Before I Burn: A Novel Page 8

  ‘He was so chirpy,’ she said, the film in front of her eyes appearing to have stopped.

  ‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘So chirpy, so bright and breezy. How can I put it? There isn’t a better word. So chirpy, so chirpy.’

  We went on to talk about Johanna. The woman who became the person who never laughed or cried. She was followed by a large, dark shadow. Or she herself had become a shadow. It was as though the birds fell silent when she appeared. Seven years after Kåre’s death, Aasta asked her if it felt easier now that so much time had passed.

  The answer was no.

  She still went around gathering the fragments.

  Johanna would have liked so much to have a family photograph. That was after she and Olav found themselves alone, and her greatest wish was that all three of them would be in the picture. She and Olav with Kåre in the middle. She had asked Aasta and Sigurd for help. There had to be a way of doing it, surely? This was in the 1960s. The only way to do it was to cut the old wedding photograph in two and then place Kåre’s confirmation photograph between the two halves. Then you could take a new photograph of the two originals. By destroying them you would have a new picture. But they couldn’t do that, of course, and as they couldn’t Johanna dismissed the whole idea: if Kåre wasn’t in, nothing else mattered. It was him in the middle or nothing.

  That was Johanna’s story. She was serenity itself. Everything she did she did with serene movements. She had an old spinning wheel, and she spun for Husfliden, the crafts shop. The yarn ran forever through her fingers.

  Towards the end, after the Vatnelis had also lost their house, Aasta washed Johanna’s clothes for her. Johanna no longer had the energy. She had acquired a new spinning wheel, but mostly it stood unused in the corner. In her last months she sat staring blankly at it. It was during this time – when Aasta was washing her clothes – that Aasta discovered all the blood. Not so many months after the fire. It must have come from her womb.

  Aasta accompanied me to the door. It was dark outside; white mist hung over the fields, and above the northern sky you could glimpse traces of light from the floodlit church. I was full of Kåre’s story, of his brief but apparently carefree life. I asked her if she knew anyone who could tell me any more. She had to give the matter some thought. In the end, she shook her head. She was the only person. She said:

  ‘You know, they’re all dead.’

  After Olav and Johanna died she had tended Kåre’s grave every summer until it had been levelled. That happened during the 1990s. She had given her blessing. And, of course, one can understand why. Everyone had gone. The entire little family. There was nothing left.

  Oh yes, there was. Something was left: Johanna’s spinning wheel.

  Before I went I gave Aasta a hug. For a few brief seconds we stood in the darkness gently holding each other. Then I walked the short distance home. It was murky now and quite cold. The first frost could not be far away. I thought of all the times I had walked this route as a child. After I had passed Aasta and Sigurd’s house it would be pitch black right until I reached the letter boxes. It was a stretch of approximately half a kilometre and my heart was in my mouth every time. The road led first through the spruce forest in Vollan, then opened up. When I was a child I used to sing my way through the trees and all the way to the stream that flowed beneath the road and cascaded down the rocks on the other side. I would be on my way home from a meeting at Von Youth Club, where we had been taught about the damaging effects of alcohol; however, alone in the darkness, I would forget all about the abdominal pains and going green in the face and being abandoned by your entire family. At that very moment I was just filled with a chilling terror, and I hoped that singing would ward off the man I feared might suddenly loom up before me in the night. I sang and sang, an exalted medley of songs from the youth choir, Samantha Fox and Michael Jackson. It was ‘What a Mighty God We Have’, ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now’ and ‘Bad’, all mixed up. The crucial thing was that I sang. That there wasn’t a second’s silence. And that I kept it going as far as the waterfall. That was the dividing line. If only I could get past that I was saved.

  It was the same on this evening, too, walking alone in the darkness, with the conversation about Kåre and Johanna still buzzing round my head. My childhood system was deeply ingrained: no silence until I had passed the invisible border. Past, past, just get past and I would be saved.

  I.

  ON THE NIGHT OF 19 May 1978, it happened again. A remote storehouse in Haeråsen, to the far north of the region, in the forest. Fire number three. Eight tons of artificial fertiliser, an old carriage, a cart, ten or so wheels, two sledges, a barrel, a stump puller, several roof tiles and poles.

  All of it.

  The flames could be seen from kilometres away. They billowed across the sky, red and orange, and the sight of it made your blood run cold.

  They came too late this time as well.

  The hoses were directed at the trees, at the fir tops which were vividly illuminated by the blaze. The creaks and bangs echoed deep into the forest. Now and then there was a tearing sound. Something large cracked and toppled onto its side with a bitter lament.

  It was on this night that people realised something was seriously amiss.

  Everyone from the fire brigade was there. The cars stood in a line behind the fire engine, just as they had at previous blazes. Dag was holding the hose, the pumps were humming somewhere behind him in the darkness, the water was shooting out at a furious rate. He pointed it towards the centre of the flames where it was orange, almost red and nearly static. The fire hissed like a wounded dragon as it was covered with water. For a moment the flames were beaten back, but then they summoned fresh strength and grew taller than ever. Minutes later the heat became too intense and someone else had to take over. He stood on the margins fanning himself as he watched. He observed the others running about, he heard shouts and speaking and the regular drone of the pumps, and he heard the snapping and crackling of the blaze. He stood waiting for Ingemann. The fire chief had not arrived yet, so Alfred had assumed command. Dag began to get restless. His father had said he would follow in his own car. That was the arrangement. But he hadn’t turned up. This was the first emergency call-out without Ingemann. Dag had had to do everything himself: he had switched on the alarm, he had stood in their house at Skinnsnes and called up the stairs, but when Ingemann eventually came down he was clutching his chest and saying he felt unwell. He had gone straight into the living room and slumped on the sofa.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Dag had asked.

  ‘I think you’ll have to go alone,’ his father said.

  ‘Alone?’

  There wasn’t any time to lose, so he had sprinted up to the garage, driven the fire engine out, switched on the sirens, turned right for Breivoll and sped off with the blue lights tearing gashes in the night sky. And that had been fine, everything had gone perfectly and he had done it all on his own.

  Now he was standing on the edge of the scene and scouring the area for his father. His face was lit by the fierce flames, which almost erased his features. Or the opposite: they became clearer. Around him ran neighbours and friends who had seen the conflagration or heard the sirens, but he didn’t notice them. He was waiting. But Ingemann didn’t come.

  In the end, he made a decision and strode resolutely over to Alfred.

  ‘I’m going to have a recce,’ he said.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘I’m going to see if this nutter has set any other places alight.’

  Alfred was too slow to stop him. Or ask what he meant by nutter, because Dag was already running towards the fire engine. In he climbed, as quick as a flash, and started it up. The pumps had been detached and all the equipment unloaded, so strictly speaking they didn’t need the vehicle any longer.

  He turned around at the end of the road. When he passed the scattering of people the flames had subsided into glowing embers, which coloured the smoke orange.<
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  He sped up. Drove past the church and the road to the firing range a bit further down. The box factory, the long plains of Frigstad, the shop in Breivoll. There was no traffic on the roads. The houses were dark. He gunned the vehicle for all it was worth.

  At Skinnsnes, his home, there was a light in the kitchen window. He couldn’t see anything of Ingemann and he drove right past and onto the main thoroughfare by the disused shop at the crossroads. After passing the community centre in Brandsvoll he switched on the sirens. He continued all the way to Kilen with sirens and flashing blue lights, and stopped outside Kaddeberg’s.

  He hammered on the door until the light came on in the shop and a shadow approached on the other side of the glass.

  ‘Fire brigade,’ he shouted as the door slid back and Kaddeberg himself stood there, wreathed in sleep. ‘Let me in. We need provisions.’

  For several minutes he whirled between the shelves in the semi-gloom while Kaddeberg stood behind the till in an astonished state. He stared at the young man, who was so breathless and overwrought that he wasn’t even taking anything. In the end, the shopkeeper had to fetch a basket for him, and then there was some progress. Dag snatched items off the shelves. Five packets of biscuits, crisps, sausages, readymade cakes, a box of soft drinks, a fistful of chocolate bars. He smelt of acrid smoke, his shirt was flapping round his body, and it wasn’t long before the whole shop reeked of fire.

  ‘Stick it on the fire service tab,’ he said, putting the items in bags.

  ‘Who in the fire service?’ Kaddeberg asked.

  ‘The fire chief.’

  ‘Ingemann?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dag said. ‘That’s my father.’

  Then he charged out of the door and clambered into the fire engine. The lights had continued flashing the whole time he had been inside. He drove back munching chocolate and crisps and slowly getting into a better mood. When he reached Brandsvoll, he switched off the sirens. There was still a light on in the kitchen window at home, and as he passed he leaned on the horn. He honked three times, then switched the sirens back on and tore the wrapper off another chocolate bar. He drove as fast as the fire engine would allow. The steering wheel vibrated and shook. It was as though he could feel the blood in his very fingertips. He threw the half-eaten chocolate bar out of the window. Outside the shop in Breivoll the fire engine listed dangerously, then a car came towards him and he veered so far into the ditch that sand and gravel were sent flying into the darkness. He hooted a bright, trilled laugh that no one else heard. As he passed the church, he switched off the sirens and changed down. He was getting close. There was no longer a billowing sea of flames across the sky. Instead, day had begun to break. Upon his arrival, he noticed that even more people had gathered. There were cars in the road blocking his path and he had to activate the sirens for drivers to come and move them. Perhaps twenty or thirty people were there now. They stood away from the fire, swathed in jackets and coats. There was a haunted air about them, yet their faces were strangely clear and calm.

  Ingemann still had not come. Dag shouted his name as he opened the door and stepped out, but no one answered.

  Within an hour it was all over. The fire had been extinguished. Now pungent smoke hung between the trees like early morning mist. The fir tops dripped as if after a heavy shower of rain. Hoses were carefully rolled up. Drinks bottles on the ground collected. Chocolate papers lay strewn over the heather and in the roadside ditches. Two of the neighbours stayed to keep an eye on the smoking pile of debris. They sat under the darkness of a tree with several buckets brim-full with water between them. Slowly the crowd dispersed. Those who had driven there got into their cars, started them up, drove to the end of the road, turned and then came back in one long light-punctuated line. Those who were left lived no more than a couple of hundred metres away. They were the ones who had discovered the fire and dialled Ingemann’s number at Skinnsnes. Now they turned and walked back home in a group. They returned to their empty houses and found the front doors unlocked; they sat up for a while until they had managed to compose themselves. Then they crept into bed and switched off the lights. Inhaled a couple of deep breaths. Closed their eyes.

  A fire doesn’t start by itself, everyone knows that.

  A storehouse in the middle of the night. Here. Near us. That’s just plain impossible.

  When eventually Dag went home in the fire engine it was daylight, and Ingemann was standing in the yard, by the post with the alarm. Dag pretended not to see his father, drove right past, up the tight bend and swung around in front of the fire station. Reversed the vehicle into the garage even though the hoses had been neither taken off nor dried and some of the equipment hadn’t been checked. He sat behind the wheel staring into space. That was how he was sitting when at length Ingemann walked over.

  ‘Why didn’t you come?’ Dag said softly. He was gripping the wheel as though he were still racing through the night with sirens blaring and blue lights flashing.

  ‘It’s my heart,’ Ingemann said. ‘From now on I think you’ll have to manage everything on your own.’

  ‘Your heart?’ Dag said, perplexed.

  ‘From now on you’re the fire chief, Dag,’ his father said, laying a hand on the wheel. He ventured a smile, but there was no visible reaction on Dag’s face.

  Still staring straight ahead, he said:

  ‘Take it easy, Pappa. There won’t be any more fires. This was the last.’

  The sky lightened, the sun rose above the ridges in the east. Where the two outbuildings had stood was now hot, sticky ash. Ash and the four cornerstones at the bottom of the Leipsland ridge. During the day many came to rubberneck. The news spread.

  Another fire? Is that possible?

  Cars drove past slowly, almost stopping, with rolled-down windows, and the smell of fresh fire was everywhere, then they moved on. Some youths pedalled past, found an empty pop bottle, smashed it against a rock, took fright and cycled off. Ants crawled all over the broken glass. Mosquitoes and flies danced above the wet ash. Evening came. The sun went down behind the ridge. It was May, summer was not far away. Nevertheless, the night soon drew in. By midnight the region lay dark and still. A translucent white mist hung over the fields. It wasn’t easy to say where it had originated from. An animal stood motionless among the trees. Its eyes staring ahead, into the gloom. Windows were still lit. People were settling down for the night, but they left lights on, closed their eyes, folded their hands.

  And?

  In the distance there was the sound of a car. Was it coming closer? Coming this way? No. It was far, far off. Then it was quiet. Perfectly quiet. Everything is as it should be. What has happened, happened. Let’s forget it. Let’s not think any more. Just sleep now.

  II.

  I FOUND THE BAPTISM CERTIFICATE; it was in a brown envelope in a cardboard box in the loft with a host of other childhood papers. In addition, I spotted the dark blue travel bag in which I had slept in the car outside Olga Dynestøl’s burned-down farmstead. I didn’t bother with the bag; however, I took the box of papers downstairs. I sat for a moment with the envelope on which my name was typed. Inside was the baptism certificate signed by the local priest, Trygve Omland, with my parents’ names and the date: Sunday, 4 June 1978.

  Among the other papers was a small, green book from the winter when I had music lessons with Teresa. I remembered it well; it had squared paper and Progress Book written on the front. After every lesson she jotted something down, closed the book with a bang and gave it to me to take home. I don’t remember reading her comments, only that I showed them to my parents. Most lessons received: Good progress. Now and then: Must practise more. The very last lesson was just before Christmas 1988. Then she wrote: Plays fluently, yet with some strain. That seemed a fairly apt description. After that I stopped. It was the same year that Grandad died.

  In the loft were also Grandma’s diaries. Stored in a transparent plastic box beside the travel bag. The box reminded me of the trays you find at
airports, in which you put keys, wallets, belts, watches, jackets and shoes before everything goes through a plastic curtain to be X-rayed. I had flicked through the diaries earlier, in fact, although I hadn’t considered they would be of any use, not in that way. But it emerged that Grandma had written about the fires as well as about herself and Grandad and the grief that almost tore her asunder when he died.

  She often spoke about her diaries. I still remember the last evening I spent with her; I remember the sparkle in her eye, as though there was a diamond in the pupil. The diamond had appeared after a cataract operation, and I don’t think she had realised. Perhaps everyone has a diamond there after an eye operation. Or perhaps it had been there all her life and I had only noticed it on the very last evening.

  She kept her diary in the kitchen, I recall, on the worktop to the left of the sink, partly covered by a pile of bills. Whenever she went on a trip or holiday she took the diary with her. When she visited me in Oslo, before my father fell ill, she had it in her bag, and after we had gone to bed for the night she wrote about our visit to the National Gallery and the History Museum, the Munch Museum and Akershus Fortress, and she wrote about me and my father: May the Lord protect them both. But as a rule she used to write in the morning after clearing the table, washing up, putting something in the oven and sitting down at the table waiting for the hours and the day to pass. More often than not it was just trivial comments about the weather, about who had dropped by, what food she had served, or what trips she had been on, what she had seen and whom she had travelled with. Sometimes in the winter she wrote about a rare guest landing on the bird table. This kind of thing:

  WEDNESDAY, 5 FEBRUARY 2003

  A little bird I’ve never seen before. He sat there for a while with the others. Later in the day he was gone.