Merethe Lindstrom - Days in the History of Silence

I had never considered the friendship to be close enough to include letters, on the contrary. A personal letter seemed to conflict with the distance and formality that the limited seasonal contact depended upon. The letter must also have been an attempt to break through the conformity. Simon wrote to this man, his wife had evidently been ill, I couldn’t remember anything about it. He tried to comfort him and say something beyond their well-established politeness. He had obviously given up the effort since the letter had never been sent. It was so helpless, what was stated on the sheet of paper, there were several forms of words embarked upon, crossed out, as though he had tried to arrive at a sentence or a collection of them that could cover something he perhaps did not even grasp himself. Or perhaps he had some idea, but these sentences and attempts were far too much of a contrast to what their friendship had been up to that point. In order to achieve that, he had to go beyond the boundaries of what was possible, who he himself could and would appear to be, and so he became all the more constrained by his own limits. It seemed so desperate.

I felt sorry for him, and all the same I was annoyed that I had been kept outside, that he had not mentioned anything to me.

I THINK ABOUT this letter to his colleague now that I am reading what he has attempted to write to his daughters. For the letter is to them. I can see that he has tried, he has really tried to formulate something, and if they had opened it, they would have seen his handwriting and these attempts to describe, impart, pass something on, to them. To Helena and her sisters. But he cannot. He has to give up, it is a long time since he was clever at that. It is only a rough draft, a sheet of paper he has left there all the same. Dear Helena, Greta and Kirsten , he writes, I have something I — He gives up. A fresh attempt. He is sorry that it has taken so long, he is sorry about it all. He writes that he first bought paper for a letter, that the storekeeper misunderstood, he got the wrong kind. Today the first signs of summer are here , he writes, the summer is going to be fine, I do think so. And I hope that you all manage to have a vacation. Mother and I both consider that you work too hard. But I have always worked too hard myself, so it is obviously hereditary, that kind of thing. Now I have decided to tell you something I have neglected to say for far too—

I can’t manage to interpret the continuation of the sentence, it is nearly rubbed out because of a faulty pen. But I believe the final word is long . Far too long. My girls , he continues, you have become so big. So grown up . He starts over again, trying to find an introduction.

I become angry, I become angry because he has decided to tell them on his own, without having talked to me about it first.

He is still sitting with his gaze directed at the screen. I don’t feel sorry for you, I want to say. You sit there and are immune. No matter what I say, you are going to stare into space and smile. I want to face him. Listen, Simon, don’t turn away. I don’t feel sorry for you. You let me down, I want to say.

How could he let me down like this, leave me behind in silence with this letter? I want to tell him.

He just sits there.

What can I say?

There he sits. In his chair, and there is nothing to say.

I sit on the settee beside the chair, placing my fingers on his lips. I love you, I think. Have I said it, I can’t recall whether I have said it, but I really must have. I remember that I tried to purge the word from my pupils’ vocabulary, because they loved everything and nothing, eradicating all meaning. It is a word that doesn’t say anything, I told them.

Simon looks at me. In the background a woman is waving from the TV screen, she is standing on the deck of a boat gliding across the water. His name, I think. Simon. It means someone who listens.

DARKNESS HAS FALLEN by the time I fetch the telephone and dial the number. It rings for a long time. The sleepy voice. I have awakened her.

Mom, Helena’s voice says, why are you phoning now?

Was it you who placed the letter in the book, I think. I am about to say it. But I don’t say it. I know she hasn’t read it, none of them has read it.

I have a lot of old photographs, I say. Perhaps you could help me to sort them out? They take up too much space, old trash. Photographs and letters.

Letters? She says. Is everything all right, with you and Dad?

I see my reflection in the glass door, outside there is the dark garden, the garden furniture that I have put out on the terrace, the chairs leaning forward on the table. The waxed tablecloth folded up. Soon we’ll put them in the shed, when the summer is over.

Her voice again. Are you there? she asks.

Yes, I say.

She waits, we both wait.

Mom, says Helena, was there something else you wanted to say?

One time in winter I found him at the bus stop right over here. Everywhere was completely white, there were several days with an unusual amount of snow for Western Norway. He must have put on his overcoat, the boots that I ought to have hidden, but that I didn’t dare put away because I was scared he would go out all the same, in his socks. Those continual outings of his. I noticed after an hour that he was gone, I looked in all the places I always do when I can’t find him, in the garage, in the grove of trees, I thought about driving up to the church. I took the car that had become covered in snow overnight, I had to shovel the snow and scrape the frost from the windshield. When I was driving along the road, I spotted him, he was sitting on a bench and I think he had closed his eyes, I became so furious, I thought how can he shut his eyes now, how can he just sit there with his eyes closed. I steered the car in to the curb and stopped slightly too abruptly, perhaps he was surprised at someone stopping, I got out of the car, sat down beside him, I said that he could try for my sake, to stay in one place. That sad expression of his. He opened his mouth first of all, but then closed it, and I did not even know whether he intended to say something or was only yawning. I clearly recall the next thing that happened: As I am about to say that we must go home now, I see that he has leaned forward, he raises his hand, I don’t know whether he is pointing or simply holding it aloft. In front of us on the asphalt the snow from the snowdrifts along the road is whipped up by the wind, forming waves that are wiped away and then reshaped, downward and downward, fresh waves all the time, the movement seems so gentle, accidental, but nevertheless creating the same pattern all the time, and I look at him, and I feel a powerful desire for him to look back at me, but he stares straight ahead, captivated by the movement, what the wind is doing with the snow, and this is his choice, I think, to come here and sit in this place, and there is nothing I can question. I remain sitting there with him, watching the same movements, over and over again, of the wind and the snow.

IT IS SO late in the summer now. He still goes off on his own at times. He wakes in the morning and goes out the door. He finds the shoes I have hidden, opens the door I have locked. Perhaps I ought to hide the shoes so well that he cannot find them, or put a new lock on the door. I let him go. He is old, but I think he walks down the road quickly, only at the bottom of the hill does he hesitate. I wonder whether his restlessness makes him walk on or whether he just stands there waiting for me or someone else to find him. If he chooses to take the bus into the city, he is probably alone this early in the morning, perhaps he greets the driver before finding a seat. While the bus drives on, Simon sits at the window and looks out. Sees that the city seems desolate and new, the streets resembling wide, empty canals.