The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  Now Fred’s training. He’s running up the kitchen steps, twelve times — because no one’s supposed to see him running. Now he’s doing thirty push-ups in our room, and next time it’s forty. In the middle of the night he can wake up, restless and uneasy, and lie down on the floor and do forty more push-ups before running up to the loft again. Now he’s going in the door of the Central Boxing Club on Stor Street, and everyone turns to look. Fred hears the punches dying away he sees the sandbags still swinging, he sees the smiles in the sweaty faces. Now the guy who’s best in towns going to get a damn good hiding. They can’t wait.

  Peder followed me back to the table on the terrace. “Barnum believes that mackerel are German soldiers in disguise,” he said. The ghost of a smile flickered over his mom’s lips, and she stroked her finger quickly over my arm. “Better now?” I nodded. But his father opened his eyes wide, and all but knocked over his bottle of beer. “What was that you said, Peder?” “Barnum’s brother said that mackerel eat German soldiers.” His father slowly turned in my direction, as if his thoughts needed time to follow his body around. “Did your brother really say that?” “Yes,” I breathed. “But he was probably just kidding.” Now his dad stuck his whole arm down into the dish and pulled out the biggest fish he could find and held it up. “Tell me! Is this a Nazi fish? Huh? Does it have a mustache, for instance?” “It’s got fur,” Peder said. “Maybe it’s a Russian mackerel then,” his dad said. “Lets see.” With that he ate it; he shoved the whole fish into his mouth, chewed a good while and looked about him. His cheeks turned rather pale and he had to take off his sunglasses. “Wer ist Blücher, mein Schiff? Ich muss nach Oslo fahren!” “You’re drunk!” Peder’s mother screeched. And we laughed and had to sit down on the ground so as not to fall off our chairs. Peder’s dad had still more beer and let his mackerel swim. “I think it’s going to be sausages this evening, boys.” For the rest of the day we collected wood for the fire, and when the sun had just sunk over the fjord in a weak shadow and it was still mild, cool and mild, Peder’s dad lit the planks and sticks we’d made into a pyramid there beside the edge of the beach. And soon we could see the other bonfires glowing — restless points in every direction, and we could hear the music coming from the jetties closest by. The flames and the voices became clearer with every passing second that evening, as though it was time that amplified everything and not the dark. We ate up the last sausages, put on sweaters and sat closer to one another. Peder counted the bonfires and got to twenty-eight — three more than the year before. I couldn’t remember feeling such a sense of peace — perhaps I never had felt it and was only realizing now it could exist at all — my deep, never before experienced, peace.

  When Peder’s mother was asleep, Peder wheeled her up the path to the house. I sat on where I was with his dad. The fire slowly burned away just as the others did, like lamps in the night. “Couldn’t your brother come with you?” Peder’s dad asked. “He’s training,” I told him. “Training for what?” “Boxing.” He laughed a bit and lit his pipe. “Ah, boxing. The noble art of self-defense,” he said in English. “Perhaps the mackerel had eaten a British soldier,” I said. He laughed and put his arm around my shoulder. “Is he any good at boxing, your brother?” “Well, he’s good at getting punched, that’s for sure.” He knocked the ash from his pipe, and it floated away over the water. “Well, well. That’s an art too, Barnum. And some are better at it than others.”

  Peder didn’t come back. Silently we went up to the house. Suddenly, Peder’s dad took my hand and held it a long time. When he finally let go of it again, he trotted down to the black bonfire and just stood there. I could hear the sound of the wheelchair, somewhere or other, or perhaps it was just the noise of the rope bridge creaking in the wind. I ran into the room. Peder was already asleep. I got undressed and lay down on my side of the bed, carefully, so as not to wake him. Peder turned around and snored a couple of times, but then his breathing became calm and regular again. I don’t remember if I dreamed anything. I think just sleeping was sufficient. I couldn’t lose the calm I felt.

  Early next morning we were awakened by Peder’s mother. “I’m going to paint the two of you!” she exclaimed. She’d come in her chair right into the room. I sat up right away, so light was my sleep — I slept just as the Old One had taught me, with my eyes open. Peder just pulled the quilt over his head and gave a groan. “Barnum has his camera with him. Take a picture instead. Saves time.” His mom reached forward in the wheelchair and pulled the quilt off him. Peder was naked. I’d never seen Peder blush before, nor have I seen him blush since. I felt myself going red too (though it was certainly not the last time). A glow spread though my cheeks — I burned slowly downward. And for a second, his mother was embarrassed herself; at any rate she had to hold on hard to her wheels. Peder tore the quilt back over himself again. Then his mother’s small mouth quickly transformed into a smile. “Don’t insult me, Peder. Come to the diving board in a quarter of an hour. All right, Barnum?” “Of course,” I whispered. With that she went out once more, and after a time Peder’s head emerged and looked at me. “Can’t sleep with pyjamas,” he said.

  All day we sit down on the rock ledge by the diving board, while Peder’s mom, who’s set her chair in the flickering shadows under the apple tree, paints us. She has a huge white hat on her head, and that’s all we can see of her. There isn’t a cloud in the skies; we turn brown, and it’s as if Peder’s hair fades — it suits him, even though he looks pretty annoyed. I wonder to myself if Peder’s mom can paint the changes in us before the picture’s finished, the way we’re no longer the same. But we don’t get to see what she’s painting. Peder’s dad comes with orange juice whenever we get thirsty, and every hour we have a swim. We jump together from the diving board and sink until our feet reach the slippery stones — once there we push away and swim up into the sun that’s hanging by a thread of shining drops. “I’ll have gotten you soon!” Peder’s mom shouts. And we sit in our places once more and are dry again in the blink of an eye. Peder’s mom hums a familiar tune there under the apple tree, from underneath her broad, white hat and behind her easel. And whenever I hear that tune again, I can feel the heat on the rock ledge; I had to close my eyes so as not to be blinded, and the scents of warm suntan lotion and tobacco filled me with a strange, trembling sense of sorrow I couldn’t quite fathom. Because never had I been happier than now: the hot rock ledge, Ildjernet, that summer with Peder — and perhaps it’s precisely this that is the hub on sorrow’s wheel, spinning through our lives — that it’s passed, that the moment’s gone already. “I’ll have gotten you soon!” Peder’s mom shouts again. And even Peder smiles; pulls in his tummy and tries to show off his muscles. His dad slips chunks of ice into our glasses — a clinking, chilly sound in contrast to the sun.

  And now Fred’s standing in the locker room at the Central Boxing Club. Tenner points to a locker and says, “That’s yours. You’ll get the key later.” Fred goes over there and changes. Tommy and the twins stare silently at him. Fred turns in their direction. They look away. A man comes in. He stops behind Tenner, who immediately moves off. He stands a long while looking at Fred. “I’m Willy,” he says in the end. “I’m the trainer here.” Fred says nothing but gives him a quick glance. He’s wearing a worn, blue tracksuit, and on his feet he’s got something that resembles slippers. Willys fifty-two, lives alone in a studio near the bus stop at Ankertorget, works at Akers Mek, and all he knows is welding and boxing, and that’s all he needs. “I hear you can take just about anything,” he says. “Do you want to learn to punch too?” Fred shrugs his shoulders. Willy turns to Tenner. “Can he speak?” “He can speak,” Tenner assures him. Tommy laughs, but stops as quickly as he started. Willy looks at Fred again. “Have you done any other sport?” Fred ties his laces. “The discus,” he replies.

  I’ve fallen asleep in the sun, my head against Peder’s warm, smooth shoulder, and far away I hear his mothers voice. “I don’t need you any more, boys!” And a
s I open my eyes, I see her moving out of the shadows under the apple tree, or perhaps it’s the soft whining sounds of the wheelchair that awaken me this time. “Let’s see!” Peder shouts and gets up. His mother just shakes her head and laughs. “Not before I’m finished.” She takes the canvas down from the easel and turns in the direction of the house. She’s finished with us, but not with the picture. Nor is she done with it that summer. There’s always something that’s missing — a stroke, a line, a point. It was only after her husband’s funeral, when Peder didn’t manage to get back in time from America, that I got to see the portrait of the two of us, and even then she wasn’t quite satisfied with it. I was shocked when I saw it; I can’t use any other word than that. But she’d given the painting a beautiful title — Friends on the Rock Ledge. That’s what she called it — quite simple, and the lack of the definite article in the title disconnected the motif from us, in the same way that time had created a distance, as if I could never manage to stretch out my arm and touch this picture. “You’ll never be finished anyway!” Peder shouts. His mother stops and spins the chair around. “Want a bet?” Peder laughs. “You’ll only lose.” “Want a bet?” his mother says. “No,” Peder says. “But I’ll photodamngraph you instead!” And he gets out my camera, which he’s hidden under our towels; his mother shrieks and hides her face in her hands as Peder clicks away at least four times before she gets the wheelchair turned and flees around the side of the house at a good speed. Sud- denly Peder’s dads standing at our backs. “What’s going on here?” he demands. “We’re just doing some photodamngraphing,” Peder says, and hands me the camera. I’m on the verge of laughing out loud, because the word is still quite new to me and it almost tickles in my mouth. But something in Peder’s dad’s expression stops me; I don’t laugh, instead I try to hide the camera behind me. “You know your mother doesn’t like pictures being taken of her,” he says. “So don’t. Nor you, Barnum.”

  I put the camera in my case and decided not to use it again that summer. Peder comes in after me and sits down on the bed. “Sometimes Mom can be a bit superstitious,” he says. I stand with my back to him. “How do you mean?” “She believes her soul is stolen when her picture’s taken.” “Her soul?” “Yes. That’s what she’s got into her head.” I turn to Peder. “I won’t develop the film,” I tell him. Peder sighs. “You believe it too? Huh?” I didn’t quite know what to say. “If that’s what she thinks,” I answer. “Really?” Peder begins to grow impatient. “So it doesn’t matter what we think.” Peder sits silent a moment. “At least develop the picture of me,” he says.