So Long, Marianne

by Kari Hesthamar

  … And Leonard writes for Canadian TV? And you’re still going around sniffing at each other, trying to make up your minds. Yes, yes.

  Can you send me his address? I want to write to him to chew him out for not sending me a sign of life.45

  They were each waiting to be reunited: Axel on Hydra with Patricia in Chicago; Marianne in Oslo with Leonard in Montreal. None of them had a clue about the direction their lives would take.

  Chapter 8

  * * *

  UNEXPECTED VISIT

  * * *

  Sam Barclay hasn’t forgotten Marianne after those idyllic weeks in 1958, when they were together aboard his sailboat. He sends a letter to Oslo proposing that she return to Greece and work on the boat the coming summer: she’s looking for work and he needs someone to cook and serve his guests. Marianne sees this as a chance to get away from Oslo, but she recognizes that it would be virtually impossible to take Axel Joachim with her and she doesn’t want to leave him with her mother again.

  Leonard was keen for her to come to Montreal, but this depended on his job situation, which was uncertain. He let Marianne know that he didn’t intend to stand in the way if she and Axel tried to repair their marriage. Perhaps there was no place for him, or for Patricia, in this predicament — he didn’t know. All Leonard knew for sure was that Marianne was important to him and that the autumn they’d spent together on Hydra had given him courage and strength.46

  Sam had spent Christmas in England and decided to visit Oslo before returning to Athens. Blond, tall and sinewy, he stood on the steps and waited while Marianne ran down to open the gate. He arrived in the undyed wool sweater that Marianne’s mother had knitted and which Marianne had sent him the year before. It was strange to see Sam here in her own city, far from the sunshine and the tang of the sea that had permeated their coexistence on the Stormie Seas. From his duffel bag he dug out an old captain’s watch that he wanted Marianne to have. He fastened the handsome pocketwatch and its silver chain to her blouse.

  Sam was there for several days. He slept in the guest room and played with Axel Joachim. At the harbour he took a look at Axel’s sailboat, which had been transported back to Norway. And he attended to Marianne’s mother — who had now met her daughter’s second admirer from Hydra in less than two months.

  One day as Sam sat on the green sofa, he looked at Marianne and asked, “Will you marry me, Marianne?”

  He was in love with her. Now that she was single he nurtured the hope that he could persuade her to come back with him to Greece. He matter of factly made his case that marrying would be a good solution to their solitude. He promised to be there for her, always. They could sail in the summers and live on the mainland during wintertime.

  Marianne felt she couldn’t risk marrying the wrong man again and she declined. She was in love with Leonard, not Sam, and this time she wasn’t going to be steered by practical considerations. Agreeing to become Mrs. Jensen hadn’t been wise — she’d known that intuitively, but she’d believed that marriage would solidify her relationship with Axel. She couldn’t have been more wrong. If she were to marry again it would be for love and not because she needed to be taken care of.

  Sam and Marianne parted as good friends. Marianne entrusted him with letters and pictures, dried herring and sardines to deliver to Axel, and waved him off as he left for Fornebu Airport with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. She sat at her writing desk — still plastered with old photographs — and composed a letter to the suitor who’d just flown off to Greece. She wrote that everything was different after Hydra, that something had changed inside her. It was Leonard she loved, and she couldn’t keep the captain’s watch, which bound her invisibly to Sam.

  Not long afterward came a letter.

  Yacht “Stormie Seas”

  Spetsai, Greece

  Sunday. 11th

  … Oh, Marianne! What a silly sort of letter to write.

  You write as though it were the last you were ever going to write. And you talk of giving the watch to James?

  I gave that watch to you, Marianne, because I loved you and I wanted you to have it, not because I wanted to bind you in any way. I will never have, and never want to have, a hold on you in any kind of way.

  Keep the watch. And weather you like it or not you are always going to have me too because I am your friend. Just your friend. And you may break the watch into a million pieces or give it to who you please. It will make no difference.

  … I am glad that you have decided to stick to Leonard. I knew you would even though I tried hard to sweep you off with me. You would not have been worth much if you had come, you know?

  I wish you luck with Leonard. He sounds nice. I wish I knew him better. Go right ahead with him, Marianne. Maybe he will make you happy. But you are wise now and what can I say?

  I am so glad you are coming out of your cocoon. It was not the deep freeze, for you have been growing inside all the time. I am sorry Axel never had the chance to see and know you as you are now too. But Axel experiences people like an adventure or a journey, and passes on.…

  The sheep have just gone by along the edge of the harbour, their bells jingling. A donkey is braying. I suppose he is in love but he doesn’t sound very joyful. Stormie Seas is lying deserted, very calm outside the window. The sun has gone down. It will be a new day tomorrow.

  I’ll write to you again tomorrow, Marianne.

  God bless you,

  Sam

  There is so much I have not said.47

  Sam wrote letters in the form of a journal to Marianne, often over the course of several days, before posting them to Oslo. He wrote about life in Greece, common friends, wind and weather, a little flower he’d found while out for a stroll. He wrote about his feelings for Marianne. Their close friendship deepened. She wanted him to be Axel Joachim’s godfather, a duty Sam accepted with pride.

  Both Sam and Axel ask after the boy in their letters to Marianne. A dejected Axel writes that Patricia isn’t coming in February as planned. He claims to have lost the ability to be impatient and is astonished at his own fortitude. All suffering is a kind of sentimentality, which he abjures. Pleasure is worthier than suffering, he’s decided — it’s just a matter of living accordingly. In closing, he writes:

  AND THIS IS IMPORTANT. CAN YOU INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY HOW WE CAN GET A DIVORCE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE? PATRICIA AND I WANT TO MARRY AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.

  You may think this sounds strange but I would like to give her the sense of security to which every woman is entitled when she gives herself to a man. A sense of security that I have so deplorably failed to provide you.48

  Glad that her daughter was going to divorce Axel, Marianne’s mother became more involved in the proceedings than Marianne herself. She made sure that Marianne would receive the economic support for her son to which she had a right. Living under her mother’s roof and financially dependent on her, Marianne let her take over all the practicalities. For a speedy divorce one of them had to sue the other in court. It was decided that instead they would let the legal separation period run its course.

  Marianne wrote to Axel on the 18th of Febrary, informing him that the separation papers had been signed but that the divorce would not be finalized for another year. She missed Hyda, she told him briefly, and it had been an eternity since she’d last heard from Leonard.

  A fortnight later, Ess-Film hired Marianne as production assistant and substitute script girl for the film Tonny. It was based on Jens Bjørneboe’s novel of the previous year — Den Onde Hyrde — in which he attacked the Norwegian prison system. Marianne had never read anything by Bjørneboe but she was happy about her new job, delighted that someone had use for her. Axel Joachim was in daycare at his grandmother’s workplace while Marianne was at her job, and the two women shared childcare responsibilities between them.

  * * *

  Letters arrived from L
eonard. They wrote to each other about meeting in Europe or Marianne moving to Montreal when she got on her feet. Axel informed Marianne that he’d sent Groth a draft of his manuscript to his fourth novel, Joacim. He was still waiting for Patricia. He thought that Leonard was a fool for not giving himself to his woman: he who doesn’t give himself becomes stingy, Axel observed.49 Marianne replied that she was a coward to have taken off so quickly, but the fear of being alone had conquered her. Now she yearned to be free of her mother’s interference.

  Thinking constantly of the autumn they shared on Hydra, Marianne longs for Leonard. It would be meaningless to go back to Greece, to an island full of memories, without him. Leonard is trying to save enough money to return to Europe, but poetry is no goldmine.

  Two years after the publication of Line, Axel is in the house in Kala Pigadia, close to wrapping up Joacim. Marianne is curious about the book — created under their roof on Hydra — and contacts Groth so she can read it. Axel has again written about a young man searching for meaning and substance in his life. The protagonist Joacim is an advertising executive and a family man, married to Cecilie. At the start of the novel Joacim breaks with his job and his family and travels to Greece to realize himself as an artist. There Joacim meets a Danish student with whom he starts a relationship. Axel had written his protagonist into a dilemma, caught between social obligations and the desire for self-realization — a theme not unfamiliar to him or Marianne. There were other recognizable elements, prompting Marianne to wonder if she had been the model for Cecilie and if it was their life on Hydra that Axel had written about.

  Hydra 13/6/1961

  What’s the new book “Joacim” about, well it’s not about “what we have together.” Cecilie resembles you as little as Line did, even less. Believe me or not, but if I were to make a portrait of you I’d do a better job than this.

  That one part of it takes place in Oslo and the next three parts take place in Greece is true. But these are the settings I know; I can’t write about other settings. What you have to understand is that this isn’t an attempt at autobiography or self-revelation. I’ve just written a novel in the first person again, doing it as well as I could.

  To be honest: I find it a bit difficult to write to you. I fumble for words, want to say something about Little Axel but feel that I lack the words. The whole thing is painful and sad and I bear most of the blame myself. The way things are now, I’m trying to stake out a new life for Patricia and me, and I hope to God that you find a man who deserves you.50

  Like Line, Joacim aroused strong reactions. Several reviewers objected to the book, and Axel was criticized for maintaining too little distance from his characters — a charge he denied. Others contended that the book lacked perspective and depth and that the influence of Knut Hamsun was embarrassingly strong. The assumption later became widespread that Axel had based the figure of Lorenzo on Leonard Cohen, but the author himself countered that Lorenzo was modelled on Göran Tunström.

  Contracted to the film production company until October, Marianne was involved in the pre-production, shooting and post-production work on Tonny. At the end, the director Sverre Gran wrote a testimonial for Marianne, affirming that her interests in art and literature were comprehensive and that she possessed a sound appreciation for artistic quality, as well as valuable language and writing skills.51

  Marianne thought about Leonard every day. Around her neck hung a small Star of David that he had given her. Inside an oval locket decorated with small flowers against a white background she placed a little lock of hair and a photo of Leonard in one side and one of Axel Joachim in the other side. She often looked at pictures from Greece. She and Leonard smiled at the camera on strips from passport photo booths. Laughing. Serious. Marianne reread his poems to gain a deeper understanding of the man and his heart. She sustained long conversations with Leonard in her head, lost herself in daydreams and wrote English letters in her diary:

  Darling,

  I am so tired and work so hard all day. All alone tonight looking at the moon and the sea. Will I ever see you again?

  ps. Driving home this evening I saw a falling star landing. I said your name.

  In the autumn of 1961 a telegram came from Montreal: “Have house. All I need is my woman and her son. Love Leonard.”52 Marianne was more than ready to pack her suitcase and leave Norway.

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  MONTREAL

  * * *

  Marianne’s bags were practically already packed when Leonard cabled to ask if she and Axel Joachim would come to him. She’d been waiting for this. Brimming with anticipation, she settled herself and her eighteen-month-old son, who’d just said goodbye to his grandmother, into their seats on the plane. Marianne and Leonard hadn’t seen one another in several months when she and Axel Joachim landed in Montreal. Leonard remembers seeing them through the glass, Marianne in her fur coat and a heavy valise in each hand. He waved. Marianne’s hands were full so she waved back with her foot.53 In love, her heart thumping, she led Axel Joachim through to the public arrivals hall.

  Leonard had found lodgings for them in a grand old house in downtown Montreal. The façade of the townhouse was interrup­ted by a carriage gate that led from the street to the courtyard and the old stables, now converted to apartments. It was in one of these that Leonard had rented the third floor through his friend Robert Hershorn, who was one of Montreal’s richest young men and who lived in the main house.

  Marianne and her child first, Leonard following with a bag in each hand, they went up the stairs along the outside of the building and walked into the open, sunny living room with a view over the city and the Saint Lawrence River. As the sunlight warmed her skin, Marianne reflected on the turn her life had taken.

  Leonard came from a conservative Jewish family, but Marianne and Axel Joachim were nonetheless soon introduced to his mother, Masha. His father had died when Leonard was just nine years old. Eccentric and handsome, Masha now lived alone in a great house in the wealthy residential area of Westmount. Marianne felt that her new “mother-in-law” took her in like a daughter.

  During their first visit to Leonard’s mother in Westmount, he took Marianne up to his old room on the second floor. He opened up one of the desk drawers and lifted out a box, which he placed on the palm of one hand while he took off the top. In the box lay two pendants: a miniature gold ballerina in a tutu and a little gold key. Leonard had been given the key as a high school graduation present. He bought a gold chain for Marianne and fastened it, along with the two charms, around her neck. Marianne later learned that it was customary to bestow a golden key charm on one’s first love.

  Marianne felt at home in Montreal at once. She could speak English, and even though Montreal bustled with millions of inhabitants and a multitude of cultures, the city wasn’t so very different than Oslo. Still, settling into a big city with a toddler, with­out daycare or work, was a significant transition for Marianne. It was a far cry from Hydra, where she had friends and children ran freely in the streets and from house to house. Her world in Montreal comprised Leonard, the child and herself.

  In the middle of the living room of their apartment was a big bed heaped with cushions. When Marianne came down with influenza she moved there to avoid infecting the others. Sensing that she needed a change from lying there and staring into empty space, Leonard bought her a yellow writing pad with light green lines. Marianne began to write. She wrote and wrote — about her grandmother and life in the large house by the shore at Larkollen. Reverting to her childhood, she wrote like a seven-year-old, with capital letters. On the cover of the yellow notebook she penned “My Grandmother’s House.” After reading it, Leonard took the notebook with him when he went to New York to meet his publisher. The publisher contacted Marianne and asked if she was interested in trying her hand at a book: if so, he encouranged her to set to work at a typewriter. When Marianne tried to follow through, the flow
of words dried up. The ideas filled her head but they refused to be turned into words on typewriter paper. The manuscript lay there and came to nothing.

  Marianne fantasized about studying art and literature at McGill University, Leonard’s alma mater, had she lacked the necessary qualifications from Norway. Leonard worked on his projects with his usual intensity. His second book, The Spice-Box of Earth, had just come out, making him known in Montreal’s literary circles. He concentrated on a new manuscript that he was writing for Canadian television, and collaborated on a documentary film with artistic friends.

  The little family was often in the company of Leonard’s friends Irving Layton and Morton Rosengarten. Irving, a revolutionary poet and philosopher, had taught Leonard at McGill and had visited Hydra. He was a mentor for Leonard, who was his junior by twenty years. Morton was a sculptor and an old schoolmate of Leonard. He’d played banjo in their high-school band, The Buckskin Boys, and had moved into a large wooden house in rural Way’s Mill, where Marianne, Axel Joachim and Leonard visited him. Alighting from the bus, which stopped just outside Morton’s door, Marianne first witnessed the shocking reds of Canada’s maple foliage in autumn.