The Bridges

by Tarjei Vesaas

  ‘Good evening,’ she said in greeting, since she was the one to arrive.

  She was clearly saying it to Aud. Torvil watched while their eyes met and they looked at each other without blinking. Wide open.

  They answered good evening in unison.

  They were immediately drawn to her in a peculiar way, although there was no reason why they should be. It was just that there was something about the stranger ... They answered good evening in unison.

  Nothing was said about names, as is usual when meeting strangers. Torvil had never seen this girl before, and he was not going to ask her what her name was. He did not want to know: names were dangerous. Aud probably thought it unimportant.

  Who was going to begin?

  This beautiful stranger, fear glimmering in her uncertain eyes, ought to begin. The girl with the white face. Her face was pale now. The flush had receded and taken its colour with it.

  Torvil stared at her more than he ought. Then he recovered himself and looked away.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ said the stranger, ‘I was the person who threw the stone to you.’

  Her voice was as hesitant as her manner. She stood before them utterly helpless. It looked as if she had used up her strength in getting to the meeting-place.

  Aud said, ‘Yes, we understand that.’

  ‘But we don’t know how you found us,’ said Torvil. ‘We didn’t see anybody.’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a moment.’

  Torvil nodded.

  What would come next?

  Not a settlement. They were not two parties to a transaction. It was simply a meeting. The stranger had come to receive something Aud and Torvil had brought. Something of the sort was behind it. But there could be disagreement on that account. The starting point was uncertain and awkward.

  The girl made an effort to speak again. ‘And I haven’t been sent by anyone. I’m the one. Just so you know you’ve met the right person, the one who wanted to meet you.’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Torvil to the tortured eyes.

  ‘We understand,’ said Aud.

  ‘And there’s something else I must say at once: there’s nobody else. Nobody else is involved. It’s been me the whole time, alone.’

  Her voice became stronger as she spoke. What she had said was important: nobody had been with her, there was no witness. What had been done she had done herself—you saw she could be trusted.

  Aud exclaimed, ‘Is there really no one who knows?’

  ‘You two know. No one else.’

  They were happy to hear it. Everything began to look different. They felt safer. Suddenly they felt a little bit stronger.

  Aud seemed to find it difficult to believe. ‘But how could you ...?’

  The girl did not let her finish. ‘I tell you I was alone! Nobody besides you and me knows about this.’

  ‘I see,’ said Aud.

  ‘That was why I had to let you know,’ added the stranger. ‘Because you two came here that evening and found what you did. None of us wanted that to happen.’

  Talking made her wrought up, exhausted as she was in more ways than one.

  Aud and Torvil could do nothing but wait and listen. Aud cringed when the rough question was thrown right in her face: ‘Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Of course I believe you,’ answered Aud shamefacedly. ‘I just didn’t realize it was possible to ... well, to manage all alone like that.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever heard of it happening before?’

  ‘Maybe I have. I apologize.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got to believe it,’ she said wearily, unexpectedly severe, ‘or this is no use.’

  ‘I do, didn’t you hear me? I said I apologized.’

  ‘I apologize too. It doesn’t take much to set me off today.’

  Torvil felt left out. Surely Aud was entitled to her suspicion that they were not the only ones to know. On the other hand, they could not help but accept anything she said. She had that effect on them—and she was following a hard course. It was not the moment for lies; they would have been far too crude and unnecessary after all that had happened.

  So Aud said with embarrassment, ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

  But the girl could not let the subject drop; she had lost her composure.

  ‘You weren’t supposed to know anything about it, either,’ she said to Aud. ‘Heaven knows I didn’t ask anyone to come and surprise me, and find everything. It was too painful for me to want witnesses. I didn’t ask you ... Or you!’ she said in the same breath to Torvil, so that he started at the violence in her voice. It made him slightly annoyed, too, and he said so.

  ‘I realize we’re not welcome, but what else could we do? We didn’t deliberately go out looking for something. Surely one must be allowed to go walking right beside one’s own house.’

  Aud warned him quietly, ‘Torvil!’

  A little nudge inside them both: a name had been spoken. The girl glanced at him quickly; now she knew that he was called Torvil. It probably didn’t mean much, though. She said to Torvil, ‘Don’t be annoyed. I’ll try to control myself. I sent the message, and you came in answer to it—and I’m sure you didn’t want to. And I have thanked you for it.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  They stood in silence for a while. Nothing had been done yet. They were waiting once more for her to make the first move. She stood collecting herself, seemingly embarrassed by what she had already said. Then she began:

  ‘What did you think when you got my note?’

  ‘It was no use thinking anything,’ replied Torvil. ‘In the first place we didn’t know who it came from. We disagreed about it too.’

  ‘I asked to meet you, because naturally I wanted to know what you’ve done about this since then. May I ask you about it?’

  A sudden strange joy: the knowledge of what he had not done. The area around them lighting up. The words one could say now. Torvil’s finger wanting to nudge Aud in gratitude.

  ‘Done since then?’ said Torvil. ‘Not much.’

  ‘We expected to hear from you in one way or another,’ said Aud.

  Torvil corrected her.

  ‘We expected someone to come—since we saw someone had been there after us. We didn’t know who it might be. Aud thought it was you, but I didn’t. But we expected someone to come.’

  The girl stared at him with uncertain eyes.

  ‘Someone was there afterwards? But you’ve just heard who that was—it was me.’

  ‘Yes, of course, don’t let’s go into that. That’s obvious.’

  ‘But what have you told people?’ she went on, getting to the point at last.

  ‘Do you really think we’ve told anyone? That would make it look different,’ said Torvil. It was marvellous to be able to say that.

  She seemed to have difficulty believing it.

  ‘You haven’t told anyone? When I said just now that you and I were the only ones who knew anything I didn’t really believe it. I thought you’d probably told someone that evening—even though you might not have meant to.’

  Aud said, ‘No, we haven’t told a soul.’

  Aud’s turn to say something encouraging: the first firm ground to stand on.

  She hugged Aud wildly for a moment, then released her again.

  At once it began to grow dark around them in the thicket.

  Why?

  Nonsense! They were wrought up and had not looked about them for a while. Now, during the moment of relief that came with that grateful hug, now they noticed the darkness.

  Delicately and slowly the darkness crept up between tree trunks and bushes. The uprooted stones lay as before, pale sides up. They had last been turned over in madness.

  We shall have to hear all about it, I suppose.

  The darkness is growing about us. Her words will shatter it.

  She was looking at Aud, openly grateful.

  ‘It’s all because of you. I think I heard that from where I was lying that evening,’ she
said, her voice indistinct.

  This was difficult for Aud to take. She was embarrassed and said quickly, ‘Don’t know what I thought. We were too upset.’

  ‘For I don’t suppose it was you,’ said the girl to Torvil. ‘A boy wouldn’t have thought, would he?’

  This was a dig at boys, and Torvil had to put up with it. Besides, he remembered far too clearly what he had been about to do when Aud stopped him.

  Aud said, rather rudely, ‘Does this have anything to do with it?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. But I was lying so close to you that you almost trampled on me. So I could hear what you said. Some of it. In snatches. I understood that you lived near here. I had passed quite close to those houses on my way to the wood.’

  She told them this in broken phrases, while the darkness fell and made ready for what was coming. The other two stood mesmerized.

  She went on: ‘Afterwards I went past those houses many times, to make certain that it was you two who lived there. I stood in hiding, watching everything, until I was sure. I’ve seen everyone who lives there. And then I waited. I was the one who was waiting—for something to happen, for something to appear in the newspapers, to hear that they had started searching for me. I found nothing, but I couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘How strange,’ said Aud, almost inaudibly.

  ‘So in the end I threw you that stone.’ She turned to Torvil with a little more goodwill. ‘And now I know why nothing happened. Why I didn’t hear from anyone.’

  She stopped speaking. Let it grow dark.

  They knew what she was thinking and prepared themselves.

  Now our faces are becoming indistinct.

  Better this way—but this is the difficult moment.

  Now it’s coming close.

  This is going to be awful—I don’t want to stay.

  14

  Gliding Depths

  At least one can find some support.

  What are we sitting on? We’re not standing. We’re steadying ourselves on something.

  Standing erect like candles? Oh no. Like darker columns in the darkness? Oh no, one must have support.

  Even though we can’t see it we know the river is flowing in the darkness. Close to us down below, behind so and so many trees. There are many shifting depths. If you lie in the current, you will be carried forward. There is a pull in the depths. You know about it. But now it is dark and silent. Now it will begin:

  I didn’t want this to happen. I would have given anything in the world for it not to happen. It was done before I was aware of it. These things have been said a thousand times beside the river, beside the stones, beside deserted houses. A thousand times they have been just as true and just as bitter.

  Nothing turns out the way you want. I didn’t want it to happen. I can testify to that for the rest of my life. I testify that I didn’t want it to happen. That I should have done it is another matter. If I have.

  The horror at what he had brought about against my will. He saved his skin. Vanished. Nobody knew about it. You lie on the ground, and then you know nothing more. It rains dark rain, waterfalls roar, voices echo in empty rooms—as if you’re somewhere else, and you’re conscious of that alone.

  That’s how it sounds to the listener who cannot see features any longer, only hear the voice. The story leaps over chasms and smashes itself into pieces now and again. And then has to go through it once more—because the chasms must not be leapt over. Hands fumble for hands in shock, in embarrassed fascination.

  Nobody asks questions when you live in a town, all alone. Mother and Father were killed in a car accident many years ago. They left some money so I was able to go to school and all that. I haven’t any close relatives. I thank God for that now.

  Nobody noticed anything unusual about me, in the clothes I thought up for myself. I left my job and found lodgings with someone I never saw and who wasn’t the sort to interfere. I sat there alone, waiting for the days to pass. When the time came I packed a small suitcase. I had been reading everything I could find that might be useful when I had to manage by myself—that was my plan. And that’s as far as it went.

  That evening I took a bus. I left a note on the table saying that I was going away for a while—in case anyone should look in, but that hardly ever happened. I was going to hide in a wood somewhere. I had a sleeping-bag with me and food. All I had to do was go away to a wood. I must have been mad, wanting to go away like that. It was all mad and stupid.

  The bus drove many miles that evening without my seeing the kind of wood I wanted. There were thickets, but no woods. Then we came to this district. I had never been here before. Just as the bus reached the other side of the big bridge the pain went through me like a knife: now it was beginning! When we had crossed the bridge I managed to stop the bus and got off with my things. Nobody seemed to notice anything. In the darkness I was able to get past the two houses with the lamps without being seen, and into the wood behind. It was too late now to worry about what kind of a wood it was.

  My things felt so heavy that I scarcely had the strength to drag myself along. But I managed to get this far. The weather was warm and fine, so it was going to work out all right. But I was thirsty and anxious. Horribly afraid all of a sudden. I wanted to call out, but didn’t dare. My foot splashed into a little stream I hadn’t noticed. When I knelt down to drink, it came the second time. And soon it was coming over and over again.

  Silence.

  What now?

  The hands, no longer visible, do not move while the low-voiced account flows evenly. Now it will be different. Now we shall hear what seems impossible, but is not. And then the hands reach out for one another. Whose hands? Just hands. Young bewildered hands. Three young people who must have something to hold—here, at this point which seems impossible. Huddling together as if against a storm.

  This is not a mountain—it is the sides of an extreme fear. The next chasm yawns. Time dives again and again into black chasms, and fingers tear up the ground.

  No, it isn’t a mountain. It seems to be the shadow of death.

  Avalanches that are not avalanches. Nothing is what it is.

  Is it still going on?

  A hidden mouth in the darkness jerkily stammering its story. And still it has not come to what we’re waiting for.

  A pause.

  Will she stop there?

  And will Aud then say: You must tell us everything?

  Will she?

  She begins again. She tells us without prompting.

  You don’t want to hear any more, yet at the same time you want to; you feel you must hear it. A pain-racked night that lasted for ever and seemed to come near to death. It seemed as if it went beyond death for a while, and that too seemed possible.

  Death? There was life.

  No!

  There was life, I know that.

  I’m telling you, I believe there was life. It was all a fearful madness; I was conscious of nothing. But I’m telling you I believe. I felt it under my hand. There was life under my hand. I say so because I believe it. I don’t know what I did. Now I’ve told someone.

  Paralysing.

  A hand let go, not daring to hold on any longer. It had forgotten—but the other hand noticed and gripped it convulsively. Then there was silence again.

  Silence until at last a clear voice seemed to force itself out over obstacles and hindrances. The struggle afterwards. Lay there all day in a daze. Don’t remember much about it. Just drowsed.

  Torvil, barely whispering: ‘But the twigs?’

  ‘Oh, the twigs were there already. Only needed to pull them over a little.’

  Not a sound from Aud.

  What is it, Aud?

  Nobody asked her aloud. But the other two were waiting for the slightest sound from her, as if it was particularly important.

  ‘And that’s how it was until we came at dusk?’

  ‘I suppose I slept at times. I don’t know. Yes I do, I seemed to be woken by crying. At first I thoug
ht it was myself. Then I realized it was someone else, crying over what was mine.’

  Silence.

  She sounded so severe and brusque. Torvil noticed that Aud seemed far away. Her breathing was there, and her body and fragrance were there in the huddle the three of them made. But she was far away all the same, and this was oppressive, making you imagine danger in this harrowing moment.

  ‘I watched you carrying the stones. It was sheer luck you didn’t stumble over me. I could only just see you in the twilight.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Torvil, for the moment turned tensely towards Aud—in case something were to break out. She still seemed to be somewhere else.

  One important part of the story remained, not to be avoided. They had to wait till it came, till the guilty one told them that too. Perhaps Aud was restraining her silently at this moment. But not for long. What was building up in the person who would be called the guilty one had to find release. A start went through the curious huddle when her voice came, intense and afraid, directed at Aud who had been quiet for a long time: ‘Do you hear me? You who ... you who ...’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ answered Aud, sounding as if she had just taken a big leap.

  ‘You seem so far away.’

  ‘No!’

  Nerves at the breaking point, impatience to make an end of it.

  The voice of the unknown girl cut in again, clearly.

  ‘Did I say stones? You saw they’d been moved. I managed to do it early the next morning. Very early. The stones and all that. And what you saw under the twigs, and all that. I took it down to the river. I tied it up in a cloth with a lot of stones and dropped it into the deep water. It was deep close to the bank.’

  15

  Like a Flash of Lightning

  Like a flash of lightning: the image of the great waterway moving forward, not checked by a hair’s breadth, not frozen in the very slightest by the event, not congealed for a split second.

  That’s how it is.

  The current, so silently powerful that it takes with it everything submitted to its strength. You imagine there is no movement—you have to watch for a long time before you discover a couple of minute transverse stripes near the sharp edges of a stone. But if a yellow autumn leaf drops to the surface, you can watch it moving, incredibly patiently and passively, away.