I can’t write that night. I plug in the telephone again. There’s a further disquiet within me I can do nothing to prevent; a nerve of unhappiness. I drink up what’s left and tidy my papers. I read through what I’ve written.
SEQUENCE 1. SEA. EVENING.
A ship with a dragons head prow. There’s no wind. The crew must row. The only sound that can be heard is the steady command before each new pull on the oars. The ship is like a shadow gliding past.
SEQUENCE 2. GRAN FARM. MORNING.
Vår, a pretty girl of nine, is amusing herself by making tracks in the snow. She’s on her own. She moves farther and farther from the settlement toward the edge of the forest.
She drops something in the snow and stops to retrieve it; it’s part of a necklace, one half of a star-shaped amulet. As she bends down she discovers something else — other footprints in the new snow. They’re much bigger than her own. They disappear into the forest beside her.
Vår remains crouched there, looking toward the settlement and looking toward the forest. Carefully she puts the amulet around her neck.
Her mother appears from the main building and waves to her daughter.
Vår doesn’t dare wave back. Her mother stands there looking at her. She waves again. Vår hears a sound from the edge of the forest. The breaking of a twig. A sword being drawn.
The stillness is violently broken — a dozen armed men ride out of the forest.
SEQUENCE 3. EXT. SHIP. MORNING.
The ship is nearing land. The sails are hoisted now. Everyone is working feverishly to ready the cargo, except for one man. He’s lying at the back of the vessel sleeping. His face is hidden by a hood. But around his neck we can see one half of a star-shaped amulet, the same as Vår was wearing.
Three men put down a cage full of birds close by. They look at the sleeping man, then at one another, and nod. One of them pads over, bends down and cautiously reaches out for the adornment to try to work it free. Then an arm seizes his own in a vicelike grip. The “sleeping” man holds him thus in this agonizingly strong grasp. The thief sinks to his knees. Now we see the man’s face. He’s twenty-five years of age, haggard. His name is Ulf.
Ulf lets the thief go, gets up and looks out toward the land.
VOICE-OVER: Seven winters have passed since he first set sail, from the forests to the seas, from the land to the wind. That first winter he was missed. The second passed without any word of his whereabouts. In the course of the fourth he was seen in three countries at the same time. By the seventh winter he was forgotten. He came home like a refugee, and he came too late.
The phone rings. I don’t have the guts to pick it up. I have to get finished first. That’s what it all comes down to — getting finished. The ringing doesn’t stop. I unplug the phone yet again. The paper boy races down the steps. I can hear my neighbor quickly retrieving her copy of Aftenposten from the doormat. And an even greater and more profound anxiety gnaws at me. Maybe Boletta wasn’t able to stand the cold. I go over to Blåsen. My tracks are uneven in the snow. The bench is empty. There’s no one there. I’m done with this place. I have to get all of these places out of my system if I’m to move on; I have to find somewhere else, somewhere that’s my own, and I still don’t know where that is. I go off to the “pole.” The guy serving looks at me long and hard but doesn’t demand identification. I take a taxi home with what I’ve bought and go on writing The Viking. The run-up’s done. I’m onto the jump. And I can’t get Fred’s suede jacket out of my head. It disturbs me. I have to free my mind of it too. I’m a tailor with a typewriter who reworks this garment to a blue leather hood — and this I give to my hero. I secrete it in what he’s carrying, and by the midpoint of the tale I have him clad in this shimmering hood that, from far away, shines like some dark flame. And later I let him pass the hood on to a treacherous serf, who, because of a misunderstanding, loses his life — and as a result causes the enemy to believe that the hero, the son who’s come home, is dead. One morning (or evening perhaps; I’ve been asleep at any rate and it’s dark outside), I can see that Christmas trees are being lit over in Sten Park beside the playground. I can just make out the sound of children singing. The good old songs. I sit down at the desk and read through the last of what I’ve written. And it’s only then I realize I’m finished. A gentle voice-over rounds it off as a ship sets sail once more and the wind of an eighth winter begins to blow. I feel a kind of gladness, and it amazes me that a few words I’ve stolen and reordered into a triple jump could make me so happy. Or maybe it’s the children singing at the foot of Blåsen. It hurts, and I feel happy.
The Half Brother: A Novel Page 78
