The Last Boat Home

by Dea Brovig

  ‘It is written in the Book of Jeremiah, “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.” No place is secret from God. The Lord sees all.’

  After the service Else shuffled down the aisle towards Pastor Seip, whose slight build blocked the doorway. As she approached, fear goaded her guilt. Beside her, her mother’s face was empty. She nodded when Solveig Haugeli wished her a good day. Her father cleared his throat, a soft shifting of mucus that repeated until he offered his hand to the minister.

  Pastor Seip considered Johann’s fingers as if studying his nails for dirt. He relented to a limp handshake.

  ‘It was a fine sermon,’ Dagny said.

  He pinched his lips and his eyes glossed over Else, who tripped outside and breathed in the mist that had drifted up from the fjord. It coiled around the headstones in celestial wreaths, winding and unfurling and wafting away. She hurried after her parents through the churchyard to Dronning Mauds gate.

  In the days that followed, Else helped her mother. She dusted and wrung cloths in buckets frothing with suds and peeled the potatoes that she carried up from the cellar. In the evenings after dinner, she attended to the sewing pile. A family of mice had made their nest over her bed. They scratched behind the ceiling beams throughout the night, when she would track their progress by the click of scampering feet and each second would hang like a threat in the air.

  On Friday afternoon when school was done, Else caught the ferry from town to the public dock. A sliver of colour wedged open the view to the horizon. The path home was slippery with slush which washed into new shoots sprouting in the mud at the roadside. Here and there a bootprint was moulded in ice, the grooves of its sole immortalised until spring.

  Else almost knocked into Pastor Seip when she took the bend by the Aaby farm. The minister blew his nose into a handkerchief, which he bunched and stuffed into his coat pocket. He drew himself up when he recognised her and marched purposefully on. She caught a whiff of chicory as he brushed by.

  Else stared at the dull rock of the mountain, at the frozen pebbles caught in its cracks, and wondered what Sigrid Aaby would do if she tapped on her door. How much time would she let her stay before sending Atle to fetch her mother? Down on the water, the Aaby boathouse straddled the ice that had shattered their pier during the winter. The Reiersen shipyard’s graving dock was still deserted on the opposite shore. Else’s eyes climbed the beams of its cranes and she remembered Valentin pointing at her father through the window. ‘You,’ he had said. The image grew dim. She walked home.

  The farmhouse was quiet when she snuck into the hallway, where she set down her satchel and unzipped her coat. The lights were off in the dining room. A pile of embers cooked in the oven. In the kitchen, unequal amounts of chicory cooled in three of onkel Olav’s cups. They stood on the counter waiting to be washed. Their porcelain was warm to the touch.

  Else sat in a chair by the dining table and searched her mother’s sewing basket for a needle. She managed to compose herself for long enough to pass a thread through its eye. She chose a sock from the pile and pushed the point of her needle into the wool at its heel, while a twist of smoke unwound from the oven to a stain on the ceiling the colour of burnt sugar.

  Winter flounced into the house when the front door opened, dispersing the smoke and the fire’s meagre heat. Else followed the tread of her father’s boots: three strides before he appeared in the dining room. His hair was dishevelled. His clothes hid muscles that years of seafaring had tacked to his bones. Her mother was at his elbow. Her eyes met Else’s and she knew what was to come.

  ‘There she is,’ Johann said. ‘We’ve been looking for you. You’ll never guess who’s been visiting.’

  He swayed on his feet. Else could smell him from where she sat.

  ‘Pastor Seip was glad to see us while you were out, was what he said. He wanted a word while you were out of the way.’

  He took a step forward.

  ‘Johann, no,’ Dagny said. She gripped his arm and he wheeled around. He smashed her cheek and she hit the wall and crumpled to the ground.

  Else sprang to her feet. ‘Mamma,’ she said, but she shrank when her father turned on her. He launched himself across the room. His palm closed over her throat.

  ‘In a shed,’ he said, ‘with the Reiersen boy. What were the two of you doing?’

  ‘Please,’ her mother said.

  His fingers squeezed. Else clawed at his wrists. Blood rolled between her ears. ‘Whore,’ he said.

  He let her go and she spluttered and gulped the stink of liquor into her lungs. Flames seared her throat. Hands tugged her hair and she cried out. The room was spinning; it whirled as he dragged her into the hall. Hair ripped from her skull. Her scalp was ablaze.

  ‘Stop it, stop it!’ screamed her mother. Her father threw a fist and she crashed into the sideboard and fell. Else stumbled beside him, the stairs beating her ankles as he hauled her up, his arm crushing her ribs. He shoved her down the corridor and into her bedroom, grabbed her shoulders and shook her until the walls rocked. Sobs spilled from her mouth when he dropped her on the floorboards. She crawled to a corner on her hands and knees and drew her limbs in and covered her ears with her hands.

  The door slammed. There was a grating in the keyhole.

  ‘No,’ Else said. She forced herself to stand. She staggered to the door. Its handle rattled in her fingers.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  On the bedroom floor, she folded herself up and turned her face to the wall. She heard her father on the stairs and then her mother started to scream.

  Now

  Summer, 2009

  ELSE GRASPS THE edges of the cake tin in her hands, pressing white dents into her thumbs as she climbs the drive to Lars and Victoria Reiersen’s home. Two columns of fir trees bow their crowns over the road on either side, blotting out the stripes of a mackerel sky. The track is wider than it used to be. A smooth swathe of asphalt steamrollers the dirt and gravel of her memory. She recalls zipping up this path long ago on the back of Lars’s moped. It is the last thing she should be thinking about now. With every step, the flutter of trespass almost sends her home.

  The house is smaller than she remembers. Else stops in the shade of a lilac tree and takes a moment to reacquaint herself with the building. Her eyes follow the vines up the gables to the roof, whose tiles gleam silver-black in the sun. Where Lars’s mother planted rhododendrons, he and his wife have a trimmed box tree. Potted hydrangeas lead the way up the slate steps to the front door. The garage is open. Bicycles and children’s scooters spill onto the tarmac, blocking the path of the Audi parked in the drive. The car must belong to Victoria. Lars’s BMW is nowhere to be seen. Rearranging her grip on the cake tin, Else carries on to the top of the stairs.

  She has rung the bell twice before Victoria answers the door. Victoria’s face lifts in surprise before falling in dismay. She stands with the nozzle of a Dyson forgotten in one hand as she gapes at her visitor.

  ‘Else,’ she says.

  For the first time all summer, Else notices the dark stains under her eyes. Her nails are bitten, her hair greasy at the roots. Victoria is childlike in a pair of tartan pyjama bottoms and an oversized T-shirt. The word ‘GIANTS’ is printed in green letters across her breasts, which prod the cotton in two sharp nubs.

  Else holds out the cake tin. ‘I brought a kringle,’ she says. ‘It’s a welcome gift.’

  ‘We’ve been here since June,’ Victoria says.

  ‘I know. I should have come earlier. Are you free for half an hour?’

  ‘All right,’ Victoria says.

  In a foyer that smells of antiques and old rainwear, Else leaves her shawl folded on top of her shoes. Victoria shows her into a hallway, whose brass chandelier is switched off and whose rug is thick under her bare feet. Ahead, the dining room is just as Else remembers it from the days when she would follow Lars through to the basement stairwell, stroki
ng the brocade chair backs with her fingers, all the while looking about her in hushed awe. Now, with his wife in front of her, it is the hush that returns. Each silver bowl and crystal figurine on display in the glass cabinets warns against being touched. Her memories of youthful capers are nudged off-kilter: they seem as out of place in this house as Victoria does. The younger woman pads in her socks over the floorboards. Her T-shirt swamps her frame down to her thighs.

  At least the kitchen is bright. Sunlight streams through the windows when they enter, melting the shadows from the buttercup walls. Liv had a hand in this. Else thinks of the paint splattered on her granddaughter’s miniskirt and is ashamed of the resentment she felt. She imagines Victoria withdrawing from the stuffiness of the house, gathering herself up on the kitchen bench and resting her chin in the pocket of her palms as she gazes at the fjord.

  Victoria fills the kettle and flips its switch once she has set it on its stand. She turns to Else and crosses her arms.

  ‘All I have is instant,’ she says.

  ‘That’s fine,’ Else says.

  ‘So. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I wanted to clear the air,’ Else says.

  Victoria blinks at her. She squints and Else has the impression she is weighing her words, deciding whether or not to say something. Why has she come here? Damage control. That is the real reason for this visit. Else has planned it on an afternoon when she knows Andreas and Thea have their weekly sailing lesson. Lars should be at the office for some hours yet – the national summer holiday ended on Monday. For her part, her time is her own until Eva Lund’s facial at three.

  Victoria reaches for two mugs from the corner cupboard and scoops a teaspoon of coffee granules into each. She tops them up with boiling water and opens the fridge for a carton of milk. ‘How do you take your coffee?’

  ‘Black,’ Else says.

  Her host carries the mugs to the kitchen table and invites Else to sit while she finds plates. Else chooses a chair, then watches her sink a blade into the cake she woke early this morning to bake.

  ‘Now that the air is clear,’ Victoria says, ‘what shall we talk about?’

  ‘How do you feel you’re settling in?’

  ‘Not as well as I’d hoped,’ Victoria says. ‘Of course, when you move to your husband’s hometown, you expect that you’ll run into one or two ghosts. But there are some things you can’t prepare yourself for.’

  ‘I can see how it might be difficult,’ Else says.

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘In the cemetery,’ she says and fiddles with the handle of her mug, ‘I wonder if you may have got the wrong idea.’

  ‘Oh?’ Victoria says.

  ‘Lars and I were only talking.’

  ‘Is that so?’ she says. ‘What were you talking about?’

  Else makes an effort not to frown when she thinks of Lars asking her about Marianne. ‘Our children.’

  ‘What about them?’ asks Victoria.

  ‘Lars wanted to know how Marianne likes her new job. It was as innocent as that.’

  An odd smile screws up a corner of Victoria’s mouth. She snatches at a crumb from the raisin-and-walnut filling that has leaked from the cake slice onto her plate, raising it to her lips and sucking the sugar from her fingers. Else is unnerved by her reaction. She wonders if she has misjudged the shape of her hurt. The image of her cowering in her kitchen breaks apart.

  ‘What about Liv and Andreas?’ Victoria says. ‘They seem to be getting on well, don’t you think?’

  ‘It seems so,’ Else says.

  ‘You don’t think that’s inappropriate?’

  ‘They’re eleven years old.’

  ‘For now,’ Victoria says. She stirs her coffee into a vortex, sets down her spoon, pinches the bridge of her nose. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

  ‘No,’ Victoria says. ‘No, of course you don’t.’ Her stare is firm, though her hands are trembling. Else is the first to look away.

  ‘The reason I came to see you,’ she says, ‘is to say that if Lars and I bump into each other from time to time – and we will, because this is a small town – then it’s neither my choice, nor is it my doing. If we can be clear on that point, then it’s as far as we have to agree.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Victoria says. Her lips twitch. All at once, her tone changes to one of saccharine sweetness. She glances around the room, waving a hand at the walls. ‘How do you like what we’ve done with the place? I gather you’ve been here plenty of times before.’

  ‘Not for many years,’ Else says.

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ says Victoria. ‘Not since Marianne was born.’

  Else pushes back her chair and stretches for her handbag on the floor. As she bends over, a rush of blood makes her head swim. She braces herself against her knees until the dizziness passes. When she sits up, she is stunned to see Victoria’s eyes are glossy with tears.

  Else stands and shoulders her handbag. ‘I’ll let myself out,’ she says.

  ‘Why not?’ says Victoria. ‘You know the way.’

  THE HOUSE IS quiet when Else arrives home after work. She hangs her shawl in the hallway and changes into her slippers, her ears straining as she does, though there is nothing to hear. Liv will not be back from her father’s until the weekend. She misses the buzz of the television set, the clop of Marianne’s heels on the stairs. With a shiver in spite of the balmy evening air, she makes her way into the kitchen and turns the radio on. She carries it with her to her bedroom and, setting it down beside the bathroom sink, begins to run herself a bath. While she waits for it to fill, she fumbles her mobile phone from her pocket and finds her granddaughter’s number on speed dial. It rings five times and segues into a pre-recorded response.

  ‘This is Liv’s phone. Leave a message.’

  ‘It’s me,’ Else says. ‘Ring me tonight before bed. Okay? I want to hear about your day.’

  Else hangs up but remains staring at the buttons, considering whether to try again. She leaves the phone by the radio and undresses for her bath.

  Afterwards, when she is dry and the radio has played Dire Straits for the second time that hour, she creeps in her bathrobe down the corridor to Liv’s bedroom. The door is open and she steps inside, wondering if it is possible to intrude on an eleven-year-old’s privacy. She stoops to rescue a pair of shorts from the floor as she passes, folding them and laying them at the foot of the bed. Once seated at the desk, she has an urge to rifle through its drawers for a diary, but stops herself. She presses the ‘On’ button at the corner of the computer. The machine whirs to life.

  Else guides the mouse’s arrow to the compass icon on the desktop and clicks it awake. ‘Google’ appears in a box on the screen. She hesitates, though it is not the first time she has given into curiosity since Marianne convinced her to buy a computer three years ago. Even so, she types the letters of the strong man’s name with a sense of apprehension. She has been unable to put the meeting with Victoria out of her mind. What’s going on here? The challenge ricochets between her ears, bruising the soft tissue of her self-preservation.

  Valentin Popov.

  She has never forgotten. She pushes ‘Return’ and waits for the results.

  There are 134,000 hits.

  Else scans the listings on the first page. She proceeds to the second, then to the third. Towards the bottom of the screen on page four, she finds the entry she is looking for.

  ‘Bienvenido a Circo Valentino!’

  The mouse’s arrow transforms to a pointing finger that hovers over the title. Else clicks. The website starts to load.

  From the top corners of the screen, two cartoon elephants trumpet the proclamation ‘Bienvenido a Circo Valentino!’ from their trunks. The letters dance between them, bold and golden against a dark, starlit sky. Under their bubble ears, other animals smile in cramped columns that run down the margins of the page. Lions, puppies, chimpanzees. A Big Top rises out of the ground at the c
entre of the pack, its mast crossing the poles of a handful of flags. Else clicks on a Union Jack and the title transforms to ‘Welcome to Circus Valentino!’ A menu presented in boxes along the bottom of the display directs her around the website: ‘Touring route’, ‘Ticket information’, ‘This year’s programme’. She chooses ‘About us’ and a fresh panel opens. Black-and-white pixels gain definition. With a hand pressed over her heart, Else peers at the image as it refines.

  Valentin stares out at her from an ochre-tinted photograph. He is young – younger, she thinks, than when he visited her town. His hair curls away from a face as wide and smooth as a pie dish. One shoe rests on a dumb-bell, which lies idle on the ground while he grins and holds a medal in the palm of his hand. With the other, he clutches a flag that is wrapped around his shoulders. The tallest of the men beside him only reaches his chin.

  Else begins to read the text that runs down the left side of the window:

  Born in 1948 in Sofia, Bulgaria, Valentin Popov showed himself to be a weightlifter of promise early in life. At the age of 16, he made his debut in the Light-heavyweight weight class at the European Weightlifting Championships. He took gold at the same event the following year.

  In 1967, Valentin joined the Moscow Circus and toured Europe as the troupe’s strong man. At the end of the season, he seized an opportunity to stay in the West, defecting from the Eastern bloc and joining a circus that was headed north. The next ten of more than twenty years performing as a strong man were spent travelling throughout Scandinavia. In total, he appeared in the manège in twelve countries with five different circuses.

  His experiences fuelled a dream of one day starting a circus of his own. In 1989, together with his wife, Flaviana, Valentin began hiring acts for a breathtaking, breakthrough programme. The now famous yellow-and-red Big Top was erected in Bari on opening night and, for the very first time, Valentin stepped into the manège as ringmaster. The audience’s response to the show was overwhelming and Circus Valentino was born.