The Birds (8 page)

Where was he to go? He’d set off as Hege had told him. The farm he had been at last time was out of the question, he was finished there for good. No doubt they were still at the same kind of work, too. He drifted over toward them.

Yes, there they were, the three of them. Just come out into the big field. There was still a bit of it left to do. It felt almost odd to be walking down the road past them, he knew them so well since that day, had shared so many experiences with them. The sweethearts seemed to be full of the joy of morning.

Were they glancing down at him on the road?

No.

Give a little wave, he pleaded. It would be something he could treasure for years to come. The girl, of course. He didn’t want the men to wave, that would have embarrassed him. But the girl. No, she didn’t seem to notice anything but the pinching.

A little farther on two small girls were sitting on the grass just above the road. Sitting safely on the other side of the fence with their toys, chattering and playing with dolls, so young that they were free from
sin. They were chattering busily to each other, but even so one of them found time to ask, her big blue eyes resting on him, and with a voice full of song: “Where are you off to, Simple Simon?”

Full of song, and not at all curious, a question asked for the sake of asking. Of course the children knew their nearest neighbors, living as close to the road as they did. So Mattis, too, was a familiar sight.

Take it easy now, he said to himself, they’re too young to know what they’re saying.

“Nowhere special,” he replied.

They asked no further questions, it didn’t make the slightest difference to them where he was going.

All the same he hurried away from them. And some shining cars rushing past restored his courage. It was so easy meeting cars you didn’t know. No one sitting inside them knew he was Simple Simon. He looked straight at the people sitting inside – they’d probably think he was as clever as they were.

He trudged past one farm after another. He ought to have started to work by now. But when he came to a gate he stopped to see how his legs felt: he had a test he’d invented on a previous occasion when he’d been in the same helpless predicament.

“If you want to go up there, then I’m sure I’ll feel a jerk,” he said to his legs, and waited.

No, there was no jerk in the direction of this farm, his legs had more sense. He tried time and time again this morning, with the same negative result at each new gate.

But what will Hege say about my going on like this, I wonder?

The fact was that Hege knew nothing about the leg test, it was a secret. She was slow in accepting things like that.

Finally he came to the store – and this was really what had been in his mind the whole time. There was no need to use the test there either, for the store stood right by the road, like a trap for everyone to fall into. It was close to the lake, too, by a kind of pier.

Inside you could get hard candy. Mattis was fond of hard candy. The storekeeper had never laughed at him either, when he behaved helplessly.

There was nobody that Mattis knew in the store at this time of day, just a few cyclists, young holiday-makers in shorts, drinking lemonade. Mattis knew he shouldn’t stare at them too long. He forced himself to stop. He dug into his pocket for money and found the fifty øre he knew was there.

“A bag of hard candy,” he said causally, as if it were something he did several times a week.

The storekeeper asked as a matter of routine: “Camphor drops?”

The storekeeper knew his habits. It was nice to have the strangers
in the shop listening. Mattis was grateful for this short, safe conversation.

“Yes, the usual,” he said. Anyway he had a more important kind of question today.

“Do you know how a woodcock can change its path and go straight across a house where it’s never been before?” he asked. It was a complicated question he’d learned by heart on the way.

“Woodcocks don’t change their paths, do they?” said the storekeeper. “If you get a flight in a new place, then it’s most likely one of last year’s young cocks starting up on his own, I should think.”

While the storekeeper was talking, he was digging down into the tin of camphor drops with a little shovel. A delightful yellow glow filled the shiny sides of the tin.

“Do you think so?” said Mattis, downcast.

“Nothing wrong with that is there? Is it something you’ve seen quite recently, then?”

“Oh no – not the way you mean, I don’t think. There’s nothing special about what you’re saying. You mustn’t make things out to be less important than they are when they really are important!”

He took the first pieces of candy.

Just then one of the cyclists said:

“Hell, look at those clouds! We’ll be having a storm before long, that’s for sure.”

Mattis gave a start and almost swallowed his piece of candy. Looking out of the window he, too, could see the dark bank of clouds climbing up over the ridge. The sun was still shining.

“Is there going to be a thunderstorm?” he asked, frightened. His words were directed straight at the cyclist who stood there tanned and hairy.

The stranger looked at him a little surprised, but answered bitterly, talking to his pretty companion rather than to Mattis: “Yes, there’s going to be a terrific thunderstorm. And us looking forward to a nice trip.”

Nothing in the store interested Mattis any longer. There’s going to be a thunderstorm, home, home, was the one thought in his mind. His hiding place was far away, and that was where he had to go.

He rushed out of the store. Through the half-open door he heard the storekeeper saying something about him in reply to a question from the cyclist. Once more someone had misjudged his keen ears. He who could hear through walls and at a greater distance than anyone else – with all the practice he had listening for things he wasn’t supposed to hear.

“He is a bit simple,” the storekeeper was saying inside.

The storekeeper, too. Mattis would never have believed it. But why not? he had to ask himself at once. He’s only telling the truth. He’s a bit simple. All right. And a moment later he heard: “But he’s got a gutsy sister, she’s the one that keeps things going.”

Fortunately the door banged to, so he was spared the rest of the conversation. Perhaps that was all they said. He doesn’t do a stroke of work, that fellow. Perhaps they said that too.

Well, for the time being this was overshadowed by the dark cloud and his fear of the thunderstorm. The important thing now was to get home and under cover in a safe place. He hurried along as quickly as he could, the bag of candy clutched in his hand. The sun was still shining intensely, as it always did before a storm.

Just behind him a car hooted angrily and he flung himself into the side of the road like a bundle of rags. The car must have braked hard and as it went gliding past, someone said through the open window: “Don’t walk in the middle of the road, you damned fool!”

It was an angry and frightened voice. Mattis saw a pair of angry eyes looking at him out the window. A complete stranger.

“You’re lucky,” said the shaken voice in the window. “You could easily have been knocked flat, with your head in the clouds.” Then the window was wound up, and aiming a blast of poisonous exhaust at Mattis, the car sped away.

Swallowing great gulps of the exhaust Mattis staggered on, keeping close to the side of the road. He realized the man would have said exactly the same to anybody. He had shouted in fear. He was a traveler, and had no idea who he was talking to. Mattis told himself this over and over again, and as he did so he suddenly realized that he was protected from hundreds of millions of people who
knew absolutely nothing about him. It was a though a friendly haze lay between them and him. It was a comforting thought: countless numbers of people had no idea he was a simpleton.

But now he was running to beat the thunderstorm. He had seen many kinds of thunderstorms. Some came on all of a sudden, others took their time and rumbled a good while before getting dangerous. Others stayed in the distance the whole time, they were heading somewhere else. There were no fixed rules. The clouds today were only coming over slowly. Mattis felt almost sure he’d get home in time.

The child who had called to him earlier was nowhere to be seen. But the three of them in the field were still digging away.

Will she wave?

No.

She must be tired.

But I won’t think about it, there’s going to be a thunderstorm soon, and you mustn’t think about that sort of thing then. I don’t even feel like thinking about it. That’s the way it is with thunder.

All of a sudden he bumped into a man he vaguely knew. At least, he used to talk to him when they met, and he felt quite at ease with him. The man raised his hand, as if Mattis were a bus he wanted to stop.

“Wait a moment! You’re in a bit of a hurry, aren’t you, Mattis?”

“Well, you can see the storm, can’t you?” said Mattis gravely.

“What storm?”

“There’s going to be a thunderstorm very soon, can’t you see? And home’s the best place then.”

The man seemed to know how Mattis felt about thunder. He looked up at the clouds: “I don’t think you need to worry. Those aren’t thunderclouds, they’re already thinning out, look!”

Mattis shook his head and refused to believe it. It had probably only been said to comfort him. A terrific thunderstorm, that’s what the cyclist in the shop had said, and that was no doubt nearer the truth.

“What did I say? Look there, Mattis!”

Just as they stood there the clouds lifted and a patch of blue sky appeared over the edge of the mountains. The whole threat of thunder was gone, they were no longer stormclouds. There was glorious blue sky just underneath.

“There you are,” said the man, “it’s only light cloud, and that means fine weather; it’s melting away altogether now.”

Mattis drew a long sigh of relief.

“Like a piece of candy?” he said, full of gratitude.

And the man went on his way, sucking the yellow candy.

Mattis returned to his usual walking pace. But it was so late in the day that it was no good looking for work now, he decided. He was not entirely happy at the prospect of having to return home to Hege and give an account of his attempts to get work. No sooner was
the threat of thunder gone than he was faced with his old, familiar, nagging conscience.

He was by the path leading down to their little house. The withered treetops rose into the air. He never even looked at them.

No, he never even looked at them. Something unusual happened that made him forget everything. As he came down the path – what was it he saw:

A bird.

There was a big, shining bird standing right in the middle of the path.

An unfamiliar bird. Its head raised high and turned toward Mattis who was coming down the path.

Who’s this? he thought, spellbound.

He felt strange and empty inside. He stood very still – and the bird stood very still. What is it I’m seeing?

The bird stood there, but it couldn’t stay any longer now that it had been seen – it rose. On silent wings it disappeared among the trees. It wasn’t the woodcock, it was a much larger bird, and very different, too, from the woodcock. And what was it doing here?

What’s going on? he thought. Anything the matter with Hege! It was the only thing he could think of. He ran down the path to find out.

No. He soon caught sight of Hege, in the place where she usually sat on the lookout for him whenever he’d gone off somewhere. She was like a little bundle on the steps. Her fingers were moving busily. He sensed rather than actually saw this from where he was.

Mattis went down to her and said, wide-eyed: “Who is it up there?”

She gave him a quick glance, didn’t understand.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“There’s a strange bird up there,” he stuttered.

She went on working again. It was as if he wanted to stop these knitting needles, just for a little while; deeply moved, he said: “I’ve seen a wonderful big bird! It was walking around just up the path here.”

“Really,” she replied, rather curtly. All the same her tone wasn’t as blunt as usual. There must have been something in his voice that told her how beautiful the bird had been. And that for somebody in their house it was beautiful. A silence followed. An unexpected pause. Something that had no name.

Mattis explained:

“It flew off almost before I had a chance to see it.”

There wouldn’t be long to wait for it now, he thought, the impatient question as to why he was back as early as this when he was supposed to be at work. Best to take the bull by the horns.

“I just came back home, there didn’t seem to be any work. I knew it would be like that anyway. And somebody said there was going to be a thunderstorm too. But that didn’t come to anything either.”

“No,” said Hege.

“But a girl I know waved to me,” he said. He translated his wish into reality then and there. It was real, he felt.

“Really,” said Hege.

She wasn’t angry, she was moved. The shining bird had been reflected so beautifully in his face.

IN THE MORNING he thought, full of emotion:

Today it’s me and the woodcock.

He couldn’t explain how. Nor did he need any explanation. After all, there were streaks in the air above the house – left by the woodcock flying across while he was asleep, last night and every night now. It seemed almost a sin to sleep.

The more Mattis thought about the woodcock, the more he felt sure something good was going to happen. Something different. That was why the woodcock was flying across here morning and night, but always while people were hidden away inside their houses.

This made good sense, he felt. He himself could go outside and sit there watching, following the flight through the air as often as he liked. It was the woodcock and him.

Today was a new day with her.

Mattis was full of the woodcock. He couldn’t resist telling Hege about it again and again. Hege was tired of it, but he felt he could twist his words so that she didn’t realize what he was talking about, and yet find an outlet for his emotions.