The Half Brother: A Novel (33 page)

And soon she left us. Two separate events coupled with deep longing led her north, to Norway, in 1905. The Danish prince, Carl, was to be crowned king. In addition she had been offered a role in the first Norwegian film drama,
The Trials of the Fisherfolk.
In this way she would also be closer to her beloved, the one she waited on with constancy — for thus was her heart, faithful to the end and always defiant, no matter what. But when life swings dramatically one may never be certain what will happen around the corner. Ellen Jebsens role in
The Trials of the Fisherfolk
was cut out either on economic grounds or else for erroneous artistic reasons. Only three characters appeared in the drama — the parents and their son — who in the course of the action drown in the Frognerkilen Baths, used to represent the turbulent and perilous ocean. Let it be said at once that this passing over was not only a personal disappointment to Ellen Jebsen but a tragedy for Norwegian film
per se,
which barely made it onto its feet after this wretched start. The film would have gained an added timbre and moved audiences profoundly had she starred in the supporting role of the drowned son’s lover. For is not this the primary objective of film, to move its viewers, transport them to laughter and tears, pain and pleasure? Ellen Jebsen put her career to one side after all this and was given an appointment at the Telegraph Exchange, where her daughter Boletta also came to be employed. Ellen Jebsen lived in Oslo until her death on the selfsame day that King Haakon, her prince, passed away himself. There was a predestined quality to her life, which surpassed her own art and which met the unexpected head-on.

I write this two years after her death (having only now become aware of it), certain that it is never too late to remember and honor an extraordinary life. We lost Ellen Jebsen. Would that these simple words, written in sorrow and gratitude, might hold her intact and raise her to those skies where her star belongs.

Respectfully,

Fleming Brant,

Bellagio, Italy

After Mom had finished reading and put the paper down, we cried too. The words from the newspaper grew in us; the words that had come long after it was all over — just as the letter from Greenland first reached its destination long after the sender had vanished, lost in the ice. In the end Mom sighed. “It’s a shame the Old One never read this.” Dad got up abruptly. “Who the hell is Fleming Brant?” Mom looked at Boletta, who was paler than ever, but she just shook her head and lowered her gaze so that we no longer saw her eyes. “I have no idea,” she murmured. Fred opened his mouth. “Where’s Bellagio?” he asked in a low voice. “Italy,” I told him, quick as a flash. Fred stretched across the table and hit me on the temple. “Do you think I can’t read, or what, Tiny?” Mom interrupted the dispute before I started crying. “No arguments now, boys.” She got a pair of scissors from the drawer in the kitchen and carefully cut out the obituary and I can remember too, clearly and sharply as if I’d never left the table at all that morning but was sitting there yet — the sound of the slow, blunt scissors cutting the paper. Mom has to clip hard, twice each time, to get a grip, and the remainder of the obituaries are tossed in the trash, crackling like flames. Black columns of names they are, like credits in a movie that no one has ever seen. We don’t go to school that day Mom writes sick notes for us. The two of us clearly have tummy aches. I laugh out loud and am told to be quiet. We go to the graveyard instead. All those whom we meet on Church Road greet us in a different manner now; they nod and keep turning around long after we’ve passed them by They’ve read
Aftenposten
and know which star we come from. It’s been there in black and white beside the other obituaries and can’t be denied. Esther opens her kiosk window and waves with fingerless gloves. “Congratulations!” she shouts. Mom waves back. “Thank you very much!” But when we come to a halt by the Old One’s grave, Fred’s vanished. He slipped away among the trees at the back of Frogner Park. I just saw his back. Mom calls him. Fred doesn’t hear us. The headstone, with its famous name — ellen jebsen 1880-1957 — is standing crookedly in the ground. Dad attempts to straighten it; he puts his shoulder to the dark stone and shoves, and I stand behind him and push, but we can’t manage it. The ground has frozen around it. Water has frozen in the earth. The dead are freezing in their beds of ice. But Dad still won’t give up; he’s taken a dislike to this stone. He’s going to get it back to where it should be. Mom wants to stop him, but Dad’s determination has turned to ice too, his stubbornness has frozen solid. He puts everything he has into shifting this obstinate pillar, standing there lopsided and blasphemous. He swears, and Mom covers her ears, Boletta grips my hand — but the stone is stronger, it’s the stone that pushes him backward. It knocks him down and overpowers him completely, for all at once he’s blue in the face, lying sprawling on the Old One’s grave. Mom falls to her knees and cries his name. He scrabbles on the grass. Then he lies utterly still, his chin against the ground, as if he’s fallen asleep there at the foot of the crooked headstone. Boletta runs over to the chapel to get help. My feet are freezing. I can hear the sound of an organ. Mom shakes Dad. Then he sits up slowly, looks at me surprised, brushes the earth from his coat and turns toward Mom. “Don’t be angry,” he murmurs. Mom holds him and cries. “I
‘
m not angry. Why should I be angry?” She laughs instead. Dad closes his eyes once more and rests in her arms. They sit together like this on the Old Ones grave until Boletta comes running back. “The church wardens calling an ambulance!” she cries. Dad pushes Mom away and looks at Boletta, who’s stopped breathless in a cloud of frost “An ambulance?” he repeats. “Are you sick, Boletta?” Mom strokes his cheek. “You may have had an incident, Arnold. You should go to the hospital.” Dad wants to get back up, but his legs won’t support him. He tumbles over and swears worse than ever. “I’m not going to any hospital! Do you hear me?” He tries to get up again, but it’s just as if a mighty hand is keeping him down. “Help me, damn it!” he shrieks. “Help me!” Eventually we get him into a vertical position. He can barely stand unsupported. We can hear the sound of the approaching siren. Dad presses his hat down on his head. “Farewell,” he says. Mom tears at his coat. But he’s not going to be stopped. He walks incredibly slowly, as if each and every step demands enormous concentration. The ambulance backs in through the gates, and two men in white coats hurry over toward us. Mom points to Dad, who’s tottering away between the graves. They rush after him. But Dad has no intention of giving himself up. He waves the doctor away, and for a time it looks as if they might take him away by force. But in the end they give up and let him be, while Mom stands there covered in shame, apologizing to the ground. Boletta reckoned the Old One would have refused to be pushed like that. The stone was meant to stand just as it was, an irregularity in Wester Gravlund’s serried ranks of stones, a crooked reminder of her greatness. But the following spring, once the sun had washed winter away from under our feet, the gravestone stood straight once more — a black, stone ruler — as if the Old One had moved one final time in her sleep and turned her pillow.

But I lay awake that evening. Mom sat up waiting for Dad; restlessly she paced back and forth, stopping by the window, sitting on the sofa, unable to keep still. Boletta put the obituary in the same drawer as the letter from Greenland. For a while I thought Mom’s false sick note was going to be true after all. My stomach was unsteady; it listed and was on the point of being upset. Suddenly something hit me on the forehead. It was a hard ball of silver paper. Fred had thrown it. When Fred threw something it generally hit its target. He stank of tobacco, I could smell it from where I was lying awake. “Was he dying?” Fred asked. “It looked like it,” I whispered back. “How did he look?” Fred demanded. “He was blue in the face,” I told him, my voice low. “How blue?” “What do you mean?” Fred chucked a second ball of silver paper at me. “Was he dark blue or light blue, Barnum?” I had to think hard. “He was dark blue, Fred.” Fred snickered in the dark. “Did he say anything?” “Yes,” I whispered. Fred stopped snickering and grew impatient. “Do I have to beat everything out of you, Barnum?” “Don’t be angry,” I told him. Fred groaned. “I’m not angry. Just tell me what he said.” “That was what he said, Fred. Don’t be angry.” He lay quiet a long while. “What did Mom say?” he asked eventually. “That she wasn’t angry.” “Damn it all,” Fred murmured. And just then Dad came home. He crept carefully along the side of the wall. He wasn’t stooped, and he didn’t make himself smaller than he was. That was him to a T, knocked flat one minute and up on his feet the next — the blows he took just glanced off him. The fact that he’d lain prostrate on the Old One’s grave, blue in the face, was quite forgotten — swept away by triumph and loud talk. I ran into the living room. He was down on his knees unfolding an enormous map on the floor. I stood between Mom and Boletta. It was Europe, and Europe was almost as big as our carpet. Dad thumped his fist into the map with a bang. “There!” he exclaimed. “There’s Bellagio!” We bent closer. Bellagio lay at the top of Italy by a narrow, blue lake called Como. “It’s far away,” I whispered. Dad glanced at me. “Far? It’s no farther than to Røst, my boy.” Dad shook his head and laid his other hand on R0st. “Europe’s no bigger than what I can blow my nose with on this map!” “Be quiet,” Mom said and laughed. Dad did anything but keep quiet. He was warming up. He was sunning himself now. “But if you were to add America then we could begin to talk about distance.” “Where’s Greenland?” We turned toward Fred. He was leaning against the wall, his face sulky. Dad smiled. “That’s a good question, Fred. Because Greenland isn’t on this map. But if you look under the sofa you might find Greenland there.” Fred didn’t move a muscle. “I thought you were dead,” he said. It grew so still. And Fred went back to bed before anyone could say anything. Dad laughed, but too late, as if his face and his laughter somehow didn’t go together. I rummaged under the sofa and searched for Greenland, but didn’t find anything except an old dusty candy and a used cork with a strong, sweet smell. Dad had to drag me out again. “Look,” he said. “You can drive through Europe with this car!” He gave me a box of matches. I looked at it for a long time. “It’s not a car,” I whispered. “Oh, yes, Barnum, it is a car.” “It’s a matchbox,” I said. Dad breathed heavily. “No,” he said, his voice just a shade sharper. “If you look at it really closely, you’ll see that it’s a car. It’s actually a Buick Roadmaster Cabriolet!” I had a really good look. “Now I can see it,” I whispered. Dad laid his hand on my shoulder. “But if you want to go by boat instead, there’s nothing to stop it from being a ship too.” He took a match from the box and stuck it through the lid. “See? Now you could sail, for instance, all the way up the coast to R0st.” “I’d rather go by car.” “No problem, Barnum. Just as long as you remember to drive on the left-hand side of the road in Sweden.” Dad lit a cigarette with the mast, and the matchbox became a car again, a Buick, with room for all of us. I lay down on the map and began the journey south from Oslo. But before going the length of Svinesund, I felt carsick and collapsed over Skagerrak. I have no recollection of Mom carrying me off to bed. It’s all I can do not to be sick. The curves were too sharp. The speed was too great. The moon behind the window’s a golden steering wheel. I’ve parked. Night is a garage. Fred is sleeping fitfully And each time you close your eyes you jump. Each and every blink is a clip from the movie of your life. In my sleep I join together the pieces of film; I splice time, not in a long dissolve but a sudden cut. I am the demigod who throws away everything that isn’t in the script. And when Dad wakes us up again, the room’s full of light, it’s summer, and it’s Mom’s birthday.

The Divine Comedy

And we slip in to Mom. Dad leads the way; he’s holding a candle but the flame is barely visible in the sunlight filling our rooms. Boletta has made buns (at least she claims she has, though I imagine she bought them the day before in Majorstuen and has just reheated them and put an extra raisin on top for decoration). Fred and I each have a present for Mom. We stop by the door and sing Happy Birthday Dad drowns out the rest of us. His bathrobe cord has loosened. We sing a second verse. But Mom just remains in bed with her back to us and doesn’t even turn around. We fall silent ourselves. Dad grows impatient. “Vera?” he whispers. “Happy Birthday!” That doesn’t do any good either. It’s as if Mom’s asleep, or else she simply doesn’t want to hear us. Boletta becomes restive. “I think we should leave her alone,” she says. Fred’s pale, and he’s holding his flat gift in both hands. Dad protests. “Alone? It’s her birthday for heaven’s sake!” He blows out the candle flame with his voice, and in that moment Mom finally turns around. She’s thin and her face is gray and I can barely recognize her at all. Her hair’s all tangled, as if she’d never seen the inside of a hairdresser’s in her whole life. She takes us in with huge, dry eyes. Perhaps she doesn’t know who we are? Perhaps she thinks we’re strangers who’ve just broken in? I’ve never felt so afraid. I want to cry but don’t dare; I just let out one gulp and Fred whacks me on the leg. Dad moves closer still to the bed. Boletta catches his arm but he shakes her off. He can’t understand this. He’s worried and hurt. “Are you ill, Vera?” And Mom sits up in bed. “How old am I today?” she asks. Dad stops. He attempts a laugh. “Well, have you forgotten that too?” he says. “How old am I?” she repeats. I’m about to answer myself, but Fred whacks me even harder on the leg. Instead Dad tells her. “Today, my dear, you’re no less than, and not a single hour more than, thirty-five years of age.” Mom lies back down and is just a shadow on the bed. “And what have I got out of my life?” she asks. She answers her own question. “Nothing!” she says, and pounds her fist into the mattress. “Nothing!” I don’t want her to talk like this. How will we ever go on if Mom is unhappy and just gives up? Is she angry with us? What have we done? I clench my teeth until I feel it in my jaws. Boletta puts down the plate of buns and coffee. “Well, well,” she whispers. Dad stands paralyzed by the bed and attempts a smile. “Nothing? You’re exaggerating just a mite there.” Mom looks at him, and there’s a rage in her expression I’ve never seen before. “Well, tell me then, Arnold Nilsen! Tell me what I’ve got out of my life?” Dad thinks a bit. “First and foremost you’ve got two wonderful sons,” he replies. Mom starts crying. Then Fred goes forward and puts his present on the quilt. “Happy Birthday, Mom,” he says in a loud voice. Mom hesitates, and opens it with slow hands. It’s a breadboard. Fred’s made it himself in woodworking. At the top he’s burned in: to mom from fred; the letters are crooked and brown and still smell scorched, but not one of them’s out of place. Mom barely looks at it. “Thanks,” she says, her voice low. Disappointment’s writ large in Fred’s face — it’s branded on him — he swallows and tries to disguise it but doesn’t succeed. Dad pats his shoulder. Fred seethes and twists away. Then it’s my turn. I give my present to Mom. She opens it, equally slowly, as if everything’s a labor to her. It’s a napkin ring. “Thanks,” she mumbles, without so much as looking at me. And she puts both the breadboard and the napkin ring straight into the drawer of her bedside table and hides under the quilt once more. Dad’s worried. “Now you just need some bread and a napkin,” he says. There’s silence from the bed. “Now that you have a board and a ring, I mean.” He laughs loudly. He’s the only one who does. Mom looks at him, with the narrowest eyes in Fagerborg. “If all you have to offer me is your fake laughter, then you can get out!” Dad just stands there. He feels wounded. Deeply wounded. But he remains where he is. He tightens the cord of his bathrobe. Boletta’s gone for the Malaga and pours a generous measure, but Mom doesn’t feel like that either. Boletta drinks it herself, and I breathe in the hot, sweet scent that in a moment of giddiness makes me forget that it’s Mom’s birthday at all, and that she’s unhappy and doesn’t care for the presents we’ve made. “It’s not my laughter I’m giving you,” Dad says, his voice trembling. “Then what is it?” Mom asks, and doesn’t even look at him. Boletta pours more Malaga into the glass. But Mom still won’t have any. I turn to Fred. His fists are clenched. Dad goes even closer to the bed. “It’s not my laughter I’m giving you,” he repeats. “It’s your own. Because I make you laugh.” “Not any more,” Mom whispers. Dad shakes his head a long while over those words. “Shouldn’t I, who’s carried a suitcase full of applause through Europe, manage to make Vera Nilsen of Church Road laugh?” Mom sighs and waves him away with a small hand, all the fingers hanging down. I know now. She’s tired of us. She wants to be rid of us. It hurts right down to my tummy. It burns somewhere under my heart. And then Dad does what he always does best. Perhaps he’s waited for just this moment to risk everything on his last card. He goes toward the door, stooped and silent. Then all at once he stops and spins around again. He stands tall and snaps his fingers, as if all of a sudden he’s remembered something he forgot to mention. He turns the situation around. He turns all the wrongness of the moment inside out and wins the public over to his side. He makes it unbearable to endure. He magics laughter from melancholy. Oh, I wish Dad had said it in the first place! “If I can’t get you to laugh any more, perhaps you might care to join me on a trip to Italy instead?” There’s complete silence in the bedroom. We stare at him. He bobs up and down in his worn-out slippers and finds half a cigar in his bathrobe, which he sticks in his mouth. Even Mom’s restless and soon won’t be able to stop herself from turning around in bed. “What are you talking about?” Boletta demands. “I’m talking about magnificent Italy,” Dad replies. Boletta gives a loud snort and has some more Malaga. But slowly Mom gets up. “Italy?” she whispers. And this is Dad’s triumph. He’s put color in Mom’s cheeks. He’s breathed into her hair. He’s won her over again. He glances over his shoulder and looks at me, as if we’ve achieved this conquest together on the morning of her thirty-fifth birthday in August 1960 — with a breadboard, a napkin ring and an Italian dream. Dad puts the cigar back in his pocket and sits down on the bed. He’s filled with peace now. He has us in the palm of his hand. We are all tied to the same string, and he stretches it; he tightens and stretches it till it’s on the point of snapping, till Mom raises her hand to tear the rest from him physically. But he gets in just before her. “Once upon a time you came north with me to the island farthest out in the ocean to have Barnum baptized. And now I want to take you even farther south.” Mom’s silent once more. She has question marks in both eyes. Its Dads turn to sigh, not heavily but good-naturedly and indulgently. “Might it not be a good idea to visit Fleming Brant, the Old One’s necrophilic friend in Bellagio?” he suggests. Boletta stamps her foot. “He wrote her obituary, Arnold Nilsen! That was all!” Dad just laughs. “Ah, what’s the difference! What do you say, Mom? Are you coming?” “We can’t afford it,” she whispers. Dad just shrugs his shoulders, enjoying every minute of this now. “Maybe we can,” he replies. And he produces a packet from his bathrobe, as if he’s performing a magic trick, and when he folds the brown paper on top to one side, we see that it’s money — stacks of banknotes — and we huddle up, holding our breath. I grab Fred’s hand, and he doesn’t let go. “Italian lira,” Dad whispers. Boletta snorts all the louder. “It’s not worth more than an 0re piece!” she exclaims. Dad doesn’t pay the least attention to her. His attention is focused on Mom, who lifts one of the thin notes and lets it fall equally fast — worried, mistrusting, and back to her former state. “Where have these come from?” she demands. Dad realizes that he’s in danger of losing ground, that he has to keep up the momentum. He has to dispel this anxiety, remove the doubt. He has his answer ready. “This is the final settlement for the Buick, at long last, my love.” He says this and kisses her cheek. She lets him do it. Boletta all but comes between them. “And how are you planning on getting to Italy? Are we going on foot?” Dad glances up at her, and his face is etched with patience. And now he manages to top it all. He surpasses himself. He’s on first-name terms with God Himself that day. “I thought we might drive there instead,” he replies. And he points to the window. We run over and tear back the curtains. And down in the street there’s just one solitary car. It’s not exactly a Buick Roadmaster Cabriolet. It’s a black box with wheels. It’s a Volvo Duett. And Dad has bought himself new gloves for driving, made of black leather. He puts his arms around Mom. “Happy birthday, darling,” he says.