich, and knew how to use his wealth to his advantage when it became necessary. When Peer’s mother, Aase, was dying, when she lay in a modern hospital bed connected to an ECG machine, like the one to which I knew Dad was connected along with the ventilator now, right now, I started to cry. Dad was in a similar side ward to the one Aase was lying in now, right now, that is if he wasn’t already dead, but then Astrid would have called, and I would have seen it on my phone, I kept checking my phone. If Dad had died, Astrid would have called me, and I would have left the auditorium to call her back. So Dad was still alive, hooked up to machines like the ones Aase was hooked up to on stage and I started to cry, I sobbed inconsolably throughout the whole of her death scene.

  In the final scene when Peer returns to Solveig and expects the same warm welcome he has always been given, she walks out; Solveig leaves Peer with Nora’s words, the words of a modern woman. She takes off, she leaves Peer, she does what Mum never did, what Mum had never been capable of, dependent and impotent as she was, a woman who had never paid a bill in all her life. Solveig leaves Peer, and it dawned on me when I saw Peer standing there alone, incredulous and weary, that Dad’s life hadn’t been an easy one. A deep compassion rose in me at the thought of Dad and Dad’s life, poor, poor Dad, who had done some stupid things as a young man which couldn’t be undone, which he couldn’t fix, and he didn’t know how to bear them, how to live with them. So he tried to forget and repress them and for a long time it looked as if the person he had hurt had forgotten them and repressed them, and anybody who might have known what had been done and to whom, also acted as if they had forgotten them, repressed them, but what had been repressed and forgotten could come back at any time, it might rise up from oblivion, from repression, then what? It must have been a difficult life, a life lived in fear, a life lived in terror. Dad avoided and feared his two older children because they reminded him of his crime, he couldn’t stand them because of what he had done to them.

  Peer didn’t understand that he went too far, Peer didn’t understand when he went too far, Peer didn’t know where the line was and so he crossed it, but even if he had known where the line was, he would probably still have crossed it, chosen to cross it, for the hell of it, for the irresistible thrill of crossing lines and because he thought he could get away with it, he thought he would be forgiven because he didn’t take seriously the consequences his actions would have for other people, because he thought that things would always work out well for him, only now they were no longer working out well for Peer.

  It’s too late, Peer, Solveig said to him, and it was a moment of catharsis. It’s too late, Peer, Solveig said. Sometimes it is too late. Sometimes you can’t make amends, sometimes the damage is past repair.

  When I came back after visiting Klara in Copenhagen, I discovered a cryptic card from the married man in my postbox. He wanted to keep me on the hook. I didn’t reply, but I was already hooked. All through that autumn, all through that winter, all through that year and the year after I got cryptic postcards and hints from the married man, I didn’t reply, but I was hooked. Am I elegant or elephantine, he wrote. You’re an elegant elephant, I wanted to reply, but I didn’t, I devoted myself to psychoanalysis, which wouldn’t in itself prove anything, but which might change something. However, it demanded that I devote myself to the psychoanalyst, to him and no one else, as wholly and faithfully as if it were a love affair, while I was already in love with a married man, I already had my love object although it was unobtainable.

  I dreamt that a war was raging, that I was standing with another soldier among some trees on the outskirts of an open area which we had to cross. It was risky because we would be visible to the enemy, who was close by. It was night and we had to get moving before daybreak, which was soon, I peered across the plain, shaking with fear, I tried to steel myself for the coming advance while my fellow soldier had sat down against a tree. I checked the time, we had to go now, I turned to my fellow soldier who was still sitting up against the tree. He’s useless in war, I thought, and then I ran.

  ~

  I told my psychoanalyst about the dream and how I thought that the other soldier was the married man who didn’t dare get a divorce, who stayed passive while I was on active service and had divorced, I talked about the married man for a long time. But the psychoanalyst thought he was the other soldier, immobile on his chair behind the desk while I battled it out on the couch. How conceited he is, I thought back then, but now that my feelings for the married man are history while my feelings for psychoanalysis still live within me, I’m tempted to agree with him. And whether or not it was him or the other man or the two of them combined, it often felt like being isolated in a combat situation. I didn’t let, or wasn’t able to give, the psychoanalyst that space in me, which he needed in order to operate at an optimum level, the transfer failed to happen although for a few moments it was beautiful and we came close, like once when I had undoubtedly reproached him for something or other, he said that the two of us were in this room together, to help me, united in the name of psychoanalysis.

  When we came back from the theatre, we drank, I drank. Astrid texted that they had been sent home from the hospital and told to return the following morning and that Astrid and Åsa were spending the night at Mum’s. I thanked them for turning up.

  I drank and spoke maniacally, I couldn’t relax, I stayed up after Lars had gone to bed, topping up my red wine glass to the brim and draining it. Had it been serious, Klara reassured me, I had called Klara, the hospital wouldn’t have told them to go home. I circled the floor, knocking back wine to calm myself down, to be able to sleep, but became increasingly agitated and nauseous and threw up and spent the night hunched over the lavatory bowl. I called Astrid in the morning. They were on their way to the hospital. It was Thursday, I had no appointments in my diary except a reminder to take bottles to the recycling bank, buy a pork joint and change the bed linen as Tale and her family would soon be back from Stockholm, but I didn’t leave Lars’s place, I stayed with him, pacing up and down. Astrid called at twelve noon. They had met with the doctors, Mum and Astrid and Åsa and Aunt Unni, who was a doctor, and Aunt Sidsel, also a doctor. They hadn’t asked me to join them and I was glad that they hadn’t because I wouldn’t have gone, but it made everything crystal clear to me. This time it really was serious and when it was serious, they didn’t want me there, my presence would upset the unity and harmony, they wouldn’t invite an agent provocateur like me into such a situation, even though I was Dad’s, the dying man’s, daughter, they didn’t ask me to come, to take part, fortunately, because what would I have said if they had urged me to come? Everything became crystal clear. It was the reality of the situation. The thing that Astrid on all previous occasions had pretended wasn’t the case, which she under all other circumstances ignored and blanked out. When push came to shove, as it had now, when it was serious, as it was now, it became perfectly clear that Astrid and Åsa and Mum did in fact share Bård’s and my view that we were a very long way away from harmony, that we weren’t a ‘normal’ family.

  The doctors at the hospital had said that Dad couldn’t breathe unaided. Dad’s neck was broken. It was highly likely that Dad was paralysed from the neck down and that if he were to regain consciousness, which was highly unlikely, he would probably be paralysed from the neck down and unable to speak. The question was whether to turn off the ventilator. In their discreet and professional manner, the doctors had hinted, I gathered, that it would be in Dad’s best interest to do so, that that was what they would have do
ne, had he been one of their relatives. And Aunt Unni and Aunt Sidsel, who were themselves doctors, had agreed with the doctors at Ullevål, and Åsa and Mum had agreed with the doctors, the only one who hesitated, I later found out, was Astrid. Yet eventually they all agreed that the ventilator should be turned off. That was what she was calling to tell me. As it happens I had no objections, however, she didn’t ask if I had, she had called merely to let me know. It would be done in the next hour.

  I rang the children with an update, saying the ventilator would be turned off within the next hour. I called Klara, I emailed my closest friends. Astrid called three quarters of an hour later and said: Dad’s dead.

  Four times a week I lay on the couch talking in turns about pain, shame and the minutiae of everyday life, and every now and then we would suddenly experience a breakthrough. I dreamt that I picked up a hitchhiker who was going to Drøbak, as was I. Then I took a wrong turn, I went off the main road to Drøbak, I got lost and couldn’t find my way back to the main road, and I felt guilty on account of the hitchhiker who was inconvenienced by my uselessness and would be late getting to Drøbak. Then I thought I saw the main road, the lights from the main road; if I drove under the garage door in front of me, I would get back on it. I had accelerated to drive under the garage door when it started to close, I stepped on the gas to get through before it closed completely, but didn’t make it, it came down too quickly and it slammed into the car, we were startled and shocked, but at least we were alive, the hitchhiker ashen-faced and with his trouser pockets turned out and the car a complete write-off. Then Mum showed up and said in her usual cheerful manner that it could probably be fixed, although everyone could see that was impossible.

  Then I spotted a five-øre coin on the road and bent down to pick it up because finding money brings good luck, and I told myself by way of consolation that it might turn out to be my lucky day after all. I picked it up only to discover that it was just a button.

  A five-year-old? he asked.

  No, a five-øre coin, I said.

  You said a five-year-old, he said.

  I meant a five-øre coin, I said, and repeated my dream: When the garage door came down, it felt as if I was crushed.

  Almost as crushed as a five-year-old, he said, and I felt an electric shock go through me.

  Åsa and Astrid, Aunt Unni and Aunt Sidsel took care of Mum. They organised a rota of sleepovers in Bråteveien so she wouldn’t be alone. I thanked Astrid for their turning up, I asked her to give my best to Mum. They were at Bråteveien, she replied, I was welcome to come over. I didn’t even consider dropping by. I soon started to feel relieved. And I soon concluded that my nausea and vomiting during the night between the day of Dad’s fall and the day of his death had really been about my subconscious fear of a prolonged illness. Dad paralysed in a care home for years, how would I have coped with that? Dad summoning me from his sickbed and my having to choose between not going and disappointing him or going and being disappointed myself. I didn’t believe that Dad would ever give me what I wanted, an admission and an apology. If I went to Dad’s sickbed with that hope, I would be disappointed, as I had been so often in my encounters with Dad. I had been hoping for so long, but all in vain, I had knocked on the imaginary door to Mum and Dad so many times, I had stood in front of their imaginary door, hoping they would open it and that what had happened to me would be accepted, that I would be accepted, invited in, but it didn’t happen, they never let me in, the door remained firmly shut and I was frustrated, upset, I had stood on the threshold, knocking on their door, then I stopped knocking, I stopped hoping, I turned around and left and I became free to some extent. I wouldn’t have gone to Dad’s sickbed, I would have been strong, I hoped, and like Solveig to Peer Gynt, say: It’s too late. But Astrid and Mum would have pressured me and pestered me and accused me of tormenting a sick, paralysed and helpless man who had no greater wish than to be reconciled with his oldest daughter and for it to happen in such a way that the daughter would pretend that what he had done to her hadn’t happened, would I really deny him that? As if I were on some sort of crusade, as if it wasn’t about feelings, the deepest ones. They would blame me and it would be unpleasant, and if he was bedridden for a long time, there would be pressure to help Mum and Astrid and Åsa with the hard work of looking after him, and I would refuse, and they would be outraged and tell everyone, including the staff at the care home, about my indifference, my selfishness, my callousness, but then it didn’t happen, then Dad died, then Dad was gone. I felt relieved, I had been so scared of Dad, I realised, and what had gone was my fear of this unpleasant scenario, which could have arisen from that side of the family at any time, but not anymore. Dad was dead. Recriminations and accusations and barbs, if you want to see a psychopath, just look in the mirror, but not anymore, Dad was dead. Dad couldn’t hurt me ever again. Strictly speaking Dad hadn’t been able to hurt me for years, I hadn’t walked around every day terrified of Dad, or maybe I had, maybe this fear of Dad lived inside me. It’s hard to conquer your fear of an unpredictable, aggressive lion while it lives, but now the lion was dead.

  Freud wrote somewhere that it is unfortunate that no description of psychoanalysis can ever reproduce the impressions you get during its actual operation, that the most definitive experience can never be conveyed through reading, but only through the experience, and I agree with that, it’s impossible to explain. It’s equally impossible, I think, to explain why you end psychoanalysis, how it is you realise that the time has come.

  After more than three years of several sessions a week, I rushed in for an appointment one day when I really needed it. I had got drunk the night before, slept with a man I shouldn’t be with, I wasn’t wearing my own clothes, I had lost my contact lenses, I was desperate to get on the couch, pour out my heart, cry and despair, but the psychoanalyst didn’t come out to get me at the usual time. Thirty minutes later I knocked on his door, but he didn’t reply, he didn’t come, I tried the handle, but the door was locked, I shook it, I think I screamed and was vaguely aware of how the psychology students who occasionally frequented the waiting room at the Institute for Psychoanalysis noted my desperation: So that’s what they look like when they turn up. One of them patted my shoulder and pointed to a notice on the noticeboard stating that my psychoanalyst was on holiday for three weeks. He had probably told me and I had repressed it, as I still did many unpleasant things. What would I do now? I had always suspected that I might go mad one day, and now the day had arrived. My knees buckled, I collapsed on the floor, still vaguely aware of the students studying my breakdown. I expected to become psychotic, but I didn’t, so somewhat surprised I got up, looked around and then I left, what else could I do? It was a clear and sparkling August day, I hadn’t noticed that until now. The air was warm, I hadn’t noticed that before. I walked down Bogstadveien, what else could I do? I was surprisingly calm. It was late summer, the air was warm, the weather lovely, I hadn’t realised that until now, three weeks without analysis lay ahead of me, I turned into another street, what else could I do? I walked past a shop front and saw someone who looked like me in the window, but it couldn’t be me because she looked well. I stopped, retraced my steps and studied myself, a seemingly functioning woman. Could I see myself through her eyes? You’re clever, I said to her, and you don’t look too bad, I said to her. Shouldn’t you be out in the world doing things?

  I survived those three weeks and decided to end my treatment although I understood that the psychoanalyst thought I ought to continue, enter more deeply into the pain to get a better perspective. With hindsight, it’s easy to agree with him, but back then I thought I had experienced enough pain, spent enough time being in pain, the married man had finally got a divorce and would be mine, I wanted to be happy!

  During the twenty-four hours that Dad was ill, in the twenty-four hours he was in hospital, I replied to all of Astrid’s text messages. She kept in touch with me, while Åsa kept in touch with Bård. Her messages were mostly about
practical matters, information on the extraordinary situation which Astrid and Åsa were dealing with at the front line. Astrid wrote that she was at Bråteveien with Mum and Åsa, and that I was more than welcome. I asked if Mum was alone at night, she wasn’t, they took turns sleeping at the house, including Aunt Unni and Aunt Sidsel, Mum was scared of falling down the stairs. I thanked them for turning up and asked Astrid to give my best to everyone, especially Mum. Astrid sent warm regards and hugs back. You’re always welcome, she wrote. Perhaps it was a figure of speech, perhaps they thought, Astrid, Åsa and Mum, that things were different now, that it was possible for us to be a family again now that Dad was dead. Except I don’t think that they really wanted me there unless I broke down in tears, having suddenly had an epiphany of how deeply I had loved Dad and was willing to express remorse for my behaviour. I didn’t think they wanted me to be a part of their intimacy; they were probably more raw and vulnerable now than ever and wanted to be with people they knew and with whom they felt comfortable, it was natural, or perhaps they wanted a sign, perhaps they wanted me to pay a symbolic visit, an indication from me signalling fair weather and a positive outlook. I’m sure many people were visiting Bråteveien now, more distant relatives, neighbours and friends with flowers and warmth and compassion, I could come as a friend or a neighbour. They were still going ahead with Christmas, Astrid wrote, they had decided to throw a big party, to be together all of them, to have a big Christmas party in Mum and Dad’s house in Bråteveien, which now belonged entirely to Mum, but somehow also to my sisters. Åsa and Astrid would be there with their husbands and children, there would be lots of people, perhaps also Aunt Unni and Aunt Sidsel. I replied to all the text messages and responded with warm hugs back but didn’t comment on the invitation to stop by. It didn’t even cross my mind to do so, I wrote ‘thinking of you all’ and it wasn’t untrue, it wasn’t a lie, I was thinking of them, and I saw them in my mind’s eye, and I wrote again that I was happy that they were there, taking care of Mum and everything.