The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  Dad opened the briefcase, but stood bent over it so we couldn’t see what was inside. Then he lifted a round disk that was a little higher in the middle and resembled a solidified cowpat he might almost have lifted from a field in 0stfold. He held it out in front of us. We didn’t say a word. Mom looked away. Dads eyes roamed frantically “Well, say something, for heavens sake!” he exclaimed. “What is it?” Mom asked, her voice low. And now Dad laughed out loud for the third time since arriving home that morning. “My dear, beloved, ignorant wife! What would you have ever done without me to bring knowledge and love into this house? Tell your mother what it is that I’m holding in my hands, Barnum!” “A discus,” I whispered. “Well done, Barnum! Nothing less than a discus!” Mom let out her breath. “A discus? Is that all you have with you?” Dad’s wide brow had an angled furrow down it, like a ditch for his sweat. But the smile was there yet, somehow fixed in place. Everything Dad did took a long time — his body was slower than his brain — and as a result he could still smile when he was mad, or, on the other hand, he could give a good box on the ear when he was in a good mood. He looked at Mom a long while. “All?” he laughed. “The discus is civilized humanity’s medal! This is the first thing that human beings threw without intending to kill!” With that he tore off his jacket, laid the discus flat in his bad hand, bent his knees and began to swing around on the carpet. “Tamara Press!” he groaned. “Tamara Press!” Mom hid her face in her hands and shrieked behind them — I had to sit down because otherwise I wouldn’t have managed to stay on my feet. I just laughed and laughed because Dad resembled a deranged elephant on one leg looking for its trunk. Then Boletta woke up. She got up off the divan, drew back her veil and pointed at Dad. “What is that man doing?” “Dads throwing the discus!” I shouted. “Nothing is to be thrown in my house! Do you hear me?” Dad gradually stopped spinning, he went slower and slower, until in the end he just stood facing one way, swaying, as the sweat ran from his earlobes, as if his head was leaking. “You’re right, my little Boletta. The discus is for outside. We’ll wait for the spring instead.” He put the discus in a drawer in the cabinet. And then he put his arms around us — he even managed to get Boletta onto her feet — and he drew us all close. “It’s good to come back home to you,” Dad said. “My God, it’s good to come home to you all!”

  So we stood like that, huddled close, our family, on a Friday in October. It was then Dad whispered to me, and only I heard him: “Spread rumors and sow doubt, Barnum.” “Why?” I asked. “Because no one’ll believe you anyway,” he replied. He laughed. “And besides, the truth’s boring, Barnum.” And just at that moment I saw, in the shadows between the door and the cabinet, Fred’s gaze, Fred’s eyes. How long had he been standing there? I had no idea. Perhaps he’d been there the whole time. Now Fred was smiling. He smiled, and I wanted to hold out my hand to him. But he just shook his head, closed his eyes, and leaned into the dark. And I thought to myself, Now we don’t exist. Now we’re gone too.

  The Mole

  I toyed with those thoughts. They were what I toyed with most. I had no one else to play with. I toyed with thoughts of catastrophes, accidents, illness, death and all sorts of other irreparable damage. Then it felt good. It was a comfort to know that everything could have been worse, so much worse. If our apartment were to catch fire on Christmas Day, for example, with all the presents burned, and if I alone survived among the charred remains of Mom, Fred and Boletta and had to be on a ventilator for at least three months while eighteen doctors fought to keep what remained of me alive, then everything would have a different complexion. Oh, yes. Then those who’d bullied me would be smitten with guilt and come crawling for forgiveness, and I, compassionate in the midst of my agony, would grant it. And the papers would be full of articles about my fate — books would be written about me, films made, paintings commissioned and operas composed. And at the end of the day this was all I dreamed of — that everything would be different, different from what it was. I saw myself going around with my burned face swathed in bandages, lonely and exalted. That was what I dreamed. For the thoughts I toyed with became dreams, and I dreamed only when I was awake and never during the night (I didn’t dare to then). But I went on dreaming on my own for hours, right up until I had to sit down somewhere — on a stone perhaps at the top of Sten Park — and cry, for so overwhelming were these dreams that they drove me to a strange madness. I cried, I sobbed — I was possessed by the violent dramatic intensity of my own daydreams. I was inside my own violence. I was at the heart of my own dreams. I dreamed that I fell ill, that death was close and that this sickness was incurable, desperately slow and agonizing. Then it was that they came to me, all those yearning forgiveness and wanting my friendship. But soon it would be too late, for I was dying and the last thing I’d do was raise my hand in blessing to all those standing by my side. But I didn’t get any further in my dreams, my thoughts. That annoyed me. I couldn’t imagine myself dead — well, yes, I could imagine it all right, but it gave me no joy none whatsoever. The dreams of me dead in a lonely coffin in the Western Crematorium or Majorstuen Church were always too short — I couldn’t hold on to them, and they ended of their own accord. They ran out into the sand before they really were anything to speak of at all. The dream of my own death was always a failure. It was just as if I couldn’t quite believe in it. It was better to dream about suffering and accidents that I survived screaming, that brought everyone flocking around me with amazement and compassion. I dreamed that it’s me and not Fred who’s sitting on the edge of the sidewalk when the Old One’s knocked down and killed. Except that I don’t sit there uninjured, I try in vain to save her life, thus putting my own in jeopardy And her death only makes my fate the worse, because I try as valiantly as any human can, yet she still dies. And I collapse into the gutter, one leg broken and the blood pouring from a deep gash in my forehead, so the front part of my brain is visible like a small muffin. I dream that it’s me their hearts go out to and that I get the glory — yes, the glory, because I’ve risked my own life for another’s and I’m a noble and true soul. I mulled it over in my mind — can a thought be evil? Even if it’s just in one’s head? Can a dream be equally evil? If it remains in one’s innermost thoughts, in silence, undisturbed and never released into the world? That was how my thoughts went. And one day my dream became real. I was to lift my thoughts up from their darkness. I was to free my dream into reality, which was too small, even for myself.

  She was in the same grade as me, in the other class. I had had my eye on her for ages. She stood by the bike sheds, always on her own and with her face turned away I got it into my head that she was lonely, as lonely as I was. I circled her, but she didn’t come any closer. What was it I imagined? That Barnum was going to get a girlfriend? Yes. It was unprecedented, but that was what I imagined, that I’d get a girlfriend, and that it would be the girl who stood on her own facing away over by the sheds. She had short, fair hair and a mole on her left cheek, just below her eye. And I liked that mole particularly, because it rendered her imperfect and attainable. It gave me hope and courage — yes, it was this that ultimately drew me to her. The mole was her mark, just as my height was mine — my shortfall of inches — visible to one and all.

  I began following her when she went home from school. I kept my distance. She didn’t see me. I ran from corner to corner. She was always on her own. Her bag seemed far too heavy. Now and then she had to stop to rest. I would have loved to help her — I could have carried her bag, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to do. But I never did. I just stood there looking at her, from the shadows of some entrance she didn’t know about and where the smell of dinners being cooked drifted from under doorways and through keyholes. They came down and filled me with a heavy gray queasiness that made me vomit under mailboxes overflowing with delayed postcards of ships and beaches. It was September. When I got up again she was gone. Her name was Tale. I knew from before where she lived. I ran there, to Nobel Street, an
d saw the curtains being drawn in a room on the third floor.

  For quite a while I just stood there watching. But nothing happened. She didn’t come out again. And so I wended my way home again, dreaming that I had fallen from a plane somewhere over the middle of Africa and was the only survivor. There I was taken care of by a tribe nobody had previously heard of, and I lived with them for three years. There was just one fly in the ointment with this dream. What was I actually doing in a plane over Africa? I had to know or else the dream was somehow null and void. In the end I got it. I’d won an essay competition at school and was now off to Madagascar, where pupils from the world over would assemble to compose new essays. But on the way there my plane falls from the skies; by a miracle I survive and am cared for by a tribe of natives who’ve never seen a white man before, and I live with them for three years. Back home in Norway, once all hope has faded, a memorial service is held for me in Majorstuen Church, and it’s so full there’s a line all the way down to the “pole.” Everybody’s there — my class, the teachers, the whole school, Esther from the kiosk — not to mention the members of the royal family who’ve found their way to Majorstuen Church (because I was going to represent Norway, after all, at the essay-writing competition on Madagascar when the plane came down). The vicar is overcome by grief and guilt and declares that thereafter all those bearing the name Barnum will do so with pride, and Barnum becomes the most popular name for boys in the years that follow. Fred gives the eulogy — he’s written the text himself and not a letter’s out of place. He’s missed me so much that he’s no longer dyslexic; he can see properly, and clearly at that. He remembers me as his faithful and lonely half brother (though in his eyes I was complete — yes, a more complete brother couldn’t have been found in the world). And beside Mom, Dad and Boletta is Tale, crying bitterly, for there is not even a coffin beside which she can kneel or leave flowers. But now they can damn well just get on with it while I’m left lying in a straw hut in the middle of Africa, and I see the medicine man who’s about a hundred years old bending over me, a bolt through his nose. He just shakes his head and says something in a language I don’t understand. I’m left lying like this for long weeks and months, with only rainwater to drink and boiled monkey kidneys to eat. But one day I get to taste a soup the medicine man has concocted from plants that grow underground and that for that reason are rare and difficult to find. And this soup, which is thick and blue and stinks of warm cat’s piss, works wonders with me. My wounds heal, my memory comes back — but not just that, I grow. I can feel it there where I’m lying, that it’s farther and farther down to my feet, and when I finally do get up I’m taller than everyone else. But I can’t be absolutely certain, because perhaps it’s just that the natives are even smaller, perhaps it’s just an illusion. Then I’m found by a missionary who has with him a suitcase full of Bibles he gives away to the tribe, and a green board on which he sticks felt figures representing Jesus and His story. I ask how tall he is. God wanted me to be five-nine, the missionary replies. Then I know it’s true, because I’m taller than he is — the poor missionary only reaches up as far as my shoulder. I must be at least five-eleven. And when he packs away his flannel-graph and all the figures, I travel with him through the jungle. And on the day I land at Fornebu airport, three months later, there are thousands waiting in the arrivals area and out on the runway too, with flags and great banners proclaiming Welcome Home, Barnum! And at the very front is Tale with her mole, but I walk right past her and the crowds gasp when they see me — five feet eleven inches tall and all but unrecognizable. But inside I’m the same Barnum as ever — just good old Barnum — with a heart of gold. The photographers fight for pictures and I walk right past Tale, who tries in vain to hold on to me. But I tear myself away and run over to Fred instead, and he throws his arms around me. He’s been inconsolable since he gave his eulogy and more dyslexic than ever, and he cries his eyes out on my shoulder.

  I had to rest beside the fountain in Golden Lion Street. I was exhausted. The water had been turned off, and only chestnuts and leaves floated at the bottom of the pool. But I was my own fountain. I sobbed on my own shoulder. And my dream dissolved in tears that fell heavily onto the slippery pavement, amid scattering pill bugs. I could go no further; the dream stopped at the point where Fred threw his arms around me. I didn’t care about the next installment. It was too slow and boring. I couldn’t go to the trouble of dreaming it. And the best part of the dream had really been the memorial service, with me lying in the heart of Africa and the rest of the world in Majorstuen Church, at the funeral with no coffin. I cried a little again. Then someone bent down, close against my face. “Here you are all sorry for yourself,” a voice said. And someone dried my tears with a handkerchief that smelled of fish cakes and cough medicine. “And why is a lovely little boy like you so sad then?” I opened my eyes and looked right into an ancient mouth. The lipstick had rubbed off onto her front teeth so they resembled pale red shells, and her tongue was as wrinkled as a snail. I leaned back. “Have you fallen and hurt yourself?” I shook my head. She was so close now that I thought she was going to lick me with her snail, and I couldn’t lean back any further or I’d have fallen backward into the pool. “My brother’s dead,” I told her. She stopped and her eyes almost seemed to swell up. “Is your brother dead?” “Yes,” I sobbed, and drew the back of my hand across my cheek. She put her hand on my head, and her voice became all soft; her old tongue spilled over. “Is it a long time since he died?” “Yesterday.” “Did your brother die only yesterday?” “Yes, just yesterday. He’ll be buried the day after tomorrow.” And I felt gripped by this, even more strongly than by the dream of Africa, when I said that Fred had died — when I said it out loud and didn’t just think it. And the woman who heard my words thought they were true. It was as if it really had happened; I believed it myself and listened intently to every word that my mouth spoke. “He drowned,” I said. “In Gaustad Brook. I tried to save him but. . .” I began to cry in earnest. I couldn’t speak. The lady cried too and dried my face once more. “You are a special little boy,” she murmured. And then she gave me five whole kroners, ruffled my curls with her hand, put away her handkerchief and went away through the golden leaves. Then something strange happened. When I was about to say thanks, many thanks, other words came out of my mouth instead. “Snail fanny!” I screamed. The old lady stopped for a second, turned, and her face fell to pieces there under the black trees. I ran like hell as far as the fire station, and I couldn’t have cared less if it had caught fire itself at that moment. The whole town could burn down, and the Palace catch fire — with the king himself in flames on the balcony. But the engines stood soundlessly there in the station, the helmets all on their hooks. The sirens were somewhere else. The burning was just inside my own head — a bonfire in my throat — and no fireman in the world could put those flames out. I raced against myself and didn’t stop before I’d reached Bogstad Road. I stood outside the perfumery, on the corner where the tramlines turn, and I could see my face in the mirror behind the window. There was no smoke coming out of my ears, nor were my curls singed. I was more or less as before, my cheeks just a shade red and my eyes a bit too big, as if they’d seen too much. But I had a five kroner piece in my hand. I went into the shop. There were ladies everywhere, and all of them turned at the same moment and the smiles broke out on their poker faces — as if the sight of me had aroused them from deep dreams at the bottom of a sea of scents. Yes, those scents were like the wet leaves that pile up beneath trees, and I don’t quite know why, but all of a sudden I saw in my mind’s eye hedgehogs sleeping buried in a heap of dead leaves. Someone’s going to put their hand on my head in a minute, I thought, and I wasn’t even finished thinking this when the assistant in her light blue dress put her fingers in my hair, ruffled my curls and gave a laugh. “Snail fanny,” I said, and bit my tongue. But she bent down and smiled all the more, and the ladies laughed in chorus. “Have you ever seen such a nice boy!” And probably t
hey hadn’t, since all of them wanted to touch my head, one after the other. And when this was finally over, the assistant asked me what it was I wanted — perfume, perhaps, for my mother, or maybe a steel comb? “I want a ring,”; I whispered. The assistant bent down to me. “What was that you said, little fellow?” “I said a ring,” I repeated. “With a letter on it.” Now she smiled knowingly and pushed me deeper into the shop and pulled out a little drawer full of rings. “Which letter would you like then?” I would have liked the whole alphabet, just to be on the safe side, but I didn’t have the money for that much. If I’d begun at A, I wouldn’t have got further than E, and I didn’t know anyone with those letters who merited a ring from me, except for Esther from the kiosk. “T,” I said quickly. She got out a ring with a T on it. “What’s your girlfriend’s name then? Turid?” I shook my head. “Toni, then?” she suggested. “No,” I said. Now she was almost on her knees in front of me. “She’s called Trine!” And then I said something I was rather pleased with. “T for Tongue-tied,” I told her. “T for Tongue-tied.” The assistant put her hand in my hair once more and got up. “You are a clever little lad.” Snail fanny, I thought, so that my skull burst — but not a sound was emitted from my thoughts. T for Tongue-tied. I wouldn’t forget that.