Майя Лунде - The End of the Ocean

He gently twisted his arm free and tried to make eye contact with me.

“I’m not going to call,” I said.

“You grew up in the midst of a conflict but that doesn’t mean that it’s yours,” he said.

“When did you become a psychologist?”

“…I’m your boyfriend.”

“But you think I need to be in therapy.”

“I don’t know… maybe. What do you think?”

“I don’t have time for psychoanalysis.”

“Signe, I didn’t say that you should start therapy, just that you should call home—”

“Two times three hours a week, a monologue on a couch… I don’t have those hours. Or the money. Besides, I have more faith in a behaviorist approach. I am a rat. I have learned that contact with my mother produces frustration. Ergo: I stay away from her.”

“You aren’t a rat.”

“She’s a lever. When I press it, I get a shock. And I want you to stop being Skinner.”

“I’m not Skinner.”

“You want to put me in the laboratory again.”

I twisted away from him and rolled over onto my back to stare up at the ceiling. It was stained yellow from cigarette smoke and time.

“I should paint,” I said.

“What?”

“The ceiling.”

“Why?”

“Why does one paint a ceiling?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“I’m done talking about it. I have been done with it for many years.”

“…Are you going to spend money on this shabby bedsit?”

“I’m sure the landlord will cover the cost.”

“But we aren’t going to live here, are we?”

“Why not? It’s cheap.”

He laughed. “And after a while it will be pretty crowded.”

“It’s still just a lump of cells.”

I twisted towards him again, caught myself in time… Stop it, Signe, you know what he wants and he loves you, why are you pushing like this, why do you keep insisting?

I laughed softly, to emphasize that it was a joke, and hugged him.

But he didn’t return the hug.

“I want you to call it something else,” was all he said.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Sorry.”

“And call Iris.”

Iris , not your mother .

“I would rather lie on a couch six hours a week.”

“It’s cheaper to call home.”

“I don’t want anyone to know yet. Not her, not Daddy, not your parents.”

“But I want to tell people.”

“Not yet. Please. We don’t know yet how things will go.”

“Fine. We’ll wait. But you can still call her.”

“Maybe.”

“Think about it. I just want everything to be fine when the baby comes.”

“I’ll think about it.”

But I didn’t have a chance to call because a short time later we were summoned to Ringfjorden by Daddy. It was happening now.

The rooms in the little house by the wharf had formerly seemed so small; now it was as if they’d been expanded. There were people everywhere, loud conversations, a woman was cooking a vegetable stew in two enormous pots and the floors had been cleared to make room for the painting of signs and banners:

NATURE CONSERVATION

STOP THE CONSTRUCTION WORK

WITHOUT SISTER FALLS EIDESDALEN WILL DIE

Daddy had let his beard grow out; it made him look younger, more like the many male arrivals surrounding him. He introduced me to all of them, spent the longest time on Lars, who was Daddy’s age, but had a longer beard and apparently a leading role in the protest. They talked and talked, all of them, especially Lars, especially Daddy, as quickly as only people from the capital can. Daddy was beaming with enthusiasm, for the struggle had only just begun and we had the most powerful tool of all. He talked about Gandhi, about non-violent methods, about the power of the Indian model, passive resistance, civil disobedience based on the religious concept ahimsa .

“To prevent injuries. Non-violence… that’s the only way one can be heard,” Daddy said. “And now, soon, the eyes of Europe will be turned towards Norway. Towards the Sister Falls, towards Eidesdalen.”

He pushed his glasses further up on his nose—they were round, not unlike Gandhi’s, not unlike Lars’s glasses. I could feel the warmth radiating off him and I wanted to throw myself into the work. I grabbed a paintbrush and got down on my knees. With a steady hand I began filling in the pencil lines forming the word “Eidesdalen,” using a bright-red oil paint with an acrid odor that filled the room and made me slightly dizzy, and perhaps it was not good for the baby, but I didn’t have time to think about that.

In the evening Sønstebø came; he and Magnus hugged each other stiffly, the way they used to, as if they didn’t know each other very well and at any rate not like father and son, before Daddy separated them with his torrent of words. More people were on the way from Oslo, he said, from Bergen, tomorrow the camp would be set up.

“We will win this fight! For the Sister Falls, for Eidesdalen.”

“Yes,” Sønstebø said. “Good.”

“And the people of Eidesdalen,” Daddy said. “Are they ready?”

“Yes,” Sønstebø said, “yes, they are.”

“Great,” Daddy said. “How many are coming?”

“A few,” Sønstebø said. “I don’t know… They have farms, all of them.”

And he didn’t say much more than that. I didn’t notice when he left, I was sitting with a student from Oslo. She was my own age and had, like me, quit her summer job to help out. I was moved when she told me that.

We slept on the floor at my father’s place, Magnus and I, side by side between other bodies; it was uncomfortable and safe.

The next morning we packed up the car. We were given Daddy’s old tent; he’d bought a new one. I had brought sleeping bags and a Primus with me from Bergen. Then we set out for the mountain.

Iwas awakened by a bewildering sense of relief. She had left in the course of the night. She had not said anything about why, but it was probably because of Lou. And that was for the best.

Yet it was as if Marguerite were still there, beside me in the bed. The warmth of her, the hollow in the mattress where she’d been lying.

I turned towards Lou, who was waking up. I smiled at her, wanting to suggest something: a walk, a game, a picnic. A game of tag beneath the trees. A treasure hunt—perhaps I should create a treasure hunt for her.

“Today I can go with you,” Lou said.

“What?”

“I don’t need to stay with Francis. I can go with you and ask about Mommy. I can go with you to the people who find people.”

Anna.

August.

His four tiny baby teeth. The big movements he makes with his little arms when he pounds a toy against the floor. And the joyful sound he makes over the rhythm he creates.

Anna, her smile in the morning, her narrow eyes sparkling at me in bed. And rosy cheeks. She had always had rosy cheeks when she woke up. As if she’d been outside in the fresh air.

What was I doing?

“Fine,” I said, and sat up quickly. “Fine. If you want to come with me, that’s terrific.”

We went outside together. She was Lou, herself. Chattering away, but not about the can of corn. Maybe she had forgotten about it already or forgotten that she was supposed to be feeling guilty. Or perhaps she understood in one way or another that I was feeling even guiltier.

She was the way she’d been yesterday, stepping lightly across the dry grass, across the dirt. She was here.

While I… I was floating somewhere else, without solid ground beneath my feet. I floated, rising and drowning at the same time.

There was no line today. A woman—I’d seen her before, one of the many who came here often—was standing at the door looking inside when we arrived. Then she pulled the door shut and left without looking at Lou and me.