The Half Brother: A Novel (47 page)

Peder stopped outside a house with a fence all around it and yellow lights in every window. This was where he lived, in his own house with a garden and flagpole. There was a sign on the gate reading
Beware of the Dog.
“Do you have a dog?” I asked, and in doing so felt rather stupid. “It died a couple of years ago,” Peder said, “but we hung on to the sign.” Then a car swung up the street, the hubs of its wheels rattling and the exhaust all but falling off — a stream of sparks trailing after it. I think it was a Vauxhall, and it drove right into the garage beside Peder’s house and parked there with a crash. A man with a gigantic hat and a flat bag under his arm clambered out and wiped the exhaust from his face. “That was a close shave,” he groaned. “I think we need the garage.” “Hi, Dad,” Peder said. It was Peder’s father. He stopped and smiled down to us. “Well, and how was dancing school?” Peder shrugged his shoulders. “I guess it bored us to death.” His dad laughed and turned toward me. “I can understand that all right. What the hells the point of the foxtrot? You might as well learn to fence instead. And who’s this?” “This is Barnum,” said Peder. “Good evening, Barnum. You’ll join us for supper? If you’re not scared of the dog?” I bowed and thanked him, but declined. It had basically been too much for me. I had to go home and rest. I had to store this evening, save it and not use all of it up in one go. But before I went, I grasped Peder’s arm as if to keep him from going, even though he was standing there quite still. “You can come over for dinner tomorrow,” I said quickly. His father patted my shoulder. “Great idea, Barnum. Right, Peder? Because your mother and I are actually away.” Peder looked at me and smiled. “When’ll I come?” he asked. “Five,” I whispered and ran off; it was the first time anyone had invited me to supper and the first time I’d ever invited a friend to dinner. The triumph of it — the shining prize of friendship — to have a friend coming home to dinner. I rejoiced along the whole of Church Road — I was a world champion in a world champion’s shoes. I was a friend, I was someone’s friend, and I almost couldn’t wait to share the news. Because I couldn’t carry all of this myself — my shoulders were too narrow, my heart too small. But when I did get home, I found no one there; Mom had gone to the North Pole to fetch Boletta, and Dad had left again. He tended to be like that; there was forever something to be sorted out, and he couldn’t sit still. He came in, raged a bit, played either the prince or the pauper, dropped a dirty shirt or two and a few banknotes and was off again. And I figured that maybe it was for the best to be alone at that moment, because I was carrying a lie with me too, and that was as great as the truth. My tongue wasn’t smooth enough yet. I didn’t dare tell Mom and Boletta that I’d given up, been thrown out — because they’d most likely paid Svae up front and would never get the money back. I put my shoes on the shelf in the hall. I hung the blazer on its hook and took off my tie. I had a glass of milk in the kitchen and went into the bathroom to look in the mirror. My left eye was a bit rusty around the edges. It didn’t matter. I could have cried for joy Yes, this was a time for being alone; I’d suck at this joy as if it were a piece of sugar candy. But when I went into our room, I found I wasn’t alone after all. Fred was lying on my bed with his arms behind his neck, staring up at the ceiling. “Hi, Tiny,” he said. I sat down on his bed. I wasn’t afraid. I had something to tell him. “I managed it,” I whispered. “I know,” Fred said. “You do?” I asked, my voice quieter still. He turned a degree or two in my direction. “What’s the old bag at the dancing school called?” “Svae,” I told him. “That’s right. She called here.” I crumpled. “She called here?” Fred sighed and stared at the ceiling again. “Where else?” My tongue expanded in my mouth, dry as an eraser. “Did she talk to Mom?” “No. She talked to me. Lucky, huh? That I was the only one home.” Fred was silent a bit. I couldn’t bear it. “What did Svae say, Fred?” He shut his eyes. “This bed is far too big for you, Barnum. If we cut it in half we’d have more room, right?” “Fine,” I whispered. “What did you say to Svae?” Fred smiled. “She said you’d done immoral things, Barnum.” “Immoral things?” “You need to tell us more, Barnum.” I looked away. My nutrition book was lying on the desk. Perhaps Fred had been leafing though it. Perhaps he’d seen Barnum’s Formula. “I kissed a girl,” I said. “You kissed a girl?” “Yes, Fred.” “You managed to reach up?” “She was sitting down,” I told him. Now it was my turn to shut my eyes. I heard Fred getting up from the bed. “I said that I was your father,” Fred whispered. “And that I’d punish you.” He started laughing. I didn’t dare open my eyes yet. He sat down beside me. “I should have been your father,” he said. “Instead of that shit who says he is.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “At any rate I managed to get thrown out,” I breathed. Fred gave me a pat on the back and waited a long time to say any more. I wish he hadn’t said anything at all but had just patted my back instead. I could have sat the whole night like that. “How am I going to punish you, Barnum?” “Punish me? Don’t fool around, Fred.” He withdrew his hand and scraped his nails over my skin. “Fool around? I promised Svae I’d punish you.” He went over to the window and stood there. “Mom said they bought you Oscar Mathisen’s shoes.” “Yes,” I whispered. “Did they fit you?” “They fit pretty well actually.” Fred laughed. His whole back shook. “Do you know what happened to Oscar Mathisen?” “He became world champion in skating.” “I mean after he became world champion.” “No idea. Did something happen?” “First he shot his wife. And then he shot himself. The world champion.” Fred turned around abruptly to face me. “Now I know what punishment you’ll get.” “What?” “You won’t lie to me any longer, Barnum.” “I haven’t lied to you, Fred.” He smiled and shook his head. “See. You’re doing it again.”

The Parcel

When I woke up, I was lying in my own bed. Fred had gone and Mom was standing bent over my face, impatient. “How did it go?” she asked. “At the dancing class?” I sat up and remembered everything all at one go. “Peder’s coming to dinner,” I said. “Who?” “Peder!” Mom sat down on the edge of the bed. “Who is Peder?” And I never thought I’d speak the words I could now. “He’s my new friend,” I whispered. Mom smiled in a strange kind of way and was about to draw her fingers through my hair, but stopped herself. “Did you meet him yesterday?” “Yes, we came home together.” Mom sat there silent for a moment, the same smile on her lips. “And so you asked him for dinner?” “Yes. Friends do that.” Mom hesitated a moment, then got up and clapped her hands. “Then we have to get going and set the table!” She strode out and I lay back in bed. I heard her calling Boletta. “Come and help me, you old bag of bones! We’ve got guests coming to dinner!” And I lay there listening to the muted noise of saucepans and frying pans, the banging of cupboard doors and dropped lids, and the vacuum cleaner and the iron. And I began to get nervous; everything I looked forward to I was nervous about as well. And I thought (or perhaps I think this now), just as with rain, that which then was just a feeling, a doubt — that nothing is complete and totally whole — everything has a crack in it, be it joy, good fortune, beauty. There’s fracture in everything, something missing. Except in the completeness — and the uselessness — of that which is imperfect.

Mom opened the door. She looked bewildered. “Good Lord! Aren’t you going to school today?” I whispered under the quilt. “I think I’d prefer to stay at home.” Mom brushed away the hair from her brow. She was wearing rubber gloves and a big, white apron. “Are you ill?” “No, but you can say that I am.” Boletta appeared behind Mom and peered forward with red eyes and wrinkled mouth. “Let Barnum stay home. You can say in the note he’s got a fever.” “I don’t like lying,” Mom said. Boletta sat down on the bed and put her hand on my brow. “Oh, it isn’t a lie, my dear little Vera. Bar-nums been at dancing school and temperatures rise there! And anyway, he’s got a swollen eye. He’s been looking too much at the girls!” I was up already. “I can do the shopping!” I all but shouted. Mom pointed at me. “You’ll at least stay indoors. You can tidy your room and not get in the way.” She disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Boletta hesitated a moment. “Your mom’s just so pleased,” she murmured, “that you’ve got a friend coming. But it isn’t easy for her to show it.” She drew her hand over my neck where there were still traces of Fred’s nails. “How was it yesterday at dancing school?” she asked, her voice no louder. “Yes, fine.” Boletta laughed, but mostly to herself. “You don’t need to say anything. I’m only a foolish old woman who wants to know what’s going by her.” I looked at her. “You’re not that foolish, Boletta,” I told her. “Thank you, Barnum. You’ve put my mind at rest.”

She hurried off in Mom’s wake, and I began tidying. I made up the beds. I put all my books in my schoolbag, put my pencils in their case, hid my insoles in the bottom drawer, blew the dust from M. S. Greve’s
Medical Dictionary for Norwegian Homes,
and opened the window and sneezed a few times. It was sunny outside. The sunlight cast thin shadows. Time passed. It stood still and passed at one and the same time. Not even time was whole. Boletta was already coming up Church Road. She had the pushcart piled with purchases — she could barely pull it behind her. I closed the window and began to feel nervous. I tidied Fred’s things too. I hid his knife, cigarettes and all his keys under his pillow. I put his pointed brown shoes in the closet, and I scraped the old bits of chewing gum from the edge of the bed and threw them away. I knew I shouldn’t do all this. I knew I shouldn’t touch his stuff. He’d drawn a line down the floor. I had to have permission to cross it. Fred didn’t need that. He went wherever he chose to. I hoped he wouldn’t come home for dinner. And yet I wished he would too, I wished he would sit with us — as a big brother. He could just sit there and not say anything — yes, preferably be like that, silent and mysterious, a proper big brother. But if Dad managed to get home, then it would be for the best if Fred stayed away — one of them would be enough. I heard Mom laying the table: the white cloth, the tall glasses, the napkin rings, the Chinese dinner service, the silver cutlery. Now the great past was being laid on the table, that which never became the future. I ran out to her. “Can’t we just eat in the kitchen?” “The kitchen! Now you’ve certainly got a temperature.” “Please, Mom! Can’t we just have a normal dinner?” She turned away from me; she was holding a plate in her hands and for a moment I didn’t know if she was going to throw it to the floor or put it neatly where it was supposed to go. “What do you mean, Barnum?” “That that’s the point! That everything’ll be like it always is.” Mom gave me a long look. “I don’t think you really mean that,” she said. Then she set the plate down slowly and carefully on the cloth.

Dad came at a quarter to five as if he worked normal office hours and we were a normal family. He stopped in the hall, heavy and stooped — perhaps he’d walked the whole way from Majorstuen again, or farther still. He could barely reach down to his own shoes. But then he straightened up again, his eyes darted this way and that, and he sniffed. He looked at me bemused as I stood waiting beside the clock, not for him but for Peder. And slowly he lifted his gaze from the shiny buttons of my blazer to the set table in the dining room, where the candles were already lit and fluttered in the draft from the corners of the windows. His face grew; a smile that hadn’t been there stretched it out and caused his eyes to disappear in their skin. “Well, I never,” he breathed. “Have you seen the like of that? Well, I never.” Mom carried a dish of potatoes past us and quickly turned to look at him. “Barnum has a visitor coming,” she said. “Get yourself ready.” Dad’s face tumbled somewhat, like a bonfire; his eyes reappeared. Perhaps he’d thought all this had been done for his benefit — an act of appreciation, a surprise medal. Smells drifted from the kitchen the like of which we’d never known — spices and vanilla and meat — there were recipes in foreign tongues, and Boletta sang ballads over the stove. Dad rediscovered his smile and turned to look at me. “A visitor? Have you met a girl already, Barnum?” “His name’s Peder,” I said. Dad went over to the cabinet and mixed himself a whiskey and soda in the heaviest of the glasses. He drank it slowly and swallowed three times. “Now I’ve gotten myself ready,” he said.

Five o’clock came. Peder hadn’t. Mom put a towel over the potatoes. Boletta kept the various pots warm. Dad got himself a second whiskey and soda, and his head tilted. He looked down at my feet. “Not wearing the new shoes?” he asked. “No, thanks.” “Did they not fit after all?” “I don’t like walking around in a dead mans shoes.” I just said it like that, as if the words came from somewhere else.
I
don’t like walking around in a dead mans shoes.
Dads gaze would settle nowhere for a time, until he emptied his glass and stamped his foot. “Lets get around the table!” he exclaimed. We sat down. Dad stuffed his napkin between his top shirt buttons and was about to help himself. Mom laid her hand on his arm. “Well wait,” she said gently. Dad let his hands drop onto his lap; he looked around, and his eyes settled on me. “What’s the boys name, then?” he inquired. “Peder,” I told him. “Peder what?” I thought to myself,
But he isn’t coming. He just said it to be nice, that he’d come to dinner, because his father was standing there listening. Perhaps he felt sorry for me too, that I was a moron, he isn’t coming, he’s tricked me. I’d been thrown out of dancing school in a dead man’s shoes and I was alone.
“Peder,” I repeated. “Peder.” Boletta leaned over the table. “Hell come all right,” she said. “Hell come.” And right at that moment Fred appeared. He stood over by the door looking in at us. He shook back his hair and came closer. He was smiling, but his lips were thin. “Who’s dead?” he asked, and sat down on the empty chair. “That place is taken,” Dad said. “And nobody’s dead.” “Yes, now it’s taken. And you’re dead.” Fred filled his plate and began eating. “No need to wait for me,” he said, and passed the dish to Boletta who just shook her head. “Barnum has a friend coming,” Mom said quickly. “A friend? Barnum?” Fred looked at me. Mom put her hand over his. “I didn’t expect you to be here, Fred.” Dad laughed. “No, indeed, who can expect that?” he said. “Fred being here.” Boletta had already set an extra place at the table between Mom and myself, and she pushed a chair into the gap. Fred stared at Dad. “And who can expect you to be here, huh? You blockhead.” Dad’s hand shook. “I am here. And you shouldn’t talk with food in your mouth anyway.” Fred chewed for a good while and turned to me. I hoped Peder wouldn’t come. I hoped he’d just said he would to be nice — I hoped he wouldn’t come. “So what’s happened to him?” Fred asked. “Your friend, I mean?” “He’ll come, all right,” Boletta said, and poured herself a glass of wine. Dad took the bottle from her and poured a full glass for himself too. “Perhaps the tram’s late,” I whispered. “Yes, it must be,” Mom said. “Hell be here soon, you’ll see.” Fred laughed. Dad said cheers. “Out there in the big wide world you can count on waiting exactly a quarter of an hour. And now it’s precisely quarter past five!” He piled his plate high and was on the point of taking his first bite when the bell rang. There was utter silence in the room; even Fred was still and seemed to freeze solid over the tablecloth. Again the doorbell rang. I all but overturned my chair and ran out into the hall and opened the door. It was Peder. He came in. He seemed pretty out of breath. “The top of Church Road,” he panted. “Goddamn.” “It’s pretty steep,” I said. “And you didn’t tell me what number it was.” Peder laughed. I laughed too. “So how did you find your way?” “Just asked where Barnum Nilsen lived,” Peder said. We turned toward the living room. There sat my family They smiled. Dad had put his helping back in the serving dish, and even Fred was smiling. They looked happy there between the candlesticks and the glasses, as if they were nothing other than happy. And this is how I saw them for the first time: Dad, already in the process of getting up from the chair that’s higher than the others, quickly brushing his hand over his smooth hair before making room for Peder, our guest. Boletta, moving the wine bottle to see better, a gray-haired and smiling grandmother at the heart of the family circle. Mom, in the process of getting up herself, looking suddenly younger than the average mother, blushing and holding out her hands as if she’s going to put her arms around Peder and embrace him. And Fred who keeps on eating, a pretty omnipotent big brother who doesn’t allow himself to be disturbed. This could go all right. “Golly,” said Peder.