The Half Brother: A Novel

by Christensen, Lars Saabye

  We had to wait for three quarters of an hour. It became apparent that Mom had handed in the sheet that was in Fred’s jacket pocket to an officer for his opinion, and perhaps it would be possible to obtain fingerprints too — whatever their use was now. I began to feel tired. Mom was even more alert than before. Then we were shown into an office. An older uniformed man with thin gray hair pressed down flat on his head by his hat, and with a groove-like ring around his head that was also a result of the hat, was sitting behind a desk. In front of him was a cake with a single candle on it. Mom shook hands with him, and we sat down. The officer appeared rather lost in his own world. He inadvertently licked the cream from his finger, and went pink when he realized what he’d just done. “Have you had a chance to have a look at it?” Mom asked him. The officer drew his finger through his thin beard, pulled out a drawer and took out a plastic folder containing the sheet. “Are these his own words or ones he could have read somewhere else?” he asked. “It’s the last part of a letter sent from Greenland by my grandfather to my grandmother,” she told him. But she didn’t make mention of the fact that the last sentence was missing. Perhaps she’d forgotten. Perhaps Fred had too. I could remember it, though. “It’s obviously a quote from an old Inuit,” I said. “The shaman Odark.” The officer pushed the cake over the desk. “Would you both like a piece?” We each took a bit. He smiled and picked up the sheet of paper. “I’m retiring today” he explained. “This is my last case.” He went over to the wall and took down a certificate in a glass frame and put it in a box that was already full. We ate our cake in silence. Mom was finished long before me. “But what do you make of it?” she asked him. The officer came back and put the sheet back in the plastic folder. “It isn’t easy to know what to make of it,” he admitted. Mom grew impatient. What was it she wanted to know? What did she think these words, clumsily written from memory on a small sheet of paper, could reveal? She leaned closer. “You can read?” she said. The officer looked at her. “Yes, I can read. But I don’t necessarily read it in the same way you do.” Mom appeared dissatisfied with this response. “What are you trying to say?” “Tell me instead how you read it,” the officer said. Mom began crying. “These are my son’s parting words,” she murmured. “That’s what they are!” and I realized that Mom didn’t want to know the truth at all. She didn’t want to descend any further than she had. She wanted to believe what she’d made up in her mind was the truth. Her time of waiting was over. I took the sheet of paper and had to support her as we went over toward the door The officer got up. “By the way, did your grandfather return from Greenland?” he inquired. Mom stopped. “No,” she said. “He was lost too.” And it was at that moment the old officer recognized something, a thread running through his life, a connection he’d been hunting for, some kind of meaning on this his final day. “Vera Jebsen?” he suddenly said. Mom looked at him in amazement. “That’s my maiden name.” The officer had to sit down. “Then it was your grandmother who came here just after the war to report a crime,” he said. Mom was silent, and he stood up again. “The case was never solved, as far as I remember. I was young and inexperienced in those days.” Mom staggered; it was as though she was standing dizzily on the edge of a cliff — it lasted only a second (she didn’t fall yet), but blew the hair from her brow, smiling. “Are you any the wiser now?” she asked him. The officer straightened his uniform and looked down — at the cake crumbs, the empty desk, the clock. In a few minutes he’d have done his duty and could go home for good. “No,” he whispered.

  The rain had stopped by the time we went out. Mom took my hand and looked up at the skies. She stood like that a long while and shut her eyes, blinded by the sun, which broke obliquely through the clouds. “I hope it’ll be beautiful tomorrow,” she whispered. And she turned toward me. “You won’t say anything inappropriate about Fred in your speech, Barnum.” “How would I do that?” I asked. Mom sighed. “You know perfectly well, Barnum.” And I tried yet again to dissuade her. “Are you really sure this is what you want, Mom?” She smiled. “Vivian asked me the very same question.” “And what did you tell her?” “That I was completely sure.”

  Mom was certain. She’d never been so sure of anything. She was going to hold this memorial service — a committal without a coffin — death in absentia. She was even going to have the service in Majorstuen Church, where the vicar in his time had refused to baptize both Fred and myself. There was something so gutsy about it all I couldn’t but marvel at it — a living stubbornness. We went up Church Road once more. Mom had never let go of my hand. “Don’t drink tomorrow,” she said. I suddenly regretted not having reported the business at the kiosk while we were down at the station. “No, Mom.” “I want you to be sober, Barnum.” “Yes, Mom.” “Do you promise, my little one? For your brother’s sake?”

  Dregs

  I woke up alone the following morning. I keep my promise to Mom, for my brother’s sake. On the bedside table there’s a note. Vivians left a message saying she’s gone for a checkup and that we can meet outside the church. It’s a quarter past ten. The memorial service begins at one. I see that it’s sunny; low, autumn light in the thin trees. Rain would have been better. I get up and take a shower. Vivian’s cleaned out the medicine cabinet as well. Only the absolute essentials are there — shampoo, some perfume, a nail file, skin cream, makeup, musk, a hairbrush, a half bottle of vodka and some toothpaste — in the main my own things. I close the cabinet. It’s been ages since I looked at myself in the mirror. I do so now. The mist clears, as if a veils been drawn from my face. Have I remained the same in Freds eyes as he did in mine? Did my time stop too that morning in Church Road, when he left the imprint of his hand on me and went? Is that how he’s remembered me subsequently, as Barnum, the little little brother — sixteen years of age and kicked out of school? And as I think this, I feel his absence so deeply and profoundly I have to lean my brow against the mirror and fight for breath. I wish so much I could say to him, I managed all right, Fred. And you? I open the cabinet again and see the bottle. It remains unopened. This is a promise that still hasn’t been broken. Today I’ll please Mom. But I don’t find my old suit, Dad’s suit. I open the boxes from the move. It isn’t there either. I go down to the basement. Our storage area is right at the back, behind the laundry room. The door isn’t even locked. From time to time tramps from the park sleep in the warmth by the airing closet. There’s nothing to steal here anyway, only things Vivian’s decided to throw out or give to a flea market — a pair of chipped skis, clothes that went out of fashion years ago, platform shoes, a floor lamp with a checkered shade, empty bottles. The suit’s hanging in a see-through plastic covering. I haven’t used it in ages. I get it down from the hook on the wall, and it’s then my eye alights on something else — the suitcase. It’s the old suitcase Dad carried around for the ringmaster Mundus, and which I inherited from Dad and subsequently lent to Fred when he disappeared. Now I’ve got it back. I lift it up. It isn’t light. It’s just even more worn. The strap on the lid has broken. I hold the suitcase, as if it’s my turn to leave. I open it. There’s no applause. It’s empty. The lining has come loose and hangs in crumpled folds. The journey’s been a long one. I can’t fathom it. I throw the suitcase into our storage closet and run up the stairs. I’ve locked myself out. I stand there staring at the door. The nameplate is covered in a pale, discolored film, as though our names are etched in fog and almost invisible. I know it. He’s been here. Perhaps he’s slept down there. He’s seen my face. He’s watched our time pass. He’s seen us. Why did he not show himself? Didn’t he dare? And another suspicion suddenly grips me, and I can’t bring myself to think the thought to its conclusion — yet it’s impossible to stop it, it’s a locomotive in my head. When was he here, on his secret visits? I hear someone. It’s the neighbor. “You’re the one who steals my papers,” she says. I take off my clothes. She hurries inside again. I put on the suit and dispose of my other garments in the garbage chute. I’m on my way to Majorstu
en Church. I go around by Blåsen. I stop at the top. The cold light draws everything closer. I think to myself, Is this the final scene in The Night Man? I light a cigarette and am sick. When I get to the church, Mom and Peder are sitting on the bench under the clock and the red creeper. They get up the minute they see me. Mom is impatient and nervous. She kisses my cheek, but I presume it’s because she wants to ascertain whether I’ve been drinking or not. Peder puts his arm around my shoulder. “The loft conversion’s fantastic,” he says. We’re able to go inside. A couple from the Salvation Army is sitting right at the back. I notice Bang the caretaker and recognize a few faces from school; the chief inspector’s sitting right at the far side, and Bente Synt’s there too, my bad omen. But this day couldn’t be any worse than it already is. “It’ll go fine,” Mom breathes. I sit between Vivian and Boletta in the front pew. The doors are closed. Boletta lays her delicate, blotchy hand in my lap. “Thank heavens there’s no vicar here,” she says. Mom tells her to be quiet. The organist begins to play. I don’t know the words of the hymn. Vivian stares straight ahead. Her mouth is shut. Her cheeks are hollow. Where the coffin should be there’s a chair, and around it are wreaths and flowers. On one of the silk ribbons are the words Thank you, Vivian and Barnum. Mom gets up and makes a small speech. I don’t quite follow what she’s saying. I have this locomotive in my head and it won’t stop. I lean close to Vivian. “This is the next best thing,” I murmur. She grows edgy. “Next best? What do you mean?” “The best thing would have been is they’d found him dead, right?” Mom looks at me. She smiles. She’s beautiful today in the black dress she hasn’t worn since Dad died. It’s my turn. I’m supposed to make a speech for Fred. I stand in front of the flowers and the empty chair, my back to the congregation; I have no notion of how long I stand there like that, but when I do turn around I see that the church is completely packed, there isn’t a single empty seat. And all at once it reminds me of the premiere of Hunger. Now it’s Fred who’s been cut out. Mom has sat down next to Vivian. Peder’s behind her. I can hear music; the locomotive’s brought with it the song by Morricone from Once Upon a Time in America. I begin to speak. “I’ve always dreamed Fred would come back, just as Robert De Niro does at the railway station in New York. But when we ask him what he’s done all these years he’s been away, he won’t answer, Gone to bed early. Instead he’ll say, I’ve seen all of you” I wait a bit. Peder’s smiling; he understands, and he leans forward against Vivian, his breath on her neck. Mom’s still expectant; she bends forward as if at any moment prepared to stop me. Boletta’s holding her arm. And as I stand there by the empty chair in front of all these pale and silent faces, I become a dreamer once more — Barnum the dreamer. I imagine myself missing, presumed dead; I’ve drowned in one of the canals and my body’s floating there, circling slowly toward the bottom. Finally I manage to dream of my own funeral; it’s me they’ve come to remember, here in Majorstuen Church, and I can take a last look at those I’m going to leave behind, and I know they’ll have forgotten me as soon as they go out of the door into Fagerborg’s Indian summer. This image is so powerful my eyes spill over, and I have to wipe away a tear. My crying is infectious. It’s my crying I’m there to share. When they see me moved to tears, they begin crying too — everyone except Vivian and Peder. I think Boletta has gone to sleep, bless her, but Mom has her hankie in her hand and nods to me several times, pleased and grateful. I’ve kept my promise, for my brother’s sake. “One night Fred came home with a coffin,” I say aloud. Mom’s on her guard again, and Boletta wakes up. It’s my turn to close my eyes. I’m the dreamer who dreams backward. “Perhaps he knew what was to come. Perhaps it was a flashforward as it’s called in my line of work. Because here today we have no coffin, we only have a memory, and that memory is nothing but a picture multiplied by time.” Peder raises his thumb. Mom’s anxious. I have the desire to sit down, to sit on Fred’s chair, but I don’t. And yet again I imagine I see Fleming Brant, standing now by the font, his hands dripping with water; he shakes his head and walks down the aisle, his rake over his shoulder, so slowly he never disappears. “But my first memory of Fred is of the two of us hiding under the living room table listening to our great-grandmother reading from our great-grandfather’s letter. I still know the words by heart. While we were in the ice we often hunted for seal and shot a great number. They should be shot while they lie sunning themselves on the ice because once they are in the water they are difficult to get hold of.” I have to stop again. I look down. I’m standing amid flowers and wreaths. I could finish now. I don’t. I say instead, “When the hunter finds a trail, he doesn’t follow it. He turns and follows the trail back to where the animal came from.” Mom’s on the point of getting to her feet. Boletta holds her back. Vivian looks away Peder doesn’t take his eyes off me. There’s utter stillness in Majorstuen Church. I’m the one with the rake now, raking the sand along the way we’ve taken. I raise my voice. “And Fred’s last words were also taken from this letter, the letter that is the story of our family, of where we come from and return to always — the land between ice and snow.” I put my hand on my cheek and wait. And I have time to consider that life itself is mostly composed of waiting, that’s what our days are made up of — waiting, waiting for something, for something else. We are here to bring to a close this time of waiting. I read aloud the words that were in Fred’s pocket. “You ask, yet of death I know nothing because all I know is life. All I can say is what I believe — that either death is the end of life or but the bridge to another way of living. Whichever it may be, there is nothing to fear.” I turn toward Mom. She’s folded her hands. And in a quiet voice, I speak the final sentence which Fred had perhaps forgotten. Maybe no one hears it, but I think it’s the finest line in the letter, composed of these words of the shaman Odark — opinionated and full of love and courage. Words that the young Wilhelm made his own when he put them into the letter to his beloved and didn’t know they would form the end of his story. And it’s now I make these words everyone’s. “Therefore it would be with great reluctance I would die now, so wonderful I think it is to be alive!” Mom gets to her feet. She hangs Freds jacket over the chair, his suede jacket; it’s as if he’s just been sitting here in a normal school period and has been sent out to the corridor or has gone for a pee. And I realize at the same moment that waiting has eaten away at Mom’s sanity — and how is she to bear this empty missing with a jacket that no longer fits? She wants me to come back with her to the pew now. “That’s enough, Barnum,” she breathes. “You’ve done well.” But I remain where I am, beside Fred’s chair; I’m not done yet, and this stillness, which is within me, grows even greater and deeper. Never has Fred seemed more alive to me than right at that moment. “Time plays games with us,” I say loudly — it’s possible I even shout the words. Then I lower my voice. Mom has stopped. “Time has many rooms,” I whisper. “And everything happens at one and the same time in all those rooms at this moment.” I sit down on Fred’s chair. “Fred taught me never to say many thanks. But today I make an exception to that rule. Today I say many thanks. Because Vivian’s to have a child at last.” Peder straightens up and opens his mouth, but instead of saying anything he laughs; I hear Peder’s astonished laughter filling Majorstuen Church. And I go down to where Vivian’s sitting and kiss her, and she can do nothing to stop me. After that we stand by the church porch. The last ones greet us in silence on their way out. Vivian looks at me wrath-fully, yet she’s relieved too, for she won’t be able to hide the fact that she’s pregnant much longer anyway. “We must celebrate this,” Mom says, on the verge of tears. Oh yes, now we can celebrate and mourn; one room is papered black and the other’s full of sunlight, but we don’t know which of them is for rejoicing all the same. “I just have to get something,” I murmur. And I hurry over Church Road to the kiosk. In the little lemonade cabinet I’ve secreted two bottles; the dark brandy’s for forgetting, the clear spirit to remember why you drink. I don’t go back to the others. They can wait the
re until the cows come home. I pop the bottles in my pocket, climb over the fence and come out on the other side. I go down to Coch’s Hostel. They have a free room; number 502 on the top floor — Dad’s old room. I’m handed the key and I race up the stairs. The curtains are drawn. The bulb crackles when I put on the main light. “Fred!” I shout. “Fred! I know you’re here!” There’s utter silence, barring that crackling sound, as if the light’s on the verge of giving up the ghost. I shout his name again. “Fred! Come on out, you coward! I know you’re here!” I overturn a chair. I open a closet and hear the jangling of clothes hangers as they spill out over me. I shriek. “You bastard! You can run but you can’t fucking hide!” Someone out in the corridor asks me to keep my voice down. I lock the door and begin drinking.