by Linn Ullmann
But that same night the dreams returned, and he was jolted awake.
He reached out for Stella, but Bee was lying between them. Bee was awake. She stared at him. He stared back. It’s not normal for babies to stare like that, he thought. Babies howl and drool and laugh and suck, but they’re not supposed to stare! Martin lifted the eiderdown as if he fully expected to find a coiled serpent under there instead of a baby’s body. Bee was naked except for a diaper full of poop. He picked her up and laid her in her bassinet. She whimpered. He put a finger to her lips: “Ssh.” She whimpered again. He pressed his finger against her lips. “Ssh! I said. Go to sleep!” At last he turned away, grabbed a pillow, and went off to lie down on the sofa in the living room.
Stella woke up and called him. He heard her pad over to the bassinet and take Bee in her arms, heard the words she said.
Sweet, gentle words, I imagine, words murmured to a child in the middle of the night.
Video Recording: Stella & Martin
The House by the Lady Falls
8/27/00, 4:30 A.M.
MARTIN: Everything of value. How exactly would you define that, Stella?
STELLA: I knew this substitute teacher once, in sixth or seventh grade. She was actually a dressmaker, but the dresses she made didn’t pay the rent, so she substituted at school. She used to ask me if I’d like to go for a walk after class. She wasn’t particularly good-looking, short and plump, but she had nice eyes that really saw me. She said, “Stella, you’re tall, you play the flute well, you have five fingers on each hand, you can be whatever you want to be. There is no end to you. You have unlimited depths.” Her name was Frederikke Moll. I remember, because I used to say her name over and over again inside my head. Frederikke Moll. Frederikke Moll.
MARTIN: Why are you telling me this now?
STELLA: Because you started babbling about “everything of value,” and this is a memory I value.
MARTIN: But we’re talking about things here, Stella, not memories. Everything of value, said that most excellent insurance broker Gunnar R. Owesen, and off he went. Everything of value. Every thing’s value. The sofa. The glass table. The candlesticks. The flower vases. The bookcases and the books. Nothing of value, really. The photographs on the wall. What else? The silver, did you say? Okay! Passing through the living room and into the dining room. Eight red chairs, one large dark dining table, a picture on the wall of a red sun sinking into a black sea, another picture, of a puddle on tarmac, welcome to our home, and on we go. Look! This lovely room painted blue is the kitchen. Do you think Mr. Insurance Broker Gunnar R. Owesen and his colleagues sit and watch these videos, Stella? This documentation of rooms and things? Should we open the cupboards? Should we open the drawers? Now, what have we here? A perfect mess! A potato peeler, a corkscrew, a pencil sharpener, an Easter chick, a receipt for something, an unsent letter from Stella to Axel Grutt, three unopened bills, a broken knife, an old drawing of Amanda’s depicting, not surprisingly, a red house that also happens to be some sort of ferocious monster—wouldn’t you say, Stella? And what would the child psychologists say if they could see your daughter’s drawings? A pack of PP pastilles—you can’t buy them anywhere these days—three pot holders, a bunch of keys, a copy of a tax return from … let’s see … three years ago, a collection of poems by e. e. cummings. Nope! Back into the drawer, all of it. Nothing of value here.
STELLA: Try the third drawer to the right.
MARTIN: Third drawer to the right it is!
STELLA: D’you see anything?
MARTIN: Do I ever! All glittering and gleaming.
STELLA: No it isn’t, Martin. I doubt if it’s glittering or gleaming. It hasn’t glittered and gleamed since we polished it two years ago. I believe the first and last time we ever got that silverware out was for Bee’s seventh birthday.
MARTIN: Dear little Bee.
STELLA: And what’s that supposed to mean?
MARTIN: It means I can just picture her sitting at the table eating, with those shaky scab-encrusted hands of hers, or lying in bed, asleep and panting as if she were on the run, even in her sleep. I don’t know what else to say, Stella, except dear little Bee.
STELLA: You say it with such a … such a note of contempt in your voice—dear little Bee, like that—I can’t help wondering whether you mean it.
MARTIN: Mean what?
STELLA: That word dear. Whether your daughter is … well … dear to you.
MARTIN: Your body, Stella, is dear to me, and everything that issues from your body—all the sighs, groans, words, tears, laughter, excrement, blood, vomit, discharges, kids, the one that isn’t mine and the other one that is—I love it, all of it.
STELLA: I was trying to talk to you, Martin. Seriously. It’s all a joke to you, isn’t it, even when we’re talking about our child. Put that camera down! I’ve got something to tell you!
MARTIN: All a joke. Stella wants to be serious. But I’m not going to put the camera down. We’ve got stuff to do. We’re supposed to be talking about things, not children. Gunnar R. Owesen isn’t interested in our children; he probably has a whole fucking houseful of kids himself. But precious objects, on the other hand! Gold and silver! These he wants to hear more about… . Let’s see, now. Nine big forks. Nine small forks. Nine big knives. Nine small knives. Ten tablespoons.
STELLA: They’re soupspoons.
MARTIN: I beg your pardon, soupspoons! Ten soupspoons. Ten teaspoons. Maybe we should explain to the insurance broker why we have nine of some things and ten of others and a complete dozen of nothing. Take the camera for a minute, Stella, and I’ll explain. Can you see me?
STELLA: I’ve got you in close-up, Martin.
MARTIN: What do you see?
STELLA: Your face, your eyes.
MARTIN: Let me explain about the silver forks, the silver knives, and the silver spoons. They were a gift from Stella’s mother, my mother-in-law, the lady whose stomach never rumbled, not till she was lying on her deathbed. Isn’t that right, Stella?
STELLA: Well, yes. But have some respect for the dead, please.
MARTIN: Why the dead more than the living?
STELLA: Because they can’t defend themselves.
MARTIN: And you think the living can?
STELLA: No, that’s not what I think—
MARTIN: The fact is, Stella’s mother, whose stomach never rumbled till she was lying on her deathbed, felt we ought to have some silverware in our drawer. She was quite a lady, was Stella’s mother.
STELLA: She was not a lady, she was a tree.
MARTIN: Come again, Stella?
STELLA: Mamma wanted to be a tree. When I was little, I once asked her, Why are you always so quiet, Mamma? To which she replied, Because I want to be as quiet as a tree. And I said, What sort of tree? And Mamma said, It makes no difference.
MARTIN: Nevertheless, it would have been a fine tree. Not a fir tree, at any rate.
STELLA: Maybe a Siberian weeping birch.
MARTIN: No, not her. You’re a Siberian weeping birch, Stella. Not your mother. She was a cherry tree.
STELLA: Who gave us gifts of silverware.
MARTIN: Exactly. Every Christmas we were presented with more silver. She had a system, too. I like that. A regular system. Everyone should have a system. It went like this: On Stella’s birthdays she gave us knives. On my birthdays she gave us forks. For Christmas she gave us spoons. What is Stella’s mother actually thinking here? She’s thinking, Stella is a knife, so I’ll give her knives. Which is, in fact, very apt, seeing as Stella actually sleeps with a knife under her pillow, in case the beast should come to get her. And I am a fork. Martin is a fork, Stella’s mother thinks. Look at that silver fork there, get a really good shot of that silver fork, Stella, a close-up, so Mr. Gunnar R. Owesen, insurance broker, can gaze upon it in all its splendor. That fork has something in common with me—okay, now turn the camera on me, Stella—but I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is I have in common with a fork. Why did Stella�
��s mother give me forks for my birthday every year?
STELLA: Maybe because forks are jagged.
MARTIN: Or five-fingered.
STELLA: They’re called tines, Martin. And there are only four.
MARTIN: Forks are too straight for my liking.
STELLA: But unlike knives they split at the tip.
MARTIN: Which brings us to the spoons. Because every Christmas Eve, Stella and I received a joint present from Stella’s mother. One teaspoon and one soupspoon. Look at this spoon. A close-up of the spoon, Stella! I’ve chosen the soupspoon. I prefer the soupspoon to the teaspoon. The teaspoon is ditzy. The teaspoon is a poodle, a pocket mirror, a skinny straitlaced woman. The soupspoon, on the other hand, is all rounded and soft and nice and, unlike knives and forks, it’s not dangerous to put in your mouth. The soupspoon reminds me of you curled up against me and me curled up against you at night… . Anyway, that was the story of the nine knives and the nine forks and the ten spoons. Unfortunately, Stella’s mother died around Christmas-time a year ago. She just managed to give us the tenth teaspoon and the tenth soupspoon before drawing her last breath and ascending to heaven.
STELLA: Martin, would you take the camera now?
MARTIN: Okay.
STELLA: I want you to come over here.
MARTIN: Over where?
STELLA: Into the hall. I want you to get a shot of this. Because from a purely objective point of view, it actually is valuable.
MARTIN: I think it’s hideous, Stella.
STELLA: It is not. It’s lovely.
MARTIN: A stuffed female torso draped in an old pink lace dress. Hideous!
STELLA: It’s a dressmaker’s dummy, Martin. I want you to get a shot of it. You shoot it and I’ll do the talking.
MARTIN: I’ll shoot and you’ll do the talking.
STELLA: I want to say something about this lace dress. Can you shut up for one minute?
MARTIN: By all means. I shoot, you talk, right? Okay, Stella, fire away!
STELLA: Thank you, Martin…. The pink lace dress you see hanging here was left to me by my mother—
MARTIN: Who gave birth to my darling Stella without feeling any pain. She did not feel the slightest twinge of pain, Stella’s mother, my mother-in-law, whose stomach never rumbled till she was lying on her deathbed.
STELLA: You’re interrupting again!
MARTIN: Sorry, Stella. But I think the insurance broker ought to hear this story. Picture her if you will, Mr. Gunnar R. Owesen: Long-haired Edith Lind, Stella’s mother, my mother-in-law, whose stomach never rumbled till she was lying on her deathbed, sitting on a windowsill in the maternity ward, reading a book. The contractions are coming at two-minute intervals, and later at one-minute intervals. There is little doubt that she is in the last stages of labor. And yet there is nothing about Edith’s actions, her facial expression, or her voice to indicate that she is in pain. Occasionally the midwife has to ask her to put down her book so she can listen to her stomach. The baby’s heartbeat is rapid and strong, but the midwife can hear other sounds, too. What is it with this child? she thinks. What kind of noises is it making, there in its mother’s womb? You may think, Gunnar R. Owesen, that all the midwife can hear when she listens at the mother’s stomach is the baby’s heartbeat. Not so. The midwife can hear all sorts of noises. Sometimes she hears sighs, gurgles, whispers, laughter, whistling, at other times something that sounds like shouts, from children who don’t wish to be born, perhaps. And this time she hears sounds not unlike crying, not unlike screams, right, Stella?
STELLA: Right.
MARTIN: After the midwife has listened to her stomach, long-haired Edith Lind, my mother-in-law, whose stomach never rumbled till she was lying on her deathbed, reads a verse out loud. And the midwife will remember that verse for a long time, to this very day, in fact, because Edith reads it several times, in a soft singing voice, a very beautiful voice. The midwife, that splendid old woman, thinks to herself that all women have their own way of bidding a new baby welcome, and this is Edith Lind’s way. To read or to sing, because it is as if she is singing when she reads, a verse about love. But that’s not the case, is it, Stella? The midwife is mistaken. It’s not you Edith Lind is thinking of when she sings. It’s not you. She doesn’t even feel pain; she feels no more pain than that stuffed torso over there; her face doesn’t change color when the contractions surge through her body, she turns neither red nor white, she is just as pale and composed as the lace dress. Does she feel anything at all? Well, possibly a restless sense of discomfort at being there. She would much rather be somewhere else … so she sings. How does that Swedish song go again?
STELLA: I pull her golden locks…
MARTIN: Is it you, O impossible one?
STELLA: Is it you?
MARTIN: Bewildered I gaze into her face …
STELLA: Are the gods, then, playing with us?
MARTIN: Eventually the midwife has to ask Edith to settle herself in the birthing chair, but she doesn’t want to. She wants to stand. So Edith stands bolt upright on the floor, clinging to a young nurse who has come in to assist and who is soon to have her young life ruined by your arrival, Stella. The midwife hunkers down in front of Edith, preparing to catch the child. And she can see inside Edith now, up into her, way up inside her, and what she sees is big and red and wet, that’s you, Stella, and you’re screaming even before you come into the world. You fall down through Edith’s birth canal, fall into the world, fall into the splendid old midwife’s splendid old hands; you fall wide-eyed, long and slender, like a diver from a cliff—but with an unearthly scream that bursts the young nurse’s eardrum, with the result that today, thirty-five years later, she is still deaf in the left ear.
STELLA: She’s gone deaf in the right ear, too.
MARTIN: Well, I’ll be… . How did you know that?
STELLA: I met her through my work. At a conference. Her name is Alma Blom. She’s over sixty now. When I introduced myself, she asked if I was Edith Lind’s daughter, and when I said yes, she realized who I was and we had quite a long chat. I knew my mother had kept in touch with her for years after I was born, had sent her letters and sometimes even money, in compensation for the damage to her ear. Alma confirmed all this. She confirmed that my mother seemed to feel no pain during labor, that she sang of love during the contractions, and that she left the hospital that same day, just a few hours after I was born, with me wrapped in a pink blanket. Oh, and of course she confirmed that I burst her eardrum the moment I fell into the world.
MARTIN: And what did you say to that?
STELLA: I said I was sorry.
MARTIN: And what did she say?
STELLA: She said you can’t blame a child for the things she does before she’s even a minute old. Besides which, she’d gone deaf in the right ear, too.
MARTIN: Another baby?
STELLA: No. She gave up obstetrics after the incident with me and switched to working with cancer patients instead—in other words, we’re colleagues. I don’t know why she went deaf in her right ear. But she can read lips and she speaks clearly, so carrying on a conversation with her is no problem at all.
MARTIN: Take a good look at this dressmaker’s dummy, take a good look at this lace dress. The dress is old. An antique. How much do you think it’s worth, Stella?
STELLA: I’ve no idea.
MARTIN: She has no idea. We’ll need to find out what it’s worth. A good few thousand kroner, I’d imagine. Stella inherited it from her mother, and it was a present to Stella’s mother from a lady by the name of Ella. You see, Mr. Gunnar R. Owesen, even though Stella and I have never met Ella, she is a part of our life, so she figures in our conversation. Ella was, by all accounts, the only person in the world ever to hear long-haired Edith Lind, Stella’s mother, my mother-in-law, whose stomach never rumbled till she was lying on her deathbed, cry out loud. Make any sound at all. You know the sort of sounds I’m talking about, don’t you, Owesen? Laughter, Owesen. Moans of desire. Have you ever
heard a naked woman burp with pleasure? Edith Lind left her husband and her little daughter as often as she could to be with Ella, and when she came home, the only signs that she had been cheating on her husband were flushed cheeks and an extra dash of pepper on her dinner. Stella has a photograph of her mother’s lover. She found it in one of her father’s desk drawers when he died. An elegant, fair-haired, plump woman, around fortyfive in this picture, although they had been lovers for many years before it was taken. How many years, Stella?
STELLA: Twenty years.
MARTIN: Twenty years. All those years when you were growing up, they were lovers. She’s dead now, Ella is. They’re all dead now. Stella’s mother, Ella, and Stella’s father. Stella’s the only one left. Her and her kids.
STELLA: I wish you wouldn’t say it like that.
MARTIN: Like what?
STELLA: The way you said it. Stella’s the only one left. Her and her kids.
MARTIN: But it’s true, isn’t it?
STELLA: You know what I think, Martin? I think the difference between you and me, and what makes you sometimes such a pain in the ass and so cold, is that you were loved as a child. It’s made you spoiled and inconsiderate.
MARTIN: What in the world? Where did all this anger come from?
STELLA: Good night, Martin.
MARTIN: We’re not done yet.
STELLA: We’re done.
Corinne
“The nights were awful. Awful.” Martin said, putting his head in his hands.
Outside it was dark, November dark, even though it was September and the heat of the last few days had been anything but autumnal. In the apartment all was quiet. If Martin had been talking louder, instead of telling his story in something close to a whisper, we would have heard the faint echo of his voice in that room with its remarkable acoustics.
