by Maja Lunde
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
I took one step closer.
Fourteen-year-old Charlotte, my eldest daughter, was standing at the far end. Her eyes were on the window, but she was singing with all of her body. Her chest rose and fell in time with the melody. Perhaps it was her idea, all of it. She had always sung, hummed her way through childhood, with her head in her schoolwork or bent over the dishes, a melodious murmuring, as if the soft notes were a part of her movements.
She was the one who discovered me first. A light slid across her face. She nudged Dorothea, the precocious twelve-year-old. She quickly nodded to eleven-year-old Olivia, who turned her wide-open eyes towards her twin sister, Elizabeth. The two did not in any sense resemble each other in appearance, only in temperament. Both gentle and kind, and dumb as posts—they couldn’t understand arithmetic even if you were to nail the numbers onto their foreheads. In front of them a restlessness had begun in the ranks. The young ones were also about to discover me. Nine-year-old Martha squeezed seven-year-old Caroline’s arm. And Caroline, who always sulked because she really wanted to be the youngest, gave little Georgiana, who would have liked to have escaped being the youngest, a hard shove. No great cheer to the heavens above, they didn’t allow themselves that, not yet. Only the slightest irregularity in the singing betrayed that they had seen me. That, and weak smiles, to the extent that their singing, O-shaped mouths would allow.
A childish lump pushed forward in my chest. They did not sing badly. Not at all. Their narrow faces glowed, their eyes shone. They had arranged it all just for me. And now they thought that they had succeeded. That they had pulled it off—they had gotten father out of bed. When the song was over they would release the cheer. They would run jubilantly light-footed through the freshly fallen snow into the house and tell me about their own homespun miracle. We sang him well again, they would crow. We sang father well!
A cacophony of enthusiastic girls’ voices would echo in the hallways, bouncing back at them from the walls: Soon he will return. Soon he will be with us again. We showed him God, Jesus—the born-again. Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. What a brilliant, yes, truly dazzling idea it was to sing for him, to remind him of beauty, of the message of Christmas, of everything he had forgotten while bedridden, with the thing we call illness, but which everyone knows is something else entirely, although mother forbids us to speak about it. Poor Father, he is not well, he is as thin as a ghost, we have seen it, through the cracked-open door as we have crept past, yes, like a ghost, just skin and bones, and the beard he has let grow, like the crucified Jesus. He is beyond recognition. But now he will soon be among us once more, soon he will be able to work again. And we will once more have butter on our bread and new winter coats. That is in truth a real Christmas present. Christ is born in Bethlehem! But it was a lie. I couldn’t give them that gift. I did not deserve their cheers. The bed drew me towards it. My legs trembled, my new-born legs were unable to hold me upright any longer. My stomach knotted again. I gritted my teeth, wanted to crush the pressure in my throat. So I slowly pulled away from the window.
And outside the singing subsided. There would be no miracle today.
GEORGE
Autumn Hill, Ohio, USA, 2007
I picked Tom up at the station in Autumn. He hadn’t been home since last summer. I didn’t know why, hadn’t asked. Maybe I couldn’t bear to hear the answer.
It was a half-hour drive up to the farm. We didn’t say much. His hands just lay in his lap while we drove home. Pale, thin and silent. His bag lay beside his legs. It had gotten dirty. The floor of the pickup hadn’t been clean since I bought it. Dirt from last year, or the year before that, became dust on the floor in the winter. And the moisture from the snow melting on Tom’s boots trickled down and mixed into it.
The bag was new, the material stiff. Definitely bought in the city. And it was heavy. I was startled when I lifted it up from the ground at the bus station. Tom wanted to take it himself but I grabbed it before he had the chance—he didn’t exactly look as if he’d been working out a lot since the last time I’d seen him. You wouldn’t think he’d need anything but clothes. He was only going to be home on vacation for a week. And most of his things were already hanging on a hook in the hallway. His coveralls, boots, the hat with the earflaps. But he had clearly brought a load of books with him. Apparently he thought there would be a lot of time for that kind of thing.
He was standing waiting for me when I came. The bus had been early, or maybe I was late. I had to shovel snow in the yard before leaving.
“It doesn’t matter, George. He has his head in the clouds anyway,” said Emma, who stood and watched me, shivering with her arms hugging her chest.
I didn’t answer. Had to shovel snow. The snow collapsed like an accordion, light and new. I didn’t even break a sweat on my back.
She kept looking at me.
“You’d think it was Bush coming to visit.”
“Someone has to shovel here. You don’t do it.”
I looked up from the snow. There were white specks before my eyes. She smiled her crooked smile. I couldn’t help but grin back. We had known each other since school, and I don’t think one day had passed without our having exchanged exactly that smile.
But she was right. I was exaggerating with the shoveling. The snow wouldn’t stay, we’d had many warm days already, the sun came out and it melted away everywhere. This snowfall was merely the final gasp of winter and it would melt away in the course of a few days. I got carried away when I cleaned the john today, too. Behind the toilet, to be more exact. It wasn’t exactly normal behavior on my part. I just wanted everything to be spick-and-span, now that he was finally coming home. That he would see only the recently shoveled yard, and the clean john, and not notice how the paint was peeling on the south wall where the sun beat down, or that the gutter had come loose in the wind.
When we took him to college he was tan and strong, eager. For once he hugged me for a long time, and I could feel the strength of his upper arms as he embraced me. I thought of others who talked about how their children just got bigger and bigger every time they saw them, how you’re sort of startled when you see your offspring again after some time has passed. But that wasn’t the case with Tom. Now he had shrunk. His nose was red, his cheeks white, his shoulders narrow. And it didn’t exactly help that he shivered and hunched over, so he looked like a shriveled pear. His shaking did subside as we drove towards the farm, but he still sat like a weakling in the seat next to me.
“How’s the food?” I asked.
“The food? You mean at college?”
“No, on Mars.”
“Huh?”
“Of course at a college. Have you been anywhere else recently?”
He ducked down between his shoulders again.
“I just mean that . . . you look a bit undernourished,” I said.
“Undernourished? Dad, do you even know what that means?”
“Last I checked I was the one paying your tuition, so there’s no need to answer back like that.”
He fell silent. For a good while.
“But everything’s fine, then,” I said finally.
“Yes, everything’s fine.”
“So I’m getting my money’s worth?” I tried to grin, but from the corner of my eye saw that he wasn’t laughing. Why didn’t he laugh? He could have tried to go along with the joke, so we could have laughed off the awkward words, and maybe had a nice chat for the rest of the ride.
“Since your meals are paid for you could maybe make sure to eat a bit more,” I ventured.
“Yes,” was all he said. My temper flared up inside me. I only wanted for him to smile, but he just sat there with this stone-faced gravity. Better not say anything. Hold my tongue. But something compelled me.
“You couldn’t wait to get away, could you?”
Was he angry now? Would we get into that again?
“Dad.”
“Yes. Just kidding. Again.”
I swallowed the rest of my words. Knew that I might possibly say a whole lot of things I would regret if I continued now. It wasn’t supposed to start like this, not when he had finally arrived.
“I just mean . . . ,” I said, trying to soften my voice, “you seemed happier when you left than you do now.”
“I am happy. OK?”
“OK.”
End of story. He was happy. Very happy. So happy that he was jumping up and down. Couldn’t wait to see us, see the farm again. Hadn’t thought of anything else for weeks. Obviously.
I cleared my throat, even though it wasn’t scratchy. Tom just sat there, with those quiet hands of his. I swallowed a lump, but something lay there, squeezing. What had I been hoping for? That a few months apart would turn us into buddies?
Emma held Tom in her arms for a long time. As before, she could still squeeze and nuzzle him without him minding.
He didn’t notice the freshly shoveled yard. Emma had been right about that. But he didn’t care about the paint that was peeling off the wall, either, and that was a good thing . . .
No. Because really I wanted him to notice both. And that he would pitch in, now that he was finally home. Take responsibility.
Emma served meat loaf and corn, large portions on the green plates. The yellow corn shone brightly and steam rose from the cream sauce. There was nothing wrong with the food, but Tom ate only half of his helping, didn’t touch the meat. Apparently he had no appetite for anything. Not enough fresh air, that was the problem. We would do something about that now.
Emma asked and pried. About school. Teachers. His classes. Friends. Girls . . . Didn’t get much of an answer to the last question, not exactly. But the talk between them flowed smoothly nonetheless, the way it always had. Even though she asked more than he answered.
They had always had something special, those two. The words didn’t get stuck between them. Their closeness didn’t seem to require any effort. But of course, she was his mother.
She was enjoying this, had rosy-red cheeks, kept her eyes on Tom the whole time, was unable to keep her fingers off of him, had months of missing him in her hands.
I was quiet for the most part, tried to smile when they smiled, laugh when they laughed. After the flop of a conversation in the car, it wasn’t worth taking any chances. I would have to look for the right occasion to initiate the so-called father-son talk instead. It would come. He was going to be here for a week.
I just enjoyed the meal, emptied my plate, at least someone here knew how to appreciate good food. I sopped up the sauce with a piece of bread, laid my silverware across the plate and stood up.
But then Tom wanted to stand up, too. Even though his plate was still half-full. “Thank you.”
“You have to eat the food your mother has prepared,” I said. I tried to sound breezy, but it might have come out a little sharp.
“He’s eaten a lot already,” Emma said.
“She’s been at it for hours, getting dinner ready.” That was strictly speaking an exaggeration.
Tom sat down again. Lifted his fork.
“It’s only meat loaf, George,” Emma said. “It didn’t take that long.”
I wanted to object. She had worked hard, no doubt about it, and she was so excited about having Tom home again. She deserved for him to know that.
“I had a sandwich on the bus,” Tom said to his plate.
“You filled up right before coming home to your mother’s cooking? Haven’t you missed it? Have you had better meat loaf anywhere else?”
“Sure, Dad, it’s just that . . .” He fell silent.
I avoided looking in Emma’s direction, knew that she was staring at me with pinched lips and eyes signaling to stop.
“It’s just that what?” Tom pushed his food around a bit on his plate.
“I’ve stopped eating meat.”
“What!”
“Now, now,” Emma said quickly and started to clear the table.
I remained seated. It fell into place. “No wonder you’re scrawny.”
“If everybody were a vegetarian, there would be more than enough food for the entire world’s population,” Tom said.
“If everyone were a vegetarian,” I mimicked and stared at him over the rim of my water glass. “Human beings have always eaten meat.”
Emma had stacked the plates and serving dish into a tall pile. It rattled perilously.
“Please. I’m sure Tom has thought this through carefully,” she said.
“I don’t believe it.”
“I’m not exactly the only vegetarian,” Tom said.
“We eat meat on this farm,” I said and stood up so abruptly that the chair fell to the floor.
“Now, now,” Emma said again and cleared the table with jerky movements. She sent me another one of her looks. It didn’t say Stop this time. It said Shut up.
“It’s not as if you’re in pork production,” Tom said.
“What does that have to do with it?”
“What difference does it make to you if I don’t eat meat? As long as I keep eating honey.”
He sniggered. Amiably? No. A bit cheekily.
“Had I known that going to college would make you like this I never would’ve sent you.” The words grew as I talked, but I was unable to hold them inside all the same.
“Of course the boy has to go to school,” Emma said.
Of course, that was apparently as clear as the first night of frost. Everyone had to go to school.
“I got all the education I needed out there,” I said and waved my hand vaguely, trying to indicate the east where the field with some of the hives lay, but discovered too late that I was waving to the west.
Tom couldn’t even be bothered to reply.
“Thank you.” He cleared his plate quickly and turned towards Emma. “I’ll take care of the rest, too. Just go ahead and sit down.”
She smiled at him. Nobody said anything to me. They both avoided me: she crept out to the living room with the newspaper, and he put on an apron, he actually did that, and started scrubbing the pots.
My tongue had dried up. I took a sip of water, but it didn’t help much.
They walked around me. I was the elephant in the room. Except that I wasn’t an elephant, I was a mammoth. An extinct species.
TAO
If I have three grains of rice, and you have two, and we put them together, how many does that make?”
I took two grains of rice from my plate and placed them on Wei-Wen’s plate, which was already empty.
The faces of the children were still with me: the tall girl tilting her face towards the sun and the boy whose mouth stretched open in an unwitting yawn. They were so tiny. And Wei-Wen was so big all of a sudden. He would soon be just as old as they were. In other parts of the country there were schools for a select few. Those who would become leaders, those who would assume responsibility. And who were spared having to work out there. If only he excelled enough, stood out as one of the best at a young age . . .
“Why are there three for you and only two for me?” Wei-Wen looked down at the grains of rice and pouted.
“I have two, then, and you have three. There.” I switched the grains of rice on our plates. “How many does that make when we put them together?”
Wei-Wen placed his whole stubby fist on the plate, moved it around as if he were finger painting.
“I want more ketchup.”
“Oh, Wei-Wen.” I firmly removed his hand, it was sticky after the meal. “It’s may I have more ketchup.” I sighed, pointed at the rice grains once more. “Two for me. And three for you. Then we can count. One, two, three, four, five.”
Wei-Wen wiped one hand across his face, leaving behind a streak of ketchup on his cheek. Then he reached for the bottle. “May I have more ketchup?”
I should have started earlier. This one hour was all we had together ev
ery day. But I often squandered it, spending the time on eating and cozy pastimes. He should have made more progress by now.
“Five grains of rice,” I said. “Five grains of rice. Right?”
He gave up trying to get hold of the bottle and threw himself back into his chair with such force that the chair legs hit against the floor. He often acted like this, with large, dramatic movements. He’d been robust ever since he was born. And content. He’d started walking late, not having the necessary restlessness inside of him. He was content to remain seated on his bum, smiling at everyone who talked to him. And there were many who wanted to, because Wei-Wen was the kind of baby who smiled easily.
I took the bottle containing the red substitute and poured some out onto his plate. Maybe he would cooperate now. “There. Help yourself.”
“Yeah! Ketchup!”
I took two more dried grains of rice from the bowl on the table.
“Look here. Now we have two more. How many does that make?”
But Wei-Wen was busy eating. There was ketchup all around his mouth now.
“Wei-Wen? How many does that make?”
He emptied his plate again, looked at it a bit and lifted it up. He started making rumbling sounds, as if it were an old-fashioned airplane. He loved old vehicles. Was obsessed with helicopters, cars, buses, could crawl around on the floor for hours on end and create roads, airports, landscapes for transport vehicles.
“Wei-Wen, please.” I swiftly took the plate away from him and put it down, out of his reach. Then I continued pointing at the cold, dried grains of rice.
“Look here. Five plus two. How many does that make, then?”
My voice trembled slightly. I covered it up with a smile, which Wei-Wen didn’t notice, because he was reaching for the plate.
“I want it! I want the airplane! It’s mine!”
Kuan cleared his throat. He was in the sitting room having a cup of tea with his legs on the table and he stared at me over his teacup, demonstratively relaxed.
I ignored both of them and started to count. “One, two, three, four, five, six, and . . . seven!” I smiled at Wei-Wen, as if there were something extraordinary about these seven grains of rice. “Altogether that makes seven. Right? Do you see? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.”
