by Roy Jacobsen
*
On the way back to the island Felix and Lars take the oars, Ingrid sits on the aft thwart with a brown envelope on her lap, feeling the balmy summer breeze in her hair.
“Hva ar’ tha grinnen’ a’?” Lars says.
“Nothin’,” says the queen of Barrøy, who is being rowed out to her kingdom by two subjects who have no idea what plans she has, nor will they get to hear of them before they are implemented. She has learned this from her father. Silence. The element of surprise. The deeds and the duplicates in the envelope. No, she has learned this from her mother. Or has she? She can’t remember. She is no longer smiling. She misses them both more now than she has ever done since they died. And Lars looks away.
52
Hans Barrøy had three dreams: he dreamed about a boat with a motor, about a bigger island and a different life. He mentioned the first two dreams readily and often, to all and sundry, the last he never talked about, not even to himself.
Maria had three dreams too: more children, a smaller island and – a different life. Unlike her husband she often thought about the last of these, and this yearning grew and grew as the first two paled and withered.
When her husband died she began to have regrets.
To regret having a dream is the most debilitating experience there is. She regretted thinking the island was too big, with all the endless work it entailed, and wishing for more children, because she had Ingrid.
Thereafter a threat slowly unfurled inside her, the feeling from the time when the convict had been there and stolen something they didn’t know they had, and left a stain on their lives, something came with the wind, the birds and the sea, the snow, the water in the kitchen and the eagles that had begun to sit on the roof of the quay house. She could hear the thudding of the cat’s paws across the floor, which compounded into a solid drop that swelled and contracted like an animal’s heart.
*
I’ll take you by the hand, Mamma, Ingrid says, standing in the doorway of her childhood room, waiting for Maria to get up and dress.
They go down to the kitchen and drink coffee and have breakfast, which Barbro has put on the table. Barbro has already attended to the animals, they are in the fields round the clock now, and come bellowing to the buildings when their udders are bursting and wake anyone who is listening, and this summer it is Barbro, Barbro who curses and gets up and milks them, Ingrid is busy with other things.
Ingrid goes back upstairs and wakes Suzanne, watches as she gets dressed as well, in the clothes she herself once wore, goes down and finishes eating and then into the fields, whatever the weather.
They walk around the island and see that the grass has grown and know that it will get taller yet. They row over to the islets and count the lambs. Maria recognises some things, but not all, she says, ah, yes, and sees something even Ingrid can’t remember. She asks how many children she has. Ingrid says three. No, Maria says. She articulates single words, as if to practise saying them, boat, lighthouse, horse . . . Here come the children, she says as the færing returns after the day’s trip to the Trading Post with stockfish. Ingrid shouts, you remembered the receipt, didn’t you? Lars doesn’t answer, climbs up the ladder and heads home to get something to eat, with Felix close on his heels.
Maria’s smile.
It doesn’t belong here.
They sit down on the quay and she recalls how her husband was dressed when they met, what he said, his ideas, and Ingrid’s eyelids droop, but she lets her continue, the horse, the sand, the fireplace . . . Suzanne throws stones into the sea and balances on the edge of the quay. Ingrid tells her to stop. Maria comments on how lovely the young girl looks, with her hair combed and groomed like a doll, and Ingrid realises that the littl’un would probably make herself dirty if she got Maria’s attention, that Suzanne is beginning to know how to exploit her charms. This evening she will be going with them to do the milking, the cows are in Bosom Acre now, where the mower can’t be used anyway, the grass is getting even higher, the most peaceful days of the year merge into one another, without nights, while the grass grows and the rain falls and the sun shines and the gulls scream, until Paulus comes with the horse.
*
It is spring high tide and midnight, all the sounds inside a glass flask, the voice of the light nights. Ingrid can see Maria’s eyes change at the sight of the horse, which Paulus has tied by its legs and upper body and head to the railing, the wheelhouse and the mast, it stands locked into position like a wooden toy and has deposited a huge pile of shit on the deck.
They push out the gangway that Felix and Lars have made, the animal is led ashore and will stay on Barrøy until the next spring tide, some time in the dog days, Ingrid has calculated, so it will have time to plough up new ground for potatoes next summer.
Paulus also delivers a consignment of goods from the Store. Ingrid wants to make sure that everything is as it should be, but again she notices Maria’s eyes, sees she has placed a hand on the horse’s mane as if to welcome the animal, and her eyes roll, she bends her neck and sways, her hand grabbing the mane, it keeps her upright, she lifts her head and gazes at Ingrid with eyes that have stopped rolling. And Ingrid wants to loosen her grip and take her home, but Maria lets go herself, pats the horse’s neck and says:
“They shot th’ horse.”
“Hva?”
“They shot th’ horse an’ thought we didn’t see.”
The others lead the horse away. Maria and Ingrid walk home and sit on the rainwater-tank lid. Maria with the midnight sun shining through her hair, turning it completely white, it can’t even be plaited. She says she has spoken to Zezenie at the hospital, several times, or tried, she won’t be back.
Ingrid nods.
“Does tha get hva A’m sayen’?”
“Yes,” Ingrid says.
Maria asks if she has settled everything with the priest, the papers?
Ingrid nods.
“Good.”
Ingrid asks if she wants to move back to the South Chamber. Maria answers no, there is no need. She says she wanted to talk to the doctors about the thudding cat’s paws, but they only wanted to hear about her husband, and she remembered just one episode, he wanted to sit directly opposite her at the kitchen table so as not to lose her for a single second, it was only a year ago he said that, or two. Then she fell asleep and didn’t wake up again until she placed her hand on a horse and felt its muscles breathing under its hot skin. Ingrid says she understands, but she is worried and asks her mother if she believes her father knew he was going to die. Maria deliberates, and says no, it was a good death, he died when he had to die, it is like so much else that is good, it is impossible to know.
53
The horse was called Wilhelm after a Kaiser and wasn’t like the one they had before, in the first place it didn’t mind being on an island, and it didn’t kick, but it was lazy and good-natured, and lay down to sleep when they unharnessed it from whatever it had been pulling. Felix and Suzanne could ride it.
With it came two buckets of linseed oil, one small and one large sack of powder, and some brushes, Ingrid wanted to paint the house.
‘Th’ hus is goen’ t’ bi white.”
With green windows and barge boards.
When they weren’t mowing and drying the hay, they were painting. Maria too. She painted the windows, slowly and painstakingly. This was the first house on Barrøy to see any paint. And it changed not only the house but also the whole island, it transformed the rocks and sand and grass and animals and trees. When they had finished they couldn’t look at it, at any rate they couldn’t believe what they saw, the old grey house looked as if it had been cast out of freshly fallen snow, it seemed to be located somewhere else, on the mainland, in a town, it smacked of immense wealth, resplendent here in all its glory, without rivals, it was a shock, a foreign body, it was enough to make you split your sides with laughter.
They went into the fields in the evening and turned around and looked homeward and thought that is wh
ere we live. This was also the first thing they did in the morning: go out and look at the house, it gave them energy, hope, and put them in a good mood. It was nicer to be outside than in, and it hadn’t been like that before. The house looked different when viewed from Love Spinney from how it did from Frosteye or Karvika, it was changeable and volatile and visible from the other islands, a tower, a landmark in the sea, an icon. People came by in their rowing boats and wondered what the Barrøy islanders had been getting up to now, asked whether the paint was expensive and durable and difficult to apply, before rowing home again, their heads full of ideas.
The house was visible all the way from the Trading Post. It was visible from the sky, from the sea, from the mountains on the mainland, from the government offices in Oslo, and Borneo, there wasn’t an eye that couldn’t see it.
*
They hitched up the lazy horse to the mower and cut the grass in Rose Acre and Scab Acre and the Garden of Eden. They found all the old holes for the drying-rack posts and erected the racks the way they had always been, north to south, so they wouldn’t be blown down, undulating grey-green lines criss-crossing the stone walls.
In the course of the summer there were many developments they hadn’t dared hope for. Uncle Erling paid a visit with his family and allied himself with Ingrid with regard to schooling; Lars would have to arm himself with patience for another year before they would take him with them to Lofoten. Aunt Helga couldn’t recognise Maria, and couldn’t hide her disappointment, her all too obvious disappointment. She didn’t recognise Suzanne or Felix either, the little girl was in nappies the last time she had seen her, and chubby Felix had become as thin as a rake and looked older than the eight years he would soon be, according to the duplicate birth certificate which bore his name, a name which was to be changed as soon as Ingrid found the time, from Tommesen to Barrøy.
When Paulus comes to collect the horse they have finally realised what their forefathers had always known, a horse can only be a temporary guest on an island, it has something to do with the size of the place, which can be difficult to come to terms with, it is all bound up with grass and money and ambitions and work and divine calculations.
Eventually they decide to mow the reclaimed land on Gjesøya too.
It has to be done with scythes.
The whole family joins in. They discuss whether to have drying racks here too. Ingrid says they should. Lars disagrees. Ingrid says it is easier to transport dry hay than wet. Lars says that in that case they would have to row poles and cords both ways, and sledgehammers and crowbars. Maria agrees with Ingrid. Suzanne does too. Barbro sides with Lars. So does Felix. Ingrid says that school will be starting soon. Felix says he is looking forward to it. Lars says nothing. There are two camps. One of them usually gets its way. And on a hot, late summer day a grey haar suddenly forms like a wall on the horizon and slowly creeps towards them, leaving one island after the other in blue-grey darkness, swallowing up and enveloping everything and everyone in a cold, raw blanket. Where previously they had an unimpeded view in all directions, now they cannot even see their own sheep, neither can they see the hay-drying racks or the bushes or the lighthouse or the gleaming house on Barrøy, only a few blades of grass right in front of their feet and the tears rolling down them, even though it isn’t raining.
The haar brings its gloom in the middle of the day, a solar eclipse and a loss of vision. They put down their tools in silence and wrap themselves up in warmer clothes, sit on a rock and let their thoughts roam free, illuminated by an inner light – just as the blind look inwards because they have no alternative – and come upon a memory or a wisp of something no-one understands and which they cannot share or put to any use.
When vision is lost the other senses become keener, the intense smell of nettles and marshland and seaweed and wet wool, the haar as salty as the sea that engendered it, a stranger’s cold embrace on the skin, and even though the eider duck rises and spreads its wings above the ground, and insects and animals are as silent as the people here, a strange sound emanates from inside the haar, a rushing sound, like the ocean in a conch shell or a dead rat being dragged through powdery snow.
But no more than an hour or two passes before the sun burns it all away, at first a boiled cod eye in the haze a few degrees further north, then yellower and more golden until it dispels and destroys the last remaining shroud, thereby unleashing their vision in all directions, like wild horses. Then it is as though they have had their working day halved, or been given a whole new day within the old one, and can set to work with the scythe again.
ROY JACOBSEN has twice been nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literary Award: for Seierherrene in 1991 and Frost in 2003. In 2009 he was shortlisted for the Dublin Impac Award for his novel The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles. The Unseen was a phenomenal bestseller in Norway.
DON BARTLETT is the acclaimed translator of books by Karl Ove Knausgård, Jo Nesbø and Per Petterson.
DON SHAW, co-translator, is a teacher of Danish and author of the standard Danish–Thai/Thai–Danish dictionaries.
