Somewhere Over the Sea (4 page)

What makes all these options so difficult and unreliable is that every child with problems like yours is unique and different from every other. So a method that achieves good results in one case won't work, or works counterproductively, in another. And no one can know in advance who will react positively, or negatively, or not at all. All parents must therefore make some difficult decisions about which piece of advice to heed. Are they to expose their child to the endless burden of trying out one theory after another? It's almost like sitting in a restaurant with a menu full of dishes you've never heard of, and having to eat them all one after the other, but not knowing whether you're going to like or tolerate any of them.

You discovered for yourself how difficult it is when we took you to stay for a month in hospital to try out medications. Even though the doctors assured us they worked on the majority of children, they did not work on you, or else had a clearly negative effect. You lay awake at night, and finally got up, found crayons and a sheet of paper, and drew a round stomach with a long coiled intestine in it. Inside the intestine you put a tablet, drew a big red cross over it and said:

— I don't want any more of these tablets that glide through my stomach. I can't sleep. I'm not dreaming, but I'm inside a nightmare and my head's going around. Get rid of these medicines!

No, Gabriel, we don't actually know much more about your problems and what to do about them than what you've taught us, and what we've understood from being your parents. On this flimsy basis we've made our choices and taken our chances. We have, for example, chosen not to embrace complicated and demanding theories about nutrition and diet — quite simply because it seemed to us that the minute scrutiny of the contents of every sandwich you eat, every sweet, every sauce, and piece of cake you might come across, would be unreasonably demanding when weighed against the possible but highly uncertain potential benefits.

Our choices are guided by two wishes we have for you: that
you will live, as much as possible, a life of equal status with other
people, and that you will have as many chances as possible to know what you yourself call happiness. We resist methods of treatment that risk sidelining you and increasing the feeling
of being different that you already have. So instead we usually turn to what seems most natural to us: showering you with security and praise and love.

We're proud of you, son, and proud to be your parents, just as I know your brothers and sisters are proud to have you as a brother. Never doubt that, not even when our helplessness and doubt seem to you like betrayal. Because we too can be foolish and hurt you, forget that you're not an ordinary piece in the people game. That is another task we face, to teach you, even though it might hurt, that even your own family and friends, those whom you most trust, can be weak, stupid, and unfair, too self-centred to make allowances and approach you the way you wish to be approached.

One warm summer's day I lay out sleeping in the hot sun on our skerries. You snuck up on me with a bucket full of cold sea water and emptied it over me. I leapt up, extremely annoyed and probably glowering at you. You looked at me in a kind of naked wonder and said, almost disbelievingly:

— But, Dad, you wouldn't hit your own son, would you?

Of course not, son. But how is it that you're so often ahead of me with your fearless sincerity?

ON RARE OCCASIONS
you happen to meet people who see
and somehow recognize you. And you do the same, in a strange
, intuitive reciprocation. As a witness on such occasions, I can only assume that a bridge of spirituality spontaneously spans the two of you, although spirituality is something I normally shrink from in skeptical distrust. But the choice is not always mine, for you have also taught me about veiled contexts, Gabriel.

For example, we visit a Buddhist temple on an island in Thailand. In the library at home I have a large bronze Buddha that has always fascinated you — to such an extent that the prospect of acquiring one yourself for a long time was your main motivation for fussing about when we could travel to Thailand. Now we're off to the temple where I bought the figurine all those years ago, and your whole being radiates with the solemnity of the occasion.

The
first
thing
you
see,
long
before
we're
inside
the
temple
walls,
is
the
enormous
gilded
Buddha
statue
atop
a
pyramidal
structure.
It
must
be
at
least
twenty
to
thirty
metres
high,
and
it
stares,
with
blind
inscrutability,
through
eons
and
universes.
As
soon
as
we're
out
of
the
car,
and
without
a
prompting
word
from
either
of
us,
you
remove
your
sandals.
Then
you
head
off
up
the
steep
stairway
that
ends
at
the
feet
of
the
statue.
The
decorative
railings
on
either
side
are
shaped
like
slender,
coiled
bodies
of
dragons.
I
follow
and
catch
up
with
you
at
the
top,
where
you
have
already
lost
interest
in
the
colossal
dispenser
of
wisdom.
What
interests
you
now
is
the
peeling
gold
flake:
Is
it
real?
How
can
I
say
there's
such
poverty
in
Thailand
when
they
have
this
much
gold?
Aren't
the
monks,
at
least,
very
rich?

You seem uninterested in the flowers and the incense, the wreaths and the bowls containing offerings of food in front of the small altars. You make a kind of dutiful sound, tapping half-heartedly with a hollow stick on the bells and cymbals hanging from the framework of beams around the statue to produce the primordial sound om. You disregard the panoramic view. You want to go down again to buy your own Buddha.

We locate the temple's sales booth and, after some agonizing, you make your choice: not the largest, not the most expensive, not even one made of bronze. You want the medium-sized one cast in stone, light beige, with a reddish glint — as long as we can assure you that it's made of a genuine, that's to say, a precious type of stone.

The purchase made, you want to leave. It's hot and you want to get back to the beach. Moreover, the temple evidently doesn't live up to your expectations: the monks' cells are low, grey concrete blocks, and there are no glinting and glittering treasures. You're pleased with your statue, but otherwise disappointed — this place has nothing to do with the temple splendours we've seen in pictures of Bangkok.

While you hurry off toward the exit, I turn to gather the rest of our party. It takes only a moment to signal that we're on our way out, but when I turn back, you're gone. From the gateway I peer out over the parking lot but see no sign of you. I'm about to go back in again, thinking that perhaps you've managed to slip past behind me and return to the statue, when I see you.

You stand facing a kind of enclosure that lies half hidden between large green plants in enormous pots, beneath the dense crown of a tree through which sunlight doesn't penetrate. I approach closer and see, beyond the interlacing leaves, half a step down, a beautiful silk rug, like a processional runner. It leads to a low, carved bench, almost a little throne. An ageless monk sits there, cross-legged, shaven-headed, and swathed in orange. There is something inexpressibly mild about his face, and in the eyes that twinkle at the world and past it through simple, round glasses. It occurs to me at once that he must be the head of the monastery.

You stand quite still, as though waiting. There are ten metres between you.

Then he makes a tiny movement of the head, a fraction of a nod, hardly more than what follows from a wink. You remove your T-shirt, sandals, and cap, lay them to one side, and approach him along the rug. When only a couple of metres separate you, you slowly sink to your knees and bend your whole body forward, until your forehead touches the silk. There you lie in what seems to be pure, devoted submission.

The slightly built monk turns slowly to one side, dips a long-handled brass bowl into a jar, and fills it with water. Then he lifts it, reaches out toward you, and splashes the water over your head and down your back, muttering and chanting something that can only be a blessing. You do not move a single muscle as the water touches you. You lie there, trusting, and knowing, with a knowledge that is closed to me.

Afterwards you stand up, cast a quick glance at the monk, pick up your shirt, sandals, and cap, and ask if we can leave soon. The small, modest man has closed his eyes and is gone somewhere behind the foliage of illusion.

Later that day we build a pyramid of sand on the beach, carefully carve out the steps, shape coiling dragons' bodies with wet sand, and place your Buddha on top. I try to ask you about the monk, but your eyes tell me that you don't want to or can't answer.

It's already evening when it happens, just as you're about to go to bed. All of a sudden you conjure up a furious anger. You rage and curse at that stupid monk who threw water on you. I don't know what has happened; I only understand that the frail web of trust you two spun together earlier in the day has, for some reason or other, disappeared. In its place there is now only profound indignation and angry reproach.

But ten months later, one evening at home by the bedside, you suddenly exclaim:

— Oh, Dad, I love your dream!

I don't quite know what to say to this, and a long silence follows.

Then you ask:

— Dad, what exactly is your dream?

— Well . . . to be good and kind, and help others, I reply rather vaguely, caught off guard.

— So what's your dream then, Gabriel?

You think for a long time.

— To be rich! In money and treasures, I mean. But also
in love.

I still don't know what to say, and you lie looking up at the ceiling a while before you continue.

— Because I'm actually just like a monk. Only I collect treasures and of course monks don't. But otherwise I'm just like a monk. A Buddhist monk, I think.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
oday I'll have to bail out the boat after all. Not from any ­sudden manifestation of a sense of duty, but simply because the sun is shining. Out here by the sea most things have to give way when the sun shines, even our reluctance to perform practical tasks that should have been completed long ago.

The sun is shining, despite the fact that it is October, and from the north a breeze blows, temperate and caressing. I don't know where the clouds have gone to, but it doesn't really matter, because they aren't here. This morning, when you and Victoria and Mom left for school and work, the sky hung low in shades of grey, drying out after the night's downpour. But over the last few hours it has retreated upward again, higher and higher, until the cloud cover lost its grip and had to find another and lower sky to attach itself to, perhaps over Bergen, that's not my problem. Here, at any rate, the sun is shining as though that's all it had ever done, you'll be home in an hour and a half, and I must bail out the boat because we need it.

Balder realizes at once what's about to happen when I descend the steps to the cellar, find my wellington boots and pull on the green anorak. Balder's father was a cocker spaniel, his mother a mixture of border collie and beagle, and you won't find a better pedigree anywhere. You and he were born within a few months of each other and have grown up together, although as a dog he's getting on a bit now. He's black as night, has a good temperament, is loving and loyal, and I've no doubt at all that in his own quiet dog-mind he considers you his best friend. Balder's only failing is as a watchdog: whether it's me driving up or Victoria on her bicycle, he gives the same two or three half barks as he would if the house were surrounded by bloodthirsty terrorists. On the other hand — if we haven't got any clothes
on, we always manage to get dressed in time when Balder announces an approach.

On the lawn outside the cellar door I stand still a moment. I often do. It's not because the grass reminds me of yet another long-postponed task, but because this vantage point is the site of an early memory of you that gradually has become one of my saddest. You couldn't have been more than six months old. We had just moved here from Oslo, it was an evening at the height of summer, and I stood out here on the lawn with you in my arms beside what was then the henhouse. Together we admired the view, as one contemplates a newly conquered kingdom: emerald-green pastures tumbled down toward the shore; the sea glinted in copper and amber and ruby red; islands were black velvet rimmed in gold, the horizon a treasure chest, and the sky an ineffable immensity of sapphire blue.

Perhaps it was on a whim, but it felt like a certainty. I lifted your little hand in mine to point, turned in a slow, sweeping circle and said:

— This is your home, this is yours, here is where you will live, Gabriel.

At the time it seemed logical: your oldest brother, Kai Henrik, had already moved out before we left Oslo. He was about to find his own place in the world, and as the first-born he would inherit a building plot. Alexander, the next oldest, was so uncompromisingly headed into his teens and everything that didn't have to do with a life in the country in the parental home that it seemed out of the question he might ever want to settle here. Victoria was aged seven and had already given every indication of having abilities and qualities that would take her far; she would be needing things very different than a house by the sea. That left only you, the last-born, to be raised by wind and sun, to grow into the landscape and one day take over. Or so I thought. It was a good thought, for it vaulted continuity over our little moment on the lawn, as the fairy-tale landscape shimmered everywhere around us.

Three years later it was with a very different kind of certainty, a new and painful knowledge, a so-called “diagnosis,” that I had to picture your life here. A life to which you suddenly seemed condemned, a life you could not reject, nor were capable of rejecting. Since then few months have passed without you ­asking, with a kind of mantric need for confirmation:

— Can you promise me, Dad, that I'll always be able to
live here?

TODAY, HOWEVER, THE
SUN
shines from a spotless sky, and no doubt there's a gale blowing in Oslo, but I don't think about that, for I have a boat to bail out. Balder and I follow the track down to the boathouse, which is only used by the sheep and those of us who live here. Not only because of the weather, but on account of the sheep too, we will one day — in the fullness of time — have to fix the boathouse. In the summer they like to seek out the shade on the northerly side, but the paved path along the wall is so narrow that they're forced to scour their rough wool against the woodwork, in a trade-off that removes flaking paint and leaves muck behind.

The hell with it, I think as I round the corner and step onto the jetty. At least what it pleases us to call a jetty; it is possible, at high tide, to lie alongside there.

The boat — which you like to call a ship, or a vessel, because who's ever heard of pirates in a boat? — is a sorry sight. The water inside and the water outside are almost on a level. It takes all my strength to drag it close, and a talent for balance I don't even know I have to keep my footing on the thwarts while I fill the sea, bucket by bucket, with fresh quantities of new water.

It takes an hour, even though we're talking about a fairly modest fourteen-foot ship.

I leave it to the sun to sip up the last drops and hardly dare to believe it when the motor makes a promising sound on the third attempt and starts on the sixth. Then I go ashore with a “No, not yet, Balder” to the tail-wagging enthusiast on the jetty, and fetch the blankets and foam mats and life jackets we're going to need. Then I hurry up to the house, which you like to call a castle, or a fortress, because kings and princes don't live in ordinary houses, do they?

Victoria lies half asleep on the sofa in front of the television. She doesn't want to come; she's waiting for her boyfriend. Apparently the same one as yesterday and the day before, so it's probably serious. Mom has a meeting straight after work and won't be coming until later.

In the fridge I find the chops I was hoping for, and even a bottle of white wine behind the vegetables. Into the cooler with them, along with the freezer elements, juice, a bar of chocolate, and the vanilla yogourt that was actually saved for school tomorrow. No need for water for Balder, he manages well enough with what he finds in puddles and cracks in the rocks. Into a plastic bag I put a roll of kitchen paper, cutlery, marinade, glasses, a corkscrew, paper plates, and two Thermoses, one with coffee and one with cocoa. I'm standing there thinking that the charcoal and the white spirit are in the shed when Balder announces an arrival. Through the kitchen window I can see that it is your taxi.

I wouldn't say a word against the council's taxi service that makes sure you're conveyed to and from school each day. It's a generous service, I think, and not something I should take for granted. I also understand that the council has to save money, or that the council's money has to be saved, or whatever. All the same, it gives me a little jab to the heart each day when the maxi-taxi drives up, mornings and afternoons. It's cheaper this way, they say, and I understand that too, but I don't like it, seeing you rounded up in the bus for pupils with special difficulties, along with multi-handicapped children who sit chained to their wheelchairs and are hardly able to communicate with their surroundings. Let them call it what they will — demanding, inappropriate pride — but I don't like it, for I can't help asking myself what you think. You rarely say anything, but do these daily drives in the company of those who are so much less endowed than you have any influence on your self-image? Are you gradually being driven to see yourself as you see them? Have you heard what the others at school call it, the spaz-taxi? Does that bother you? Do you find it hard and hurtful to talk about? One day they told us at school that you had pulled some poor girl's hair and tried to tip her wheelchair over, because “she makes a mess when she eats and she can't speak.” Was it your own hair you were pulling, Gabriel?

But like I said: praise be to the council's taxi service, we'd never have managed without it, and today the sun is shining and it's a bright little lark of a boy who comes running to greet me.

— Hi, Gabriel, how good to see you!

I open my arms to receive you, but you have neither the time nor the capacity for such attention:

— Yeah, yeah, I know, let's not talk about it anymore. Do you know what Morten told me today?

I don't know who Morten is and answer only:

— Morten at school? No, what did he say?

— That I might, just might, get a genuine, a real genuine lump of gold from him! Isn't that fantastic?

You're bubbling so much it's difficult to get through to you.

— Yes, that's really fantastic. We'll just have to wait and see what comes of it, because genuine gold lumps are very expensive, you know. But do you know what? Today . . .?

And then I tell you what I've planned, sneak in fragments of sentences about boat trip and barbecuing and juice and chops every time you stop to draw your breath between identical-sounding repetitions of how fantastic it is that you might get a real genuine lump of gold from Morten.

In the end we're agreed: we'll have to wait and see. Now let's go to sea.

THERE'S BOUND TO
BE
an optimal logistical order in which to do these things, but I've never found it.

You and Balder both hop about impatiently on the edge of the jetty and want to get into the boat, but neither of you understands that you're in the way — that I've got blankets and foam mattresses and cooler and plastic bag and charcoal to load, that there's a bow I've got to hold close enough to the jetty to be able to reach out for all this between your legs, but not closer, otherwise it'll get roughed up against the concrete, that there's a life jacket I've got to help you into while doing the splits, with one foot on the edge of the jetty, the other on the bow, and a motor that for God's sake mustn't overchoke and flood, otherwise it'll stop, and a flooded carburetor in an outboard motor is a nightmare.

But everything works out fine. The gear and the dog are on board, the motor is ticking over nicely, all that remains is to fold out your blanket at the forward end of the boat, and then it's your turn. I've cast off fore and aft and I'm holding on to the jetty with
one hand and with the other helping you step aboard. You move one foot down into the boat, stand with the other still
on the jetty, and then you stop. You stare out into space, as though rehearsing something, and then you turn to me and say, completely oblivious to our current situation, as though we were sitting in the living room and not halfway through a delicate manoeuvre between land and sea:

— Dad, why is it actually so fantastic that I might get a lump of real gold from Morten?

— Just get into the boat! I've no idea! Do as I tell you!

It all comes out much harsher and dismissive than I intend or actually feel, but honestly.

— Yes but, Dad, why . . .

— Gabriel!

This time my voice leaves no room for doubt. Fortunately, you take the hint, put your other foot on board and get yourself seated comfortably. I breathe a sigh of relief, let go of the edge of the jetty, hurry aft to the motor before the current drifts us into even shallower waters, throttle out into the sound, and am about to light a cigarette, which seems to me deserved.

The grill! I've forgotten the grill for the barbecue! Not much use in charcoal and white spirit and chops without a grill. As far as I can recall, it's in the shed.

About face and in again. I explain to you what it is I've forgotten, that I must go up to the house to fetch the grill, and ask if you're sure you can sit there quietly and wait for me.

— Shall I bring some toys for you while I'm at it? Some treasures, maybe?

I ask not only to be nice, but also because doing an errand for you gives a somewhat greater legitimacy to this annoying little extra trip. You explain in detail what you want and where you think it is, and promise not to go anywhere or get into trouble while I'm gone.

I'm still irritated by my own forgetfulness as I stomp back up toward the house; but then for a moment I contemplate that it's probably pouring down over in Arendal, and at once my mood is again as light as the sky above me. The grill is exactly where it ought to be, so too are, in a manner of speaking, your rock crystals, opals, amethysts, conches, and the silk blanket, even though it's news to me that our washroom has been turned into a treasure chamber.

Now let's go to sea.

IT IS, EVERY
SINGLE TIME,
a moment of truth.

I can think of no better expression to describe the experience of being at sea with you, in our boat. It is a moment of beauty, a moment that asks to be looked in the eye. It is perhaps the most demanding and rewarding moment I know of.

I sit at the back by the outboard motor. You sit in the front, always turned away from me, toward something else out there, as if you were scouting for land. I see your soles, which you rest on, your back, and I see your head, fair curls in the wind and the sharp light. You sit absolutely still. As long as the boat is moving you sit like this, motionless, your hands in your lap, facing something I don't know about. If we're headed for a wave so big that I have to shout “Wave!” you raise your hands from your lap almost like a sleepwalker and fold them around the rubber trim on each side, but you don't turn your head to see how we take the wave. When we've ridden it, you lay your hands back in place, in your lap. You don't seem interested. There is something thoughtless even about the way you give Balder a pat, when he puts his forepaws up on the thwart and presses his snout in between your hands. Usually I tell myself that you seem secure. It cannot be anxiety, I imagine, that is the source of so much serenity. But sometimes I catch myself thinking that perhaps you're hiding some unknown fear behind all this composure, and that's a thought that fills me with a nameless dread I don't know what to do with.