A House in Norway

by Vigdis Hjorth

  The next day her son came over and changed the locks. Then he left, then Alma’s boyfriend left because Alma had to work, but her fingers were stiff and she didn’t have the energy to bring out the tapestry. Instead she cleaned another window, emptied the dishwasher, turned on the radio, then turned it off, surfed the web and went on www.1881.no to find the Pole’s new address, but she was still listed as living at Alma’s. As she was already online, she googled her, she had never done that before, and she didn’t learn very much about the Pole, she just found her tax return, she had earned 125,000 kroner last year. So little couldn’t be right, after all she worked full-time? She was probably doing cash-in-hand jobs on the side, Alma told herself, that must be it, besides now she had Alan, who most definitely worked cash in hand and made good money. Pensively she went down to fetch her post, there was a letter to the Pole from Ullevål Hospital, what should she do with it? There was no point in putting it into the fine, lockable letter box to which Alma didn’t have a key, which would just have to be thrown out. She thought about opening it, no one would ever know, but a letter from the hospital can be serious. She texted the Pole that she had a letter from Ullevål Hospital, to which address should she send it? Got a reply to put it in the Pole’s letter box. So she intended to keep Alma’s address and pick up her post there? Fine, Alma wrote, but take the letter box with you.

  She watched the road from her window. They came in the evening, in the dark, both of them, both cars; they parked by the letter boxes, they got out and stood there talking fretfully, Alma thought, with many gestures and it was several minutes before Alan picked up the letter box from the ground and chucked it into his car with great strength, then they drove off. Alma felt a stab to the heart. Had she pushed the Pole and her child into Alan’s jaws, into Alan’s violent clutches? She had demanded a rent increase from the Pole, which she was unable to pay because she lived on such a narrow margin and could find nothing cheaper locally, then Alan had turned up, and she had had no choice. Had Alma put her in a situation where in order to survive, she’d had to take Alan back? So he could drink and hit her while the child watched because now he had regained total control of her? Alma had rendered her powerless and needy, and Alan seized his chance to ‘help’ and ‘save’ her; he had got them a new place in his name and packed and tidied up and was now back in charge. Alma was overcome by darkness. She opened a bottle of wine and drank it straight from the bottle, it was just as well that she was alone, very, very alone in the big house; she found the Pole’s notice of termination, quickly skimmed through the business about mice and snow clearing and the demand for money, which had enraged her so, then slowed down when she reached the end, and read the words she had originally skipped through, she tried to read them impartially, something she had been unable to do the first time: I have little child and responsible work, and I mustn’t be upset. Barely speak in Norwegian, but I am the same man as you.

  She had used a translation program which translated ‘human being’ with ‘man’. I barely speak Norwegian, but I’m a human being just like you. On the same star. Alma hadn’t read it, hadn’t seen it, hadn’t understood it, and that was beyond belief. How alone the Pole must have been in Norway, without Norwegian friends she could trust, who could have helped her write the letter to Alma. And the letter from Ullevål Hospital, what was that about? Was she mistaken or was the letter about Izabela, the little girl who had some kind of allergy, who had to eat a special diet. Who had lived in Alma’s house all her life, and might have been scared of Alma all that time, but who had probably liked the apartment and the garden and the nursery, and the other children at nursery, the whole neighbourhood, which was so pretty in spring and in the summer and occasionally also in the winter when the snow lay white and the constellations shimmered in the dark blue sky. She remembered the landscape of her own childhood, how vast it had been, how vast the garden had been, how enormous the apple tree and the cherry tree, which she climbed as a child, whose bark she thought she could still feel against her bare legs, the taste of the cherries. How she had sat on the tarmac outside the house, picking up small white pebbles while wondering about the strange fact that no matter where she lay down to sleep, such as here by the road, she always woke up in her own bed. How the skin of gooseberries would burst between her teeth and the tiny pips spurt into her mouth, how a child’s impressions and experiences of other people during its first six years, particularly those that were frightening, were etched into her and continued to come back to her, especially in her dreams. Just like Alma would always exist in Izabela’s mind and haunt her at night like a witch or a bogeyman. It was enough to drive a person crazy, the notion that all human beings were just as sensitive as she was, how impossible it was to understand and fathom each person’s unique life story. She ran to her studio, snatched the tapestry, unfolded it and saw herself exposed. She had thought that she could understand Ninja B.’s rage and Ninja B.’s mother, but she understood sod all. She had thought that she could imagine the life of the miller’s sister, that she would know something about working in a clothes factory and being trapped in a psychiatric ward, but it had never been about anyone but her; she had just imposed her own views and her own inadequate world of ideas on poor, defenceless people whose stories she had exploited, shamelessly embellishing them to suit her purpose, to get the outcome she wanted, what hubris, she had drawn suicide, death in childbirth and the sheriff, she had spared nothing and no one, she had taken what she wanted because that’s what literature and art do, that’s their domain and privilege, out of sync with reality, but that wasn’t the real problem, the real problem was that she had failed to understand, that she hadn’t even tried to understand her own tenant, the people she had shared her house with, a wall with, her land with and almost a cat with, she hadn’t bothered trying to understand them; the aim of her tapestry had been to encourage people to feel her anger and to shout out against power, but when she herself got properly angry for the first time, she had vented her rage on a defenceless Polish woman and her little child, what contribution could she possibly have to make to celebrate democracy? She was deeply ashamed, she drank to get Dutch courage, because courage was much needed at this moment, she had reached the point of no return and which it was important to reach. She cut the tapestry into pieces and couldn’t destroy it thoroughly enough, she cut it into even smaller pieces and dunked them in methylated spirits and burned them by flinging them into the big fireplace and poking at them, and the flames rose high and blue, and when it was done, she experienced the emptiness she normally felt when she had finished a piece of work and the gratitude that follows when you have suffered and lived through a well-deserved punishment.

  She slept through Sunday. On Monday the financial realities dawned on her. She took out what finished and half-finished works she had, and when she saw the border she had cut off the ‘Latent fire’ tapestry for the sixth-form college, the answer was staring her in the face. She rolled it up, it weighed only five, six kilos, drove to the committee and rolled it out. There it lay, almost like a living frame, the committee was very pleased.

  She wanted to go away to recover. But that was the old Alma. She wanted to get into her car and travel south for new adventures, but that was the old Alma. She wanted to start a new tapestry, which would eventually give her several days in a row of ecstatic working hours, but that was the old Alma. She was close, yet still she couldn’t quite grasp what life was telling her.

  Then she had an email from her aunt, who hadn’t seen the Constitution exhibition, but happened to have seen the picture of the forest in her local town hall. It had reminded her of her mother, she wrote, of Alma’s grandmother and she would like to share her memories with Alma. It was a long, long time ago, back when we lived in Rambak, she wrote, in northern Norway. The dark days had just ended, and outside the sun was shining over the packed snow. Mummy, she wrote, and Alma thought it was nice and touching that a woman over ninety would use that word, but the
n again she would have been so young back then when it happened in Rambak, high up in northern Norway. Mummy, she wrote, would bring up the plants from the cellar where they had spent the winter. She lifted them down from the shelves where they had stood, and put them on the floor around the hatch to the cellar. It was so exciting to see which ones had survived! Which ones would have small, living shoots! Time would tell, she wrote, and there was one they particularly liked, a blue hydrangea, and Alma could imagine the blue hydrangea. But this story was about another plant, the very last her mother brought up, which she called the ‘walking stick’. A grey and knotted trunk slightly bent at the top. It didn’t look alive, it wasn’t attractive, her mother was a little ashamed of it, the email said, and hoped every spring that it had given up, but as long as it produced new shoots, she didn’t have the heart to throw it out. She had a kind of respect for it. She put it in the furthest corner, half-hidden behind the curtain, where it would stand and absorb all the light it could, and suddenly there would be a small, living lump on the grey, hard mass. I cheered, she wrote, while my mother sighed and said oh, well. But I think that she admired it.

  That is a long time ago now, and such springs and such cellars no longer exist because today we buy our flowers in the Coop, but they too want to live. That’s what I wanted to tell you, Alma, because your tapestry made me remember the walking stick and my mother, your grandmother, who saw life in every little thing around us, who made them big and exciting. Happy Easter!

  Alma went up to the apartment, which still smelt strongly of the Pole. April had long since arrived and the sun shone from a light blue sky; she hadn’t heard from them. She opened doors and windows to the spring and sat down on the big sofa, on which the Pole had probably spent her evenings. She looked at the trees outside, which she hadn’t seen from this angle though she owned the place, at the very green just opened leaves. They weren’t hers, but she did oversee them. How did she manage what was hers, herself included. The days and the seconds, which were not hers alone but also communal property? Right now the Pole was living elsewhere and would never forget Alma. Alma was woven into the Polish woman’s psyche and that of little Izabela, who would probably live long after Alma had died, the image of Alma would live on in little Izabela as she grew up, and stay with her right until she died, because we remember those we have feared. Izabela, who had run away when Alma appeared on the slope below the terrace with the tree surgeon to mark the trees she wanted felled because of the gutters and the roof; on the ground between the trees Alma discovered several pink-clad Barbie dolls under a moss-covered rock, a secret hiding place. There was so much she hadn’t understood. The significance of every little act. She had longed for the extraordinary and not realised that the only obstacle was her perception of the ordinary. She hadn’t been observant enough, hadn’t realised that the mystery was right in front of her, right in front of her eyes. That the world and nature were unpredictable, and that if anything was boring and predictable, then it was her, the way she looked at things and her habits that made it so. That the potential lay in the ordinary, if only she could learn to see it. That the greatness which she longed for was right in front of her, right here, right now, that she already had everything she was looking for, if only she could give it her full attention. That every step she took was critical, that she came face to face with herself every single moment, she needed to realise that and see her own limitations and her weakness and her stupidity, because only those who lose their illusions, continue to learn. She had to bury her stupid wishes. From here on, she vowed, I will promote the earthly, ordinary life, the difficult, daily commitment.

  II

  After her success with the Constitution border and all the media attention which followed, commissions for work poured in, but she didn’t work. She was unable to take out ‘How it should be between people’, she felt queasy even thinking about ‘Latent fire’, because what kind of fire had been kindled in Alma? Instead she borrowed money and renovated the apartment. Got someone in to do the bathroom, her son put in the new kitchen, she did the rest herself, and it was a blessed relief. She knocked down, pulled away, broke up; you need to break down and demolish before you can clean, fill holes, prime and paint two coats on the walls and the ceiling, sand floors, apply two coats of varnish on the floors and skirting boards, run cables, pull out nails, screw in screws, mount lamps, take the rubbish away, buy and assemble new furniture, phew! She finished on the first anniversary of their departure. She dreamt that the Pole came walking down from the apartment with a cigarette in her mouth and a bag of dirty laundry in her hand on her way to the garage. But the lock had been changed, so she was unable to get in, and Alma hid behind the curtain in order to avoid her, before she began to feel guilty and decided to give her the new key and couldn’t do it quickly enough, couldn’t wait until everything was well again. But that must mean she’s still living here, she thought, so I have to increase the rent, and then we have to live through that dreadful nightmare all over again; she woke up and she was alone in the house.

  She thought about her often. Wondered how she was, hoping she was well. From time to time she thought of writing a letter to her, to explain herself, but whenever she looked her up on www.1881.no, she was still listed as living at Alma’s address. She wrote her a text message saying she had post for her, to which address should she send it? It wasn’t a lie, ever since the Pole had moved out she received a monthly newsletter from the Polish Church in Norway, Informator Katolicki, which Alma threw in the bin. She got a reply telling her to leave it in her letter box where she would pick it up later. But Alma, who in the meantime had got herself a lockable letter box on a fancy stand now that the roadworks had finished, didn’t want the Pole to look in her letter box. It must mean that she wasn’t prepared to give Alma her new address or that Alan didn’t want her to, but it was irritating, Alma thought, given that she would soon have new tenants, that the Pole was still listed as living at Alma’s according to www.1881.no. In the evening when she had been drinking, she couldn’t help herself. She texted the Pole to ask her to inform 1881 that she was no longer living at Alma’s and list her new address instead. She got a reply saying it was none of Alma’s business where she lived and that she should stop texting her at night, and concluded with: ‘In the newspaper, it says you are a cultural person. I have a different opinion.’

  Work on the apartment had finished, and Alma posted her ad on www.finn.no. All the people who replied and turned up were strange creatures with no permanent jobs, no references or coherent stories. Alma had learned her lesson and wanted assurances, references and definitely a deposit. She tried to be an advocate for the ordinary and see the big picture in the little things, but it was hard going. Besides, she had been confronted with herself and lost her illusions, she had realised that she was incapable of living the way she had tried to teach children, that it required many tiny changes. She bore that in mind and so didn’t ring back the exhausted older woman who turned up with a young North African man she had just separated from and on whose behalf she had to speak and who didn’t have a job because he had been in a terrible accident at work, but it was surely just a matter of time before he found another job and in the meantime they were fairly sure that he would be entitled to benefits of some kind. Or the young Swedish woman with multiple piercings, who seemed hyper as though she were high, who had just been divorced from the love of her life, she said, and was on sick leave for that reason, but hoped that she would still find a job some day, and meanwhile she would get benefits. Then the manager of the plumbing company which had installed her bathroom called looking for accommodation for two of his employees, and Alma was happy because signing an agreement with a Norwegian company she already knew, was the best possible outcome. They agreed to meet at the bank to sign contracts and open an account for the deposit, and the next week two smiling Poles moved into the apartment. Ah well, Alma thought. Life is unpredictable and the mystery is just next door.
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  Helene Uri

  Honey Tongues

  (translated by Kari Dickson)

  The honey tongues of the title belong to four friends in their thirties who have known each other since school. They make up a ‘sewing circle’ where no sewing is done, but much exquisite food is lovingly prepared and consumed and increasingly bitchy gossip exchanged.

  The novel follows their three-weekly meetings over six months, as they take turns to entertain each other; we are privy to their thoughts and memories and discover how apparently innocent actions are motivated by emotional hang-ups with their roots in childhood traumas. The tension builds towards a gourmet trip to Copenhagen to celebrate their friendship, where during an eight-course meal the masks drop and undisguised fear and loathing are revealed. Shocking secrets are unearthed as the balance of power subtly shifts from one member of the group to another. Brilliantly observed, this is female bonding at its worst, manipulative and psychotic, exposing the dependency and deceit behind the compassionate and affectionate façade.

  Honey Tongues is the second adult novel by Norwegian writer Helene Uri (b. 1964), and was acclaimed on its publication in 2002 as a lively and entertaining read, whose seemingly frivolous subject matter is based on acute psychological observation.