by Linn Ullmann
On my birthday I ordered hot dogs, French fries, and a soda from room service.
The ostrich king slept for three days. He said he’d never slept so well. Dreamless.
Then we headed home again.
Axel
A bath before the funeral. Attending to one’s toilet becomes an increasingly arduous task as one ages. But as long as I have plenty of time, and as long as neither impatience nor fear gets the better of me, I can, nonetheless, make myself presentable.
Some years ago I took one of my last trips abroad, to Arezzo in Italy. There was an archaeologist there, Paolo, or Massimo; I don’t recall his name. But I do remember being invited into his workshop, where I saw all the fragments of stone jars on which he was working. To me this collection looked like a bunch of old rocks, but he was proud of them because they were old, thousands of years old. And if you put them together in the right way, said Paolo or Massimo, if you understood how this stone fit with that, then you would also understand something very important about something-or-other—I’ve forgotten what. It wasn’t the thought of some grand design that impressed me, however, it was the way the archaeologist worked. He handled each fragment with precision, gentleness, care, and deliberation, always in the knowledge that it could crack, crumble away, turn to dust. It was a beautiful sight: the archaeologist’s fingers, the remarkable rapport between hand and eye.
Sometimes I feel about my body much as the archaeologist seemed to feel about his stones. It’s as though my body is a heap of rocks that has to be made presentable, put on display, possibly commented on (Well, how about that? Don’t tell me he’s still alive!). I should not have to feel ashamed of my appearance were it not for the fear that this body, this load of old rocks, might let me down. Because it is constantly threatening to humiliate me, belittle me, make me look foolish.
There is fear. I am still afraid.
The archaeologist said nothing about fear. Those stones were not his body. He said the stones were his life, but they were not his body. There is a difference. Before I left him in his workshop, he gave me a stone and asked me to take good care of it because it was very old, probably at least 2,300 years old. And I took this 2,300-year-old stone home and set it on my bedside table, in an ashtray, under the lamp. I would gaze at it respectfully every night before getting into bed. I would think warmly of the archaeologist in his workshop. I would try to imagine where that stone had been, all the centuries to which it could bear witness, were it a living being and not a stone; but a stone it was, and a stone it remained, and as such it could not bear witness to anything at all.
Then it happened. One evening about three weeks after my return from Italy, the stone was gone. The stone was gone, the ashtray washed and put back in the kitchen closet. Old hag! I thought. Obviously Money had thrown out what she took to be a piece of junk, a worthless hunk of rock.
She always has to ruin things for me.
I realized that there was no point in bringing the matter up with her; she would just stare blankly at me, take offense. I mean, what does she know of 2,300-year-old stones or grand designs? For my own part, I felt bad about the archaeologist. The thought of him kept me awake several nights running. Not that there’s anything unusual about that, but this time all I could think about was the lost stone, the archaeologist’s hands, his fingers, the look in his eyes, ancient treasures of great moment. It seemed to me that I had been careless enough to lose a tiny fragment of life itself—not my own life, you understand, but the archaeologist’s. He must have felt it, the loss of the stone—the stone he had given me, entrusted to me—he must have felt the loss like a physical pain.
In the end, I was so consumed with guilt that I looked up the archaeologist’s telephone number in Italy and called him. In my decent English I explained to the somewhat bewildered gentleman who answered the phone that I had done my best to look after the 2,300-year-old stone, but that an old hag had thrown it away, probably down the garbage chute outside my apartment.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. And then the man said, “Ahhh!”
“Yes?” I said, anxiously.
“It is all right!” he said. “Not to worry!”
“Not to worry?” I whispered.
“No,” he replied, “not to worry!”
“No?”
“No!”
Then he said “Ciao!” and hung up.
I’ve been cut open, had my insides reorganized, and been sewn up again any number of times. And it has hurt. Even my heart has been slit open and handled. There is nothing more to be got from my body. It cannot be cut open and sewn up again. I have nothing more to give. Before, my fear was abstract, hypothetical, diffuse. I was subject to frequent bouts of melancholy, which suited me fine. With Gerd I could always blame things on my melancholy, thus securing dispensation to do as I pleased: an agreeable arrangement. Now my fear is concrete and prosaic. Take this business of the bath, for example. I have managed to ease my old carcass into the bath without falling over, but I still have to get out again, which means I cannot enjoy the hot water for wondering how that is to be done. I am afraid I will slip on the bathroom floor and crack my head against the edge of the tub. I am afraid I will pass out here, overcome by the heat; afraid of being found by Money, unconscious, naked, helpless; afraid of not being found at all, of turning into a stinking corpse for the neighbors to discuss in horrified whispers; afraid of ending up as an item in the newspaper: “Naked old man slips on bathroom floor, lies dead for a week before police break down door.” (What would my daughter say? Would she bow her head for a moment and think back on us two, Dad and Alice, and all the times she came running to meet me, arms outstretched? Or would she quickly, quietly, and efficiently organize funeral and wreath, soon to return, tight-lipped, to her quick, quiet, and efficient life as a middle-aged woman with a husband, two grown-up children, and her first grandchild on the way?)
In my former life, I liked to go swimming, liked to feel the water loosening up muscles, skin, joints. In my former life, I liked a lot of things without really appreciating them. I liked to eat good food. These days I can no longer taste the difference between a slice of coarse whole wheat and a slice of soft white bread. I used to like fine wines. These days it makes no difference whether it is a Bordeaux or an American cabernet. Every once in a while, I still treat myself to some good food and fine wine, but the joy is gone.
Amanda
Things I believe in:
I believe in Snip, Snap, and Snout. I believe in their fingers running through my hair, which just gets longer and longer. I believe in thirty fingers running through my hair, six hands stroking my body, three mouths kissing mine.
I believe that I might catch fire at any minute.
But I don’t say things like that to Bee. She’s just a little girl. She doesn’t even have breasts yet.
Axel
Yes, the joy is gone.
I used to take joy in the lazy turn of a Ferris wheel, so beautifully constructed, so brilliantly conceived. I once told Amanda about the engineer George Washington Ferris, the inventor of the Ferris wheel, and my relative. Martha Ferris, the engineer’s mother, was my father’s second cousin. When I was a boy, my father took me for a ride on a Ferris wheel, not a particularly big one but breathtaking all the same. When we reached the top he looked down and said, “You know, you could stand up, stretch out your arms, and jump. That’s what hits me up here. You could actually do it!”
I told Amanda that George Washington Ferris built his fabulous wheel for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, in no small part to impress his charming wife, Margaret Ann. This wheel, which was 250 feet in diameter, cost $400,000 to construct. It was to be the biggest wheel ever, the most magnificent mechanical invention of all time. The axle—the very heart of the wheel, Amanda!—weighed sixty-three tons, the largest iron part ever to be cast in one piece, and around this axle 1,440 passengers could ride at a time, up into the air and down again, up into t
he air and down, up into the air and down.
On June 17, 1893, Ferris’s charming wife raised her champagne glass to toast her husband. She was sitting, at the time, at the top of the wheel, from which point she could see the whole of Chicago. Her voice was soft. To the health of my husband and the success of the Ferris wheel.
“She drank a toast,” I told Amanda, “to her husband and his wonderful invention. Because strictly speaking, you see, that is its correct name: the Ferris wheel, which is what Americans call it, and not the Parisian wheel, as it is known in Europe, or the Big Wheel, as the British call it. He was greater than Gustave Eiffel, Amanda, and yet no one now remembers him at all.”
“But was his wife happy that he had made a wheel for her?”
“I don’t think she ever set foot on a Ferris wheel again,” I said. “She left him three years later. He was all washed up. He owed money right, left, and center. The fabulous wheel had cost too much to build, and people gradually lost interest. George Washington Ferris was told to knock the thing down, but when he tried to sell it for scrap, no one would buy it. Some people say the Germans eventually took it off his hands and later used it to make guns during the First World War.”
“And what happened to the inventor? What happened to Ferris?”
“He died. Of a broken heart, it was said. His charming wife, the magnificent wheel—scrap, the lot of it. The joy was gone.”
Amanda reminds me that once, a long time ago, I took pleasure in teaching. As a young man I dreamed of making a difference as a teacher. I even used such words as inspiration, bequeathing, and … well … joy. But I never did hit it off with my fellow teachers. The older ones could not forgive my so-called treachery during the war. The younger ones ignored me. And the students … I never managed to get through to them. They wouldn’t listen to me. In the end I gave up, grew sardonic and baleful. Alienated them. Earned myself the nickname Gruesome Grutt.
“Why didn’t they like you, Axel? What did they blame you for? What happened during the war?”
Stella stands before the gilt mirror in the hall, looking at me.
“Come on, Axel, tell me. I tell you everything, don’t I?”
A few days ago, I read a newspaper article in which some old people answered the question: Given the chance, would you live your life over again? Most of them said yes. How could they? How could anyone live his life again? Go through all that toil and trouble again? It’s only fair to point out that the reporter had not set out to describe the lot of the elderly in Norway. This was one of those so-called feel-good pieces, human-interest stuff, aimed at younger people who are working themselves to death and not taking time to enjoy the important things in life: their children, their family, and so on. (I’ve never understood how one is supposed to enjoy one’s family. I was certainly never able to enjoy mine.) These elderly interviewees figured merely as cautionary waxworks of a sort, a grim reminder of what lies ahead. Enjoy life while you’ve still got it! That was how the journalist concluded his article. Enjoy life? Live it over again? Never! These days I’m most afraid that I’m going to end up living forever, unless I take matters into my own hands; afraid that God, if he exists, has forgotten all about me; that Death, busy as life is, has forgotten me, too.
Having had my bath and hoisted myself out of the tub, I plant myself squarely in front of the mirror. Swathed in a yellow bathrobe, I shave—and my hand is steady. It does not tremble. It does its work with precision, gentleness, care, and deliberation. When I finish shaving, I will get dressed. I laid my clothes out last night. I shall wear dark blue slacks, a dark blue jacket, a white shirt I ironed five days ago, the same day I heard of her death, and a blue tie. I do not need a walking stick. I have a good firm step for my age. I have a green felt hat to which I am greatly attached.
I suppose I do have one joy; there is pleasure for me in music. I have never played an instrument, and I only ever sing to myself, very quietly, under the eiderdown at night. I used to sing at the moment when the Ferris wheel gondola reached its highest point: I would stand up, stretch out my arms, and sing. Music tells me there are beings beyond this miserable existence who are willing to speak to us. Unborn children, perhaps, who were meant to have a body, a voice, a life, but who came to nothing, aborted or snuffed out at the moment of conception, and turned instead into music that some composer was sensitive enough to catch and write down.
I know there are other sorts of reality. I can hear them there, on the other side, a bequest from the outermost limits.
Mind you, my neighbor does his best to spoil it for me. I’ve lost count of the times over the years I’ve had to bang on the wall because he’s put on the racket he calls music. And the old boy’s nearly stone-deaf. One morning I rang his doorbell and tried, as politely as I know how, to persuade him to buy a hearing aid like mine, with headphones and none of those fiddly little screws or knobs. But the old fool took my overture as an insult.
For one thing, he said, there was nothing wrong with his hearing. And for another, he had no problem adjusting his hearing aid.
Naturally I had to ask him why he had a hearing aid, if there was nothing wrong with his hearing. That was when he slammed the door in my face.
“Well, thank you!” I yelled.
I heard him behind the door, muttering something under his breath. Then he shuffled off to what I presumed to be a very expensive modern stereo system and turned the volume up even louder. Some second-rate opera singer, I think it was, screeching her way through a frightful libretto that someone had slapped onto a clarinet concerto by Mozart.
That did it. I marched back to my own apartment and turned up the volume on my own stereo. I have a CD of Janet Baker singing Mahler so divinely anyone would think Mahler had written the piece with her in mind. I shut my eyes.
I opened my eyes. My neighbor had turned his racket up even louder—in order to drown out my Mahler.
I hammered on the wall.
My neighbor hammered on his wall.
I turned up the volume.
My neighbor turned up his volume.
The whole building rang with the noise.
Every now and then, time seems to pass without my being aware of it. I get confused. The day starts and the day ends, and all of a sudden it’s nighttime. Where have I been? What have I done?
I heard the sound of running feet and voices on the stairs. Loud knocking on my door. A man’s voice shouting, “Grutt! Grutt! Are you okay?”
I stepped out into the hall, past the gilt mirror, and calmly opened the door.
“Are you okay?” asked the young dark-haired man standing outside. He was panting for breath. I recognized him. He lived two floors above me; as far as I knew he was a writer and a conceited ass. It was difficult to hear what he was saying. Mahler was drowning everything out.
“Why, yes, I’m perfectly okay,” I replied.
I did my best to speak in a normal voice, even though the music was so loud. By now I could hear only my music. My neighbor must have switched his off.
“But you’re waking the whole building,” the young man shouted, looking over my shoulder as if expecting to see women dancing languorously around my living room.
“It’s Mahler!” I shouted.
“Right, but this just isn’t okay.”
I looked at him, wanting to explain that I knew very well the music was far too loud. Everything went quiet for a moment, long enough for us both to catch our breath. We eyed each other. A few seconds passed. Then the music struck up again from the first track on the CD. I jumped.
“It’s Mahler,” I repeated, gazing at the floor. “My neighbor was mangling Mozart; it was unbearable. You must have heard it. I know I shouldn’t play it so loud. I beg your pardon. But he was mangling Mozart… . Won’t you come in? I’ll turn down the volume and you can listen to it yourself—to Mahler, I mean.”
The young man sighed, glanced at his watch.
“It’s past two o’clock,” he said. “I went to bed hours a
go: me, my wife, our kids, and the dog. The whole gang. It’s the middle of the night, don’t you realize that? And it just keeps playing over and over. Did you forget to cancel the repeat button?”
“No … yes … I’ve—I don’t know.”
Now I was confused. I said, “Couldn’t you come in for a moment, so we can sort this out?”
The young man glanced at his watch again, suddenly at a loss.
“I want you to hear Mahler as he ought to be heard,” I went on, firmly now. “That’s Janet Baker singing—anyone would think Mahler wrote this with her in mind… . Listen! It’s all about a child dying—his own, you understand. His own child.”
The young man shrugged, as if about to turn and go, but to my astonishment he followed me into the living room and sat down on the sofa. I turned the sound down. Janet Baker’s divine voice filled the room.
“Well, maybe we could sit here for a little while,” the young man said, “and listen to your music. Without having to talk to each other, and without having to do it again another night out of sheer politeness.”
“Right,” I said.
And so we sat there in my living room, listening to Mahler, this conceited young ass and me. He probably wasn’t all that bad once you got to know him—which I, of course, never did because we never did it again. We nodded politely when we bumped into each other on the stairs, but we never did it again—and then, a few months ago, he moved out, leaving behind his wife, his children, and the dog. I don’t know where he went. We did not say goodbye.
Since then it has occurred to me that I should possibly have played Schubert instead. It doesn’t do to be too stirred up when you listen to Mahler. Schubert might have given him more joy … or solace. Sometimes when I say joy, I mean solace.
