The Cold Song

by Linn Ullmann

  Milla thought about the time he had given her the Dylan CD. This was several days ago. How he had looked at her and spoken to her.

  “Sorry to disturb you, Jon. I was just wondering if you knew where the sunscreen for Liv is? I can’t find it and I was thinking that we might go to the beach since the weather’s so nice.”

  Jon swiveled around on his office chair and looked at Milla. He had his own special way of looking at her. His eyes sparkled. She felt like telling him that he was cool. That he had this kind of cool energy. Or would that sound stupid? He was a writer, and she wasn’t sure how you were supposed to talk to writers. She didn’t want him to think she was stupid, that she was just this immature young girl.

  “No, you’re not disturbing me, Milla. In fact I’m bored to death here!”

  He had a pile of CDs lying on his desk. He picked up one of them, the Dylan CD, and tossed it to her.

  “This is good. You should listen to it.”

  “Thanks,” Milla said. “Thanks a lot.”

  Jon made no reply. Milla went on standing there.

  “What are you writing?”

  Jon looked away. “I’m writing a novel that will never be finished. I simply do not have it in me to finish this book.”

  “That’s nice,” Milla replied, then corrected herself: “I mean, it’s nice that you’re writing a novel. It’s not nice that you can’t get it finished. I’m sure you will, though.”

  Jon laughed again. Not at her, though, she thought. He was laughing to himself, as if she wasn’t there, as if something funny had just struck him. But suddenly his eye met hers again and he said, “You look very pretty today, Milla, look how pretty you are, standing there like that in the light from the window.”

  Milla smiled.

  “I think you’re cool,” she blurted out, “you’ve got this incredibly cool energy and I’m absolutely convinced that you’re going to write a brilliant novel.”

  Jon gave a curt laugh, it was hard to interpret that laugh. Milla blushed. It had probably been stupid to say that bit about cool energy.

  “Looking at you gives me energy, Milla,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at her. “You’re beautiful,” he added. “Luminous.”

  Jon had turned back to the computer screen. She didn’t want it to end yet. She said, “I’m not very good at writing, never have been, but I have so much respect for the way you sit here writing, day in, day out, and you’ve written lots of books before, it was so hard for me at school, I just couldn’t do it, but I’ve often thought that if I had been able to write a book then it would have been something really special.”

  Jon turned to face her. A different look in his eyes now. Not the friendliness of a moment before. Something more challenging.

  “Oh—a book about you? About your life?” he asked.

  “Yes, kind of. There’s so much I’d like to describe, if you know what I mean.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” he said.

  He laughed out loud, but she had no idea whether he was laughing at her or at himself or if she was supposed to laugh along. And then he looked at her and said, “Are you an elf, Milla?”

  “What?”

  For a moment Milla thought she hadn’t understood what he’d said. Had he in fact asked her if she was an elf? What was she supposed to say to that?

  “What … an elf?… Yes, maybe I am.” She giggled. “There’s a lot of magic in my life, kind of.”

  “Good,” Jon said tersely, “that’s great.” And suddenly he looked very tired.

  But Milla stood her ground.

  “What I wanted to tell you is that I make books too. Not like you do, I don’t mean like you. It’s just something I do for myself. Secret scrapbooks. Secret because I don’t show them to anyone, have never told anyone about them either. Only you, now. You’re the only one who knows. I take pictures. I photograph everything I come across—people, animals, scenery. But mostly people. When they don’t know they’re being photographed. I glue all of the pictures into my book, and I put other things that have some meaning for me in there. Everything from tufts of grass to good quotations. And I write a little bit too, but not much. Diary entries.”

  Milla took a breath. Jon swiveled around on his chair again and this time he looked straight at her.

  “Do you have pictures of yourself in there, too?” he asked. “In your book?”

  He had that provocative look about him again, as if he were challenging her once more.

  Milla wavered. “No, how do you mean?”

  “I mean, this is a book by you and about you and you’re telling me that you take lots of pictures of other people, and I was wondering whether you have a picture of yourself, I mean, whether you’ve glued a picture of yourself in there, in your book?”

  Milla was still wavering. “I don’t like to look at pictures of myself. I’m not very photogenic. My mother used to take pictures of me all the time when I was little. I hated that—”

  “Give me your phone,” Jon said, cutting her off.

  “What?” Milla giggled.

  “Give me your phone, come on, give it to me.”

  She drew her cell phone from her jacket pocket, crossed over to him, and placed it in his hand.

  Jon waved her away.

  “Stand over there in the doorway. That’s it. Now look at me. Don’t pose. Just look straight at me. Never mind the sun in your eyes, it’s fine. That’s it, yes!”

  Jon snapped a shot and at that same moment Leopold got up off the floor and sat down by the door. Milla stood there in the doorway, looking at Jon and conscious of the sun in her eyes. He wasn’t doing anything, but it felt as if he were stroking her.

  “There now, look at this,” he said, studying the picture. “You’re luminous. You can glue this into your book. And look here,” he added, pointing to a black smudge in the bottom corner, “there’s Leopold’s tail.”

  Jon handed the phone back to her. She studied the picture. She looked pretty—she could tell right away. He had taken her photograph and she looked pretty. The blue denim dress hugged her figure so neatly, the ponytail suited her, her lips were red, and there was no uncertainty or awkwardness in her eyes. Luminous.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you. It’s a nice picture. I’ll make an exception and show it to my friends. I’ll post it on my Facebook page.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Jon. “Just don’t mention who took the picture. Okay? Let that be our little secret.”

  “Okay,” she said, looking at her cell phone. “Anyway, it looks like a picture I could have taken myself.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I mean, I never let anyone photograph me.”

  He turned to face the computer screen and said, “Well, Milla, now I’d better get back to work. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  She stared at his back, hoping he would turn to look at her one more time.

  “And I guess Liv is waiting for you,” he said, not turning around. “Weren’t you going to the beach?”

  “Yes,” Milla said. “Okay. Bye, then. Thanks a lot for the CD. And the picture.”

  “Bye,” Jon replied absently, still with his back turned. “Take care.”

  Milla opened the garden gate and left the party. She told herself that no one would notice she was gone. She had no business there anyway. In the mist, dancing, with the old people. She was young. Sweetheart like you. She was beautiful. She was luminous. And soon she would text Jon and maybe even meet up with him.

  The road twisted, snakelike, from Jenny’s house at the top of the hill to the jetties and the sea at the very bottom. It was lined on both sides with summer cottages and houses, all of them small and all but invisible in the mist. But Jenny’s house was neither small nor invisible. Light shone from the windows, lights glowed in the garden, and the voices and laughter could be heard a long way off.

  Milla started walking. Don’t look back in case anyone’s watching. The silky red fabric of her dress
wafted around her, barely brushing her skin, the breeze brought soft rain with it. Don’t look back! She seemed to hear her own voice in the mist, her own voice as it had sounded when she was a little girl out cycling with Mikkel, her father, the man who always had to turn everything into a competition.

  “I want ice cream, Papa!”

  She had to pedal hard to keep up with him, even going downhill she had to pedal hard.

  “Can we buy ice cream?”

  Mikkel accelerated, turned to look at his daughter. Long dark ponytail. Pink girl’s bike. Pink helmet.

  “You want ice cream?”

  “YES!”

  He was going faster now.

  “If you beat me down this road we’ll buy ice cream, if I beat you we don’t buy ice cream. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you ready?” he said.

  Milla had picked up so much speed that she was now neck and neck with him.

  He glanced down at her. He had a nice, wide mouth, his forelock was blown by the wind. They sped down the hill.

  Milla let go of the handlebars. She could cycle downhill without holding on. Her father had taught her to do that.

  “One! Two! Three!” they shouted together, and they both stuck their arms in the air.

  “Rock! Paper! Scissors!”

  Milla chose rock. She always chose rock. Papa had told her she ought to vary it now and again. Be smart. Not always choose the same thing. It made her an easy target, he said, and smiled. But rock was rock. There was nothing more solid than rock. If you wrapped a rock in paper it would hit every bit as hard as when it was not wrapped in paper. Rock did not lose its force. Milla was eight years old and sure that she was right. Paper was for wimps.

  “ROCK!” she cried, punching the air with her fist triumphantly.

  Milla felt how the bike almost seemed to take off, to take wing, like a huge bird, she whooshed past her father.

  “ROCK,” she cried again and looked back to see if he was watching her.

  When she lost her balance and the bike came crashing down, the ground seemed to come alive. It punched and clawed and bit and beat and battered her bones.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw her father’s lips—as he swept past—forming the word paper. He had the palm of one hand raised as if he was waving to her.

  Don’t look back. If you look back you’ll fall off your bike. If you look back you’ll be turned into a pillar of salt. If you look back the one you love will die. You’re beautiful. You’re luminous. Milla looked back, there was no one there, no one had seen her go. The big, white, brightly lit house she had just left had a lonesome air to it. She could hear voices, party guests shouting and laughing, but the sounds were swathed in thick velvet. Soon the fog would envelop them all. The house, the garden, the people. Sweetheart like you. Milla walked on.

  In the middle of the road lay a buckled bike and in the ditch a little boy was sitting, crying. Milla drew closer, the boy looked up, caught sight of her, and cried even louder. She went over to him, crouched down beside him, and saw the grazes on his knees and the palms of his hands. He was bleeding. There was grit in the cuts on his knees. The grit would have to be picked out before his wounds could be cleaned and dressed. Her legs went watery, as if it were her own knees that were hurt and bleeding.

  The cuts were seeping red, rimmed with black, and crisscrossed by stinging pink streaks, it looked as though someone had drawn on his knee with a sharp pink pencil, but she didn’t think he would need stitches. She hadn’t needed them either, that time when she fell off. She laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “Did you fall off your bike? Have you hurt yourself?”

  The boy cried even louder and nodded vigorously. Milla looked up and down the road, wondering whether he was on his own or with his parents or someone. But he was clearly alone. She took his hand and helped him to his feet, then she used the red shawl she had borrowed from Siri to wipe the dirt and tears off his face. The boy had gone very quiet.

  “What’s your name?” she whispered.

  There were bloodstains on the shawl. It didn’t matter, she told herself. She would tell Siri that it was not her blood, it wasn’t as if she had been careless or anything, she had just helped this little boy who had fallen off his bike.

  “Simen,” he sniffed. “My bike’s wrecked, I’m sure it is, and I can’t afford a new one.”

  He burst into tears again and rested his head gently against her. Milla let him stay like that for a few moments before extricating herself and going over to his bike, which was lying in the middle of the road. She hunched over it and inspected the damage. The bike had survived the crash well, it was a bit muddy, but nothing was broken that couldn’t be fixed.

  “It’s not wrecked,” she said, pulling it up onto its wheels. “Look, Simen, it’s not wrecked.”

  And then Milla asked if she could walk him home. Simen nodded, his face brightening a little as he let her take his hand.

  “Where do you live?” Milla asked as they started down the long slope.

  She had one hand in his hand, the other on the handlebars of the bike. Her umbrella was slung over her shoulder alongside the evening bag.

  “Near the bottom of the hill,” he said. “It’s the second house on the left as you come up the road.”

  “But we’re not coming up the road,” Milla laughed. “We’re going down it, so your house must be on the right. Which means we’ll have to look to the right to find the house where you live.”

  They said no more after that. But Milla glanced at him every now and again, walking beside her, upright as a little tin soldier. The mist wrapped itself around them.

  “It’s like walking in a cloud,” Milla whispered.

  When they got to his house she said, “I’m Milla.”

  She propped his bike up against the fence. He looked at her and almost burst into tears again. Maybe because she was about to go.

  She bent and kissed the top of his head.

  “I’m Milla,” she said, “and you’re Simen and you’re not to cry anymore.”

  Then she turned and walked away.

  JENNY HID BEHIND the bedroom curtain and looked down on the garden and all the guests in their finery milling around in the fog. They didn’t stand a chance. The fog was too big for them. Too heavy, too gray, too impenetrable and too beautiful. Jenny screwed up her eyes. Her head hurt. The bump on her right toe burned. Her hands shook. More Cabernet would alleviate the shaking. And possibly also the headache. What more could one possibly ask for? Her feet were leading their own fleshy existence down there in the nectarine sandals, she had put them on, but now she kicked them off again, and her dress strained so tightly across her belly that she could hardly breathe. Jenny peeped out the window. Oh, look, there were Daniel and Camilla and their hapless daughters, and there was Steve Knightley from Seattle and dear old Ola, her neighbor, who had turned gray and sad after his wife, Helga, died, and what on earth was her dear friend Julia wearing—some sort of caftan? And bright green? It was far too short, surely? And then her eyes fell on Siri wearing a blue silk dress that had once been hers. Jenny drained her glass and watched her daughter walking around the garden, playing the hostess. Siri would be all right. Siri had her restaurants and she had Jon and she had both her children. They were not dead. And look there was her old friend Mary Olsson and that ridiculous little husband of hers. Jenny took another swig. Who on earth were all these people? Was this the gang that would show up at her funeral? Jenny could see several who—and she observed this with some satisfaction—were sure to go before her. Definitely! And in the spirit of feeling momentarily immortal, she decided she would make a speech. There were a couple of things she wanted to say. Jenny stumbled over to her bed and stretched out on it. Pen and paper. Somewhere in her room she had pen and paper. Why was it always so difficult to find pen and paper? She had a speech to write. Not a long speech. No. She was going to write a short speech. And it would begin as follows:

  Not
hing.

  Jenny sat up and stared into space. It would begin as follows:

  Nothing.

  Jenny got down on the floor and looked under the bed. Well, what do you know—a pen under the bed. And over there on the dressing table—a couple of receipts. She would write on the back of them. Jenny climbed back onto the bed.

  It would go like this:

  Dear family and friends. Dear Siri, who has organized this party for me. Dear Irma. Here we are, standing in the fog and wondering whether it’s going to rain …

  Yes, that was good.

  Another little drink and maybe she could make the rest up as she went along.

  SIRI SHUT THE front door behind her and everything went quiet. Her knees buckled under her and she flopped to the floor, like a puppet, then she sat up again because, she thought, I’m not a puppet and I control my own movements, I just need to sit here for a minute and collect myself and rest, and then she put her face in her hands. Disastrous. Disastrous. Disastrous. This whole party was a disaster. What have I done with my life? Something had gone wrong. The long pale blue dress that Jenny had given her slithered down over her form and streamed and spread across the hardwood floor into a pool of silk. You look so beautiful, Jon had whispered as they had arranged themselves on the steps outside: Siri, Jon, Alma, Liv, and Milla, and even Irma (Irma the giantess with a face that Jon had once compared to the angel Uriel in a painting by Leonardo), they had stood there, as if on a stage, and greeted the guests and bade them welcome. You look so beautiful. And the next moment: Leave her alone! So curt. So harsh, his voice. And only because Siri, in the gentlest of fashion—softly, quietly, lightly—had expressed her objection to the flower in Milla’s hair. The meadow behind the house was full of wildflowers that Milla could pick for her hair. Milla—this big clumsy child who had come to Mailund with all her sadness and all her loneliness.

  Leave her alone!

  So curt.

  So harsh.

  The white flower bed at Mailund was Siri’s pride and joy, and not there for Milla to be picking flowers for her hair. Goddamned child.