The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  I went to bed when Vivian got up. She put on her running gear and slipped out. I heard her quick steps going down the stairs. She was away a half hour and still I hadn’t slept. Then the phone rang, or was it the church bells? It was Vivians father. “Can I talk to Vivian, please?” he asked. “She’s out jogging,” I told him. There was silence for a time. “I just wanted to remind her about dinner later today.” His voice seemed far away, almost as if he’d put down the receiver and gone into another room. “Hello?” I breathed. “Seven o’clock,” he said, his voice sounding closer now. “Seven o’clock,” I repeated. “Good, that’s settled.” “Yes, indeed,” I said. His tone changed, was suddenly more confiding. “Don’t you jog, too?” “Vivian likes running on her own,” I tell him. He was still there. I could hear Vivian on the stairs, her breathing. “How are the two of you?” he asked suddenly, in a gentle voice that sounded so strange, like a man trying to find a friend for himself. “We bought a nameplate for the door yesterday,” I said. He hung up. Vivian turned to me, wet — she was dripping. “Is it raining?” I asked. “I’m sweating,” she said. “Shall we make another baby?” “I have to do some stretching.” She grasped the door frame and hung from it. Her thin fingers held her up. There was something unnatural about this image, as with that of Bang the caretaker whom I left hanging in the air — a sort of suspended animation, I thought, like the purgatory of waiting in which Fred had left us. I slept, and my sleep was heavy and short and meaningless. When I woke up, Vivian was sitting in the kitchen having breakfast I caught the smells of coffee, toast and marmalade. I remained where I was, looking at her. This was no purgatory. This was the everyday, that which we take for granted and therefore forget. This was the kind of moment of which most of our time was composed — the still and uneventful moments, the Sun- day moments — and this was how I wanted it to be. Then it came to me that it wasn’t all that commonplace after all. This was our first morning. I brought out the little parcel I’d hidden under the pillow and went over to where she was. “Is there room for me, too?” I asked. Vivian looked up. “Yes, I’m finished.” I sat down just the same. She poured coffee for us both. “Did you get anything written?” she asked. “I can’t make up my mind,” I told her. “Make up your mind? How do you mean?” “I have too many ideas, Vivian.” “Is that such a problem?” “Yes, I can’t get any further. I start something new the whole time. I don’t know what I want.” Vivian pushed the breadbasket toward me. “I think you’ll write about Fred just the same,” she said. I didn’t like her saying that. She was right. I put the little parcel in front of her. She looked at me thunderstruck. “What is it?” “It’s a morning present,” I told her. Vivian shook her head. “I had no idea you could be so thoughtful.” She smiled. I nodded. “You mean bourgeois?” “No, I mean thoughtful, Barnum.” “Open it then!” I shrieked. Vivian opened the box. It was a ring, simple and gold. Carefully she took it out. “Mom wanted you to have it,” I told her. As I watched Vivian push that thin ring onto her finger, a new idea came to me; I suddenly saw a leap, a triple jump — the ring that Rakel gave to Mom and which I was now passing on to Vivian. And inside this small circle, the circumference of the ring, I glimpsed a story that was bigger than itself, that burst those barriers. And I saw in my mind’s eye the mountain of jewels that the Nazis stole from the Jews before they sent them to the gas chambers — this ring should have ended up there, but somehow Rakel managed to take it off in time. And I saw too a room full of shoes, gentlemen’s and ladies’ shoes, moving in time to Mom’s words: It’s these steps I hear going out of my life. I had to write this down. I made to get up. “Thank you,” Vivian murmured. I remained where I was. I laid my hand on hers. Everything I touched turned to ideas.

  Later that Sunday we went for a walk. We were arm in arm. The trees were shaking themselves free of their leaves. There was barely anyone around except for a dog owner with an ugly chihuahua and some panting joggers. Even they turned around to look at us. We were a topsy-turvy couple. I’d put my platform shoes away in the closet. Now I just wore platforms. Autumn had come during the night. People were at home putting away their summer things. I felt the atmosphere was strange. It was the rings fault. I shouldn’t have given it to her. I was regretting it already. I could have bought a different one, or an ear stud. We could have made do with the nameplate on the door: vivian and barnum. That was more than sufficient. Now I’d gone too far. This ring was too heavy on her hand. For a moment, she leaned her head against my shoulder. “Thank you,” she said again. “You suit it,” I breathed.

  We went up Blåsen and sat down there. A flock of doves took off from the roofs, flew to the four winds. “What’s your place?” I asked her. “What do you mean?” “Everyone has a place. This is the Old One’s place.” “I don’t have any place,” Vivian said. I laughed. “Of course you do.” Suddenly she lost her temper completely. “Perhaps I don’t want any place!” she raged. “Fine,” I said. I lit a match. Vivian blew out the flame. “Shall I tell you where my place is, Barnum? It’s at the bend where Dad drove off the road and I was born.” I put the cigarette in my pocket again. I didn’t like that place. I wanted to find somewhere else for her that wasn’t the scene of something so terrible. “Have you forgotten that we’re going to dinner at nineteen hundred hours?” I asked her. Vivian hid her face in her hands. She didn’t move for at least ten minutes. It began to get dark. “I’m not going,” she said. But we went all the same, to what Vivian later called the seven o’clock performance at Dracula’s. We nipped into Kr0lle’s on the way and even Vivian had a beer. I ordered two more. I got served here without having to produce any kind of identification. “What’s your place?” she asked me. “Guess,” I said. She didn’t waste any time. “The tree in Solli Square.” “That’s not mine,” I said, “it’s ours,” A shadow crossed Vivian’s face — maybe it came from me, maybe I cast it over her. It was called Peder. “Rosenborg Cinema,” she whispered. “You’re getting close,” I told her. She leaned close. “I know, Barnum. The Little City.” I raised my glass, said cheers. “Your answer is quite correct.” Vivian raised her own glass. “What do we really want with places anyway? Can you tell me that?” I put down my glass on the soft beer coaster. “They make us whole,” I said quietly. Vivian was silent for a time. Voices were raised around us; things were getting ugly Someone pounded a table with their fist. I lit the cigarette. “That’s what I’m writing about,” I whispered. “The places that make us whole.” I took her hand and felt the edge of the ring against her skin. Vivian gave me a sudden look. “Where’s Freds place?” I shrugged my shoulders. “Perhaps that’s what he’s looking for.” I let go of her hand and swallowed some more beer. “Do you miss Peder?” I asked her. She could have asked me the same thing. She went to the bathroom. I caught the waiter and grabbed a pint from his tray. The Little City. That was my place. It was where I’d been chosen, by a policeman with big gloves, and stopped growing. It was where I got my first idea and wrote it. The Little City was both time and place; impossible to get away from. All at once a leaflet landed in front of me. No to the sale of Norway. Torchlight procession from Youngs Market — October 20th. I glanced up. I met the gaze of a rather severe-looking man looming over me. “Norway’s a place too,” I told him. “Are you a student?” he asked. “No, I’m a shopkeeper.” He grew suspicious. “A shopkeeper?” “That’s right.” “What do you sell?” “I don’t sell things,” I said. “I keep things.” “What do you keep then?” “I keep chocolate, juice, hot dogs, weeklies and candy.” The fellow banged on the table, impatient and contemptuous. “Fucking capitalist!” he exclaimed. “But exploited nonetheless,” I said. He retracted his hand, confused for a moment. “An exploited shopkeeper? Don’t make me laugh.” I got up. I reached as high as his ribs, even with my platforms. He didn’t laugh. And as I stood like that, something occurred to me. “It’s been four years since the referendum,” I said. The guy grew annoyed again. “So? What the hell has that got to do with it?” He stuffed the
leaflet in his pocket and made his way out between the waiters. And when I took my seat again, Vivian had finally come back. “You have to send them in,” she said. “Send them in?” I was in the dark. She leaned forward over the cloth. “Send in your scripts! You have to show them to someone!” “I’m not ready yet,” I told her. Vivian put in front of me an advertisement she’d torn out of a paper. Norwegian Film Limited were announcing a script contest. Both complete scripts and synopses could be submitted. But that was what scared me. I was frightened someone would reject me, reject everything I wrote and trash it. At the moment I could still dream, be my own master along the full length of Barnum’s ruler. I closed my eyes. The deadline for submissions was March 1st. “What’s today’s date?” I asked. “The 20th of September,” Vivian said. And I thought to myself that if we were to run like hell we’d perhaps make the torchlight procession at Young’s Market four years before. I opened my eyes. “I’ll show them to you first,” I said. “You were a long way away just then,” Vivian breathed. I laughed. “Just outside having a pee.” She laughed herself. “You mean it? Will you show them to me?” “Who else?” Vivian had a swig of my beer, and I liked her when she drank like that, in a kind of reckless way — she could laugh spontaneously then, we were somehow working in tandem — not like two clocks showing different times at hotel reception desks, Vivian being Tokyo and me Buenos Aires. Now we drank and laughed at one and the same time, but all the greater was the stillness when her father opened the door and we followed him down — I say down — into the dark apartment. Vivian left us as soon as we were in the hall and went in to her mother in the bedroom, and I sank into the deep upholstery in the library while Vivian’s father poured Scotch into two glasses, dropped ice into them with a crash and drew up his own chair. “It’s time we got to know each other,” he said. “Yes,” I murmured. Even though there was barely any light in the room, I noticed that he was staring at me and that his eyes were hard and sharp. “After the accident, Vivian’s mother threw away all the mirrors we possessed. But one day the doorbell rang. She went to see who it was and there were some kids standing there. They were holding a mirror up in front of her. Can you believe children could be so wicked?” I just shook my head. Vivian’s father raised his glass to his lips. “As someone who does a bit of writing, what do you think of a story like that?” I looked down. “It’s a good story,” I said. The ice clinked. “Good? Are you sentimental, Barnum?” “I doubt it.” “Then you should realize there’s no such thing as a good story. Just ones that are true and ones that aren’t.” He drank more of his whiskey and sighed heavily. “What has Vivian said about the accident?” “Said?” Her father poured more Scotch into his glass, impatient, but not into mine — despite the fact that it too was empty. “She told you how it happened?” I glanced in the direction of the door, which was slightly ajar. There was no Vivian. She wouldn’t join us until this conversation was concluded. “She wasn’t even born then,” I said, and regretted the words as soon as I’d uttered them. He leaned forward toward me, and I could just make out a dour smile. “Everyone has their own version, Barnum. Things they’ve heard. Things they’ve dreamed. You know that, don’t you?” I sank down in my seat. “She told me you lost control of the car on a curve and drove into the ditch.” He sighed. “No one loses control of a Chevrolet Deluxe, Bar-num.” He raised his hands as if he was holding a steering wheel between them. “Another car came toward us around the curve,” he whispered. “A Buick with the top down. It was going far too fast. It swung over to my side of the road and I had to get the Chevrolet out of the way.” Vivian’s father spun his hands around and stamped his foot on the floor. Then he let his hands fall into his lap again. “That’s how it happened,” he said. “I avoided an accident and destroyed my family.” Slowly he lifted his glass. Did we know each other any better now? Did I know who he was now? “Didn’t the other car stop?” I asked him. He shook his head, and suddenly his voice was unrecognizable, the words were twisted and something inside him broke. “The dammed swine just kept driving!” And at that moment the bell rang. I felt a dent, a tear in the heart, the kind that hurts so badly it feels good. Maybe it was Peder. I listened. I heard someone opening the door — it had to be Vivian — perhaps Vivian and Peder were hugging at that very moment, and I wanted to be with them in that embrace, that moment. Vivian’s father remained where he was. He put his hand on my knee. I wished he’d remove it. “Now you know,” he said, and his voice was as before, toneless, a deep line in his mouth. “What?” I breathed. “Now you know the truth, Barnum.” And it was as if I could hear Peder, somewhere far away, very distant and yet quite close just the same: Perhaps. Perhaps not. Vivian’s father got up. “We’ll never talk about this,” he said. “Never.” Someone knocked cautiously on the door and opened it. An elderly, gray-haired lady with a white apron and a black blouse peered in. She curtsied. “Your guest has arrived, Mr. Wie.” She vanished again into the darkness as quickly as she’d appeared. I followed Vivian’s father to the living room. There was the guest. It was Mom. She’d done herself up. She looked lost. Vivian’s father took her hand in both his own. “Is no one looking after you? I’m so sorry. But Barnum and I were talking about life and forgot ourselves completely.” “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Mom breathed. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.” Mom smiled. “I’m the one who should be thanking you.” Vivian’s father let her hand drop. “Now I’ll go for my girls,” he said. He quickly went out into the hall. I turned to Mom. “Why didn’t you phone? We could have come together?” “Because I was invited ten minutes ago. And by then you’d left.” “Didn’t they ask Boletta?” “Boletta’s tired. Have you been drinking, Barnum?” The elderly lady the maid, suddenly appeared with a tray and I managed to gulp a dry Martini before she vanished once more. “No,” I said. Mom sighed and looked around her. “How can they bear to have the place so dark?” “I know,” I said. “They can’t stand daylight.” “Be quiet, Barnum.” And I thought about what Vivians father had said about the accident — what he called the truth. Was that why he’d invited us, to reveal the guilty party? Mom mustn’t say a word about the Buick. I had drunk too much, and I realized, for the first time, that it was far too little. “What the hell do they want?” I hissed. “They just want to be nice, Barnum. We’re almost family now.” I laughed. “Almost family?” Mom nipped my arm. “Pull yourself together, Barnum.” Vivian’s father came back. He had his daughter with him. She was both happy and anxious when she saw Mom there. She kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you, Vera.” Mom lifted her hand and touched the ring. “It suits you.” Vivian’s father looked at me, his mouth still sullen as he brushed his finger over his lips. I was suspicious of him. Then at last he looked back at Vivian again. “Are you finished with Annie?” he asked. Vivian nodded. He smiled. “Good. We’ll go and eat then.” He pushed open the white doors into the dining room. She was sitting at the bottom of the table, in the shadows behind the candelabra, staring right at us. Vivian had done a fine job. Her face was smooth, her features perfect and clear — she resembled a photograph framed by darkness. But when I had to sit down beside her, I could see that beneath the makeup, under all this beautiful putty, was the former visage that time had frozen the moment it shattered against the windshield of the Chevrolet Deluxe. The rest was a mask and she wore it with a kind of dignity, and maybe defiance. The elderly lady served us. I don’t remember what we ate. It was game of some kind. I wasn’t hungry. Vivian was holding her knife and fork in a strange way, with clenched fists, like some badly brought-up child. I’d never noticed before. The ring looked too tight on her finger. I just saw our hands, our ten hands and fifty fingers, none of them alike. And my own hand, lifting the glass to my lips, each mouthful of red wine a gust through my head. And I realize that these hands have to be a motif in Barnum’s account of humanity; I’m possessed by this thought of the severed, unconnected hands — but I’ve got nothing to write on and I don’t have the nerve to leave the table either because pe
rhaps something frightful will happen in my absence. Vivians father lays down his knife and fork and drinks to Mom’s health. “I always have this feeling we’ve seen each other before,” he says. Mom smiles. “But we have. At the premiere of Hunger” “No, longer ago than that.” Vivian’s father puts down his glass. It’s as if there’s a kind of membrane over us, a skin, that could break at any moment. “And where would that have been?” I say loudly and laugh. But no one hears me. My glass is empty. Vivian’s father looks over the table. “Annie, where have we seen Barnum’s mother before?” She turns slowly to Vivian, and her words are as drawn out as her movement. “Haven’t you two thought of getting married properly?” Vivian takes a deep breath. “Properly? What do you mean?” “You know just fine what I mean, Vivian. In church, of course.” Vivian looks at me. “Barnum and I have come to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist. That’s why we let the platemaker marry us instead.” Her mother smiles. She looks at me, too. The makeup cracks. “I always thought it should be Peder and Vivian,” she says. Vivian pushes back her chair. “Why did you think that, Mother?” “Because you were so well suited.” Vivian’s father suddenly leans over toward Mom; it’s as if he’s found a trail he doesn’t want to lose, the pieces of a dream after a heavy night. “What was it your husband did?” he asks. Mom hesitates for a moment. “He was a clown and a shopkeeper,” she says. It’s quiet for a time after that; just the sound of our cutlery, the food in our mouths. Then Vivian’s father asks something else. “Didn’t you have another son? Who disappeared?” Vivian looks down and whispers something I can’t hear. Mom straightens up. “He didn’t disappear,” she responds peacefully. “He’s just roaming.” And it strikes me that this dialogue only points backward, nothing that’s said moves our stories onward — this conversation is water that stands still. Here, in this place, in this dining room, is nothing but the past, and not even that is something we can put into words. But suddenly Vivian’s mother puts her hand on her daughter’s arm in a not quite sober gesture. The makeup slides from her mouth, and the scar — a bulging diagonal line across her face — comes into view, as if her visage is made up of different segments that don’t quite fit together. “Have the two of you thought of having children?” she asks. Vivian draws back her arm. Her mother’s hand is left twitching on the table between the plates and the glasses and the cutlery. It’s just as if it’s breathing; then it disappears too, abruptly and only a crease is left in the cloth, a shadow over the whiteness. “No,” Vivian answers. “I wouldn’t want to put someone through that.” “Put someone through what?” her mother breathes. “Being a child, Mother.” And Vivian gets up from the table and walks out of the dining room. She leaves a heavy silence behind her. Mom kicks my leg. I go after Vivian. She’s sitting on her bed in her old room, where everything’s just as it was except for the picture of Lauren Bacall, which isn’t hanging there now — all that’s in its place is a dark square on the wallpaper, like a negative. I lay my head in Vivian’s lap. “Couldn’t you just have said yes?” I ask her. “Why?” “Yes is just as short as no.” “Wrong, Barnum. No is always shorter than yes. You should know that.” I kiss her. “Shall we go back in, or shall we go home?” “What do you think?” “I don’t like leaving them,” I tell her. Vivian gets up. “Shall we play happy?” she asks. “Aren’t you? Happy, I mean.” Vivian smiles. “Not here.”