A Summer of Drowning

by John Burnside

  I shook my head but, after a moment’s hesitation, I started back with her to the house. I knew, now, that she didn’t believe I had seen anything, but she didn’t want to press it, she wanted to go slowly, putting the pieces of the puzzle together carefully till she understood what was going on. She had decided that I was seeing things – and, at that moment, the whole thing seemed ridiculous, a trick my mind had played on me, a leftover from one of Kyrre’s old tales. After all, why would a grown man take a boat that wasn’t his, then steer it out into the current and slip overboard? Which was something I hadn’t seen him do, anyhow. I had inferred, but I hadn’t seen. How could I be a witness to something that I hadn’t actually witnessed? Of course I understand, now, that she wasn’t concerned about what had or hadn’t happened, she was concerned about me. There I was, talking about how Maia was the one who had drowned the Sigfridsson boys, and now, by some strange enchantment, had forced Martin Crosbie out into the Sound, to die as they had, in cold, calm water. How could a mother not worry, when her child talks like that? She was my mother, and it was me she had to take care of, not some lost girl or some phantom suicide who might not even be real. And that was what she did. She took care of me. She got me back to the house and sat me down in the kitchen. Then she went to the phone and called someone. I never discovered who, but it was a real call, to someone who asked questions that she answered and then, it seems, reassured her about something. It was a brief call, but she made it. Then she gave me some akevit, which I surprised myself by drinking, and sat with me till I agreed to go to bed. I could see that she was worried, but I could also see that she was working to a script: calm words, a little alcohol, sleep. Things would be better in the morning. Everything would be explained. In the morning, I would wake and, like Alice, I would see that it was all nothing more than a curious dream.

  It wasn’t a dream, though. Late in the summer, with the first suggestion of returning night, cool pockets of darkness formed along our garden walls in the small hours, a soft, almost powdery shade gathered in pools here and there on the blown meadows, and Martin Crosbie disappeared into Malangen Sound, while three people did nothing to help him. I was one of those witnesses, and though, when he fell, I was too far away to do anything, I didn’t even try to save him. Then afterwards, when he was gone, I didn’t even try to testify as to what happened, or the part that Maia must have played in his death. Why? I know I couldn’t have saved him, but I could have told someone other than Mother about what I had seen. But I didn’t, and that wasn’t because Mother doubted me, or because I was reluctant to cause trouble for Maia – her sudden disappearance, which Mother had also witnessed, surely implicated her in what had happened, and even if she had done nothing to cause it, she certainly made no effort to prevent Martin Crosbie’s death. No: the reasons weren’t even that logical. The fact is that I didn’t say anything because I was confused: confused by the calm on the water, confused by the light and the unreality of it all, confused by that sense I’d had, watching him go out in the boat, that Martin had been happy during the last minutes of his life, happy as he hadn’t been in years, and maybe happier than he had ever been before. I was confused because I couldn’t shake off the idea that he’d done what he did because he wanted to drown, and whatever it was I thought I had seen, and whatever I could have said that I had witnessed – which was, I realised, something altogether different – it was only the shell of the experience, a purely external matter that had nothing to do with the essential story: a story that was neither a murder, nor a suicide, but a natural event, like a rainstorm, or a bird migration.

  The next day was rainy and overcast, and there was a darkness over the meadows that made everything seem on the point of vanishing, shorebirds flickering out of the grey air and gliding a moment before they disappeared, like the props in some old-fashioned magic trick, gusts of wind taking form as they rippled through the grass, only to melt away at the fence lines and verges, something then nothing, the entire coastline and everything on it an illusion, from the dripping birches at the edge of our garden to the mountains on the far shore of the Sound. On days like those, I was happiest at home, curled up on the chair with a picture book and listening to the sound of the rain dripping from the eaves. Or I would sit in the kitchen, drinking coffee and staring out at the grey sky, enjoying the stark cleanness of it all, the whole world streaming with water, the colour bled from every leaf and blade of grass till there was nothing but white and grey, like a Hammershøi painting. That day, though, I stayed home because I didn’t want to go out and risk seeing Maia again. I had tried telling myself that she would surely have left the island, now that Martin was gone and she had nowhere to stay, but I couldn’t be sure of that, and besides, where else would she go? Her mother was a drunk and her father had run away, so what else did she have, other than this hytte and its recent memories of a man she had watched drown himself, a man she had presumably loved, after her fashion? I had seen that look on his face, as he stood up in the boat, preparing to vanish into the cold water, and I had no doubt that Maia had seen it too. Everything I had seen told me that Martin Crosbie had been happy when he died – and I could think of no other cause for that happiness than the girl who had stood calmly on the shore, waiting for him to vanish into the water.

  She had watched for a long time after the last ripple faded – and I know now that I should have understood much sooner what was happening. After what had happened with the Sigfridsson boys, I should have guessed the danger Martin Crosbie was in. As soon as I saw the boat, I should have acted. I should have run down to the boathouse or even called out across the meadows and broken the spell that seemed to have fallen over them both, maybe scared her into calling him back – though I already knew, even as I watched them slide the boat down the beach and into the water, that there was nothing to be done. And, if I am honest, I have to admit that, even then, even in that first moment of realisation, I didn’t want them to know that I was watching. I didn’t want to be a witness. From the very beginning, or at least, for as long as I could remember, I had understood that this is the first law of the observer: never be a witness. The true observer is permitted to see what no one else sees on one condition, and that is that she never tells. This is what distinguishes her from the witness, or the casual passer-by. I can even say that this is what distinguishes her from the painter. Because painting is also a way of bearing witness. When Mother shows her work in some gallery in Oslo or London, she is giving away what she has seen, and so the secret is betrayed – and it strikes me, now, that she knew that all along, and that was why she stopped painting portraits. Or rather, that was why she abandoned the portrait she had set out to make of me. She wanted to keep that look a secret.

  I didn’t want to be a witness and I knew, anyhow, that Martin Crosbie was beyond help – but the real reason, the secret reason why I didn’t do anything, was that I desperately wanted not to be seen again by that girl. By Maia. I didn’t want her to know that I had been watching them all along and I didn’t want her to think of me as a witness to something that, for whatever reason and according to whatever twisted logic, belonged to her and to Martin Crosbie and nobody else. I didn’t want her to see that I had seen, because – and this is the terrible thing, this is the one thing that I cannot get out of my head, even now – I didn’t want her to know that I had understood, not only that Martin was happy at the moment when he let go of the side and vanished into the still, pearl-coloured water, but also that she, Maia, the pretty tomboy I had seen around town all my life, the waiflike girl we all avoided and felt sorry for, had been transformed, at that moment, into someone – or something – unreasonably, and quite inexplicably, beautiful. It sounds ridiculous, now, but I know what I saw. I cannot forget it. For as long as she stood there, at the water’s edge, looking out to where the empty boat now sat bobbing slightly in the white night, she was beautiful in a way that I have no words to express. Then, when Mother and I arrived and found her by the hytte, she became herse
lf again, just Maia, the pretty but slightly odd-looking girl that she had always been.

  Yet, in spite of all this, I wonder, now, why I didn’t do more. Why I didn’t say anything about what a coincidence it was, that Maia had been so friendly with the Sigfridsson brothers, just before they died, and then, shortly before he also disappeared – they never found a body, so nothing was proven – she had moved into the hytte with Martin Crosbie? But then, who would have believed me? Martin Crosbie had disappeared, that was clear enough, but there was no evidence to say he was dead. On the contrary, all the evidence suggested that he had simply upped sticks and gone back to where he’d come from. No body was found, there was no sign of foul play, as they say in the crime books, and his bill with Kyrre Opdahl was fully paid up. Even more significant was the fact that his car had also disappeared by the time Kyrre Opdahl went down to the hytte the morning after I witnessed – or rather, failed to witness – his fall from the boat. Kyrre had known something was wrong too, it seemed, and he had gone down there to see what was going on, but the place was empty. Martin Crosbie was gone, and there was no sign of the huldra, either. There was no sign of anyone ever having been there, in fact. It was as if the whole thing really had been a dream, the Red King’s, or the crow’s, or somebody else’s.

  But it wasn’t a dream, it was a story – and that’s different. A story stands in for everything that cannot be explained and, though there are many stories, there’s really only one and we can tell the difference because the many stories have a beginning and an end, but the one story doesn’t work like that. Ryvold used to say that stories are really about time. They tell us that once, in a place that existed before we were born, something occurred – and we like to hear about that, because we know already that the story is over. We know that we are living in the happily ever after, which means that nothing will ever happen again – and this is the key to a happy life. To live in the ever after of the present moment: no past, no future. Or so Ryvold said, anyhow, and perhaps he’s right. When I think about it now, I believe he might be. Back then, though, I didn’t care about happiness. It seemed unreal to me – unreal and irrelevant, like romance, or success, or the God you see in old paintings – but that was because I didn’t know what happiness was. Now that I am happy, the sheer fact of it surprises me every day, because it’s so much darker and less finished than what I was led to expect – and I think that was what Mother wanted to tell me, all the while I was growing up. Happiness is a secret: it’s quiet and personal and beyond telling. It can’t be told and, no matter what they say, it can’t really be shared either. When you see two people together who are happy, you know that they each brought that happiness with them – they didn’t find it together, because happiness, like peace, or the Holy Spirit, is something you can only find when you are alone.

  My memory of the next few days is hazy. It had taken one white night for me to become totally unsure of myself, unsure of what I knew, unsure of what I had seen. For a time, I couldn’t bring myself to go out – I kept to my room, and Mother encouraged me to rest, looking in on me from time to time, bringing me soup and neatly cut sandwiches like the ones she served to the suitors on Saturday mornings. I wasn’t resting, of course, but I let her think I was – and finally, after two or maybe three days of near insomnia, I fell into a deep sleep at around midnight and didn’t wake up till close to three the next afternoon. As soon as I did, though, I knew something was different. Someone was downstairs with Mother. A stranger. I couldn’t hear anything, but I knew that someone else was in the house and, right away, the very moment I woke, I felt a surge of panic. Real panic; actual terror. Someone or something was in the house and I immediately sensed danger. The sensation only lasted for a moment, but I remember, still, how strong it was. After a moment, it was gone, just like that, and I stood up and went to the door. I listened, but I couldn’t hear anything. Then I heard the front door clicking shut – and I realised that someone had just gone out. I ran to the landing window. I already knew what I would see, but I didn’t believe it, because it wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible, not that Maia would come to the house, but that Mother would let her in if she did. But she must have done – because it was Maia I saw, making her way calmly down the path towards the gate, as though she had just popped round for afternoon tea.

  I almost ran down the stairs. I knew Mother was in the kitchen: I felt her there. I felt her attention, an attention that had been given to the huldra for – how long? A few minutes? An hour? The entire day? I couldn’t help but see, the moment I entered the room, that it had been more than a few minutes. There were two cups on the table, and there was a strange scent in the air. I stood for a moment, in the doorway and stared at Mother. She was standing by the sink, holding the kettle, and I – I was shaking with anger, anger, and also fear, still, so that, for a moment, I couldn’t even speak. Then the words came. ‘What was Maia doing here?’ I said.

  Mother closed her eyes for a second, the way she sometimes did when she was trying to think, then she gave me a kindly, concerned look. ‘You’re up,’ she said. ‘How are you feeling now?’

  I wouldn’t be diverted, though. ‘Why was she here?’ I said. ‘What was she doing in this house?’

  She didn’t reply for a moment, but turned to the sink and filled the kettle. Finally, without looking round, she spoke. ‘I’m painting her,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ It should have been a cry of justifiable outrage, but it came out as a whisper, so quiet I could barely hear myself.

  Mother turned round. ‘I’m painting her,’ she said. She was perfectly still, perfectly calm – and that calm was intended, I knew, as a challenge to me, the way a parent challenges a child to behave, if it wants the parent to cooperate. That you won’t get anywhere if you don’t pull yourself together tone.

  And I did pull myself together, after a fashion. Enough, at least, to speak in a normal voice. A voice that wasn’t meant to sound ironic, or bitter, or childish, though it came across, I imagine, as all these things. ‘You’re painting her?’ I said.

  Mother nodded, but she didn’t say anything.

  ‘You mean a portrait?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t do portraits any more?’

  She hesitated – and I thought that her composure was about to break. Or maybe she was just thinking about the question, but she didn’t respond immediately. Then she gave me a bright smile. She obviously hadn’t thought about it in that way, before I asked the question in so many words; now she allowed herself a moment’s happy surprise. ‘So did I,’ she said. She didn’t appear to see any irony in the situation: on the contrary, she was obviously happy, the way she always was when she was working on something new. She smiled at me a moment longer, then she went back to making the tea. ‘Apparently I was wrong,’ she said.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. She seemed oblivious, as if something in her had been switched off. I took a few steps into the room – and I felt cold, all of a sudden. The strange scent was still there, a soft, sweet sootiness on the air that I couldn’t place, but I knew it had come from Maia. It was alien to our house, an intrusion, a contamination. My anger was draining away, and all I felt now was dismay. I watched in silence as Mother set a cup in front of me, then sat back down where she would have been sitting when Maia was there. Finally, I gathered myself together, and spoke. ‘Is it going well?’ I asked. It was a test, I suppose, a test to see if she really did have no idea what she was doing.

  She pursed her lips and considered for a moment – and I could see that she really did have no idea of what she was doing. She had found a subject that she found interesting, and that was that. ‘Too soon to say,’ she said. She got up, went to the cupboard and brought out the big cake tin, the one that usually only came out on Saturday mornings.

  ‘Can I see it?’ I said.

  She set the tin down on the table and opened it. She must have noticed the hardness in my voice, and she must have been aware
of how upset I was, but she didn’t look up and she didn’t rise to the challenge. ‘No,’ she said, lifting the lid off the tin carefully and placing it on the table. ‘It’s not done yet.’ She looked up. ‘Would you like some cake?’ she said.

  I shook my head. ‘Is she going to be here again?’

  She turned round and fetched the big knife from the drawer by the sink. ‘Why do you ask?’ she said. ‘Don’t you like her?’

  I laughed. ‘Like her?’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember what happened …?’ And then, of course, I remembered: Mother didn’t believe that I had seen Martin in the boat, she thought I was imagining things, and no doubt Maia had told her some other version of that night’s events, a story that must certainly have made more sense than mine. I felt something fold inside me, and I had to sit down. ‘Something happened,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure what, but whatever it was, she was responsible –’

  Mother shook her head. ‘Come now, Liv,’ she said. ‘That girl’s had a shock too, you know. She thinks something terrible happened that night, but she seems to believe, now, that it happened to her. She’s not quite over it yet, to be honest. It had something to do with that man …’ She looked at me, but I didn’t answer. I was stunned. Surely she had seen what I had seen, down at the hytte. Surely she didn’t really believe what she was saying. What was Maia accusing Martin Crosbie of?

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘So what happened to her, then?’

  She would have heard the contempt in my voice, but she didn’t react. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But something happened to her. You can see it in her face.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, of course –’

  ‘And what is it you see? In her face?’