The Half Brother: A Novel (60 page)

Three days later mail arrives for me. It was the first time I’d gotten a letter. My name was on the envelope, my name and address. It was like being discovered, coming into existence. Someone had found me. This letter had been carried through the city and put in the right mailbox. I thought to myself, before wondering who it was from,
Will the stamp he valuable one day?
We were sitting in the kitchen having dinner. It was at least eighty degrees. Just lifting the fork made you sweat. Fred was there too. He drank water and ate potatoes. His face had sort of begun to join up again in the wrong order. I had to look at him twice to make sure it was him. “What are you gawking at?” he demanded. “Nothing,” I said quickly. Fred put his finger on his nose and pushed it back and forth. It creaked. Bo-letta held her ears. And then Mom took out the envelope and passed it over the table. She was so happy for me; I’d gotten a letter in Oslo and maybe she’d read it already. “There’s a letter for you,” she said. I became very slow and silent. There it was written — Barnum Nilsen — in tall, narrow letters. Barnum Nllsen, my name, with the address underneath. Yes, I’d been discovered, found, I was a person, there was no doubt about it — I was accounted for. Then I ripped open the envelope with my knife and read the letter. It was from Peder’s dad. My eyes grew heavy. Mom smiled. “Read it to us, Barnum!” And I read it to them as quietly as I could; the words that Oscar Miil, that cheerful and careful man had written.
Dear Barnum.
Now that Peder and you have become such good friends, something were delighted about, wed like to invite you to our place on Ildjernet this summer, if this is all right with your mother.
I looked at Mom. “Is it all right?” I asked her. She nodded many times. “Of course! But aren’t you going to read all of it?” “I have,” I breathed. “No, you haven’t, Barnum.” “Yes, I have,” I told her. But Mom took the letter from me and continued reading.
Your brothers most welcome too! Best wishes from Oscar Miil.
I looked down. Fred breathed quickly through his crooked nose, and the sound was reminiscent of the noise Dad used to make when he was sleeping. I shuddered. “Wouldn’t that be nice, Fred?” Mom asked him. I could hear Fred smiling. “Can’t,” was all he said. “You can’t? And what are you so busy with this summer?” “Training.” Mom slowly folded up the letter from Oscar Miil, and even Boletta put down her knife and fork. “Training? Training for what, may I ask?” “I’ve joined the Central Boxing Club, if you really must know.” Fred helped himself to more potatoes and mashed them on his plate. There was quiet around the table. And I felt so relieved. Fred was going to train instead. First they’d knocked him down. Then they’d got him to join the Central Boxing Club, and now he couldn’t come on vacation with Peder’s family. That was the way of it. One thing always leads to another. I felt both happy and ashamed. “You’re not boxing in some boxing club,” Mom said, her face angry. Fred couldn’t be bothered to answer her. He ate his potatoes. “Haven’t you had enough of a beating? Look at yourself, Fred!” Fred just shrugged his shoulders. “Boxing isn’t the same as a beating,” he said. Mom leaned over the table. “And was it the Central Boxing Club that beat you up, huh?” Fred laughed quietly. “I wouldn’t bother your head about that.” Mom was fizzing. Boletta put her hand on her shoulder. “Where is Ildjernet, out of interest?” she inquired. Mom gave a deep sigh and unfolded the letter once more. That was the way things were. Good news never came on its own. And bad news could be good for others. Fred was going to box, and I was going on vacation with my best friend and could avoid having Fred there too. And Peder’s dad had drawn a map on the back of the sheet of paper. Ildjernet was an island in the Oslo Fjord, and to get there I’d have to take the Nesod-den ferry along the whole length of that piece of land. Immediately I went into my room to pack. Fred came in soon afterward. He lay down on his bed. I didn’t dare look at him. I packed. “Don’t eat too much mackerel,” he said in the end. “Why not?” I asked him. “Don’t you know why?” “No.” “Mackerel eat German corpses. Lying on the bottom of the Oslo Fjord.” “You’re kidding?” “So when you eat mackerel; you’re actually eating a German corpse.” I turned to look at him. “You can come too,” I whispered. He just shut his eyes. It was as though a stranger had visited his face and wouldn’t leave again. “Be quiet,” he said. “Don’t lie.”

And the following Saturday Midsummer Eve, I stood on the deck of the
Prince
and waved goodbye to Mom and Boletta, even though I’d told them they shouldn’t come. Fortunately before long I couldn’t see them any more and the clock on the City Chambers grew small as a wristwatch and the town sank in the blue wind. I saw everything I was to leave disappear from sight. I wasn’t seasick. I felt strong. I had only traveled alone once before, when Mom, Boletta and the school doctor discovered that I was too thin and sent me to a farm in the country to be fattened up. But I’d rather not talk about that — no, I’d prefer not to talk about it at all, it’s forgotten for good. And this was something else. I was going to my friend’s. After Flaskebekk, the boat began to roll. I carried Dad’s suitcase into the saloon and bought a small Coke from the kiosk. The passengers smiled at me. We were going on our summer vacation. I smiled at them. An old lady with fine hair and a wrinkled mouth leaned over a basket with a growling puppy. “Are you going far?” she asked, and ran a dry hand though my curls. I decided to be polite. “As far as the boat goes,” I replied. And on Ildjernet, the last quay before the fjord bends and widens out toward the open sea — where the Old One and Boletta and King Haakon came sailing in and saw Oslo for the first time — Peder and his father stood waiting. I carried my suitcase down the gangway Peder came running toward me. He was quite brown already, and thinner. I almost didn’t recognize him and nearly felt envious, but of what I didn’t quite know. He stopped in front of me and stretched out his hand. “You’re a mess,” he said. “Next time I’ll come on stilts,” I said. Peder gave a sigh. “Wrong, Bogart. You first say I’m not very tall either.” “I’m not very tall either,” I said. “We’ll take it from the start,” Peder said, and breathed in. “Ready?” “Ready as I’ll ever be.” “You’re a mess, Mr. Barnum Nilsen.” “And you’ve gotten filthy brown,” I reply Peder groaned and almost pushed me into the water. Then his dad came over to us; he had a pipe clamped between his jaws and sunglasses over his spectacles. He took my suitcase. “Why don’t we get over there before the summer’s over, boys?” We followed him until he stopped by a small rope bridge connecting the mainland with the island where their summer house was. Peder’s dad looked at me. “Afraid of heights, Barnum?” “Not yet,” I whispered. Peder laughed. “Barnum’s so small he doesn’t know what it means to have a fear of heights,” he said. His dad had to take off both pairs of glasses for a moment. “What was that you said, Peder?” “Nothing,” Peder replied, and ran out onto the bridge; I followed, and his dad came behind us. “Don’t look down!” he shouted. I looked down. The whole bridge swayed, and the waves grew stronger still — the wind in my head, the waves in my mouth. I tried to cling tightly to the side, but it was just a rope looping away through my hands. I heard Peder, who was still laughing, and suddenly I thought of Der Rote Teufel. I hung there between the mainland and Ildjernet and couldn’t stop thinking of The Red Devil who died of laughter. “Don’t look down!” Peder’s dad shouts again. Peder himself just keeps on laughing; he was probably born on the bridge. He turns and stretches out his arms as if to hug me. “It’s not dangerous,” he says. And it was a strange week, a strange week in my finest summer ever — that first summer with Peder on Ildjernet. Because I can’t remember the order of all the things that happened; it’s like a movie whose scenes have been put together randomly, and maybe the last part has ended up somewhere in the middle of the action, like a riddle you only get the hang of later or maybe never at all. When I came back, brown from head to toe, and Fred stood at the wharf waiting, and the City Chambers’ clock became visible once more with its mighty hands and golden figures — it was just as if the Ildjernet days opened up into a bouquet bending in every direction. And if you picked just one single flower from this hourglass, this blue vase, the rest would wilt right away. But something did happen there that summer; I don’t quite know what it was — it just happened in a different way, gentle and slow. And this is how my summer begins; I let go of my hold of the rope, open my eyes, and fall right into the arms of Peder’s mom who’s sitting on the other side in her wheelchair. “Hi there, Barnum! Was your journey all right?” I breathe out. “Oh, yes. But the sea was rough at Faskebekk.” Peder swings the wheelchair around and laughs. “Now Barnum’s got a fear of heights,” he says. “Hell have to sit with you going the other way!” His dad slaps me on the back, and I wonder how Peder’s mom got there, because a wheelchair on a rope bridge is something I’ve never heard of before. Peder wheels her into the shadows at the back of the low, white house in the middle of the island, and afterward he shows me the room where we’re staying. There’s a bed over by the window, a double bed, and Peder collapses on it and lies there watching me unpack. And I’m hardly traveling light, but it’s better to have too much with you when you go on vacation for a week with a friend on an island. Part of the load includes pyjamas, swimming shoes and two pairs of trunks (so I can put on a dry pair straight after swimming and thus avoid getting chilled), extra underwear, a tube of suntan lotion, a pen and a piece of paper on which Mom’s put our address and telephone number, just for safety’s sake; nor have I forgotten insect repellent, my comb and deodorant, not to mention the old camera. “Are you planning on staying for the rest of your life?” Peder inquires. And I turn toward the bed and take a picture of him — Peder lying with his hands behind his head; his smile, one eye closed as if he’s making fun of me or has just told a rather bad joke, his bare torso, his tummy spreading over the belt of his shorts a bit, even though he’s lying down, his toes extended; and a shadow divides the picture in two, from corner to corner. That’s how I remember him — Peder on the bed, that first day of our summer together. Then he looks at me with both eyes. “What side do you want to lie on?” he asks. I keep standing. “You know what’s been in this suitcase, Peder?” “Haven’t a clue.” “Applause.” He shuts one eye again as if it’s me that’s pulling his leg now. “Applause?” “Yes. I inherited it from Dad.” Peder lies there thinking. “But now there’s no applause left in it?” he finally asks. I shake my head and carefully lie down beside him. The mattress is soft and there’s a kind of deep hollow in the middle we both roll down into. Peder’s skin is warm; it glows when I touch it. “A suitcase of applause,” he whispers. “Wonderful.” I find the Nivea, get the top off it, and dip my finger in the thick, white lotion and begin to rub it on him. He turns around. His shoulders are red, and the skin on his back is flaking. I peel off the thin flakes of dead skin. And right between his shoulder blades he has a mosquito bite that I have to scratch for him. Afterward I take off the clothes I’ve traveled in and put on swimming trunks instead, and Peder rubs lotion all over me and does a good job — he doesn’t miss a single spot where I could get sunburned. Then we lie there quite still. “Did you wonder how Mom got over here?” Peder suddenly asks me. “By boat?” “Nope. She sailed in the wheelchair.” “That’s impossible!” “I mean it. She just speeds up on the wharf and splashes right across. A bit like on skis.” “No?” “Really. Everyone comes to the wharf to see Mom when she’s going to go over to the island. People look forward to it all year round.” And I can see it in my mind’s eye, his mother on the fjord in her wheelchair; I close my eyes and see it all, the wheelchair in the waves. And then I hear someone calling us from far away, from the sun and the wind. We lie there a little longer just the same. “I’m glad you’re here,” Peder whispers. “Me too, Peder.” Then we run out onto the terrace where a table has been set under an umbrella; we sit down in soft chairs and pour golden juice into our glasses, and drink the sweet liquid as a wasp hums over the cloth — a wasp that’s allowed to go on humming. Peder’s dad appears in the wide door to the living room and stands between the thin curtains that all but enclose him. He’s holding a dish in his hands and smiling. “Hungry, boys?” “Hungry as hell,” Peder says. His dad takes a step away from the curtains and puts the dish on his table. “Don’t swear on my island,” he says. Peder laughs. I have a peek into the dish. It’s fish. Peder’s dad rolls up a newspaper and tries to swat the wasp, but doesn’t get it. Then he flicks up his sunglasses and looks down in the direction of the beach and the diving board. “Maria!” he shouts. “Food!” Soon enough I hear the sound of her chair, and maybe it could do with some oil; she rolls in from the shadows, and Peder and his dad lift her into a normal chair. For a second I catch a glimpse of her thin body — her hips that are just skin and bone; the gray skin hanging from her joints. And she sees that I’ve seen and that I’m appalled and horrified — even though I look the other way, at the sailing boats out on the water, the heart of the fjord, the wasp that comes back and lands on the edge of my glass, the sun that glistens on the forks. And I think of everything we shouldn’t see, that we could well avoid seeing. Once I saw Fred standing in front of the mirror in Mom’s bedroom; he leaned forward and kissed — no, licked — his own reflection. I didn’t want to see it because everything you see you carry inside; every single image is mingled into one great picture, too heavy for our eyes. And I have to look again one more time all the same — I can’t help it — at her thin legs where the blanket has slipped a bit to one side; she’s almost blue, puckered, and she smiles as she pulls the blanket over her knees. “After you, Barnum,” she says. Peder pushes the dish closer. It smells of vinegar. It’s cold fish. Peder’s dad opens two bottles of beer and gives one to his wife. They drink straight from the bottle. “Mackerel!” he says, and turns to me. “Mackerel?” I whisper. “Fine, fat mackerel, Barnum. They came early this year. But they didn’t fool me!” Peder yawns and turns the umbrella. The shadow slides over the cloth as if someone has spilled a full glass over it. I put the smallest piece I can find on my plate. Peder’s mother laughs. “There’s no need to be polite, Barnum!” Fortunately Peder takes the dish from me and isn’t particularly polite. “If you don’t have at least three mackerel, Dad’ll be horribly offended,” Peder says. I try to laugh. Peder’s dad puts down his bottle of beer. “Mackerel’s more than just tasty, boys. It’s healthy too. Just see how much fat there is in its fur!” “Mackerel doesn’t have fur, Dad,” Peder says. I laugh loudly. But his dad just runs his finger over the shiny skin with a sigh. I bow my head. Mackerel on the plate. German soldiers. On the bottom of the fjord. A German corpse on my plate. This is the war that goes on. It’s now I become seasick. I mustn’t get seasick. I mustn’t be sick. Because perhaps Peder’s mother will think that it’s she who’s made me sick, that I can’t bear the sight of her paralyzed body under the blanket, her skin and bone. That mustn’t happen. I swallow. The slippery flesh, the slippery flesh from the bottom of the sea slides down and I get up, go around the house without looking back, and there I kneel down and vomit in the grass. “What is it, Barnum?” I dry my mouth with the back of my hand, and it tastes of suntan lotion and vinegar. Peder’s standing behind me. “Can’t stand mackerel,” I whisper. And Peder hunkers down beside me. “Do you have to be sick before you have the courage to tell us that?”