They did not answer. She must be given time to pull herself together, presumably. They simply waited.
‘I don’t know what I’ve done wrong,’ she began again. ‘What have I done, Torvil?’ she asked with an unexpected jerk of the head at him, so that he felt he was present after all.
Torvil mumbled something in embarrassment. ‘Why don’t we drop it?’ he said aloud.
‘We dropped it long ago,’ said Aud. ‘But there’s a really difficult question that we haven’t solved: what do you think Torvil and I can do to give you some kind of help?’
Valborg hesitated slightly.
‘Well, I ... I think it’s simple really.’
‘Simple?’
‘Yes. It may not sound like anything much. I’d like you to keep me company. Come here and keep me company sometimes.’
‘When?’
‘Now. And a few times more. There’s nothing else you can do—but I very much want you to do this. I think that’s the way I can get over it ... if I’m ever going to get over it.’
Torvil and Aud exchanged glances, relieved. It was not as impossible as they had expected. Aud said, with relief, ‘I expect you’re right. I don’t know what I had expected. All we thought was that we could do nothing.’
‘I can see you think it’s easier now.’
‘Yes, I won’t deny it. I must admit I’ve been dreading it.’
‘What else could you have done besides talking to me?’
‘I don’t know. I feel almost happy,’ said Aud.
Valborg sat leaning forward, talking to her hands and knees.
‘As you know, I hadn’t expected anyone to find out about this. You two came into it by chance. I’m sure you’re no happier about it than I was, but now I feel differently, because it’s good to be in your company. And then you didn’t give away my hiding-place! That above everything. I had no plan for this meeting today. We were simply going to meet, and I was longing for it. But you saw how I began to quarrel as soon as I got here. Another time it may be even worse. But as for what happened today: I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that, Torvil.’
Nobody answered.
‘Do you hear?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Then I want to say something else.’
‘All right.’
She was still talking to her knees, but in a voice that had changed since she had sat invisible in the darkness the first time: that time when they had sat invisible with her in a huddle. Then her voice had harrowed and shocked and riveted them. Today it was under control.
She began again.
‘It was so incredibly lucky for me that precisely you two should have got mixed up in my wretchedness. I can’t help it, as I said, if you feel unhappy about it—’
Torvil interrupted. ‘We don’t feel unhappy about it.’
‘Then all I can do is thank you. That’s the truth, Torvil and Aud.’
They sat feeling embarrassed. Valborg went on. ‘Everything had got so impossibly complicated. If I hadn’t been able to talk that evening, something would have snapped. I had overestimated my strength when I decided to be on my own. You kept me company so that I could untangle it all; and I could even be sure that it would be kept secret. Do you hear?’ she added.
‘Yes,’ they replied.
‘It’s a burden for you, I realize that.’
‘I won’t deny it,’ replied Aud, ‘but nobody’s to blame, as we’ve already said.’
Torvil added, ‘At least, not you, Valborg.’
‘I’ve accepted that too as the right way to look at it. And now I think I’ve said what I have to say, Torvil and Aud. I came to say this today. It feels like a lot.’
‘You don’t want us to go, do you?’ said Aud.
‘Don’t know. I think I ought to go now. It’s already been a lot for me, and difficult.’
They did not understand.
‘There’s much more!’ said Aud. ‘Not to tell, but still. Much more. We don’t want to go so soon. It feels as if we’re leaving the minute we’ve come.’
Aud said it haphazardly, but there was much more. The air was thick with it. They were drawn into it by Valborg simply because she kept silent. She sat looking down. Was this intense silence embarrassing? They had to make a move in case it was. Aud and Torvil got up and sat down again, a movement they could not explain. They sat down again on the fallen tree, on either side of Valborg.
No, why embarrassing? thought Torvil. Perhaps the other two did not realize what impressions Torvil was collecting as he sat there. He had been left out of the conversation for the most part. No, embarrassing?—let it last if it’s like this. The girls glanced at each other now and again with feminine complicity, he noticed. At the same time he felt anything but left out. The two girls were in fact turned towards him in an infinitely sensitive way, a sensitivity that he was capable of picking up and absorbing. Aud was not the same as before, almost unnoticeable. And Valborg excited him.
Let it last for a while. Maybe they don’t know about it. Perhaps they think they’re turned towards each other.
And the other—was that here too? The whole of Valborg’s dark hinterland?
Yes, it was here. Right among them here.
An abyss somewhere?
Yes. Dark and mysterious. There is no true picture of what has happened; only a receding into the twilight for us all.
We look at one another in order to understand. We sit close in order to grasp a fraction of it.
Torvil jerked himself out of his thoughts and glanced at Valborg beside him, as if she might have heard, although nothing had been said. He was about to sink back into the lengthening silence, when Aud’s voice broke in, right across Valborg.
Torvil, are you still there?’
Valborg sat mute as before.
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Shall we find another place to sit?’
‘No, why should we?’ said Valborg at once. ‘No, don’t let’s do that. We’ll go on sitting where we are now.’
She spoke disconnectedly, in jerks, as if she were continually reaching for a fresh hold.
‘I think so too, Valborg,’ said Torvil. ‘Let’s stay where we are now.’
Aud pretended not to hear.
‘There was another thing I was thinking about,’ she said. ‘I want to ask you, Valborg. Would you like to come home with us now, instead of sitting here or anywhere else?’
Valborg almost jumped out of her skin.
‘No! I’m sorry, but what are you thinking of?’
‘I’ll say you’re a friend of mine I ran into today, that’s all. Our parents aren’t the least bit difficult.’
‘I’m sure they’re not. Thank you all the same, but I can’t. I won’t.’
Torvil stared at Aud, surprised at her proposal: the very one she had rejected when it was his suggestion.
‘Naturally you wouldn’t run any risks,’ said Aud.
‘It doesn’t make any difference. A suggestion like that makes me wonder whether you do understand me, after all.’
‘We won’t mention it again,’ said Torvil, embarrassed at having to listen to this. ‘We’ll never mention it again.’
It sounded decisive even though Aud was not the one to say it. The matter was dropped at once. They could see how tense the atmosphere was; it wouldn’t take much to spoil it.
Torvil was thinking that now Aud had destroyed their wonderful silence.
And since their peace had been destroyed in any case, he brought out something that had been on the tip of his tongue. He turned to Valborg, who was immediately on her guard.
‘Valborg, you’ve talked all the time about us three. That nobody in the world besides us three knows what has happened to you.’
‘Yes?’
‘There must in any case be one more.’
Valborg nodded curtly. Aud turned her head away and stared into the wood.
‘Isn’t it possible that he might be included in some way after all?’
Valborg’s face set. ‘It’s not possible. Not at all. I’ve no idea where he is, but I expect he’ll take good care not to turn up.’
They could hear that something lay behind this that it would be wise not to mention.
‘And you can take my word for it,’ said Valborg.
‘Yes, all right,’ replied Torvil taken aback.
‘Please don’t refer to it again, Torvil.’
‘I didn’t ask you out of curiosity,’ said Torvil, in selfdefence, ‘but I felt as if there was a wall in front of us before this was explained.’
‘Well, that’s all right then,’ said Aud, who had turned her face in the right direction again. ‘We don’t need to know any more about it.’
‘I should think not.’
The tight ring seemed to close in on itself again.
‘I suppose you have to go now?’ said Valborg.
‘Yes, soon,’ said Torvil.
They did not know whether Valborg herself wanted it to end. She probably did. They didn’t.
Valborg asked tensely: ‘But is it over?’
‘Over? What do you mean?’
‘That you don’t want to come any more.’
‘Oh ...’
‘Of course it’s not over.’
They could see she was pleased. It must have meant something to her after all, this meeting today.
‘We’ll be back,’ they both said.
Valborg asked, as if with renewed courage, ‘How many times?’
‘Many times,’ said Aud.
‘As many as you like,’ said Torvil.
Valborg said: ‘I shall need them.’
What was it that attracted them to her so strongly? There was some kind of link that bound them. And they thought too: what is it Valborg must go through? Do we know everything? We know very little. We can’t talk to each other about it—but it exists around Valborg, and we are in the middle of it for as long as Valborg wants us to be.
Now it was over for the time being. They felt that little pang that comes at the end of something enjoyable.
Valborg got to her feet. ‘Now I’d like to go.’
‘I suppose we must too,’ they had to say.
Valborg added, ‘I can’t take any more today. That’s how it is today too. I don’t feel very steady on my feet. And I daren’t promise anything for next time. I don’t want you to see it all, so I hope you don’t mind if I go.’
They stood listening, not without understanding, fascinated. Why? They had in fact spent much of the time quarrelling today. And yet ... They looked forward to being with her again.
They waited for Valborg to ask when the next meeting should be. But she waited for Aud to say it.
‘And when shall we meet?’
‘I’d like to meet you soon ... while this lasts,’ answered Valborg.
‘Tomorrow if you like.’
‘No, I must have another day to myself. Maybe you think it’s odd, but I have to think about how it was today.’
They were not sure whether they understood this.
She said, ‘Remember I’m walking on a knife-edge.’
‘Do you want to come the day after tomorrow?’
‘The day after tomorrow would be fine.’
‘We’ll be here the day after tomorrow, same time,’ agreed Torvil eagerly.
Valborg was facing Aud. ‘Yes, that would be fine, Aud.’
‘And now you must go,’ said Valborg. ‘Will you please go?’
‘Yes, of course.’
They were somewhat taken aback. Valborg said, ‘I’d like to be the last one here. It’s nothing in particular, really ...’
‘Yes, of course,’ they said.
They left her standing there and hurried out of sight. They did not know her limits—she had probably reached breaking point. If she was about to break down she wouldn’t want any witnesses.
They hurried away. Home. Without exchanging a word.
23
When You Are Stripped
When you feel stripped, and forced to hide. When your feet drag. When the soles of your feet bum. Searching for water, you plunge raving into mud-holes and drag yourself up again laboriously, then look down at yourself trembling. No one must witness this.
Searching for water.
You don’t get as far as that. Your feet drag unexpectedly into moss; it feels like pillows. The warm autumn sun shines, there is a smell of something peculiar. As if by accident you stumble and let yourself fall full length into a deep bed of moss: that blessed wet bed of moss when you are naked.
The smell of the moss, of your body and of the sun—this is the place to lie. No one can wound nakedness that cannot be found.
This is the place.
No terror of being hurt yet again.
Don’t think.
Don’t think. Hide yourself. Press yourself in deeper. Your thin skin is smarting; let it be where it is—in all this confusion.
But slowly you realize what you are doing:
Out on the marsh lie tree-trunks and the remains of trees, half-submerged. Little by little they will sink silently down.
Whoever lies in the moss and comes to understand the smell and everything about it acquires new senses, sharper sight, and can watch the greyish-brown ooze settling. Straight down. A movement that was nothing—and yet someone felt it and fled and saved his life. A liberated thread of life that freed itself from the decaying flotsam, leapt away like lightning; the way frightened lizards, quick as a flash, hide themselves on a sunny day.
When you are naked and have acquired new senses; when you have acquired the terror of sinking straight down into the abyss.
When you cannot leap up either—only press yourself further down. This has to be watched with tense eyes, it has to be felt. You are cut off from all that has been.
There is a thousand-year-old smell from deep down, from everything that has been collecting there.
He ran away like lightning and escaped into the grass, but into grass that will be crushed and will rot in the autumn. Soon to run further like lightning. The terror of sinking straight down.
The huge decaying tree-trunks lie there with their enormous weight, helpless. Finally they must sink into the depths. Some of them look frightening with knots like dead eyes, or like rigid, gaping mouths. They will settle for a thousand years, never to be destroyed and mingle with everything living and changing, but to live in the marsh, down in the mud, settling and settling without being absorbed.
He who could, ran away like lightning.
Pressing yourself down into the moss. Still a poignant moment with the warm moss. You smart and bum.
Lying feeling the slight tugs, delicate as hairs, but straight down.
I can’t stand it any more.
I am naked.
24
The Third Meeting
The intervening day was a gloomy one for Aud and Torvil. Inside and outside the twin houses they had played their parts well, so that nobody was suspicious, but they had not spent the evening together. In the morning they took their satchels and went out.
‘... to find a sunny spot today too.’
‘Not many days of the holiday left.’
They received a nod in reply. Everything was all right.
‘But I feel a bit guilty, Mother. I’m sure there’s something I ought to be helping you with.’
‘Oh, I can see you’re enjoying yourself.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘I’ve told you to take advantage of holiday-time.’
‘All right, Mother. We’ll go then.’
Once in the wood they found a glade and sat down. Finally a question was asked. ‘What is it, Aud?’
‘Nothing, I suppose.’
‘Well, that’s one way of putting it.’
They sat reading for a long time, turning the rustling pages without concentrating. Each peered at the other at long intervals. When it was no use putting on this act any longer they set their books aside.
‘Do you think she’ll manage, Torvil?’
‘Why not?’ answered Torvil unwillingly. ‘We’re not supposed to—’
‘That’s just what we are supposed to do! I believe we’re fooling her somehow.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘What are you thinking about, Torvil?’
‘What are you getting at all the time?’
‘She mustn’t be fooled. You can see she can’t bear the least little thing. And that’s easy to understand, when you think of what she believes she’s done.’
‘But you’re imagining things, Aud. You saw she liked having us there, and she said it made her feel better. Otherwise she wouldn’t have begged us to come again.’
‘You’re not as clever as you look, Torvil. I’ve said before that I’m afraid and I still am. We mustn’t fool her.’
‘Whatever makes you so contrary? She was happier when she went than when she came. What else are we to go by?’
‘You’re talking about her, I’m talking about us. And I’m not too sure of your judgment on this occasion.’
‘Really!’
‘Don’t do anything thoughtless, Torvil.’
They looked at each other. Torvil reddened slightly.
Aud said, ‘We know each other.’
‘Yes.’
Each waited for the other. Neither of them had anything more to say. Aud said, ‘Let’s go home.’
‘We belong neither here nor there,’ said Torvil.
‘We shan’t be normal again until this is over,’ said Aud. ‘But we’d better go home now.’
They did so, and the day dragged on. They both kept to their own rooms. The house seemed full of understanding.
The next morning they made their way to the third meeting with Valborg.
Perhaps she wouldn’t be there today. What Aud had said yesterday had stayed with them, turning into a kind of warning, nervous as they were for varying reasons. They did not talk much.
From far away they saw that Valborg was already waiting. She was standing in the trees, half-hidden by them, but the moment you imagined she was there she became clearly visible.
When they reached her they noticed that she was no happier than on the last occasion, possibly even more depressed. But she said without introduction. ‘That’s good.’
They were somewhat puzzled by this reception, and Torvil asked with forced flippancy. ‘What shall we do today?’
The Bridges Page 9
