So Long, Marianne

by Kari Hesthamar

  * * *

  The first night in Athens, Marianne lay in grey mouldy-smelling sheets, reading a Kafka paperback and crying herself to sleep. She was awakened the next day by morning light streaming through the window. She put on her big sunglasses and decided to start the day at the legendary Café Zonar’s, just behind Syntagma Square.

  Zonar’s was a big posh café with orange awnings and cobalt-blue cushions on the chairs, and waiters in white shirts, black trousers and long black aprons. It was a regular meeting place for writers and intellectuals, a kind of Greek version of the Theatre Café home in Oslo. Inside, patrons dined on gourmet food at tables draped in white damask, while the café outside served the most delicious Greek cakes. Marianne sank wearily onto a chair and ordered an ouzo. Lost in thought, she suddenly heard a car jamming on the brakes and someone shouting:

  “Marianne! Thank God you’re here! You’re my guardian angel!”

  The voice belonged to Eileen, an Englishwoman married to Sam Barclay, one of the heirs to Barclays Bank in England. Barclay had a huge yacht that he had built himself and used to take tourists and wealthy people on cruises. Marianne knew Sam from Hydra, where he’d helped her and Axel hire workers when they fixed up the house with funds from Ikaros.

  Plumping down into a chair at Marianne’s table in her wide-brimmed straw hat, Eileen chattered about her fantastic new lover. She implored Marianne to get her out of a jam by taking her place as cook and hostess on the yacht so Eileen could avoid joining her husband on the next trip. During the winter, when they weren’t sailing, the couple lived on the island of Spetses. Barclay’s wife was tired of life in a primitive Greek house in the winter and drifting on the waves like a vagabond in the summer.

  For Marianne, homeless and abandoned, the offer was like a gift from the gods.

  * * *

  At 8:30 the following morning she shows up at the harbour in Piraeus. Sam is standing on the deck of his schooner when she arrives, and Marianne hears a boy’s thin voice asking, “Isn’t Mama coming?” Sam answers, “No, your mother isn’t coming, but Marianne will take care of us.” Wearing high heels and a slim skirt, Marianne boards the Stormie Seas, glad for the opportunity to cast aside her land-bound drama for six weeks. Work on board the boat allows her to stay in Greece for a while longer, even though another woman is coming to take her place in the house on Hydra.

  Off on her own journey and no longer at the mercy of his whims, she felt free of Axel. She could cook and she would easily manage to look after Sam’s son. The tempetuous emotional side of life had let her down but never the practical side. If she was paid to work on a boat on the open sea, then it was just a matter of taking responsibility and proving herself worthy of the job.

  Sam sailed to small idyllic islands and along the Turkish coast. Marianne cooked for an older man and his young wife who had rented the boat and crew for a month and a half. Apart from Sam, the crew comprised a young Greek sailor who knew the local waters and Marianne, newly dark-haired. She read fairy tales to seven-year-old James and carried out her other simple duties on board.

  Anchoring in the ocean-filled Santorini caldera, they were invited to a traditional three-day-long Greek wedding along with several hundred guests. Sam, who spoke fluent Greek, immediately accepted the generous invitation. The priest sang and intoned while people crossed themselves and kissed the Bible and various icons. There were bridesmaids and groomsmen and the small church was full to the rafters. After the ceremony, the dancing and music continued until dawn, when the little band of travellers staggered back to the boat for a few hours sleep.

  The next day they decided to visit the volcano crater, which rose above the water in the centre of the caldera. Marianne wore an Egyptian scarab Axel had given her on a thin leather thong around her neck. She decided to sacrifice the scarab and rid herself of everything that bound her to Axel. Marianne had tried to suppress her grief over Axel when she joined Sam on board the boat. Now she just wanted to sail away from it all, keeping her feelings bottled up.

  White churches the size of dollhouses glowed serenely against the dark lava along the way up the slope of the volcano. Marianne lit the wicks that floated on saucers filled with olive oil and came to a stop where many before her had mumbled their prayers. At the top, she hurled the scarab with all her might out into the crater before turning and going back to the boat.

  * * *

  Both Sam and Marianne had been betrayed and rejected. Sam was a handsome man, slim and tall with light hair and a body bronzed by the sun. And Marianne was free. She was heartsick but was free to love on a beautiful sailboat that took her away from all the sadness on Hydra, and together they lifted each other out of a difficult time.

  Along the side of the schooner hung baskets of live lobsters. There were big English brunches and late dinners in small whitewashed towns. The stars above gave the endless Greek night sky a pale glow. The sky was three-dimensional: beyond the stars there were other stars, and beyond these yet more stars. They sailed along the coast of Turkey, heard wolves howling under the full moon and wandered among the colonnades of ancient temples in the company of lumbering tortoises.

  The couple Marianne looked after on board the boat gave her a cookbook when she signed off after six weeks of sailing. Inside the book, entitled Can the Greek Cook?, their inscription read, “The Norwegians can. Marianne has proved.”

  Marianne’s encounter with Sam was fleeting and without strings. The interlude allowed her to muster the strength she needed to return to Oslo and admit defeat. Now she could go home and say, “Alright, you were right. It’s not Axel I’m going to marry.”

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  NEW MARIANNE

  * * *

  Marianne disembarked in Piraeus and went straight home to Per and Else Berit, with whom she’d left her things. The last time Marianne and Axel had been there together, Per and Else Berit had become so fed up with the incessant arguing that they’d thrown them out.

  Now they told Marianne that they thought the boat trip had changed her. Else Berit wrote in a letter that the woman who had come back was a “COMPLETELY NEW Marianne.” She was more serene and self-confident and she had a clear and mature view of her relationship with Axel. In short, she’d grown up. The couple in Athens were astonished at the extent of the transformation. Marianne claimed to love Axel more than ever before — it was only now that she understood how much she cared for him. She was nonetheless prepared to live without him and to find herself a good job.

  When Axel visited Athens to take care of some financial matters it was inevitable that he and Marianne would meet. Axel had been on a six-week drinking binge. The dark-haired woman he’d met in Oslo had sold the ticket and pocketed the money. Else Berit wrote to friends that it was amusing to witness the sangfroid with which Marianne handled Axel and how this threw him off balance. He fell in love with her all over again.

  As Marianne dried herself after a shower, Axel watched her from the bathroom doorway. He walked into the room, looked at Marianne, who stood in the middle of the floor with a towel wrapped around her, and said, “Will you marry me, Marianne?”

  Marianne’s stint on the yacht had extinguished her fear. She felt self-possessed: she had accomplished something on her own and had learned that she could stand on her own feet, without Axel. And yet she had been waiting her whole life to receive such a proposal and be carried off by her lover, as had happened in Momo’s stories. Marianne agreed to become Mrs. Jensen.

  Else Berit said that when someone like Axel went as far as proposing marriage something powerful must lie behind it, so she could understand that Marianne had accepted. The two of them could find happiness only if they began on an entirely new footing, wrote Else Berit in a letter to Norway, adding, “I believe in a marriage between them as long as the new order lasts.”20

  * * *

  On the 22nd of October, 1958, Marianne and Axel were mar
ried by Father Duncan in the Anglican church in Athens, with Per and Else Berit as best man and matron of honour. Twenty-three-year-old Marianne was dressed in a white silk blouse that her girlfriend Unni had been sent by her family in America. It had buttons up the back and a band of gold ribbon at the neck. Over the blouse she wore a dark blue suit her mother had sewn; the jacket had raglan sleeves and a single button at the throat and the pencil skirt was slit up the back. Having borrowed gloves from Else Berit, Marianne could now be married — in keeping with English custom — in something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.

  The church was being renovated; five or six stone masons sat on scaffolding below the ceiling, dangling their legs. Marianne and Axel kissed each other every time the priest turned to pray to the Heavenly Father. When Marianne was about to get up after kneeling, her narrow skirt slid up her thighs and stayed there. The workmen, who had been asked to remain quiet during the ceremony, couldn’t hold back their laughter. Too embarrassed to yank down her skirt in front of the priest, Marianne just stood there, blushing. From above came the sound of suppressed sniggers.

  The gravity of the situation caused Axel’s English to falter when the time came to repeat the marriage vows. Father Duncan looked at Axel and prompted:

  “I give you my troth …”

  Axel repeated:

  “I give you my throat …”

  After the church there was champagne at home with Per and Else Berit, while letters and telegrams were read out. The greetings that had been pouring through the mail slot for days had been saved for the big day. Bouquets of flowers decorated the living room and there was a festive air in the apartment.

  Marianne came from a well-furnished home on the West Side of Oslo and a proper married couple needed tableware, regardless of the Bohemian nature of the wedding. Two potato dishes, two large serving platters, a sauce boat and silver-plated fish cutlery for eight had been sent from Oslo to Greece. But the wedding gifts from Marianne’s mother weren’t easy to claim. Marianne couldn’t afford to pay the duties and she didn’t have the money to send the package back to Norway either, so it all ended up waiting at customs in Athens for ages.

  The wedding dinner was celebrated at a luxury hotel at Astir Beach, outside Athens. Per and Else Berit had married there six months earlier, with Marianne and Axel as best man and maid of honour. That had been such a success that they decided to have another party at the same place. The four old friends played leapfrog and horsed around on the beach before dinner was served by liveried waiters with freshly ironed cloth napkins over their arms. The meal was followed by quite a few glasses of Courvoisier. Per and Else Berit had fun scaring Axel with the prospect of a fifteen-minute bridal waltz, like the one they’d endured themselves. Axel was quiet and pale with anxiety. But the dance turned out to be a very comfortable foxtrot and, besides, the newlyweds were not the only people on the dance floor. Per and Else Berit felt short-changed.

  Marianne and Axel stayed with Per and Else Berit for four days after the wedding and their married life began blissfully. Sucking on his pipe with a proprietary air, Axel was evidently proud to possess a wife. Marianne, who could finally call herself Mrs. Jensen, was euphoric.

  * * *

  It was the start of a good period. Axel surprised Marianne with the improvements he had made to their house on Hydra. Its whitewashed walls glistening, the eagle’s nest in Kala Pigadia was almost unrecognizable to Marianne. Realizing how much it would mean to her, he’d rolled up his sleeves and set to work during her absence. She wept with joy as she took in everything that Axel had done.

  Axel threw himself back into his writing, while Marianne sketched and noted her thoughts and dreams between the blue marbled covers of her diary.

  14/12-58

  Sunday with sun and wonderful warmth, and I’m sitting here scribbling and soaking it up. It’s pure summer here, just ten days until Christmas Eve. It’s incredible.

  Axel was angry with me yesterday. Because of the book Line, the numbers of pages etc. I never learn. God knows how many times this same thing has happened. Hope it doesn’t happen again. I will try, try. But if I blurt it out, ok, it gets blurted out. There’s nothing that can be done about that. But why does Axel get so worked up every single time? Well, we’ll figure it out sooner or later. The first little disagreement (quarrel) since we were married 1 month and 20 days ago. Well, I’d better be off to the post office and treat myself to an orangeade. It’s Sunday and the weather is like summer.

  15/12-58

  Slept til 11:30 and ran to town, but the boat hadn’t come, engine troubles at Poros. Charmian, George et al. “celebrating” and a chair appeared under your bottom and a glass of retsina was pressed into your hand before you’d said hi. Cheers and how are you. I wasn’t really in the mood for it, but came around eventually. Magda was unhappy and feeling very low, and Charmian tried to talk her out of it.

  We ended up eating lunch out, the whole bunch of us, and I brought some things from the bakery home to Axel. Slept after cleaning up but feel fine amidst all the animals on the sofa with my diary in my lap. Now I’m going to read Pasternak …

  Nearly gale winds today.

  16/12-58

  Dismal in town today. No one said anything. The boat came late so there won’t be any post until this afternoon. Just a little fishing boat as far as the eye could see. I’m enjoying myself here on my rock and when I close my eyes and hear the sea I’m suddenly in Larkollen. I’m not really homesick but can’t help thinking of Larkollen now and then.

  Here I am on Hydra in Greece, with the ocean all around, married, with a house, garden, terrace, dogs and a key around my neck — it’s almost impossible to believe. It’s true: nothing ventured, nothing gained. It’s better to try than to sit on your rear end and say, “no, it’s never going to work.” There will always come a day, sooner or later, when one regrets it and says, “why the hell didn’t I try?”

  It’s windy and drizzling and my backside is freezing, enough for now.

  * * *

  While Axel was in the throes of a particularly intense period of writing, Marianne visited Per and Else Berit in Athens for a change of pace. She took along Sam’s son, seven-year-old James, whom she’d befriended during her weeks on board the Stormie Seas. Little James came with a hot forehead and shiny eyes and had to be put straight to bed, where he lay for a week with a fever that spiked up to 40 degrees Celsius.

  To make the most of having female company, Else Berit took off as much time from the office as she could manage. A week later, Axel rang the doorbell unexpectedly, to everyone’s pleasant surprise. He had been working day and night revising his manuscript and needed a break. Axel took over the dinner preparations, bowling everyone over with an Indian curry that he served with champagne while donning a turban festooned with the ladies’ jewellery. Else Berit thought that Marianne had become kinder and considerably more mature, and Marianne herself felt that she’d marshalled her inner strength during her time on the yacht with Sam. Axel, who used to give free reign to his dominating personality, without making concessions to his working hosts or their wooden floor, had become quieter and more considerate. Marianne believed that this would last, and she believed in Axel and his promise of faithfulness.

  LINE

  That spring Marianne and Axel took jobs together on Sam’s schooner. They needed the money and Sam needed help on the cruise, which would carry a group of English students around Greek waters. Axel had delivered the first draft of his novel to Cappelen. A sailor at heart, he was happy when he was on the water. The newlyweds had thrashed things out and life had become serene. Sam knew Marianne’s story, as she knew his. They had talked a great deal during the weeks they’d been at sea. Marianne thought he was an unusually fine man, discreet and loyal. She hadn’t told Axel about her affair with Sam. Marianne and Axel were reconciled, and Sam didn’t ask any questions.

 
Marianne and Axel were in love, and while the waves of the Aegean rocked them Axel Joachim was conceived.

  * * *

  Marianne had long dreamed of becoming pregnant. Her heart pounded with joy when she realized she was carrying a little life. Axel smiled when he received the news, lifted her up and set her down on the ground again. He was pleased, but pensive, and didn’t say much.

  Back on Hydra the days passed harmoniously. Marianne took care of house and home and felt the small kicks of new life in her womb. She took out her diary for the first time in half a year and began again to write down her thoughts and dreams.

  3/7-59

  Since last have there been loads of dreams, but since I didn’t have you, little book, at hand I can’t write them down now. We are going to have a child at last. And we are travelling to see John some time this month if all goes to plan. I can’t get anything done these days when everything is so uncertain. But I’ll take you along, little book.

  Through long working sessions upstairs at his typewriter, Axel got a better handle on the novel, which now had the working title Linedansen.

  Henrik Groth was Axel’s permanent publisher and had also become a close acquaintance of Marianne. Axel and Groth had enjoyed very close contact during the work with Ikaros, and the two of them had corresponded by letter and telegram between Oslo and Hydra. Groth was now more sure than ever in the book. “The book is a stroke of genius and there hasn’t been such a significant writer in Norway in a long time.”21 Groth felt that the title, Linedansen — The Line Dance — which punned on “Line,” the name of the protagonist’s love interest, was a distasteful play on words in such a weighty work as this. He said that Axel should call the book anything he liked except Linedansen. The publisher suggested Line — short and sweet — and that’s what stuck.