Aliss at the Fire

by Jon Fosse

  Grandma! Hi Grandma! Asle shouts

  Have you been shopping, Grandma! he shouts

  and Grandma smiles at him under her yellow-white cap, the one that he himself is wearing now, and she says he should just wait until she gets home, then he can see what she has

  Come home with me, then you can see, Grandma says

  I’ve gone shopping for a few things, I have, she says

  and he sees that Grandma’s bag is heavy

  Should I help you carry it, Asle says

  It’s better if I do it myself, Grandma says

  It’s easier when I carry my own things, it’s steadier walking like that, she says

  But you could always take one handle of the shopping bag too and help me a little, that would be nice of you, she says

  A little help is always good, she says

  and he takes one handle of the shopping bag and then Grandma takes two fingers and puts them on top of his cold fingers and then they carry the shopping bag together, slowly, step by step, up the little road and neither of them says anything

  You’re a good boy, Asle, Grandma then says

  and Grandma and he keep walking and he feels Grandma’s cold and slightly stiff fingers on his fingers and he wants to pull his hand back, but he doesn’t dare to, he thinks and he walks up the big road and now he has come to the flat place down below the house on the neighboring farm, and can’t he hear someone standing and talking in the yard there? does he hear that the two boys are talking there? or not? no it must have been nothing, he thinks and now he has to just go home, he thinks and he looks at the fire down there on the shore, and now the fire is big, and it’s still hard to see if the fire is burning down on the bay below the boathouse or somewhere closer to him, he thinks, but it’s big, the fire, and pretty, the yellow and red flames in the darkness, in this cold, and in the light from the fire he sees the waves of the fjord beat like always against the stones of the shore, or he doesn’t see the waves, he thinks, he just sees the water coming in over the stones and running back out from the stones, the water moves in and out, it wets the stones and pulls back, he thinks and he stands there and stays standing and looking at the wet stones there in the light from the fire and then he looks at the fire and there in the fire, isn’t that a body there in the fire? a person? he thinks, there in the middle of the fire he sees a bearded face and then the beard, it is gray and black both, starts to burn, and the long gray and black hair is also on fire and he sees staring eyes right in the middle of the fire and something in the eyes is as if sucked up by the flames and as if dispersed into the cold air as smoke and he sees eyes and he can’t see the faces, they aren’t faces, they’re just grimaces, and he can’t see the bodies, and then he sees the eyes sort of find a voice and what he hears is like a howl, first a howling from one eye and then a scattered howling from lots of eyes and then the huge howl becomes one with the flames rising up and it disappears into the darkness and the voices in the eyes rise up and are smoke that you can’t see and he keeps walking and now it’s so cold that he has to go home, he thinks, it’s too cold to stay out and even if their house is old it’s warm there in the room back home in the old house, he thinks, they have a good stove, and they have a fire in it, and the wood is wood he got himself, in the summer he chops wood and in the fall he saws up the wood to the proper length, splits it, stacks it so that it gets good and dry, he thinks, yes, they have wood, a good amount of wood, and it’s good and warm, and before he went out he put a log in the stove, he thinks, and now she’s probably put more wood in the stove, so that the fire wouldn’t burn out, of course she has, so that it’s warm enough and nice in the room at home in the old house, he thinks and he starts to walk up the little road back home to the old house and now he can’t stop and look back down at the shore, now he has to go home, and he can’t think again that he should go out onto the fjord for a while, it’s too cold, it’s dark, he can’t think that, he thinks and he stops and he turns around and looks back down at the shore and there’s still a fire, but it’s smaller now, it’s now just a little fire he sees burning down there on the shore, so is the fire already burned out, he thinks, or is that another fire? could that really be another fire? yes it must be another fire, he thinks, because the fire he saw before was so much bigger, it was really a huge fire, big and strong, but now he sees a little fire burning, he thinks and he looks back home, back at the old house, at the window, and there she is standing there, small, with her black hair, she is standing there looking out, she, his wife, she is standing there and looking out the window as though she was part of the window, she is standing there, he thinks, always, always, whenever he pictures her she is standing there in the window, maybe she didn’t used to at first but lately, she has stood there all year lately, he thinks, that is how he remembers her, small, black hair, big eyes, and then the darkness like a frame around her, he thinks and he looks back down at the shore again and a little fire is burning steadily down on the shore, just below the boathouse, and then he sees, and even though it’s dark he sees it as clearly as if it was bright daylight, a woman with a little boy she’s carrying in her arm go up to the fire and in her other hand she is holding a plank of wood with bark on it that she lays on the fire and the woman stands there and looks into the flames, then she goes and picks up a stick with a sheep head on it, the stick goes in through the neck opening and the point of the stick comes out through the mouth, and she takes the stick over to the fire and she puts the stick with the sheep head on it into the flames and while the boy dangles in her arm she moves the sheep head back and forth in the flames, and then its wool catches fire and blazes up and then a burnt smell goes up, burning, and then she dips the sheep head into the water of the fjord before she puts it back into the flames, and again that burnt smell, and then she moves the sheep head back and forth, back and forth in the flames. That’s Aliss, he thinks, and he sees it, he knows it. That’s Aliss at the fire. That is Aliss, he thinks, his great-great-grandmother, he is sure of it. It’s Aliss, he was named after her, or rather after her grandson Asle, the one who died when he was seven, the one who drowned, he drowned in the bay, his Grandpa Olaf’s brother, his namesake. But that is Aliss, in her early twenties, he thinks. And the boy, about two years old, that’s Kristoffer, his great-grandfather, the one who would later be Grandpa Olaf’s father and also the father of the Asle he was named after, his namesake, the one who drowned when he was just seven years old, he thinks and he sees Kristoffer start to cry dangling there in Aliss’s arm and she puts down the stick with the sheep head on it and then she sets Kristoffer down on the shore and he stands up and stands there unsteady on his little legs, and then Kristoffer takes one careful step, and he stands, and then he takes another step, and then he falls on his side and shrieks and Aliss says no, why do you have to try to stand up, can’t you sit quiet, Aliss says, and she puts down the stick and she picks up Kristoffer and holds him tight to her chest

  You good little boy, you’re a good little boy, Aliss says

  Don’t cry now, don’t cry anymore, that’s a good boy, she says

  and Kristoffer stops crying, gives a little sob, and then he’s happy again and then Aliss puts him down on the same stone as before and she picks up the stick with the sheep head again and starts to burn it, moves it back and forth in the flames. And again Kristoffer stands up. And again he takes a careful step forward. And then another. And Aliss stands there, moving the stick with the sheep head on it back and forth in the flames. That is Aliss. That’s Aliss at the fire, he thinks and he sees Aliss standing there with her thick black hair, on her short legs, with her narrow hips. It’s Aliss. She was my great-grandfather’s mother, Kristoffer’s mother, Kristoffer whose sons were Grandpa Olaf and Asle, the one I was named after, the one who drowned when he was only seven, who got a nice little boat for his seventh birthday and drowned on the same day, playing with the boat, down on the bay, he thinks and he sees Kristoffer toddle forward, and it happens so slowly, he puts one foot
in front of the other, stands there for a minute, then he takes the next step, forward, swaying back and forth a little, but forward, and then Kristoffer is standing in front of a pile of sheep heads and he feels the mouth of one of the sheep heads with his finger and then he slowly sticks his finger into a nostril and then quickly pulls his hand back again and then he stands there and looks at the sheep head, he looks into one eye, and then puts his finger right on the eye, feels it and then jerks back his finger very fast and again Kristoffer stands there and looks into the eye and again he puts his finger right on the eye and he presses his finger against the eyelid and then he pulls it down over the eye. And then Kristoffer stands there and looks at the eye. And Aliss turns around and walks over to Kristoffer waving the burned sheep head on the stick and she says do you really want to sit there and look at those woolly bloody sheep heads, you’re not the one who has to, Aliss says, and she goes over to a trough and she uses the edge of the trough to pull the sheep head off the stick and then Aliss goes over to the pile of sheep heads and she drives the point of the stick into the neck opening of the sheep head that Kristoffer just pulled down the eyelid of and she pushes in the stick and then she picks up the sheep head and goes back over to the fire and puts the sheep head into the flame and the sharp smell spreads out and Aliss says no that doesn’t smell very good my good little boy, she says, and she puts the sheep head with the burning wool into the water down off the side of the pier and then it sizzles and Kristoffer is startled and he looks scared and he looks at the sheep heads lying there in front of him and he sees that they’re lying there quietly like before and he puts his finger into an open mouth and then quickly touches a tongue, then he grabs the teeth

  No leave the sheep head alone now, Aliss says

  They’re not for poking and playing with, she says

  Be a good boy, she says

  and Kristoffer pulls back his hand and he looks at Aliss and then Kristoffer sees the pretty brown almost black boat lying there, in the middle of all that blue, and then he takes a step, and another, out on the pier, and then he goes farther and he looks at the boat, black and pretty in the blue water, and Kristoffer is almost running out on the pier and then he is at the edge of the pier and he takes another step and he is there in empty space and then he is there in the water

  Kristoffer, God save you! Aliss screams

  and Aliss lets the sheep head be and lets the stick be and she is on the pier and she lies down flat on the edge of the pier and she stretches out her arm and she feels around in the water finds one of Kristoffer’s feet and grabs it and pulls the foot toward her and then she finds an arm and she pulls Kristoffer up over the edge of the pier

  No you’ve really done it now, Aliss says

  I look away for a second and you run right into the water, she says

  You can’t be trusted, she says

  No how could that happen, she says

  and Aliss picks up Kristoffer, who suddenly starts shrieking with all his might, and she presses him to her breast, and then she hurries over to the boathouse

  It’s so cold in that water, yes, we need to get you inside so you can warm up, Aliss says

  You can’t catch cold on me, you good little boy, she says

  My best little boy, you can’t get sick and go away from your mama now, no, she says

  You’re my best little boy, Kristoffer, she says

  and Aliss rubs Kristoffer’s back and he has started to shake, shiver after shiver goes through his body

  You can’t freeze, and catch cold, Kristoffer, good boy, Aliss says

  No no, she says

  Now you can’t catch cold on me, you’re a good boy, she says

  and he sees, standing there on the little road, Aliss come up the hill toward him with Kristoffer pressed against her breast, she comes running, and with black hair thick around her face, and those big eyes, and Aliss is coming as fast as she can on her short legs, and then Kristoffer’s terrified shrieking, and then this darkness, and these winds, and the rain, and now he has to get home soon, he thinks, because he can’t just stay standing on the little road and not go into his own house, where he’s lived his whole life, home into the old house, he thinks and he sees Aliss go past him and then he looks at her back, Aliss’s back, his great-great-grandmother’s back, that’s her, that’s Aliss, that’s her he sees hurrying around the corner, with her black hair hanging far down her back, and with her narrow hips, her short thin legs. That’s Aliss. That’s his great-great-grandmother, probably around twenty years old, he thinks, and the boy she’s pressing to her breast, about two years old probably, that’s his great-grandfather, Kristoffer. And he goes around the corner too, and he looks at Aliss with Kristoffer pressed against her breast go home through the front door of the old house, and he sees the door shut and she sees, lying there on the bench, the hall door open and then she sees a small woman with long black hair come in, she has big eyes, she is carrying a boy pressed against her breast and the woman rushes across the room and then she puts the boy down next to her on the edge of the bench and then the woman pulls the boy’s pants off, his sweater, she strips the boy totally naked and then she lays him down on the bench next to her, and the woman rubs his back again and again

  There there, good boy, don’t be cold anymore, the woman says

  Good boy Kristoffer, now you’ll get all warm, the woman says

  Don’t freeze now, she says

  Mama Aliss is here to rub you till you’re all warm, you’re a good boy, she says

  and Aliss rubs Kristoffer all over his back again and again and she sees Aliss stand up and she looks at Kristoffer lying there next to her on the bench, and he is wet, he’s sobbing a little, and there are shivers going through his body, and she sees Aliss go open the bedroom door and go in and then come back in and she is carrying a wool blanket and then Aliss comes over to the bench and she spreads the blanket out all over Kristoffer and then Aliss sits down on the edge of the bench and she starts to rub Kristoffer’s back again, over and over, rubbing and rubbing his back

  So, my darling Kristoffer, now you’re getting warm again, good little Kristoffer, Aliss says

  There there, good boy, good boy Kristoffer, she says Just think, you fell in the water, such a little boy and you fell in the water, but luckily Mama Aliss was there, yes, she says

  and she sees Aliss rub Kristoffer’s back again and again and she looks at the window and she sees herself standing there looking out the window, and she’s always standing there, why does she always have to stand there? there’s no reason for her to stand there? she thinks and then she hears that Kristoffer is breathing evenly now and she sees Aliss stand up and go out the kitchen door and she looks at Kristoffer and then she puts her arms around him and then she hugs Kristoffer close and then she rubs and she rubs his back and then she lightly strokes his hair and then she again sees herself standing there in front of the window and looking out, and she has been standing there so long now, almost motionless, she has stood there in front of the window, she thinks and she thinks, standing there in front of the window, that now he really does have to come home soon, why doesn’t he come home? and it’s so cold out, windy, and raining, and why doesn’t he come home? she thinks, and there, out there in the middle of the fjord, did she see something? no, nothing, she probably just imagined it? she thinks, but now she will probably have to go out soon and look for him, she thinks, because she can’t just stand here like this, in front of the window, and he can’t really have gone out in his boat in this weather? or can he? no, he couldn’t have, she thinks, but there, down there on the shore, isn’t that a fire she sees there? no it can’t be, on this dark evening, late in November, in the rain and the wind, but still that really is a fire she’s seeing, isn’t it? she thinks, it is, it’s a fire, and now she has to go look for him, whether she wants to or not, she thinks and she turns around and she walks across the room and she thinks that now she really will have to go look for him soon and he thinks that he re
ally has to go inside soon, he thinks, standing there in the yard and looking at the front step, big and broad, lying there heavy in the light outside, and in this weather he can’t just stay standing around outside, he thinks, it’s windy and raining, it is, and it’s cold, too cold to stay outside, and what’s wrong with him? he thinks, why can’t he just go inside? what is it, why is he still waiting? what’s stopping him? what is it? he thinks and he opens the front door and the doorknob is loose, two screws are missing and the other three are loose, and he needs to fix that, he thinks, but it’s been like that for so long already, for years, he thinks, and he has thought that he needed to fix it so many times, he thinks, he thought it over and over again but it always just stays the way it is, he’ll probably never do anything about it until the doorknob falls off and is lying on the front step, he thinks and he walks into the hall and the old walls there settle into place all around him and say something to him, the same way they always have, he thinks, it’s always like that, whether he notices it and thinks about it or not the walls are there, and it is as if silent voices are speaking from them, as if a big tongue is there in the walls and this tongue is saying something that can never be said with words, he knows it, he thinks, and what it’s saying is something behind the words that are usually said, something in the wall’s tongue, he thinks, and he stands there and looks at the walls, no, what is wrong with him today? why is he being like this? he thinks, and he puts his hand flat on the wall, and it seems like the wall is telling him something, he thinks, something that can’t be said but that is, just is, he thinks, and it’s almost like he is touching a person, he thinks, almost like something is being said the way something is said when you touch someone, he thinks and he strokes the wall and there is almost a caress in his fingers running over the old brown paneling and then he hears footsteps and he pulls his hand back and then he sees the door from the room open and there she is standing in the doorway