A House in Norway

by Vigdis Hjorth

  Easter came. People drove to their cabins, leaving nearly every house in the neighbourhood empty, every burglar alarm switched on, and there were hardly any cars on the roads. Alma was able to sit in the sun on her veranda without hearing human sounds, without being seen except by the Pole, who never said a word, who was here, there and everywhere, although Alma rarely caught sight of her. The Pole and her daughter didn’t go out for walks or sit outside; sometimes they would drive off somewhere, but they would soon return to the apartment and consume electricity, much to Alma’s dismay. She made random sketches and drank beer while the snow melted and patches of grass began to appear, and one day the only daffodil in her garden flowered and the snow on her drive melted, only to freeze solid overnight so the cars couldn’t get up it and they had to walk up the steep slope. Alma drove to the petrol station to buy grit which she spread, yet still she slipped and fell. But in April spring finally arrived so that both women could get their cars up the drive, although some scattered icy patches remained, and they could breathe a sigh of relief that yet another winter had passed, it was always a strain, something which had to be endured, and now it was over.

  And one Sunday, like another sign of spring, a Polish-registered van appeared on her drive and a man in overalls stood with his head buried in the engine of her tenant’s car whose bonnet was up as usual. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth and her tenant had a cigarette in her hand, and the little girl clung to one of her mother’s legs. She had grown since the last time Alma had seen her when she had been wearing thick winter clothing; now she wore a dress, it looked old-fashioned and it reached down to her ankles, she must have pestered her mother to wear a dress over her thick woolly tights and boots, Alma thought, and remembered how she herself had pestered her mother to wear a dress once winter was finally over, dresses meant spring and with the dress came also the hope of not having to wear tights but knee-high socks on Constitution Day. How old was the girl now? Alma wondered if the man was the Polish woman’s boyfriend or just helping her out because the Poles in Norway joined forces, they helped each other out, as you would expect, at least those who lived in the same area did, she guessed they must know about each other, they were probably on Facebook, after all many Poles lived in this neighbourhood. However, a few days later another, much shorter man wearing a tool belt was bent over the engine with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, so they were probably just doing her a favour. And Alma came to the conclusion that it was just as well that they did or her tenant would have come to Alma about her car, just like she had come to Alma about the mouse.

  It was spring time and the days were getting longer and people spent time in their gardens, and windows and French doors were opened out to better weather and everything was exposed to view, for better or for worse. Dog mess that had been covered up by the snow was revealed and melted on the pavements, paper and plastic that had been hidden under the snow emerged. In the three weeks that had passed since she had submitted the tapestry, she had struggled to get it out of her head and hands, and not visualise it constantly on the wall where it was now hanging, wondering if it would dwindle into mere decoration once the new term started. She took out her list of jobs that needed doing, all the things she had put off in the final sprint to the finishing line. This was how her life was organised and had been organised for a long time. At the start of a commission she would think and sketch, circling in on the task; at that stage it was possible to combine her work with domestic chores. Once she picked up her needle, she was still able to intersperse her creative work with practical tasks during the first few months of sewing. But once in the final phase, which could be a long one, which might last for months, when the needle moved incessantly and she would focus until her brain hurt in order to gather her thoughts, like she gathered the threads together, and turn every scattered thought into a finished image, she did nothing practical. She didn’t do any laundry, clean the house, wash herself or the car, everything was a mess, but once she had submitted the commission, then she would start cleaning. Beat the rugs. Take her clothes to the dry cleaners. Scrub the bath tub, oil the garden furniture, replace dead light bulbs, do her laundry, make alterations to her clothing, throw away old clothes, clear out the basement, take her bottles to be recycled, vacuum the fireplace, tidy the garage, chop wood, stack logs, attack the house and the garden, happily wearing herself out in the process. She woke up one morning and had reached the item check smoke alarms in the apartment on her to do list. She hadn’t checked them for years; she didn’t even know if there was more than one smoke alarm. Sometimes she would glance up at the windows, for example, if she had been down to pick up her newspaper or take out the rubbish, and she had clocked some strange little lamps that had been fitted and which were also left on at night because she would see them whenever she went for a night-time walk to the sea, as was her wont. And every time she would make a mental note to check the smoke alarms in the apartment as soon as she had finished her commission. The do-it-yourself electrical work Alan had carried out before he was sent to prison probably constituted a fire hazard. And when she lay in her bed on such nights, she would worry that the electrics in the apartment might short-circuit and start a fire and before she knew it, the dry wooden house would be ablaze. She imagined the Pole smoking in bed, nodding off with the cigarette still smouldering on top of the undoubtedly synthetic bed linen, which would ignite and soon the whole of the vulnerable house would go up in flames and burn to the ground. Then Alma would turn on her bedside lamp and make a note on the pad she always kept on her bedside table: check smoke alarms in the apartment. And finally the time had come. She knocked on the door, but there was no reply, and perhaps that wasn’t surprising because the car wasn’t outside, so she presumed that the Pole must be at work. Perhaps she ought to wait until she came back, but she was going to the DIY store anyway to buy printer ink and vacuum bags, and she wanted to know how many smoke alarms she should buy once she got there. So she let herself in only to bump into a nervous-looking man on the stairs, what was he doing there? She didn’t ask, it was none of her business, and besides, he couldn’t tell her because he didn’t understand Norwegian or English, she concluded when she tried to explain why she had come so that he wouldn’t think that she made a habit of letting herself in in order to snoop when the Pole was out. She pointed to the smoke alarm in the hallway, which turned out not to work. And she went upstairs to the living room where there were no smoke alarms and into the bedroom where there were none either, also missing on the wall above the bed was the small tapestry she had embroidered with the Hans Christian Andersen quote about sunshine, freedom and the little flower you had to have, what had happened to that, and nor were there any smoke alarms in the kitchen. She entered every room, but made a point of looking only at the ceilings so that he wouldn’t think she was prying. Even so she got the distinct impression that was precisely what he did think. That she had suspected someone was there illegally and wanted to see for herself if it was true. That the smoke alarms were merely a pretext. And now she had had it confirmed that someone was there and what was she going to do about it? What she saw in his eyes was fear. She got a strong feeling that he was there illegally in some way, and now he had been found out. But what exactly was illegal about it? Subletting was illegal, but this wasn’t a case of subletting because the Pole herself still lived there with her child, Alma knew that because she saw them all the time. It wasn’t against the law to have a boyfriend staying over or help a friend in need or a let a friend sleep on your couch in return for a bit of cash. But a criminal, someone wanted by the police, a failed asylum seeker? Was he scared of Alma or Alan or the council, there were so many people of whom he might be scared. Alma drove to the DIY store, bought four smoke alarms and once she was safely back, the Pole’s car was there, and Alma knocked and as always the door was opened only a fraction and the Pole peered at her with a guarded expression and the anxious-looking little girl with the pigtails and
lots of pink plastic ball hair ties cowered behind her. But Alma needed to get inside to show her where the smoke alarms should be fitted and the door was opened for her reluctantly. Alma, who after all owned this house, entered and in the kitchen, where the fearful man from earlier that day was stirring a saucepan, the mood was strained. They didn’t seem like a couple, she thought, there was no hint of affection in the air or the Pole would have appeared more at ease, she thought, and softer if she’d had a boyfriend by her side because it wasn’t illegal to have a boyfriend. But perhaps they were scared of Alan, that he would find out that she had a new boyfriend because who knew what he was capable of orchestrating from inside the prison where he was; maybe he would dispatch some Polish thug to sort them out. Or the reverse, the Polish man was a spy and bodyguard sent by Alan to protect the Pole in his absence. Alma showed them where in the ceiling the smoke alarms should be positioned and asked if they knew how to fit them, or would they rather she did it for them? No, no, they shook their heads vehemently, even the child shook her head so hard her plastic ball hair ties clattered; they assured her that they could do it themselves and that they had the necessary tools; they nodded when she asked, so they did understand, the problem would appear to be their hostility. They wanted her to leave, the child wanted her to leave, the little girl looked at Alma as if she were an enemy and an intruder, although it was Alma’s house, and Alma left and told herself that the Polish man was likely to be a builder like the other Polish men, so he could probably fit the smoke alarms himself. She concluded that even if this man was unlikely to have a job since he was at home, that is to say, inside the apartment during the day. She had certainly never seen him outside, but perhaps he came and went under the cover of darkness. But then again Alma too lived in the darkness, at night. They must have smuggled him in one time when she was out. They must have been spying on her, waiting until she had driven off before seizing their moment and that was how the child had learned that Alma was someone you could trick and should watch out for.

  Other Poles helped the Pole, and the Pole in turn helped another Pole because he was Polish, Alma presumed, or the visiting Pole was guarding her, as well as being a friend of Alan’s? The advantage of a close-knit community was the protection and the help on offer, the downside was that you couldn’t escape or hide, that everyone else always knew what you were doing. But did support and security mean a lack of freedom for the Pole, who couldn’t get herself a new boyfriend as long as Alan’s mates were fixing her car? Yet at the same time she was isolated from all things Norwegian, with only loose ties to Norway because to her Norwegians were like ships passing in the night, and thus was she not at risk of becoming a victim of the violence that occurs in close-knit communities as well as that which arises in those more remote and detached?

  Ah well, Alma thought to herself. She has made her own bed, now she must lie in it.

  Alma wrote the long-planned letter to her tenant in order to make the same demands of her as she would have done of a Norwegian by informing her of the Norwegian attitude to electricity consumption. To be more conscious of her usage and turn down the radiators at night, sort her rubbish for recycling and not mix paper and cardboard with other waste, and she also requested that she parked her car alongside Alma’s and always on the tarmac rather than on the ground between the trees further down where Alma wanted the grass to grow in the summer. It was to no avail. Paper and cardboard continued to be thrown out along with plastic, food waste and batteries, and the car was still left on the ground between the trees, preventing the grass from growing. Alma wondered whether it was due to stupidity, unwillingness or defiance. Did she not understand Alma’s letter and was she reluctant to ask for help from Alma, the interpreter or the woman from social services with whom she was still in contact, or any other Norwegians she might know through her work – surely there had to be someone. Or she was able to read it, but couldn’t care less and refused to take orders from Alma or do what Alma wanted, and this was how she rebelled. Insisting on doing things her way rather than Alma’s because she might be Alma’s tenant, but she wasn’t Alma’s student or subordinate. And perhaps she had been reading up on tenants’ rights, which are very strong in Norway, especially for people like her, a single mother with a child at nursery, with ties to the local community, so that she no longer feared the consequences? When Alma received an eye-watering electricity bill the following month, she decided to increase the rent which she hadn’t put up since the Poles first moved in. But she wanted to do things by the book and called the National Landlords Association who informed her that she must give six months’ notice of any increase. Alma wrote her tenant a letter stating she had no choice but to increase the rent by 1,000 kroner from the first of January due to increased electricity consumption. She received no reply, nor did she bump into the Pole for some time, but then again there was no hurry. Some weeks later she sent her a text message asking if she had received the letter about the rent increase. Hours later she received a reply saying that her letter had been received and that it was fine. It was probably the council, Alma thought, they knew that the Pole’s rent was reasonable; Alma had been on www.finn.no to check what other landlords charged for similar properties. And six months’ notice was fine, she thought, when you know that something unpleasant is going to happen in the distant future, it’s easier to accept and to prepare for it.

  Spring arrived with swollen green shoots on every tree and pale blue anemones grew on the ground below them, except where the Pole continued to park her car and where the other Poles, various men, also parked when they visited her. Then the white anemones arrived along with the daylight, which seemed to last forever, then all kinds of flowers, violets and forget-me-nots, and Alma picked big bouquets and put them in vases on every table outside and in. And when she was picking the flowers, she came across some wild raspberry bushes at the edge of the plot, and the next time she saw the Pole and her daughter, she opened her window to tell them about the bushes and the raspberries and said to the little girl that she was welcome to pick some. The girl understood Norwegian and looked vaguely interested at Alma and then at her mother, who smiled briefly, but hurried on in the direction of her own front door and Alma realised that there would be no berry picking. It was only a suggestion, she was tempted to shout out after them.

  The latest issue of the National Landlords Association’s newsletter stressed the importance of cleaning your gutters and highlighted the disastrous consequences such as water damage outside and in, which could ensue should you neglect to do this. Alma hadn’t cleaned the gutters in all the years she had owned the house, but decided there was no time like the present. She leaned the heavy wooden ladder against the roof, climbed it and the gutters were indeed overflowing with compost, pine cones and leaves, flowers grew in some of them, along with saplings and moss, and heavy branches had become wedged in between the gutter and the roof tiles. She realised that the job would take days, but she was in high spirits, she put the radio on the garden table and cleaned gutters from morning till night while she experienced the deep satisfaction of being useful. They were her roof tiles and her gutters, and at night she would enjoy a bottle of cider as she savoured the scent of her neighbour’s bonfire. Early one afternoon she had reached the gutters above her tenant’s window, but she didn’t let that put her off. She positioned the ladder, climbed it and glanced quickly into the bedroom where the girl looked back at her and where Alma’s embroidery about peace and freedom was no longer hanging above the bed. Alma smiled to the girl, she wanted to be friendly and so she pointed to the raspberry bushes behind her to give her a second chance, and the girl stared in that direction, but then her mother came in and pulled her aside and out of view, and Alma saw nothing more of them, as if they moved from room to room as Alma moved the ladder, though that shouldn’t have surprised Alma, who would have done the same herself. One week later the gutters had been cleaned and Alma bought a pair of secateurs and cut down weeds and sap
lings and the outside area became more usable, that was all it took. And she carved hooks from birch branches and nailed them to a south-facing wall so that people could hang their dressing gowns and swimming costumes to dry in the sun. And her boyfriend came over and Alma washed the bed linen and dried it in the sun and bought a barbecue and chilled some wine and when he arrived, they went down to the jetty to swim in the sea and have a beer there afterwards and watch the boats before they went back and they hung their dressing gowns and their swimming costumes and swimming trunks on the new pegs and her boyfriend barbecued while Alma poured wine and told him about clearing out the gutters. And they went for a walk in the woods, and Alma sat on a rock and sketched the leaves of various trees, and drew the differing shades of moss and they went to the sea to swim with diving masks and afterwards Alma drew the grey, blue and violet starfish on the green rocks at the bottom. The Poles would appear to be away on holiday in Poland, so they played loud music at night and made love, and Alma thought that life was wonderful, though she worried about her finances because her fee for ‘Latent fire’ was almost spent and she was keen to get another commission. And her boyfriend thought that life was great now that Alma was with him, but also used the long, sunny summer days to hint that he thought life with Alma, to the extent that it could be called a life, he added, given how little they saw of each other, how little they saw of other people as a couple, was hard work. This wasn’t how it should be, he said, between lovers.