The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  Clouds piled over Bislet and dropped their long shadows. Soon the sun shone once more. It was warmer than everywhere else down there on the ground of the stadium; like a great bath filled to the brim with dry light. The air was still. The heat hung over the length of the hollow.

  I thought I saw someone over by the locker rooms; there was a movement in the heat — perhaps just an ice-cream wrapper or a bird. I took my place in the circle. I tried to do as Dad had. My feet apart. My throwing arm as far back as possible. My feet at the edge of the circle. Dad followed everything like a hawk. Fred moved out of the way I spun around and let go of the discus. It was a pathetic throw. The discus tottered through the air and landed right in front of Dad. He shook his head. “Flick,” he said. “You forgot the flick, Barnum. That’s why the discus flew like a bird with one wing. Your turn, Fred.” And Fred took up position in the circle, laid the discus flat in his right hand, bent down, supple and swift, and before Dad had properly taken in what he was doing, he slung out the discus and turned toward him before it had even landed. “Follow the throw with your eyes, Fred! You can tell from the discus what mistakes you’ve made.” There was the ghost of a smile on Fred's lips. “Did I make any mistakes?” Dad was startled. “You’re not world champion yet, Fred. I feel that your approach wasn’t sufficiently controlled, for one thing. But otherwise it was fine.”

  I ran out and got the discus. Dad went for the measuring tape again and a pad to record the results. “Now we can get serious,” he said. “And for the throw to be counted, the discus has to fall within the delineated ninety-degree sector. Have you got that?” I’m not absolutely certain I did understand, but I nodded anyway. It was so warm. The sweat was pouring from us. I had to wipe my hands in the dry grass. Dad breathed heavily through his crooked nose and looked at Fred again. “And follow the discus with your eyes. The throw isn’t over until the discus has landed.” Fred nodded too. Dad showed us a shiny kroner piece. “Heads,” I said. Fred smiled. “Tails.” Dad flicked it up into the air, caught it, clasped his fingers and then slowly opened his hand. “Barnum begins,” he said. “And remember that in this sport height has no say whatsoever. Inside the circle we’re all equals.” He looked at me. “All right,” I breathed. Dad smiled and patted us on the back, one after the other. “Good luck, boys. May the best man win!”

  So Dad went out into the throwing sector and took with him the measuring tape and his pencil and pad. He stood there waiting. He shaded his eyes. Even where I was I could hear his nasal breathing; he was a locomotive. Fred stood still behind me. My arm was pale and thin and smooth. I threw. I threw for all I was worth. The discus swerved low over the grass and fell sharply to the ground. Dad ran over to the spot, stuck a marker in the ground and measured the distance from the circle. Slowly he noted the figure in his pad. “Thirty-seven and three-quarters!” he said. “A long way to go yet. Your turn, Fred!”

  And Fred stands in the circle. Dad goes out onto the grass once more. He positions himself to our left, almost out by the running track. We have it in our backs. “Are you ready, Barnum?” Fred whispers. I don’t know what he means, nor does he wait for a reply Dad waves. Fred doubles up, supple and swift as before; his arm extends like wire, the flick of finger and discus keeps going, twists through the light toward Dad, who’s standing in the heart of the sunlight in his yellow tracksuit, the measuring tape in his hand. The stillness deepens. Fred follows the discus with his eyes. The throw isn’t over yet. The throw has only just begun. The throw has its own momentum now; liberated, torn loose and yet at the same time planned — its path has been written in the air long before, directed by the flick of Fred’s finger. Perhaps the throw began with the one who made the discus in the first place, or the one who thought of it, thought of the discus’ form and weight to begin with. I follow the discus with my eyes. It’s still rising. It reaches its height and rests a moment in the light. Then it falls. It travels so fast I don’t see it before it’s happened. Dad has to shade his eyes. Perhaps he thinks in that sudden second that the sun is no longer green but black now. And at that moment the discus hits him. It hits him right in the head, at the crown of his brow, and he loses the tape, sinks into the grass and lies there. The pigeons flap away from the locker rooms. Fred turns. His mouth is trembling. I want to run past him. He holds me back. “Stay here,” he whispers. I’m standing in the circle now. And Fred goes over to Dad. I see him kneeling beside him and lifting his head. He puts his ear to his mouth. Is he saying anything? Is Dad speaking to Fred? I can’t bear it any longer. I break out of the circle. I run over to them. I come to a standstill behind Fred, behind his hunched form. “What’s he saying?” I breathe. Fred lets go of his head. “Saying?” Fred repeats. “Do you really think he’s saying anything?” He moves to one side and sits there in the grass, his arms around his knees, rocking back and forth, rocking. Maybe he sat just like that when the Old One died too, rocking. I see Dad. His skull is shattered. His forehead has been forced down into his face. He resembles nothing and no one. The human in him is gone. I don’t cry. “What have you done, Fred?” He doesn’t reply. I ask him again. “What have you done, Fred? What have you done?” And Fred looks up at me. It’s his eyes I see, and the darkness in them that grows and grows. But that’s not what I remember. I remember him suddenly smiling. “Maybe he’s just skin-dead,” he said.

  The table at the Grand was unoccupied that evening. There was no banquet. Dad had booked a table by the window so everyone could see us there having our three-course meal as they went past on Karl Johan, with more knives and forks than we could use and a white tablecloth that reached to the floor. And maybe someone we knew would pass by and stop in their tracks, im- pressed and envious, and we could raise our innumerable glasses standing all around the gilt-edged plates and drink the health of the hungry soul out there, pressing their face in vain against the window. But our table was unoccupied. The banquet was canceled. Dad had been canceled. And when we came back from Ullevål Hospital, where Dad lay on a stretcher in the basement, with no need to put a glass of brandy on his chest or stick a hairpin in his heart, the telephone rang. Mom tore the receiver off its cradle as if she believed someone might tell her it had all been a misunderstanding, a terrible dream, a late April Fools prank. I saw her suddenly going red. “I’m so sorry,” she mumured. “Unfortunately we’ve been prevented from coming.” She listened for a moment and held the receiver with both hands. Boletta, Fred and I stared at her, scarcely daring to breathe. In the end she said, “Yes, I quite understand. But my husband died today.” And it was only then when she’d spoken the words, said to the headwaiter at the Grand that Dad was dead, that she started crying. She dropped the receiver and we could hear the headwaiter at the Grand down in the restaurant on Karl Johan passing on his condolences, and it was then the doorbell rang too. Boletta put the phone down while the gracious headwaiter continued offering his deepest sympathies. A sudden quiet fell. Mom put her arms around both Fred and me and drew us close. The bell rang again. Boletta went out into the hall. It was Boletta who took charge now. She had kept her calm. Her hands didn’t so much as tremble. She opened the door. It was the caretaker, Bang. He leaned forward and bowed. “Terrible,” he breathed. “A terrible accident. But worst of all for Fred.” Bang slowly turned in our direction. Fred took a step backward, into Mom’s shadow. “And what do you mean by that?” Boletta inquired. Bang looked down. “Am I not right in thinking it was Fred’s throw?” “Let me tell you something,” Boletta said loudly. “It was worst for every one of us! But worst of all for Arnold Nilsen! What is it you want?” Bang bowed his head once more. “First and foremost, I would like to offer my condolences. On behalf of all of us in the building.” Boletta nodded. “Thank you, that’s very kind. But we must have some peace now.” The caretaker kept standing in the doorway “A terrible accident,” he said again. “Yes, we know, Bang. We comfort ourselves with the knowledge that he died instantaneously.” Boletta was about to close the door, but Bang was too qui
ck for her. He was suddenly in the hall, and he was holding our little rucksack. “I thought you’d want to keep these,” he breathed. “What?” Boletta demanded impatiently. “His things. They were obviously left behind at Bislet.” And he brought out the measuring tape, the pencil, and the pad on which my pathetic score of thirty-seven and three-quarters feet was recorded. Now Boletta’s patience had run out; she tore the rucksack out of his hands, but it was too weighty and fell on the floor with a hollow thud that reverberated under our feet. The caretaker bent down and lifted the discus. Boletta backed away and wouldn’t touch it. Mom moaned and hugged me all the tighter, and I realized that Bang, whom the Old One had called the handyman, had been there all the time, hidden beside the locker rooms. He’d seen everything, but what had he seen? He’d seen nothing but an accident, a dangerous throw; he’d seen a man in a yellow tracksuit standing in the wrong place in the geometry of chance. And Bang hadn’t come forward from his secret lair. He’d remained where he was, kept hidden and watched, but now he couldn’t wait any longer — the vain voyeur couldn’t bear to stand in the shadows. And it terrified me as much as it took me aback that this was the strongest and fiercest and clearest I’d felt hitherto that day — I hated Bang the caretaker. “Where shall I put it?” he asked. Boletta raised both arms and Bang ducked, as if he thought she was going to strike him. “Just keep the wretched thing!” she shouted. Bang shook his head. “I don’t throw the discus,” he whispered. “I’m a triple jumper.” I began to cry. Fred kicked the wall. Boletta shoved Bang against the wall. “Look at what your good deeds have managed to achieve! Just get out of here!” Then Fred suddenly went over to the caretaker and stopped right in front of him; he shrank even further into his corner. He bowed his head. “Thanks,” Fred said. “What?” Bang looked about him in confusion. “Thanks,” Fred said a second time, and took the discus from him. The caretaker bowed and limped backward down the steps. The door was slammed behind him. Fred stood there in the entrance with the discus in his hands. Mom let go of me and said something strange. Her face was all swollen beneath her eyes, and she pointed at Fred and said, “Get that bad omen out of this house!” And as soon as she’d spoken the words, she realized they carried too much weight; they were thrown forward without any spin, they went straight through the air and hit Fred like an electric shock. I could see the jolt in his neck and a pain I’d never observed before — and that pain spread into a smile. He just looked at her, and she hid her face in terror in her hands. Boletta immediately put her arm around him. “She didn’t mean it like that, you know.” And she took the discus from him and went through to the kitchen with it, the rest of us following in her wake. She flung it out of the window, right down into the yard where it landed with a crash in the gravel between Bang’s flowerbeds. Then she turned to us. “Now we’ve got rid of it at last! That bad omen!” The lights were coming on in apartments around about. Faces started appearing. It was night already Dad was dead. Where were his gloves? And his yellow tracksuit? Mom tried to smile but couldn’t manage. She took Fred’s hand. Fred was shaking, as if he were suddenly freezing cold or was going to cry. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. Fred had said he was sorry. Boletta carefully put her arm around him once more. He was made of glass. Fred could go to pieces now. He could fall to the floor and shatter. Mom hesitated for a second. Then she ran her hand through his hair. I’d never seen her do that before. “My beloved boy. It wasn’t your fault.” Boletta was enraged, and Mom hadn’t even finished. “Fault!” she exclaimed. “This was nobody’s fault! If anyone’s to be blamed at all, then it’s God!” “Be quiet,” Mom murmured. But Boletta spoke more loudly still. “God would do well to listen to me right now! Because today He ought to be ashamed of Himself!” Mom drew in her breath and continued to run her hand through Fred’s hair that was still full of oil. “Dad always got in the way, you know. He couldn’t stand still. He was a wheel.” Boletta stamped the floor and agreed. “Yes, Arnold Nilsen was a wheel.” Fred looked at me and smiled. “He got in the way,” I whispered. “He got in Fred’s way all the time.” Mom sighed and had to sit at the kitchen table. “Would you both like to be with me tonight?” she asked. I shook my head and laid my hand on Fred’s shoulder. “I’ll look after Fred,” I told her.