Will and Testament. Vigdis Hjorth
was another email from Bård, he was well into it now, he was also tracing the river back to its source. He had received an email from Åsa, who assured him that there was a will which stated that Bård and I would be recompensed for the cabins, that new valuations would be obtained. Some blank spaces followed, then she wrote that it would have been easier to communicate with him if his tone had been less hostile: It’s almost scary to receive an email from you.
He replied that she shouldn’t forget that his original wish had been for the four of us siblings to share the cabins. We would then have had a natural place to meet with our children. It was sad, he wrote, that Astrid and she were opposed to that solution. He wrote that if she thought it scary to receive emails from him, it must be because she found it uncomfortable to read about how she and Astrid had behaved towards us. He would never understand why they refused him and his children half a cabin on Hvaler.
Lars turned up at the house in the woods. We cooked, we drank wine, I told him about Bård’s emails. We went to bed together and afterwards, as we lay close, I told him what Åsa had written to Bård and what Bård had written to Åsa. Lars heaved a sigh and turned over to go to sleep saying that as far as he was aware then I had never shown any interest in getting a cabin on Hvaler. I don’t want a cabin on Hvaler, I exclaimed, but I can understand why Bård objects! Don’t you see why Bård objects, why he’s upset? Lars looked at me, stunned, and sighed wearily: Yes, of course.
What was it like to be a normal human being?
I didn’t know what it was like to be a normal human being, an undamaged human being, I had no experience other than my own. When distressing dreams woke me up at night, I would snuggle up to Lars, slip my right arm around his back and try to take over his dreams, which were undoubtedly peaceful. I tried to open my mind towards Lars so that his harmless dreams could flow into mine, I tried to suck the dreams out of his sleeping body, but it didn’t work, there was no way in, I was trapped inside myself.
The next day, just after noon, as I tried to write about the risks of making plays based on novels, while Lars sat in the conservatory with coffee and newspapers, I got an email with an attachment from Bård. He had lain awake all night, he wrote, but now felt he had got everything out of his system by writing it down. It was wonderful to have articulated it and sent it, he wrote, he called it the last act in our little family drama.
To Dad
I want to tell you what kind of father I would have been, if I had had a son.
I would have tried to develop a close and strong relationship with my son.
I would have tried to steer him towards activities which he and I could enjoy doing together, both when he was young and also later.
I would have shown an interest in and got involved with his activities.
I would have supported him in these activities even if they didn’t interest me to begin with, simply because they mattered to my son.
I would have felt true joy, delight and pride on seeing my son’s happiness when he was doing those things I had supported him in, and which I knew he had worked hard to learn. I would have felt and expressed the same sentiments when it came to his education and career.
Once he had grown up and got himself a good education as well as professional experience, I would have asked his advice when it came to business matters where he had more competence than me.
I would have enjoyed some of my finest moments as a father and a human being by sharing experiences with my son.
You and I both know that you haven’t behaved like that towards your only son.
I played hundreds of hockey and handball matches. You turned up to watch only one of these matches.
You never introduced me to activities that could have turned into something the two of us could have enjoyed doing together.
I know several of my friends’ fathers better than I know you. I have been skiing more often with Trond’s and Helge’s fathers than I have with you.
I have three qualifications, and I have achieved a great deal in my professional life. Yet you have never said or indicated that you are proud of me or pleased on my behalf.
I have done very well in several types of sport throughout my life, but you have never shown any interest or support.
We can’t live our lives over and we all have to live with our choices.
I have never asked much of you as a father, but I demand that you treat the four of us fairly when it comes to inheritance. You and I both know that it hasn’t been like that so far, not even close.
Bård
I went to the conservatory. Lars was sitting in his thick, quilted jacket in a chair facing the lawn, the forest and the river, he wasn’t reading the newspapers nor was he smoking, he was gazing at the lawn and the forest and the river, and I thought that he felt proud to own it, you can feel joy at ownership, a strange joy, a good and heart-warming if not a politically correct emotion, like the Maasai in Kenya or the Inuit in Greenland probably feel when they gaze across a landscape they regard as theirs although legally it isn’t. Like I used to do a long time ago when I was alone on Hvaler as a young woman, alone with my children when they were small, in early autumn or in March, off season when most cabins were closed up and empty, when I would look across the archipelago, the sea and the rocks I knew so well, and feel a sense of belonging and something which could be called pride. Not being able to be on Hvaler had been a great loss, a consequence of my estrangement, but I’d had no choice, and compared to what I had gained in terms of peace of mind by my estrangement, Hvaler meant little.
I tapped Lars on the shoulder and asked if I could read something to him. He looked at me, hoping it didn’t have anything to do with inheritance. I sat down and it started to snow. Look, he said. Big flakes whirled in the air, unwilling to settle, like blossom falling from the apple and cherry trees in June. We each chose a snowflake and followed it until it landed and melted. It’ll be Christmas soon, he said. I looked at my watch, December 10. Fido chased after the flakes trying to catch them, childhood was unreal. Ice hockey matches and piano lessons unreal. I was loath to look back. I remember thinking on my way to school, in Year Three, when I was wearing a new orange dress which I was so proud of, that I would have been happy if it hadn’t been for that.
Perhaps Dad was reading Bård’s email right now, it had been sent seven minutes ago. I tried to imagine him, but it was so long since I had seen him and I had never seen him in front of a computer, I had no idea what kind of computer he had, where he kept it, in his study, in the living room or in the kitchen. It must be horrible for a father to receive such a message from his son, his only one, his firstborn. Poor old Dad, grey-haired and stooping, his glasses perched on his nose, I’m guessing now, peering at the screen while he clicked on the inbox. To Dad from Bård. A huge amount of compassion welled up in me. The old man who couldn’t escape his past, who was forced to carry his past mistakes with him for the rest of his life, and I was overcome with guilt for what I had done by becoming estranged from that poor old man.
Then I reminded myself that the father I pitied wasn’t my dad, but an imaginary dad, the archetypal father, the mythical father, my lost father. I reminded myself that my actual father, the person I knew, wouldn’t be moved by Bård’s letter, but would instinctively go on the offensive. Dad’s final words to me, the last time I spoke to him on the telephone seven years ago were: If you want to see a psychopath, just look in the mirror.
It was a sunny Saturday morning at the start of June, I was sitting on the windowsill in a function room after an end-of-year party with a man from the events committee. We had finished clearing up and were enjoying a beer.
He told me that he had studied with my sister Åsa, in Trondheim. I didn’t know that, how funny, he told funny stories about their university days in Trondheim. I was giddy and laughing as I called Åsa, to whom I hadn’t spoken for years and said: Guess who I’m having a chat and a beer with and handed