The Half Brother: A Novel (58 page)

By the time I got home, the doctor had been by. Mom was in the living room and I had to go in there. She was sitting there mournfully. Her eyes rolled emptily back and forth. She even whistled. That was no good sign. She wanted to talk to me but would say nothing. In the end I was the one to speak. “What is it, Mom? Is it something to do with Fred?” She suddenly smiled, and the whistling stopped. “Such an amusing doctor we had here,” she said. “Really?” “Yes, really. He said that if Fred had fallen and hit the floor, then the floor would have had to hit him at least twenty times and finally jumped on him from behind.” I looked down. Mom gave a sigh. “Why do you lie to me, Barnum?” “I don’t know,” I murmured. Mom pulled me toward her. “You really don’t know why you do it?” I shook my head quickly. “I don’t know what happened.” Mom gave another deep sigh. “Someone’s attacked Fred, but he’ll say nothing, of course.” She leaned back on the divan and for a moment looked like Boletta. The sighs came in quick succession now. “No, no one tells me anything. The doctor said we should report the attack to the police, but what can we report when Fred won’t say a word?” Mom hid her face in her hands. Everything was just too much for her. And then she said something that always scared me and that I wished she’d never say. There was something about the words, words she tended to use when she was in a particular frame of mind, that left me feeling so helpless. It was something about the way she stressed the words, the matter-of-factness in the midst of the horror, that could rob me of sleep for several weeks at a stretch. It was the ultimate rejection, the final threat. She said, as she breathed out, “What am I to do with the two of you, Barnum?” “Don’t say that,” I breathed. “Please.” She took my hand. “Go in to your brother, and see if you can get him to admit it.” “Admit it?” “Well, he was the one who was attacked.” She let me go, and I was already on my way to the room because I’d rather sit with Fred than listen to Mom. But suddenly she got up and fanned herself with both hands. It was too much for her again. Everything was too much for her. “No!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want to know! I don’t want to know who beat up my son! I don’t want to know anything!” She kept on talking like that, to herself and with herself, that of all the people in the world she was the one who knew least. She knew nothing; the world treated her like a fool, we were strangers to each other and she barely knew who she was herself except a lonely widow, still too young to go clad in black the rest of her days and already too old to start a new life. “Poor Fred!” she suddenly cried out. “Poor Fred!” Quietly, I withdrew without her noticing and went in to sit with him. He was lying on his back looking like a mummy. It made me think of a photograph I’d seen in
Who, What, Where
of Lenin. Fred resembled Lenin as he lay there like that; a photographer had actually managed to take a photograph of Lenin’s embalmed body in the mausoleum in Red Square. Very carefully I touched the great bandage around Fred’s head. “Now Mom’s in a bad way,” I breathed. Beside Lenin was Stalin — he was also in the picture
—
they were like two old friends. Stalin was wearing his uniform; you can see the polished buttons, and thus they’ll lie for eternity. I didn’t like the picture, but I couldn’t take my eyes off it either, because it was as if the photographer had managed to take a picture of death itself — he’d developed death. There’s a pale white glow to the faces, which is perhaps because their brains have been removed; Soviet doctors drew them out of both Lenin and Stalin, through their noses using a sharp hook — just like the ancient Egyptians when a Pharaoh was to sleep for 3,000 years. I wrote an essay about it. “Concussion,” Fred says. I bend closer. “Who? Has Mom got a concussion?” Fred sighs. “No, me. Have you become completely thick again, or what?” “Does it hurt?” He doesn’t say anything for a time. “Get a mirror, Barnum.” “Why?” “Just get one, damn it!” I steal out and get a mirror from the bathroom. Boletta’s come home. She’s sitting with Mom. That’s the way things are. We’re sitting with each other, each of us alone. I hurry back into the bedroom. “Hold the mirror for me,” Fred mumbles. “Where?” “Over my face, Barnum. I want to see how I look.” And I hold it low over his face for him, and finally his heavy breaths cloud the mirror. “You’re alive,” I tell him. “Or do you want me to stick a hatpin in your heart? Boletta’s bound to have one.” He just laughs. “Put a glass of brandy on me instead,” he whispers. But when I take the mirror away, I see that Fred has turned away and is crying.

Next morning there’s not a move out of him and the amusing doctor has to return. He isn’t amusing any more. He shines a light in Freds eyes and changes the bandage. Afterward he speaks to Mom, his voice low, and writes out a prescription. There’s a taxi waiting down at the corner; Mom’s gotten a taxi that day too — a taxi and a doctor — and Boletta tells me to hurry. I go down to the taxi while the doctor shines his light once more in Fred’s eyes and feels his nose. I tell the driver just to go a couple of times around the graveyard; I’ll get there late anyway. I sit inside at recess and don’t bother to change when we have gym; but now I notice the impatience around me, the irritation. The laughter is starting to become visible; there’s mockery in some of the looks. How long can Dad’s death last? How long can I remain a fatherless son, in quarantine, so my sorrow doesn’t infect the others? It might last perhaps until summer vacation, and afterward maybe everything would be changed and different. The school might have burned down; Preben, Hamster and Aslak drowned, and I could have gained the inches due me. The sun’s so warm against the window I almost sweat. I can’t take any more. I get up and go. Knuckles has just written something on the board and she turns around abruptly. I think we’re doing geography. She points with the chalk, and there’s a cloud of white dust that never quite reaches the floor. “Do you know what this means, Barnum?” I can’t understand the symbols she’s written; they look like letters that have fallen apart. I shake my head. Knuckles comes closer and hides the chalk. “This is a language called Urdu, Barnum. And Urdu’s a language spoken in a land far away called Pakistan. Remember that for next time. You never know, you may be tested on it.” Knuckles smiles. “And how is your esteemed state of health?” she asks. “Getting there,” I murmur. Knuckles claps her hands and stands there in a dry, white cloud. “That isn’t what I meant, Barnum. That’s what I’ve written on the board. In Urdu. How is your esteemed state of health?” I flee before I hear the sound of laughter. But there’s a guy I’ve never seen before standing over by the gates. He’s dressed in black, and he’s slowly combing his hair, as if reflecting himself in the light around about. I go to the other exit instead, thinking maybe I’ll catch a tram. But when I get there, he’s there as well, and someone else with him. They’re as alike as peas in a pod, and both of them follow me as I make my way toward the church. I begin to speed up. It’s no good. I run. They catch me just the same, and the first thing I notice is that they have cuts on their knuckles and the same hairstyles. “Are you Fred’s brother?” one of them asks. He resembles the other one so much it might equally well have been the second who spoke. I nod. I try to run again, around the church this time, but they catch hold of me and won’t let me go. “How is he?” “He’s alive,” I tell them. They glance at each other. “Ask him to meet us in Sten Park tonight,” the first one says. “Ten o’clock.” They let me go and race off down the hill. I keep standing there till I can no longer see them. Then the bell rings in the playground. It’s a long time until ten o’clock.
Hows your health?
I don’t want to go home. Montgomery’s screaming. I trail the streets. And Peder’s already standing waiting beside our tree. I run the last part of the way, as always, because I’m so glad to see him. “Guess what!” Peder shouts. “Me first!” I call back, just as loudly, almost unable to speak. “I got knocked down!” Peder stops. “Knocked down? Who by?” We sit in the grass under the red tree and have to wait for the tram to pass before we can hear ourselves talking. “Don’t know,” I told him. “The same ones who knocked down my brother.” “They knocked him down?” “You can say that again! And tonight they want to meet him again.” “Why?” “Perhaps they want to apologize,” I tell him. “Or beat him up again,” Peder suggests. I have to draw a breath. “They were waiting for me outside school,” I tell him. Peder mulls this over. “But they knocked you down too?” he finally asks. “Not quite. Almost They held me. Look!” I show him the arm they grabbed hold of. Peder looks. “Christ Almighty,” he says. I roll down my shirt again. Peder moves closer. “But why did they knock down your brother?” “Probably lots who’d like to,” I breathe. “He looked like mincemeat when he came home. Mincemeat and gravy.” “Christ Almighty,” Peder says again. “His nose was smashed.” “Really?” “Yeah. And his teeth were stuck in his tongue. I had to get them out.” “Bad as that,” Peder says, and we’re both quiet for a while. Then I say “There’s something I don’t get.” Peder smiles. “And what’s that?” “That they managed to beat Fred up.” We lie there in the grass considering this, that anyone’s able to give Fred a hiding in the first place. There had to have been a good number of them. The grass tickles my neck. The skies flow over and are all but invisible above the spread branches of the beech. “And you?” I ask him. Peder sits up. “You remember the guy Mom was drawing the first time you came to visit?” “Barely” I tell him. “The one who was in the living room?” “Exactly. The guy who was naked in the living room.” “Hasn’t your Mom finished drawing him yet?” Peder smiles in that sad way of his, lopsided. “Mom’s never finished,” he says, and lies down again, suddenly quiet, as if he’s forgotten what he was going to say I wait because I don’t want to hurry him. “What about the guy then?” I ask. And Peder rolls around and sits on me. He’s pretty heavy. I let him sit like that nonetheless. Now it’s his turn to be all but unable to speak. “He knows someone who runs a film club where they show movies that aren’t normally shown!” Peder rocks above me. Soon I won’t be able to breathe. “So?” “He said they can sneak us in tonight!” “No?” “Oh, yes!” “What movie is it?” Peder starts hammering on my chest as if I were a drum in a boy band. “You remember the picture of the woman on the wall in Vivian’s room?” “Stop it!” I shout. But he won’t stop. He keeps on hammering my chest. Soon enough I’ll be completely black and blue beneath Peder in all his fullness. “Do you remember her or don’t you remember her?” “I do! But not what she was called!” Peder bends right down and his mouth smells of licorice; his tongue is completely black. “Lauren Bacall,” he says, slowly, each letter dragged out. “Lauren Bacall.” Then we hear laughter behind us. It’s Vivian. She’s standing there laughing. Peder gets up quickly and pulls me up with him, and I only just manage to keep my balance. We brush the grass off ourselves. I put my hands in my pockets. Peder smacks his lips. Vivian doesn’t stop laughing. The two of us go over to her. Peder clears his throat and folds his arms. “Do you want to go to the movies?” he asks. “Film club,” I add quickly. “Want to join us?”

It’s three hours till then, and none of us has any wish to go home in between. Instead we go over to the telephone booth in Solli Square, scrape together some coins, and Peder calls his father to say he’s having dinner with me, and I call Mom and say I’m having dinner with Peder. I can hear that Mom’s voice is rather worn. “Say hello,” she says. And I put the receiver down before she starts asking where I’m calling from and let Vivian have my place, but she can’t be bothered to phone anyone. After that we find a table for ourselves at Samson’s in Frogner Road, and order some tea and have just enough for one raisin bun between the three of us. The waitress dries her hands on her apron and stares at us long and hard. “How many buns is that?” “One,” Peder repeats. The waitress takes out a pad and writes very slowly. “And that’s a bun with raisins?” Peder nods. “That’s right. Raisins with buns are of no interest to us.” The waitress disappears, and we have to hold our breath so as not to fall over laughing. “What film are we going to see?” Vivian asks. Peder leans over the table once he’s pulled himself together. “I don’t remember the exact title. But Lauren Bacall’s in it.” “The one you’ve got a picture of on your wall,” I quickly add. Vivian looks at me mildly “Don’t you think I know what pictures I have on the wall?” “Yes, of course,” I say. Peder calls the waitress. Perhaps she’s gone home. There are no other customers there. Perhaps we’ve been locked into Samson’s and will have to spend the night amid the clammy atmosphere of the pastries and melting glazes under the glass counter. “Barnum was almost knocked down today,” Peder says. Vivian smiles for one reason or another. “Were you?” “They just cuffed me here and there,” I murmur. Peder leans over the table. “But Barnum’s brother was almost kicked to pieces.” Vivian looks at me even more intently, and I realize at that moment I suddenly don’t want to talk about it, that I don’t want to talk about Fred. “Just got a smack on the face,” I mumble. And finally the waitress comes over. She’s put the bun in the middle of an enormous plate and sets it down with great ceremony on the table. “There we are,” she says. “Here’s your bun.” She probably had a sense of humor in a previous life. “How many raisins are there in it?” Peder asks. “How many?” “Yes, how many raisins are there in the bun? I can’t pay for it until I know how many raisins there are.” I’m the one who begins picking the raisins out, and I get to seven before we’re thrown out — probably the only ones to have been ejected from Samson’s in Frogner Road. We rock along the tramlines, rock with laughter, and I suddenly think to myself,
Where does this laughter belong on Dad’s list? Is this the public’s malicious laughter? Are we mocking the waitress? No, were laughing at ourselves, because this is a liberating laughter, let loose and sovereign.
We laugh at all that will happen to us, at all that’s ahead; we sit on a bench behind our tree and divide up the raisins. That’s two each and the last can go to Montgomery who walks past with a bottle like a red flower in his hand. “You don’t look much like him,” Vivian says all of a sudden. She’s sitting between us, between Peder and me. I don’t get what she means. “Who? Montgomery?” Peder shrieks, and Vivian laughs. “Your brother, of course.” My mind goes blank. “How do you know that?” I whisper. She sticks a raisin in her mouth. “Because I saw Fred at your father’s funeral, you dimwit.” And all I can think of is that she remembers that while I don’t. Peder gets up abruptly. “And you can be damn happy about that,” he says. I look at him. “Glad about what?” Peder pulls Vivian up from the grass. “Is Barnum a bit thicker than usual today, or is it that we’re just too smart?” “It’s Barnum who’s thick,” Vivian says. She takes my hands and holds me close and Peder puts his paw on my shoulder and speaks quietly “You can be damn glad you don’t look like your brother.”