by Linn Ullmann
“We can’t re-create light like this onstage no matter what tricks we might have up our sleeves,” Pappa said, pointing.
I looked from the girl to the green cypresses and the ochre mountain peaks beyond them. A wind blew up. The girl’s sun hat tore off her head and scurried along the ground.
The voices below died down and everyone turned in unison toward the mountains, as if deliberating where the wind came from.
“I can see why . . .” my father said, and put his arm around my shoulders. He fell silent.
“What?”
“No. I don’t know. Being here makes you think.”
“About what?”
“About how thousands of years ago people would sit right here, just like you and I are sitting now. . . I mean, this is one hell of a concert hall.”
His arm still lay heavily around my shoulder. I moved a little closer.
“What I was going to say,” he said, “is that I can see why they thought the gods were right nearby.”
WE ARE SITTING BY the brown-stained bench at Hammars, looking out across the gravel drive. The jeep. The bicycle. The pine trees. He is sitting in his wheelchair, I’m sitting in a folding chair. He asks me to go get his shoes.
“Which shoes, Pappa?”
“My shoes, the ones in the bedroom closet.”
“Your sneakers?”
“The white ones.”
“But you’re already wearing them.”
“Good. Because we have to leave now.”
“Where are we going?”
“To see Mother, at Våroms.”
“Can I come with you?”
“Of course you’re coming with me. I was thinking we might take the train, but I’ve decided to take the jeep.”
“But Pappa, I don’t have a driver’s license. I don’t know how to drive.”
He is irritated and squirms in his wheelchair.
“You aren’t the one who’s driving!”
“Oh, okay, that’s good.”
“I’m driving!”
“Of course!”
“We will leave soon. And go to Våroms. Have you ever been to Våroms?”
“No, never.”
“Have you been to Dalarna?”
“No.”
“My heart . . . where have you actually been?”
“I’ve never been to Dalarna.”
“Well, then I want you to listen up. First you go get my shoes, then we take the jeep—I’m driving. What do you think—should we stop by the church? I don’t think so. It’s not Saturday today, and they won’t be ringing in the weekend. No bells today. One time I sat there, waiting for the bells to ring, but the bell ringer never showed up, it was six o’clock, five past six, ten past six, and I sat there waiting like an idiot. . . . I wanted to light a candle for Ingrid . . . I wanted to light a candle. . . and when it was quarter past six, I took my cane and marched up the stairs to the tower and rang the goddamn bells myself. The minister found me on my way down and said that I wasn’t allowed up in the tower and that there was a problem with a blown fuse. This, apparently, was the reason why the bells didn’t ring. A blown fuse! And I said, well if that’s the case, you might have heard about something called a rope. Punctuality, my heart, punctuality. And now we mustn’t sit here and chitchat, you will get my shoes and we will catch the ferry. We shall take two ferries. First the little one and then the big one. Would you mind if we made a side trip to Uppsala? It’s a detour, I know, but I would like to show you where I lived when I was a boy. Have you been to Uppsala?”
“No.”
“No, well okay. It can’t be helped. And then we will have lunch. I know of a place on the way where we can stop and rest. They have overnight accommodation and a beautiful view of the lake and good food, but under no circumstances do I want to spend the night there, we have to be at Våroms before dark. We can sit outside for a while and enjoy the beautiful weather, and you can have a glass of wine, if you like. I want mineral water. Did you know that mineral water can cause dehydration? Something to do with the bubbles. The carbon dioxide. The salt. The doctor said I shouldn’t drink mineral water. I should drink still water instead. He said I was dehydrated! Now, where were we . . . For me, the bubbles were company.”
“Yes, but you can drink mineral water when we’re on the road. That’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Where are we?”
“We are on our way to Våroms.”
“We are driving north.”
“North?”
“North for a long stretch. Duvnäs isn’t far from Borlänge, if that means anything to you? In Dalarna.”
“I haven’t been to Dalarna.”
“No, you haven’t. And here . . . ?”
“In Duvnäs?”
“In Duvnäs, yes . . . in Duvnäs . . . a little ways up the hill, just above the train tracks, you will find Våroms. I think Mother is standing at the window looking for us. It is late now. She is looking out at the road. The large birch tree casts shadows, the freight train switches tracks and the river runs black, even on the brightest days.”
CECILIA TURNS TO ME and shouts: “You keep stomping in here at all hours of the day, disturbing him. It makes him restless. Don’t you get that?”
She asks me to return the house key. It is her responsibility to see to it that he gets peace and quiet. That was how he wanted it. I can’t just come and go as I please.
“But he asked me to come,” I say.
Cecilia shrugs.
“He asked someone to come. I don’t think he meant you.”
IT WAS CHILLY THE summer he died. I have a few pictures of him and me from those last weeks. We are sitting by the brown-stained bench. We are wearing wool cardigans. He has a blanket over his legs. I have a somewhat odd-looking hat on my head, he is wearing his favorite green wooly hat.
Käbi still spends her summers at Dämba. Two of her musician friends have come to visit and they invite my husband and me over for dinner. This is when we plan the last recital.
We have allied ourselves with one of the six women; someone who would also like Pappa to hear Käbi play the piano one last time. He almost never says a word now, most of the time he just lies in bed and stares at the ceiling. At night he babbles. The woman, I will call her Anna, tells me he believes he’s working on a major translation. It never ends, he tells her. She thinks it’ll be good for him to get out of the house. We can’t say anything to Cecilia, though, who runs the house and has planned his days according to a precisely worked-out schedule, most likely concocted together with him a long time ago: get out of bed, get dressed, eat breakfast, sit in study, sit outside on brown-stained bench, eat lunch, eat dinner, listen to radio, go to bed, and then everything all over again the next day. Things he is no longer able to do (for example, get out of bed), she effectively crosses off the list. The only thing she doesn’t cross off the list is the omelet. Eggs have protein. Eggs are good for you. Cecilia believes in doing things the same way every day. No sudden whims. No improvisations. And now, just a few weeks before he dies, we are planning an improvisation of dizzying proportions. And then comes the day we carry him off, smuggle him out, wheelchair and all. We are strong in numbers. We take two cars. Like robbers, like thieves. We steal my father and drive from Hammars to Dämba and arrive a little before two. We help one another get him out of the car and into the wheelchair. Anna, who has brought along a number of supplies that a very old and sick man might need on an outing, all of them packed in a big black bag that I carry, wheels him across the moor. Pappa is first in line, Anna is number two, pushing the wheelchair, I am number three, carrying the bag. Walking behind me is my husband, and behind him Käbi’s two musician friends. We walk and walk. At the top of the stairs with the blue banister, far in the distance, Käbi is waiting for us. She is well over eighty. She has put up her hair. She smiles. A woman’s beauty lies in how she stands and how she moves. My father turns in his wheelchair and asks Anna where we are and where we are going.
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“We’re at Dämba,” I say, running out of the line and up beside him. “We’re going to see Käbi, who has promised to play for us.”
We have walked and walked, never before has the moor and the garden seemed so vast. We are a small procession on a very long march. We are here at Dämba, headed for the room with the two pianos, headed for the world’s smallest concert hall, and Käbi has promised to play.
Once we arrive, there is a moment of confusion. Standing at the foot of the stairs, we wonder how to get the old man up and inside.
“Come on,” says one of the two musician friends, “we can do this.”
The procession shifts. Anna goes to the back of the line, I stand next to her, the men position themselves around the wheelchair, and then, on one, two, three, they take hold of the chair with my father in it, carry it up the stairs, one step at a time, and wheel him into the living room.
When everyone has settled, Käbi sits down at the piano, raises one hand, and begins with a mazurka by Chopin. While she is playing, I look at my father, his profile, I don’t know if this is where he wants to be, I don’t know if he wants to be anywhere right now, he is all alone, off on an ice floe far, far out at sea, and Käbi plays her Chopin and the sunlight falls through the windows, it’s two o ’clock, and then it’s five past two, she plays like she has done a thousand times before, for him and for many others, and she has more to offer, the recital has been planned in detail, but when the mazurka is over and, resting her hands in her lap, she turns toward her small audience to speak, perhaps to introduce the next piece, he who was my father raises his head and looks out the window.
“I want to thank you all for this lovely evening together,” he says. He speaks to everyone and no one, to day and night, to the bright afternoon sunlight rippling across the wide wooden floorboards reminiscent of piano keys.
We hold our breath, we have not heard him say this much and speak so clearly for a long time. And then he says: “It’s late and the old man wants to go home.”
EVERYTHING WAS READY. There was nothing left to be done. The hour had been set. The guests were on their way. The minister had written her sermon, rehearsed her song, and picked a rose for her hair. The funeral programs had been printed. The organist knew which pieces to play, the cellist too. The pallbearers had put on their Sunday best. And the next of kin were preparing to say goodbye for the last time.
Ingmarie, the eldest among us siblings, had called every single florist in Visby making sure the family’s wishes were clear: red flowers only on and around the casket. If someone expressed an interest in sending yellow or pink or purple flowers, this should be politely discouraged by the florist in charge.
Ingmarie’s mother, Else, was the first wife of the deceased. She was dead. Ellen, the second wife of the deceased and mother to four of his children, was also dead. In their day, Else and Ellen had both been celebrated dancers and choreographers. Gunvor, the third wife of the deceased and mother to my brother the airline pilot, had taught Slavic languages and worked as a translator of Yugoslav and Russian literature. Notably, she had translated Tolstoy’s Theory of Everything. She, too, was dead. The fourth wife of the deceased, Käbi, pianist and mother to Daniel, would attend the funeral in person. As would my mother.
My mother and father were never married, she came between wife number four and wife number five, but they were good friends and colleagues, and once, when she was very young, he said to her that they were painfully connected.
His fifth and last wife, Ingrid, the mother of my sister Maria, would be exhumed from her original gravesite and soon lie next to him here in the graveyard at Fårö.
The deceased had requested a modest funeral with only the closest family in attendance, his closest friends, his colleagues, and his island-acquaintances: the women who had cared for him when he was old and sick, and the men who had built and renovated his houses.
He had given instructions regarding the guest list and specifically asked that his actors be included, not all, but a few, he missed them very much when he left the theater and moved to Hammars. And the actors came—one by one and two by two. Mr. and Mrs. Vogler and little Miss Åkerblom came. Alma and Elisabet came. Uncle Carl came. The suicides, the knights, the cuckolds, the crybabies, the musicians, and the clowns came. The bourgeoisie came. The kings and queens came and at least one prince. When the coffin was lowered into the ground, the prince sobbed so violently that he had to be supported by the devastatingly beautiful woman who had accompanied him and who was herself moved to tears.
The journalists and the photographers came too, but not past the stone wall. They were not allowed into the church or the churchyard. To ensure peace and quiet during the ceremony, the family had hired three guards who by no means took their task lightly, carrying it out with such bravado that you would think they were donning black suits of armor and helmets to guard the gates of fire and water. The journalists regretted bitterly having put on their best shoes, the grass around the stone wall had grown tall and they couldn’t help stepping in sheep muck wherever they went. When the mourners began to arrive on foot and by car, most of them with plenty of time before it was all set to begin, the lambs hardly raised an eye.
True to tradition, the guests entered the church first and sat down, and only in the very end did the next of kin arrive, a little procession in itself, to take their seats in the front pews.
A few days earlier I called my mother. We hadn’t really talked for a while, maybe just exchanged a few words in passing. I meant to tell her about the plans for the funeral, the program, practical things—time and place and so on. What I didn’t tell her was that Pappa, as he lay dying, babbled every night, and that eventually the babbling turned into cries and rattles. I didn’t tell her that Anna, who looked after him most nights, leaned over to ask what he was trying to say, and that he told her he was working on a major translation.
When I was with him during those last days, I never heard him utter the word “translation,” I imagine he had forgotten the word “translation.” But if what Anna said was true, it was a precise word with which to end things. To find a new language for the old, an old language for the new. Growing old, very old, as he did, was itself a work of translation —from what had been to what was to come.
In one of the novels about his parents, he wrote:
I can’t claim that I have always been overly meticulous with regard to the truthfulness of my story. I have spliced, added, subtracted and discarded, but as is often the case with these kinds of games, playful as they are, the game most likely has become clearer than reality.
Swedish funeral customs include a particular dress code for men that only applies to next of kin: all the men must wear white ties. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but as far as I know, Sweden is the only country where this is practiced. Funerals are the theatre of death, I believe it was Proust who wrote.
This time we traveled by plane. First from Oslo to Stockholm. Then from Stockholm to Visby. Our dresses and suits were packed in suitcases. Dresses in one suitcase and suits in the other. There were six of us: my husband, me, and the children. Three-year-old Eva was the youngest. We don’t expect the youngest children to wear black, so for her we had packed a white denim skirt that she liked and a pink T-shirt.
When we arrived at the airport in Stockholm, the men’s suitcase was nowhere to be found, it wasn’t in Oslo, it wasn’t in Stockholm, it had disappeared and could not be tracked. Our only option, if we all wanted to be properly dressed for the funeral, was to take the airport bus to Stockholm and buy new suits. The last plane to Visby left at eight so we had just a few hours to get it done. This, then, would be my second visit that month to the elegant Stockholm department store near the Royal Dramatic Theatre. The first time I went with my sister to buy funeral dresses. This time I went with my husband and our children to buy funeral suits.
At the men’s clothing department, we were greeted by a woman with eyelashes so long and false and heavy and bl
ack that it was all her skinny little body could do to keep them in place. I told her we needed suits, three of them.
“Pardon?”
I repeated that we needed suits. I spoke Norwegian, not Swedish. My voice is shrill when I speak Swedish, and I was shrill enough as it was.
“Pardon?” said the woman again. She blinked. My son stared at the eyelashes, turned to his stepbrother, and asked him if he thought they hurt.
“Pardon?” said the young woman a third time. “I don’t understand . . . you’re looking for a lady’s suit? This is the men’s department.”
“Men’s suits,” my husband shouted in Swedish. He took a deep breath and repeated, a little more calmly, but only a little: “We want to buy three men’s suits! We’re on our way to a funeral. We have a plane to catch. We’re in a hurry. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
An elderly gentleman with a silk kerchief in his lapel pocket and large, sensitive nostrils overheard the entire exchange and came dashing over. He laid his hand on the young woman’s arm and nodded her away. He had measuring tape around his neck, a pincushion in his pocket and a voice I wanted to crawl inside of and be warmed by.
“A funeral,” he began. “My condolences. My condolences.” He looked at the six of us and nodded reassuringly. “As you will see, we have an excellent selection of men’s suits. Hugo Boss. Armani. Kenzo. We have other suits as well, not quite as expensive. I always say: one should not have to spend a fortune on a good suit. Everything will be fine. Did I hear you say that you have a plane to catch? Are you members of the family? Next of kin? May I ask about the deceased? Who was he . . . a father, a father-in-law, a grandfather? In that case, you must all wear white ties. Let me see now, up on this stepstool here, one by one, so I can take your measurements.”
