A House in Norway

by Vigdis Hjorth

  She went down to the sea, she seemed to recall, taking with her a Thermos flask of wine, which she drank on the deserted jetty; the boats had long since been laid up and no one went down to the jetty and the beach now that summer was over except for Alma, who thought it was a good place for thinking late at night when the lights in the houses had been turned off because their residents had gone to bed in order not to be too tired the next morning when they had to get up to join the queue on the motorway or take the bus into town to their offices. Alma could sleep for as long as she wanted, she was lucky, but she was now faced with a dilemma. Her tenant in a shelter, why? Had Alan beaten her up, and where was he now? The windows in the houses were dark, and on the far side of the fjord she could see the heights of Holmenkollen and the lights from the houses on the ridge against the black forest, which made them look like a festive, illuminated cruise ship sailing through the night. And she looked at the stars that were so bright in the autumn darkness; they shone more brightly than usual, and the horizontal new moon was a narrow crescent sinking into the sea, now what? Her tenancy agreement was with Alan, he had signed it, he was the one who earned the money, who counted out the bank notes and gave them to her every month. And she depended on them; she had a tax bill to pay. If Alan turned up with the money, she decided, then her problem would be solved, although she felt some shame, as if she were siding with him rather than her. But no one had explained the situation to Alma, and she wasn’t going get an explanation, and she had never heard any rows coming from the apartment, and the Pole hadn’t looked her in the eye, merely pretended not to understand the most basic English words, blanked Alma and ignored the problems she must have known that she was creating for her.

  The next morning she called Alan’s number, but he didn’t answer his phone. She then called her son, who had slept in the room backing on to the apartment during the summer, he had heard no rows, he said. But her daughter, whom she also called, said that she had heard a lot of arguments in the evenings during her stay, but that the noise of the night-time showering had been the worst. Alma considered calling the police and the National Landlords Association for advice and guidance, but there was no real help to be found among all this talk about rules and regulations. She considered calling the shelter, but they definitely had a duty of confidentiality, and even if they were willing to confirm that the Pole was staying there, it wouldn’t help Alma. She needed to speak to Alan. She decided that if she hadn’t heard from him within a month, money lost was money lost, she would pack up their stuff, store it in her garage, and look for new tenants. Alan was unlikely to sue her when he himself had broken their agreement, when he had behaved in such a way that the mother of his child was now living in a shelter, but when she visualised the undoubtedly cluttered apartment, the messy terrace, all the child’s things, she felt exhausted. She didn’t have time to clear it out; she had to work on the sixth-form college tapestry, which she had finally worked out how to approach. She crossed her fingers that Alan would contact her.

  A few days later a woman phoned and introduced herself as the interpreter for ‘your tenant Slawomira Trzebuchwskai’. She spoke broken, but clear and coherent Norwegian. It was concerning her tenant’s housing situation, she said, and she wanted to meet with Alma. And Alma was delighted and said yes because she wanted nothing more than to resolve the tenant’s housing situation. The interpreter would visit Alma in a few days, and the Pole would be there as well, Alma understood, so did this mean that she was moving back in? Indeed it did; the very next day, the battered Polish car was parked next to Alma’s own on the drive, and the light was back on in the windows in the apartment, and Alma could hear water gurgling in the pipes, but she didn’t see anyone until the day the meeting was scheduled. The interpreter knocked and Alma opened the door to a dark, petite woman, originally from Poland, she said, and smiled and praised Alma’s house in an apparent attempt at ingratiating herself. They sat on separate sofas and the interpreter said that she had read about Alma in a magazine, that Alma was a talented seamstress, but it wasn’t true. The papers didn’t write about Alma, and Alma didn’t sew, she had never described herself as a seamstress. The interpreter would appear to have looked Alma up and hoped to flatter Alma by saying she thought Alma was a good person, the interpreter had a plan. A critical situation had arisen, she said, putting on a serious face. Alan was a bad man who drank and was violent and controlled Slawomira, but now Alan had been sent to Poland to serve a prison sentence of two years, so Slawomira was happy. This was her chance to be rid of him. But Slawomira was scared that Alma would throw her out. Was Alma going to throw her out? The interpreter looked pleadingly at Alma woman-to-woman, and whispered that she herself was once married to a Polish man who was no good, who drank and controlled her, but now she was free as a bird and working as a freelance interpreter for the local council. Slawomira had now been given the same chance, she said, the chance of a new life without a man who wouldn’t let her go out, work or learn Norwegian. But she needed somewhere to live.

  Alma squirmed on her sofa. The only uplifting word in the sob story was the council. If she was speaking to an emissary from the council, there was hope. Keep your cool, she ordered herself, and told the interpreter that she saw no reason to throw the Pole out because her husband was in prison. But the rent needed paying, she said, the rent was her priority. Because that was the truth and it was nothing to be ashamed of. She needed this month’s rent, and last month’s rent was also outstanding. The interpreter’s eyes flickered, she cleared her throat, ran her palms over her skirt and said, with a sideways glance at the floor, that it would be taken care of. Then, at the interpreter’s suggestion, they went over to the apartment where they were met by a very pale, very nervous Pole, whose big, harshly made-up eyes burned with shame; she looked to be in her early twenties. She showed them into the living room where she had set the table with three tiny floral coffee cups and a strange cake she had probably baked herself. Alma hadn’t been inside since the Poles moved in, only seen the weird Polish decorations in the windows. It was hot and stuffy, Alma would never have believed that you could squeeze so much into such tiny rooms, there was stuff from floor to ceiling, but it was tidy, a place for everything and ornaments on doilies and lace doilies under the television and the laptop and paintings with wildlife motifs and odd-looking lampshades, a chandelier with numerous prisms hanging from the low ceiling above them. And furthest away in the corner, the little pink-clad girl was standing, silent and terrified, clinging for dear life to a standing lamp with fringes on the shade. The interpreter said something in Polish to her, and she nodded gravely as if she understood that what was about to happen was make or break.

  She’s terrified you’ll throw her out, the interpreter whispered while the Pole fetched coffee from the kitchen, and the little girl looked at Alma, and her mother came back with the coffee and looked very young, and poured it into the cups with trembling hands, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Alma repeated that she wouldn’t throw her out as long as she got her rent. The interpreter didn’t like Alma’s response, but she would appear to have translated it correctly because the Pole grew sombre and looked downcast. But then the interpreter said quite a lot in Polish and the Pole appeared to cheer up. Alma didn’t want any cake, she had said her piece and had nothing more to offer, why was she still sitting there, she had better things to do. She reiterated that the Pole was welcome to stay, but that she had to pay rent, Alma had bills to pay for the apartment. The interpreter, who clearly no longer thought Alma was a good person, sent her a look which said: yes, we get it, and didn’t translate. Alma made to leave and interpreter sighed and said she would see what she could do, she would speak to the council. Yes, talk to the council, Alma said, heading for the door, opened it and was finally out of there. What else could she do?

  She called her daughter and told her about the meeting, what did she think? And her daughter said she thought Alan was just the type to beat his wife
because he had always had a dark and sinister look about him as if he had something to hide, and she had heard a lot of arguments coming from the apartment and it was possible they ran the shower so that she wouldn’t hear what was really going on. And his chipped tooth suggested he had been in a fight before, only this time he had ended up in prison.

  And Alma’s guts hurt at the thought there might have been danger so close to her. But at least he was gone now, safely behind lock and key in Poland.

  The following day she observed two unknown cars on her drive, one of which was similar to the interpreter’s. When no one came to knock on her door, she concluded that they must be visiting the Pole. Alma kept a look out from the window and when she saw two women leave the Pole’s front door and stop by the cars to chat, she opened a window and asked if everything was all right. Yes, the interpreter said. No, the other woman said, and Alma closed her window and walked down to join them.

  The honest woman was from social services, children’s section, she said, which was now responsible for the Pole and her child because the child was born in Norway. The problem was that the Pole had no job and no money and so ultimately couldn’t pay the rent. So what do we do, Alma asked, but they didn’t know, they shook their heads and looked at her as if they were hoping that she would say that the Pole could live there for free because she felt sorry for her. I can’t let her live here for free, Alma said, even if I do feel sorry for her. And they did understand that, albeit reluctantly. So what do we do? She has to live somewhere, the social worker said, mulling it over and she would appear to visualise the effort involved in moving the Pole and her child; finding new accommodation for them – which was unlikely to be cheaper – packing up their belongings, transporting them and unpacking them and so on, it was all the council’s responsibility. Perhaps you should give her notice, she suggested, so the council understands that this is serious. I will give her notice, Alma said, so it becomes a priority for the council. And together they went inside and wrote a notice of termination ‘due to lack of payment of rent from September 2008 – and highly doubtful future prospects in terms of ability to pay’ and Alma printed it out and the social worker took it away, so she could show it to her superiors in order to force a solution.

  A solution was forced. Only the next day the interpreter called in high spirits and said that she would bring her the September rent that day and a few hours later, Alma had the cash in her hand and had given the interpreter a receipt in return. The council must be behind this, she thought, and that was reassuring. She trusted the council. She calmed down, she worked well, and quite right: the social worker called and told her the council had decided that the Pole was better off staying where she was, but they wanted a new tenancy agreement to replace the one Alma had with Alan, because the council wanted the paperwork in order, and so did Alma. The social worker and the interpreter and the Pole arrived, and the latter signed the new agreement with her own, difficult name, Slawomira Bogumila Trzebuchwskai. She appeared relieved, and Alma was relieved too, because now she had an agreement with the council and could contact them, should any problems arise. She got the social worker’s name and number and began to feel that things had worked out for the best. And although it had crossed her mind that it was crafty of the Polish couple to come to Norway and have their child here, so that the Norwegian authorities would have to step in if things went pear-shaped, Alma herself also benefitted. The council found a nursery place for the child and a job for the mother, as a cleaner or ‘maintenance services assistant’ as it was officially called, and the council even seemed to take responsibility for the battered car. The Pole no longer smiled quite so stiffly at Alma whenever they bumped into one another.

  As all of Alma’s children had long since left home, it was two single women and a pre-school child who now lived in the wooden house. When the Pole came back from work, the little girl would climb out of the car herself with her nursery rucksack, as Alma could observe, should she happen to look out of the window or come home at the same time. And they managed fine without a man in the house, they cleared the snow and gritted the drive and replaced the fuses in the basement by torchlight; the fuses in the apartment had a tendency to blow quite often. Alma had told the Pole not to turn on all the electricals at the same time, and yet the fuses kept on blowing, and Alma was annoyed that the Pole never learned. Perhaps she ought to use thicker fuse wire, she thought, to increase the capacity, but that would probably cost money. Whenever Alma rented a primitive cabin in the mountains or took an off-season budget trip abroad to focus on her work, she would ask the Pole to collect her post, which she did. On Alma’s return there would be a pile of letters on the chest of drawers in the hall. Once she feared that she had forgotten to turn off the iron before leaving, so she texted the Pole to ask her to check her dressing room. She did, she entered the laundry room through the garage and went to Alma’s dressing room where she found that the iron was not on, and wrote so to Alma in a text message with a smiley. Perhaps she had gone on to explore the rest of the house safe in the knowledge that Alma was miles away, looking around the rooms she hadn’t seen before, the bathrooms upstairs and down, and the kitchen. Opening drawers and cupboards, probably thinking Alma’s things were strange and alien, so different from her own, unable to appreciate the value of textiles, art, books, objets d’art, she probably didn’t think Alma cleaned often enough, was tidy enough, she probably couldn’t see there was a system to the sketches, the colour swatches, the knitting and the crocheting, the pictures of borders from the Orient, and the North African decorations on the large, old, rustic table in the living room. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t worried that the Pole would steal anything; there was nothing to steal, except in her studio which was locked. It contained, in addition to her work table and her supply of yarns, threads, buttons, glass and ceramic beads, a chest of drawers with keys and important papers, jewellery, everything of real value in every possible sense. It was locked; she always locked the door to her studio before leaving the house, even when she was just going to the shops. In her studio she also kept several almost finished works for an exhibition she was planning, plus the tapestry for the sixth-form college, which was starting to take shape. She was mostly worried about that because in contrast to passports, personal papers and jewellery, it was irreplaceable. Thousands of hours of work with needle and thread was embedded in it and couldn’t be recreated. She wasn’t scared that it might get stolen; it was worthless to strangers because it couldn’t be converted into money. However, she feared that burglars might vandalise it in their hunt for other more valuable, disposable assets, which they had convinced themselves must exist behind the door because it was locked. The only reason there would be for not locking it was precisely because locking it signalled that there were valuables behind it. However, she didn’t lock it because of potential burglars, she locked it because it was private, because unfinished works were private, because there was nothing more revealing than an unfinished work, a work not yet ready to be displayed. She dreaded fire more than anything. Completed but unsold works were kept in a bank safety box due to her fear of fire. But the ‘Latent fire’ for the sixth-form college had yet to be finished and so couldn’t be locked in a vault. Whenever Alma went away and heard sirens or smelt smoke and was tormented by thoughts of fire, she would envy composers, authors and graphic designers, who at some stage in their creative process no longer depended on the original, on their first draft remaining intact because true copies had been sent out into the world. But the unique quality of Alma’s art, and thus its element of risk, was precisely that it couldn’t be copied. The stitches were harder to imitate than even the tiniest brush strokes, the metal wire from old radios she incorporated was almost impossible to source, as were the silk ribbons from Italy, pearls from Buenos Aires, uniform buttons from the Second World War, children’s milk teeth. But the door to her studio, where the materials were kept, was locked and if the Pole against all expectations
were to happen upon the spare key hidden in the hiking boot in the hallway, she wouldn’t be interested in the unfinished, rolled up works in the box under the bed, the ‘Latent fire’ on the work table, but study the jars of beads and the golden threads she probably wouldn’t realise were real gold; besides, she wouldn’t take anything or risk anything, not now that everything was going reasonably well.