The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  It was a girl, and Vivian turns toward us. “Come on,” she says. Peder looks at me and nods; he’s pale and almost appears thin there where he’s standing. And we follow in Vivian’s wake through the dark and silent apartment, cheek by jowl with Frogner Church. It’s the first time we’ve been there, at Vivian’s, and it took long enough for her to dare to invite us. “Quiet,” Peder breathes. “What did you say?” I ask him, my own voice as muted as his. “Quiet,” he repeats. We go into her room, and soundlessly she shuts the door. It’s as if no one sleeps there at all. Everything is neat and tidy. Everything appears untouched: her bag, her books, a sweater, a pair of slippers side by side. And it strikes me that this room is almost completely empty; there’s nothing there, nothing — no record player, no radio, no magazines. Maybe this is the way girls’ rooms are, I think to myself, tidy. But I realize that Peder’s noticed it too, and we crash down on the gray sofa while Vivian sits on a stool, for there’s nothing else to sit on there except the stool. We’re silent for a bit, as if the stillness of the apartment is infectious. Peder has to break the silence first. “Cool,” he says finally. Vivian looks up. “Cool? What do you mean?” “Our place is stuffed with crap. Here there’s nothing.” There’s a ghost of a smile on Vivian’s lips. “Full of crap?” she repeats. “But at Bar-num’s it’s even worse.” He looks at me and laughs, and I realize Peder’s talking for the sake of it, and he doesn’t quite know what to say and so is babbling like this. I feel freezing cold. Peder’s freezing too. His neck is covered in goose pimples. “Full of crap,” I quickly put in. Vivian shakes her head, realizing we’re just talking crap, and we know that she knows, and no one says any more for a long while, and this time I’m the one to break the silence, and what I come out with’s pretty stupid. “Did you tell your parents you’d given up dancing classes?” I ask her. Vivian shrugs her shoulders in exactly the same way Peder does, and it makes me rather worried. “It’s all the same to them,” she says simply. It’s then my eyes alight on a picture on the wall behind her, and I just sit there gazing at it because I can’t take my eyes off it, as Peder goes on spouting crap. It’s a photograph of a lady — black and white — and definitely fairly old; she’s holding a cigarette in her fingers, and the smoke is rising in a faint spiral in front of her face. Her mouth is thin and wide; there’s something hard and cold — almost hostile — about her face. Yet at the same time there’s also something about it that’s inviting and alluring, as if it’s you and you alone she wants to join in something you’ve probably never done before and which you’ll probably never have the chance to do again. Marble and marzipan, I think to myself. The words just tumble from nowhere. Marble and marzipan. “If I could choose,” Peder was saying, “I’d rather have had nothing at all than a lot of crap.” “But here there’s actually a lot of both,” Vivian says, smiling. “Both nothing and crap.” Peder’s sweating now and unfortunately turns to look at me. “And what have you to say to that, Barnum?” “Marble and marzipan,” I reply And both of them start laughing; both Peder and Vivian laugh, and it’s as if the sound of laughter doesn’t belong there, but I laugh myself. We lean in toward each other and laugh — marble and marzipan. It’s us three — we say things no one else could comprehend beside ourselves. And then someone knocks on the wall, and a more sudden silence I’ve never heard before. We sit up as if we’ve been caught in the very act, and arrested for committing some heinous crime. We were laughing. We don’t laugh any more. “It’s Lauren Bacall,” Vivian whispers. “Who knocked on the wall?” “No, you nut. The one you’re staring at.” Vivian turns toward the photograph, the only thing on any of the walls. Peder looks at it too. “Who is she?” I ask. “An actress,” Vivian replies. “My great-grandmother was an actress too,” I tell them in passing. Vivian looks at me again, and I feel she does so with new eyes, that all of a sudden she sees me in a new light. “Was she?” I nod. “Yes, she was.” “In movies or on the stage?” “Movies.” “Must have been the silent movies then,” Peder says, and laughs again, as someone opens the door suddenly and soundlessly. It’s Vivian’s father. His hair is completely gray — that’s the first thing I notice, that and his slender nose. He looks in at us. Peder gets up at once. I get up too. Vivian remains where she is. Her back is curved like a cat’s. Her father nods. He smiles momentarily; his lips tremble.

  We left. Vivian stood at the window, raised her hand, and we did likewise. She raised her hand and held it like that until we were out of sight. “Jesus Christ,” Peder said. “Pretty freezing cold there.” “And silent.” “You’re not wrong there, damn it. Silent and freezing.” The tram passed us; the faces behind the windows pale, almost yellow, and suddenly I thought that every one of them looked like Vivian. “What was the name of the woman in the picture?” I asked. “Lauren Bacall,” Peder said. “Some people say she looks like Vivian’s mother. Or the other way around.” “And does she?” “Not any more.” Peder stopped and gripped my arm. “She sits in her bedroom in the dark with no face.” “What? She has no face?” “It was gone after the accident. They tried to stitch it back. Didn’t do much good.” Peder let go of my arm and walked on. I ran after him. Another tram went by with the same faces in yellow shadow. “She hasn’t been out since it happened,” Peder said. Now it was my turn to hold him back. “But how do you know?” I demanded. “Vivian told me.” I swallowed. My throat grew suddenly tight, for a terrifying thought had entered my head. I looked away. It was as if the edge of the sidewalk was a line I was balancing on. “Are you and Vivian together? I mean are Vivian and you together?” “Maybe. Maybe not,” he replied. The darkness in my head intensified, and I couldn’t say any more, because I thought that if he and Vivian were indeed an item then I was surplus to requirement — Barnum the midget was left over yet again and might as well go home and lie down. “I see,” I breathed. Peder turned and burst out laughing. “I’m not together with Vivian,” he said. “We are together with Vivian, Barnum. Don’t you get that?”

  Discus and Death

  Dad woke us early that Sunday. “And here you lie snoring while the suns shining bright!” he exclaimed. I opened my eyes slowly, even though I’d been awake for ages. Dad stood at the door wearing a yellow tracksuit that was just a fraction on the tight side. I could smell coffee. Mom was whistling in the kitchen. Boletta toddled past, hands on her back. The curtains couldn’t keep the light out. That was something. Dad breathed heavily and clapped his hands; it sounded strange, amputated applause. And the only other thing I could hear was that great silence that belongs only to Sundays, because the church bells hadn’t started yet. “Well, come on then, boys! I’ve damn well rented out Bislet till one o’clock!” “Coming,” Fred said. I felt happy and nervous. He swung his legs down onto the floor and glanced at me. “Are you just going to lie there?” Dad clapped his hands together once more. “That’s the way, Fred! Get Barnum up and about!” “Coming,” Fred said, and smiled. “We’re coming.”

  We put on shorts and T-shirts, because it was already warm, and when I joined Fred in the bathroom he didn’t even get annoyed with me for coming in while he was there, though he usually did. He slowly pulled the comb back through his hair, but as soon as he’d done that the hair fell back into place. I liked looking at those black bangs that somehow defied him — they wanted to lie flat — and I laughed. Fred turned abruptly and I stopped laughing. But nothing happened. He just glanced at me, he didn’t stare (then anything could happen). He just glanced at me. I felt relaxed again, almost happy. Then he opened the medicine cabinet and rummaged through all the containers and perfumes and deodorants that were there, and finally got out the oil, Dad’s hair oil. He unscrewed the top, bent over the sink and emptied half the contents over his head. It rained hair oil. He rubbed it in, put the comb into the front of his bangs, and swept them back once more. And they stayed. They stayed like that as if they had been glued onto his scalp — a wall of hair. Fred looked in the mirror, smiled and wiped his face. I suddenly felt sick, because Dad used
to stink of sweat too when he came home with a surplus of hair oil running in thick stripes down his cheeks and flowing over his collar. Fred put the bottle back and turned to me again. There was something in his eyes — that darkness that had always been there, or maybe it was just the bangs that cast a shadow. “What is it?” I asked him. Fred didn’t move. “What is it?” I repeated. Fred put both hands onto my head and rubbed the last of the hair oil into my curls. “Are you ready?” he whispered. I didn’t understand. “Ready? Yes.” “Good, Barnum.”

  We went into the kitchen and made quite an impression on Boletta and Mom — T-shirts and shorts and hair full of hair oil. We must have been quite a sight that Sunday at the end of May still so early that the world about us was quite still, still and green through the Virginia creeper growing around the windows like curtains of sewn leaves. Dad banged down his coffee cup and laughed so his tracksuit slid up over his stomach to reveal his belly button; it resembled a crater on a previously unknown planet composed of flesh. Boletta got up, shut her eyes and clasped her hands together when this rocking planet came into view. “We dress up for the banquet, boys!” he exclaimed. “Not for the competition!” “Banquet?” I repeated. Dad shook his head for a good while. “Has anyone ever heard of a genuine athletics event without a banquet?” He got his belly button back into place again and looked all around. “Not me,” he said. “That’s why I’ve done nothing less than book a table for five at the Grand this evening. If Boletta isn’t off to the North Pole, that is.” “They’ve got beer at the Grand too,” Mom said, and smiled knowingly to us; and that was good, because when she could laugh at Boletta’s beer, then she was in good form — gentle and generous-hearted, happy even. As if she could relax, rest for a little in the ease of the moment. I could barely remember when I’d last seen her like that; it must have been the last time Peder came to visit. Boletta opened her eyes again but stayed on her feet. “Not as cold, though,” she quickly established. Dad looked up at her, and his expression was kindly and gentle. “As compensation it’s served by highly educated waiters. Sit down and join us, dear Boletta.” “Only if you keep your stomach where it should be under that abominable outfit!” “I give you my word,” Dad laughed. Boletta sat down reluctantly, as far away from Dad as possible, which wasn’t all that far considering our kitchen wasn’t large and Dad took up most of the room. And he hadn’t left anything to chance that day “Breakfast is the first part of the throw!” he insisted. He had actually been to Bang the caretaker to ransack him for information because he was a former triple jump champion, and he could reveal that Audun Boysen himself had had two pieces of bread with liver pate, three carrageen tablets, and a teaspoon of cod-liver oil before important events. It was vital that one supplied the body with precisely the right nutritional elements without rendering oneself bloated. It didn’t taste particularly good. It was like eating the contents of a gym bag. But Fred just swallowed everything that had to do with seaweed without wincing once. And I noticed that Mom was thunderstruck, thunderstruck by Fred’s passivity, but this turned into suspicion and a shadow came over her once more. “Isn’t Audun Boysen a runner?” I asked. Dad looked at me. “But of course. He’s one of the best runners in the world, Barnum.” “But he doesn’t throw the discus,” I said. Dad shook his head once more at all this lack of awareness, and pushed the last carrageen tablets in my direction. “Whether we throw the discus, run, do the triple jump, are clowns under the big top, or acrobats on the trapeze, we get the same strength from the same source, Barnum!” He was quiet, and his breath became labored in his crooked nose. He looked down, and his eyes overflowed — possessed by memories, by the moment, by the magnitude of the occasion. I swallowed the tablets. “From where?” I whispered. “From the heart,” Dad replied, his voice as quiet as my own. And he looked at us as he wiped away his tears. “The elephant’s hair,” he breathed. “The rarest thing of all. And that I found here.” He put his arm around Mom and hugged her close. Fred grew restless. “Aren’t we going soon?” he asked. Dad got up that instant. “We’ve already gone! Because now my head’s Olympic!” He followed Fred out into the hall. I looked at Mom. “Aren’t you coming with us?” She smiled again, but it was a different smile — nervous and fleeting, like a breeze passing over her face. “Today the men will be left in peace,” she said, and filled a flask with fruit juice. “And besides, we have to stay at home and get the banquet ready,” Boletta murmured. “And that takes time for elderly ladies.”

  Fred and Dad were calling. They were shouting to me. “Hurry up now,” Mom said quietly, so only I could hear. “Hurry now.” Boletta lit a cigarette. I ran out to join them. Dad pointed at my feet. “Are you going to throw the discus in slippers, Barnum?” Fred was standing at the door. He was wearing white tennis shoes. They were shining. The laces on each foot were like flowers. Now I noticed that Dad was holding something behind his back that I couldn’t see. “Or would you like to compete in your dancing shoes?” I shook my head. Dad laughed and revealed what he’d been hiding. Another pair of tennis shoes, as new and white as the first. I sat on the floor and put them on, and I still recall the grooved soles, the shiny metal rings around the holes for the laces, and the soft rubber at the heels. And when I got up, it was like standing on air. Dad put a hand on my shoulder and a hand on Fred’s and pulled us close — two half brothers in white shoes. “I once had a friend,” Dad said. “This was in the old days. When I was in the circus. We called him Der Rote Teufel. He slipped on the trapeze and died. And why? He’d put on the wrong shoes, boys.” Dad sighed. “One day, you’ll understand what I mean. But not for a long time yet.” Dad had on his black shoes; black shoes and a yellow tracksuit. “Come on,” he said. It was me who got to carry the discus. It was lying in a bag with handles. Fred carried the rucksack. And armed thus we set off for Bislet, that morning, the last Sunday in May. Mom and Boletta waved from the window. We waved back, all except for me because I was carrying the discus. Dad turned and smiled. “Heavy, Barnum?” “No,” I told him. “Only three and a third pounds.” Fred laughed quietly at my back. “Exactly,” Dad said. “A junior discus! To be big one has to start small! Come on now!” It was the green of the trees. It was the light in the streets. It was the stillness of the city. And all at once the doves from the roofs took off together, the second before the church bells began ringing. Dad turned around again. “Shall we go to church, or shall we go to Bislet?” It was Fred who replied, from just behind me. “Bislet.” We laughed, one after the other. We laughed together and went to Bislet — Dad at the front, Fred at the back and me in the middle carrying the discus in a bag with handles. And the dark-clad people we passed on the road were carrying hymnbooks and umbrellas, and Dad, with his tight yellow tracksuit and pale gloves, bowed and greeted them and let them pass on the steep rise by the toilets. And then we were there. The noise of the church bells quieted and died. The birds returned as one to their roofs. Dad had a key to the gate on the north side. He unlocked it. He went in. I followed and behind me came Fred, and I heard the heavy iron gate bang shut. We had to walk through a corridor. Dad went so slowly. A newspaper lay against the wall. The wind played with its pages. An ice-cream stick. A beer bottle cap. All of a sudden I felt freezing. It was as if we were going farther and farther into a cold darkness. I wanted to turn around. But I kept going. And when we came out on the far side, the three of us stopped, all but blinded. The empty stands, the thin grass and the sky above. We had a whole stadium to ourselves, and it was just as if all the light had collected here, in one great concrete hollow. Our voices echoed, but no one had said anything yet, not before Dad put his arms around us and I felt a tremor go through Fred; a violent jolt that caused Dads damaged hand to shudder over my back as he said, “Paradise!” The word raced away around the outer 400-meter track, and returned the same moment it had been uttered except more slowly now, as if someone was standing behind the stands imitating it: Paradise! Paradise! Soon enough stillness fell once more. We followed Dad over the grave
l. He stopped at a circle of dry ground. He pointed. “Here,” he said. “Here’s where it happens.” I gave him the box with the discus. He put it down in the grass beside the circle we were to stand in. Then he brought out a measuring tape from the little rucksack, a silver measuring tape. He was sweating already. He wiped his face with his good hand and smiled. “See this?” he asked. He let the measuring tape extend to its full length before us. We nodded. “Can you read the last number for me, Fred?” Fred blinked and bent closer. “Nine feet,” he said. Dad turned the tape around the other way. “And can you read the last number for me now, Barnum?” I shaded my eyes. “Six feet.” Dad smiled and slowly rolled up the measuring tape again as he looked at us. “Mundus vult decipi” he whispered. “Do you know what that means, by any chance?” He answered his own question. “The world will be taken in.” “Ergo decipiatur” Fred said. Dad dropped the tape and turned to face him, thunderstruck. “Did you say something, Fred?” “Ergo decipiatur” he repeated. Dad couldn’t hide his amazement, his sheer amazement and joy. He had to go nearer Fred to believe his own ears. “Very good, Fred. Ergo decipiatur. But today we won’t deceive the world, will we?” Now it was Fred’s turn to do the smiling. “No,” he said. Dads face grew serious once more. “And don’t try to pretend you’re worse than Barnum! Is that quite clear?” Fred nodded. “Wouldn’t even occur to me,” he said. Dad hesitated a moment, utterly incredulous, and looked at me instead. “Because today we’re going to achieve the same length, boys! And may the best man win!” Dad opened the box and lifted up the discus. He held it out like a crown; he’d polished it and it was shining. We each got to hold it, the junior discus: three and a third pounds, 2.13 centimeters in diameter, first worked in wood and then finished in a smooth ring of metal with brass plates set in the sides. Dad pulled off the glove on his good hand and spread his fingers. “Unfortunately I’ll be forced to demonstrate the subtleties of the throw with my left hand, since my right was lost to a German grenade. But let’s do some warming up first!” Dad found a bar of chocolate and the flask of coffee in the bag. He sat down heavily in the grass while Fred and I sauntered over to the gravel and began warming up. I ran. Fred came right behind me. But he didn’t run. And it occurs to me now that I never saw Fred run; it was as if it was beneath his dignity to move in such a manner. Or maybe he considered it too much of an admission to run, because not even when he was knocked down by the Vika Indians did he run, even though he had the chance to get away. But it would have been an admission of fear — to run admitted your eagerness, your haste, your impatience, your humiliation. Fred once said to me, “Only slaves run, Barnum.” I ran. Fred walked. I think he laughed, gave a low chuckle, as he passed me in the outside lane, in the shadows, with long and soundless strides. I increased my pace and just managed to keep up with him, and when we got back we were told the warmup would continue with a dozen body rolls, in both directions. We lay on our backs in the grass and rolled. Dad counted each one and laughed. “The clowns had to warm up too!” he called out. “The clowns and the animal tamers and the chocolate girls!” Dad fell silent and broody and lit a cigarette. I lay in the grass beside Fred and exhaled. “Remember what I promised you?” he whispered. “What?” Fred didn’t reply. Finally we had to wheel our arms twenty-four times. Dad got up and threw his cigarette behind the goalpost. “Good job, boys! You’re like windmills!” Then we were sufficiently warm. Dad waved us closer. He held the discus in his left hand, his good hand. “Are you paying close attention now?” We nodded. Dad spoke quietly, as if he were sharing a secret with us, and the stands were crammed with people desperate to hear us too. No one else was there. Just Fred, Dad and myself. “The flat of the discus is laid against the inner part of the hand and against the wrist itself. Thus. Are you watching, Barnum?” “Yes, Dad.” “Because the discus is no joke.” Suddenly he pulled the glove from his right hand. The bulging lump of flesh hung from the end of his arm; only the remains of the sewn-together thumb minus its nail gave some suggestion of the digits that once had been there. I couldn’t bring myself to look. Dad laid the discus in his mutilated hand and at once dropped it in the grass. Fred picked it up for him. Dads voice was quieter still. “I just demonstrated to you, with the help of my bad hand, how important it is to have a proper grip when you’re holding the discus. And would you open your eyes, Barnum? So we don’t have another accident.” I opened my eyes. Fred was smiling. Dad stood in the center of the circle. He’d put on his glove and was holding the discus in his left hand again. “Just imagine I’m a mirror you’re practicing in front of,” he said. He spun around twice and stopped abruptly. And it amazed me that this fat, ponderous man could be so graceful, almost like a dancer. And I saw that Fred was impressed himself. Dad was bewildered. “What is it, boys?” We didn’t say anything. What could we say — that he resembled a dancer in his yellow tracksuit in the center of the circle? Yes, maybe we could have told him, but we didn’t; we just stood there, silently impressed, and looked at him. Fred’s mouth narrowed and the dark in his eyes was back. What had he promised me? All at once Dad grew impatient. He spoke loudly. “With your hand spread, you grip the rim with your fingertips. And use your thumb as a support. Thus. Let your arm hang loose and watch that your hold on the discus is good and secure.” Dad quickly pirouetted around once more, and extended his arm without releasing the discus. “The most important thing now is to throw the discus out in the perfect path. The discus should slice through the air and rotate on its own axis. And don’t just chuck it! Do you hear me? No chucking!” We’d heard. The discus wasn’t to be chucked. Dad lowered his voice again. “And how do you achieve this? Well, you flick the discus with a quick underarm twist to the left and sharply propel it outward with the index finger.” He demonstrated what he meant, but still didn’t release the discus. “The most important thing continues to be that your hand is steady and that you have the correct stance,” he breathed. “If the rhythm is wrong, it’s of no consequence how strong you are. Can I ask that attention is paid to my feet?” We looked down. “This ring, boys, this unassuming and undramatic circle on the ground, is the discus athlete’s big top. From here he hurls out his jubilation to the spectators. Watch carefully now!” He made some quick movements, bent down, swung around, and the discus disappeared from his hand and landed some distance out on the track. “See? The power of leg, body and arm should combine in one single twisting movement forward and upward, so you gain maximum power in your throw! Yes, yes, go and get the discus, Fred.” And Fred did. Fred obeyed. Fred fetched the discus and brought it back. “Aren’t we going to measure the throws?” I inquired. “We’ll practice first. After that we can start measuring.” Fred gave the discus to Dad. Dad handed it on to me. “What’s your throwing arm like today, Bar-num?” “A bit weak,” I said. Dad felt it and smiled. “No excuses now. It’s fine. You can begin.”