Encircling Read online

  Encircling

  Carl Frode Tiller

  Translated from the Norwegian by

  Barbara J. Haveland

  ASSISTANCE

  This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s “PEN Translates!” programme, supported by Arts Council England. English PEN exists to promote literature and our understanding of it, to uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, to campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and to promote the friendly co- operation of writers and the free exchange of ideas. www.englishpen.org

  Barbara J. Haveland’s translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA (Norwegian Literature Abroad).

  THANKS

  Carl Frode Tiller thanks Marita, Oline, Othilie and Cornelia.

  Sort Of Books thanks Andrine Pollen of NORLA, Even Råkil,

  Peter Dyer, Henry Iles and Nikky Twyman.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Jon

  Arvid

  Silje

  Copyright

  Jon

  Jon

  Saltdalen, July 4th 2006. On tour

  We drive slowly into the town centre – if you can call it a centre, that is: a mini-roundabout and a scattering of houses. I lean forward in my seat, scanning the street, not a soul to be seen, the place is totally dead, deserted, scarcely a shop even, nothing but a closed café and a grocer’s with darkened windows. We’re playing here? Fuck’s sake, doesn’t look as if anybody even lives here, can’t think who’d want to live here, who’d do that to themselves. I sit back in my seat, roll down the window, rest my elbow on the sill. A cool, fresh breeze wafts over my face, nice breeze. I lay my head back and shut my eyes, breathe in through my nose and sniff the air, so many scents after a shower of rain, that scent of damp earth, the scent of lilac. I open my eyes, lean forward again. Christ, the place is deserted, totally dead, not a bloody soul to be seen, and hardly a sound to be heard, nothing but the drone of our engine and the swish of wheels on rain-wet tarmac. Can’t think who the hell would choose to live in a place like this.

  “If there’d been time before the concert I’d have tried a spot of fishing,” Anders says. “There’s supposed to be a good salmon river here!”

  I turn to him and grin. But he looks like he’s serious, sits there in the back seat looking at me, nods off to the right. I put my head out to see what he’s nodding at. There’s a cardboard sign in a window on the other side of the street: “Fishing permits sold here” it says in black felt tip, the handwriting sloping down to the right. I turn to look through the windscreen again.

  “Yep,” I say. “Apart from inbreeding I don’t suppose there’s much else to do around here except hunting and fishing and stuff.”

  I look back at Anders, grin again. But he has turned to the side and I don’t think he caught it. I face front again, stare through the windscreen.

  “And sport, of course,” I add. “Skiing and all that! No team sports, though,” I say. “I doubt there are enough folk here to make up a team.”

  Brief pause.

  Lars turns off to the right and we drive down a gentle slope leading to the harbour. I glimpse the glittering blue sea way down there, some gulls circling a green skip. But not a single person. Christ, the whole place is dead, it’s the middle of the day, and yet it’s utterly deserted. I lean forward slightly, glance from side to side, grin and shake my head.

  “Fuck!” I say, wait a beat, shake my head again. “Looks like the Centre Party have got their work cut out for them if they’re to reach their goal of a dynamic small-town Norway,” I say. Another beat, then I turn to Lars, nod at him. “If you hear swift-licking banjo music, put your fucking foot down!” I say with a quick laugh. But he doesn’t laugh back, he just sits there with both hands on the wheel, eyes fixed on the road ahead. I’m not sure if he’s ever seen Deliverance: music is all that matters to Lars. He’s not the slightest bit interested in films, or not that sort of film at any rate. I turn and stare out of the windscreen again.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I mutter. “I’m glad I don’t live here.”

  Brief pause.

  “Here as well?” Lars asks, saying it under his breath and without looking at me.

  “Well, there’s not a fucking soul to be seen,” I say.

  “No,” he says shortly.

  I look at him again, don’t say anything, wait a beat. What the hell’s the matter with him? He sounds so serious. Looks serious, too. His face seems so tight, still. He stares straight ahead. I wait a second or two, never taking my eyes off him.

  “What’s up with you?” I ask. He doesn’t answer, just sits there with his arms stiff and his hands locked on the wheel, staring straight ahead. There’s total silence in the car; nobody says a word. What’s going on? This isn’t like Lars, he’s almost always in a good mood, hardly ever anything but positive, optimistic.

  “What’s up with you?” I ask again.

  “With me?” He raises his voice and juts his head forward a fraction as he says it.

  Total silence.

  I stare at him in amazement.

  “I’m getting fucking fed up of you being so negative,” he says.

  “Negative?” I murmur.

  “Yeah, negative,” he says, keeping his eyes fixed front, then he pauses, swallows. “Doesn’t matter where we go it’s always a dump,” he says. “The food’s always crap, everybody we meet is a moron!”

  I just sit here staring at him, speechless. What’s he talking about? Me, negative? I wait a beat, face front for a moment, then turn to Lars again, don’t know what to say, he’s never said a word about this before, but now, sudddenly, I’m negative. Am I? Negative? Two beats, then I turn around. Look at Anders in the back. He’s gazing out of the window, his brow pressed against the glass, pretending not to see me, acting as though he hasn’t heard anything. I eye him for a second or two and suddenly I realize that they’ve talked about this before, that they’ve discussed this and they both think I’m negative. And now I feel my heart start to beat faster than normal, feel my pulse start to race. I stare at Anders and feel my jaw instinctively drop. Sit here open-mouthed, gawping. Then I shut my mouth, swallow once, then again. Turn back to face Lars, look at him.

  “You’re such a pain in the ass to be with,” he says. “A real fucking pain in the ass! This whole fucking tour has been one big pain in the ass!”

  He still doesn’t look at me, just sits there staring rigidly through the windscreen, his face is tight and white and he swallows every now and again. I don’t take my eyes off him. Don’t say anything, don’t know what to say. Because this is so sudden, I hadn’t seen this coming, that they think I’m negative, no fun to be on the road with.

  “It started off badly and it’s just got worse and worse,” Lars says. He clears his throat, still not looking at me. “I don’t think you’ve any idea how much effort it takes just to keep you in a reasonably good mood,” he says. “You go around bad-mouthing everything and everybody, you criticize everything under the sun. It makes you a real pain to be with, don’t you see that?”

  I hear what he’s saying and I realize he’s been rehearsing this, I can tell by the way he says it. I can tell that he genuinely means it, too. It feels as though it has come out of nowhere, but I can tell by his voice that he really means it. I stare at him. Wait a beat. Don’t know what to say. But I can’t just blurt out the first thing that comes into my head, I have to watch what I say. Because I have to be able to take this, have to be grown-up enough to take such criticism, I mustn’t be unprofessional and just blow up in his face. But it’s so sudden, I wasn’t expecting it, I mean they’ve always laughed at me being such a pessimist, they’ve joked about my gloo
my view of things and my wry comments. In fact I’ve often acted more gloomy and cynical than I actually was, been sour and sarcastic just to make them laugh. I always thought everything was fine, that they enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed theirs, that they liked me as much as I liked them. Because I do, I like them a lot, don’t think I’ve ever fitted so well into a band before, musically or personally. Even though I’m so much older than them I’ve felt this.

  Brief pause. I turn my face slowly to the right, rest my head on my right hand and gaze out of the open window, raise my other hand and scratch my nose with my finger. And then all of a sudden I start to cry. It just comes, as if cracks have appeared in a dam inside me that I didn’t know was there, my eyes crack and the tears start to fall, streaming cold down my cheeks. I turn my face a little further to the right. Wipe away the tears, swallow. But what the hell is all this, sitting here blubbing, what the hell’s the matter with me, I haven’t cried in I don’t know how long and now here I am, blubbing, bursting into tears over a little thing like this, because they say I’m negative, what the fuck’s the matter with me, it’s so stupid it’s laughable. Two beats, and then I burst out laughing, it just happens. I let out a hoot, a great roar of laughter. This is so ridiculous, such a silly little thing, and I try to somehow laugh off the tears, but it’s no use. They just keep pouring down, and now I’m laughing and crying by turns, like a hysterical female, it sounds totally crazy, sounds as if I’m losing my mind, and the other two don’t say a word, they’re probably wondering what’s got into me, because this isn’t me, this couldn’t be less like me. No, this won’t do, I need to pull myself together. I draw a finger across my upper lip, sniff. Clench my teeth and stop laughing. Give a little cough, clear my throat. I’m no longer laughing, but I can’t stop crying, cry softly, my lips are wet with tears and the salt tingles on my tongue.

  Total silence.

  Then: “So where’s this arts centre?” Anders asks. “Wasn’t it supposed to be outside the town centre?” he says. Trying to talk about something else, to act as if nothing’s wrong, giving me the time and the chance to dry my eyes and pull myself together, to save me making a bigger fool of myself than I already have. “Well, I say town centre, but there’s no way of telling where the centre is in this place.” He’s trying to side with me a little now, agreeing that this town is a dump, as if that will make things better.

  Silence again.

  I just sit here crying. And Anders and Lars say not a word, they probably understand as little of this as I do. Because this could not be less like me. I feel empty, feel flat, all the strength seems to have drained out of me. Just more and more of a pain in the ass to be with, Lars said, sour and negative. But why didn’t they say something earlier? I mean, they’ve always joked about me being so pessimistic, they’ve always laughed at my sarcastic comments. How can I change my ways if they never say anything, if they simply go along with it? They might at least have given me the odd hint, I always assumed that they liked me as much as I liked them, and all the time they thought I was a pain in the ass to be with, negative. I turn my head another notch to the right, press my lips together and swallow.

  “Stop the car!” The words burst out of me. I hear how angry I sound, angry and determined. I put my hand to the seat-belt clip, press the red plastic button and undo the belt, keeping my eyes front as I do it.

  “Aw, Jon, come on,” Lars pleads.

  “Stop the car!” I say.

  “Hey,” Lars says.

  I turn to him, stare at him.

  “Stop the car, for Christ’s sake!” I shout.

  Total silence. A moment, then Lars puts on the brakes. Gently. Pulls into the kerb and stops.

  “Jon, come on!” Anders says.

  But I open the door, climb out.

  “Hey!” Anders pleads.

  “Jon!” Lars says.

  But I slam the door and walk off, striding out, straight ahead, don’t look back, don’t know where I’m going, just have to get out of here, away.

  Vemundvik, July 6th–10th 2006

  Dear David,

  I was on the bus, on the way to the cottage, when I read that you’d lost your memory, and once I’d got over the shock and began to wonder what I could do to help you, there was one memory that kept coming back, although I’d no idea why, so I’ve decided to start this letter with it. In my mind I saw the two of us on one of our countless long walks around Namsos town centre. I didn’t even know I had it, this memory, until suddenly, sitting there on that bus, it came flooding back and I felt again what it was like to be seventeen and roaming the streets, just you and me, walking side by side, going nowhere in particular. I seem to remember we had some notion that we went on these walks because we were bored and had nothing else to do in the evening, but when I think back on the conversations we had, on how much we had to talk about, how caught up and how intense we could become and how quick we were to dodge down a side street if we spotted anybody we would have had to stop and speak to, I can only guess that we must have regarded those walks as being meaningful in themselves as well. Or, even if we didn’t think of them as meaningful, we must still have sensed that they were.

  And maybe it was thanks to this unconscious sense of meaning that the first and brightest memory to pop up when I saw your ad was such an undramatic, everyday one. I don’t know, but an awful lot of the things I mention in this letter – opinions you held, for example, or descriptions of things that happened when I wasn’t there or of people you knew but that I never met – is drawn from these conversations.

  In our earlier years at school I didn’t know much about you except that you had a stepfather who was a vicar, that you played football, and that you could throw the rounders ball further than anybody else at the school sports day. I don’t quite know why these last two stuck in my mind, maybe because I was hopeless both at throwing the rounders ball and at football. When it was my turn to throw the ball I threw it girl-fashion, underarm, and I was known for being the first and, so far, the only kid at Namsos Lower Secondary to make such a mess of a penalty kick that it ended up as a throw-in for the other side, something I actually claimed to be proud of once I got to know you.

  We became friends in our first year at senior secondary. An anti-drug rally was being held in the gym, and I remember that I’d decided to skip it. I was cultivating a punky, anarchist image at that time and doing my best to hide my teenage insecurity behind a mask of apathy and bravado. So I slung my rucksack over my shoulders and sauntered as nonchalantly as I could towards the door, trying to convince everyone – including myself – that this was me striking a blow for what the alternative press called “consciousness-expanding substances”. That wasn’t it at all, though. My dad was in prison on a drugs charge and it was out of misplaced loyalty to him that I meant to boycott this rally, so when the headmaster called out my name and told me to come back and sit down at once, and when everybody turned and stared at me, I was suddenly overcome by all the emotions that I’d managed to keep more or less in check up to that point and I dissolved into tears in front of the whole school. Most of the other kids probably knew that my dad was inside and what he’d done, but at that moment you were the only one to grasp the connection between that and this totally unexpected breakdown. After a few seconds of utter silence, during which the teachers and what must have been over three hundred pupils stared at me in amazement, I heard you ask the headmaster in a loud, clear voice: “How would you like to take part in a demonstration against your own father?”

  Later, after I’d fallen in love with you and my love had refined my memory, I pictured you as a kind of James Dean figure when you said this. The way I remember it, you were sitting on one of the benches, leaning back against the wall bars with your elbows stuck through them, and you smiled as you looked straight at the headmaster with sure, steady eyes. That image has faded now, of course. All I know for sure is that you were wearing a white T-shirt and that you said what you said.

 
At first I felt that you had somehow shown me up, and I was furious with you for that, but the more distance I was able to put between myself and this incident, the more grateful I felt and it wasn’t long before I began to feel quite touched that you had defended me the way you did. I admired you for the courage and sense of fair play you’d shown and from then on until we became friends and started hanging out together all the time, I would go out of my way to turn up, accidentally on purpose, in places where I knew you’d be. If I heard that you were going to some party I’d do everything I could to get an invitation to that same party; if I heard that you were going to the cinema I’d drop whatever I was doing and head for the cinema too, and on my way to school or down to the town centre I almost always took the route that led past the house where you lived with Arvid and Berit, just in case I might bump into you or simply see you. That this took a few minutes longer didn’t matter.

  I did also try, though, to maintain a certain dignity. I kept my distance and never intruded. I would smile and say “Hi” when we met, but I never dared to strike up a conversation, and since you were the sort of strong, silent type who rarely said more than was absolutely necessary it’s a wonder to me that we ever got round to speaking to one another at all. But we must have done so, because by the end of the year we were inseparable.

  I don’t have an internet connection at the cottage, so to send a mail to your psychologist, to ask how to go about helping you, I had to pop over to one of my neighbours. He let me in and allowed me to use his computer, but he was gruff and unfriendly and he clearly couldn’t wait to get rid of me again, so unfortunately I didn’t have time to ask all the questions I would have liked to ask. But as far as I could tell from the only email your psychologist got round to sending me, you were being kept in isolation, so I couldn’t visit you, as I really wanted to do. Any contact, I was told, would have to be by letter. And when I wrote these letters I wasn’t merely to try to revive your memory, I gathered. Even if nobody who wrote to you managed to bring back your memory, it was vital for you to learn as much as possible about the person you used to be, what sort of life you’d led, who your friends were, who your family were, where you came from and so on, so your psychologist urged me to include absolutely everything I knew about you, not just the things we had seen and done together. So before I go on to tell you about us, you and me, I’ll try to write down the little I know and remember of your background and of the life you led before we met.