The Half Brother: A Novel (63 page)

I wake with the rain on the roof. I lie there listening to the rain — it’s summer, it’s early, it’s wonderful. Then Peder turns to face me. There’s a bad smell. “Dream anything?” he whispers. “Nothing,” I tell him. “And you? Counted anything?” “Nothing.” His expression clouds. “But now I’m going to count how many times I have to be sick,” he says. He turns away and makes a series of unhappy noises, and the bad smell gets worse. “One,” Peder says. Then I go out. I get dressed and go out and leave him in peace. One foot trails in a pool of Campari. I hear a further gulping sound from the bed. “Two,” Peder says. I’m gone. No one else is up yet. It’s just me. It’s just me in the thin rain. I go around the island. It isn’t big. Islands shouldn’t be big. Islands should be small enough to go around on a morning of rain. The fjord’s gray and has goose pimples. I sit on the steps by the diving board and dip my face in the water. That helps. I take the time I need. The steps are slippery and green. Everything is strange and ordinary. I see the ferry turning and heading for the city once more. Soon I’ll go back to Peder. We’ll talk about math and dreams. That’s us. Then I notice her. Or maybe she’s the one to see me first. It’s Vivian. She’s standing in the middle of the rope bridge with a rucksack and an umbrella. Never will I forget the sight of Vivian underneath a yellow umbrella on the swaying rope bridge over to Ildjernet. Who ever takes an umbrella with them on vacation? Vivian. I don’t know what to think. I wave. I don’t know what it makes me feel. I don’t know what I want. I wave again. And Vivian walks the last part of the way and stops once she’s set foot on our island. “Hi, Tiny!” she shouts. I run over to her. “You here?” I say. “Yes. Why not?” And she looks at me, her head on one side. “What a sight you are,” she says. “Really?” “You look as if you’ve been sleeping in water.” I smile at her. “Peder and I had a party last night,” I tell her. Vivian puts down her yellow umbrella. Its still raining. “A party?” she repeats. “Yes. You bet!” She gives the umbrella a hard shake to dry it. “So who was at your party?” “Peder and me.” Vivian looks at me again. “It’s raining,” she says. We go up toward the house. Everything’s quiet. The waters dripping from the blue umbrella onto the terrace. I carry the umbrella for her. The grass is cold around my feet. “Is no one up?” Vivian asks me. “Not Peder at any rate.” We slip into the bedroom. Peder’s lying with his head the wrong way around. He isn’t dead. He’s made a moat of sick around the bed. Airing the room isn’t going to help much. Vivian holds her nose. I open the umbrella, just for safety’s sake. “I dreamt something after all,” I said. Peder jumps in a slow kind of way. His eyes move in his head like a crab’s. “What?” he groans. “That Vivian came here.” Peder tumbles onto the floor and lands on his knees, as if he’s praying. But he isn’t. It looks more like he’s getting electric shocks in the mouth, and he’s making some pretty horrible noises. “Four and a half,” he whispers. He climbs back onto the bed and notices Vivian. “Hi, Fatty,” she says. “You’re really brown.” Peder smiles at her, but it’s me he’s looking at. “Good, Barnum. Now you’re dreaming in plus.” I put down the umbrella. Vivian steps over the vomit and sits down on the bed. “Is there room for me between the two of you?” Then I hear the wheelchair behind us. “You’ll have your own room, Vivian!” We turn to look at Peder’s mother. Peder’s given up already He manages to hide the bottle, but not to wish away twenty pounds of vomit. “Hi, Mom, I think I’ve caught a bug. It’s infectious.” Vivian goes off with Peder’s mother. The rain’s clearing. The sun’s coming in the window at an angle; a bundle of light on the blue sill. Peder gets up from the bed. “Thanks for the dream,” he says. “Did you know she was coming?” I ask him. Peder shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe. Maybe not. Shall we do some cleaning up?” And when we next see Vivian she’s wearing a bikini. I don’t remember the color of it. I almost don’t dare look at her. But I can’t take my eyes away all the same. She’s thin — lean would be the right word to describe her. Her skin is smooth and firm over her whole body particularly her tummy which still goes in a slight curve down to the edge of her bikini. And there are no differences in the color of her skin — her whole body is equally pale, but not gray more a deep white that’s reminiscent of the color of old crockery. She’s got sunglasses on. I can’t see where she’s looking. Her mouth seems larger than normal. She has her hair tied at her neck and has freed the thin band fastening it on her back. We lie together on the rock ledge. Peder rubs lotion on her shoulders. Peder counts her ribs. She’s got more than we have. She laughs. I stare down the slope. I can see her nonetheless. It’s the hottest day of the summer. Suddenly Peder throws the suntan lotion over to me. He fights a wasp. The wasp is on the point of winning. Vivian sits up abruptly. I catch a glimpse of her breasts before she gets her bikini and her hands into place. Peder fights the wasp with a towel. But I saw her breasts. They aren’t large. They’re sufficient. If I put my hand on one of them, it would fit perfectly. I don’t. But I’d like to. I imagine doing it. Putting my hand carefully on her breast and she sighing. Her eyes behind the dark sunglasses. I don’t see where she’s looking. The suntan lotion melts on my fingers, drips onto the ledge and runs away down a deep crevice. Peder chucks a stone at the wasp. “I’m taking a dip,” Vivian announces. She goes onto the diving board and plunges in. There’s barely a splash when she lands, her arms like a spear — no, a sword, a saber that cuts the waves and soundlessly pushes them apart. Peder looks at me. “Not going to swim?” he asks. “Think I’ll wait a bit,” I reply. “Same here. We can swim later.” “Sure,” I agree. His mother sits by the flagpole and waves. Vivian is almost invisible in the midst of all the light that flickers around her like shifting mirrors. “Think we have to get ourselves some sunglasses, Barnum,” Peder says. Then Vivian comes up the steps. Carefully we lie down on our tummies. She sits between us. I see the water on her skin drying, drop by drop. Tiny, fair hairs rise along the ridge of her back. I want to touch them. There’s a raw, warm smell from the rock ledge, the hot stones, the hillside, which makes me a bit lightheaded. I dip my fingers in the suntan lotion again. “You don’t want to burn,” I murmur. She lies down on her back. She closes her eyes. Peder’s borrowed the sunglasses. They make him look quite tough. He sucks in his cheeks and gives a lopsided smile. I squat down beside Vivian. I squirt a warm, white pool of Nivea onto her tummy “I met your brother,” she says out of the blue. My hand stops. “What?” “Your brother, Fred. I met him.” Peder slips the sunglasses up onto his brow and lets out his cheeks again. “Where?” I ask her. “In Bygd0y Alley. He was running.” “Running? Fred never runs.” “Well, he was walking mighty fast at any rate. And using his arms. Looked a bit weird.” “The difference between running and walking is that when you run you only ever have one foot on the ground,” Peder says. “Doesn’t have anything to do with speed. So you can actually run much more slowly than you can walk. Just so you know.” “He’s training,” I tell them. Peder laughs. “Training? In Bygd0y Alley? What’s he training for?” “Boxing,” I breathe, as quietly as I can, and have to shade my eyes. Vivian sits up and rubs the lotion on herself. “He’s got a fight in September,” she says. Suddenly I get a pain in my head — it throbs, my mouth goes dry and a wave of sickness passes through me. Peder looks at me. It’s as if he’s got spare tires on his forehead too. “Everything all right, Barnum?” I nod and take deep breaths. But everything isn’t all right. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But the thought that Fred’s spoken to Vivian and that she’s spoken to him is unbearable. I feel sick and dizzy. Peder sits up. Vivian lies back down. “Did you talk to him?” I breathe, and have almost no voice whatsoever. “A little.” “A little? Did he stop?” “He had to do some stretching.” “Stretching? He had to stretch?” “Yes, against a tree.” “Then he must have knocked it over,” Peder says. I’m still taking deep breaths. “What did he say? When he was stretching, I mean?” Vivian sighed. “You’re not keeping up, Barnum. He said he would box in September. His first match. Didn’t you know that?” I laugh. “Of course I knew that,” I tell her loudly. “Fred’s the best in town. No one’ll take the kind of beating he will. Christ Almighty!” I look at Peder. I’m proud of my brother. That’s what I want to be. Peder looks the other way. His dad’s standing on the terrace waving his hands. “Food and drink!” he calls. Peder’s already off. Vivian follows him. She turns and hesitates a moment. “Not coming, Barnum?” “Oh, yes, in a minute.” I go up to Peder’s mom instead to help her up the path. “Why don’t you oil the wheels?” I ask her. “So you’ll hear me coming,” she replies. “Just like squeaking shoes,” I tell her. She bends her head backward and smiles, but her mouth is hanging the wrong way. “You’re not ill, Barnum?” “Not in the least.” “Because it wouldn’t surprise me if you felt somewhat ill today. After a night like that.” “I know,” I agree. She puts her hand on my arm. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says gently. “You’re a good boy.” “No,” I tell her. “I’m not that good.”

And now Fred’s going home, through the city and the rain, beaten up — beaten up by no one but his shadow and himself. He walks slowly and stiffly, his bag over his shoulder, looking all around him in the deserted streets. Beside him walks Willy. Willy talks all the time. “There are two voices in a boxer’s head, Fred. One of them says
attack).
The other whispers
get out.
That’s exactly one voice too many.” Fred nods. Willy takes hold of his arm. “If you end up standing somewhere in between, you’re done for. Your mind has to be concentrated and focused. A boxer who starts doubting’s down already.” Willy laughs. “Basically, boxing’s as easy as giving someone a good hiding.” They stop. “Your fist first, Fred. That’s all you have to remember. Your fist first!” Willy lets go of his arm. “You owe me fifty kroner, Fred.” “Do I?” “I paid your membership fee. Otherwise you couldn’t have boxed in September.” “Many thanks,” Fred says. Willy puts his hands in his pockets, for a moment embarrassed. “Well, I wasn’t going to pay your damn way!” They stand together at the City Chambers Square. “See you,” Fred says quietly. Willy holds him back. “Have you heard of Bob Fitzsimmons?” Fred shakes his head. Willy smiles. “’Course you won’t have. But Bob Fitzsimmons is the greatest, Fred. When he got beaten to pulp by Jack Johnson in 1907, every paper in the land said he was down and out. Two months later he beat Corbett. Knocked him out in the third.” “Christ,” Fred says. “Yes, Christ. Don’t believe what the papers say. There are people who say that boxers never come back. It’s not true.” “No,” Fred says. The clock on the tower strikes three. Willy has to hurry. “See you tomorrow,” he says quickly, slapping Fred on the back and running in the direction of the Akers Mek gates; the heavy figure springs easily over the cobbles. “Do you work there?” Fred shouts after him. Willy turns as he’s running. “Everyone works here!” He manages to make his shift, and Fred just stands there watching the backs disappearing through the shipyard gates, and the gate closing behind them. The rain slides over the city. And at a precise moment, eight minutes past three, the square’s divided in two, between light and shadow, rain and sunlight. And Fred stands in the middle, one arm in the rain, the other in the light. He stands like that for a moment in wonderment, blinded and wet, at the edge of the sunlight, before it covers him completely. And had he been able to see far enough, out to the fjord, along the steep green point of Nesoddlandet, to Ildjernet and the white summer house that stood there (and I’m glad Fred can’t see that well), he’d first have seen Vivian drinking cola through a straw. Her mouth’s a soft, wet tip and with two fingers she’s carefully holding the yellow straw, and glancing over at Peder’s dad, who’s trying to get up from his deckchair. But Peder’s dad is too full, and his deckchair is far too deep; he topples back down once more, and we laugh at him — that grown man, the seller of postage stamps, Oscar Miil. “Oh Lord, what a time we’re having,” he says. “Mom and I and Peder and Barnum and Vivian!” He looks around at each of us as if he can’t quite believe it’s all real, that his island is inhabited, that the sun’s come out after all, that we’re full of mirth and gratitude, that we’re in such good company. He lets his gaze rest on Vivian. “It was time you came,” he tells her. Vivian smiles and looks up from her glass. The melting chunks of ice clink. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “We need someone to look after the boys anyway, right?” We laugh once more; Peder’s mother takes a swipe at a wasp with one of last year’s papers, and his dad turns to me. “Isn’t that right, Barnum?” “Dead right,” I agree. “You’re not feeling rocky again, Barnum? There wasn’t a single mackerel in that salad!” I shake my head carefully. “Particularly Peder,” I say. “Someone has to look after him.” “Oh, would you listen to that!” Peder exclaims. “It’s Barnum who needs looking after. He’s afraid of heights!” We all laugh even more, and finally Peder’s dad manages to get to his feet; he takes a look out over the fjord and nods, as if he’s seen something that meets with his approval. Then he looks at his wife. “Low tide,” he announces. “Time for a Campari, Maria! Shall I bring one for you?” Peder’s mother thinks for a minute. “Why don’t we try some Martinis instead?” “Martinis at low tide! Oh, please, no!” Peder’s dad goes concussed into the house. I look at Peder. Peder looks up at the sky and whistles. “Peder,” his mother says. “Yes, Mother,” he answers, and continues scrutinizing the skies. “You have to sort this out yourself, Peder.” Vivian looks at me. I just shrug my shoulders. I’m incapable of anything else. Then his father reemerges. “Have you seen the Campari, Maria?” “Is it not in the fridge?” “No, it’s not.” Peder’s mom looks at her son again. “Find anything?” she inquires. “Find anything?” “In the skies? Is there anything written there, Peder?” His father starts losing his cool. “The Campari, Maria. It’ll soon be high tide!” Then Peder gets up. “I have an announcement to make,” he says. His father turns to look at him. “What are you going on about?” “I’ve got an announcement to make, Dad.” “Yes, I heard that. What’s going on?” Peder bows his head. “There’s no Campari left, Dad. Neither in the fridge nor anywhere else on Ildjernet” His dad turns toward Maria. “What can our son mean by this?” She gives a sigh. “I think what he means is that they’ve drunk your Campari.” Peder’s dad turns again, this time to me. “Well, now I know why you’re looking a bit rough today, Barnum.” And I sense myself beginning to feel sick once more — getting queasy, because I see Fred in my mind’s eye stretching against a tree, a chestnut tree in Bygd0y Alley, and Vivian stopping and talking to him. Fred and Vivian chat away, and he tells her he’ll be boxing in September; he’s the one who tells her. I have to be sick. I can’t be sick twice on the same island. Peder’s father scratches his brow. His skin’s peeling in the middle of his forehead; he scratches at it for a good long time. “Well, well,” he says. “At least you’re alive. I’ll just have to buy another bottle when I’m next in town.” He keeps standing there a while longer, reflecting, I imagine. “Never heard the like,” he says. Then he strolls back inside. I look at Peder. He’s watching his dad go. We’d gotten off pretty lightly. I make up my mind to treat Peder’s dad to something nice in the future. Vivian gets up and goes over to Peder. “You have a nice dad,” she says. And suddenly Peder gets mad. I can’t understand it. He becomes totally beside himself with rage. “Dad!” he screams. “Dad!” His father looks out from the veranda door. “Yes? I hope you’re not going to ask me for a Martini, Peder. Because you’re not getting one.” Peder shakes his head. He’s completely red. “Do you know why we drank your Campari?” he says. His father smiles. “Yes, I have a suspicion.” “Because you sold Fred’s letter!” His dad’s smile sinks. His forehead is bleeding; a tiny thread of blood runs down toward the bridge of his nose. He wipes it away with the back of his hand and is about to say something, but stops and look at me instead. I don’t understand; I don’t understand what Peder’s said, and I just sit there silent and bewildered and feeling a little rough, afraid to say something wrong, something completely insane. Then Peder’s dad disappears behind the curtains and I hear the whine of his mother’s wheelchair, and when she speaks her voice is both angry and sorrowful. “That was unnecessary, Peder. In fact it was just wicked.” I turn toward them. Peder looks down. He’s lost all the color in his face. Vivian goes over to the diving board. She stands right out at the end, bends her knees a little to make a tall thin
S
in the sunlight, and dives. I don’t hear her landing. “Sorry,” Peder says. “Don’t say sorry to me! Say sorry to your father!” Peder shrugs and goes into the living room. He’s there for a while. Slowly I get up. “Perhaps Peder’s lost his soul,” I whisper. His mother looks up at me. “What’s that, Barnum?” “I took a picture of him,” I tell her. She opens her mouth, as if to laugh, and then changes her mind. “What matters is getting it back as quickly as possible.” “How?” “By doing the right things,” she replies. Finally Peder comes back. He has a glass with him that he gives to his mother. “There you are, Mom,” he says, and gives a deep bow. “Martini, low tide and lemon.” “Where’s Dad?” “He’s resting, Mom. On the sofa in the living room.” His mother holds her glass in both hands. “Do you know what I think you should do, Peder?” “Not entirely.” “Mow the lawn.” Peder thinks about this. “All right.” “And when you’ve done that you can collect some seaweed from the beach.” “Oh, no.” “Oh, yes. And after that it would be tremendous if you could clean the diving board and the steps. I’m sure Barnum’ll help you.” And for the rest of that day we work at recovering our souls. We mow the lawn at the back of the house. Each of us rakes the grass. We rub away the slime from the bathing steps. We clean the seagull shit from the diving board. It works. My soul is there. It’ll soon be back in place. It’s just the same as a combination lock; when you finally think you remember the numbers correctly and feel it giving, there’s a quiver through your hand — and then it tightens and one of the numbers is wrong after all. Fred’s letter? Why had Peder called it Fred’s letter? All that’s left now is the beach. Vivian’s sitting there and her eyes follow us. We collect seaweed. She has a red towel over her shoulders. She looks as if she’s cold. The seaweed has a sour smell — of old garbage, piss, something rotting slowly in the heat, carcasses. “Is this your punishment?” Vivian shouts. Peder looks up. “Punishment? Are you religious or what?” Vivian draws a circle in the sand around her. “I think I believe in God,” she says. Peder smiles. “Just because you live within spitting distance of Frogner Church. I bet everyone in Bygd0y Alley thinks they believe in God.” “Idiot,” Vivian exclaims, and hides in her towel. We put the seaweed in a huge bucket. Peder’s sweating. “Why did you say what you did about the letter?” I ask him. He shrugs his shoulders. “Wanted to.” “You shouldn’t have.” “Maybe. Maybe not.” Peder finds a bottle cap he secretes in the tiny pocket of his trunks. “But why did you say it was Fred’s letter, Peder?” He turns toward me abruptly and, unsure for a moment, he hesitates. “That’s enough,” he says simply, and gets up. “There’s more seaweed,” I tell him. Peder laughs. “And there’s more seaweed where that comes from, Barnum. You could end up collecting seaweed for the rest of your life and still not be finished!” “You can’t count seaweed,” I tell him. “No, exactly! That’s what’s shitty about seaweed. Can’t count the stuff.” “I’ll keep going a bit longer,” I tell him. Peder tosses the bottle cap out into the water again. “If you want. I don’t feel like doing any more.” He goes over to Vivian and rips the towel away from her, and she gets up with a shriek. Peder races off in the direction of the house, whirling the towel about his head like a lasso; she runs after him and catches up with him right away, and I have no idea where they disappear to. I crouch down on the shore. The bladders in the wet seaweed burst And the dry seaweed lies in the sand, crumbling into pieces at my touch. A jellyfish has been washed ashore. If a star was to tumble from the skies, then perhaps this is how it would look. When I stick my finger in it, I almost can’t free it again. I have to scrape it free. I read once about a man who drowned in jellyfish; they trapped him down there — a whole roof of them. He couldn’t get through and remained down there under the shadow of the jellyfish. But it would be better to get a discus in the head. I vomit into the bucket. I stick my finger down my throat and vomit even more. Someone puts a hand on my back. I turn and look right at Peder’s dad. “Well, well,” he says. “If it’s not mackerel, it’s Campari.” I sink down into the sand. He sits beside me. He lends me a handkerchief. “It’ll pass, Barnum. It’ll pass. But your body will punish you in the meantime.” “Punish?” “Call it a kind of postal surcharge. You put too few stamps on the fun yesterday and today your body’s paying what’s owed.” Peder’s dad suddenly laughs and pours sand out of his shoes. “No, now I’m just talking nonsense,” he says. “I thought it sounded fine,” I murmur. He’s silent as he puts his shoes on again. He takes his time over it. The laces are thin and worn, on the point of breaking. “I was sorry about the letter,” he said in the end. “It was Dad who sold it.” “Yes, it was. I didn’t know who he was then. That he was your father.” “It’s strange that old things can become so valuable,” I say. Peder’s dad chuckles. “Not all old things, Barnum. My shoes, for instance. Doubt I’d get much for them.” “No, and they squeak too.” “They squeak and they leak. And I wouldn’t sell them anyway. These hopeless old shoes are precious to me. Just me.” “But if I were to write a letter to my mother now and she were to hide it for thirty years, would it be worth something then?” “Depends,” he replies. “On what?” “If you become famous or not, Barnum.” I have to mull that one over a bit. I can’t quite imagine it. Famous? Me famous? What would I be famous for? My height? My name? My dreams? My imagination won’t stretch that far. “It isn’t right to read other people’s letters anyway,” I say. Peder’s dad nods. “That was just what your brother said, too.” “My brother?” “He was in my shop, you know. He wanted the letter back. It must have meant a lot to you, Barnum.” I didn’t say anything. Fred’s everywhere. Fred’s talked to everyone. Peder’s dad puts his arm around me. “He wanted the letter back for your sake, Barnum. That was precisely what he said.” “Did he?” “Oh, yes. It was.” And then I decided that Fred was a fine big brother. I no longer know what I should think. But somewhere inside I feel so happy. I want to believe it, believe what I think I’m hearing, what Peder’s father’s telling me, that Fred did something for my sake. “I think Peder is almost a little envious of you,” he whispers. I stand up and start walking toward the house. But I go a different way so as to be alone with my thoughts. It’s as if my head’s eaten too much. I’ve got a stitch in my brain. The outhouse is unoccupied and I sit down inside. When I peer down into the hole, I can’t see the bottom. Nor can I even hear the shit landing. If I were to tumble down there, I wouldn’t be found again before the autumn. On the walls there are pictures of the royal family and the face of Van Gogh; there’s a picture of a boy too, who must be Peder, but the photograph’s old now. He’s standing right out at the end of the diving board wearing a great lifebelt, and he looks pretty mad — maybe at that moment he loses his soul. That was before we got to know each other, before he knew who I was or I knew that he existed, in the very same city. It was before either of us knew that Vivian walked through the same streets too; maybe we’d taken the same tram together, or got off at the same station. And I get as far as thinking this, in the outhouse on Ildjernet, that strange summer that afterward I came to call my first summer, that we don’t actually know most things. We know so little that it barely exists in relation to what we don’t know — it’s like an ant on Mount Everest or a single drop in the Dead Sea. And the little we do know we mustn’t forget, and what we think we know must be included too. And at last I can hear these thoughts getting through, because after a long time falling they become words in my mouth. “I know less than I don’t know,” I breathe. And once more I’m filled with a great feeling of tenderheartedness for Fred; I see him there before me, going around quietly doing all his good deeds in secret. I sit on there a while yet. I don’t quite know why but I feel like crying. Things are good. The paper’s stiff, but when I rub it quickly between my fingers it becomes soft enough. Then I go outside. Peder’s dad is pushing the wheelchair along the shore. Peder and Vivian are each sitting on the terrace reading weeklies. Peder sees me coming. “You know what’s great about keeping old magazines, Barnum?” “No,” I reply. “You can see the horoscopes weren’t right.” “Really?” Peder leafs through the pages till he finds what he’s looking for. “Now listen to what they wrote about you last year.