The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  We didn’t say too much after Peder said that. It was enough to consider. We stood there behind the red tree so no one would see us. It was the first time I’d waited for somebody along with someone else. The class would begin in fifteen minutes, and the first pupils had already gone into the Merchant Building, as if they believed they’d get asked to dance just because they were early. “She’s not coming,” I said in the end. “Of course she is,” Peder said calmly. “You want a bet on that?” “How much then?” “What have you got?” “Two kroner twenty.” “All right, then that’s what we’ll bet.” “Deal,” said I. Peder pounded my back. “And you’ve just lost two kroner and twenty 0re!” Because Vivian was coming down Bygd0y Alley, running through the snow, a great red hat on her head. She jumped over the edge of the sidewalk and splashed her way over to us. Her face was wet, and she quickly drew her hand over her brow and joined us under the umbrella. It began to get a bit crowded there. We were breathing on each other. “Barnum didn’t think you’d come,” Peder said. Vivian looked at me. “I came all right,” she said. “Perhaps Barnum’s used to being disappointed,” Peder went on, not letting up. “Perhaps,” Vivian said, and took off her hat. “Have you said anything at home?” I asked, so as to change the subject. She shook her head, and droplets showered from her hair in a shining circle. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” Peder said. “In other words, ignorance is bliss.” Now the rest of the class was coming with their dark clothes and bags with over-narrow shoes in them; they looked as if they were going to a funeral at the very least, or were on their way to the slaughterhouse where they’d imminently get knocked on the skulls and be hung up on hooks from the roof till tender, while Svae played Oh Heiderröslein over and over before flaying the lot of them with a nail file. It wasn’t just a sad procession; it looked rather a pathetic one too. We laughed. We pointed at them and laughed. Now it was our turn. We laughed at them. We were so superior. We were together. It was us against them, us against the crowd, and we had supremacy. And perhaps it was the first time, just then, under the black umbrella there behind the red tree, that I felt this sense of belonging that’s beyond one’s own family — yes, that’s outside your own self. This belonging that eliminates the anxiety in your innermost being and that gives you a place on which to stand. I felt that, strongly and clearly, that evening with Peder and Vivian. Then there was just the snow and all the steps imprinted in it between the streetlights on Drammen Road, and we could hear the music from the windows on the upper floor — the beat — and the steps spreading out over the parquet floor we had left once and for all.

  We didn’t say anything for a bit. We just looked at each other and smiled. There was nothing to worry about. If we wanted, we could climb up to the top of the tree and sit there for the rest of the evening. Peder folded up the umbrella. It had stopped snowing. “Well go to Dads place,” he said, and started off. We followed him. He was walking down in the direction of Vika. It wasn’t wise going particularly much further. The streets hadn’t been plowed, and the snow was all brown. But I wasn’t worried. We were together. It wouldn’t take much for Vivian to reach for my hand, and no one had ever held my hand except for close family members. At last Peder stopped outside a shop in Huitfeldt Street. Above the window, which was covered in a metal grill, there were words in large letters — miil’s stamps — bought and sold. Peder produced a great bunch of keys and unlocked the door. We went in and he closed it behind us. There was no one there. Peder lit a lamp in the ceiling that shone sharp and white. I’d never seen so many stamps. There was a glass case full of old letters. The place smelled of glue and tobacco, and something else that I couldn’t diagnose — maybe a particular type of steam used for lifting stamps from letters without them falling apart. “Smells like rubber,” Peder said. “You get used to it eventually.” Vivian looked about her inquisitively. “Can you really live off of selling stamps?” she asked. “Of course,” I said. “A stamp from Mauritius costs 21,734 kroner.” Peder smiled and pushed us through to the back. There was a sofa and fridge there, and a desk on which strange, shiny instruments were lying — magnifying glasses, lenses and microscopes. It was more like an operating table. Peder got out some beer and some Coke from the fridge and opened both bottles with a pair of tweezers. Then he mixed the two in a glass, took a gulp himself and passed it on to us. It tasted sweet and sour at one and the same time. A humming began in one of my ears. We sat down on the sofa, with Vivian in the middle. “Are you allowed to be here?” she asked. Peder splashed more beer into the Coke. “Dad says I’ve got to take over the whole dump anyway. I’m the one who counts the cost!” Peder laughed loudly and produced a stamp lying right at the back of a drawer that first had to be unlocked using two keys. He sat down with us once more. “What I like most about stamps is that the ones that have things wrong with them are of most value.” He showed us the stamp he’d sought out, and we took turns holding it. It was Swedish, yellow, and looked as if it had been sent a good while back. “A three shilling stamp from 1855,” Peder whispered. “Should really have been green. The King of Romania bought one for five thousand pounds in 1938. Just because it was yellow and not green.” Peder put the stamp back in its drawer and turned back to us. But it was Vivian he was staring at. “I’m fat,” he said. “And Barnum’s tiny. What’s wrong with you, Vivian?” I almost didn’t dare breathe. There was quiet for so long I thought Peder had ruined everything. But then she did say something after all, and she looked up and smiled. “I was born in an accident,” she said.

  I thought about that the whole way home, about what she’d said about being born in an accident. I thought so much about it that I forgot what I was going to say myself. Were we worth more because there was something wrong with us? Mom was already standing in the hall, and in the living room Dad was sitting drowsily in a chair. Boletta wasn’t to be seen anywhere, so she probably had her usual affliction and was at the North Pole. “Were you kept behind again?” Mom demanded, and her mouth was trembling. “Yes,” I admitted. “Well, it’s at least good you don’t deny it, because the head teacher called to tell us! How could you?” Dad got up from his chair and that was easier said than done. “Well, well,” he said. “So you threw a snowball through a window, Barnum.” “Yes,” I breathed. “That sounds promising indeed. Once the spring comes well get going with the discus, and the great thing about the discus is that it gives you a better grip on the girls too!” “Be quiet!” Mom shrieked. Dad just laughed and began sitting down once more. Mom tugged at my jacket. “And you’ve been to dancing in these clothes!” I looked away. “We were only doing the cha-cha-cha,” I said. Mom sighed heavily, and her hands flew in all directions. “And where’s Fred? Have you seen him?” “He’s lying in a coffin in the drying loft.” Mom’s arms dropped. Dad remained on his feet, suddenly awake and white-faced. “What did you say?” he asked. “Nothing.” My throat was quite parched. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. Slowly Dad came closer. “Nothing? You said nothing?” “I don’t remember what I said,” I whispered. Dad stopped in front of me, his whole body shaking. “You said that Fred was lying in a coffin in the drying loft.” I looked down. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

  No one would have believed Dad could have taken stairs so fast. Mom hurried in his wake, and barely managed to keep up with him, and I came last. I had to know what had happened. This is what I see: Dads come to a halt inside the drying loft, right under the attic window. The coffins lying on the floor. Mom’s face is buried in her hands, and she screams without emitting a single sound. But the strange thing is that Dad doesn’t look at the coffin first but rather at the clotheslines, the clothespins, the remains of the dead bird, the empty coal sacks — and he breathes so heavily he redistributes the dust in the room. He stands there like that, staring at everything about him as if he’s forgotten the reason he went there in the first place, forgotten himself entirely. Then Fred himself raises the lid of the coffin and sits up. It almost looks comical. He sits there gasping
for breath, pale and thin among all the silk folds. He stares at me. I stand in the shadows behind Mom, whose face is still hidden behind her hands. “Don’t hurt him,” she murmurs. And Dad turns toward her, almost sorrowful and apologetic. Then the strangest thing happens. He bends down and puts his arms around Fred, holds him close and pats his back. Even Mom has to look now, because Dad doesn’t beat the living daylights out of Fred, he hugs him instead — and I catch a glimpse of Fred’s expression over Dads shoulder, bewildered and horrified. And one of them is crying — not Fred, but rather Dad, Arnold Nilsen.

  I ran downstairs again and went to bed. The others came a little later, their voices low and unhurried. I put my hands over my ears just the same. I didn’t want to know what they were saying. But I couldn’t hear Fred. Perhaps I’d get a hammering from him because I’d told them where he was, and most likely I’d get a double helping because Dad hadn’t smacked him. That would have been the best thing ultimately, if Fred had got his usual hammering and that had been that. I was dreading this already and couldn’t sleep. I was as bewildered and horrified as Fred. He came in when everyone had gone to bed. He sat down by my bed. I didn’t say a word. Then I couldn’t wait any longer. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Still Fred didn’t say anything. A great stillness held his shadow aloft. He had something in his hands. I couldn’t see what it was. Finally he was going to say something. He breathed out. “I think I’m evil,” Fred said. I wished he hadn’t said anything after all. “You aren’t evil,” I murmured. Fred leaned closer. “How do you know?” I had to think about that. A beating would have been better. “You’ve never done anything evil,” I told him in the end. “Haven’t I?” Fred had done a fair amount; he’d mailed my pyjamas to the caretaker, he hadn’t spoken for all but two years, he’d lain in a coffin in the drying loft, and that wasn’t the half of it. But if there was a God, wouldn’t He turn a blind eye to all those things? Would He really make a tally of them? “You’ve never done anything truly evil,” I said to him. Fred looked away. “Not yet,” he breathed. Now I was whispering myself. “Not yet? Are you planning to, Fred?” A car drove down Church Road, and the glow from its headlights swept through the room. Then I saw what it was he was holding in his hands. It was the discus. He didn’t answer. He just kept sitting like that, the discus in his lap, stroking his fingers over its surface. “A junior discus,” he whispered. “Three and a third pounds.” That was all he said. He lay down to sleep. He left the discus on the windowsill. I took it back into the living room. It certainly was heavy. I was glad it wasn’t a senior discus. What was in Freds mind? I felt anxious. I took the letter back with me, lit the small lamp above my head, and read aloud. I don’t know if Fred heard me, or if he’d already gone to sleep. But I read it nonetheless, the whole letter, from beginning to end. Right to the final sentence, the most beautiful thing I knew, and I managed to read it without crying once. It was the last time we read it.

  There were no coffins reported missing in Oslo around that time. Dad took off the gilt handles, removed all the silk, and chopped it up for kindling, which he used for the stove in December, when it began to get cold and the balcony door was letting in the draft. It burned pretty well. But I didn’t particularly like sitting in the warmth it gave off; it made me sweat and feel chilled at one and the same time, so I tended to go out when Dad lit the wood of the coffin Fred had lain in. And late on one such evening, after everyone has become somewhat strange with the fierce and feverish heat of the stove, and even Dad himself has gone out to cool down, Boletta tears open the door to our room and stands there shaking a single finger, scarcely able to speak. I had no idea she could get so angry; I’d never seen her like this. The gentle Boletta was like a bird with her feathers all ruffled. “Where is the letter?” she breathes. It’s Fred she’s staring at because he’s at home too; he lies in bed and simply shrugs his shoulders. “No idea. Do you know, Barnum?” Boletta turns to me. “Isn’t it in the drawer?” I ask her. “No, it’s not in the drawer!” “Maybe you took it to the North Pole?” I suggest. Boletta lifts her tiny hand into the air. “Are you trying to make a fool of me, Barnum?” “No, Granny. But I put it back in the cabinet after I read it last.” Boletta turns the guns on Fred once more. “If you’ve taken that letter, you’ve brought dishonor on the living and the dead! Do you hear me?” Fred gets up. “I haven’t touched it!” he shouts. “I haven’t touched the goddamn letter! Why do I always get blamed for everything?”

  Mom’s there too now. She has to support Boletta. Thereafter they ransack the whole apartment, but they never do find the letter. “You’ve gone and lost it yourself,” Mom tells her. Boletta doesn’t know what to believe and as a result will believe almost anything. Bewildered and miserable, she lies down on the divan. I sit down beside her and try to comfort her. “It’s not so bad,” I tell her. “I know it by heart. Boletta opens her eyes. “By heart?” she breathes. I nod and wipe away beads of sweat from her brow. And then I begin reading the letter to her — with neither the paper nor the words in front of me, I read the letter in its entirety. But when I’m done, after I’ve spoken the final words and neither added nor removed anything, not so much as a comma, Boletta takes my hand and slowly sits up and whispers, “It’s not the same, Barnum. No, it’s not the same.”

  I said no more. And so we sat there like that on the dining room divan that December as the stove sent out its rays of heat, and since that time I’ve never been able to think of the letter, written in the land of the midnight sun amid ice and snow, without remembering the coffin.

  The Accident

  Vivian was born in an accident. It happened on May 8, 1949. Aleksander and Annie, who will become her parents, are driving a Chevrolet Fleetline Deluxe, a gift from his father on their wedding the previous autumn. They’re driving up toward Frognerseter. They’re young and at the start of their lives together; she will give birth in a couple of months, and he has one year of his law studies at Oslo University left — he’s considered the sharpest of the class. She was crowned queen in the graduation festivities the year before. They’re the kind of couple that others admire and envy; the shining stars amid the paler ones around. Their joy is inevitable — they know nothing, that day, besides the joy of being. They are on their way into the future, and the future is on their side. It’s the sun that counts. The blue skies. The green trees. They stop at the Hol-menkollen slope. Aleksander Wie rolls down his window and points to the top of the ski jump and the ground below; this man who knows the letter of the law becomes poetic and attentive to every detail. It’s love. It’s her. It’s both the moment and the future. “It’s you and I who’re standing in that tower now, Annie,” he tells her. She puts her hand over his. “We’re the ones standing in the tower,” he says again. “We’re setting out and we aren’t afraid.” “No,” Annie laughs. “We’ll fly higher than any of the rest.” “Yes, Aleksander!” And he bends down to her lap; she leans back in the seat that’s like a bed, and Aleksander listens, he listens to the child inside her, and he thinks he can hear two hearts pounding — Annie’s and the baby’s. He lies like that a long while, listening. She runs her hand through his hair. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers. “Have I told you that before?” Annie laughs. “You told me this morning.” “And now I’m telling you again. You’re beautiful — both of you.” He kisses her. He puts up the seat and becomes the pragmatic lawyer once more, the one who will protect her. “You must sit properly. The child could be harmed. You must be careful.”

  They drive on. Aleksander closes the passenger-seat window. He doesn’t want it to be drafty for her. He accelerates for a moment, goes a bit over the limit on the last hill, and feels this power that is gentle and manageable; but slows down at once as they swing around toward the woods. There’s another car coming toward them. He can scarcely believe his eyes. “My word,” he exclaims. “A Buick!” And the cars each stop on their respective sides of the road. Aleksander opens his door. Annie quickly grasps his hand. “Where are you going?” s
he asks. “Where am I going? I have to take a look at his car.” “Don’t be long.” He sits back down in his seat again. “You’re not feeling bad?” She shakes her head. “Just a bit cold.” “Cold?” “I don’t know. I got so cold.” “We’re driving home,” he tells her. She laughs. “Hurry up. It’ll pass.” “Sure?” “Quite sure. I’m better already.” Aleksander quickly kisses her cheek and hurries across the road. The other driver — a short, dark-haired man wearing light gloves — is already standing beside the open coupe, and he lights a cigarette. Aleksander thinks to himself at once that he looks like an upstart out on the road to show off; maybe an ordinary guy from a whaler who’s made too much money There’s a boy in the front who looks sullen and bad-tempered; a thin, pale woman sits behind him and is smiling shyly, as though she knows this isn’t the right car for them, that it’s out of their league. A strange bunch they are altogether, but Aleksander greets the small, idiotic fellow who’s speaking a different, northern dialect and trying to disguise the fact by speaking slowly and in capital letters. They walk around their cars and boast about them a bit. “Is that your wife?” the stranger inquires. Aleksander nods. “Yes, it is indeed.” “She’s most beautiful.” Aleksander’s embarrassed by the intrusiveness of the comment. A shadow sweeps over them and draws the light with it. The clouds are increasing. He stops and quickly goes back to the Chevrolet, gets inside. “We’re going home,” he announces. But Annie wants to go on. “No, not yet. I want to go right up to the top of the tower.” Aleksander laughs and feels this joy that knows neither blemish nor flaw. She’s with him. She’ll follow him. She wants to follow him to the very top. “All right then! In that case we can avoid driving after that charlatan!” He fastens his seatbelt, and at that moment the rain starts. He puts on the windshield wipers and drives on toward the next sharp curve. Annie turns and notices that the woman in the other car has turned around too — just for a second — then they’re out of sight of each other. And it’s on the far side of this curve that the accident happens. Perhaps Aleksander Wie was driving too fast, perhaps the road was slippery on account of the warm rain, perhaps some creature or other suddenly came out of the wood and startled him. Whatever the reason, he loses control of the nearly two-ton Chevrolet — it all happens before he has time to react, before he can manage to straighten up. Forces loom against him, the car swerves to one side, plunges down a steep slope and crashes into a tree. Annie is slung against the windshield, which shatters over her face. There’s utter stillness. Only the rain keeps falling. Only a bird flutters upward from a branch. Aleksander sits pinned between the seat and the wheel, all but completely unharmed — but for a cut in the forehead. He frees himself and turns toward Annie. He can see nothing but blood; her face is a mass of blood — a piece of glass has cut her face diagonally and divided it in two. Her neck, her chest — everything is blood, everything is shattered. “Annie,” he murmurs. “Annie.” And he doesn’t hear his own voice but rather something else — not a sound but rather a movement, and he looks down to the floor by her feet and sees a bundle. A bundle of flesh and blood, a human being, still attached to Annie, who suddenly bellows and gurgles, and presses her hands against her ruined face. The glass breaks between her fingers and she roars and roars; Aleksander tries to bend down to the newborn baby — a girl — they’ve already decided the baby will be called Vivian if it’s a girl.