Somewhere Over the Sea

by Halfdan Freihow

  AFTER A LOT OF HALF promises, late one summer we finally drove down to Kristiansand and the Zoo and Pirates’ Bay. There you met them all, Pella and Pysa, Pinky and Ruben, Sunniva and Langemann, not to mention the glimpse you caught of Captain Sabretooth himself up at the top of a tower. We panned for gold and went into Gruesome Gabriel’s treasure chamber, where you, very understandably, felt particularly at home. Then we went to sea on the pirate ship The Black Lady and spent a small fortune in the shops that sold pirate gear. It was fun and exciting, even for us adults, but at the same time it was a little disturbing: everything here was so consistent, so right and so “real” that it was hard for you to believe anything other than what you’d come to find confirmation of. Nor did it take long before you, with minimal indecision in your voice and eyes, proclaimed triumphantly:

  — There, you see? There are real pirates! Only they live here on Kristiansand!

  (For a long time you said that, “on,” presumably in line with an unconscious logic that made pirates = treasure = island, so that the city of Kristiansand therefore had to be an island one was “on.”)

  The argument was, in a way, irrefutable. In the crowd around you pirates of the good old-fashioned type were actually strolling, sitting, and standing about — at least to the eyes of a child who was looking to see just that. Anyway, there was no reason to contradict you and spoil the day. Better to walk the plank, gather our last doubloons, and buy tickets for the evening’s performance.

  You were excited, naturally. You’d be allowed to stay up long past bedtime, and you’d finally get to see your alter ego, the King of the Seven Seas, Captain Sabretooth, at close range. You were even made up for the occasion — your face was painted skull-white — and you had a hat and moustache and were carrying a hook, a sword, and a pistol.

  At first, when we entered the amphitheatre, you were a little uncertain. Even though we had repeatedly explained that this was a performance we were going to, a play, and you’d replied that of course you knew that, it evidently hadn’t occurred to you that this implied, among other things, sitting down quietly in numbered rows and “just” being a spectator. All the same, it probably reassured you to see the other children looking just like you, with deathly pale faces and blood-red lips beneath stringy moustaches, and terrifying with all their weapons: they too had to find their places and sit down.

  Then came the flames and the thunder and the music, so much light and sound that it took your breath away. It was impressive, overwhelming, and compelling, and once love and treachery, evil and heroism had all run their course, the good ­triumphed in the end, and everyone could join in and sing the closing song.

  But you’d seen through something. You’d seen that the castle to the left was only a facade, that it wasn’t real, that it was just scenery. You’d seen that the actors only appeared to kill and to be killed. You’d seen the floodlights and the microphones, the changes of scenery and the changes of costume, and you’d understood that this was just theatre, this was just pretend. Not even Captain Sabretooth was for real — he was standing there on the stage smiling and bowing and inviting the audience to come back some other time. Maybe even his treasure wasn’t for real?

  You didn’t say these things then, nor have you spoken of them since. But I could see that you were more than suspicious, that you pondered the possibility that Mom and Dad might have a point, that perhaps real pirates didn’t exist anymore.

  Your suspicion was strengthened a few months later when we invited your class to the house for a pirates’ carnival. We’d worked hard on invitations made like treasure maps, with singed edges and drops of candle wax, and they all came, armed to the teeth and in their finest costumes. Even Mom and I were dressed up in homemade pirate finery. It was a marvellous evening, you all went treasure hunting around the house, and you got sweets and money and gold — of chocolate, admittedly — but everyone was happy, including you. All the same, it was as if you now knew and no longer just suspected: pirates are something you play at, not something you can be for real.

  Since then there’s been a half-heartedness about your sessions of playing at pirates. It’s as if it doesn’t seem worth the effort anymore. And it hasn’t been as difficult for us to coax you out of your pirate role — if not of all the other roles. A lost innocence, perhaps, but above all a triumph for maturity, a big step on the road to gaining an understanding of who you are in the world.

  And we’ll just have to put up with the fact that you’re no longer afraid of being called a landlubber. There are more important things in life than eating fish.

  — ARE YOU SURE you want to do this, Gabriel? You can do exactly what you want, no one at school will say anything if you change your mind. You know that, don’t you?

  — Yes, I know that. But can’t I do it if I want to? Please, please, please? I know it, here, just listen . . .

  And you launch into your song, both verses. You do it impeccably, strictly speaking, even though you also demonstrate beyond any doubt that you’re your parents’ true-born son and that you, like them, would be wise to choose a career other than music.

  But this wasn’t about music. This was about longing and your need to be seen the way you saw that others were seen. It was about being included by the others, something you hardly ever experience ordinarily, at least not outside school hours. That treat is so exceptional for you that on the rare occasions when children your own age call on you at home you’re completely perplexed. You lose your conceptions, as you put it, without being quite sure what that means. Do you remember that day last summer when Marit from your class suddenly rang the doorbell? First she gave you a hug that left you embarrassed and almost lost for words, and then she asked if you wanted to go out and play. You were so busy expressing your amazement that you almost forgot to answer her:

  — Can you imagine, Dad? Someone in my class wants to visit me! And in the middle of summer holidays too!

  Yes, of course you wanted to be part of it, of course you wanted to sing, and of course you wanted to do it on a stage in front of the class and all the others. Of course you wanted to show them that you too could do it, that you were one of them.

  YOU ASK MANY and difficult questions, Gabriel, but some of them are difficult in complicated ways. If others had asked them, I might have perhaps considered them rhetorical and a bit stupid. When you’re the one asking, however, I see and hear that they are deeply serious questions, born of a pain in you that won’t go away, no matter how often you ask them, for they have no answers. They are questions like:

  — Why can’t I be like the others?

  — Because, son, because . . . you’re different.

  It isn’t a good answer and I know that. All the others are different too, and yet you’re unlike them. And it hurts you — more because you don’t understand why you’re different than because you actually are. The latter you can, in a sense, come to terms with. The former is a riddle with no answer, and you’re condemned to live with it.

  But even if you’re different, you’re not alone, Gabriel. Spread around the world are millions of people who struggle with the same sorts of problems as you do, even though they do so in other ways and with different preconditions. What unites you is that you don’t understand, you don’t master the social games that go on around you and seem so utterly easy and natural to the rest of us.

  Still you’re right, in a way, when you protest almost accusingly against such attempts to calm you and comfort you, when you express doubt that anyone else in the whole world can have the same problems as you, because no two people are exactly similar, so no two people can have exactly similar problems. You say this with a certainty I don’t quite know how to interpret. Is it simply a logical inference you’re formulating? Are you talking about a painful and perhaps unconscious insight that stems from your experience of being different? Or is it that you find streng
th and security in the experience of being the only one? Sometimes it seems as though you derive comfort from this very undefinability, as when you came home one day shortly after the start of a new school year and exclaimed happily, as though it were a great encouragement:

  — Hey, Mom, it’s so great — we’ve got a girl in our class who’s different! Yeah, not different like me, but different from the others!

  Your classmates are exceptional. From the very first day at school they’ve embraced you with a natural compassion that is free of any strained sympathy or adult-induced sense of obligation. They can tease you and shout at you, they can quarrel with you and have mock fights with you, they can also have real fights with you if they or you make it necessary; but they have a kind of built-in understanding of where your limits are, of what you’re able to accept and tolerate, of what happens when you suddenly turn very Gabriel, and of what they then ought to do and definitely not do. Perhaps part of the explanation is that from the very beginning we’ve tried to be open with both them and their parents by giving, among other things, explanatory talks about you at parents’ meetings and class gatherings. But most of all it’s just blessed good luck: you’ve been lucky enough to end up among children who probably don’t always understand you and perhaps don’t even always like you, but who nevertheless, or perhaps for that very reason, wish you well.

  I never saw this more clearly than on National Day. Like most of the other festive holidays children look forward to, May 17 isn’t a good day for you. The expectations are so immense and diffuse that they can’t possibly be met, the level of noise so high, the crowd so great, the impressions so manifold. You lose track of things, and the ability to concentrate, you become confused and that makes you dispirited. And yet each year we try, because we’d so much like for you to feel included.

  This time you have, uneventfully, but also with no apparent pleasure or understanding of the point of it, marched in the morning procession and carried the flag from school to church. Afterwards we’ve been to town and bought a cap gun, ice cream, and a sausage roll. Now we’re going to school, where there will be speeches and games and competitions. You and your schoolmates have shot your way through most of your ammunition, and because everybody else is, you too want to take part in the race on the sports field. The event is organized by classes, and prospects of huge gold medals are held out to the winners. One of those, you say, you’ve just got to have, and you decide, as though it were a matter of pure will, to win.

  I stand behind you on the starting line, and with a lump in my stomach, explain that you mustn’t begin to run before you hear “Ready, Steady” — and then the starting gun. Great doses of adrenalin and excitement are pumping through you, but you confirm that you’ve understood.

  — Ready . . . Steady . . .

  The crack comes so suddenly and unexpectedly that you need a moment to compose yourself. But you feel the thrust of my hand on your back, hear the cheering from the sidelines, and see that the others are off. You stride out, you run like you’ve never run before, narrow-eyed and determined. You run to win, to get that medal, to show them, and then . . . you look around and see that you’re all alone, that there’s just you and the gravel field, that way ahead the others are already crossing the finishing line, and you realize that you’ve lost.

  A terrible no! explodes from your throat, and you collapse into a fetal position in the middle of that sea of gravel and weep convulsively. A moment later I’m there, sitting with you and holding you tight against my chest, not knowing what to say or do. An awkward silence descends upon the field; people look over at one another and out at us.

  Then they’re there, your classmates, all of them, swarming round you. I can hardly believe what I’m hearing.

  — You were great, Gabriel!

  — You did it, Gabriel!

  — What a good runner you are, Gabriel!

  You raise tearful, disbelieving eyes to look at them, and the trace of a crooked smile appears on your face.

  — Come on, Gabriel, let’s go and get your medal!

  — Yes but, I didn’t win . . .

  — Of course you won, Gabriel!

  — You were brilliant, Gabriel!

  — Come on, come and fetch your medal, Gabriel!

  You stand up and dry your face on your sleeve, and radiate pure, unadulterated pride and joy as your classmates lead you to the trophy table. Out on the gravel field I remain sitting with my own tears, moved as rarely before by what these seven- and eight-year-old children have done for you, just because they wished you well.

  IT’S BEEN A FORTNIGHT since May 17. Fourteen May days are a long time in a child’s mind, long enough time to leave things behind and get on, but today is the school’s cultural evening, and I haven’t forgotten that scene on the gravel track. The lump in my stomach is back, only bigger.

  As usual, when it’s something important, I’ve left the camera at home. Your classmates’ parents and the parents of other children you know come over and wish us luck. They probably haven’t forgotten either. Some of them offer to take photos when it’s your turn.

  The program is extensive this evening. Individually or in small groups, thirty second-graders are going to sing, dance, recite, or perform sketches. I must admit I remember very little of what happened. I see that some of the bigger pupils are dangling from the wall-bars with the tacit permission of the teachers, and I picture you standing and waiting in the locker room where we left you, a somewhat distant look in your eyes, but more because you sense an unusual level of tension among your fellow pupils than because you’re tense yourself. Out in the gym hall, Mom and I are feeling a little uncomfortable, almost stared at. We try to talk about other things while we wait, but as always when the conversation absolutely has to be about something else, it comes back around to you. In the end we sit there in silence. Victoria finds acquaintances with whom to while away the waiting time.

  The lights go down and the teacher takes the floor to welcome us and say a few well-chosen words about what she’s proud to present to us this evening. Then the annual cultural evening for the district school’s second grade is underway.

  I can’t follow what’s going on, I’m much too nervous. I’m in Nicaragua. There’s a big surprise waiting for you there, which I haven’t told you about. During a visit a few months earlier, in connection with an aid project, I met somebody who introduced me to someone else who knew the boss of a breeding ­station outside Managua. I paid a hefty price, but things like this don’t come cheap, and then the fees, to the vet, to the agricultural department, to the export authorities, plus a few other governmental bodies. The diplomats at the Norwegian embassy and good contacts among people in high office did their best, but there wasn’t enough time. It turned out that the Norwegian authorities required six months notice to okay the import, and I had to return home empty-handed. But all the same — in an accredited and well-run breeding station in Nicaragua — it’s waiting for you. It’s yours, Gabriel, only it lives somewhere else. Green as spring grass, speckled with all the colours of the rainbow, the most loquacious breed, found only in the depths of America, which for you doesn’t mean the U.S., but Latin and South America, because what are fast cars and skyscrapers compared to the mysteries and wonders of the jungle, incarnate in the eloquent bird that sits perched on the shoulder of every self-respecting pirate, a genuine . . .

  — . . . which he has chosen himself and which he will now sing for us. Please, Gabriel.

  Never before has a gym been this quiet. You walk out onto the floor, position yourself in front of the microphone, cast a glance at the guitarist who’s to accompany you, and look out across the hall. You appear neither afraid nor uncertain, more as though you’re trying to get an overall picture of the unusual situation, as of a complicated traffic picture. Around you, on the other hand, the tension is palpable. Two hundr
ed, perhaps three hundred eyes see only you. Silent prayers fill the air.

  Ready . . . Steady . . .

  The first chord sounds like a starting gun, but this time you’re prepared. You empty your eyes — and you sing. You sing! You don’t stumble, you don’t stutter, you don’t forget a single line, not so much as a word. You sing systematically and confidently and flawlessly

  I am a parrot from the jungle deep

  Where I was born a long time ago.

  My parrot mama said, because I couldn’t speak:

  Give him time, he’ll talk, I know

  and you don’t see it, but there are tears in two hundred eyes, tears of joy, tears of relief, proud tears, and when you’ve finished both your verses and the final chords die away and you bow deeply, the ovation is thunderous.

  We stand up, the whole room stands up, we clap and cheer and shout bravo and dry our tears, and you smile crookedly and happily and take another bow. You’ve done it; you’ve shown them that you can too, that you’re one of them.

  But I look at all these people who now stand applauding, hailing you for what you’ve just achieved on stage. They are the same people who, fourteen days ago, stood and watched you fall to pieces on the gravel field, and we all know that what you’ve done now is much more than show us you can sing in front of an audience. Because that day on the sports field you laid bare, you screamed out a nakedness that only a very few would confess to. And what’s more, tonight you have, on behalf of us all, surmounted it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Do you remember the day of the fire?

  I didn’t wake suddenly, because sleep was strong and held on tightly to the prey it had been hunting for most of the night. But the noise was stronger, an insistent knocking that didn’t belong here where only crying seagulls and bleating sheep have an established right to disturb the early-morning peace. Slowly and laboriously, as though constantly having to stop to decompress, consciousness rose to the surface. As it finally broke through I heard clearly: someone was shouting and hammering on a door.