The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  Next morning there’s not a move out of him and the amusing doctor has to return. He isn’t amusing any more. He shines a light in Freds eyes and changes the bandage. Afterward he speaks to Mom, his voice low, and writes out a prescription. There’s a taxi waiting down at the corner; Mom’s gotten a taxi that day too — a taxi and a doctor — and Boletta tells me to hurry. I go down to the taxi while the doctor shines his light once more in Fred’s eyes and feels his nose. I tell the driver just to go a couple of times around the graveyard; I’ll get there late anyway. I sit inside at recess and don’t bother to change when we have gym; but now I notice the impatience around me, the irritation. The laughter is starting to become visible; there’s mockery in some of the looks. How long can Dad’s death last? How long can I remain a fatherless son, in quarantine, so my sorrow doesn’t infect the others? It might last perhaps until summer vacation, and afterward maybe everything would be changed and different. The school might have burned down; Preben, Hamster and Aslak drowned, and I could have gained the inches due me. The sun’s so warm against the window I almost sweat. I can’t take any more. I get up and go. Knuckles has just written something on the board and she turns around abruptly. I think we’re doing geography. She points with the chalk, and there’s a cloud of white dust that never quite reaches the floor. “Do you know what this means, Barnum?” I can’t understand the symbols she’s written; they look like letters that have fallen apart. I shake my head. Knuckles comes closer and hides the chalk. “This is a language called Urdu, Barnum. And Urdu’s a language spoken in a land far away called Pakistan. Remember that for next time. You never know, you may be tested on it.” Knuckles smiles. “And how is your esteemed state of health?” she asks. “Getting there,” I murmur. Knuckles claps her hands and stands there in a dry, white cloud. “That isn’t what I meant, Barnum. That’s what I’ve written on the board. In Urdu. How is your esteemed state of health?” I flee before I hear the sound of laughter. But there’s a guy I’ve never seen before standing over by the gates. He’s dressed in black, and he’s slowly combing his hair, as if reflecting himself in the light around about. I go to the other exit instead, thinking maybe I’ll catch a tram. But when I get there, he’s there as well, and someone else with him. They’re as alike as peas in a pod, and both of them follow me as I make my way toward the church. I begin to speed up. It’s no good. I run. They catch me just the same, and the first thing I notice is that they have cuts on their knuckles and the same hairstyles. “Are you Fred’s brother?” one of them asks. He resembles the other one so much it might equally well have been the second who spoke. I nod. I try to run again, around the church this time, but they catch hold of me and won’t let me go. “How is he?” “He’s alive,” I tell them. They glance at each other. “Ask him to meet us in Sten Park tonight,” the first one says. “Ten o’clock.” They let me go and race off down the hill. I keep standing there till I can no longer see them. Then the bell rings in the playground. It’s a long time until ten o’clock. Hows your health? I don’t want to go home. Montgomery’s screaming. I trail the streets. And Peder’s already standing waiting beside our tree. I run the last part of the way, as always, because I’m so glad to see him. “Guess what!” Peder shouts. “Me first!” I call back, just as loudly, almost unable to speak. “I got knocked down!” Peder stops. “Knocked down? Who by?” We sit in the grass under the red tree and have to wait for the tram to pass before we can hear ourselves talking. “Don’t know,” I told him. “The same ones who knocked down my brother.” “They knocked him down?” “You can say that again! And tonight they want to meet him again.” “Why?” “Perhaps they want to apologize,” I tell him. “Or beat him up again,” Peder suggests. I have to draw a breath. “They were waiting for me outside school,” I tell him. Peder mulls this over. “But they knocked you down too?” he finally asks. “Not quite. Almost They held me. Look!” I show him the arm they grabbed hold of. Peder looks. “Christ Almighty,” he says. I roll down my shirt again. Peder moves closer. “But why did they knock down your brother?” “Probably lots who’d like to,” I breathe. “He looked like mincemeat when he came home. Mincemeat and gravy.” “Christ Almighty,” Peder says again. “His nose was smashed.” “Really?” “Yeah. And his teeth were stuck in his tongue. I had to get them out.” “Bad as that,” Peder says, and we’re both quiet for a while. Then I say “There’s something I don’t get.” Peder smiles. “And what’s that?” “That they managed to beat Fred up.” We lie there in the grass considering this, that anyone’s able to give Fred a hiding in the first place. There had to have been a good number of them. The grass tickles my neck. The skies flow over and are all but invisible above the spread branches of the beech. “And you?” I ask him. Peder sits up. “You remember the guy Mom was drawing the first time you came to visit?” “Barely” I tell him. “The one who was in the living room?” “Exactly. The guy who was naked in the living room.” “Hasn’t your Mom finished drawing him yet?” Peder smiles in that sad way of his, lopsided. “Mom’s never finished,” he says, and lies down again, suddenly quiet, as if he’s forgotten what he was going to say I wait because I don’t want to hurry him. “What about the guy then?” I ask. And Peder rolls around and sits on me. He’s pretty heavy. I let him sit like that nonetheless. Now it’s his turn to be all but unable to speak. “He knows someone who runs a film club where they show movies that aren’t normally shown!” Peder rocks above me. Soon I won’t be able to breathe. “So?” “He said they can sneak us in tonight!” “No?” “Oh, yes!” “What movie is it?” Peder starts hammering on my chest as if I were a drum in a boy band. “You remember the picture of the woman on the wall in Vivian’s room?” “Stop it!” I shout. But he won’t stop. He keeps on hammering my chest. Soon enough I’ll be completely black and blue beneath Peder in all his fullness. “Do you remember her or don’t you remember her?” “I do! But not what she was called!” Peder bends right down and his mouth smells of licorice; his tongue is completely black. “Lauren Bacall,” he says, slowly, each letter dragged out. “Lauren Bacall.” Then we hear laughter behind us. It’s Vivian. She’s standing there laughing. Peder gets up quickly and pulls me up with him, and I only just manage to keep my balance. We brush the grass off ourselves. I put my hands in my pockets. Peder smacks his lips. Vivian doesn’t stop laughing. The two of us go over to her. Peder clears his throat and folds his arms. “Do you want to go to the movies?” he asks. “Film club,” I add quickly. “Want to join us?”

  It’s three hours till then, and none of us has any wish to go home in between. Instead we go over to the telephone booth in Solli Square, scrape together some coins, and Peder calls his father to say he’s having dinner with me, and I call Mom and say I’m having dinner with Peder. I can hear that Mom’s voice is rather worn. “Say hello,” she says. And I put the receiver down before she starts asking where I’m calling from and let Vivian have my place, but she can’t be bothered to phone anyone. After that we find a table for ourselves at Samson’s in Frogner Road, and order some tea and have just enough for one raisin bun between the three of us. The waitress dries her hands on her apron and stares at us long and hard. “How many buns is that?” “One,” Peder repeats. The waitress takes out a pad and writes very slowly. “And that’s a bun with raisins?” Peder nods. “That’s right. Raisins with buns are of no interest to us.” The waitress disappears, and we have to hold our breath so as not to fall over laughing. “What film are we going to see?” Vivian asks. Peder leans over the table once he’s pulled himself together. “I don’t remember the exact title. But Lauren Bacall’s in it.” “The one you’ve got a picture of on your wall,” I quickly add. Vivian looks at me mildly “Don’t you think I know what pictures I have on the wall?” “Yes, of course,” I say. Peder calls the waitress. Perhaps she’s gone home. There are no other customers there. Perhaps we’ve been locked into Samson’s and will have to spend the night amid the clammy atmosphere of the pastries and melting glazes under the glass counter
. “Barnum was almost knocked down today,” Peder says. Vivian smiles for one reason or another. “Were you?” “They just cuffed me here and there,” I murmur. Peder leans over the table. “But Barnum’s brother was almost kicked to pieces.” Vivian looks at me even more intently, and I realize at that moment I suddenly don’t want to talk about it, that I don’t want to talk about Fred. “Just got a smack on the face,” I mumble. And finally the waitress comes over. She’s put the bun in the middle of an enormous plate and sets it down with great ceremony on the table. “There we are,” she says. “Here’s your bun.” She probably had a sense of humor in a previous life. “How many raisins are there in it?” Peder asks. “How many?” “Yes, how many raisins are there in the bun? I can’t pay for it until I know how many raisins there are.” I’m the one who begins picking the raisins out, and I get to seven before we’re thrown out — probably the only ones to have been ejected from Samson’s in Frogner Road. We rock along the tramlines, rock with laughter, and I suddenly think to myself, Where does this laughter belong on Dad’s list? Is this the public’s malicious laughter? Are we mocking the waitress? No, were laughing at ourselves, because this is a liberating laughter, let loose and sovereign. We laugh at all that will happen to us, at all that’s ahead; we sit on a bench behind our tree and divide up the raisins. That’s two each and the last can go to Montgomery who walks past with a bottle like a red flower in his hand. “You don’t look much like him,” Vivian says all of a sudden. She’s sitting between us, between Peder and me. I don’t get what she means. “Who? Montgomery?” Peder shrieks, and Vivian laughs. “Your brother, of course.” My mind goes blank. “How do you know that?” I whisper. She sticks a raisin in her mouth. “Because I saw Fred at your father’s funeral, you dimwit.” And all I can think of is that she remembers that while I don’t. Peder gets up abruptly. “And you can be damn happy about that,” he says. I look at him. “Glad about what?” Peder pulls Vivian up from the grass. “Is Barnum a bit thicker than usual today, or is it that we’re just too smart?” “It’s Barnum who’s thick,” Vivian says. She takes my hands and holds me close and Peder puts his paw on my shoulder and speaks quietly “You can be damn glad you don’t look like your brother.”

  The title of the movie is The Big Sleep. It’s an over-18 and we’re allowed in. It hasn’t begun yet. We sit in row 14 of Rosenborg Cinema — seats 18, 19 and 20. As I carefully put my arm around her, as the light starts to dim, I meet Peder’s hand, because he’s done exactly the same thing — put his arm around Vivian. She leans back in our arms, and that’s how we sit. My polo shirt is making my neck itch, but I don’t dare scratch myself now. The theater’s only half-full, and everyone’s older than we are. A man in a black jacket and wearing dark glasses stands in front of the screen and says something to the effect that this isn’t just a classic film it’s damn well meatier than Ibsen’s collected works, and that those who don’t get who the murderer is will have to pay double the membership fee this coming fall. Welcome to outer darkness. Low laughter in the cinema. We laugh low too because now is the moment for low laughter. We laugh lowest of everyone. “Cool,” Peder whispers. “Cool,” I whisper. Someone turns around and tells us to be quiet. We sink into our seats and don’t say another word for the next 110 minutes.

  And how often have I seen The Big Sleep since? I’ve lost count, but that was the first time, and what can compare to the first time? Nothing. Everything else is a repeat, a copy — plagiarism. Afterward it’s just a continuation. Next time it’s just a shadow. But the first time is real. You are present, you are suddenly there in your own life; you can put your finger on the moment and feel the pulse of time. And at the same time you know too that the moment has passed, slipped away in the pulse’s muddied wake. But not yet, not yet, because this is the first that we see — the cigarettes in the ashtray, two cigarette ends left lying there, and the white letters against the all but gray screen: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Then we see a nameplate on a door — Sternwood — and a rather stubby finger, Bogart’s wrinkled finger, ringing the bell. The door is opened by a formal servant, and Bogart is admitted; when the servant is going to announce to the General that Marlowe has arrived, a lady in a short white skirt appears, who looks as if she could pick up a tennis racket at any moment. At first I assume that this is Lauren Bacall, but it isn’t — it’s her little sister, Carmen Sternwood, played by Martha Vickers. And it’s she who gives the line I can never forget; Martha Vickers looks at Bogart, who isn’t exactly feeling at home there, in the cold atmosphere of a rich man’s world. She weighs up this strange fellow and says, You’re not very tall, are you? Bogart curls his lips like thin paper over his teeth and answers I try to be. This movie is an over-18. I can hear the audience laugh — no, chuckle. No one laughs here, they chuckle; all the shoulders bob up and down. That’s how one laughs at a black-and-white over-18 movie. And the lady in the short skirt suddenly folds herself into Bogart’s arms, and I think to myself in a flash (for my thoughts are flying in all directions now) that this is what the Chocolate Girl must have looked like, the Chocolate Girl at Circus Mundus that Dad told us about. Then the servant’s standing there once more, and Bogart has to push her gently away, and in the next scene he’s in a greenhouse and the General’s sitting in a wheelchair. How do you like your brandy, sir? he asks. In a glass, Bogart replies. There’s another ripple of chuckling and more bobbing of shoulders, and it’s now he’s given his commission. My shirt’s sticking to my skin; I drift away and stop following, but it doesn’t matter — I feel instead the cold in the heat of the greenhouse. Bogart is sweating liquid ice — he could mix his drinks with it — and I try to work out how tall he is. He doesn’t seem particularly tall — Martha Vickers was right — but perhaps he appears even smaller because he’s hoisted up his pants so much, almost to his chest. I don’t have time to think about anything else, because on the way out Bogart’s shown into another room by the servant. It must be a bedroom, because there’s a bed there, a four-poster, and over by the window there’s a table covered with bottles. By that table a woman is standing pouring a glass to the brim, and when she’s done she turns in Bogart’s direction. Its Lauren Bacall. We see Lauren Bacall for the first time. Peder’s fingers run over my hand. I turn to look at Vivian. She doesn’t move. It’s as if she’s slowly breathing in, inhaling all the air there is. And Lauren Bacall looks at Bogart — she glows, glows in black and white, and her nostrils flare like an animals, the nostrils of a lioness. And she laughs — Bacall’s laughter — she mocks him, You’re a mess, aren’t you? And Bogart just answers, I’m not very tall either. Next time I’ll come on stilts. And maybe it’s impossible to describe that first time, which one always does afterward, in another light, in another time. Perhaps the moment is just like a stamp that loses its jagged edges and that slowly but surely rises in value in your private collection, the collection you’ve insured for more than your children. You can’t collect everything, the whole world; you have to choose — some things you reject or exchange. Perhaps this time in Rosenborg Cinema — in row 14, seats 18, 19 and 20 — with the restless gray light over our faces, there where we’re sitting none the wiser (both on the outside and the inside at one and the same time), perhaps it’s just a scene onto which I put new subtitles. Or for which I make another voice-over — with my voice, the one that speaks to me throughout my life, my days, my years — so that the scene fits in with the rest of my story? But this I know is true — I saw it. I heard it. And I can’t forget it. When I next look at Vivian, I see she’s crying.

  Afterward we walk through the warm streets, where fathers are washing their cars and mothers are standing in windows, leaning against the sills, laughing at something. Perhaps they laugh at the dedication and vanity of their men who see their own reflections in shining hoods and gleaming hubcaps. It’s like a sort of interval, and everything’s in color again. Little kids with Band-Aids on their knees and far too big handlebars turn and pedal back on their bikes when their mothers
whistle to them. We are somewhere else. We go alongside everything. “Not much of a movie,” Peder says. “No, not much at all,” I agree. “Damnation.” “Yes, damnation,” Peder says. “Not at all.” Vivian says nothing; she’s silent, soundless, moves quietly along. Peder and I walk her home. She says nothing there either, just disappears up the steps adjacent to the church, and I think I see a fluttering in the curtains on the second floor, a shadow that closes them even tighter. The lights go out. Nothing else happens. Then we cross Gimle Road and a woman laughs loudly in the restaurant at the Norum Hotel, and from a room we hear strange music disappearing behind us in the softly falling darkness. “Vivian was crying,” I say, my voice low. Peder nods. “I heard her. She was crying.” We go on a while without saying any more. I feel troubled inside. “Why was it she was crying?” I ask. Peder shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe she thought the movie was sad.” “Maybe. Did you think it was?” “I didn’t understand a damned thing,” Peder answers. “Did you?” We stop outside his house. I shrug my shoulders. “Lauren Bacall was pretty beautiful,” I breathe. Peder smiles. “Lauren Bacall is pretty beautiful.” “Yeah, Jesus Christ,” I say “Did you see those nostrils, huh?” Peder looks at me and starts to laugh. “You didn’t understand a damned thing either. You didn’t even get the title of the movie.” We laugh a bit more. Then we stop. “All right, what was her name?” I ask. “Her name was Vivian,” Peder says.