Vaim, page 8
Would you care to dance, Frank, she said
and even though I was sitting there with a plate of meatballs I hadn’t finished I couldn’t very well say anything other than yes, because the band, it must have been Hungarian or something like that, was playing their music and it was a waltz too, and if I was going to try to dance anything it would have to be a waltz, not that I could waltz, but I certainly couldn’t do any other dance, so if I was ever going to dance it was going to be now, even though that wasn’t really the way it was supposed to be, the woman asking the man to dance, it was supposed to be the man who asked, that was a long-standing rule, but to tell the truth I had never once done that, asked someone to dance, yes, or actually I did once, but I probably lost the will to try again when the woman I asked got an angry look on her face and said no as loud as she could so that as many people as possible could hear it, she said no, and I can still see her face before my eyes today, how she looked up, leaned back a little, looked right at me and then said no and that no didn’t come from someone who was asked to dance all that often, it came from someone who most likely was going to be left there forgotten, and maybe that was exactly why she rejected me so loudly and harshly, so that no one would think she was sitting alone because she didn’t have any suitors, but it sure threw cold water on things and so there weren’t too many times I’d been on the dance floor, probably the first time was a school dance where a teacher tried to teach us all to waltz at least, yes, that’s how it was, I remember now, that’s how I learned a few waltz steps, and then and there, that time I was sitting and eating meatballs with Eivind and Lars at The Fowl it came in handy, because the band was playing its best, and this woman standing there holding the edge of the table and asking me to dance and who clearly thought I was someone else, someone she knew, yes, she clearly wasn’t going to take no for an answer, so there was really only one thing to do, leave my meatballs sitting there and get onto my feet and dance a waltz as best I could, and I stood up and then she pulled me by my shirt sleeve, I had taken off my jacket and hung it on the back of the chair, she pulled me onto the dance floor, where no one else was dancing, there was just the band playing its best, kind of like they were half asleep, but now they sort of woke up, the drummer hit his drums harder, the bassist thumped his strings more clearly and The Blue Danube Waltz filled the whole dance floor, even if no dancers did, and she said to me now just dance as well as you can, Frank, and then she took my right hand and pulled it, and she put her arm around my waist, and I put my left arm around her waist, and it was slim, and soft, and it sure felt good to have my hand there, and then she pulled me into the dance, it was she who led, and I followed as well as I could, and I thought it was going pretty well, but then she put her mouth up to my ear and said, kind of loud
You dance like an ox, she said
and I didn’t know what I could say to that
But you’re a good-looking guy, she said
Maybe you and me can be a couple, she said
and then we kept dancing, and I, who hadn’t thought I was dancing that badly, I look over at the table where Eivind and Lars are sitting and they’re laughing and clapping and no, no, this isn’t going well at all, I think, I’m just being laughed at, but luckily there aren’t many people in The Fowl now, it’s the middle of the week, and early, and that’s good, and I look at the band and no, that’s not a little laugh I see behind those faces not looking at anything, is it, yes, it is, they’re just pretending like they don’t see me, but every last one of them is looking right at me and thinking whatever they’re thinking, and at the same time they must be happy that someone’s dancing, because it can’t be much fun to play dance music when no one’s dancing, not for long anyway, and then The Blue Danube ends and I take my hand off her waist, but she keeps her hand on my waist and doesn’t let go of my right hand
Thanks for the dance, I say
and she doesn’t say anything to that, and I’d thought I should say that, say thanks for the dance, but maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say
Frank, Frank, she says
and I don’t really know what I can say to that, there’s no point in saying my name isn’t Frank, that would probably just start some kind of argument, but maybe I can ask her what her name is
My name’s Eline, she says
and I think she must be able to read minds too
And maybe you and me can be a couple, she says
and I can’t believe what I’m hearing
Yes, let’s sit down and talk a little, she says
My table’s over there, she says
and she points and I see a round table with a pint glass on it and a suitcase on the floor next to the table, and she pulls me over to the table and she points at one chair and says I should sit there and she’ll go get my pint, and as soon as she’s said that I see her dash over, and she’s quick, to the table where Eivind and Lars are sitting and she takes my pint and is already heading back to me and the band has started playing another waltz, they must have felt that a waltz was the thing after their success with The Blue Danube and she comes hurrying over to me in a waltz rhythm and then she’s standing right in front of me holding my pint
Have a seat, she says
Okay, I say
and I sit down in the chair she’d pointed out for me and she puts my pint down in front of me, opposite hers, and then she trots over and gets my jacket and hangs it on the back of my chair, and she sits down where her pint is and takes a sip and I think what in the world am I doing and getting myself into
Frank, Frank, she says
It’s so nice to see you, yes, she says
and I don’t know what to say, but one thing’s for sure and certain, she thinks we’ve met before
But have we met before, I say
Well, no, she says
But we can always get to know each other, she says
Okay, I say
Yes definitely, she says
But skoal, she says
and she lifts her pint and I lift mine and the glasses clink together
To good health, and happiness, she says
And to a long life, she says
To a long life together, she says
and I think what in the world can she mean by saying that
Prosperous and happy, she says
Yes, Eline and Frank, she says
and I think that there’s no real point in saying that my name is Olaf, she’ll just keep calling me Frank anyway
You and me, Frank, she says
and then she asks where I live and why I’m in Bjørgvin and I say that I’m a fisherman from Sund on Sartor and we’d had a good catch and had money in our pockets and that’s why we took a little trip to Bjørgvin, the ship was moored at The Wharf, and she asked why I was at The Fowl in particular and before I could answer she asked if there was a lot of room in the house where I lived and for some reason or another I say that I inherited it from my parents and she says that that’s sad, that my parents have passed away, that I’d been orphaned at such a young age and I go on to say that I don’t have any brothers or sisters and she says it must be very lonely living alone like that in my childhood home after my parents have died, but now that I’ve met her I won’t be lonely anymore, and she’d guess that my house isn’t in good shape, how long has it been since I’d cleaned it, the floor, the stairs, never mind the walls, or the roof, and my diet couldn’t be much to brag about if you looked at how skinny I was, so tall and skinny and practically lanky, but now, yes, now it’d be taken care of, yes, she’d look after all that, starting tomorrow, she said and I see Eivind come walking over to the table where we’re sitting and that’s good, I can stop sitting here alone talking to this Eline woman and Eivind is over by the table and he asks wouldn’t I, wouldn’t we, like to come back to the table where he and Lars are sitting and the woman Eline says no, we’ll stay at this table, she and I will, and Eivind says all right then yes okay, he didn’t mean anything bad by it, he says and he turns around and is about to go back to the table where Lars is sitting by himself now and then she, Eline, says he should wait, she has something she wants to talk to him about and Eivind stops and looks at Eline
Yes, he says
Yes, go ahead, he says
Okay, Eline says
You, she says
Yes, he says
You’d better be heading back to Sartor tonight, to Sund, yes, once we’re done drinking we’ll go back to your ship, what’s it called?
Elinor, Eivind says
That’s a good name, it’s like Eline, she says
Yes, that’s my name, she says
Eline, yes, she says
So that’s what you have in mind, Eivind says
And you have something else in mind, Eline says
We were planning to celebrate, Eivind says
Because we’ve had a good catch and have lots of money on us, he says
And now you want to drink it all up or something, she says
We made more than we could drink up, he says
and she points at the table where Lars is now sitting by himself
Now you go back to the table over there and finish your drink, and your friend can do the same, the one sitting there all by his lonesome, she says
and she asks if he too, yes, the one sitting by himself there, if he’s a fisherman too, on the Elinor, yes, and Eivind says yes, that he himself is and that Lars, the one sitting by himself at the table, that’s his name, is too, and then him, Olaf, that’s the crew, he says
You mean Frank, she says
and Eivind looks at me and he looks resigned
Yes okay, he says
Okay now do what I said, she says
Finish your drink, she says
Finish your drink and then we’ll go on board and then leave for Sartor right away, it’s not far, she says
But, Eivind says
No buts, she says
and Eivind looks at me and shakes his head
Now do what I say, she says
and I see Eivind go over to the table where Lars is sitting and she says now we need to drink up, and she empties her pint glass in one long sip
Now you need to finish your drink too, she says
and I raise my pint to my mouth and finish it in one sip and I see that she, Eline, has already stood up and picked up her suitcase and she says that actually she’s from Vaim, but she was dumb and she moved, or she should probably say took a trip, to Bjørgvin, and she should never have done that, because Bjørgvin is no place to live, no place for normal people to live, just for swindlers, all the wealth in Bjørgvin is just what they’ve stolen from Strileland, she says, and that’s exactly why all the Bjørgvin people look down on the Strilelanders, to the Bjørgvin people the Strilelanders aren’t people at all, they’re not human beings, just servants, workers, people who do things that the Bjørgvin people have to pay them some pathetic wage for and then they get it right back by what they make them pay for something little, yes, like a pint of beer at The Fowl, it costs her almost a half day’s wages to get one pint at The Fowl, so that’s enough beer drinking for now, she herself shouldn’t have any more either, she says and she takes my upper arm and gently pulls me up from the chair and she says I need to take my jacket, and I do that, and she takes me under the arm and with me in one hand and the suitcase in the other hand she walks, or rather we walk, over to the table where Eivind and Lars are sitting and they’re looking at us surprised, and once we’re at the table she, Eline, says that we, yes, she says we, have decided that she’ll come along on the ship back to Sartor, to Sund, and that they should finish their drinks now and that we’d all go back to the ship, yes, Elinor was its name right, yes, she hadn’t introduced herself properly but her name was Eline, so the ship was practically named after her, yes, it sounded almost the same, she said and then she let go of my arm and held out her hand to Eivind and he stood up, shook her hand, said his name, and she held out her hand to Lars, and he stood up, said his name and when he started to sit back down Eline said that we, she really said we, yes, we had decided that the best thing to do would be to go to the ship now and without delay, that’s exactly what she said, now and without delay, and Lars looked at Eivind who had already stood up and who now picked up his pint and drank it up and Lars picked up his and emptied it, and then they took their jackets, they were suit jackets, because we’d dressed up nice to go to The Fowl, each in a suit, with a white shirt and tie, and then Eline took me under the arm and we left The Fowl and Eivind and Lars were right behind us and I kind of felt the eyes of the band members on my back, and then, right then, they switched tunes and started playing something that you’d have to call a bridal march, no, this was too embarrassing, now we had to get out of there, quicker than quick, I thought, and we left, and then we were standing there on the sidewalk and I saw Eivind and Lars start to walk down the sidewalk in the direction of The Wharf and we, Eline and I, followed them
No, just think, we’re a couple now, Eline said
I can’t believe it, she said
You and me, Frank and me, she said
Frank and Eline, she said
and I didn’t say anything, of course
You’re not saying anything, Eline said
Tell me a story, she said
About what, I said
Yes, about our future, for example, she said
and I didn’t say anything
Or maybe you can ask me something, about where I’m from, for example, but I guess I’ve told you that, Eline said
Where are you from, I said
I’m from Vaim, she said
But I already told you that, she said
So, you’re from Vaim, I said
Is there anything wrong with that, she said
and we walked behind Eivind and Lars and I thought that this, no, I didn’t understand a thing about what was happening, not one thing in the world
Have you ever been to Vaim, she said
Yes, barely, I said
What does that mean, she said
Yes just to The Vaim General Store once, I said
You were fishing near there, she said
Yes, I said
and I had no idea at the time, walking there, that I would end up living in Vaim, the way I eventually did, and going to The Vaim General Store at least once a week if not more, and maybe it was just as well that I didn’t know what would happen, yes, all of it, good and bad, I think, yes, for sure and certain, it was probably for the best that I didn’t know what awaited me, strange as it was, yes, all was strange, I’ve thought that so many times, all was strange, yes, that’s what I hope they put on my tombstone, that’s how my life should be summed up, as they say, let it be with the words All was strange, but Eline didn’t want anything written on her tombstone, just the year she was born and the year she died, and then her name, but she did want, and she told me so a long time before she died, to be buried as close to Jatgeir as possible, so there couldn’t have been any bad blood between them anyway, and I arranged it so that Eline could rest in peace as close to Jatgeir as possible, but she couldn’t be right next to him, because that’s where Elias had found his last resting place, he must have been the only person in Vaim that Jatgeir had been friends with, and the two of them must have seen each other a lot, visited each other, or sometimes anyway, that’s what people said anyway, yes, it was Eline who told me that, and she didn’t much like that Elias had been buried right next to Jatgeir, she had never really understood him, that Elias, he was a prayerhouse person, she’d said, and he went to church every time there was any service at The Vaim Church, so she’d never really understood how he and Jatgeir could get along so well, yes, and every time Elias dropped by, which was not actually that many times, maybe just a couple, yes, after she moved in with Jatgeir, yes, it seemed like he didn’t like her, yes, basically like he was judging her, yes, condemning her for living in sin with Jatgeir, yes, that’s the kind of thing they still said, or thought anyway, those prayerhouse people, yes, but, yes, he came over only a couple of times, and that was when she’d just recently moved there, and then he totally stopped coming over, and since she also didn’t like it when Jatgeir went to see Elias, yes, they’d had little or nothing to do with each other since then, and for him, Elias, to dislike her, yes, judge her, he of all people, he who lived in a ramshackle little house and who’d probably never done a good day’s work in his whole life, the government still paid him something every month for some unknown reason, and then for him to judge her and think she was living in sin, no, that was too much, but then he died not long after Jatgeir, so it was Elias, not her, who was buried next to Jatgeir, and that was a terrible torment to her, because then she couldn’t rest there, she’d said, then her grave couldn’t be next to Jatgeir’s, but she still wanted to lie as close to Jatgeir as possible, even if Elias was going to lie between her and Jatgeir anyway, and that’s how it was, she got a grave next to Elias and on his other side lay Jatgeir, and then she said that no matter where she was laid to rest, that’s what she said, her real name Josephine should be on the tombstone, because no one knew that name and so no one would know that she was the one lying there since no one had used her birth name so it was really probably only me, most likely, who knew who was resting under that stone—and so I was left alone and I would go on one trip a week, either in the motorboat Eline, yes, I didn’t just take over Jatgeir’s house, yes, his childhood home, but also his motorboat, and everything else he owned, because Eline had arranged it so that she would inherit everything from Jatgeir, he didn’t have any children after all, and only distant relatives, maybe they should have got something, I don’t know, but in any case Eline ended up getting it all, and as far as I knew no one ever asked about getting any inheritance, and if I know Eline they wouldn’t have got it either even if they had asked, yes, the bailiff would have had to come take it, but anyway everything stayed where it was, the motorboat Eline too, so for several years there were two boats called Eline docked at the quay, Jatgeir’s motorboat and my sjark, yes, that’s how it was until I sold the motorboat cheap to someone who just called himself The Sailor, who lived on a little island, he said he’d been looking at that motorboat for a long time and thought it was a very fine boat, so if I wanted to sell it he would be happy to buy it and what was I going to do with two boats anyway, to tell the truth it had been more of an obligation to take care of the motorboat, so I accepted his offer and it was a great day when I got rid of that motorboat, yes, the same way it had been a great day when I got the sjark, or at least it should have been a great day, I’d been fishing with Eivind and Lars on the Elinor for several years, but I thought that as soon as I’d saved up enough money to afford it I would buy myself a boat of my own, a sjark, yes, so that’s what I did, no sooner said than done, and the guy who sold me the boat came with it himself, it was the day after Eline had decided that she couldn’t stand me anymore and disappeared and left behind only a short letter, yes, the seller came with the sjark the day after Eline left, it was a guy from up in the Hardanger Fjord who sold me the boat, he came in the boat I’d bought and a friend came too, in another boat, and after I got the first boat the two of them went in the second boat back where they’d come from up in Hardanger Fjord, there wasn’t enough of a profit if they each operated their own sjark, the guy who’d sold me the boat said, but if they shared one boat they could maybe make a living, the profit would have to be better than if they were paying the expenses on two boats anyway, so now the guy who’d sold me the boat was going to buy into the other boat, buy a share, and that would let them pay off the loan on it, and that by itself would make it much easier to get by, because this fjord fishing really didn’t bring in much money, the guy who’d sold me the sjark said and he was clearly very happy that he’d sold the boat and I was no less happy that I’d bought the boat, but that was that, and it wasn’t only just that, that’s for sure, because when I’d got home from the sea the night before I got the sjark, that I’d decided to call Eline, and I’d already got a nameplate for it, it would be on the front of the wheelhouse in the middle in big black letters on brown enamel, Eline, there was that letter from Eline sitting on the kitchen table, she’d written that she couldn’t stand this life anymore and she’d gone away, she’d just taken her suitcase with the most necessary things she owned, so I didn’t need to worry that anything important to me was gone, and since I clearly cared so little about her, yes, she didn’t see any reason to say where she was going, I could probably guess, she wrote and I thought that she had come into my life in an unusual way and had left my life in an unusual way too, that’s how it was now, but I missed her, a lot, but getting the boat I’d been so happy to get, yes, that probably made the separation easier, or at least made me not think about Eline as much as I would have if I hadn’t got the sjark Eline, yes, there’s no doubt I probably thought more about the sjark Eline than about Eline, and the very next day I mounted the letters of the name Eline on the front of the wheelhouse, yes, I probably have to admit that it felt a bit odd to do that, to mount the name Eline on my new boat the day after the real Eline had so suddenly and unexpectedly left me, but that’s how it was, now Eline had gone her way, but at least I still had the sjark Eline and, if I thought about it, I wasn’t entirely sure which of the two I would choose if I’d had the choice, or actually I was sure, I would’ve chosen the boat, and if that’s how it was then it probably made sense that Eline would go on her way, but how had she left, and where, yes, I thought that over a lot, but when we were coming into shore on the Elinor the night she left I remembered that we’d seen a motorboat, yes, just before we got to shore, I was standing on the bridge and I saw that it said Eline on the side of the wheelhouse of the motorboat, and now that’s strange I thought as soon as I saw that, yes, that the motorboat should have the same name as the woman I lived with and the same name that I had decided to name my sjark the next day too, but I didn’t think that much about it and eventually I started wondering if I’d really seen the name Eline there on the side of the motorboat’s wheelhouse, or if it was just something I’d imagined, but sure enough, I definitely thought a lot about Eline, and about where she’d gone, and about how she’d got there, but anyway I heard that a guy had moored his motorboat to the quay the day Eline left, and the boat was called Eline, it was The Shopkeeper at The Grocery Store who told me that, who’d worked there for many years, and who lived in a little apartment above the store, and she’d cheated him badly that day, because he’d asked for a needle and a spool of black thread to sew a loose button back on and she’d asked a price beyond all reason for the needle and thread, pretending like it was nothing, yes, like that was just the price, and would you believe it, she laughed and shrieked when she told me, and she told me again and again, that he’d bought the needle and thread, she had never made such a good sale in her life, not before and not since, she’d got two hundred and fifty kroner for it and one day she told me that she’d seen Eline go down to the quay that same night and she’d seen her go on board the motorboat docked there, it was still the day before I got the sjark and when she’d locked up The Grocery Store and taken a walk down to the quay she couldn’t help but see that the nameplate on the side of the wheelhouse there said Eline, she said, so Eline had probably skipped out in the motorboat Eline, and most likely with the man who owned the motorboat and he was a good-looking middle-aged man, he must have been from somewhere in Sygne County judging from his accent, cleverly done wasn’t it, but hardly a crime, hardly something a person would try to interfere with, she’d said and since I had seen that motorboat myself when we came into The Bay on the Elinor the night Eline left, and then passed a motorboat that was called Eline, yes, I felt sure I knew how she had left, but that it all would end with me eventually moving away from my childhood home, away from Sund, off Sartor, to live with Eline in Vaim, no, I never would have believed that, that I would move in with the woman who’d left me and live with her in Vaim, and in Jatgeir’s house, the house of the man she’d gone with when she left me, no, you almost wouldn’t think it was possible, that I’d gone along with that, that I’d accepted that, but once Eline decided something that was how it was going to be, yes, because one night when I was sitting in the good chair in my living room, after a long day on the water and so tired that I was about to fall asleep and thought I needed to go lie down, yes, there was a knock at the door, yes, a knock, and it had been a year and a day since the last time anyone had knocked on the door to my house, so who could it be? and should I open the door, I probably had to, because that was the custom in the countryside, to open the door when someone knocks, so I probably had to even though I was so tired, and really it was probably just some kid selling raffle tickets for some Christian cause or another who was knocking, one thing for sure was that no one else ever knocked, it never happened, no, I thought and I opened the door—and no, no, I couldn’t believe my eyes, because there, in a coat, carrying a handbag, there stood Eline herself, how many years had it been since the last time I’d seen her, I couldn’t remember just then but it was a long time, many years
