The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  I didn’t sleep that night. I lay awake excited, listening to Peder’s easy breathing and the wind in the apple trees, the sounds in the grass, the moon in the fjord. And if I listened carefully I could hear Vivian slowly turning in her bed in her room. There was no longer space for everything inside me. I was overflowing — I had to get up. I had to breathe out. I sat in the chair by the window and thought to myself that it was possible to be happy, that it wasn’t all that difficult after all — it was just so unfamiliar, and happiness was a bewildering bouquet to hold in one’s hands. We got up and lay once more on the rock ledge and slept there instead, while Peder’s dad sat in the shade reading a stamp catalogue and his mother worked on with her painting. The sun was hot and heavy on our backs. And then I experienced something strange. I woke up sharply, dizzy and frightened, with one single thought in my head: an accident happened. It was just as if I could feel someone else’s pain. And right at that moment I was stung by a wasp. It got me in the throat. I began swelling immediately. I screamed. Peder and Vivian got up. “I’m dying!” I shrieked. “I’m being strangled!” My voice left me as I rolled around. My head exploded. I was dying. And the last thing I saw was Peder, who thought I was just kidding. I tried to say something, but it was too late. Soon I’d be on the other side. I gave up. I was filled with a deep sense of peace, veering on unconsciousness. My soul was slipping away. Goodbye, dear friends. But then Vivian bent down over me and put her lips on my throat, as if to kiss me for the first, or the final, time. She was pretty rough with me. She bit. She sucked. She spat. She sucked some more, sucked the poison out of me and saved me, for the first, but not the last, time.

  And so suddenly the vacation was over, with a wasp sting and a kiss. I traveled back to the city again with Vivian. Peder stood in the middle of the rope bridge waving until he could see us no longer. My suitcase was heavier than when I’d come. We sat outside in the seats at the back of the boat. Then I caught sight of something, in the channel between the island and the mainland. “Look!” I shouted. Vivian turned. “What?” she said. “Can’t you see?” “What?” “Peder’s mom!” And I saw the wheelchair rushing over the water at top speed; the wheels spun through the waves, and the gulls were a shrieking white swarm about her. Vivian leaned against my shoulder, closed her eyes and said nothing.

  It was Fred who was waiting for me at Quay B when Prince docked. I felt frightened, almost sick. Where was Mom? Why was Fred there? I hoped Vivian wouldn’t see him. He was thin, exhausted. He had on a sweater that was way too big for him. Vivian had already seen him. But Fred didn’t bother to look in her direction. It was me he stared at and came over to. “Bye,” said Vivian loudly. She let go of my hand and slowly walked over to where her dad was waiting for her in a taxi beside the shop. I followed her with my eyes. I hoped she wouldn’t turn around. She turned and waved. I raised my hand. She hesitated a moment, then sat down in the backseat and the door was closed. “Got yourself a girlfriend now?” Fred asked. I shook my head. “Where’s Mom?” “Mom’s with Boletta, Barnum.” “Why?” “Boletta fell on the stairs this morning. When she was coming home from the North Pole.” “Was she all right?” “No.” “How not?” “She thought she was in Italy, Barnum.” Fred took my suitcase, and we went up to Ullevål Hospital. There was Mom. She’d been crying a lot. There were streaks down her face, tunnels. And when she saw me she cried all the more. “You’re brown,” she murmured. “Did you have a good time?” “I was stung by a wasp,” I told her. Fred grew impatient. “Has she come to yet?” he demanded. Mom shook her head and let go of me. A doctor appeared from Boletta’s room. We went in. She was so small there in the bed. She had a bandage around her head and was attached to a piece of equipment on which various lights and lines lit up and flashed like some gigantic radio. We had to whisper. Boletta was completely blue and her eyes were enormous, but empty all the same. She could have been dead. She’d come back from the North Pole and hadn’t managed the last steps. She’d toppled backward and fractured her cranium before rolling all the way down to the ground floor. It was there that Mom had found her, lying in a pool of blood. That was what I’d sensed, just before the wasp stung me — Boletta falling. “Boletta,” I whispered. Mom caught my hand. “She can’t hear you, Barnum.” The doctor came back in. He said something to Mom. She became nervous and upset. Can we feel one another’s pain? Yes, we can. I’d felt it, I’d felt Boletta falling. Fred stood silent against the wall, staring at the floor. What had I felt when he was hit? Is pain infectious? How much of each other’s pain can we stand? “It isn’t certain she’ll wake again,” the doctor said, his voice low. I turned and pointed at him. “I’ll photo-damngraph you!” I shouted. Mom buried her face in her hands. Fred looked up. The doctor left once more. “What are you saying, Barnum?” “Boletta’s going to wake up,” I told her.

  She did. But it took seven days. Mom sat with her the entire time. Fred trained harder than ever. Bang the caretaker had to wash the blood from behind the mailboxes. “Terrible,” he breathed. “How is she?” “Unconscious,” I said, and walked past him. “Perhaps she was fortunate all the same,” he whispered. “You fall a lot more gently when you’re under the influence.” I thought about the skull, a dome of skin and hair protecting the brain, and that when an infant sleeps its head goes backward, while the skull of an old person falls forward, down. The child is dreaming up against heaven, while the old person’s thoughts are dragged down toward the ground.

  I hid the card from Paturson to Dad in a tear in the wallpaper behind the bureau. And one evening Fred said something; he was lying in bed, bushed after training. “Maybe it’s a punishment,” he breathed. “Punishment?” I repeated, my voice as low as his. “Yes, after everything that’s happened.” “Boletta hasn’t done anything wrong, has she?” Fred had changed. I almost didn’t know him any more. He talked differently. Punishment? Maybe it was the boxing that had done it. “Are you religious or something?” I said, and laughed. Fred got up and came toward me. He bent over my head, and the muscles bunched under his skin like cables, electric cords, and his eyes were darker than ever. He breathed heavily through his nose. “Have you screwed Vivian, Barnum?” “No,” I whispered. “Did she enjoy it?” “But I haven’t, Fred.” “Sure?” “Yes, I’ve never screwed anyone.” “Thought that was why you’d become so rough, Barnum.” He lay down on his bed once more. He stayed like that, silent and sullen. “Do you have a boxing match in September?” I asked him. He didn’t say anything. I waited, but he gave no answer. Only his heavy breathing filled the room. “You think Boletta’ll come too?” he asked. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.” And I could sense her thin and brittle eyelashes fluttering over my face.

  She woke that same night. Mom was sitting with her. She told us that first a shudder passed though Boletta, a shaking, as if she was freezing cold. Her eyelids closed, and Mom thought that this was her way of dying, shutting her eyes deep inside in a different sleep. But Mom didn’t have time to call the doctor, she didn’t have so much as time to cry — for Boletta changed her mind, her time wasn’t up yet and there was still something she didn’t want to miss out on. So instead of giving up the ghost for good, she opened her eyes wide and turned to look at Mom. “Has Fred boxed yet?” she asked. Mom was almost angry. “It’s still June,” she told her. “Just stay unconscious a while longer if you want!” “Wonderful. Then we’ll both make the match.”

  And it’s Fred who takes over now. He’s the one who pushes the days to one side; he’s the one who impels this remarkable summer to its conclusion. Boletta has to rest for a month; she can no longer tolerate beer and starts using a stick, something she employs more frequently to lash out with than to support herself. Peder remains on Ildjernet. He sends a card from Dr0bak, which he’s visiting with his Dad. He writes that he intends to dream up a number that no one has heard of before. And how are my dreams going? With best wishes from the worlds fattest man. Vivian travels to a hospital in Switzerland where there are still some doctors who th
ink they can reconstruct her mother’s face. And I stand by the window and watch Fred going out early each and every morning — rain or shine; in the fine, clammy fog that sometimes seeps into the city at this time of year, and which then dissolves and blends with the light. I see Fred coming home up Church Road, stepping out hard — on summer evenings that smell of exhaust fumes and sunlight. He pays no attention to Esther, who waves to him. He pays attention to nothing. He doesn’t speak. He saves his energy. He cuts away anything and everything that’s unnecessary. More and more he becomes like a wild animal. Mom washes his gear, and I get to hang it out in the yard — his shorts, thick socks and jersey. The caretaker stands by the garbage cans and turns the jersey. “Hope he doesn’t kill anyone,” he says. “Or get killed himself.” But I’m not allowed to join Fred when he goes to the Central Boxing Club. He wants to be alone. He doesn’t want to be disturbed. One morning Mom stands there beside me. It’s raining. She smiles. Fred’s walking quickly through the rain. He barely gets wet at all. He dodges the rain’s punches. “Are you proud of your brother?” Mom asks me. And I know why she’s asking; it’s because she’s proud of him herself — perhaps for the very first time she feels proud of him. Afraid for him too, but mainly just proud. “Yes, Mom,” I murmur. And he turns around out there in the rain but doesn’t see us. “I’m so happy,” she says all of a sudden, but then checks herself and all but groans, as if immediately feeling guilty as soon as she’d uttered the words for allowing herself to be happy at all, and she hugs me close. We can’t see Fred any more. The rain’s running down the window. “It’s nice that Peder writes to you,” she says softly. “Oh, yes. Should send my best wishes, by the way.” Mom waits a moment. We can hear the sound of Boletta’s stick. She’s thumping the wall. “What do you dream about, Barnum?” Mom asks, and the words come out in a torrent. I’m about to say that I dream she won’t read the cards that are addressed to me. But instead I reply, “That Fred wins his match.”

  School began again. Things were much as always, but something was new nonetheless — the rumors about Fred. I don’t know who carried those rumors around through the countryside, the holiday villages, the beaches, the parks and the swimming pools — perhaps the rumors had gathered of their own accord, raised aloft like dust in the dry, deserted city and whispered with the raindrops on everyone’s ears. I was no longer Barnum the midget, I was Fred’s brother; and Fred was no longer the silent wanderer, he’d become the boxer, the one who endured everything and whom no one could beat. Fred was no longer a threat, he’d become Fagerborg’s lithe, white hope. A miracle had taken place in the course of the sum- mer — a boxer was born — and if there was anything this city needed it was a real boxer. And the rumors about Fred were unstoppable and became true: he ran twenty miles a morning, he did ninety push-ups with just one hand, he boxed without gloves, no one dared even spar with him — two people were already lying in a coma. Some even made him out to be so nasty he’d beaten up his own grandmother and she’d ended up in Ullevål Hospital. He was going to be greater than Otto von Porat, greater than Ingo, greater than them all. And I denied nothing when I was interrogated; I just shrugged my shoulders. “He’s a champion already,” I told them.

  Three days before the match, Fred was sitting waiting in the bedroom when I came home from school. He sat on his bed with his hands in his lap, just staring at me. I grew uneasy. “Aren’t you training?” I asked him. Fred took a deep breath; his shoulders shuddered beneath his sweater. “Yes. I’m resting.” He rested a while longer. I didn’t want to disturb him any more. Fred was resting. Rest was training’s glue. Without rest he’d fall apart. I tried to do my homework. It was a composition. But I couldn’t concentrate. Fred didn’t take his gaze away. I could feel it. I turned to look at him. He passed his hand over his brow. “I’m being interviewed tomorrow,” he told me. I put down my pen. “Are you?” “By Aften-posten.” “Gosh. Aftenposten?” “Yes, gosh. But I don’t want to be.” That was all he would say. His hands were fidgety. The knuckles of his right hand were blue. “You don’t want to be?” I repeated. “No, I don’t want to talk to anyone about it.” “So why are you doing it then?” I asked him. “Because Willy says so.” “And that means you have to?” “That means I have to. Willy’s the trainer.” Fred’s silent once more. “Maybe there’ll be a picture of you,” I murmured. “In the sports pages.” “I don’t want to be photodamngraphed,” Fred said slowly, and looked up. There was a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Can’t you come with me, Barnum?” he asked. I had to lean closer. “What did you say, Fred?” He became irritated and got that dark look back in his eyes again. “You heard what I said, flea brain!” I held my breath and hardly dared look at him. “Of course. But why?” Fred got up and stretched against the door frame. “You’ll make sure I don’t say something stupid.” Fred pulled out a sheet of paper from his back pocket, unfolded it and handed it to me. It was a list that Willy, his trainer, had written out for him. Written on this was everything Fred mustn’t say to the journalist. It was quite a long list. “Why can’t Willy go with you?” I asked. “Doesn’t read the papers,” Fred answered.

  The journalist would have preferred to do the interview at home, but Fred said no point-blank to that. So it was decided we’d meet instead at Samson’s in Majorstuen at three o’clock the following afternoon. Mom got completely carried away. She suggested that she and Boletta could sit at a table at the very back, just to be on the safe side. At this point Fred threatened to withdraw from the fight altogether, and Mom had to throw in the towel. And at three o’clock the following day Fred and I — the boxer and his brother — went into the brown coffee shop in Majorstuen, which smelled of old coffee, cigarettes and the damp furs of all the elderly ladies who sat waiting for their own funerals. Fred was wearing a long raincoat over his tracksuit. I’d finally chosen to put on a polo shirt, a wind-breaker, and cords, and I had an umbrella with me. The journalist was there already. We realized who he was long before he’d spotted us. Generally you didn’t find men over thirty like him at Samson’s. He was slowly smoking a cigar as he ate a piece of cake with a spoon. We went over to his table. He put the cigar down on his plate. The piece of cake was about to catch fire. He wiped his hands on his napkin. It was Fred he was looking at. “And you’re Fred Nilsen?” Fred nodded and kept on his feet. The journalist extended his hand. “And my name’s Ditlev. From Aftenposten. Good you could make it, Fred.” We sat down. Ditlev ordered some mineral water and more cake. He was pretty fat in the face; there was sweat on his brow, and he yawned. Two pens lay beside a notebook in between the ashtray and the plate, which were covered in light brown crumbs and ash. The third of the pens was sticking out of the breast pocket of his crumpled blue jacket with its shiny buttons. “Really good you could make it, Fred,” he said a second time. “Who’s this you have with you?” “Barnum. My brother.” Ditlev scribbled in his notebook and turned in my direction. “Good you could make it too, Barnum. Where did you get your name?” “From my father,” I told him. “He was Barnum, too?” “No, he was Arnold.” Fred kicked me under the table. I didn’t say any more. The waitress came with cake and mineral water. The journalist looked at him again. “Well, we’d thought of doing a feature on you, Fred. Before the match. Are we ready to go?” Fred didn’t say anything. He looked as if he were bored, but that wasn’t what it was — he just felt uncomfortable. “Fire away,” I said. Ditlev took a draw of the cigar and breathed life into it. “Are you dreading it?” he asked. “Fred never dreads things,” I answered. Ditlev coughed. “I’m talking to Fred now. Is that all right? Maybe I can talk to you afterward.” “I never dread things,” Fred repeated. Ditlev scribbled. “So you’re looking forward to it, in other words?” Fred shook his head. “I never look forward to things.” Ditlev put down his cigar. “How long have you actually been boxing?” Fred hesitated. I whispered something in his ear. “All my life,” Fred said finally. “All your life,” Ditlev repeated. “That’s good. You look like a real boxer all righ
t. Even before your first fight.” Ditlev pointed at Fred’s crooked nose with his cigar. Fred looked away. “Is it true you run twenty miles each morning?” Ditlev asked. “I never run,” Fred said. Ditlev looked up from his notebook. “No? Why not?” “Only slaves run.” Ditlev chuckled, and the pen was busy once more. “This is going to be good, Fred.” Ditlev had some more cake and swapped pens. We waited. Fred was anxious to go. The elderly ladies were looking at us, and I suddenly heard the complete silence that had fallen in Samson’s coffee shop. “You’re welcome to take off your coat, Fred,” Ditlev told him. “No,” Fred said. Ditlev smiled and kept writing. He wrote for some time. I tried to see what it was he was writing but his arm was in the way. He surely didn’t need such a long time to record just two letters — no. I took another piece of cake and brushed his hand. Ditlev looked up. “Who’s been your inspiration?” he asked. Fred turned quickly to me. I whispered in his ear again. “Bang the caretaker,” Fred said. Ditlev’s hand stopped writing. “Bang the caretaker? When was he boxing?” Fred smiled. “He was a triple jumper.” Ditlev looked impatient for a moment but checked himself. “The triple jump’s fine,” he said, “but I was thinking more of boxers. Otto von Porat, for example.” Fred sat there in silence for a time. “Bob Fitzsimmons,” he said at last. “Bob Fitzsimmons? All right. And why him?” “He never gave up,” Fred said. “He always came back.” “So you admire those who never give up, Fred?” “No,” Fred said. Ditlev scratched his forehead with his pen. “But you just said so.” “I like Bob Fitzsimmons. Don’t you listen, or what?” Ditlev swapped pens again and attempted a laugh. “Is he always like this, Barnum?” “Almost,” I answered. Fred kicked me in the leg again. Ditlev laughed and had a mouthful of coffee. Sweat dripped onto his notebook. The cigar went out. “You’re obviously a tough nut, Fred,” he said. Fred said nothing. Ditlev sweated and turned his page. “What’s your greatest strength?” “Not saying,” Fred told him. Ditlev scribbled. “So you won’t let on either what your greatest weakness is?” “Nope.” Now it was Ditlev’s turn to go quiet. He thought for a long while about something or other. “You’ve been a member of the Central Boxing Club since June,” Ditlev finally said. Fred nodded. Ditlev leaned across the table. “Who do you fight for? The club, your trainer or yourself?” “For my brother,” Fred said. “Barnum.” Ditlev looked at me. I think I went red. At least I felt all warm in my head. “What’s it like having a big brother like Fred?” Ditlev asked. “Just great,” I breathed. Ditlev wrote this down in his notebook — just great — and turned to Fred once more. “How are you going to beat Asle Bråten?” Fred took a deep breath. “Who?” “Asle Bråten. That’s who you’re fighting in a couple of days.” Fred twisted around on his seat. “Hard,” he said. “Hard?” “Yes, I’ll beat him hard.” Ditlev laughed quietly as he wrote this down. “You can say it, Fred. Perhaps you can tell me a bit about yourself.” “I have to go and have a piss,” Fred said. He got up, fetched the key from the counter, and went over to the toilet at the back of the coffee shop. All the elderly ladies in their damp furs followed him with their gaze. Ditlev sighed. Fred was away a long time. “We can talk a bit in the meantime, you and I,” Ditlev said. He turned over to a fresh page in his notebook. “Do you do any sport, Barnum?” “No, not really.” Ditlev nodded. “You could well be a cox, you know.” “A cox?” “The person who steers in rowing. They need little guys like you.” Now I no longer cared for Ditlev. “I’ll mention you to the guys in the rowing club. There aren’t so many of your height here in the city.” There was still no sign of Fred. Ditlev moved closer and lowered his voice. “Be honest now, Barnum. Do you think Fred’ll win?” “He’ll decide it in the third,” I told him. Ditlev scribbled and shook his head. “All right, whatever you say. Is it right that you’re just half brothers, by the way?” It hurt so much when he put it like that, just half brothers, as if we were divided in the middle, split. I liked Ditlev still less now. “Yes,” I breathed. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Fred?” I thought hard. “He was born in a taxi,” I said. And at that very moment I saw he was standing there. He was behind us and could have been there long enough, for Fred was noiseless, an Indian in a raincoat at Samsons; and it was only when he let out his breath through his nose in that tiny whine, that draft through his head, that we noticed he was there at all. Ditlev dropped his pen on the floor and turned around quickly “Hi, there, Fred,” he says. “I think I’ve probably got what I need now. If there isn’t anything else you’d like to add?” “Don’t put in any crap,” Fred told him. Ditlev laughed a bit too loudly. “We don’t put crap into Aftenposten, Fred. You’re welcome to read through what I’ve written first.” “Barnum can read through it.” Ditlev gave me his notebook. “Go on, Barnum.” I glanced at what he’d written. But it didn’t make any sense. It was just single words and abbreviations, capitals and exclamation points. The word taxi. All his life. Oddballs. Barnum. Half. Fitzsim-mons. I put the pad down on the table and glanced at Fred. “Looks fine to me,” I said. Ditlev got up. “Let’s go and find the photographer then!” He was waiting for us in Frogner Park beside Sinnataggen.* He had a huge camera around his neck. Ditlev slapped his shoulder. “I’d like both boys to be in the picture, Tormod.” The photographer, whose name was Tormod, looked at us with tired eyes. “Both of them?” “Yes, both. That’s what I said.” “I’d thought the white hope could do a bit of sparring with Sinnataggen.” “Good thinking, Tor-mod. But the white hope can do some sparring with Barnum instead.” “Barnum?” Ditlev pointed at me. “Pretend he’s Sinnataggen,” he said. And this is what the picture of Fred and myself is like; we’re standing on the bridge in the rain and the photographer uses flash — it’s like lightning, illuminating our faces in a strange and unnatural way. Fred has his arm around me, and I don’t even reach up to his shoulder; I’m smaller than ever or maybe it’s just that Fred’s taller, leaner and darker. He’s raising the other hand in a clenched fist, and while Fred stares straight ahead without any hesitation and without blinking, with wide open eyes — I’ve shut my own as if the very second the picture’s taken I’ve seen something I can’t bear to look at. The picture was in the sports pages of the following day’s edition of Aftenposten. Fred was training.