To Siberia by Per Petterson
The café shuts early on Saturday. It is a restaurant, not a place where you can sit over beer after beer until late at night and talk till you’re thick in the head.
“Off you go, then,” says Aunt Kari. “It’s Saturday. I have to make up the till and close up. You’re going into town, I expect?”
It’s not called town here on Kiellands Square though it is part of Oslo. The town is the center.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, surely,” she says, but I stand there while she does the books and puts the money from the till into a little leather bag.
“I don’t know,” I mumble again, feeling as heavy as the mattresses I have seen out in the rain in autumn, impossible to budge, heavy as a dead animal. I rub my eyes, and she walks around putting out the lights, and I go reluctantly out of the door and wait on the sidewalk until she comes out and locks up with one of the keys in the big bunch she always keeps in her coat pocket. It’s blowing hard down the street, I look around for a way to go.
“Well?” says Aunt Kari.
“Do you never feel homesick?” I ask.
“Home,” she says, “where’s that?”
“Aren’t you happy here?”
“Not for one second.”
“But you could have gone back, surely. Why didn’t you?”
“L’amour,” says Aunt Kari, “and now it’s been too late for a long time. There’s nothing to be done about that.”
She suddenly turns and walks towards her car and throws the money bag through the half-open window on the driver’s side, opens the door, and gets in. She is the only woman I know who can drive a car, a black Citröen from before the war. When I ask where it came from she replies:
“It was just left lying about.”
“Have a good Saturday in town,” she says through the window, starts the car, and turns out from the curb. I stand there watching her drive across Kiellands Square and along Sannergate toward Carl Berners Square before I turn and start to walk down.
But I don’t go right down to the center. Just past Telthusbakken I turn and take the road through Fredensborg to the Deichmanske library from the back, past the Swedish Margareta Church. I shouldn’t have left Stockholm. Those old men were not so bad. They were exhausting, but they slept far into the morning dreaming of Barcelona, and I went down to the glassblowing factory on the ground floor, and it was quiet there then and there was light on the dark window from the lamps in the ceiling and light and heat from the flames in the furnace. It shone on Uncle Peter’s glistening forehead when he coughed and bent over the long blowing pipe and did not want to look at me because he had been drunk the night before and had stood outside my door calling out a name that was not mine until far into the night. I should not have taken the train to Gothenburg and the boat across the sea to Denmark, should not have stood on deck through the opening in the breakwater with the old lighthouses flashing and flashing at our town where Pikkerbakken was lost in fog behind the houses and Frydenstrand Hotel in darkness to the north and only one drunk stood on the quay vomiting, wisps of fog around his legs. I should not have put my suitcase into the room behind the dairy shop only to leave again a week later. I had not been there for two years, and my mother was at my heels up the stairs asking questions about everything she could think of; why I had gone away as soon as the Germans left, before Jesper came home, why I didn’t stay in Copenhagen, in Stockholm, why I did not write home.
Jesper was not there when the boat arrived. There were none of his things in the bedroom. Greta Garbo had gone and the red curtain and Rosa Luxemburg who had hung on the wall throughout the war camouflaged as an aunt of my father’s, she had gone too.
“Where is Jesper?” I asked.
“Jesper is in Morocco,” my mother said harshly, “but perhaps you have had enough of the world.” I could not recognize her. I stood beside the old bed where Lucifer still hung on the wall. I took garment after garment out of the suitcase. She stood in the doorway with her hands crossed over her chest, and I thought she looked ugly. Her skull pushed at the skin of her face, her eyes were a bottomless blue, I looked through them.
“There’s plenty to do here,” she said. Then I slammed down the lid, left the rest of the things, and went out.
It was nearly dark and there was no curfew. I walked the streets for several hours, up Danmarksgate and down again, out on the quay and back again, and all the way north to Rosevej. Lone’s house seemed farther away from the road than before, no light in any window, the fence was broken in several places, and the hedge had grown to a gigantic height. The nameplate on the gate had been taken down. It had never been painted underneath, and I stood gazing at the gray square. I passed my fingers over it. The wood felt rotten and decaying.
One day I saw Ruben in the town. He walked straight past me in the street, but he didn’t know me. Maybe because of my short hair. For a moment I thought I might seduce him shamelessly, take him into Vannverks forest or out to Kæret beach among the dunes. He would be naked and speechless in the wind, and he would see who I was. But his back grew smaller on his way along the sidewalk, and I stood there without waving or calling him. He was alive anyway. Almost all the Jews in Denmark got away in time on board speedboats, fishing boats, and rowing boats, thanks to people like Jesper. But Jesper was in Morocco, and I couldn’t stay at home, the breakwater arms were crushing me, there was a paralysis in my body, my limbs were stiff and my lips dry, I could not breathe, could not speak, and I wanted to go to London but only had enough money for Oslo.
Six silent days on Lodsgate, and on the seventh I put my clothes back in my suitcase and went down to the boat. My father went with me. He wanted to carry the case. It was ridiculously light, but I let him do it and walked a few steps ahead so he could not see my face. He said nothing on the way down and nothing when I went up the gangway of the old boat. The Melchior was still in service.
Once on the boat I put my case in the cloakroom and went up on deck to the after rail. He stood by himself a few meters from a group of people shouting and waving handkerchiefs, and I thought he might be going to wave too, but he did not, just stood there in the long coat he still wore when it was windy, with his hands at his back and his brown beret on his head, and it was not possible to see what he was thinking, his face was perfectly calm. The engines were started, the hawsers let slip from the bollards on the quay and smacked down into the water before the winches pulled them on board, and the deck vibrated. Then my father raised his hand and took a cigar out of the waistcoat pocket under his coat, lit it and blew the smoke out into the wind. The smoke blew back in his face, and I knew it smarted, that the tears rolled down, and I squeezed my eyes into narrow slits and looked down on to the quay and my father through a swirling mist. It was irritating, I blinked hard, but could no longer make him out.
It is autumn. Jesper and I play on the slope above the old well. We have to cross a field behind the Chinese garden to get to it. It is not cold enough yet to have to wear shoes. The corn has been cut and the fields are open. We are free, we can go where we like, and there is no one to scold us. The sky is high, we can run without getting wet through. It is a good place to play, sheltered from the wind and no one can see us, it’s just Jesper and me. Far away we hear an axe in the forest and the horses at Vrangbæk and Grandfather shouting, but he isn’t shouting at us. There is quiet around us. We can play. We run after each other on the slope that’s round as a crater, in the middle is the open well, and there is thick grass there that is good to run on. I am trying to catch Jesper, but it’s not easy. He is quick, he is Ernst Bremer and I am a customs man, and no one can catch Ernst Bremer. We run in a circle until the sky spins round and we get dizzy and totter in zigzags and we are drunk farmers. We have seen drunk farmers lots of times. Grandfather gets roaring drunk once a month but Jesper is even drunker, he staggers and clutches his head crying:
“Oooh, I feel so bad!” and he bends down to be sick, and he is. He makes rattling noises in his throat. N
“Oooh!” cries Jesper, “I feel so bad, I want to die!” I shudder with joy. No one can mimic as well as Jesper, he’s the only one who dares. He tilts forward, he falls, he holds on to his ankles so he turns into a wheel and rolls downhill to land in the well. I laugh aloud. There is a splash, and first he disappears and then he comes up again, but not his head. His round back hits the surface, he’s still holding his ankles and floating like a ball with his head under water. And then he sinks again. The old well is so big that you have to swim a few strokes to get ashore. I can’t swim yet, it’s Jesper who can, but he does not let go of his ankles.
“JESPER!” I cry, and he comes up again, back first. I kneel at the edge and stretch out my arm, but I cannot reach him. Then I start to run. Up the slope and across the fields to Vrangbæk. I run as fast as I can over the stubble on bare feet, and it really hurts at first and then not so much, and I run still faster. I’ve heard you’re dead when you go under the third time. I have to hurry. The wind has dropped. The whole world is quiet, the sky above the farm and the yellow trees in the garden and the hill up towards Gærum where the cows graze, and the calves in the paddock stand still staring, they aren’t chewing, the smoke from the chimneys doesn’t move, and it’s a long way to the farm, much farther than before. I don’t understand it. I summon all my strength, the pain in my feet has gone now and suddenly everything eases, I take off, I fly, it’s the only right thing. At last I come to the first trees. I run through them and across the bridges in the garden straight on to the farmyard, and stop on the cobbles. There is Grandfather. I can’t talk, I point back the way I have come. He turns and looks that way and shakes his head. I pull at the sleeve of his jacket but he gets ahold of me around the waist and picks me up. He shows me my feet. My soles are nothing but blood and shreds of skin. There are red tracks on the cobbles behind us. I feel ashamed, I want to get down, we must go to Jesper quickly. I struggle in his arms but he holds me firmly and starts to walk towards the steps of the house. Then I see Jesper come into the yard, water streaming from his clothes, and he’s laughing.
It is September and suddenly there is autumn around me, the sky high above the houses at Fredensborg, it’s been cold for a few nights and this is the first chilly day. I’m freezing in my light clothes, I shiver so much my teeth chatter and I hurry along the road to Deichman. A rag-and-bone man drives straight toward me with his horse and cart shouting:
“Any old bottles and rags!” up at the windows on both sides of the road, “Any old bottles and rags!” and from one or two houses ladies with head scarves and tremendous forearms come down to the gateway dragging bundles, put them on the pavement and stand waiting with their hands at their sides and their heads cocked and eyes like narrow slits. They look fearsome, but the rag-and-bone man smiles. He’s been expecting this, he knows them, he cracks his whip over the horse and is lord of the street. The old horse starts and stumbles, the man shouts at it and cracks the whip again, but the horse can’t manage to stand upright, its forelegs give way, its whole body sags, and it collapses on to the ground, the shafts bend, and the cart slowly tips, I hold my breath, and the man jumps off the seat swearing loudly. The frayed edges of his jacket flap. Rags and bottles slide down off the cart and the bottles break and fragments of glass fly up and spread to all sides.
“You bleeding brute!” shouts the rag-and-bone man, “god-damned, good-for-nothing nag!” he screams, raising the whip, he runs at the horse and thrashes it soundly to make it stand up. But it does not stand up, just struggles to breathe so loudly above the sound of breaking glass that I can hear it right over where I’m standing, and the ladies hear it at their gate. Now their eyes are round, their hands hang straight down, and I run up and seize the man by the arm with one hand and tear the whip from him with the other and jab him in the chest. He tumbles backward, and I hit him with the butt end of the whip on the thigh, I hit him again as hard as I can and hold on to the whip with both hands.
“Are you daft?” he yells, clenching his fists, but he’s afraid of me and opens them again to feel his thigh, and then I hit him on the hand. He howls, a red weal comes up on the back of his hand and beads of blood appear on the weal. I throw down the whip and bend over the horse, put my cheek to its neck, feel the cold against my knees and the warmth of the big body on my jacket and stomach, and the only sound in the world is the painful breathing against my ear. I close my eyes, I’m tired, I could fall asleep now. The horse fights to breathe. And then stops. I open my eyes. It is dead. It just died, and at first all is quiet and then I hear running in the street.
“Is ’e dead?” says one of the ladies from the gateway. I blink, I can see my reflection in the horse’s eyes.
“I am afraid so,” I say.
“You’re Danish,” she asks, but it isn’t a question. I get up, brush dirt from the front of my skirt and pull my jacket close around me.
The rag-and-bone man sucks the blood from his hand. “Is ’e dead?” he says, “‘e’s not dead, ‘e’s the only one I’ve got. D’you realize that, you Danish maniac. ‘E’s all I’ve got!”
“Then you haven’t got anything now,” I say.
I turn and walk off. I feel their eyes on my back. The wind has got up, the narrow street is like a funnel that sucks in all the air and sends it out at the other end. The wind thumps me on the back, and in front of the steps of Deichman it comes from several directions, up all the streets from the fjord, through all the alleyways and makes free with the square, a labyrinth of wind, and the only escape is to go inside. I hurry up the steps, but halfway to the top I see it’s too late. It’s closed. I stop. The staff come out of the big door, it’s Saturday, they laugh and chat, and in the center of the group is the woman behind the desk I always go to. She sees me at once and smiles, I do not smile back, but despite that she stops at my step and says:
“It can’t be that bad, it’s only one day, and then we’re open again. Haven’t you anything to read?”
“Oh, yes,” I say. I’m shaking and don’t want her to notice.
“But you’re quite white in the face. You’re not wearing enough clothes. It’s really cold today. Where were you thinking of going?”
I shrug. Nowhere. I was not going anywhere.
“You can come home with me, I live quite close by,” she says and points the way I’ve come from, but I do not move. She puts her arm around my shoulders.
“Come along, you must get thawed out,” she says, hugging me. I stand quite still, I wait, I lean against her, and slowly I feel warmth come out from under her coat. I listen to her breathing. I don’t want to walk, I want to stand there for a bit, and we do, and then we go.
The horse has gone from the street I came from, the cart has gone, and there are no ladies standing in the entrance to any courtyard. I stop and look around me, I must have been dreaming, I must have fainted or something is wrong with my brain and I am seeing things that do not exist. But there are fragments of glass on the sidewalk. Someone has removed the worst of them and swept the rest to the side. Someone has removed a whole horse and a cart full of bottles and rags.
“Now he hasn’t got anything,” I say.
“Who?”
“A man who had a horse. It is dead now.”
We go past a block and around the corner to Rostedsgate and into an entrance where the stairs are paved with tiles in a pattern of stars on each step, blue and gray and pink, and rails of wrought iron at the sides. All the staircases in Oslo have wrought iron rails. “Solgunn Skaug” reads a sign on her door on the first floor. The corridor is painted blue and there are books and pictures in her living room, but they are not like the ones in Lone’s house. Here there are piles of books on the floor from the overflowing shelves, and the pictures are photographs.
“My family,” she says, pointing. “Keep your jacket on, we’ll warm the place up first.”
“Perhaps it’s still alive,” says Solgunn.
I shake my head. She takes off her coat and hangs it in the corridor and I take off my jacket. A desk is like a uniform, she is different without it and more so in here. I get sleepy. Solgunn picks up some books from a chair.
“Sit down here,” she says. “I’ve got a bottle of wine, someone gave it to me. We’ll make some toddy.”
She goes into the kitchen while I doze in the chair. There’s a little farm in one of the photographs. A girl with no shoes on stands in front of the house. I can see who it is. Perhaps I fall asleep for a while, there is a rumbling in the stove.
Solgunn comes in from the kitchen with two steaming mugs, and we drink toddy. It’s hot and sweet and slightly bitter, and I take big gulps.
“Not so fast,” she says, and I think it’s because I’m drinking too quickly, but it’s because I’m talking,
“I can’t understand the half of it,” she says. I’m still sleepy, and what I say comes quicker than what I think. I can hear myself telling her about Baron Biegler in the landau at night and the coins he throws to the kids in the street and Grandfather in the cow barn and Gestapo Jørgensen who hit me in the face and a year later was drowned in the harbor in a mysterious way. And while I talk and think I look at Solgunn who is thin without her coat, not skinny, but slim. She sits on the edge of her chair with her mug in her hand smiling and listening. She has lines in her face. I am not thin, I have brown eyes and large features and curves, like an Eskimo, my mother said once, and I tell her that too.