Across the China Sea

by Gaute Heivoll

  The winter I was in Kvås, Ingrid and Erling were sent to Kristiansand to be sterilized at the hospital on Tordenskjoldsgata, just like Nils and Lilly seven years earlier. They traveled the forty kilometers to the coast, and the forty kilometers home again. I heard nothing more about it, so assumed it happened without protest. They came back after a few days, looking the same as when they left. A few years later, Sverre was sterilized too. And with that, it was certain there would never be any descendants from Rebekka and Hertinius Olsen’s large flock of children.

  8.

  The years went by. Nils came of age. Erling came of age. Of age in theory, yet still children. The wind swept the leaves off the trees, sending golden ripples into the air. The rag rugs froze to the floor. White anemones trembled in the spring. Perhaps they heard the distant hurrahs from the Constitution Day parade at Brandsvoll. Perhaps they heard the old church bell chime in the west. The bird perched motionless on the sandbar. Snow fell in the darkness outside as Lilly prayed the evening prayer. In the meetinghouse, the angel hovered behind the podium with outstretched arms, as if holding a child.

  Time flowed through the house.

  Now and then, important things happened.

  In the fall of 1954 Papa had a visit from an old acquaintance, a man named Oldervik, the parish pastor in Birkenes. They had known each other as students at Diakonhjemmet hospital in Oslo. Afterward, Oldervik had continued his studies at the Norwegian School of Theology and become a pastor; many years later Papa invited him to our parish to give the Sunday sermon. Oldervik arrived on a Saturday in October and stayed with us overnight. He slept in the small bedroom, in the bed where Tone and I had slept. Standing outside with Papa, Oldervik saw Matiassen, who sat warmly dressed in the October sun under the ash tree. Then Papa gave Oldervik a tour of the house, as he always did with new guests. Oldervik met Josef, who showed him his room, the books, and the smiling photograph on his Border Resident card. Finally, they went to see the five siblings, who were sitting around the table.

  Lilly had hastily seated the siblings, as if they were about to eat a meal, but they had neither plates nor food on the table. It seemed a bit artificial. They all sat looking at one another with folded hands, then Lilly started singing the table grace, which was “Blessed Lord” of course, and the others joined in: Erling almost silently, Nils and Sverre with children’s voices as usual, Ingrid howling softly. A strange silence followed. The table grace had been sung, there was no food on the table, and none appeared to be coming. Papa and Oldervik just stood in the doorway. Everyone waited, but nobody quite knew what they were waiting for.

  “This is the parish pastor from Birkenes,” said Papa, entering the room.

  Lilly glanced at him and her chair scraped the floor as she got to her feet with studied dignity.

  “Stand in a row,” she commanded.

  All five shook hands with Pastor Oldervik from the distant town of Birkenes. Erling became so enthusiastic he wanted to shake hands with everybody, he shook hands with Papa as if it were the first time they had met; he laughed and his head wobbled and saliva ran from his mouth, and finally he pulled his sweater over his head.

  Oldervik was silent the whole time.

  The next morning Papa and Josef went to church with Oldervik; they sat next to each other on the hard pew and listened to the sermon. That was when the odd thing happened. Well into his sermon, Oldervik suddenly stopped speaking. He raised his eyes and gazed out at the congregation. There wasn’t a sound. All eyes were focused on the unfamiliar pastor standing in the barrel-shaped pulpit surrounded by the three evangelists, and it was clear to everyone that he had lost his train of thought. He began paging hastily back and forth in the Bible, flies buzzed in the window above God’s eye, the imprint of Jesus’s foot was still faintly visible on the ashen ground. Finally, Oldervik took off his glasses, laid the Bible aside, and began to tell what he had seen at Mama and Papa’s home the previous day. He told about Matiassen, who sat rocking under the ash tree and apparently did nothing but chew his saliva; he told about Nils, and about Erling, who had oatmeal all over his face before they left that morning. He told about Ingrid, who could not speak and just howled softly, almost like a song, but without a melody. Everything had made a strong impression. Everything. Not just poor Matiassen. But also the whole flock of mentally disabled siblings. Two sisters, three brothers, all mentally disabled. It was almost unbelievable. Oldervik stood there in the pulpit and confessed that he’d had difficulty sleeping the night before. He had lain awake thinking about these poor people, who perhaps could not be called people, who perhaps reminded one most of animals. It had shaken him. Perhaps they were in fact more animal than human. He had prayed to Our Lord and read his Bible, but nonetheless he was still shaken.

  Who could know if they thought like humans?

  He did not say anything about Josef, who was, after all, sitting in a pew with a hymnbook in his lap and the Border Resident card in his jacket pocket and following everything attentively.

  The incident made Papa furious.

  After Oldervik left Sunday evening, Papa had to take a long walk alone. While he was away it started to rain, and he came back soaking wet.

  This was the third time they had been compared to animals. The first time was in the report when Child Welfare in Stavanger took the children away; the second time was by the bus driver at the milk platform; the third time was from the church pulpit, by the parish pastor from Birkenes himself.

  The sight of Matiassen and the siblings and simple-minded Josef had raised fundamental questions about what it means to be human. Perhaps a natural reaction. Perhaps a natural question. Oldervik had caught a glimpse of them; he had caught a glimpse of himself as well. And he hadn’t been sure what he saw. Papa had needed to take a long walk in the rain. When he came back he didn’t say a word, but he was more forgiving, and went upstairs to take care of Matiassen.

  After that he often spoke about the Oldervik incident. Still indignant, yet lenient, as if the whole thing had been a misunderstanding. Of course they were human. They were happy children. God wanted them to be happy children.

  9.

  Of course they were human, Matiassen too. Nobody knew how long he’d sat out there on his stool under the ash tree. If one added up all the hours, it must have been months, maybe years. Every day he came out carrying his stool. He walked the few meters over to the tree, and it might take him several minutes of trial and error before he got the stool placed exactly as it had stood the day before, and the day before that. It was a life’s work in itself: to sit there chewing his saliva, in exactly the same spot, every day, spring, summer, and fall, when the weather allowed, for more than twenty years. No one took his spot, and no one knew what he had seen. The shimmering light from imprisoned souls. Or only clouds and sky, wind and nothing.

  We were all sure Matiassen couldn’t speak, but one evening when I was home for a visit—it must have been near the end of the fifties—I heard an unfamiliar voice upstairs.

  Herga perga, haura baura.

  Papa put his index finger to his lips.

  “Listen,” he whispered.

  I glanced at Mama.

  “Who is that?”

  We sat quietly looking at one another as we listened to the muttering voice above us, and after a while I realized who was speaking. Matiassen was pacing around his room, where he now lived alone, repeating the same jingle over and over again. Slowly, calmly, monotonously, as if trying to lull himself to sleep.

  Herga perga, haura baura.

  “He’s started to talk,” Mama said softly. “Matiassen has started to talk.”

  The three of us listened and exchanged glances, as if the strange words up there were really meant for us.

  Herga perga, haura baura.

  Herga perga, haura baura.

  “I hope he doesn’t bump into the stove,” whispered Papa.

  We waited silently as we heard Matiassen move closer and closer to the wood-burning stove next
to the door, and I realized that Mama and Papa had heard the same thing many times before, because suddenly there was a shriek from upstairs; the voice instantly became loud and shrill and the jingle went twice as fast.

  Hekka pekka hekka pekka hekka pekka!

  Matiassen had crossed the Atlantic twice, he had seen two continents, and he had also seen how human souls could shine if a person was trapped long enough in total darkness. Once I asked him if he had been to America, once I asked why he didn’t have shoelaces, and, one time only, I touched him. Later I showed Ingrid and Erling how Matiassen drooled saliva if he was teased enough and felt he had to open his mouth. I simply waved a piece of straw in front of his face; he held out for a long time, but finally he opened his mouth and the saliva trickled out, yet he never said a word. Not until near the end of his life, and then as a message possibly meant for us. Matiassen always just sat there rocking calmly, the way the ash tree branches swayed above him in the breeze. For perhaps fifteen years he had not said a word, but then—after Jensen died and he was alone in the room—he began to speak a secret, pleading language.

  Only once did he become really angry, in fact furious. The cause was unclear. Matiassen and Papa were alone upstairs. They had some sort of disagreement. Matiassen was suddenly beside himself with rage, the saliva flowed, his eyes flashed. He grabbed his stool, raised it over his head, and came toward Papa, ready to strike. Papa grabbed another stool that happened to be there, raised it over his head, just like Matiassen, and they headed toward each other with the stools raised, and neither knew who would strike first. It was very strange. Matiassen, who had been locked in his own blind fury, stiffened the moment he saw what Papa did. He stood there without moving, still holding the stool over his head, but then he lowered it slowly, and stared at Papa in astonishment.

  A moment of calmness, a moment of clarity. Suddenly he saw himself, and Papa, and the whole absurd situation. He lowered the stool and carefully set it down on the floor, and Papa did the same. They stood looking at each other, then Papa started to laugh. Matiassen had seen himself. It lasted a few seconds. And perhaps this was the only time.

  Matiassen sat under the ash tree less and less. That final summer Papa carried him downstairs in the morning and Matiassen would sit in his spot for a few hours while bees hummed in the treetop overhead. It must have been the summer of 1961. Countless shadows fell gently onto Matiassen’s shoulders, his stool creaked in its joints. Then late one afternoon, the stool collapsed under him, leaving Matiassen helpless on his back in the grass. Papa had to use a fireman’s carry, which he hadn’t done since that summer day sixteen years earlier before the big thunderstorm; he walked to the house with Matiassen dangling over his shoulder, while the stool lay in pieces under the tree. After the sun went down, a woodcock flew across the cloudless sky above the house, and the summer evening echoed with hammering and pounding as Papa put the stool together in the yard and strengthened it with strong nails.

  Things slowly went downhill with Matiassen. In the end Mama and Papa were no longer able to have him at home. One winter day an ambulance picked him up and took him to Heslandsheimen hospital, outside Mandal. His stool was left upstairs, stronger and more solid than ever. It must have been thrown away later. I never saw it again.

  When spring came, nobody sat rocking under the ash tree. There was only the wind in the grass, the bees in the treetop, the clouds in the sky. At Heslandsheimen, Matiassen had his own room and a new steel chair with a padded seat. On good days he sat rocking in his chair in the middle of his room, and after a while there were deep depressions in the linoleum floor. It was no longer so necessary to place the chair in an exact spot; besides, no one moved it, or took it in because it started to rain. His chair stood there when he slept, and it stood there when he awoke.

  The good days gradually became fewer. More and more often he just lay in bed staring at the ceiling, while his jaw went up and down at a furious pace. Papa visited him twice; both times the chair stood in the middle of the floor and Matiassen lay in bed.

  Just before Christmas 1962 Mama and Papa drove the Ambassador the forty kilometers to Heslandsheimen in order to visit Matiassen. It was the third visit since he had moved. They brought Christmas cookies and hard candies and caramels from the Brandsvoll store, so he could chew on something besides his saliva.

  They inquired at the administration office, and were asked to wait.

  Mama and Papa sat down in a small cluster of comfortable chairs, holding the gifts for Matiassen in their laps. Nearby was a Christmas tree decorated with paper chains, tinsel, flags. Heslandsheimen reminded them of Dikemark: the same corridors, the same indefinable smell, doors that locked from the outside. Christmas decorations that would not break.

  After a few minutes, a nurse came and told them Matiassen had died.

  Papa rose abruptly, letting the gifts fall to the floor.

  “He’s dead? He can’t be dead!”

  It had happened in the spring. The room had been cleared out. It had been scrubbed, aired. His chair stood in the corridor. The marks on the floor were impossible to remove. When Mama and Papa arrived, Matiassen had been dead for more than half a year, but no one had notified them. The staff at Heslandsheimen had been told that Matiassen had no children or family, which was true as far as that went.

  They stood for a few minutes to collect their thoughts that December day in 1962. They let the news sink in. Then they got ready to leave. Papa slapped his cap against his thigh, he helped Mama put on her coat, and before they left they put the bag of Christmas gifts for Matiassen under the tree, and said:

  “Please give this to someone. It’s for someone. For someone from us.”

  Then they left.

  It was snowing heavily in the parking area outside Heslandsheimen. The shoulders of Papa’s coat turned white, Mama shook the snow from her shawl. They looked up toward Matiassen’s room, where another man was now living. Then they got into the Ambassador, Papa started the engine, and they drove home in the falling snow.

  Matiassen was gone. No one knew how long he had sat under the ash tree, no one knew what he’d actually seen, but when he stood in front of Papa with the stool raised over his head, he saw himself.

  I’ve decided to believe that’s how it was.

  PART FOUR

  1.

  The three photographs were tucked into Mama’s confirmation Bible. They had been taken in Oslo in the fall of 1945. In one she is standing by the equestrian statue in front of the Royal Palace, in the second she is in front of the Parliament building with the Freia clock in the background, and in the third she is standing beside the bronze lion outside the Kunstnernes Hus art gallery next to the Palace Park. Grandpa must have taken the pictures. He must have put them in an envelope and sent them to the Vatneli postmaster after Mama had gone home. She must have chosen to keep them. At that time she was thirty-six years old, and had lost her youngest child just a few months earlier. She stands in her gray winter coat with the belt hanging loosely; her stomach has gotten so big she can’t button her coat properly. Her hand rests lightly on the lion’s mane. She is pregnant. She’s not smiling, but neither does she seem sad or dejected. She stands with her hand on the lion’s mane while the bronze animal clings to what is actually a flagpole, ready to tear to pieces anyone who might come close.

  If anything, she seems afraid.

  On the first blank pages of the confirmation Bible she has written a few facts about Tone. About her birth, the blackout curtains, the clouds coming in from the sea, the soldiers singing, the sounds of the city, the rain at night. She has also noted a few things about Tone’s baptism, about Knud Tjomsland, who preached on the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, verses 2–9. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.

  At that point, the writing stops.

  Perhaps she had planned to continue as Tone got older. At any rate, the final note is about the baptism. Nothing about Astrid. Maybe she didn’t dare.

  I found the pict
ures the evening after Anna’s visit. As I emptied the last drawers in the writing desk, there lay Mama’s confirmation Bible. I opened it and the photographs fell out. In one, Mama stood with her hand on the lion’s mane; in another, she stood with the Freia clock in the background. The picture was taken shortly before two o’clock in the afternoon one fall day in 1945. I happened to remember something Mama once said in passing: I’ve always felt like an old person. Maybe that was true. From the time she was thirty-six she was an old person.

  Instead of continuing to work that evening I put on a jacket and went out onto the front steps. It was chilly, but not yet completely dark; light still lingered in the western sky. I saw the pine trees behind the house, the contours of the treetops toward the east.

  I walked through the damp evening grass and paused not far from the house. All the windows were dark, except for the living room and upstairs in Josef’s room, where I’d forgotten to turn off the ceiling light. I saw the filmy white curtains dancing slightly in the heat of the electric radiator. Otherwise nothing. Then I strolled around the house and stood on the hill gazing across the field and down to Anna’s house. There was a faint glow from the small lamps in her living room, and the white light of a fluorescent bulb shone above her kitchen counter. I saw the fruit trees in their garden, where a wooden ladder leaned up into one of the trees. Hans must have set the ladder there two years ago in the fall, I thought. He had taken it off the two hooks behind the shed and set it there before he slowly climbed up. It must have been one of the last things he did. The apples were left hanging. The snow came. The ladder stood there. Anna hadn’t managed to move it, so it just stayed there.