by Linn Ullmann
“This is our new tradition,” he said jauntily. “A father-daughter tradition.”
Alma said nothing.
“Do you know those girls over there?” he asked.
“They’re in my class,” she said.
Two enormous cupcakes sat between them on the table. His voice was a little too loud (oh, how he floundered, but he hadn’t the faintest idea what to talk to her about) and the elderly couple drinking coffee not far from them looked across and the old lady smiled.
“Oh, isn’t that nice, being out with your father,” she said. Alma looked down and the old lady smiled knowingly at Jon. He found this—all of this—annoying. Alma’s sullenness, his own loud, jolly voice, the people looking at them, the old lady’s smile. It wasn’t a damned performance! And then he leaned across the table and uttered those words that he normally never used: “You are the apple of my eye you know.”
He spoke them softly. He wanted her to understand that she was loved and seen and that there was nothing to worry about. She reached a hand across the table, twined her still-chubby fingers with his, and said, “You don’t have to make such an effort, Papa.”
He wanted to defend himself.
“No, Alma, I’m doing this because I want to, I’d so like for us to find things to do together and create our own traditions—and you really are the apple of my eye.”
Alma took a sip of her hot cocoa and then she said, “You still feel bad about Milla disappearing?”
The question came out of nowhere and he had no idea how to answer it. He looked at her.
“Yes,” he said finally, “I feel bad.”
“It’s been eight months,” she said. “They might never find her.”
“They will,” he said. “Probably … I’m sure they will.”
She fell silent, drew her hand back and picked at the cupcake, got pink frosting on her fingers, and wiped them on a napkin. She looked down. Her short black hair was brushed back and her cowlick was sticking straight up, like a cartoon character’s, lending a droll touch to her otherwise solemn face. When she was little they had called her Lull.
“I don’t even like cupcakes,” she said, spreading her hands resignedly. “They’re so gloppy.”
He felt like getting up and leaving, or crying, he wasn’t going to be able to fix this, she wanted too much from him, and at the same time he wished that she would understand him, that she would understand him, and not just need him all the time, even though he knew, of course, how unreasonable this was, this desire for her to understand him.
Alma was a child, he was the parent.
He said she could have something else if she liked, the glass display case was full of cakes and filled rolls and buns and chocolate tarts, and while he was talking he realized, or maybe he didn’t realize it right then and there but later, that they had reached the point where he couldn’t just tell her that he loved her, because if he did she would drop everything she had in her hands (hot chocolate, cupcake, a glass of lemonade, whatever!) and throw herself into his arms, or onto his lap. Her movements were so fierce that something was always getting knocked over—chairs, tables, piles of paper, glass vases. In her eagerness to hug him she was totally heedless of everything around her.
Alma had grown up, as all girls do, and she was too big now to sit on his lap, with her rather broad plump behind, her long skinny arms, her long skinny legs, her clumsy hands, the bone-hard bumps under her T-shirt, where her breasts would appear. Her daughter-body no longer had the weight and warmth of his little girl, his baby, now there was something else, something alien and invasive about her.
“Or we could just leave right now,” he said. “We can make up another tradition.”
He scanned the surrounding tables, caught sight of an attractive woman in a red dress and thought of the scarlet poppies he had seen years before, when he was in Gotland with Siri. He smiled at the woman and she smiled back.
Alma nodded.
“Another father-daughter tradition,” he said.
He had already put on his coat and hat and gloves. She nodded again. The dark eyes under her bangs.
“We could go and look at the sea,” he said. “Not today, but some other day. Soon. We could go and look at the sea and celebrate the coming of spring.”
He couldn’t get out of there quickly enough now, but Alma took forever to put on her mittens, hat, scarf, and down jacket, while Jon stood there breathing and exercising self-control. He mustn’t get impatient. He inhaled. I will not be impatient. I will not be impatient. When Alma was younger, about six or seven, her response to Siri’s and Jon’s impatience had been to reserve the right to take exactly as long as she needed to do whatever it was she had to do—whether she was getting dressed in the morning, eating, going to the bathroom, playing with her stuff. Taking forever to put on her clothes, especially her outdoor clothes. Because everything had to be done in a particular way and in a particular sequence. Her clothes had to sit just so if she was to feel comfortable in them. Gaps and bumps had to be avoided, her socks had to be pulled well up her calves so that they sat snugly around the feet of her wool tights, and the cuffs of her mittens had to be tucked into the sleeves of her down jacket. All of this took time and both Siri and Jon knew that there was no point in saying that maybe getting dressed didn’t need to take so long, that maybe it didn’t matter too much whether the mittens went on before or after the down jacket.
When Alma was younger, reproofs of this nature would only result in her taking off all her clothes, stripping completely to then start all over again. And there was no point in nagging at her now either. Siri’s and Jon’s impatience had the same effect on Alma as the mountain troll on the traveling sons of kings—she turned to stone and would not budge.
Alma, you’ll be late for school.
Alma, everybody’s waiting for you.
Alma, it doesn’t matter whether your mitten cuffs are inside or outside your jacket.
Alma brushed some invisible cupcake crumbs off her woolly hat, she wouldn’t put it on until she had brushed away those crumbs, she brushed and brushed, then she shook it, laid it on the table, and brushed it again.
Jon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes and said as softly and as tenderly as he could: “Do you think you’re about ready, or shall I wait for you outside?”
Alma inspected her hat, ran a hand over it. “Can’t you wait here for me? I want to leave with you!”
The old lady at the other table looked at them. She said, “Are you leaving already? Didn’t you like your cupcakes?”
Jon smiled at her, wondering what benevolent forces prevented him from lunging at her and knocking her off her chair.
ALMA BRUSHED SOME cupcake crumbs off her hat, you simply could not go around with crumbs on your hat, it was just the sort of thing the girls in her class would comment on and in her mind she saw herself raising her eyes and staring them all to death, and how the whole bakery would be transformed into an inferno of upturned tables and chairs with plates and cutlery and glasses and cupcakes and pastries and sandwiches garnished with little sprigs of parsley strewn all over the floor. The sound of people trying not to make a sound because they were so afraid of what she might do to them—just by staring at them. Standing, crouching, lying down, curled up, and half hidden behind overturned tables or chairs. She pictured her gaze passing from face to face. The woman in the poppy-red dress. The old lady with the coffee cup who wouldn’t leave other people alone. The girls from her class. Papa on his way out. Can’t be bothered waiting here. I’ll wait for you outside. The mother with the baby. The tiny baby who didn’t understand what everyone else thought they understood, namely that a deafening silence was their only hope of survival. The baby wailed because it was hungry and because its mother wouldn’t open her blouse and give it the breast. Alma imagined what it would be like to open her mouth and let them all, the living and the dead, hear her voice. “MAKE THAT FUCKING BABY SHUT UP!”
The woma
n in the poppy-red dress got up and walked toward Alma. She pointed to the empty chair, the one her father had been sitting on. She said, “Is it okay if I take it?”
Alma nodded.
The woman thanked her, took the chair, and carried it over to her own table. And then it was as if it happened again. The woman in the poppy-red dress got up and walked toward her, saying “Is it okay if I take it?” but adding in a quiet voice, “You know that little baby girl can’t help it if she cries. She’s just a baby. And no one can do anything about it one way or the other. But I’ll help you. Give me your hand!”
And Alma gave the woman her hand and the woman drew her into her arms and held her close.
“It will be fine,” the woman whispered. “You will be fine. Everything will be okay.”
All the crumbs were gone from her hat now. Not a single crumb left.
“Bye-bye then,” said the old lady who couldn’t leave other people alone.
Alma didn’t reply and she didn’t look back as she walked toward the exit. It was Milla who had said you should never look back. No good came of looking back. But Alma had looked back that time in Grandma’s car, Alma had seen Milla sitting there at the side of the road, and Alma had said Stop! She clearly remembered saying Stop! And then she said Shouldn’t we take her with us, and Grandma said, Take who with us? and Alma said Nobody, I thought I saw somebody, but I didn’t, forget it, and Grandma said, Let’s go home, then, and they drove the last bit of the way up to Mailund, and that night Alma had actually thought that Grandma wasn’t quite herself, that she might have had too much to drink.
The girls from her class giggled, but Alma walked past them and didn’t look back.
SIRI HAD KNOWN for many years that her husband was cheating on her.
He cheated on her long before Milla came into their lives, but that was a time when Siri more often than not made the choice to forget—she thought of this, her habitual ability to forget, draw a blank, leave well enough alone, as acts of tenderness, a way to ward off fear.
But now it seemed Milla wouldn’t let her. Milla wouldn’t let her forget about anything.
The pretty lost girl in the photograph looked at her from everywhere and didn’t care if what Siri remembered (and would rather forget) had happened before she came into their lives.
Siri remembered that it was a Sunday, that it was raining, that she had been out for a long walk, that she came into the living room, her hair still dripping, and how a few drops of water had fallen on Jon’s laptop (had she ruined it?) and how she thought that the laptop had been left there on the dining table on purpose, open, blatantly flaunting itself, shamelessly inviting.
She remembered sitting down, tying her hair in a knot so it would stop dripping, and reading.
It was an e-mail from Jon to a woman called Paula: I think of how it would have been, just you and me, morning, afternoon, evening, night, and I think of everything you are and everything you can show me and all the things I want to do with you. You ask if I’m unhappy, if the thought of you makes me unhappy, but just knowing you exist makes me happy. I picture your face, your hair, your eyes, your light shining. But you know my situation—maybe that’s what’s making me unhappy. I think of you morning, afternoon, evening, and night, but I can’t be with you except in my thoughts, because, well, you know. Because …
First, relief. I’m not crazy. Everything fell into place. All suspicions confirmed. She had been right, although time and again he had told her she was wrong.
During their first years of marriage, when she was still confronting him about those inconsistensies that kept popping up in his stories (not the stories he told her at night, out of love, to help her fall sleep, or the stories he wrote in his books, but the other ones—about where he had been, whom he had seen, what he had done), he had told her that she was just imagining things, that she needed to see someone about her paranoia and insecurities, that he was fed up with her accusations.
Siri read the e-mail again: But I can’t be with you except in my thoughts, because, well, you know. Because …
Because … what?
Because he was married to Siri? Because Siri was a burden so heavy that words could not describe it? Or because Siri was so utterly light—insignificant, weightless, transient, forgettable—that she wasn’t worth a single letter of the alphabet?
Because, well, you know. Because …
She read it again.
Why didn’t he write “I can’t be with you except in my thoughts, because I’m married to Siri”? It was very simple, no need for pregnant pauses and meaningful silences. No need for dot dot dot. And what was up with that anyway? Does any self-respecting person, let alone a highly acclaimed novelist, indicate significance by writing dot dot dot to finish off an unfinished sentence? Is that even allowed?
It’s really very fucking simple, Paula.
Siri trembled, but said nothing to Jon. Not the first evening, not the second, not the third.
“What’s the matter? You’re very quiet. Is something wrong?” “No, nothing,” Siri said.
The next time she checked his inbox he had deleted the letter.
I picture your face.
But Siri knew the words by heart and for a while she started her day by quoting the e-mail to herself, as if it were a difficult text that she had to learn by heart so as not to forget it (until she chose to do so), she examined the letters from every angle, pictured Jon writing, and Paula reading, and the words dissolved and re-formed, giving rise to new meanings and associations, depending on the point at which she chose to enter the text and the point at which she chose to exit it.
I think of how it would have been, just you and me.
If Siri had said anything to Jon, she might have said: You make dates with another woman, you walk around looking forward to those dates and lie to me and go off with the dog, going to get bread, going to get milk. And there was me thinking that we were the exception, that you were my one and only, and I was your one and only, and that the disaster that strikes everyone else, the most embarrassing of all thinkable disasters, the most humiliating and the most banal, the kind of disaster that we laugh about when it strikes others, would never strike us. I wanted to be your one and only, Jon, not one body among other bodies.
Your hair, your eyes, your light shining.
Once he’d said to Siri: Your light shines more. She’d thought it was a lame line, but she’d let him get away with it. She was light. She shone. He needed her. She was his one and only.
But now he had taken their words, their silly little secret passwords, and given them to someone else. To a woman named Paula. Words which, when put together in one way or another, or rather in one very specific way, constituted the sum of Siri and Jon’s story. Siri was no longer the one and only. She wasn’t even the only one who shone.
Now the story went like this—and this is not a particularly original story. In fact, Jon, it’s an extremely banal and embarrassing story and I hate that you made me a part of it—first there was Siri who had light. Then there was Paula who had light. Your light shines.
(In Jon’s, the unfaithful husband’s, defense it should be added that he is a writer suffering from writer’s block. It’s years since he was supposed to have finished the third part of what was to have been the trilogy of the millennium, but he can’t seem to find the words, the only thing he has come up with so far is that he wants to write “a hymn to everything that endures and everything that falls apart” and that, as he has painfully had to acknowledge, won’t get him very far, a hymn to everything that endures and everything that falls apart is a crock of shit. In other words, you could not expect—it’s unreasonable to expect or demand—that Jon, a writer who can no longer write, should invent an entirely new language every time he becomes enamored of a new woman.)
But the bit about the light shining—that she couldn’t forgive. Your hair, your eyes, your light shining. That the other woman had hair and eyes was reasonable. Siri too had hair a
nd eyes, most women had hair and eyes, but Jon hadn’t made special mention of the hair and eyes simply to confirm the obvious: that Paula had hair and eyes. No, Jon made special mention of the hair and eyes in order to assure her that: I see you. Your particular hair. Your particular eyes. You are not one body among other bodies. You are the one and only.
Whether he actually meant that Paula was the one and only is not important here. Whatever was going on in Jon’s mind when he was writing this letter is very different from what went on in Siri’s mind when she read it. Jon’s love letter was most probably a manifestation of a perfectly ordinary instance of barter in which the rules governing supply and demand were clear and unambiguous: You have been seen and described by me. Now it is my turn to be seen and described by you. But the other woman didn’t only have eyes and hair, she also had light—screw him.
And if Siri had told Jon that she had read the letter, that she was about to collapse and wouldn’t be able to get up again, that the pain was cold, like being force-fed icicles, then she might have asked: “Do we both shine at the same time, Paula and I, like the twin lights on Thacher Island? Or did I stop shining the moment Paula started? And how many shining lights are we actually talking about?”
Siri broke a glass, but she didn’t cut herself. That sort of drama wasn’t her, it would only make the banality complete. The banal story of a banal woman who slashed herself because her husband had cheated on her. No, she wouldn’t say anything.
But if she had, she might have said:
“Why did you put me in harm’s way like that?”
Out with the dog, going to get bread, going to get milk.
