Chapter 14 - Only Human

Just a narrow track trodden in the snow, on the edge of the pavement. In her hand she holds a box wrapped in brown paper, bound by string, the shop assistant tied a loop in the end with which she carries the box of millefeuille, Hartvig’s favourite cake. Because it is Saturday. And it is snowing. Upon her hat, her coat, the package. On her ice-cold fingers holding the string grocery bag – what good are gloves in the cold, they are no use at all, but isolate each finger, make them blue with cold, frozen stiff. The string bag contains fish, bread and half a kilo of butter. She does not usually do the shopping at Sundby’s in Majorstua herself. The girl does it now and again, or else they order their groceries and have them sent up on the goods tram.

She walks down Schulz’ gate in the direction of Bogstadveien.

There is the tram at the bottom of the hill. She stops, wavering. Will she ride it for two stops? It is not far to go, but the snow is hard to walk on with smooth-soled boots and she has a lot to carry. And so many tears bottled up. Anger! And the cold, good God, she is freezing. It is too much for her. All the same, she would rather have worked. Run a dressmaker’s shop. Like Coco Chanel. Smoked cigarettes in the breaks with the other women, laughed loudly. Handled material and evening gowns, turned on her heel and smiled at customers, watched the day move towards night, the lights of the city going on. The sounds inside a tram are quite different then, full of people on the way to parties, to the theatre or the darkness of the cinema, to restaurants and clubs. She would walk through the city arm in arm with a man. Not Hartvig. A gloved, big and manly hand would rest upon the back of her small hand. One could only imagine what might happen, where they were going. Back to his. She would feel his forearm tense through the sleeve of his overcoat. He could barely control himself. He was madly in love, with her. Biting down hard on his teeth, making the muscles in his jaws visible. Because she, she, was the one he wanted. And he was kind, this man was constantly kind and supportive. Not like stupid, boring Hartvig. And yet she buys cake for him, why does she do that, it will soon be over anyway, the kind of relationship they have cannot last.

It is mild, around zero degrees perhaps, still her feet are freezing, because she has to wade through all the snow. Oh. Enough. The tram comes driving up the hill with heavy snow on the roof and she climbs on. Standing room only of course, even so. All these looks, women staring and staring. Well, it is not as if she has anything to be ashamed of. New hat, new hand-sewn coat, nice make-up, nothing is wrong. Nevertheless. She is a Mrs, she is out of the running. A Mrs buying groceries, youth is in the past, she has wrinkles around her eyes. She will soon be fifty and is a mother of three. She wants to get away, maybe to the mountains, to a hotel preferably, she needs to be waited upon. Cold, it is so cold. Her stomach aches, maybe her monthly is on the way, she cannot remember, has lost track. Such a sticky mess, but at least she still gets it, and she does still have a social life, a slim waist, slim enough in any case, the childbirths do not show yet, not when she is wearing clothes, only the varicose veins are visible, but at this time of year, underneath tights, they are not so noticeable. Yes, it is most likely the monthly, she feels so angry. The stupid pot-bellied men sitting on the tram. Not getting up, none of them making any sign of offering her a seat, not seeing her. The one sitting nearest raises his walking stick at regular intervals, tapping it gently on the floor. Exactly like Hartvig. Finicky, smug. Men adorn themselves with canes as though they were items of clothing, think they are something, even when they are nothing more than conceited. Trotsky was something, that is true. She thinks about the picture of him in Årsrevyen, a few years ago now, but it caught her eye. How he protected himself, as it were, with his cane, holding it in front of his face as he arrived in Oslo. To shield himself from the journalists. How idiotic. You cannot protect yourself, not in her experience. Whether it be against questions, looks or demands. Or the days, dragging her ever on. So you are better off gritting your teeth, defending yourself. Dear. What a grey day, and the start of the weekend on top of it. No doubt there will be ructions and racket in the house with everyone home, no, she really has no desire, does not want to do anything. Sit in a chair in peace, read the weekly magazines, smoke a cigarette, drink coffee. That is what she wants, nothing else. She wants to be left alone.

There is always a familiar face on the underground, today is no exception. Mrs Vange is as usual wearing all too much make-up, it is tasteless, and the way she speaks, so the whole tram can hear, about the most private matters, her husband and children, mixed with all kinds of gossip. The people in the seats around listen breathlessly. Dear, oh dear. She is looking forward to telling Alice about it, thank God she has Alice, there would not be much cheer without her, not a single person who understood her.

Mrs Vange may be foolish, but everyone envies her the husband she has. He is a surgeon and my word he is handsome. The son of a shipping magnate into the bargain, and a good family as far back as can be traced. A sensitive, slightly weak aspect around the mouth, but manly all the same, and polite, considerate. Rumour has it he is a homosexual. Because Mrs Vange is really not much to look at. But Mr Vange’s gaze, she has noticed him looking at her, lingering on her breasts. Yes, it is women he likes all right. Oh. Her stupid Hartvig. Feeble, and short, the little legs on him. No, he is not hers, he is just something she happened upon, something that could not be avoided. Who else would have had her back then? She was already well over thirty and afraid she would be alone for ever, filled with anxiety, it was bordering on, well, God knows what. Things were not good with her, oh no, she could have been committed, could well have. If Hartvig had not turned up, cycling slowly by her at the tram stop on Niels Juels gate one summer evening, and she had not suddenly called out to him, hello, you there! Excuse me, would you happen to know the time?

Perhaps she had seen how proper and dependable he was the moment he passed, perhaps everything within her understood that this was an opportunity presenting itself. No, oh she did not know. Yet it was strange, her calling out to him like that, as though she knew that here was a man she could get. Here he comes.

For a long time she thought her innermost wish was to start a family with Hartvig, to be a wife and mother, and maybe it was, but it might also have been something she chose to believe, pure self-delusion. All she wanted was to settle down, to put a stop to those evil feelings flaring up within. Oh yes, she wanted to be miles away from that painful pressure on her chest, away from everything that reminded her of the uncertainty about Mama’s rented flats, because they never knew, her and Mama and Finn, if Papa had paid the rent for them, as he was bound to by law. Or if he would suddenly turn up and ring the doorbell, drunk and furious. True, these worries ceased when Mama got her divorce, but all the same, Cessi wanted something quite different, more solid than how it had been back then. Besides, Hartvig liked her. She found that hard to accept, finally someone who liked her, someone blessed with infinite patience, that was how it seemed. God knows she needed it, she was on the verge of going under. That the whole thing should tip over was something she could not predict. What had seemed proper became pedantry, patience resembled obstinacy more and more. His good family turned out to be patronising and narrow-minded, and Hartvig himself was dull as ditchwater. She could weep tears of blood, at everything, at nothing. Mama, if only you could come and help me. But she cannot expect that, neither can she ask her again, not this weekend as well. She has only just come from there after all, eaten lunch and been looked after. But everything comes to an end and she has to leave, she has to go back home.

Mama dear, can’t I stay here?

She did not say that, but it was what she was thinking: can I not stay, be your little girl for the night, you and I together here? No father, no brother – oh, my darling brother, who is never coming back – but you and I at least. Can I not sit quietly in your armchair and look out at the sky between the green plants on the windowsill, at the snowflakes falling, hear the city far off, the trams?

She is going in circles. One day laughter, the next seething rage, followed by remorse over everything she has said and done. It is not her fault, one thing leads to the other and it just carries on from there. Exaggeration, Cessi, you’re exaggerating, Hartvig says. Because when she first strikes out, the bouts of crying and screaming are usually not far behind. Then it does not matter that it was the boy who provoked the whole thing. He has such a vile mouth on him. Jealous he is, jealous of his little sisters. But none of them listen when she tries to explain. Mummy is so tired, she says, all this bickering is bad for Mummy’s nerves. Oh, that boy. Had it not been for his behaviour things would be quite different and wonderfully calm in their home. She likes the bedroom, for example, her bed, the curtains, the silence, she seeks refuge in there, rests while everything is going on, yes, she needs the house, so must endure Hartvig. That tyrant. It is exactly what he accuses her of being, tyrannical. You tyrannise us with your erratic moods, he says. He says this, him, the one who wants to control everything and everyone. You know I am hurting, she says, that my threshold is very low. And they agree to a new convalescence for her. That is what she thinks they have agreed upon. But then he comes home having spoken to Dr Vold about admitting her to hospital. After all, Hartvig says, after all your nerves never get into shape, truth be told they’ve got worse. That is the way Hartvig speaks. At first she is afraid, then she gives way, gives up, in fact, as long as she can rest.

The County Governor of Oslo and Akershus proclaims the following: as spouses, high court lawyer Hartvig Viker and Cecilie Brodtkorp Viker, née Brodtkorp Lütken, both Oslo, are agreed to annul married life, and as mediation in accordance with the Marriage Act § 44 has been attempted by the priest in Ris, authorisation is hereby announced for separation pursuant to § 41 of the Marriage Act of 31 May 1918 cf. Law on changes in marriage legislation of 25 June 1937.

Oslo, 9 June 1950

So nothing comes of the hospital admittance. Suddenly Hartvig does not want to be married any more. Damn him damn him. He stole a march on her. Not that she would have left him, she did not want a divorce. She just wants to be in the house, she misses her bed, the flapping curtains and the sounds from the garden. Hartvig does not understand. And what about the children? She had said that of course. How could you do this to the children? Your outbursts are far worse, he said. She knew he would say that, but he was so unexpectedly calm. Indifferent, cold. Have you met someone else? she shouted, he had denied it, but she can feel in her bones how foolish she has been. She immediately sees him with new eyes, as though she were another woman, and realises he is attractive. With his broad wrists, his hairy arms. Now he is unreachable.

She had cried, screamed, fainted and demanded meetings with Dr Vold. So they sat there in a chair each, she in a dark outfit with a pressure in her chest, she suspected what was coming. Still deep down she believed that the doctor would help her, take her side, make Hartvig understand. That was not what happened. It was worse than she could have imagined. Her marriage with Hartvig was finished. Did not exist. She understood that from the moment Hartvig opened his mouth, but at first she did not want to go along with it, because she did not feel that way herself, their marriage was not supposed to fall apart. But after that meeting she was certain he had met somebody else. Otherwise he would never have had the strength to leave, in the long run he never refused her anything.

God, she grew so angry, her rage almost got the better of her as she sat listening to him. She was, in his opinion, prone to pretence, highly strung, unstable and a bad influence on the children. Not a word any more about her lively disposition and beautiful hair. He described violent outbursts she herself had forgotten, striking out, and the time she had thrown a plate at the boy, but it didn’t hit him, she interrupted. And your hysterical screaming, Hartvig continued, the episodes when she pulled him by the hair, shook him. The objects she had hurled at him, how she constantly called him repulsive, said he smelled, was a cripple.

Hartvig made things out to be much worse than they actually were. She found herself unable to describe the way he sneered. My God, what was that compared to a smashed plate? How he laughed when she became angry. The tapping with a fork or fountain pen on the table before he said something, the way he cleared his throat before making a big fuss out of some deathly boring point. How he pawed at her. The smell of him, the smell. How he had to decide everything. The details. The rules. Written down to the letter. The long-winded explanations. Everything had to be done his way, whether it concerned her or the children. He held the purse strings, after all. So you had no choice but to stand and listen. She screamed it all out in the end, all of it, but afterwards did not remember how the words had fallen, only Hartvig sitting there in his chair with his self-satisfied smirk. That made her even angrier, because she knew what he was thinking and what he would say when they got home, that now Dr Vold had seen it for himself. Hysterical shrew.

Dr Vold made her lie down on the divan. It was the first and only time she got to lie on it. He fetched her a glass of water himself, and she was told to keep quiet for a few minutes. Hartvig had to wait outside. Dr Vold sat at his desk and leafed through some papers. The tram passed by beneath the windows. Her heart pounded, but most of all it was terrible to lie on her back that way, because she felt an awful welling of tears working its way up, the lump in her throat preventing her from breathing properly. God, it was so painful, but she had to hold the tears back, they were too great, contained everything she knew, everything that had happened and could not be undone. Everything had an explanation, yet she knew it was impossible to explain, there were no words and no one could understand. There were too many small paths and tracks running parallel or crossing one another, like all the nerve fibres of every single leaf on a large tree. And it was so painful.

When they took their places on the chairs in front of Dr Vold’s desk again, she was calm, leaden, almost as though she were asleep, and Hartvig was indifferent to her, he was just Hartvig as usual. She was so much stronger than him, had been for many years, nothing could change that, there was nothing they actually needed to change and soon they would be going home. It seemed like such an interminably long way, first the walk to Nationaltheatret station, then all those minutes waiting for the train before departure, followed by the rattling ride uphill on the red seats, neighbours and acquaintances you had to greet, a journey as long as a bad year, with Hartvig sitting next to her. Then finally they would arrive home, and she could lie down in her bed.

The situation seemed heated, Dr Vold said, and Mrs Viker was overexerted, they could surely agree on that, so perhaps a break was in order. In his opinion it would not be wise to act too hastily regarding the divorce, but Mrs Viker did need rest, so perhaps they could be apart for a while, a couple of months say.

Hartvig could arrange for a stay in the country, he said, but he still wanted a separation, that he demanded. Enough was enough.

Yes, don’t believe for a moment that I want to stay with you after this, she screamed, she had to, he was stripping her of all dignity. But she did not want to go away, no, she did not want to go anywhere, just to be left in peace. There, in the house.

But she was banished, to a little cabin on farmland belonging to a woman, a domineering, coarse and rude old bag. In much the same way as Hartvig was also coarse and shallow. And letters arrived from Hartvig, dry, businesslike letters. The following is an inventory of mutual household contents, he wrote, with a suggested division attached. She could look over it and come back with possible alternative proposals.

She changed everything around, rewrote the lists, rearranged the order of things. Because he always had to be the one who decided. He wanted to be right, and was right, because he was precise and his memory was accurate. But that list, oh, it made her sick. That man’s level of painstaking accuracy. He had kept an account of their mutual possessions, but never forgotten that they were placed in his house. Now he shrank her, now she saw how little her contribution was worth. She was to leave their home, with the few belongings she had brought into the household. What they had obtained between them was to be divided and although she could claim sole ownership of some items, gifts and heirlooms that had come into her possession during their time together, there were not many.

Cessi, she wrote, drawing a thick red line beneath. Of course she did not have a typewriter as he did, her lists did not look as credible as his, but still. Hartvig, she wrote in red in the margin: I am the one who sews, certainly not you, so it is only fair and reasonable that I should have the new electric clothes iron. After all, I will be keeping your – our – children’s clothes in order. I have been stripped of everything but the children shall not suffer because of it, they shall be well turned out in their clothes. I want the iron, even though it was your father who gave it to us as a present:

1 electric iron

1 copper pot – small – antique, 3 legs

1 copper pot with round handle

1 copper teakettle

1 pewter jug

1 porcelain standard lamp

1 wrought-iron wall lamp

2 table lamps, metal

1 lamp stand, broken

3 electric heaters

1 iron biscuit mould

1 waffle iron

1 alarm clock

12 demitasses

12 dessert plates

2 large serving dishes

1 antique white tureen

1 antique white faience bowl

6 antique crystal goblet glasses

1 antique crystal sugar bowl

The crystal jam bowls are mine, Hartvig, they come from my family. Likewise the crystal saucers. So you were wrong on that count.

3 antique crystal carafes

3 jam spoons

1 cold-cuts fork

1 cake server

1 baking tin

2 soup ladles

1 potato dish

3 fruit knives

2 ashtrays

8 flat white plates

8 deep white plates

1 wringer

1 vacuum cleaner

1 laundry basket

1 zinc tub

1 enamel bucket

1 ironing board with sleeve arm

1 electric kitchen stove

1 Jøtul wood-burning stove

2 antique travel chests

1 antique wooden food box

1 sewing table

4 mahogany chairs

2 Windsor chairs

1 escritoire w/ top

1 corner cupboard (birch, two parts)

1 drop-leaf table

2 armchairs w/ cushions

2 oilcloth chairs

1 large white mirror. 1 large bathroom mirror

2 yellow beds

2 yellow bedside tables

1 folding bed

2 kitchen stools

2 angel pictures

1 painting of my mother

2 photographs (my family)

Various vases and ornaments

There, but you must also find me a place to live. Whatever were you thinking? I have no means, no savings. I can hardly work, I am sick, Hartvig, being heartsick makes me bodily weak, one thing is a consequence of the other.

Only now does she think about the garden. They had sowed potatoes at the start of the war, there were berry bushes from before but they planted several more, Hartvig loved the garden, not her, it was too much, that goes without saying. Or rather, she was not sure. She missed it dearly now, that delightful, big green garden. Her garden, after all. They hired help to tend it, different sorts. Young men. Oh, to be young again, free to dream of healthy, firm bodies, tender, strong embraces. Not that it was so nice to be young. No. It was horrible. But when she saw those young bodies now – that soldier they had as help before they were all sent home. He came into her kitchen with potatoes in that big wire basket, small clods of clay sprinkling on the floor, but she said nothing about that, stood instead in the doorway looking at that slender, taut behind in blue overalls as he bent over to put the basket down. She would so dearly have liked to have taken hold of it. Squeezed it, had him between her thighs, yes. He had a broad upper torso tapering into a narrow waist, and powerful muscles in his upper arms that tensed when he was carrying something heavy. That was a lovely autumn. Big, soil-flecked carrots sticking up between the potatoes. The girl transferred them to a tub and began scrubbing them vigorously. The soldier’s eyes on her, it was unavoidable, unfair. Men were brutal. They went for young flesh. Golden potatoes, she and Hartvig weighed them, almost 150 kg that autumn the soldier was there, in ’45.

No, she liked the garden, anything else was a lie. Hartvig told lies about her, diminished everything. Said she was not bothered with it. But the soft, deep red raspberries she took lightly between her fingers and dropped in the bucket! Gooseberries were nastier to pluck, she used a fork, pulled the berries off the stalk with a careful motion. She liked the work with the berries. Jam making. The big pot, the steaming glass jars she fished out of boiling water before pouring in the jam.

Now it was lost. The garden, the work. That disaster could strike so easily in that house was another thing entirely. Endless screaming between the walls of the living room, things being broken, the images were blurry, but it was like a storm of sorts. She tries to see if there is anything within the storm and within that again, but it is indescribable. She attempted once to explain it to Dr Vold.

What happens, he said, when you sense this rage coming on? Try to feel it. You are here now and quite safe, but when you find yourself in a fury in the living room, as you describe, what happens within you then?

There is, she says, the living room and the light, the daylight, and within it there is a face and it is called rage, it is my father’s face, but there is something more, that once I am whirled into, I am sucked back, in time, you see, lose the power of speech, it is as though I am in a place I have been before but can no longer see.

Are you a little girl then?

Yes, I might be, it is early in life, and what is sucking me backwards is a spiral, it is black or white, no, I don’t know. But my mother.

Yes?

No, I don’t know. One really just wants to begin over again, doctor. A kind of peaceful sleep. Snug, soft.

It sounds like a baby’s existence.

No, maybe not. Yes, but no, if you understand what I mean. I’m older as well.

You are also an adult?

Yes, but not then. I am perhaps … upset.

You become upset.

Yes.

Then you scream?

Yes. Then I scream. And then the air turns cold, there is lamplight in the living room and darkness outside the windows, and everyone is running around in all directions.

Who?

The children. Through all the rooms in the house. It is far too big. We never intended having so large a house. Dark everywhere, impossible to keep heated. It’s Hartvig’s face. Leftovers from dinner. Lamb chop bone. The cold fat. I’m afraid. It is these words, doctor: unease, rage. Like falling. Not knowing where you are.

What is it that starts you screaming? Makes you furious?

The fact that I cannot hear myself think. That they’re speaking to me. No, it can be anything at all. When I have a lot to do, when it’s just like that, inside me. I don’t want it to happen. It’s outside me. I can’t get any peace.

What do you scream?

I don’t remember. All manner of horrid things. I tell the boy he is evil and mean. Changeling, I shriek, changeling. Because I can’t make him listen to me. How can you be my child? All we are is kind and you respond by being mean. Won’t listen won’t listen. WILL YOU LISTEN! And to think you are blessed with such loving parents. Changeling. To the girls? I don’t know. With them it is mostly that I am screaming. Not so much what. That they are to stop nagging, stop bickering. NONE OF YOU CARE ABOUT ME! CAN YOU NOT SEE HOW HARD I WORK? I scream that. You don’t care about your own mother.

Do you think that’s true?

I can’t manage any more, doctor.

Do you want to continue screaming?

No.

What do you want?

I’m so tired. I don’t get enough sleep. Even making jam is too much. The white spiral.

Where does it want to lead you?

I don’t know. To before all the bad. All the bad that’s happening, it’s not me. So it isn’t actually happening. The children will understand. I’m not like that. I’m just so tired and worn out. Sick, doctor.