Norwegian by Night (20 page)

In the kitchen, where he'd found the marker, there is a ring of keys with labels on each one. The labels are in Norwegian, but, as chance would have it, one of them does in fact unlock the padlock to the garage door facing the street.

So, without much optimism, Sheldon opens the padlock, places it back on the door in an open position, and then swings the doors open in a dramatic gesture, for no other reason than because it feels good.

What he sees inside gives Sheldon the first genuine desire to laugh since Rhea told him about the miscarriage.

Leaving the garage door open, he shuffles back to the living room and finds the lower half of the Viking alighting from under the vintage three-seater sofa. Sheldon addresses the boy's bottom.

‘Whatcha doing under the sofa?'

Hearing Sheldon's voice, he slides back out. When he's fully out from under, he turns over. The boy holds up a very large ball of dust and hair.

Sheldon pulls over a curvy Danish chair and sits in it. He considers first the boy and then the dust bunny he's raising overhead like a trophy.

‘That's a mighty impressive hair ball you've got there.'

Paul considers it.

‘You know, this is a good sign. I guess. You see, before Huck and Jim hit the road, Jim had a hair ball. His could talk if you put a coin under it. I don't have a nickel, though. And this one probably speaks Norwegian. I think we should go now.'

Sheldon takes a pillowcase from the bedroom and places the dust bunny in the middle of it. He folds the four corners over it and ties them together. From the hall closet he takes a broom and unscrews the handle from the plastic head. He slides the handle through the knot on the pillowcase and puts the whole rig on Paul's shoulder.

‘Now you're a Norwegian-Albanian Dust-Bunny Hobo Viking. Bet you didn't know you'd be one of those when you woke up this morning.'

Their battle Wellingtons on, the dishes washed and put back, the beds stripped, the sheets piled on the floor, and the toilets flushed again for good measure, Sheldon snaps his fingers a few times to signal that it's time to go. He shoulders his satchel and adjusts the strap so it rests better on his thin shoulder, and walks with Paul out into the light of a new day to show him his special discovery.

‘Come, come, come. Now, you stand there. And don't move. OK?'

It's not OK, and Paul has no idea what Sheldon is talking about, but, horns and all, he stands at attention as Sheldon disappears into the garage.

There is a long silence. Paul looks down to the fjord, where beautiful sailboats skim over the surface of the cold and salty sea. Where seagulls glide, high and free in the morning sky. Where …

A thunderous noise startles the boy, who steps away from the garage.

Smoke billows from the open door and slips in from under the closed one. The windows undulate, and the birds all fly away. And out of the darkness comes Sheldon Horowitz on a massive yellow tractor, pulling a huge rubber raft on a two-wheeled boat trailer with a Norwegian flag affixed to the stern.

‘River Rats!' he shouts, flapping his map high above his head, ‘Let the journey commence!'

All around them the world is alive and in bloom. The road winds and twists with gentle curves, and the wilderness is close enough to touch. The birches and spruce stand tall and gallant amidst the beech and pine. Birds, relishing the long summer days, sing full-bellied songs that dance through shimmering leaves and pipe above the gently swaying tips of tops of trees.

Paul's rubber-clad feet flip and flop around inside the rubber boat as he waves his spoon at passing cars, and carries on almost like a normal child.

Sheldon shifts the tractor into the wrong gear about a dozen times before figuring out — to a point — how the thing works. Once he gets into a groove, at about twenty kilometres an hour, he holds his course and counts his blessings.

He pulls them out onto Husvikveien and then onto the 153, which also seems to be called Osloveien if he's reading the map correctly. His first marker is Riksveg 23, which he hopes will be announced by some kind of sign or something, and is about thirty minutes away at their current pace. He figures he can settle into the trip for a bit and try to adapt to this unfamiliar place.

It doesn't feel so unfamiliar, though. It feels like the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, where white-steepled churches keep vigil over the salt-box houses with their black, blue, and green storm shutters, and school children carry tin lunch boxes with cartoon characters, and policemen stop traffic on Main Street to make way for ducklings as they walk across the road with their stubby orange legs and curious little faces.

The last time he was in the Berkshires was in 1962, when Saul was ten. It was the perfect time to take the family ‘leafing' to see the magnificence of the New England tapestry unfold all around them and envelop them in the seasonal bliss of autumn and the coming of Halloween.

They were staying in a bed-and-breakfast near the town where Sheldon was born. Saul had run down the carpeted stairs, absurdly early, to launch an untethered attack on the breakfast table as he and Mabel idly wondered what it might have been like to have had a girl.

‘Quieter,' Sheldon figured.

‘For you. I was tough on my mother,' she'd said.

‘Mothers and daughters.'

‘Right.'

‘But we might have slept later.'

‘Maybe.'

‘I can go down and keep him company. Wanna stay in bed a bit?'

And so Mabel slept for another hour as Sheldon watched Saul consume twice his body mass in cranberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, hot chocolate, eggs, bacon, maple syrup, and butter.

It was mid-October, and Sheldon was reading about the Cuban missile crisis in the
Boston Globe
when the story finally broke. The Soviets were trying to get missiles into Cuba, and Kennedy had set up a blockade to try to keep them out. The stand-off almost resulted in a nuclear war. This would have ruined Halloween entirely.

‘If there's a nuclear war, you know what you're supposed to do, right?' he'd asked Saul.

‘Ruff and rubber.'

‘Don't talk with your mouth full.'

Saul swallowed and then said, ‘Duck and cover.'

‘Right.'

Parenting done, Sheldon refilled his coffee and decided that today would be an excellent day to pick apples at the orchard. And after that, he'd take in the front nine on a round of golf. Mabel could do some leafing with the kid, and he'd give himself a break. Take a deep breath in his native state, and get the car fumes of New York out of his lungs.

The apple-picking went well. They paid ten cents for a big basket and set off into the rows of trees.

Mabel was in a red shirt and a white blouse. Remembering it now, he marvelled at how tiny her waist was, how shapely her calves. How she wobbled ever so slightly in her shoes over the uneven ground. He walked behind her and smiled as the heels speared the fallen leaves and followed her around like a stack of receipts on a spike back at the repair shop.

It was a pity that day was ruined.

Mabel came down with a bit of a headache in the afternoon, so Sheldon decided to take Saul to the golf course to teach him to hold the putter properly. What ten-year-old kid wouldn't want to caddy for his dad?

There was an old country club with a low and long white colonial home at its centre, and the course stretched out behind it like puddles of emeralds. The blue of the sky lit out to the heavens, and a string quartet was playing on the terrace on account of some fancy catered event. It was a delightful place.

Sheldon and Saul walked into the lobby and smiled at the man who waited like a maître d'. The man smiled back.

‘Hi. My son and I want to play a round of golf. Just the front nine. He'll caddy. We won't hold anyone up.'

‘Your name, please?'

‘I'm Sheldon Horowitz, and this is my son, Saul.'

‘Mr Horowitz.'

‘Yes. So, who do I pay and where do I get some clubs?'

‘I'm sorry, sir, but the club is for members only.'

Sheldon furrowed his brows. ‘You're the only course in town. I asked at the B&B. They said everyone plays here.'

‘Oh, no, no. They were mistaken. It's members only.'

‘How can the guy be mistaken? He lives here and runs a tourist business.'

The man used the old technique of raising his ears and leaving the question unanswered in the hope that the other conversant would see where the conversation was headed and, not wanting to pursue it, leave off there. This technique was not designed with Sheldon in mind.

‘Sounds like you didn't hear me. Allow me to repeat. “How can the guy be mistaken? He lives here and runs a tourist business?”'

‘I'm sure I don't know.'

‘Fine. I come up here pretty often. How much for membership?'

‘It's very expensive. And there's a selection process. You need to be nominated by a member.'

In a gesture that surely harkens back to the Greek chorus, Sheldon looked around him for witnesses to the insanity he was experiencing.

‘What kind of thing is that to say? Are you trying to attract new members, or repel them?'

Out of habit, which can overpower learning, the man tried the same technique again, upon which Sheldon decided that the man had some screws loose, and so chose to speak slowly. As one does to foreigners and small animals.

‘Do you, or do you not, want to sell people memberships to your clubhouse so we can play on your shiny green fields with little white balls and then drink your drinkies in the bar?'

‘Mr
Horowitz,'
he said with emphasis. ‘Surely you understand. And there's no need to shout. We don't want a scene.'

Sheldon, genuinely trying to do the maths, squinted as he looked at the man. Then, perhaps for moral support, or to be reminded of the face of normality, he looked down at his well-fed ten-year-old son. And, on looking at his son, his eyes fell upon the gold Star of David that Mabel's sister had given him for Hanukkah last year.

Then Sheldon turned back to the man.

‘Are you saying you won't sell me a membership to your country club because I'm a Jew?'

The man looked to the left and right, and then whispered, ‘Sir, please, there's no need to use language here.'

‘Language?' Sheldon shouted. ‘I'm a United States Marine, you pipsqueak. I want to play a round of golf with my son. You will make that happen
now
.'

It did not happen then or even later. A security guard, larger than him and with darker features, made towards Sheldon.

At this moment, Sheldon was undecided, and he looked back at Saul. He should have walked away. He should have accepted that the world was a big place and that change happens gradually. He did not want — sincerely — to do anything scary that could upset or even traumatise his son. He didn't want to get arrested and upset Mabel. A higher wisdom was, even then, available for consultation.

But it was not convincing. Because what he saw on his son's face was shame. And Sheldon, being no intellectual, made his decision. And the decision was based on what he felt was the least shameful way to respond, given who he was, and who he wanted his son to be. The line from this moment to Saul's death in Vietnam was to be, for Sheldon, immutable and absolute.

As soon as the guard was in range, Sheldon sprang into the space between them and swung his right elbow like a punch into the man's lower jaw, dropping him immediately. Then, for good measure, he jabbed the other guy in the nose and watched him drop behind the desk like a clown in a tank of water.

This is when Sheldon took Saul's hand and led him from the country club, certain he would
not
be pursued and that the cops would
not
be coming for him. The only thing worse for an anti-Semite than a Jew is being beaten up by a Jew. The fewer people who knew about it, the better.

When they were good and far from the scene of the scene, Sheldon spun Saul around and wagged his finger at him and said this:

This country is what you make it. You understand that? It isn't good and it isn't bad. It's just what you make it. That means you don't make excuses for America's bullshit. That's what the Nazis and Commies do. The fatherland. The motherland. America isn't your parent. It's your kid. And today, I made America a place where you get your nose broken for telling a Jew he can't play a round of golf. The only one allowed to tell me I can't play golf is the ball.

Saul was wide-eyed, and clearly had no idea what his father was saying.

It was, however, a moment that Saul would never forget.

And, unlike the Cuban missile crisis, it ruined the whole day.

Chapter 12

Sigrid has received so many calls since the murder made the newspapers that she has donned a headset with a microphone in order to get some work done. The calls, she has decided, have nothing to do with her job.