Майя Лунде - The End of the Ocean

But she curled up even more tightly, wailed faintly and I could not bring myself to scold her.

“I’m sure it will soon pass,” I said, and patted her on the cheek.

She was cold and sticky, her eyes introspective.

“Do you want some water?”

I retrieved the water bottle and held it up to her mouth. She took a small sip and struggled to swallow.

“Lou?”

I stroked her head. She didn’t respond.

“Get some sleep now,” I said. “That will help.”

I sat down on my own bed. Looked at her. But she didn’t move.

I lay down. On my side, facing her. I stared at her the whole time. It felt like it was important that I not take my eyes off her.

She was breathing calmly.

Was she asleep?

It was quiet in the hall. I heard only the low voices of the Spaniards outside. One of them laughed again. Right now I wished they would be quiet. Their laughter drowned out the sound of Lou breathing.

I lay facing her until my own eyes also slid shut.

“Daddy!”

“Yes?”

I came to. It was dark. Completely silent.

“I feel nauseous.”

And then, before I could do anything about it, the sound came that is worse than any other sound, the sound of a child retching. Half-strangled croaks, underlined by tears. The most painful sound in the world.

She vomited in her bed. It landed on everything. The bedclothes. Her hair. Our clothing.

“Get up,” I said. “Quickly.”

She got to her feet, sobbing weakly, and stood between our beds, trembling. But she was unable to speak. She retched again. But only halfway. More like a gulp. Nothing came out. But it would come.

A bucket, dammit, we needed a bucket. I looked around me. The water bottle. My knapsack in the cupboard. An empty water glass. There was nothing here that I could use.

“Quick. Out,” I said and took hold of her.

But it was too late. She raised her hands, held them in front of her face and caught what came out. The second round of vomit covered her fingers. Her arms.

“Lean over,” I said. “Spit up on the floor. We can clean up afterwards.”

Obediently she bowed her head and upper body down towards the concrete floor. Another round of vomiting was on its way. I could see the struggle in her body, building up through small spasms.

And then yet another torrent of vomit flew out of her mouth, vomit that had once been food. I recognized the yellow color from some dry crackers she’d eaten this afternoon.

An intense acidic smell.

She retched again and again.

Finally nothing more came out. Just some long strings of slime hung from her mouth.

I found a roll of toilet paper and wiped it away, helped her blow her nose. There was vomit there too.

She was crying. Painful, desperate crying, while her entire little body shook.

“It’s because of the rag,” she sobbed. “I sucked on it.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “No, I’m sure it’s not because of that.”

But she cried, sobbing loudly.

“Shhh, it’s fine, Lou. It will be fine.”

I stroked her hair, her cheeks. Tried to avoid getting too much vomit on my hands. Everything smelled sour.

Then I pulled off her smelly T-shirt. Turned it inside out and used it to dry off her hair. I managed to clean off the worst of it.

I laid her down in my bed, where the bedding was clean. Peeled the bedding off hers and put it, along with her T-shirt, under my arm.

“Where are you going?” Lou asked fearfully.

“To get a bucket,” I said. “I’ll be back soon.”

“You’re nice, Daddy.”

She lay her head down on the sweater she used as a pillow and closed her eyes.

I thought she would fall asleep, that it was over now. Nonetheless, I went to find a bucket just to be on the safe side. The hall had a broom closet that was seldom opened. It’s hard to clean when you don’t have any water.

But when I came back, she was awake. Again she was lying there all curled up. Again her body was all stiff.

“My tummy hurts again.”

“It will pass.”

“It hurts so much!”

“Try to lie on your back,” I said.

She didn’t react.

I gently took hold of her.

“Look here, try to stretch out.”

I unfolded her body. Placed my hands on her tummy. Massaged it carefully.

But she just cried.

Maybe it started with a snowman. Yes, I think it started with a snowman and nothing more was really necessary, because even though I saw you from time to time, watched you when you came down to the fjord with your father to buy fish at the wharf or shop at the consumer co-op, you still didn’t take up much space inside of me.

Not before the party, Mommy’s party. I don’t remember if it was one party or many, maybe there were many, but that’s the one that I remember.

The hotel was all hers now, the way it always actually had been, because old Hauger had left it to his daughter. Daddy, his son-in-law, didn’t inherit anything. The almost one hundred rooms, the commercial kitchen, the huge garden that went all the way down to the edge of the water and the spacious, private wing were all hers.

This evening Mommy filled the wing with people and I remember looking forward to it. Mommy associated with so many people, all the time, and now they came, all of them, filled the hallway with the scent of perfume and their indoor shoes in bags and their loud voices: the school principal with his wife and children, the director of the fish-landing station with his wife and baby, the editor with his wife who was expecting, the journalist who was a woman and not married, and all the engineers and building contractors who had moved here in recent years to work at the plant and left behind their wives and children in other parts of Norway and therefore were especially appreciative of the invitation to visit someone’s home and enjoy a homecooked meal. They spoke about this loudly as they took off their coats, changed their shoes and lit cigarettes and pipes.

Then they occupied the living rooms of the house, with warmth, laughter and cigarette smoke, their sounds filled me, words that rose and fell in the air, jazz on the record player, high heels on the floor in the dining room, where the furniture had been cleared away, while their children ran through the rooms playing, until the youngest fell asleep like abandoned ragdolls in armchairs and chaises lounges.

I was older than the other children, maybe twelve or fourteen, a head taller than them, but nonetheless I wasn’t as tall as the women and lacked everything that they had. I had become slender, skinny almost, like a washboard where they had breasts, my arms were long and I couldn’t control my legs, but nonetheless I stayed close to the adults. I thought I belonged there, more than with the children. I tried to talk, take part in their conversation, but nobody heard my loud voice and maybe where I was seated was too far away, in an armchair by a wall, outside the circle the adults formed around the coffee table, or maybe my voice wasn’t as loud as it used to be.

There was a man talking, I couldn’t remember ever having met him, hadn’t noticed him before now, had only heard his name. It was Svein Bredesen, the chief engineer, he spoke loudly and for a long time about the work on the power plant; he talked with such pleasure about the barrage that was almost completed and it wasn’t supposed to form a lake, as I’d believed at first, as had several of the guests. No, the barrage would dam up the water from the snowmelt, so it was collected there and could be diverted into pipes through the mountain, all the way down to the power plant and to the turbine, which was called Pelton and which he spoke about as if it were a close friend.