by Dea Brovig
The port is gone now. No one lives on the islands. Whatever buildings were once there have been razed to the ground. Still people wonder. Still the whisperers whisper.
Else types a message with her thumbs:
Free at 1600. I’ll wait for you in the cemetery.
She punches the ‘send’ button. An envelope flies across her screen. She pockets the phone and sits on a bench to wait for the trawlers.
The wind is up when Else arrives at the churchyard. Throughout the afternoon, massing clouds have merged into a single, interminable strip and now the sky is dark and dense with unshed rain. A storm is coming. Else can smell it like a damp animal running rings, closing in.
Lars sits on the bench near her father’s grave. He has not brought his dog with him today. He stares over the tops of the tombstones at Else as she approaches, his head bowed, eyes unblinking. He leans forward to rest his arms on his thighs and clasp his hands. Is he praying? Else is glad they are alone.
She takes a seat beside him and waits for him to begin. In the silence, she reads the lettering on her father’s headstone. ‘Johann Dybdahl. 1927–1975.’ It occurs to her that she is older now than he was when he died.
Lars clears his throat. ‘What a weather,’ he says.
‘What a weather,’ says Else. ‘You could say that.’
The saliva is audible when he swallows. He licks his lips. ‘It’s Victoria,’ he says. ‘She won’t let it go.’
Else nods and her chest seems to shrink-wrap her heart.
‘I never thought …’ says Lars. ‘We only did it twice.’
Did it, Else thinks. As if they were still kids.
‘And all of that time, you were with the circus man. When did you start things up with him? When he was working on your barn? I used to wonder.’
Else remembers. She remembers Lars wondering aloud at the Gymnasium, holding court in front of the caretaker’s shed.
‘They had their spot right there in the cow shit. Her parents next door …’
‘… the size of a tree, like doing it with an animal …’
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Lars tells her now. ‘It’s none of my business any more. But I need to know if Marianne could be mine.’
Else closes her eyes. If Lars were Marianne’s father … She thinks of the weeks spent locked in her bedroom before Johann’s death, when she stared through the window at the cherry tree praying for Lars to rescue her, praying that the worst of her fears would not come true. She checked the cotton of her underpants several times a day and thanked God when finally her period started.
‘Look, Else,’ says Lars. ‘I don’t see how she can be, but Victoria has this idea. I suppose it’s possible. We’d have to do a test.’
‘A test,’ Else says.
‘A paternity test. I could arrange it.’
‘There won’t be any test,’ she says.
‘But we’d have to be sure. Think about it. If Liv and Andreas, someday …’ He grapples with the word. Hisses it through his teeth. ‘It would be incest. You realise that, right?’
‘There’s no need for a test. I know who Marianne’s father is.’
Else forces herself to meet Lars’s eyes. Her heart hammers her breastbone with each pump of blood.
‘It isn’t you,’ she says.
‘It isn’t me,’ says Lars.
‘Marianne’s father is the strong man.’
A strangled sound escapes Lars’s lips. He drags his fingers through his hair.
‘Thank God,’ he says.
He slumps in his seat as if the air has been let out of his muscles. Else half expects him to slide into the grass. An image winks across her retina of Valentin cradling a baby in his arms. It shores her up. She could almost believe that it was true.
Lars’s eyes are wet when they next find hers. She thinks he might take her hand, but he keeps his to himself. ‘The strong man,’ he says. ‘I knew it. I knew it was. I mean, I wondered, you know, back then. But you would have said if it were me, wouldn’t you? But Victoria’s been so sure. She said it didn’t make sense. People would’ve found out. She said there was no way you could have kept your affair with him a secret.’
‘I didn’t,’ says Else. ‘Everyone knows.’
‘That’s right. That’s right.’
He shakes his head and rubs his eyes. In the distance, the cloud flickers with lightning. Both Else and Lars glance at it. He wipes his palms on his jeans as thunder murmurs.
‘I have to go,’ he says.
Else nods. She fondles the tassels at the ends of her shawl, curling one tightly around her finger until the tip goes white. Lars stands.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks.
‘And why not?’ Else says.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says and turns to leave.
She almost stops him. What for? she wonders, but sees no point in asking. What difference would it make?
Lars hurries across the cemetery the way she arrived. He picks up his pace as he nears the church, no doubt anxious to put the scene behind him. Else does not blame him. She stays on the bench and feels the dread of discovery seep through the soles of her trainers into the soil. Marianne must never know.
‘Johann Dybdahl. 1927–1975.’
Else reads. She rereads while the thunder grumbles, closer this time. She waits for the first raindrops to spatter her jeans before setting off home.
Then
1975
THE CHURCH BELL’S lament carried on in an echo that wailed even after the ringing had stopped. It cancelled out the scuff of shoes, the rustle of Sunday suits, the congregation’s whispering. When it died away, only the beat of the rain disturbed the hush of flattened sound. Mist obscured the graveyard beyond the windows. The building was cold, but Else’s armpits prickled with heat. She sat alone with her mother on the first pew. Behind their backs, she could sense the mourners’ restlessness.
The organ’s prelude began. Soft and sombre, its notes dripped over the congregation before setting in a chord. A collective breath signalled the start of the opening hymn and Else’s gaze fell from the model schooner to her father’s casket, which stretched like a barrier to the altar. While her neighbours sang, Pastor Seip rose to his feet. His face was grim as he climbed down into the nave to take her mother’s hand. He moved on to Else and his fingers skimmed her palm, flaccid and watery as a jellyfish.
The minister returned to his place on the altar and leafed through his Bible until the end of the hymn. He allowed some moments of silence to build before lifting his head.
‘May the Lord bless you, and grant you mercy,’ he said. ‘Today we gather to mourn the passing of Johann Dybdahl. I know I speak for Dagny and Else both when I thank you for joining them in grief. Johann’s presence among us will be missed. “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.” So says Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, chapter fourteen. Johann has left his mark on those who survive him. He will not be forgotten. In death, he will live on in you.’
A trickle of sweat leaked from Else’s neck down her spine, gluing her blouse to the skin between her shoulder blades. Her mother touched a handkerchief to her nose. With the other hand, she squeezed Else’s wrist under the cuff of her sleeve.
‘Johann was born to Roy and Julianna Dybdahl on the thirteenth of September, 1927. The youngest of two children, he survived Berit, who died in infancy. He was a boy when he began work on the shrimp trawler that would be his livelihood until last October’s storm. He married Dagny Solvang from Lindesnes in 1955. Three years later, the Lord blessed them with Else, their only daughter.
‘Johann was born, lived, worked and died among us. He did not live to be an old man. The sea that sustained him for most of his forty-seven years, providing him and his family with their daily bread, saw him drowned in a terrible accident on the fourteenth of April. A tragedy, certainly, but a blessing, too, for the sorrows of the flesh are as nothing next to the bounties of heaven. It is not for us to question the workin
gs of the Lord, but rather to give thanks that Johann has been delivered from his trials on earth. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” So says the Gospel according to John, chapter three, verse sixteen.’
From the choir gallery, a loud sneeze sent a twitch through the mourners. Pastor Seip shot a glare at its perpetrator, then turned his back on the congregation and raised his hands at his sides.
‘Oh Lord,’ he called, ‘please welcome Johann Dybdahl to your bosom. Forgive his sins and grant him everlasting life. Help his loved ones take solace in the hope that they will one day be reunited with him in your kingdom.’
He continued to pray. Else peered at the coffin, her folded hands squeezing the shake from her fingers. Everlasting life. Pastor Seip must be mistaken. And yet, judging by the crowd at his funeral, it did seem that the town had put her father’s catalogue of failings to rest. The pews were crowded with mourners, whose contributions had turned his casket into a flowerbed. A wreath of roses had been arranged over the spot where his chest lay frozen behind the buttons of his suit jacket. ‘From Haakon Reiersen with family’, read the ribbon. Else had seen it before the service, when she and her mother had first arrived. Thinking of it now she had to close her eyes, to rein in her anger. What right did she have? She had as good as killed her father. In the eyes of the Lord, she was as guilty as he.
Pastor Seip stopped speaking and, again, the pipes of the organ wheezed. Lips parted for the second hymn, while the candles’ flames shimmered like holy tears on the altar.
‘Fold your wide wings, o Jesus, over me …’
The sheriff’s office had returned the verdict of death by drowning.
‘Aggravated by several knocks to the head sustained during his fall,’ Alv Knudsen had said. Else had watched the men arrive from her bedroom window. First Tenvik, who trailed after her weeping mother, and, later, Ole Haugeli. By the time Knudsen responded to Tenvik’s call, her father must have grown quite used to the mulch of the boathouse’s berth. Dagny fortified the trio with cake and chicory to ease the shock of what they had found. Then they fished the body out of the water. Else had sat on her chair, her forehead pressed to the glass as they hoisted her father off the property. He hung limp between Knudsen and Ole, his chin sagging to his chest like a drunk’s.
The final strains of the hymn faded. In the quiet that followed, Pastor Seip surveyed his flock. Else lowered her eyes to her knees and blinked away the nightmare vision of her father’s underwater scream. He could not hurt her now. She was glad he was dead.
‘Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Jesus is the way. The path to heaven is through Him, and through Him alone will we arrive at our salvation. Let us pray for the soul of Johann Dybdahl,’ said Pastor Seip, ‘that he find rest and peace in death. Let us pray for comfort in this, our time of sorrow, and for the strength and humility to accept the wisdom of the Lord. “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven …”’
Beside Else, her mother wiped the tip of her nose. Her lips moved over the invocation without making a sound.
They buried him in the cemetery. When Pastor Seip had finished preaching, six men strode forward from the nave – among them Knut Tenvik, Ole Haugeli and Tom Ivar Lund – and shared the weight of the casket between them. Pastor Seip followed the coffin down the aisle, while Else fell into step with her mother behind the minister. Pew by pew, the mourners joined them to see Johann out of the church.
The cemetery smelled of the thawed and rotting seaweed that the wind blew up from the harbour. Spring rain collected in puddles on the path which left a gritty film over Else’s patent leather shoes. She held an umbrella over her and her mother’s heads as they walked with arms linked to her father’s plot. The hole looked too small for his coffin. Even so, the pallbearers laid it in the straps of the pulley and, with a yank of the winch, the casket began to drop. It scraped the grave’s sides, screeching in protest as it went. Else half expected the noise to wake her father up.
‘O death, where is thy sting?’ said Pastor Seip. ‘O grave, where is thy victory?’
After the burial, they served coffee and cake. Tenvik drove Else and her mother the short distance to the bedehus, where Ninni and Solveig helped them bring the sugar cake and raisin Bundt from the kitchen up to the hall. The mourners filled their cups with real coffee and cream, while Else and her mother accepted commiserations from whosever hands were free.
‘Condolences,’ said Trygve Christensen.
‘A fine man,’ Esben Omland said.
Else tried to smile while her palm was pinched and shaken. Pastor Seip sat at the table beside her, wearing a pained expression as he nodded his acknowledgement of the well-wishers.
‘A tragedy,’ said Ingrid Bull.
‘Such a waste,’ said Gjertrud Sundt.
The women lingered for a moment, their eyes searching Else’s face. The scabs on her cheek itched where her mother’s needle had picked out the splinters. She felt exposed, stripped naked and turned out for all to see. She knew the rumours about the strong man had already started. Upstairs in the gallery, Lars had found a seat with Rune behind the rail. Petter had not come to the funeral.
Else stared at the coffee cup on the table in front of her and sucked a mouthful of air through her teeth. She burped behind her hand.
‘Are you all right?’ asked her mother across Pastor Seip. Else dabbed a handkerchief over the sweat that beaded her forehead. She swallowed her nausea and let the next mourner take her hand.
By four o’clock, most of those present had offered their sympathies to Dagny and Else. The rest hovered close to their table, waiting their turn to fulfil their Christian duty before going home. Else’s coffee had grown cold. She had not eaten her cake. She felt sick and hot under the layers of her clothing, her skin rubbed raw by buttons and seams and wool made tight by perspiration. She thanked the people whose hands rattled the bones in her arm. When Haakon and Karin Reiersen stepped forward, the room began to spin.
‘Dagny,’ Reiersen said. His fingers closed on her mother’s palm. ‘Our condolences, once again.’
‘Thank you,’ Dagny said.
‘How are you bearing up?’
‘As well as can be expected,’ she said.
‘A sad business,’ said Reiersen. ‘If there is anything we can do …’
He glanced at his wife, who blushed and leaned forward to kiss Dagny’s cheek.
‘Condolences,’ she said. She did not look at Else. Behind her, Lars stood with his hands in his pockets. He blinked at the floor. He followed his parents to the other side of the room.
‘Condolences,’ said Randy Fodstad.
‘Condolences,’ said Arne Kvinge.
The Reiersen family withdrew into the rain. Through the window, Else saw the Cadillac backing into the road.
The news of her romance with the strong man began in a whisper, like the rustle of leaves in a mounting wind. Else had been sneaking to the circus man’s trailer for weeks. She had contrived to have her parents hire him for their barn work; some said she had sabotaged the roof herself. More details emerged with the passing days to be exchanged at the fish market, at Berge’s bakery, in the churchyard after the Sunday service. Pastor Seip no longer spared a nod for her in the street. Twice, Lars’s mother crossed the road to avoid her.
Else waited for the ferry each morning as before, looking at the shipyard from the public dock while steeling herself to the other passengers’ stares and murmurs. Once aboard she stayed on deck where, as often as not, the weather would preserve her isolation. She stowed herself in a corner by the guardrail, welcoming the rain that pattered the canvas of her raised hood. At the Longpier, she disembarked. Hands shielded mouths; heads inclined to lips. The Devil is in her. She hurried along the harbour, her eyes on her boots all the way to s
chool.
Lars wasted no time in taking up with Gro Berge. They met at the caretaker’s shed at the start of the school break and reappeared at its end with rumpled clothes and sheepish grins. Else paced alone around the Gymnasium and kept her focus turned inwards. Sometimes Petter would desert Rune by the gate and join her for a round, ignoring the taunts that were aimed at his back. She wished that he wouldn’t. She greeted him with silence, wary of the fresh speculations his company would bring. Their classmates giggled when they walked by. Petter endured their ridicule, though she had not asked him to.
The snow had all but melted by May. At the edge of the schoolyard, the last of the ice clung like lichen to the asphalt. Else sat in Paulsen’s classroom and peered out of the window. Along the road, new leaves filled out the branches of the trees. Paulsen’s monotone dwindled to a hum in her ear, while her eyes strayed to a fragment of sun by the caretaker’s shed. The light seemed to seep into her vision, bleaching foliage and bark the colour of aging paper. She felt her brain cooking, then her stomach wrenched. Someone had eaten herring for breakfast. She could smell vinegar, onions and fish. She clamped her hand over her mouth.
‘Else! Where in the world are you going?’
Paulsen shouted after her when she ran from the room. At the end of the corridor, she burst into the girls’ toilets and dropped to her knees in the first cubicle. Tears dripped from her eyes into the cistern as she retched up that morning’s bread and jam. A new bout of nausea stirred her gut. She heaved and heaved.
She flushed the toilet when she had finished. She blew her nose and wiped her lips and rested her forehead on her arms until she was herself again. Her legs were leaden underneath her when she ventured from the cubicle. She moved to the sink and let the water chase the heat from her palms. Else splashed her face, rinsed her mouth and rubbed her neck with wet fingers. Her eyes glared back at her from the mirror, their whites tinged pink around the irises. Her skin was sallow, as pale as her father’s had been when they pulled him from the fjord.
