The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  The taxi arrived and the porter opened the door for me. Inside it smelled of spices or incense. A prayer mat lay rolled up on the front seat. “Zoo Palatz,” I said. The driver turned quickly and smiled. A gold tooth shone in the middle of his black mouth. “Shall I stop by the zoo?” I had to smile myself. “No, at the Festival Center. The animals there are more amusing.”

  It took half an hour to get there. It would have taken five minutes on foot. I swallowed some cognac and nodded off. In my sleep an image appeared — Fred dragging a coffin over snow in the yard. The driver had to wake me. We were there. He laughed. Now I was hearing it. The compassionate laughter. The gold tooth blinded me. I paid far more than I needed to and perhaps he believed it was a misunderstanding, that I was a tourist who couldn’t count, or else a tipsy theater manager in an overpriced suit. He wanted to give me some money back, that honest Berlin Muslim, but I was already out on the sidewalk, between ruins and cathedrals, between monkeys and stars. Someone immediately wanted to sell me a leather jacket. I shoved them out of the way it stopped raining. The cranes continued drawing their slow circles, and the skies over Berlin were suddenly clear and all but translucent. A chill sun pierced me right in the eyes as a flock of doves rose up as one and cut the light to pieces.

  I went into the Festival Center. Two armed guards checked my accreditation card with its tiny picture, taken the evening before — Barnum Nilsen, screenwriter. They stared overlong at me and let me through the security zone, the hallowed portals separating those who belonged from those who didn’t. Now I belonged. People were tripping over each other like lunatics, hands crammed with beer, brochures, cassettes, cell phones, posters and business cards. The women were tall and slender, their hair done up, their glasses on strings around their necks and all wearing tight, gray skirts as if they had come straight from the same shop. By and large, the men were fat, short, of my age, and with bloodshot expressions that were intensely strained. You could hardly have told us apart, and at least one of us would die before the day was done. On a giant screen the trailer for a Japanese gangster film was being shown.

  Aesthetic violence was obviously on its way in. To kill slowly was acceptable. Someone handed me a glass of sake. I drank. I was given a refill. I carpet-bombed my liver. Bille August was being interviewed by Australian television. His shirt was as white as ever. They should have asked him about that. How many white shirts do you have? How often do you change shirts? Elsewhere Spike Lee stood and gesticulated in front of a camera. And through all of this stormed Peder, the knot in his tie hanging down over his middle and his mouth moving all the time — it looked as if he was hyperventilating or trying hard to passively smoke. It couldn’t be that it was Peder who would die in the course of the evening. He came to a halt in front of me, completely breathless. “Well,” he said. “You’re here.” “Most of me.” “How drunk are you?” “Five and a half.” Peder leaned closer, his nostrils flaring. “This looks more like postal surcharge, Barnum.” “Not a bit. I’m in control.” I liked it when Peder used our old sayings. But Peder wasn’t laughing. “Where the hell have you been?” “In the sauna.” “The sauna? Do you have any idea how long we’ve been sitting waiting for you? Do you?” Peder shook my arm. He’d lost his equilibrium. “I’ve said so many goddamn nice things about you I could damn well vomit!” He started to drag me in the direction of the Scandinavian section. “Relax,” I told him. “I’m here now.” “Can’t you just get yourself a cell phone, damn it! Like other normal people!” “I don’t want a brain tumor, Peder.” “Then get yourself a pager! I’ll buy you a goddamn pager myself!” “Do you think they work in saunas?” “They work on the moon!” “You always find me just the same, Peder.” He suddenly stopped and looked at me hard. “You know what? The more time goes on the more you become like that nutcase brother of yours!” And when Peder said that every fuse inside me detonated and time came at me from all sides. I grabbed hold of his jacket and pressed him up against the wall. “Never say that again! Never!” Peder looked at me thunderstruck, sake all down his pants. “Damn it all, Barnum. I didn’t mean it like that.” I think people were starting to stare. I could barely recognize the old rage that was burning inside me. Yet it almost did me good. It was something to build on. “I couldn’t give a shit about what you think! But never compare me to Fred. All right?” Peder tried to smile. “Fair enough! Let me go, Barnum.” I had to give it a bit of time. Then I let Peder go. He stood completely still by the wall, amazed and embarrassed. The fires of rage inside me began to cool and left in their wake only shame, angst and perplexity. “I just don’t want to be reminded of him,” I murmured. “I’m sorry,” Peder breathed. “It was thoughtless of me to say what I did.” “It’s all right. Let’s just forget it. Forgive me.” I took out my handkerchief and tried to wipe the Japanese alcohol from his pants. Peder didn’t move. “Shall we get ourselves to this meeting?” he asked. “Who’s there?” He sighed. “Two Danes and an Englishman.” “That’s funny is it a joke? Two Danes and an Englishman.” “They have offices in London and Copenhagen. They had a good bit to do with Driving Miss Daisy. I told you all this yesterday, Barnum.” I’d spilled sake all over his shoes too. I went down on my knees and started polishing them as best I could. Peder began kicking me. “Pull yourself together!” he hissed. I got up again. “What do they want, basically?” “What do they want? What do you think? To meet you, of course. They love The Viking” “Thanks a lot, Peder. Do we have to be all smarmy now?” “No. We’re going now, Barnum.”

  And off we went. The crowds were diminishing all the time. It was typical that the Norwegian stand was situated farthest away in a corner; we still hadn’t progressed beyond The Trials of the Fisher-folk, that keystone of Norwegian melancholy and it had pushed us out to the very fringes of Europe and of the festival. It took a whole expedition to reach Norway. Peder glared at me. “You sound like a whole goddamn minibar when you walk.” “It’ll be empty again soon, Peder.” I opened the whiskey and drank it. Peder gripped my arm. “We need this, Barnum. Its serious.” “Miss Daisy? Wasn’t that basically a really crap film?” “A crap film? Do you know how many nominations it got? These are big boys. Bigger than us.” “Why have they bothered hanging around for three hours then?” “I’ve told you, Barnum. They love The Viking.”

  They were sitting at a table in an enclosed section within the bar. They were in their early thirties, wore tailor-made suits, with sunglasses in their breast pockets, and had ponytails, earrings, large stomachs and small eyes. They were men of their time. I had already begun to dislike them. Peder breathed deeply and pushed up the knot in his tie. “You’ll be nice, polite and sober, Barnum?” “And ingenious.” I slapped Peder on the back. It was soaking. And then we went in to meet them. Peder clapped his hands. “The wanderer has returned! He got mixed up at the zoo! Didn’t notice the difference!” They got up. Smiles were polished. Peder had sunk as low as platitudes and it wasn’t even three o’clock. One of the Danes, Torben, leaned over the ashtray where two cigars lay dying. “Is Barnum a pseudonym or your real name?” “It’s my real name. But I use it as a pseudonym.” There was a ripple of laughter at this and Peder attempted to get us to raise our glasses, but the Dane had no wish to give up so easily. “Is it your Christian name or your surname?” “Both. Depends who I’m talking to.” Torben smiled. “Wasn’t Barnum an American con man? There’s a sucker born every minute.” “Wrong,” I said. “It was a banker who said that. David Hannum. But it was Barnum who said Let’s get the show on the road.” Finally Peder managed to squeeze in a toast. We clinked glasses and now it was the turn of the other Dane, Preben, to lean over the table. “We simply love The Viking. A magnificent script.” “Many thanks,” I said, and drained my schnapps glass. “Just a shame its never become a film.” Peder leaped in. “Let’s not get bogged down in technicalities.” “Oh, but I think we should.” Peder kicked me under the table. “We have to look forward,” he said. “New projects. New ideas.” I was at the point of g
etting up and couldn’t manage it. “But if you think the script is magnificent, why don’t you go ahead and make the film?” Peder looked down and Torben twisted in his chair as if he was sitting on a gigantic thumbtack. “If we’d got Mel Gibson to play the lead, it might have been possible.” The other Dane, Preben, leaned over toward me. “Besides, action is out,” he said. “Action is old-fashioned.” “But what about Vikings in outer space?” I asked. One of the cell phones went off. They all began fumbling for their own like rather tired gunfighters. It was Tim, the Englishman, who won. There was talk of high sums and a couple of equally elevated names in passing — Harvey Keitel, Jessica Lange. There was no alternative but to smile at one another and drink. I managed to get up and go to the bathroom. I swallowed some gin, leaned with my forehead against the wall and tried to work out what I should say. I didn’t want to give them what I had. I was the empty-headed screenwriter they had waited for for three hours. The mirror image from the elevator was suddenly vivid before me. It was no pretty picture. My damaged eyelid hung down heavily. I tried to find a moment to hide myself away in. But I didn’t find it. When I got back, Peder had exchanged my schnapps for coffee. I ordered a double schnapps. Tim was sitting ready with his planner, more hefty than the Bible in the Kempinski Hotel. “As you know, Barnum, you’re high on the list of scriptwriters we want to work with.” Peder grinned from ear to ear. “Do you have any fixed projects?” I asked. “We would like to hear what you have with you.” “After you,” I said. “Then I’ll have more of an idea of the lay of the land.” Tim looked slowly from me to the Danes. Peder was sweating profusely again. “Barnum likes to play ball,” he said quickly. It sounded so meaningless that I couldn’t help laughing. Barnum likes to play ball. Peder kicked my leg again. Now we were behaving like some old married couple. Suddenly there was schnapps in front of me. Torben took over. “OK, Barnum. We’re willing to play ball. We’re keen to do The Wild Duck. As I’ve said, action is out. The public wants what’s familiar, what’s close to home. Like the family. Hence The Wild Duck.” Peder sat and stared at me continuously. It was extremely exasperating. “This is something for you, Barnum,” he finally said. “You’d turn the piece around for film in a couple of months, right, Barnum?” But no one was listening to Peder now. “Would it be a Norwegian production?” I asked. “Or Scandinavian?” “Bigger,” Torben replied, smiling. “American. Keitel. Lange. Robbins. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t bring in Max or Gitta. But the dialogue’ll be in English. Or else the money won’t be there.” “And we’d have to update a bit,” Preben put in quickly. “It would be set in our time. The Wild Duck of the nineties. “What’s the point of that?” I asked. “Of course it would be set in the present,” Peder said. “We’re not interested in costume drama, are we?” Quiet fell for a moment. I discovered another schnapps. Tim whispered something to Preben, who then turned to me. “We were thinking of something along the lines of Rain Man meets Autumn Sonata” I had to lean closer. “Excuse me? Who meets what?” “We only want to illustrate Ibsen’s genius,” said Torben. “And fundamentally his timelessness.” “Timelessness? Miss Daisy meets Death of a Salesman, so to speak?” Torben’s expression looked a little wilted. There was a momentary burst of laughter from the others. Peder couldn’t stand it any longer. He tried to salvage the situation. “Anyone want something to eat?” he asked. Nobody answered. Peder lit up. He’d given up smoking eight years ago. Torben clasped his hands and looked at me over his knuckles. “And what kind of ball are you playing, Barnum?” “Porn films,” I answered. “Porn films?” “I sat in my room this morning watching pay-TV. And I realized just how untalented and awkward these porn films really are. No dramatic composition. Pathetic characterization. Appalling casting. Particularly bad dialogue. Repulsive sets.” Torben was getting impatient. “You mean erotic films, right?” “No, no, I’m talking about porn. Hardcore porn. With strong narrative, interesting characters and razor-sharp composition. An Aristotelian build-up to orgasm. Porn for a modern audience. For women as well as for men and all the rest of us. It’s Nora meets Deep Throat. It’s timeless.”

  It was the Englishman who got up first. The Danes followed. They shook hands with Peder. Business cards were exchanged. “We’ll keep in touch,” Peder said. “Barnum can get through a first draft in a couple of months.” “Remind him it’s Ibsen,” Torben said. “Not pay-TV!” Peder gave a shout of laughter. “No worries! I’ve got Barnum under control.”

  The big boys left. We remained sitting. Peder was taciturn. Peder is the only person I describe in such a way. When Peder elected to be silent, he truly became taciturn. Now he was taciturn as never before. I’ve learned to live with it. If there’s anything in this world I’m able to do, it’s to be in the company of taciturn people. All you have to do is to shut up yourself and see who says something first. Peder lost. “Well, that went splendidly,” he said and looked at me. “You arrived three hours late, and when you finally did arrive you were quite unapologetic, still drunk as a lord and empty-handed. Unbelievable. Cheers, Barnum.” We drank for a bit and then it was my turn to say something. “Do you think Meryl Streep’ll play the duck?” I asked. Peder looked away. “You’re right on the edge, Barnum. Good God. Aristotelian pom!” “What do you mean by on the edge?” “You know exactly what I mean.” “No, I don’t, as a matter of fact.” Peder turned around sharply to face me. “I’ve seen this before, Barnum. I’ve seen you fall. And I won’t bother to go looking for you any more.” I got up. Suddenly I was scared. It was that image from the elevator that returned, a whole hive of faces that stung me, one after another. “Damn it, Peder. I hate the way they talk. Rain Man meets Autumn Sonata. All that shit they come out with. I just loathe it.” “Yes, yes. I hate it every bit as much as you do. But do you see me putting on airs and graces? That’s the way they talk. They all talk like that. The Graduate meets Home Alone and Waterfront meets Pretty Woman. One day we’ll talk like that too.” Peder put down his schnapps, rested his head in his hands and became taciturn once again. “I met Lauren Bacall,” I told him. Slowly Peder looked up. “What are you talking about?” I sat down again. I had to be seated to tell him this. “I saw Lauren Bacall,” I repeated. “I almost touched her.” Peder moved his chair closer, the edge of a smile just visible. “Our Lauren Bacall?” “Peder, now. Is there any other Lauren Bacall than ours?” “Of course not. Forgive me. I’m not quite myself.” At that moment I saw three moneybags leaving the place. I took Peder’s hand; it was warm and trembling. “What did she look like?” he breathed. I took my time. “Like a sphinx,” I replied. “Like a blue sphinx that has torn loose from a floodlit plinth.” “Good, Barnum.” “It was raining and she didn’t get wet, Peder.” “I can see it all before me, Barnum.” I think that for a moment Peder too was transported into dreams. His face became quite childlike, and I could clearly see the goose pimples from the collar of his shirt to his ears, as though they had frozen there that night in row 14 of Rosenborg Cinema, when together we put our arms around Vivian as Lauren Bacall said with those husky, inflaming words, Nothing you can’t fix.

  Then it was as if he awoke and had suddenly aged. A great furrow I’d never noticed before slanted down from his left eye, in the midst of lines that had long been there, and that furrow created an imbalance in his face that threatened to make his head topple right over. Peder and I were beginning to resemble one another. “Vivian called, by the way,” he said. “I think she’s worried about Thomas.” “Vivian has always been worried.” Peder shook his head sorrowfully. “I think we should buy something nice for Thomas.” I tried to smile. I failed miserably. “Of course we should,” I laughed. “Remember what the big boys said? It’s the family that counts now.” Peder sank into his glass and was taciturn for a time. “Everyone thinks you’re a bastard,” he breathed at last. I heard him saying the words, but they didn’t get through to me. “Everyone?” I asked. Now he was looking at me. “I can’t think of anyone right at this minute who doesn’t think so,” he said
. “Thomas, too?” Peder turned away. “Thomas is such a quiet boy, Barnum. I don’t know what he understands.” I lit a cigarette. My mouth was sore. I lay my hand over Peder’s fingers. “Maybe we can buy him something together? Something really special. How about that?” “Of course,” Peder said.

  Later on we dragged ourselves over to the festival bar. It was there the important players hung out. Peder maintained that we had to be visible. That was how he put it. We had to be on course, in the groove, at the right place and at the right time. We ate greasy sausages to keep our balance. We drank X-ray fluid with ice. We became visible. There was plenty of talk concerning Sigrid Undset, and whether any male director was capable of making Kristin Lavransdatter’s film. This was the elite. I didn’t mix — apart from drinks, and I thought about Thomas. I was a bastard. I was going to buy a massive present for him; I’d buy a whole wall he could write on and a crane from Berlin. I’d take with me God’s Erector set, so that Thomas, Vivian’s son, could screw the skies back together again. The voices were coming from all around now. I drank myself into oblivion. If I closed my eyes all the sounds were swallowed, as if my optic nerve was somehow attached to the labyrinth of my ear, but it had been a long time since I believed the world disappeared so tantalizingly easily, after nothing more than the closing of my eyes. Ideally I would have wished for the disappearance of both, the sounds and the world from which they rose. But when I opened my eyes the critic from the sauna was approaching, my ill omen. Already she’d acquired the festival look — that of a boozy Cyclops. Of course it was Peder whose back she now stroked. “Have you anything to write home about then, boys? Other than Barnum treats Cliff to Coke in the sauna?” Peder moved his head horizontally, as if the space was dangerously cramped beneath the ceiling. “Too early to tell,” he said. “But there’s no smoke without fire. You can write that Barnum and Miil are in business.” The Elk was almost suffocating him with her dress. I was on the point of ordering snorkels. “Are you traveling on the Kristin train? Is Barnum going to translate the script from Swedish?” Peder pushed away her hand. “If Kristin Lavransdatter’s going to be champagne,” he said, “then well be making heavy water.” The Elk snickered and bent backward to catch the last drops in her brandy glass. “Tell me something else, boys. We’ve had enough tired metaphors.” “Then imagine The Elk meets The Sunset,” I said. She turned slowly toward me and acted as if she was only now realizing that I had been standing beside her all along. Of course that wasn’t the case. She’d seen me the whole time. She gave a slow grimace. “We’ll give you the nod when the time comes,” Peder said quickly. “An exclusive.” But she just kept looking at me. “It’s a date then. Say hi to Cliff from me, Barnum.” Suddenly, she leaned down close to my ear. “To hell with you.”