The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  When we woke up, Vivian had left. There was a bottle on the bedside table. I had a drink from it and passed it to Peder. “Lauren Bacall’s still looking down at us,” he said. He pointed to the picture on the wall. It was hanging crooked that day. “I thought it was Vivian’s mother,” I said. “Me too,” Peder laughed. He put the bottle down on the floor. “Are you being good to Vivian?” he asked out of the blue. “What do you mean?” “You know perfectly well what I mean, Barnum.” “No, I don’t.” And I felt the angst growing inside, the heavy engine that drives you down to the depths — the submarine inside your soul. Peder went quiet. I noticed it had started snowing. I’d forgotten to take in the parasol from the balcony. And the sight of that blue parasol, amid the thick flakes of snow falling to make a slushy rim on the railing, still casts a shadow of sorrow and — bizarrely enough — joy, too, when the seconds shine too bright and blind me. “Did I do anything yesterday?” I murmured. “Nothing much other than drink and laugh.” I let out my breath. “Why do you ask then?” “I saw the blackness in her eyes,” Peder said. Perhaps it took someone else to see it, someone who’d been away long enough. “I can’t make a baby,” I told him. Peder lay there silent a time. He didn’t say any more about it. Instead he lay over me. “Do you still dream, Barnum?” “I dream the whole time, you blockhead!” But Peder wasn’t satisfied. “Do you dream in plus, though?” He laughed and pulled my arms backward. I tried to break free of his grasp. “Did you become commercial in America?” I shouted at him. Peder suddenly let me go. “I’m going to show you something,” he told me.

  We finished the bottle, I went to get my scripts, and we went out. There were already ridges of snow left by the plow, and still the flakes kept falling. I must remember to take that parasol in. It couldn’t stay out on the balcony. Peder looked like an immigrant worker in his thin blue shirt, open at the neck — the type that hasn’t the foggiest what real cold is and needs a whole winter to learn what shivering means. We got a taxi in Therese Street and took it down to Solli Square. Our tree had white branches, as if it had become an albino since we saw it last. But it wasn’t the tree Peder had wanted to show me. It was his father’s shop. Above the door was no longer miil’s stamps — bought and sold. Now there were new words etched in sharp-edged plastic: miil and barnum. I wanted to ask what the meaning of all this really was, but Peder unlocked the door and shoved me inside. There wasn’t a stamp to be seen. The drawers and cabinets were empty Everything was gone, even the unmistakable odor of paper and gum. Instead there was new furniture, a desk, a filing cabinet, a sofa and an office chair. “What do you think?” Peder asked me. I turned to him. “What’s happened to everything?” “Sold, of course.” “You just came home and sold everything your father had here?” Peder lifted his hand, brushed it over his lips — self-conscious for a moment. There was a tremor in his voice. “Have you grown sentimental, Barnum?” “No,” I said. I saw the smile beginning on his lips. Nothing with Peder lasted for any length of time. “Did you think I was going to count perforated edges the rest of my days?” I sat down on the office chair. It had a headrest, padding, wheels, and could swivel around. It made me think of Tati, Playtime — doors that are soundless when you slam them behind you. “What’s my name doing on that sign out there?” I asked. Peder sighed. “Have you forgotten everything we talked about?” I got up and grabbed hold of his shirt. I think I tore off one of his buttons. “I haven’t forgotten there wasn’t so much as a word out of you,” I hissed. Peder shoved me down again. “That’s your chair, Barnum,” he said. I looked up. “What?” And Peder whirled me around at lightning speed — I had to clutch the armrests and became really dizzy. I screeched and Peder roared with laughter, and finally the chair came to a standstill — it was a bit like spinning a bottle, me being the bottle. Peder bent down. “Dreams and mathematics, Barnum. You’re the dreamer, and I’m going to work out how much they cost.” I closed my eyes and shook my head. Peder put his hands on my shoulders. “We’re going to make films, Barnum. You’ll do the writing. I’ll sell them.” “And Vivian’ll do the makeup!” I shouted. Peder went to get a clipping from the papers in the filing cabinet. It was Bente Synt’s article. “New fare in Norwegian film” he read aloud. He looked at me, and that smile, which was Peder’s and Peder’s alone, finally lit up his face. “I’m so proud of you, Barnum,” he said. “Thank you,” I breathed, and had to have a spin on the chair. “You know what I almost did when I read this on the plane coming over?” “Tell me, Peder, tell me.” “I almost went through to the cockpit to shout to them that Barnum Nilsen was my best friend!” I laughed. “You should have hijacked the whole plane!” I exclaimed. Peder went on reading. “And Barnum Nilsen’s vote of thanks will go down in history as the briefest and oddest we’ve ever heard.” Peder looked up again. “It just slipped out,” I told him. But Peder shook his head. “To hell with you. Just perfect, Barnum. Now they’ll never forget you.” He folded up the clipping and put it back in the cabinet. I didn’t quite know if I liked what he’d said. I’d rather people forget it. But I didn’t feel like arguing. I was thirsty and got up. “Have you sold the fridge too?” I asked him. Peder flipped through a wad of notes and counted them. “Did you bring the script?” I put “Fattening” down on the table. Peder gave me three notes. “You go off to the ‘pole’ while I read this,” he said. I stood there, for a moment amazed, almost annoyed, with Peder’s money in my hand. What was he thinking? He sat down on the sofa and began going through the script. I went out into the snow to the “pole” in Drammen Road. I wanted red wine and had to show identification. I always have it on me. There are age restrictions all over the place. The shop assistant looked at it long and hard, held it up to the light, and got out colleagues to hear what they had to say about the worn and tattered document, with a picture of me taken at the passport booth at the West End Station where the seat’s highest. It’s as if I no longer correspond with myself; a transition has taken place — I create uncertainty, but not the kind Dad meant, rather a real uncertainty that makes people believe everything. My doubt is impure, a clamp around the foot. They began to laugh behind the counter. I should have left, turned around and left and slammed the door behind me. I waited. I was thirsty. Finally I got my card back together with my bag of bottles. The assistant hesitated one final moment when he saw my eyelid droop. I hurried out. I was on the point of kicking the door but checked myself and held it open instead for one of the neighborhood’s old ladies coming in with all her empties rolled up in newspaper. I closed the door quietly after her, because I’d more than likely return here many times in the future. I had a beer in Le Coq d’or. Peder was a slow reader. I left my identification lying on the counter. The bartender made a joke of it. “I see you’re afraid you’ll forget who you are,” he said. “I’m afraid of not getting any beer,” I said. I had another and went back to the shop. I stood outside looking at the new sign, miil & barnum. There was something wrong, something that grated — it reminded me of an ad for honey or some bad poem. “You’re still dreaming in minus,” he said. I opened a bottle of red wine. “Didn’t you like it?” I asked him. Peder got up and began a long, drawn-out speech, all the while lifting his chubby hands as if he were pumping out the words. I managed to drink almost a whole bottle. And this is the gist of what he said. “Did I like it? Sure I liked it. I don’t just like it, I love it. But has that got anything to do with it? Has it? Answer, no. What does is that there’s nobody who could be bothered to go and see it at the movie theater. ‘Fattening’ indeed! There’s nothing but minus here. Every single person in the story’s in the red. All they do, each and every action, only increases their debt. The mother, the school doctor, the farmer and his wife and even the projectionist himself — you put the whole bunch of them out of business. You have to make a profit, Barnum. That’s what the public wants. When they go out of that theater, they want to take some- thing away with them! They want to be full, not empty! Right?” Peder stopped, drew breath, and looked at me. �
�Now I know what’s wrong,” I told him. “Good!” he exclaimed. “My name should come first.” Peder was bewildered for a minute. “What are you talking about?” “Barnum & Miil,” I said. “Sounds much better.” Peder let his hands drop and grinned. “That can be fixed.” He made a call, talked briefly to someone or other, put down the receiver and turned back to me. “It’s as good as done,” he said. He sat down. I have no idea whom he phoned, but I was impressed. “Do you have any more?” he asked. I sloshed some more liquor into his glass. Peder laughed. “I mean material, Barnum.” I shut my eyes. Was I destroying my ideas now and using them up? How little should I reveal and how much should I keep to myself? And it struck me that I was halfway in regard to almost everything — my face, my height, my thoughts — I was a half person. The only thing that was whole was my halfness. “The swimming pool.” Peder leaned closer. “The swimming pool?” “That’s the title. The swimming pool.” Peder lifted his mug and set it down again. “Miil wants more,” he said. I gave him more. I gave away my story. This is how I did it. “I imagine two laborers who build swimming pools in the gardens of the rich. They dig, they build, they lay tiles — in short, they work around the clock to finish these luxurious swimming pools for the capitalists. And as they work parties go on in the gardens — the men in dinner jackets and the women in long dresses — they walk along the poolsides with drinks and canapes. But no water ever goes into the swimming pools. When autumn comes around, they’re just as empty, full of leaves and rain. Like great tombs.” I had some more to drink and glanced at Peder. He had a rather lost expression on his face. His brow was furrowed. “Is that all that happens?” he asked. “Do you think there should be more?” “Yes, I do, Barnum. Nothing really happens. Except for the building of the swimming pools.” “The pools a metaphor,” I explained. “It never has water.” Peder sighed. “That’s what I mean. They never have water.” “But that’s the whole idea,” I went on. “The idea?” “The metaphor. That they build swimming pools without water.” “Do the laborers do it deliberately, or is it a kind of sabotage?” “I haven’t considered that.” Peder grew impatient. “Then you have to explain the whole thing to me in more detail. Take your time.” “There’s nothing to explain.” “There’s a great deal to explain, Barnum.” “Life is an empty swimming pool.” Peder’s sigh was more profound than before. “Is it my fault or yours that I feel like a total idiot at this moment?” “What do you mean?” “Do you want your audience to feel like fools, Barnum?” “Absolutely not.” “We could send it to the television drama department.” A van stopped outside. Two men in overalls with reflectors around their legs put up a ladder against the window. Peder got up, opened the door and gave some instructions. Then he came back. I opened a new bottle and filled our mugs. Peder said cheers. “You remember what Dad used to call a hangover?” he suddenly asked. “Postal surcharge,” I said. Peder gave a laugh. “Too few stamps on the celebration,” he said. And I saw the tremor in his eyes. He had to look down. “Thank you both for being there for Mom,” he murmured. “That was the least we could do, Peder.” “I feel so ashamed, Barnum.” “Why?” “I couldn’t manage to come back for the funeral. I’m a coward.” He looked up. “I was so damned angry when she told me what he’d done.” “Angry?” “I don’t understand it. Him taking his own life. And I hate everything I don’t understand.” Peder bent forward once more. “To hell with him,” he breathed. “To hell with him.” I had the urge to tell Peder about The Night Man, of the first scenes in The Night Man and my great plans. But he got in before me. “There’s another thing too,” he said. He had a swig of his drink and looked at me. “I haven’t taken a single exam.” “What have you done then?” “Been on the beach.” “Well, you’ve certainly gotten extremely brown,” I told him. Peder got up abruptly. “Aren’t you listening to what I’m saying? I’m nothing. Absolutely nothing.” “Don’t boast,” I said. Peder stood there, silent and bewildered — his shirt hanging out of his pants, his brow drenched in sweat, his hands twitching. “Now you know what kind of person you’re dealing with,” he murmured. “How many letters are there in our names?” I breathed. “Ten,” Peder replied, tired. I got up too and took hold of his hand. “That’ll do,” I tell him. And he leaned his head against my shoulder.

  Then one of the men knocked on the window. They were done and drove off with the ladder on the roof of the van. We went out. They’d changed the sign. “I’ll make your ideas visible,” Peder said. He ran in again. It was still snowing. Then something happened. The letters flickered, as if they were about to come loose from the wall. Peder came peacefully out, smiling, and stood beside me in the snow. Soon enough the letters stilled and our names were lit bright red above the door: barnum & miil. I put my arm around Peder. And that’s the beginning of what I call (borrowing an expression from the silent film era) our electric theater — that would take me to Room 502 in Coch’s Hostel, and later to R0st where I dried up in the salty wind.

  Row 14, Seats 18, 19 and 20

  The silent film got its expressions from photography and the world of mime, from the brothels and the music halls, from ports, taverns, circuses and graveyards. The face never lies. The faces story is primitive and clear, just as the Old One’s features were delineated by loss, but also by the joy of bearing the Lost One’s daughter, Boletta. We are double. We are half. The face’s story is both tragic and comic. The script wasn’t there yet. The plot was a movement, a raised eyebrow, a tear, a smile. Words were only there in the form of explanatory text between scenes — flickering white letters on a black background, and the sole function of these words was to convey the fact that time had passed. “Later.” “Next morning.” “The same afternoon.” But after a while these simple pieces of information, these time indicators, became too brief. It was as though a great vanity infiltrated the words, and soon you could read things on the screen like “Long and terrible days drag by, filled with the hopelessness of doubt.” “Imperceptibly the brutal morning slipped by” The language began to go wrong. In the end time stood still in the words. Not even the music could compensate. The pianist gave up. The actors began whispering to each other, gripped by the same panic the audience was experiencing. The plot had to develop. Speech forced its way through and with speech came the script. There are moments when I experience the same thing — time has stopped. The pages lie there. I can’t get finished. I’m standing in the back room. I drink as slowly as I can. Intoxication is also time, and at the heart of intoxication time runs amuck — a clock that explodes in sleep. I look out on the guests. I don’t hear them. Peder’s invited half the city. The place is heaving. I recognize faces from Norwegian Film; the director’s there, the patches on his elbows have come undone. The dramaturge drops her cigarette and grinds it into the carpet when she thinks no one’s looking — but I am. There are a few journalists; Bente Synt’s taking notes — she’s the evening’s bard, and in her pocket she has a camera. There are musicians in scruffy jeans, bad-tempered directors (in particular the famous couple, one of them draped in furs), vociferous actors, tragic underground poets, nannies, close relatives and other pale-faced inhabitants who weren’t invited but who’ve sniffed out a party with the efficiency of trained bloodhounds. I’m impressed. Peder and Vivian go around smiling to everyone. They’re host and hostess. They’re elegant. My eye follows them. They’re the finest fish in the aquarium. I’m standing on the other side, in a void. I like it there. Vivian turns and suddenly catches my eye — it’s overwhelming and lasts no more than a second. Not even that, less, just a glance that’s past, fleeting, a movement that doesn’t stop. I smile and raise my glass, too late, and realize that she’s no longer mine, and that perhaps she never was. I’m an incapable man. And at the same moment that thought gets through to me, I feel closer to her than ever. Peder gets up on a chair and makes a speech. I see mouths collapsing in laughter and applauding hands. Then the voices suddenly impact on me, a wave of sound floods through to me and I can hear Peder calling. He wants me to
say a few words. I go over to them. I clamber up onto the same chair. There’s a certain expectation. I look at Vivian. She waits there peacefully. “Come on, Barnum!” Bente Synt exclaims. Peder’s sweating like a pig. One of the earliest films to be made in England was called The Cheese Middens or the Lilliputians at the Restaurant. The director, Robert W. Paul, well known for his stunts and particularly his dolly shots, filmed a scene as normal and then dressed his characters in black, rolled the camera thirty feet back, put in another lens and filmed over the original scene. In this way he could get both full-sized people and small, fantasy apparitions in one and the same picture. This is the most famous scene — a sailor’s incredulity and utter astonishment when he sees a whole trail of dwarves crawling out of a cheese he’s about to eat. I’d like to say something about this. I want to say that I’m a midden myself; I’ll pop up everywhere — you’ll find me when you pull out a drawer, leaf through a book, put your hand in your pocket, go to the bathroom, open the glove compartment and your glasses case and the fridge — I’ll be there when you fall asleep and not least when you wake up. I am a midden. I have to say something. But I don’t say that. “The night’s still young,” I say instead. I climb back down. There’s ragged applause. Others just look at each other. Bente Synt slips past. “Have you become a good boy since we saw you last?” she asks. I nod. “How boring,” she murmurs. She puts her head on one side. “What do you really want with Peder Miil?” she inquires. I whisk away her camera and loom in toward her long face, her red snout. “I’ll photodamngraph you!” I screech. I do it. I steal her soul. Bente Synt laughs. It’s a great evening. The director stops right behind me. “Have you thought about my suggestion?” he asks. “No,” I reply. He gives me a pat on the shoulder. It’s still a great evening.