by Linn Ullmann
We were late. It’s my father’s funeral, and I am late. Punctuality, my heart, punctuality. And all because of the white ties. Eva and I are waiting in the car, dressed and ready, my fourteen-year-old stepdaughter is walking back and forth outside on the moor, she, too, is dressed and ready. It takes ten minutes to drive from Dämba to the church, we have to be there at a quarter to twelve and now it’s eleven thirty. My plan was to arrive early, park at the old store, and sit in the car for a while, but now we are at the point where we have to leave if we want to be on time. I dig out my cell phone and call my husband, who is still inside with the boys.
“Are you coming?” I snap.
“We’re coming,” he says. “We’re having a bit of a problem tying the ties.”
“Problem doing what?”
I start to yell.
Not because my father is dead, but because no one knows how to tie a tie and because we’re going to be late.
“I’ve tied mine,” says my husband, “and now I’m helping the boys with theirs. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” I shout. “It’s not fine. It’s not fine. It’s not fine. Don’t ever say that it’s fine.”
“We’ll be out soon,” my husband says. “I promise. We won’t be late. We have plenty of time.”
“It’s not fine,” I cry.
I hang up and turn around and look at Eva in the backseat. Her eyes are bright blue. She is strapped in a child’s seat that we had to pay extra for when we rented the car in Visby. The child’s seat is also bright blue, and a little too big. Eva looks at me. I run my fingers through my hair and try to think of something to say. I’m sorry. Don’t worry. Mamma didn’t mean to raise her voice. I don’t want to yell and quarrel and make a spectacle in front of my children, but I keep forgetting myself. I don’t say anything to Eva. I turn away and look out the window. It’s a sunny day, my father liked rain.
“Mamma,” Eva says. I turn around and look at her. She picks away a crumb from her white denim skirt, fixing me with her eyes.
“Mamma,” she repeats. “It’s fine.”
And there, across the moor, three men in black suits come running toward me, or rather, one man and two boys. They run, but their progress is infinitely slow, the wind is blowing, and they run, and three white silk ties hover like taut gull wings in the air, and when they finally arrive, my husband takes his seat behind the wheel, the boys and my stepdaughter squeeze together in the back, and we drive at full speed along the narrow roads to the church to bury him who was old and who now had died.
SHEWe have talked for a long time now.
HEBut we could keep going a bit longer . . . I’ve got nothing else to do.
SHEWell then, I want to ask you about your work at the theater.
HEYes, go right ahead. The theater is, so to say, my thing.
SHEYour thing?
HEYes.
He laughs out loud.
HEReally. In every way. Demonstrably. Theatre . . . and film . . . and Ingrid. And everyone I hold dear. But there is no ranking or hierarchy when it comes to love. It just is.
SHEWeren’t you ever worried that devoting yourself to the little world of the theatre was somehow inconsequential . . . I mean, when the real world is the way it is?
HENo, never inconsequential. It’s like a heart that beats and goes on beating. Everything is set into motion. And if it isn’t, then to hell with it.
SHEI don’t know . . .
HEGrace is . . . it can manifest itself in the most peculiar ways. It’s the same for you and me.
SHEWhat do you mean, it’s the same for you and me?
HEOh, my darling girl. You keep asking me these questions. You know what I mean. Come, let’s go eat.
SHEYes, we’ll finish soon.
HEShall we have lunch?
SHELunch is in forty-five minutes.
HEForty-five minutes?
SHEYes, in forty-five minutes. And Pappa, listen, there’s something I have to tell you. I’m taking a little trip to Oslo, so I won’t be back here until the end of the month.
HEWhere are you going?
SHEI’m going to Oslo, where I live. And then I’ll be back in two weeks. Once I’m back, we can continue working on our book. I think we should get the calendar and write down our next meeting.
HENo.
SHEYes, let’s do that.
She wheels him over to the desk. Leafs through the calendar. Pointing.
SHEI’ll be back here. And once I’m back, we’ll start working right away. On Monday, May twenty-eighth, see, that’s when we’ll start working again.
HEI don’t know.
SHELet me just find a pen so we can write it down.
HEBut there’s a problem . . . I’m having an operation on my eye.
SHEYes, you are, but that’s on June eighth. I’ll be back long before that.
HEYes.
She leafs through the calendar and points.
SHEYour eye surgery is here. And we’ll be meeting here.
HEThe twenty-eighth of May?
SHEYes. Should I write first?
HEYes.
SHESee. The twenty-eighth of May. Eleven o’clock.
HEIs that when we will meet?
SHEYes.
HEShould I write your name here?
SHEYes.
Long silence while he is writing.
SHEAnd then I’ll write your name here.
HEYes.
SHEIt’s a date.
HEAre we done now?
FROM A DISTANCE IT appears as if they had been summoned to a dance. First the pallbearers with the coffin between them, followed by the minister, then the family, then the actors, then the friends, neighbors, and acquaintances from the island, and finally the three men from the funeral home with their arms full of big red roses. A little girl in a white denim skirt leaps forward between the ranks toward the open grave and the stone wall and the photographers and the lambs on the other side. A woman runs after her, lifts her up, and carries her back. We must walk with the others now, she whispers. The procession emerges black and white and red in the bright sunlight. Down the road, between the church and the sea, cars motor past, but not so many, the tourist season is winding down and these are mostly islanders on their way to or from the ferry dock. Some of them slow down by the old store to cast a quick glance at the church and the graveyard above. It looks as if the mourners are holding one another by the hand, each helping the other forward in a long, long succession. No one speaks, no one says a word, and yet there are a thousand sounds here. The church bells ring, the cameras click, a gust of wind takes hold of skirt hems and trouser legs, silk scarves, suit lapels, men’s ties and the minister’s ivory robe. The little girl spins around in the wind, laughing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel’s transit into English has involved many people to whom I am extremely grateful.
Thank you:
Thilo Reinhard, my brilliant translator.
Sean Kinsella and Ingvild Burkey for offering their expertise and insight on various translation queries; Becky Crook, for her stimulating input on a partial draft translation; Barbara J. Haveland for her beautiful first sample translation.
Ingeri Engelstad, Geir Gulliksen, Cathrine Narum, and Ellen Hogsnes and everyone at Forlaget Oktober in Norway, for setting the benchmark for all international editions of this book, and for supporting me on the winding path toward the English edition.
Everyone at NORLA.
Andrew Wylie, my agent for twenty years, who always looks out for me; Sarah Chalfant and Kristina Moore and everyone at the Wylie Agency; I am especially grateful to Charles Buchan for his tireless, always intelligent, always thoughtful guidance.
Jill Bialosky, my amazing editor at Norton; everyone who has worked on the English language edition of this book, including Don Rifkin, Rachelle Mandik, Julia Druskin, Elizabeth Riley, Sam Mitchell, and Sarahmay Wilkinson. A very special thank you to the remarkable Drew Weitman.
Niels Fredr
ik Dahl, i dag og alle dager, today and every day.
THE FOLLOWING WORKS
ARE CITED IN UNQUIET:
HENRY ADAMS, The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography, Modern Library, 1996.
SAMUEL BECKETT, “Ill Seen Ill Said,” in Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho. Three Novels by Samuel Beckett, Grove Press, 1980.
The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Volume III: 1957–1965, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
JOHN BERGER, “Mother,” in Selected Essays, Vintage, 2003.
ELLEN HOLLENDER BERGMAN / LINA IKSE BERGMAN, Tre frågor, Leopard Förlag, 2006.
INGMAR BERGMAN, Bilder, Norstedts, 1990.
———, Den goda viljan, Norstedts, 1991.
———, Söndagsbarn, Norstedts, 1993.
GUNNAR BJÖRLING, Skrifter, band IV, Eriksson förlag, 1995.
ANNE CARSON, Glass, Irony and God, New Directions, 1995.
———, NOX, New Directions, 2010.
JOHN CHEEVER, “The Swimmer,” Collected Stories, Vintage Classics, 2010.
JEAN COCTEAU, The Art of Cinema, Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd., 2000.
NIELS FREDRIK DAHL, Norsholmen, Flamme Forlag, 2010.
PETTER DASS, Samlede verker, Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1980.
BOB DYLAN AND SAM SHEPARD, “Brownsville Girl,” from the album Knocked Out Loaded, 1986.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, Madame Bovary, translated by Lydia Davis, Penguin Classics, 2010.
WITOLD GOMBROWICZ, Diary (The Margellos World Republic of Letters), Yale University Press, 2012.
KÄBI LARETEI, Vart tog all denna kärlek vägen?, Norstedts, 2009.
BIRGIT LINTON-MALMFORS, Karin—åldrandets tid. Karin Bergmans dagböcker 1952–1966, Carlsson Bokförlag, 1996.
WILLIAM NICKELL, The Death of Tolstoy, Cornell University Press, 2010.
NORSK HELSEINFORMATIKK, “Hjertets utvikling” (Development of the heart), nhi.no.
FERNANDO PESSOA, The Book of Disquiet, translated by Richard Zenith, Penguin Modern Classics, 2002.
PLUTARCH, Advice to the Bride and Groom, edited by Sarah B. Pomeroy, Oxford University Press, 1999.
MARCEL PROUST, The Guermantes Way and Sodom and Gomorrah, In Search of Lost Time, translated by Terence Kilmartin, revised by D. J. Enright, Vintage, 1996.
RAINER MARIA RILKE, Duineser Elegien, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1975.
———, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, translated by Michael Hulse, Penguin Classics, 2009.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER, J. S. Bach, translated by Ernest Newman, Dover Publications, 1967.
AUGUST STRINDBERG, Days of Loneliness, translated from the Swedish by Arvid Paulson, Phaedra Inc. Publishers, 1971.
MIKAEL TIMM, Lusten och dämonerna, Norstedts, 2008.
LIV ULLMANN, Changing, translated from the Norwegian by Liv Ullmann in collaboration with Gerry Bothmer and Erik Friis, Random House, 1977.
JEAN ELIZABETH WARD, Du Fu: An Homage to, Lulu Pr, 2008.
VIRGINIA WOOLF, On Being Ill, Paris Press, 2002.
ALSO BY
LINN ULLMANN
THE COLD SONG
A BLESSED CHILD
GRACE
STELLA DESCENDING
BEFORE YOU SLEEP
Copyright © 2015 by Forlaget Oktober AS, Oslo
Translation copyright © 2019 by Linn Ullmann
This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA.
Translated by Thilo Reinhard
Originally published in Norwegian as De Urolige
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