Gøhril Gabrielsen - The Looking-Glass Sisters

I ought to have said something ingenious, barbed and double-barrelled, but I feel confused and insulted by the letter, the wedding and all the fuss with the singing, and that voice of Johan’s — why hasn’t she mentioned it before?

The scooter outfits have been hung up, we’ve given each other a cursory greeting — hands across the kitchen table, a nod from me to each of them. Old choir buddies of Johan’s, they relate, from the time when he lived out on the coast.

Ragna, the crooked catkin, stands there in the middle of the floor with her veil in folds. The men gather over by the oven, their hats are on, their chests swell, their mouths open up to the abyss within — a tide of sound streams up towards the ceiling.

It’s intensely powerful. The voices take up three different levels, merging into an amazing harmony, high and low notes coil around each other and intertwine, climbing to the heights, flinging themselves down surprising slopes.

I quiver and shake, it’s magic, pure seduction. I am borne aloft on the crests of waves that break, become soft and pliable. Tears fill my eyes. Where have they come from?

What an intoxicating conspiracy. I am abducted, already swept away from my rage. Stop! I cry out to myself, seize my crutches so as to stand up, go, protect myself against the lightness in the music.

The men look at me in surprise, their voices fall silent. I, too, stare at myself, down my dress, stockings, shoes. What have I done?

Ragna blushes, her nostrils flare and vibrate.

‘And now it’s time for some food!’ she urges, turning on her heel.

The candles are burning, Johan’s and Ragna’s rings take turns at catching the light. I’m sitting at the table eating like the others, while a lively conversation is taking place around me. The wine is beginning to have a noticeable effect. I feel a tickling in my chest, laughter and rage bubbling and heaving away, bursting and pressing. Soon the whole works will come trickling out. Best keep my trap shut, stay away from the wine and conversation.

The nature of the men becomes increasingly clear during their visit. All of them have been made from the same mould, fired according to the same recipe: hair in a thin wisp over the forehead, belly like a sack over the trousers. They carry themselves with the same assurance, have more self-confidence than Ragna, but I note that Ragna is more authoritative. Between their legs their penises dangle — their pride and joy, no doubt about that. Like Johan, the guests seem to think they are unseen and constantly clutch their crotch, grasp the bulge with their fists, heave it outwards.

Beneath my dress hang my unfondled breasts, in my crotch lies my jewel. Have they possibly considered laying siege to me, forcing a path into my virgin territory? I’m washed and clean, my hair’s been gathered into a knot, can I possibly arouse desire, do their eyes see a woman? I who have not shared saliva or juices with a living soul — what do I know about the playing of the sexes? But I have observed animals, how the ram lifts himself up, over and into the ewe, and have thought that it is impossible, impossible for me to behave with a man like that.

I can’t deny it: I have pushed my chair close to the table, a bit closer to the others, and am listening attentively to the hum of conversation about the old days, about life out on the coast and their time in the choir, about the trips to Sweden and Finland and their stay in the new Russia. Here one of them was apparently tricked by a beggar into parting with his shoes, while another got lost and was arrested by the police, and Johan, the seducer, dispatched women every single evening. The men toast again and nudge each other, wink at Ragna — that’s quite a guy she’s got herself.

Ragna nods and shakes her head. At one moment she’s by the stove, at the next by the table, knocking back wine in large gulps while piling meat and potatoes on to the guests’ plates. Her neck muscles strain like two taut strings, she is impassive and silent, hardly a word passes her lips, only the occasional cough or guffaw escapes her throat: small wisps of smoke from the fire that is always smouldering within.

I don’t like the food. The meat is tough with treachery, the gravy sour and thin with conspiracies. It is presumably the last meal we will share at this table, Judas wine, Judas meal with Judas tastes — Ragna’s high treason at the polished pots and pans.

After a while my back starts to hurt — I can’t sit still for any length of time. A restlessness crawls up my neck, to my throat, tongue and palate. I feel an urge to rave, yes, let my hair down, throw my head back in a howl. Obviously everyone else notices my restlessness. The men don’t try very hard to engage me in conversation — they’ve got the message. The questions go via Ragna and only have to do with the meal. Would your sister like some more potato? More to drink? Wouldn’t she like some more gravy? Ragna grunts and mutters in reply. Johan sends me his watchful, menacing look, but I sit there still, behaving properly. I eat and drink, sit straight.

After the meal, the choir move over to the stove again, snap their fingers as an accompaniment to rhythmic, guttural sounds. Johan seizes Ragna, heaves her out on to the floor. Her lace crown has come away at the edges, her veil has gathered itself into a knot and bounces back and forth against her back. At last I can get up and find a place in a corner. From the periphery I watch the married couple’s unstable mating dance, their ritual celebration of the conspiracy in the home. I grin inwardly — there’s precious little in the way of control left. Ragna keeps on barging into Johan, who answers with jerks and shaky legs.

From the corner I also secretly watch the choir. Their bodies, the rhythm of their hands and feet, how they pull themselves up and flaunt themselves, with glazed looks and a smile around their lips. You would almost think there were more of them in our tiny kitchen, and in response to that thought my gaze wanders round the room.

Can it really be me all of them are secretly addressing? My hands search for my crutches, I tremble, keep swallowing. I’m completely unused to attention, so what am I to do? It must be all the wine, for now I start banging the crutches against the floor, keeping time, rhythmically, I don’t have any choice in the matter, this is the only way I can respond to their concealed attention. I let my lips part cautiously in an attempt to smile, and immediately everything in me is flung wide open: windows, doors, shutter and vents let in roaring winds in great gusts. I am lifted, float in the air, forget my lamentable trembling body. What release. I am opened and open to everything that might take place this evening — for don’t I like all of them? Every single one? Just look at them, the men, snapping, smiling — I’m the one they’re singing to! I swing my body as best I can, supported by my crutches and the wall. I’m transported by their looks and my own thoughts; my hips, is it possible, I’m cautiously wriggling them — oh, God, how free I suddenly feel, here am I for real, flaunting myself! I suddenly see myself from the outside, cannot hold back the laughter building up in my chest, it’s bursting out, all the resentment and restlessness I have been storing the whole evening, now it’s welling up and pouring out of me.

Ragna and Johan stop suddenly. Their looks are hard and dark.

‘What the hell are you playing at? Can’t you behave like a civilized human being!’

Ragna is red-faced and het up, she stands in the middle of the floor with clenched fists, ready to defend morality as a newly married woman in her own home. I first think of pretending not to notice her, I’m still floating on a wave of happiness, but then I notice that the singing has died down; the men have formed a small cluster and are whispering, their backs are shaking, they are clearly trying to conceal the fact they are grinning and laughing.