Encircling (22 page)
Authors: Carl Frode Tiller
I almost asked you whether the water had been really cold, but I had learned that you had to be very careful when it came to joking about the size of somebody’s dick, so I restrained myself. Instead I turned my head the other way and gazed out across the sparkling blue sea, to where a motorboat carrying two boys in red life vests was chugging by. As they passed the boob-shaped skerry where the gulls nested, the birds began to dive-bomb them, swooping down over their heads, then up into the air again in long, sweeping curves, then dive-bombing the boat again, shrieking and plummeting from high above and scaring one of the boys, who put his arm up as if to shield himself. I nudged you and laughed and when you lifted your head off the roof a fraction and shaded your eyes with
your hand to take a look I said something about the mother gull wanting to protect her young. This may have been what prompted you, shortly afterwards, to start talking about your mother and how she wouldn’t tell you who your father was.
I had always had the idea that you preferred not to talk about your real father, but you had now broached the subject with me twice in a relatively short space of time and I took this as a sign that you were thinking about him a lot just then, a suspicion which was indirectly confirmed when you told me the following story.
On one of the first days of the Namsos Fair you and Jon had stopped at one of the many stalls selling old military gear, and when you came home from the fair with a pair of army boots and a jacket with three stripes on the shoulders that gave you exactly the cool, freaky look you were after, Berit flew into a quite unexpected fit of rage and snapped at you to take that Nazi get-up off that very instant. According to you, she had been almost as taken aback by her own angry outburst as you were and a second after saying what she had said she had tried to smooth things over with what you described as a very unsteady and anxious laugh (as if it had been a joke). You had asked what the hell was the matter with her and she had said nothing was the matter. Then she had simply turned away and you had stomped upstairs to your room, not quite knowing whether she was laughing or crying.
This incident was by no means unique, you told me. You had never given it much thought before, but Berit had always reacted in unexpected and, for you, inexplicable, ways when she saw you in certain situations or circumstances. She thought, for example, that it was disgusting when you did this, you said, jutting your chin out and up, as if to stretch your jaw a little or smooth out the skin of your throat. And
she had to look away when you did this, you went on, curling your upper lip slightly and inhaling deeply through your nose (as if you had a cold).
There was a connection, you believed, between such responses on her part, her sudden fury at the sight of you in army gear and the identity of your biological father. In the same way that the unknown woman in the orange Audi had relived her rape on seeing a young man she had never laid eyes on before, so your mother relived her rape on seeing you in situations in which you looked particularly like your father.
“So now you’re on the look out for a middle-aged army officer with a facial tic?” I remember asking and you roared with laughter for so long that eventually we heard a crabby, tobacco-roughened woman’s voice down below say, “Yeah, yeah, we hear you. The whole bloody beach can hear what a great time you’re having.” We immediately pushed ourselves up onto our elbows and peeped over the edge of the roof. Beneath us we saw three flabby white women in their late thirties lying on their stomachs on the rocks. The backs of all three were slightly bowed, their upper bodies raised half off the rock, and this – along with the damp, glistening skin, stretched so tightly over the flab that it looked as though it was about to burst – made them look like three sea lions, all set to slip into the water.
Cheeky and fearless as we were, and somewhat provoked by this sour remark, we started firing snide comments back at them. I find it a bit scary, though, to think that at the age of eighteen I knew exactly how to get at women the same age as I am now, because while you, as a young man, could only venture a rather silly remark about periods and PMS, I sat up to give them a good view of what was then a slim, shapely figure with firm breasts peeking out of my bikini top,
smiled wryly, and in a loud, clear voice said: “Well – I didn’t know you got sea lions this far south.”
I remember one of the women responding to this by trying to act as though she thought we were ridiculous, but she was far too hurt and het up to carry it off, and her affected laugh gradually petered out into a seething, impotent hiss.
The time when Berit turned and looked at us:
Arvid was mowing the lawn, Berit was painting the garden gate and we were sitting at the little stone table under the cherry tree, our heads bowed over my notebook, on which I had just spilled coffee, washing away some of the writing and turning the words into a gritty blue mess, all but impossible to decipher. “It’s kind of like when you’re out paddling and you disturb a flounder,” I remember saying, and when you asked me to explain what I meant and I described how a flounder will dart off across the sea bottom, sending the sand swirling up and turning the water round your bare feet all cloudy and muddy, you shifted your hand until it was almost touching me, and I remember the lovely warm feeling that flowed up my arm when your fingers grazed mine. But the next moment, when Berit laid her brush across the top of the paint tin, stood up and turned to us, you drew your hand away again, kind of casually. “I’m a bit tired,” I remember you saying, then you sat back in the camping chair, stretched your arms over your head and yawned.
But, contrary to what you obviously thought, Berit wasn’t jealous. I realized this when, since she found it hard to talk to you about such things, she came up to me a few days later and asked if we were using contraception. She was smiling
and almost friendly in a kind of all-girls-together way, and when I nodded and said that, yes, we were (you were very careful about using a condom, far more careful than I was), she put a hand to her chest and let all the air out of her lungs in one breath, as if very relieved. “I know what it’s like to have a baby when you’re young and I wouldn’t exactly recommend it,” I remember her saying, and before we parted she made me promise not to tell you about our little chat. “He’ll only think that I’m trying to control him,” she said, and she winked slyly at me as she added: “You know what he’s like, he does so want to be free and independent.”
And it may have been this as much as the fear of Berit being jealous that moved you to pull your hand away when she turned to us. Because it wasn’t just that you didn’t want your mother to regard us as a couple, you didn’t want anyone regarding us that way, and when I asked you why not, you always came out with some tired old line such as: “I don’t want to be tied down, or not yet anyway.”
We sit at the table, eating, and no one says anything. I hear Else’s knife scraping her plate and on the other side of the table I hear Egil say, “Mm,” and I hear the glug-glug of wine being poured into a glass and I see that it’s Trond who has refilled his glass and Trond sets the bottle down on the table with a little thud, then he looks at me as he raises his glass. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come on Thursday,” he says, his voice deep and slightly husky. He takes a big swig of his wine, tucks his long, thick hair behind his ear and leans over his plate. “That’s all right,” I say, looking at him and smiling. “I heard it was a good funeral,” he says, then he takes a big mouthful of fish and eyes me with interest as he chews. “Yes, it was,” I say, and I picture the funeral, I picture all those sad, sombre faces and in my mind I hear the voice of the earnest, stammering vicar. “Yes, the funeral went well,” I say and I chuckle at my rather frivolous choice of words, then I look at Trond and smile, give a little shrug. “It was like any other funeral,” I say, and Trond nods and smiles back. “So how are you doing?” he asks. “Oh, I’m fine,” I say, “although it was a bit sudden,” I add, and I look at him and give a little wag of my head and he smiles warmly as he takes a sip of his wine.
“The strange thing about your parents dying, though,” I say, “is that you start thinking of yourself as being next in line,” I say. “It’s like in gym class at school, suddenly you find yourself at the head of the queue and it’s your turn next,” I say with a little laugh. “Yep, you’ve got to live while you can,” Trond says, and he too gives a little laugh. “Yep,” I say and I lean over my plate, take a little bit of my fish, then look up at Egil, and now I see that Egil is sitting there staring at me. He gives me a wry little smile. What is it this time, what’s he looking at me like that for?
“She was your mother, Silje,” Egil says, and a moment passes, and I look at him and I frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. “I just think you could show a little more respect,” he says. “It was like any other funeral,” he says, staring at me, still with that wry smile on his face and there’s silence for a moment and I glance across at Trond and Trond looks straight at Egil and I glance across at Else and Else lowers her eyes and straightens the napkin on her lap. Her long narrow face is suddenly tight, she looks rather aggrieved, looks a little put out, and a moment passes and then, all at once, I realize what this is about, it’s not me but Else that Egil is addressing, it’s not me but his mother he’s talking to, and I turn to Egil and hold his gaze and I feel myself growing annoyed.
“Yes, well,” Trond says suddenly, and he looks at Egil. “We all know how fond you are of Mum, Egil,” he says, just like that, and I almost jump when he says it, and there’s total silence for a moment and I feel a little ripple of delight run through me, it’ll do Egil and Else good to hear this, there’s silence and Else purses her lips and becomes even more tight-faced. She’s breathing a little faster than usual as she straightens the jacket collar of her beige
trouser suit and Egil is looking daggers at Trond. “What?” Egil says and Trond grins and shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says, and there’s silence again and a moment passes.
“Could you pass me the salt, Egil?” Else asks and I stare at her, she still looks strained and aggrieved and I realize she’s starting to annoy me. I turn to look at Egil and he lays his knife and fork on his plate, his face looking so tight and stern, and he lifts his chin slightly as he reaches across the table and curls his slender, white shopkeeper fingers round the salt cellar. I notice how finicky and feminine this action makes him appear, it’s almost disgusting how unmasculine he is. “Here you are, Mum,” Egil says. “Thank you,” Else says, and I look at Else, then I look at Egil and I’m struck by how alike they actually are, with the same clean-cut features, the same brilliant white teeth, the same narrow shoulders and the same slender fingers.
“What are you grinning at?” Egil snaps and he looks up at Trond and I turn and look at Trond and Trond chuckles and shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says, raising his eyebrows slightly, and he chuckles as he drinks the rest of his wine, then he refills his glass and there’s silence and I look at Egil again and yet again I’m struck by how alike he and Else are. I’ve always known that he looked like her, but not that he looked so much like her. I feel almost as though I’m seeing Egil in a new light, almost as though I’m seeing him for the first time; I don’t take my eyes off him and the moments pass and then he suddenly looks straight at me.
“What?” he says, and a moment passes and I simply sit there staring at him. “Silje,” he says a little louder and he frowns and shakes his head and a moment passes and then I seem to come to my senses a little. “Yes?” I say. “You’re giving me such a funny look,” he says. “Am I?” I
say. “Yes,” he says and there’s silence and I don’t take my eyes off him. “No, really – what is it?” he says. “Nothing,” I say, giving him a rather stiff little smile. “Nothing?” he asks. “Just something I thought of,” I say. “Ah, so there was something, then,” he says, and a moment passes and it annoys me that he’s so persistent, sitting there giving me the third degree when we have guests, and my annoyance grows. “I’m simply trying to say I don’t want to tell you what I was thinking.” It just comes out and I almost jump at what I’m saying, and Egil flinches as I say it and there is total silence and Egil stares at me, shocked and furious, and I look him straight in the eye, and I can tell that he expects me to back down, he expects me to lower my eyes, but I hold his gaze and I smile a stiff little smile, and a moment passes, and one of us is going to have to look away soon, we can’t go on sitting like this, not when we have guests, and another moment passes and Egil is looking more and more furious, but I don’t back down, and Egil leans over his plate and goes on eating, eating a little faster than usual, and I can see how furious he is and I realize that I’m enjoying this and I carry on eating and there’s an awkward silence and the moments pass.
“This sauce is delicious,” Else says, then there’s silence again and the moments pass, then Trond starts to laugh, and his laugh is deep and husky and Egil lays his cutlery on his plate, sets it down a little more firmly than normal and glares at Trond. “What exactly is all this?” Egil asks, blinking steadily at the end of this sentence, blinking as if to command respect, and I look at his slender wrists and clean-cut, feminine features, and I find it hard not to laugh, he’s so unmasculine that it’s funny when he tries to seem intimidating. “What is it?” Trond asks, and
he chuckles and shakes his head. “I don’t really know,” he says. “But one thing’s for sure – nothing’s changed.” “Trond!” Else says, giving Trond a shocked look, then her shock turns to anger, her upper lip tightens into a fan of fine, vertical creases, and she stares at Trond, and Trond stares back at her. “Yes?” he says, and he smiles at her with feigned tenderness. “Behave yourself,” Else snaps. “I’m to behave myself?” Trond says. “Yes, you,” Else says. “But what did I do?” Trond asks. “Behave yourself,” Else says, a little louder this time, then there’s silence again and the moments pass. “But this sauce is delicious,” Trond murmurs, and he looks at his plate and grins.